NewsMax Columnist Plays on Emotions to Oppose Minimum Wage Hike Topic: Newsmax
A Nov. 21 NewsMax column by Robert J. Cihak -- one of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons-linked "Medicine Men" with Michael Arnold Glueck -- embarks on a novel attack on a raise in the minimum wage: It keeps his developmentally disabled daughter from getting a job. However, Cihak offers no actual evidence of this.
While Cihak does cite Thomas Sowell in support of his claim, he is more prone to making baseless assertions such as, " Yes, minimum wage laws do protect — they protect people such as my daughter from working — and they protect unions and other workers from competition by the lesser skilled." In fact, studies have shown that previous minimum wage increases have not resulted in any significant loss of jobs.
Cihak concludes:
All Ruth [Cihak's daughter] can give me is her trust and love. What more can I ask of her?
But of you, dear reader, I ask you to remember the harm done her and others by minimum wage laws.
We thought conservatives weren't supposed to appeal to emotions the way they regularly accuse Democrats of doing.
New Article: Implications Have Consequences Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's Aaron Klein implies that Fox News paid a $2 million ransom for two kidnapped journalists -- then denies that he implied it. Read more.
Tim Graham's Macaca Moment -- Er, Month Topic: NewsBusters
Every time someone brings up George Allen and the "macaca" thing, the MRC's Tim Graham can reliably be counted upon to drop a NewsBusters post complaining about it. Well, the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson mentioned "macaca" in a column today discussing Michael Richards' racist rant, and like clockwork, Graham weighs in with a Nov. 22 NewsBusters post rushing once more to Allen's defense:
It doesn't matter how many black friends George Allen has, how many black people endorsed him for re-election, how many blacks have denied they ever saw a racist bone in George Allen's body. There is, in the minds of The Washington Post crowd, a seething "Segregation Forever" George Wallace in there inside his head, and it doesn't matter if there's evidence to the contrary. They're going to just keep fiendishly pushing the "Macaca" button as if it proves Allen is forever tainted with a scarlet "R" for racist.
But Graham misses the point -- that the same could probably have been said of Richards before his rant was captured on video. Graham also ignores that there is, in fact, a racist connotation to the word "macaca," and that Allen does have a weird fascination with all things Confederate (despite having been raised in southern California), which is associated with racism and slavery.
Finally, in full pot-kettle-black mode, Graham then states that "the most ridiculous liberal Post columnist today is actually Ruth Marcus -- another former Post reporter -- who composed an entire hypersensitive column excoriating President Bush for removing the '-ic' from 'Democratic' Party on the campaign trail."
No more ridiculous than pretending that Allen's "macaca" remark was totally innocent, and not only because Graham's fellow NewsBusters posters regularly use the term "Democrat Party," as Noel Sheppard did two days ago. And no more hypersensitive than, say, the blog Redstate.com banning a commenter for using the word "theocracy" to describe the aim of some conservative Repubicans.
And certainly no more ridiculous or hypersensitive than indignantly complaining every time someone mentions "macaca."
Posted by Terry K.
at 10:16 AM EST
Updated: Wednesday, November 22, 2006 10:46 AM EST
Mychal Massie's Word of the Day Topic: WorldNetDaily
Last time we checked in with Mychal Massie, he introduced us to the (nonexistent) word "Erebusic." In his Nov. 21 WorldNetDaily column, he throws a couple more 50-cent words at us:
sanious marplots
endogamic
Seeing what springs from Massie's thesaurus-rummaging is much more interesting than his columns themselves.
Notoriously inaccurate blogger Dan Riehl -- last seen here falsely smearing George Allen "macaca" target S.R. Sidarth -- turns in his first NewsBusters post in a month, a complaint that the New York Times failed to note that a group of day laborers who had filed a lawsuit against a Long Island town accusing town officials of harrassing them filed as "John Does" out of fear of retaliation by law enforcement or immigration authorities. First, Riehl serves up his usual ranting:
Isn't that an unusual, if not telling aspect of the story? You don't even have to identify yourself to get justice in America today? Because you might not be a citizen? I suppose anyone in the world can walk into an American court and allege discrimination, maybe al Qaeda will be next.
