MRC Denies Military Heritage of AR-15 Rifle
Topic: Media Research Center

Following the Orlando massacre, the Media Research Center immediately and predictably turned into agents for the gun lobby, insisting that only Islam, not gun control, was the issue that needed to be addressed. Also predictably, the MRC has peddled some dishonest propaganda in the process.

In a June 13 post, Nicholas Fondacaro complained that some in the media were calling the AR-15 rifle, which shooter Omar Makeem was originally believed to have used in committing the massacre, was "built for the military" and is a "weapon of war." FOndacaro insisted that the AR-15 "it’s not a 'weapon of war.' The AR-15 was designed to replicate the look of military weapons, a benefit being their ergonomic design. If a buyer wanted, they could purchase a weapon made of wood with same capabilities as an AR, but look nothing like it."

Maggie McKneely used the same argument in a June 14 post, asserting that "assault weapons, such as the oft-demonized AR-15, are not weapons of war. They are designed to look like military weapons due to their ergonomic design, but lack the automatic capabilities. The only difference between the AR-15 that the media loves to hate and a common ranch shotgun is how they look."

But as the Washington Post explains, the AR-15 "is a civilian variant of the military’s M-16 series of rifles and carbines." The Post points out that the AR-15 has a long history with the military:

The AR-15’s combination of portability, relatively light weight (about 8 to 9 pounds loaded) and customization options make it attractive for both close- and medium- to long-range engagements and the preferred weapon used to kill the enemies of the United States. The military variants are customized and used by every branch of the military for myriad missions, including clearing oil rigs and patrolling the large expanses of Afghanistan.

Although the AR-15 has been standard issue for American service members for decades, the weapon’s ascension to a nationwide staple is a bit of a mystery. Conceived by a company started in a Hollywood garage and solicited by an unlikely trio made up of an aeronautical engineer, an arms salesman and a Marine, the AR-15, (AR standing for ArmaLite Rifle) was born in the late 1950s and came of age during the Vietnam War as an answer to Mikhail Kalashnikov’s AK-47.

Chronicled extensively in New York Times reporter C.J. Chivers’s book “The GUN,” the AR-15, and eventually the M-16, was introduced as a replacement for the U.S. military’s M-14, a long large-caliber rifle based on an older World War II design. A small number of AR-15s were first bought by the Air Force in 1962 after a bit of salesmanship by Colt Firearms executives (Colt bought ArmaLite in 1959), that involved a pair of exploding watermelons and a general who disliked the M-14. With the Air Force’s initial purchase, the AR-15 entered the U.S. military’s arms procurement pipeline.

While one may quibble over how closely a civilian AR-15 resembles a military model, it's undeniable that the rifle has a military heritage, and it's dishonest for the MRC to deny it.

McKneely, meanwhile, tried to pile on, chortling at how "recent reports show that the Orlando shooter didn’t even use an AR-15 rifle." Turns out that's true -- the weapon used was a Sig Sauer MCX rifle, a different family of products from the AR-15. But as the Post also notes, the MCX was "originally designed for U.S. Special Operations forces," meaning that it too has a military heritage.

And, thus, the MRC's attempt to play interference on behalf of the gun lobby ends in complete failure.

CNS Touts Mel Gibson's 'Passion' Sequel Work, Silent On Gibson's Anti-Semitism
Topic: CNSNews.com

Mark Judge waxes enthusiastic about Mel Gibson's new film project in a June 10 CNSNews.com blog post:

The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that Mel Gibson and writer Randall Wallace are working on a sequel to the 2004 blockbuster "The Passion of the Christ."

"The evangelical community considers 'The Passion' the biggest movie ever out of Hollywood," Wallace told the Hollywood Reporter, "and they kept telling us they think a sequel would be even bigger."

The Reporter's Paul Bond writes that Wallace, who recently directed and co-wrote 2014's "Heaven is for Real," says he and Gibson "began to get serious about a sequel to The Passion, the most successful independent film of all time, while making Hacksaw Ridge, which Gibson directed and Wallace co-wrote. Hacksaw Ridge opens in November and centers on World War II Army medic Desmond Doss, the first conscientious objector to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor."

There is no studio or financial backing lined up for the "Passion" sequel, which is still in the early script stage. "The Passion of the Christ" made $612 million on a $30 million budget.

That's the entirety of Judge's post. Notice something missing? You know, like Gibson's history of ugly anti-Semitism (not to mention an even uglier breakup with his mistress) and the fact that "The Passion of the Christ" has itself been credibly accused of being anti-Semitic?

Needless to say, the Media Research Center has a double standard on not mentioning the unseemly history of entertainers. In January, MRC chief Brent Bozell and his deputy Tim Graham marked David Bowie's death by complaining that the media was ignoring stories of Bowie bedding underage groupies, lamenting that "David Bowie died to universal acclaim, even from a star-struck Vatican newspaper." Bozell and Graham whined about how "the secular news industry in New York and the social justice warriors in Hollywood pour outrage all over the predatory Catholic priests who abused children in this same era of sex and drugs and 'revolution,' the rockers and the filmmakers plowed their way through a polyester playground of high-school groupies exploiting their 'star privilege.'" Never mind that Bozell and Graham have given that very pass to right-wing icon and underage groupie-bedder (and underage groupie-marryer) Ted Nugent.

It looks like Gibson will get a pass on his notorious past from Judge and the rest of the MRC simply because he made a popular religious movie.

How WND's Anti-Gay Activists Handled the Orlando Massacre
Topic: WorldNetDaily

The most prominent of WorldNetDaily's unsurprisingly large stable of anti-gay activists had to walk a fine line following the Orlando massacre: expressing sympathy for the mostly gay victims without appearing to contradict the longtime revulsion for gays that has sustained their careers.

Carl Gallups -- who has declared that homosexuality is "one of the most dangerous sexual lifestyles on the planet" and said parents should remove their children from public schools that offer "gay history classes," as well as asserting that the United States "is inviting end of days judgment upon itself" as it "celebrates, promotes, and legalizes homosexual marriage" -- was first up. In an unbylined June 14 article, Gallups strenuously tried to decouple the harsh anti-gay rhetoric of right-wing Christians like himself from any act of violence against gays:

“I am not a hater of people, and I don’t think other Christians are as well,” he said. “Speaking for myself, I have dedicated 40 years of my adult life to serving and ministering to the deep needs of people, of all races, sexual preferences and religious preferences.

“My general platform of operation has always been to do my best to speak the truth in love, even if the truth of a matter is a tough truth to deal with. This is the biblical model. And, it is the biblical mandate for God’s people. It is ‘what Jesus would do’ (and did, in fact, demonstrate).”

[...]

Gallups condemned the suggestion opposing what he called “the unbiblical and radical gay agenda” means opposing the dignity and equality of homosexuals.

“My place, and the place of all Christians witnessing their faith, is to lovingly tell them the truth of God’s Word and to hold out the offer of new life, new beginnings, and spiritual and emotional healing – in Jesus Christ,” the pastor said. “I would venture to guess that hardly a soul reading this post does not have a dear friend, co-worker, family member, or loved one that is not ‘gay.’ We don’t ‘wish’ for their punishment. To even think that way conjures up images of ISIS pushing gays off the top of buildings.

“I grieve. I grieve because their families and friends are suffering horribly. I grieve for our nation – because we are under attack – spiritually and physically.”

Wel, actually, if you are calling gays "dangerous" and are trying to censor attempts to tell their history, as Gallups is, you are, in fact, opposing the dignity and equality of gays.

(Gallups has also promoted the idea that the Sandy Hook massacre is a hoax, which makes one wonder if he'll go truther on the Orlando massacre eventually.)

Next up was notorious gay-hater Scott Lively, who has helped to craft anti-gay laws in other countries and is believed to be an inspiration for a proposed law in Uganda  that would have punished homosexuality by death. Inhis June 17 column he insists that despite the facgt tyhat he loathes gays, he would have tried to stop them from being massacred, really:

I have received some hate mail to the effect that my biblical stance against homosexuality is somehow responsible for “gay” Muslim Omar Mateen’s campaign of slaughter at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. It’s absurd on its face, but it affords me the opportunity to tell you this: If I had been present and armed when Mateen opened fire, I would have shot and if necessary killed him to protect the people in that bar, including the homosexuals. Not because I have in any way changed my mind about homosexuality – the Bible is crystal clear that it is an abomination before God that He (not me) will judge – but because the Bible also tells me to “rescue those being led to slaughter” (Proverbs 24:10-12).

While in Christ I may choose to turn the other cheek regarding an offense against ME, I have no right to stand idly by when someone attacks YOU right in front of me. I have a biblical duty to defend anyone, regardless of their sexual proclivities, from murder if it is within my power to do so. I stand firmly against the sin of homosexuality and against the sin of violence toward homosexuals.

True to form, Lively kept up his purportedly nonviolent gay-hating: "These same schoolchildren that are being brainwashed with pro-Islam propaganda are also the subject of culture-wide radical LGBT social experimentation, turning our boys into girls, and girls into lesbians, just when the nation needs a return to a more masculine Christianity and the patriarchal family structure. That must end!"

Professional gay-basher Matt Barber --  whose website BarbWire published a column this past week blaming gays for provoking the Orlando massacre and demanding that they go back into the closet -- managed to avoid expressing any genuine sympathy at all to the massacre victims in his June 17 column, so busy was he trying to play the game that Muslims, not Christians, are the real gay-haters:

One thing and one thing alone is responsible for the deaths of 49 club-going revelers – precious souls, each – last Sunday in Orlando. It is the global menace of Islam: a despotic socio-political system based on the incoherent and pseudo-religious ravings of a warring tyrant who, as even the Quran concedes, was a murderous anti-Semite and anti-Christian misogynist and pedophile, hell-bent on world domination (Islamic caliphate).

In reality, Christ and his followers deeply love the LGBT-identified community enough to tell them the truth about a sin-centric lifestyle that leads to emotional, spiritual and, with rampant AIDS, syphilis and other STDs increasingly endemic to the lifestyle, even physical death. We pray that each and every person who identifies as “LGBT” might come to repentance and salvation through Christ Jesus, who is the only Way to eternal Life.

By contrast, Allah the deceiver and his followers kill homosexuals, not out of hate, though it is hateful, but out of “compassion.” They actually believe they’re being compassionate by killing “gays” because the Quran and the imam’s tell them so. (Mateen most likely targeted his fellow “gays” in an attempt to garner absolution from Allah for sodomy).

[...]

And so, to those in the “LGBT”-identified community, Mr. Obama, Mrs. Clinton, the New York Times and other progressives who have smeared, and continue to smear, Christian Americans in the blood of 49 souls who died at the hands of ISIS in Orlando, know this: We don’t hate you. We grieve with you and are praying for you in this shared time of national tragedy.

We also love you.

And we forgive you.

Because you know not what you do.

Linda Harvey -- who we last saw defending destructive conversion therapy to force gay people straight -- served up a little perfuctory sympathy but making sure not to let any such positive feelings stand in the way of her latest bit of gay-bashing in her June 14 column:

My condolences go out to the injured, to those who lost family and loved ones. The hearts of many mothers are breaking today.

All that being said, America needs to speak out against the damage the homosexual “pride” attitude brings to America. And I am saying, speak – not shoot, not physically attack. We can act through lawful means and through the power of persuasion, freedoms that we still have, praise God.

Proud homosexual rebellion is taking many people’s lives to the edge of eternal danger but, unfortunately, people who call themselves Christians are now jumping in front of this parade with a twisted version of the gospel, one that poses a great threat: becoming comfortable with God-offending sins.

Michael Brown -- who has equated being transgender to being a sexual predator and wrote a book-length anti-gay rant called "A Queer Thing Happened to America," but is also effectively alone in the anti-gay Christian right in publicly criticizing Christian extremists like Theodore Shoebat who do explicitly avocate killing gays for being gay -- tries to have it both ways in his June 15 WND column pretentiously titled "A Christian message to LGBT Americans," acknowledging his anti-gay rhetoric but also insisting it doesn't drive followers to violence:

In your eyes, people like me are hateful bigots, not recognizing the validity of your marriages, not recognizing the depth of your relationships, not recognizing the beauty of your families.

And when we say that homosexual practice is sinful in God’s sight, you feel that we are branding you as inferior human beings, virtually damning you to hell for who you are and for who you perceive yourselves to be from the womb.

Some of you have called us CINOs (Christians In Name Only), reminding us that Paul taught that love does no harm to its neighbor (see Romans 13:10) and claiming that we are doing you to irreparable harm and damage when we tell you that God has a better way, that it’s wrong for you to engage in same-sex relationships, and that, with God’s help, it can be possible to change from gay to straight.

Many of you hear those words as anything but loving, to put it mildly.

[...]

In reality, if people truly listened to my message (or that of my colleagues), it would never dawn on them for a split second to attack you or try to harm you, and as I’ve said many times publicly, if someone tried to do you harm and I was present, they would have to get by me.

Brown's response then becomes completely schizophrenic, telling gays to ignore people like him of use Jesus' name to spread hatred of gays and just somehow come to Jesus anyway:

You might say in response, “Brown, you just don’t get it. Your words hurt us deeply, and your political stances do violence to us. You’re no better than a mass murderer.”

I say to you in response, “Then forget about me or other Christian leaders, and in your moment of intense pain and anger, look to Jesus.”

[...]

You ask, “But are you telling me that I’m supposed to be stop being gay? Is that your message?”

My message is that we are all sinners in need of God’s mercy and transformation, and you can pray what all of us prayed: “God, I confess to you that I’m a sinner in need of forgiveness, and I cry out to you to forgive me and give me a brand new life.”

Then put your entire life into his hands – your past, present and future; your hopes, dreams and pains; your sexuality and your desires – and say, “Jesus, I want you to be the Lord of my life, I believe you died for my sins and rose from the dead, and wherever you lead, I will follow you.”

Call out to him today from the depths of your heart, and he will hear your cry.

Brown doesn't actually answer the question he asks, but it's all too clear: Yes, Brown wants gays to stop being gay.

Finally: All of these anti-gay activists had an opportunity in their WND columns to denounce Christians like Roger Jimenez, who cheered the Orlando massacre. None did so.

Last Week's Trump Coverage At CNS: Nothing But Stenography
Topic: CNSNews.com

We've noted how CNSNews.com, despite presenting itself as a "news" operation, weirdly doesn't think the presumptive Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, is newsworthy enough to appear on its front page.

As if in response to our making that discovery, CNS quickly slapped a couple of Trump stories on the CNS front page early last week:

• A June 14 article by Susan Jones summarizing a speech Trump gave on immigration and other subjects.
• Another June 14 article by Jones summarizing a Trump appearance on Fox News.

In other words, no reporting, almost entirely stenography. And we didn't see any other Trump stories on the CNS front page the rest of the week.

The big Trump news last week, of course, was Trump barring Washington Post reporters from covering him for purported bias. That got mentioned in the final few paragraphs of Jones' Trump-Fox articlebut apparently did not warrant any further "news" coverage.

What did make the CNS front page last week? Some more stenography: a report on conservatives whining that there aren't enough conservatives in the college professor ranks. And a blog post on the Benham brothers describing their "Christian response" to the Orlando massacre at a gay nightclub that failed to mention that the Benham brothers are anti-gay to the point that they called gays "destructive," "vile," and controlled by "demonic forces" -- an inconvenient fact CNS loves to whitewash.

So: Perpetuating conservative memes is "news" at CNS, but reporting on its preferred presidential candidate is not. Got it.

MRC Decries Media 'Bias' on Assisted Suicide -- While Its Own 'News' Outlet Is Biased Too
Topic: Media Research Center

In a June 9 post, the Media Research Center's Matthew Balan complains about an NBC report on a new assisted-suicide law in California, asserting that the reporter "showed a clear slant towards proponents of the legislation by playing four soundbites from supporters, versus only two from opponents."

The slant Balan would presumably prefer can be found in an article the same day from the MRC's "news" division, CNSNews.com. In it, reporter Melanie Hunter quoted two proponents and one popponent of the law, but she made her bias clear. While a statement from one proponent of the law got only two paragraphs and the other proponent got just one paragraph, Hunter devoted a lengthy five paragraphs to a statement from the American College of Physicians opposing the law.

This means, spacewise, opponents got more space in Hunter's article than proponents.

Apparently, the MRC wants people to do what it says and not what it does.

CNS Ties Muslims To Hatred of Gays, Ignores Christian Gay-Hatred
Topic: CNSNews.com

Following the massacre in a gay nightclub Orlando by a man who allegedly claimed allegiance to ISIS, CNSNews.com was quick to reinforce the idea that only Muslims hate gays:

• A June 13 article by Susan Jones highlighted Republican Rep. Peter King stating that "I think people don't often realize the hatred that Islamists have toward gays and transgenders."
• A June 14 article by Patrick Goodenough asserts that "Half of the countries in the world where homosexual behavior is legally prohibited are Islamic states, and in 13 of those countries, the death penalty is codified in shari’a (Islamic law)."

Censored so far at CNS, however, is the fact that Christian pastors have come out in favor of the massacre because gays were killed.

In Sacramento, pastor Roger Jimenez of the Verity Baptist Church said "I think that's great" that "50 pedophiles were killed today," adding,  "The tragedy is that more of them didn’t die. The tragedy is — I’m kind of upset that he didn’t finish the job!" He also said of gays: "I wish the government would round them all up, put them up against a firing wall, put a firing squad in front of them, and blow their brains out."

Arizona preacher Steven Anderson said that while he wouldn’t advocate for violence, he said LGBT people should be “executed by a righteous government," adding, "The bad news is that a lot of the homos in the bar are still alive, so they're going to continue to molest children and recruit children into their filthy homosexual lifestyle."  He also said, "At least these dangerous, filthy predators are off the streets. I’m just trying to look on the bright side."

Also censored at CNS is Pat Robertson's bizarre claim that gays have allied with radical Islamists, and that "the best thing to do is to sit on the sidelines and let them kill themselves." Robertson's "The 700 Club" desperately tried to spin this after the fact, insisting that he was "clearly" using killing as a metaphor and that he meant gays and Islamists are "killing themselves politically."

Further, while Goodenough's article was eager to highlight the Islamic-dominated countries where homosexuality is illegal, he makes sure not to note which of those countries are dominated by Christians. He also obscures the fact that some of the countries he claims are "mostly Muslim-majority" are actually Christian-doiminated.

For instance, Goodenough lists Uganda as a "Muslim-majority" country where homosexuality is illegal because it's a member of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. In fact, only 12 percent of the Ugandan population is Muslim, while more than 83 percent is Christian.

Goodenough seems to have missed the controversy over the past few years over Uganda's attempt to criminalize homosexuality with death, inspired in no small part by anti-gay American Christian pastors like Scott Lively. He also apparently missed a July 2015 CNS article by his boss, Michael W. Chapman, approvingly quoting Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni proudly stating that homosexual behavior is a “no-go” subject in the country and is "never supported by Ugandans,” and that President Obama should "respect African societies and their values." Chapman also happily quoted saying how much he "personally dislike[s]" gays: "They are disgusting. What sort of people are they? How can you go -- I never knew what they were doing." Chapman also pointed out that Uganda is "overwhelmingly a Christian country."

Oh, and Museveni is a "devout Christian."

But then, CNS is part of the Media Research Center propaganda machine, so such inconvenient facts are not likely to see the light of day there. 

WND Suddenly Notices Israeli Corruption, For Some Reason
Topic: WorldNetDaily

As we've noted, highly biased reporting is just one reason WorldNetDaily is in a deep financial hole. Another example appears in a May 29 article, a brief unbylined piece on how "Israeli media are reporting a police investigation has recommended indicting the wife of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over misuse of state funds and inflated household spending." The last paragraph reads: "The Netanyahus, especially Sara, have long faced scrutiny over spending."

That would be news to WND readers, because we could find no instance in which it has ever reported on the subject.

WND has long been protective of Netanyahu, especially when Aaron Klein was a reporter there and served as WND's Jerusalem bureau chief (a bureau that seems to no longer exist since Klein left WND for Breitbart late last year). In the 2006 Israeli elections, Klein effectively served as a PR agent for Netanyahu by repeatedly attacking his opponent, then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and failing to do similar scrutiny -- or any scrutiny at all, really -- of Netanyahu.

And in 2006, Klein and WND all but ignored a rape scandal involving Israeli President Moshe Katsav -- a member of Netanyahu's Likud party -- despite years of obsessing over sex scandals involving non-conservatives like Bill Clinton.

It's peculiar that WND would report this story at all, given its long history of ignoring it -- thus exposing its bias. But WND is not capable of providing fair and balanced coverage, and its readers know it. No wonder they're apparently fleeing in droves.

WND's Loudon Redefines 'Immigrant' To Assert U.S. Wasn't Built By Them
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Gina Loudon tries her hand at redefining language in her June 12 WorldNetDaily column:

One of my biggest peeves is when I hear someone repeat the lie that the United States was built by immigrants or that our country was based on immigration. That’s not true. It was built by settlers and pioneers.

Some politicians and pundits use the “built by immigrants” phrase to push their open borders agenda. Others use the phrase to show that they harbor no hatred for immigrants. Either way, their catchphrase isn’t accurate.

The U.S. was built by pioneers and settlers who created something from nothing. They were the real-life superheroes who risked their lives to make very dangerous journeys to undeveloped and dangerous lands where they had to build something where only wilderness existed.

It is inaccurate to call these men immigrants. An immigrant is someone who comes to a new place and enjoys what pioneers worked and died to create.

[...]

Using the trails and roads created by pioneers, settlers set up their lives in the wilderness on the outskirts of civilization. To call a settler an immigrant is also a disservice.

An immigrant coming to America today enjoys the civilization that was created from nothing by pioneers and settlers in a wild and undeveloped land. Not even President Obama can claim they didn’t build that.

[...]

Immigrants didn’t build America. Men like Daniel Boone did. Immigrants get to enjoy what Boone and others founded and created.

Does that mean all immigration should be shut down? No – although, the sacrifice of great men should not be disrespected by opening the borders of the land they built.

Loudon conveniently can't quite admit that many of these "pioneers and settlers" came to the U.S. from other countries -- the very defnition of an immigrant.

MRC Takes Potshots At Tony Awards Before Mentioning How It Honored Orlando Shooting Victims
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center has never been a big fan of the gays and regularly has transgender freakouts. That, with its defining hatred of all things liberal, meant that there would be nothing fair or balanced about its so-called coverage of the Tony Awards, since Broadway actors tend to skew liberal and gay-friendly.

And indeed, Erik Soderstrom's June 13 MRC report on the Tonys -- under the headline "Tony Awards Go Further Left: Show's 5 Worst Political Moments" -- is all about ranting that Broadway actors said political things. He complained that one performer said nice things about Hillary Clinton, but "no one felt the need to bring up Hillary Clinton’s many scandals." He ranted about a taped presentation from President Obama, grumbling that "Barack Obama has a remarkable affinity for making any event about himself." Soderstrom didn't mention having any problem with the presumptive Republican presidential nominee making the slaughter of dozens of people about himself.

Speaking of Trump, Soderstrom was also put out that a couple performers made Donald Trump jokes -- apparently, that's no longer permitted now that he's the GOP nominee.

Only after that lengthy whining did Soderstrom find something positive to say about the show -- and it was about conservative, heterosexual behavior: "Through tears of joy, Hamilton actress Renée Elise Goldsberry gave a passionate acceptance speech stressing the importance of family and thanking the Lord for giving her two children."

Finally, in the 21st paragraph of his post, Soderstrom gets around to noting arguably the one thing the awards show will be remembered for besides all those awards for "Hamilton": its reaction to the Orlando massacre. Soderstrom mostly stuck with stating what various performers did, adding the backhanded complement that "the hosts resisted the urge to turn the Tony Awards into a three-hour, anti-gun PSA, and kept their focus on the victims."

Soderstrom closed by oddly inserting himself into the issue despite criticizing Obama for doing something similar earlier in his post: "I, for one, hope we emerge from this tragedy stronger and more committed to the principles that make America such a uniquely great country." It's a nice sentiment, but we'll see how that flies at an organization that normally denigrates the people who were the victims of this massacre.

How WND's Photo Selection Smears Transgenders (And Is Also A Copyright Violation)
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily has displayed a particular animus toward transgenders as the issue of their civil rights has taken the spotlight lately, as the anti-trans rantings of its opinion columnists repeatedly demonstrate. But that's not the 0only way WND displays its anti-transgender bias.

In "news" articles on transgender issues, WND is particularly fond of a particular stock photo: the hairy legs of a man wearing a dress and heels. Here it is in a June 11 article by Cheryl Chumley:

Here it is in a May 23 article by Leo Hohmann on "critics" who say the gender identity policy "will lead to sexual chaos and confusion among children":

And in an April 1 article by Douglas Ernst:

And in a Jan. 27 article by Ernst:

And here it is in a June 2015 interview by Greg Corombos of an anti-gay pastor:

This is apparently what WND thinks transgenders are -- creepy guys wearing dresses and heels who want to molest children in bathrooms. Never mind that this depiction has no basis in reality.

It also appears that WND is using the image illegally. The photo, which carries no credited source in any of the WND articles in which it appears, is in fact from a series taken for the Associated Press of a 2012 "hairy legs on heels" race in Madrid. So the person in the photo is not even transgender, just a guy in heels.

Since WND has never belonged to the AP, we seriously doubt it bothered to seek AP's permission to use the photo -- which means WND has apparently engaged in repeated copyright violations by using it without payment or credit to the original source.

WND provided a similarly distorted image on transgenders in a May 7 article on President Obama's Mother's Day message that mentioned transgender moms, by using thte image of a stubbled male face putting on lipstick:

WND didn't provide a source for this image either, and we haven't been able to trace its original source, so it's also likely it's being used without permission as well.

Stealing the work of others without credit and permission -- and then using it to maliciously smear a class of people it doesn't like -- is just another reason WND is in financial trouble. And it'll be in a bit more of it once the AP gets wind of how one of its images has been misappropriated without its consent.

Trump's Race-Baiting Defender Still Has A Job At The MRC
Topic: Media Research Center

In case you were wondering if Jeffrey Lord's aggressive defense of Donald Trump's race-baiting attacks on a judge presiding over the Trump University lawsuit would cause the Media Research Center to have any concern about the fact that he embarrassed himself on CNN making said defense, the answer is apparently, "Heck, no! We love having a race-baiting defender write for us!"

Lord's latest NewsBusters column appeared on schedule, and he deals with the issue of Trump's race-baiting not by trotting out his own discredited defense as he tried to do on CNN, but by changing the subject.

Lord whined that a New York Times columnist called Trump a racist, then quickly pivoted to portraying the columnist as a hypocrite because the Times has been sued for discrimination. His justification for doing so: "Why does this matter? Because the New York Times plays the race card - as Mr. Kristof just demonstrated in that interview - with obsessive regularity."

This, apparently, is how Lord gets to keep his NewsBusters gig for the time being -- refusing to address the elephant in the room while playing the media-bashing on the Times, one of the MRC's favorite targets. Unsaid, though, is how aggressively Lord can defend Trump's race-baiting before the MRC cuts him loose -- or if there is even a limit.

WND Has Trouble With the 'Gay' Part of Gay Nightclub Shooting
Topic: WorldNetDaily

At WorldNetDaily, the deaths of 50 people in a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando was horrific -- just not horrific enough for it to let go of its long-held anti-gay biases.

WND's early reports on the massacre made sure to cling to its ridiculous insistence on putting "gay" in scare quotes, as this front-page promo illustrates:

WND then tried to work around the gay stuff by focusing it through its anti-Muslim lens. An article by Joe Kovacs quotes Ben Carson claiming the shooting is "is a reminder of the animosity Muslims have for homosexuals" -- Kovacs sticks to WND style and uses the word "gay" in scare quotes or when quoting Carson -- and an unbylined article quotes "a speech given by a Muslim speaker in 2013 at the Husseini Islamic Center in the Orlando suburb of Sanford, Florida, in 2013 called for death to homosexuals."

This sudden concern for gays is rather rich, given that WND's anti-gay animosity is amply documented. Ands that animosity is very much to the point of wanting them dead; WND has long been a defender of gay-hating pastor Scott Lively, considered to be the inspiration for a proposed law in Uganda that would have permitted the execution of gays.

Then, WND editor Joseph Farah engaged in all sorts of spinning in his June 12 column. He states this:

I must note, for the record, that whatever real Americans think about “gays,” lesbians, transgenders, bisexuals, they don’t hold murder in their heart for them. Whatever issues Christians may have with the LGBT agenda being foisted on them by politicians eager to court their support as an interest group, they don’t hunt down people who identify with that lifestyle and kill them. Whatever conservatives may think about national bathroom policies dictated from the White House, they don’t dream of killing sprees of vengeance.

Those thoughts just don’t come to the minds of real Americans.

Real Americans believe in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Farah seems to have forgotten how much his website's denigration of gays and transgenders -- not to mention his defense of Lively, who has called gays "murderers" on the very pages of WND -- helps to fuel the animosity toward them, which can sometimes lead to murder. So Farah's attempt at unity is insincere at best and utterly dishonest at worst, not to mention the fact that his definition of "real Americans" usually omits gays who dare to assert their civil rights. Also, most "real Americans" don't insist on putting "gay" in scare quotes.

But never mind that, for he then goes on try and downplay the gay aspect of the massacre, insisting we need to be focused on hating Muslims, as if all Muslims are like the alleged Orlando shooter:

We’ve never before been of afraid of identifying that enemy. We’ve never been hesitant before to name it, call it out and do what was absolutely necessary to destroy it as a threat to our nation, to our families, to our communities, to other innocent Americans.

It wasn’t homophobia that triggered Orlando. It was hatred of America.

A similar, but smaller terrorist attack on a “gay” nightclub took place last Wednesday in Tel Aviv. Four were killed. And that wasn’t the first attack of its kind there. Another one took place last year. In Israel, they were not viewed as attacks just on “gays.” They were universally seen for what they were – attacks on Israel.

And please don’t accuse me of “Islamophobia,” or literally “fear of Muslims,” for this column. “Islamophobia” is what causes the media to hope against hope that every terror attack isn’t perpetrated by Muslims. It’s why radicals like Mateen are repeatedly investigated for the hateful and suspicious activities in which they are involved before such attacks but never stopped from perpetrating them. “Islamophobia” – or maybe even “Islamophilia,” in the case of Barack Obama – is what causes them to think of slaughters like Orlando as just more “gun violence.”

How many more attacks like this will we need to witness before coming together in unity around a common purpose – self-defense, national defense, national security, victory over a determined and common enemy?

Don't doubt for a second that Farah won't return to fully and aggressively hating gays as soon as his political agenda permits.

MRC's 'News' Division Doesn't Think Trump Is News
Topic: CNSNews.com

As a media watchdog, we read CNSNews.com, the Media Research Center's "news" division, every day, and usually a few times a day. And over the past several days, we noticed something peculiar: Despite Donald Trump being the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, and despite Trump being the lead political story over those same past several days with his racially motivated attack on a judge presiding over a class-action lawsuit against Trump's scammy university, Trump rarely appeared on the CNS front page.

(Which is doubly strange because the MRC employs as a contributor Jeffrey Lord, who defends Trump's race-baiting attacks on the judge.)

The CNS front page has numerous slots for story promotions: nine at the top of the page and 30 farther down, plus five blog post slots and four commentary slots. Yet Trump has been mentioned more inside the NewsBusters headline promo box on the CNS front page than on CNS proper.

What did make the CNS front page instead of Trump? Lots of stuff. For instance, Lauretta Brown snagged an exclusive interview with YouTube semi-celebrities Diamond and Silk -- who "were speaking Thursday at a 'Women Vote Trump' event at the National Press Club" -- to talk about "about race relations in the United States since President Obama took office." Brown apparently did not ask Diamond and Silk about Trump, despite the facts that being Trump groupies are the duo's claim to fame and they were speaking at a Trump event.

Also making the CNS front page instead of Trump was an article by Barbara Hollingsworth on a panel discussion of the 50th anniversary of the William F. Buckley-hosted show "Firing Line." Getting prominent play here was Hollingsworth's boss, Brent Bozell, who is also Buckley's nephew. Bozell shared this observation, according to Hollingsworth:

“You don’t debate on television any more. You fight,” Bozell pointed out.

“When that happens, two things happen. One is that you no longer have a discussion, you no longer have a serious thought in the political conversation because you don't even develop just one single thought.

"Instead, those of us who go on television today--you know, the Apostles spoke in tongues. We speak in sound bites. And we come up with pithy fractions of a thought. And that’s all you have to do on television today is come up with a pithy fraction of a thought," Bozell said.

Says the guy who reportedly insists on not having anyone who holds political views different from his during his segments -- that's why he and other MRC talking heads tend to appear solo at conservative-friendly places like Fox News. Bozell has no interest whatsoever in debating the issues.

On top of that, Bozell apparently has no interest in presenting news that can't be spun to forward his right-wing agenda. We are guessing that's why no Trump news gets a front-page push at CNS -- there's no good way to spin Trump's racial animus toward a judge. That's just not "the right news, right now," to quote the slogan at the top of the CNS front page.

One Trump-related story did make the CNS front page during this time, however. It's a story by Melanie Hunter that offers nothing but a rote regurgitation of a speech Trump gave at the Faith and Freedom Coalition Conference in which he recited a litany conservative platitudes.

Being a dutiful stenographer instead of an actual reporter, Hunter didn't mention that Trump read his speech from a teleprompter, despite the fact that CNS itself last August highlighted Trump's call for a ban on teleprompters for presidential candidates: "These other guys, they're going around, they make a speech in front of 21 people. Nobody cares, they read the same speech -- deet-deet-deet. They have teleprompters. I say we should outlaw teleprompters for anybody, right? -- for anybody -- for anybody running for president."

That may have been "the right news" for CNS in August, but it clearly fails the "right now" test. As does most of what Trump does these days, apparently.

MRC Pulls The Plug On Its 'Comedy' Video After 9 Years
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center has finally put "NewsBusted" out of our misery.

After nine years, the final video of the so-called comedy series was posted on May 31. In it, Jodi Miller does her usual schtick of lame, unfunny jokes (Amway is actually used as a punchline for one of them) and gratingly canned laughter.

Despite the dubious proposition of a supposedly nonpartisan (for tax exemption purposes) organization taking repeated potshots at liberals, the MRC insisted that "NewsBusted" actually had a purpose. In a fundraising email the MRC sent out in 2014 to seek donations for upgraded video equipment to produce the show, it whined that comedians such as Jon Stewart "advance a leftist agenda under the guise of comedy and brainwash America's young people each and every day." Clearly, the MRC wanted to get in on that brainwashing-through-comedy action.

Yet less than two years later, the show is getting canceled, seemingly evidence that even decent production values won't save a comedy show that lacks comedy.

But fans of painfully unfunny "humor" shouldn't fret: Miller is going solo, havingset up a website to do her own videos without the MRC as a benefactor.

And, yes, we still maintain that the MRC totally stole the title from us, which we use for our ongoing series of profiles on NewsBusters bloggers (most recently Dylan Gwinn).

Transgender Derangement Syndrome, Supersize WND Edition
Topic: WorldNetDaily

A friend recently described a situation in a Columbus-area Macy’s store, where a woman encountered an obvious male clad in women’s clothing in a dressing room. She complained to the manager, but was told that if she was uncomfortable, she could use another fitting area.

So we know who now reigns in America: drag “queens.”

Then why not review all the indecent exposure cases in the U.S. where males exposed themselves to females in bathrooms, so some can be overturned? It might be a matter of social justice, and even a form of reparations! Aren’t gender-confused people born this way?

-- Linda Harvey, May 24 WorldNetDaily column

Target has already lost nearly $6 billion in stock values since the company’s announcement. But, if they won’t protect the safety of their customers, they need to lose even more.

It’s time to tell Target to stop “Targeting our Daughters.” And what better time than just four days before their shareholders’ meeting? Let’s “target Target” by protesting their stores on June 4. Sign up at Faith2Action.org and get a dozen of your friends to join you on the public sidewalk outside your local Target from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, June 4. Warn shoppers pulling in of Target’s dangerous agenda that puts them and their children at risk. Here’s a one-minute video to circulate on social media about it. Call your local TV, radio and newspapers; take pictures and video and post it everywhere prior to the shareholders’ meeting.

By the way, if you have just one share of Target stock, you can attend their shareholders’ meeting to bring up this issue when they meet on June 8, 2016, at 9 a.m. at Segerstrom Center for the Arts–Samueli Theater, 615 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa, California. There will likely be the opportunity for questions. Why not ask company officials to reverse their dangerous policy that targets our daughters?

-- Janet Porter, May 24 WND column

Do Americans really want those born as men – and probably still possessing men’s genitalia – trolling women’s restrooms? The day most Americans want that is the day I start looking for another country. The alternative is living in a nation where the majority has lost its ability to reason, to discern right from wrong, to be able to tell the difference between men and women.
It’s a joke, folks – and Republican politicians should take advantage of this issue in 2016. Obama has laid down the gauntlet and it will be Hillary’s cross to bear in this election.

If we can no longer tell the difference between males and females, I had a thought as I walked through the woods over the weekend and saw dozens of deer.

What happens when a hunter plugs a buck this deer season and only has a tag for a doe? Can the hunter claim the buck actually “identified” as a doe? Suppose the hunter just gives the buck a post-mortem sex-change operation?

What’s the game warden to do? Would the hunter be eligible for a pardon from Obama? Would this matter make it to the Supreme Court? And if people have the right to determine their own sexual identity, why not animals?

Strange days are truly upon us.

-- Joseph Farah, May 29 WND column

Did it upset you when the president of the United States ordered every public school in America to open all its bathroom facilities including those that are in use by a member of the opposite sex? The president’s order made me furious, and then sick to my stomach. How dare this man do something so audacious and unthinkable! His letter from the White House carried an implied threat to withhold federal money from local schools, which rocked the halls of public education. Who is this politician that is spending your hard-earned tax dollars to manipulate school officials, anyway? Who is it that is warping our children? It is Barack Obama, one of the worst presidents in American history, and it is time we stood up and said so!

Obama, acting like a king, is wielding dictatorial powers never envisioned in the law. He is determined to change the way males and females relate to one another, and worse, how children perceive themselves. If you are a married man with any gumption, surely you will defend your wife’s privacy and security in restroom facilities. Would you remain passive after knowing that a strange-looking man, dressed like a woman, has been peering over toilet cubicles to watch your wife in a private moment? What should be done to the pervert who was using mirrors to watch women and girls in their stalls? If you are a dad, I pray you will protect your little girls from men who walk in unannounced, unzip their pants and urinate in front of them. If this had happened 100 years ago, someone might have been shot. Where is today’s manhood? God help us!

-- James Dobson, May 30 WND column

Presidential Proclamation – “Pride” Month 2016 (a parody)

[...]

The fight for dignity and equality has been a little rough for people who engage in sodomy, as well as the gender defiant who want to have healthy body parts amputated while taxpayers pay for these elective, unnecessary surgeries. Nevertheless, tireless dedication by these advocates and allies strives to forge a more allegedly inclusive society, which is actually becoming tyrannical, bigoted, depraved and anti-Christian.

These advocates have spurred sweeping progress by changing hearts, minds and bathroom behavior, and by insisting that boys shower with girls, and demanding equal treatment through distortion and harassment while twisting our laws, corrupting our courts and practicing back-room politics. You would not believe the skeletons and dirt we get on so many people, and, like Hillary and Bill, my homosexual-activist buddies are not afraid to use them!
And there’s ample help from our major funders, like George Soros, who themselves love chaos, destruction and anarchy.

[...]

No one should live in fear of losing their job simply because they love sodomy more than their position, or come to work on Monday dressed as the opposite sex. Let’s get our priorities in line here! And our commitment does not stop at our borders. Forced acceptance of this agenda has long been a cornerstone of my twisted version of American diplomacy, and we have made defending and promoting immoral homosexual and gender-defiant behavior a cornerstone of our engagement across the globe, whether other nations like it or not.

In line with America’s commitment to the notion that all people should be treated fairly, champions of this cause at home and abroad are continuing to parrot the laughable notion that homosexual behavior is a human right, which falls apart when compared to real human rights abuses. But that’s our story, and we are sticking to it!

-- Linda Harvey, June 7 WND column

I made a bet today that I hope I’ll lose. I bet a buddy 10 bucks that Target will turn its back on its (former) customers rather than change its dangerous bathroom policy that allows cross-dressing men, predators, pedophiles and registered sex offenders into the ladies fitting rooms and rest rooms. My friend argued, “That would be insane.” He is right.

But, as I mentioned in my May 24 column, transgenderism is a certified mental disorder with the American Psychiatric Association (at least until activists bully their way to have it removed, as the homosexual lobby did). The APA also acknowledged that 4 out of 10 who choose this confused path of pretend end up attempting suicide. Seems like Obama, Target and the LGBT agenda are working very hard to push a lot of confused people off the cliff. Not very compassionate, if you ask me.

And not very wise, since registered sex offenders and pedophiles are already taking Target up on their open invitation, following women and filming little girls changing their clothes.

[...]

Target is evil. And now Target has become dangerous. If they don’t change their policy that puts women and children at risk, they deserve to be more than boycotted – they deserve to be bankrupt.

-- Janet Porter, June 7 WND column

Think about what the left is advancing today: It doesn’t matter anymore what you really are, it’s what you feel like that matters.

Presumably, kids who feel like they are 21 years of age should also be accepted as such. No? Why not? If a boy feels like a girl, we’re told, that’s all that matters – not the reality of biology and anatomy.

Presumably, a 70-year-old who feels like he or she is 18 should be permitted to enlist in the military. No? Why not?

Presumably, if someone seeking government employment feels like he or she actually graduated from an Ivy League university, he or she should be able to say so on the application. No? Why not?

Why is it, I wonder, that how we feel only matters when it comes to “gender identification” issues?

Is it just a matter of time when reality and hard truth don’t matter with regard to anything?

What’s the next bridge to cross in the left’s fantasy world?

-- Joseph Farah, June 8 WND column

“War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength.”

This was the slogan of George Orwell’s fictional English Socialist Party (INGSOC) of Oceania, from his timeless dystopian novel “1984.”

Orwell depicted a mind-control technique employed by INGSOC called “doublethink,” which “describes the act of simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct, often in distinct social contexts.”

If the malleable masses could be made to believe self-contradictory, patently absurd and empirically impossible concepts as true, went Orwell’s thesis, they could then be made to believe, or do, anything.

We have entered an age that George Orwell might never have imagined. Today’s “American Socialist Party” (the secular left) has applied the doublethink mind-control technique on a grand scale.

Its slogan?

“Male is Female; Female is Male; Evil is good.”

-- Matt Barber, June 10 WND column