Then, he adds a little Clinton fear-mongering on the side:
As an aside, with Bush on board with the open borders crowd, it could easily lead to animosity toward the GO [sic] in 08, or even a third party candidate for President in 08, splitting the vote on the Right and welcoming Hillary into the White House. Arguably, it was Perot who may have helped elect a Clinton the first time around.
We'd complain about NewsBusters deigning to publish such a ill-informed screedmeister like Riehl, but he serves a much higher purpose of an example of the kind of people the MRC believes are qualified to speak for it. And besides, Riehl's generalidiocy makes NewsBusters that much entertaining to read.
A Nov. 21 WorldNetDaily column by Gary DeMar likens homosexuality to rape and a dog returning to its own vomit. The ostensible trigger for this tirade was a "children's book about two male penguins that raise a baby penguin" that he says is "being pushed as a homosexual primer to soften up young minds for the more scholarly propaganda." DeMar chooses to extrapolate an argument that some animal species engage in homosexual behavior to all animal behavior, saying that if we accept some as "natural," we must accept all:
If we should follow the animal world regarding homosexual penguins and thereby regard human homosexual behavior as normal, then we must be consistent and follow the animal world regarding rape, eating our young and eating our neighbors – and decriminalize these behaviors as well.
DeMar heads a group called American Vision, whose mission is "Equipping and Empowering Christians to Restore America’s Biblical Foundation." You'll find the usual anti-gay stuff there, such as a call to boycott Wal-Mart because it donated to a "homosexual organization promoting same-sex marriage in the workplace."
A Nov. 20 NewsMax article by Ronald Kessler breaks away from his typical Bush sycophancy to tell the heartwarming tale of the nearly $1 million Lynne Cheney has made for charity by writing children's books. But it wouldn't be Kessler without a little sucking up to Bush:
As noted in my book "Laura Bush: An Intimate Portrait of the First Lady," Laura's favorite course at Southern Methodist University was a one-semester review of children's literature taught by Dr. Harryette Ehrhardt.
Klein Dissembles About His Fox News-Hostage Ransom Article Topic: WorldNetDaily
In a Nov. 20 WorldNetDaily column, Aaron Klein is "horrified" that his Nov. 14 article on a $2 million ransom allegedly paid for the release of Fox News employees Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig, who were kidnapped in Gaza last summer, was widely interpreted to mean that Fox News itself paid the ransom.
"My report made very clear the sources did not know where the money originated. No source stated or implied the money came from Fox News," Klein wrote, adding:
Unfortunately, many used my article to claim Fox News paid the ransom – a contention I never made or implied. As the researcher of this piece, I can state categorically I don't believe Fox News paid any money or knew any money was paid. As outlined in my article, the indications are the exchange was brokered by a government or political party since certain quid pro quos were reportedly made, such as assurances against further kidnappings of Americans.
The problem is that, his purported caveats notwithstanding, Klein did not "make it clear"; nowhere in his original article did he explicitly state that Fox News was not the source of the alleged ransom. Even though Klein insists that "[n]o source stated or implied the money came from Fox News," his article is indeed murkily written enough to imply exactly that (as we previously noted).
Klein also states that "Off the record, Fox News sources admitted it was possible the terror gangs were paid off by an entity involved in the negotiations and that the news channel did not know about it." But Klein never told his readers that "the news channel did not know about" the ransom. From the article:
A spokeswoman for Fox News Channel told WND she could not provide an official statement about whether Fox was aware of money paid to free its two employees.
A source at Fox told WND many parties were involved with the freedom of Centanni and Wiig, including the U.S. government, and that it was possible money was paid.
And while Klein repeatedly claims in his column that the source of the ransom money was "unknown," the word "unknown" does not appear in his original article. In fact, he writes that one terrorist official "said he 'knows' the money came from the U.S. as part of a deal to free Centanni and Wiig but could not identify exactly which organization or government entity transferred the cash" -- which can certainly be interpreted as an implication of Fox News.
Klein then switches to suck-up mode, claiming, "I am horrified people have falsified and misrepresented my article to attack Fox News," and adding that "I have enormous respect for [Fox News chief Roger] Ailes." He laments that "Unfortunately, many used my article to claim Fox News paid the ransom – a contention I never made or implied." (Again, he did imply it.) Klein concluded:
I was not asked by WND nor Fox News Channel to print this clarification. In fact, both news organizations seem to have largely moved on. But as a reporter, I cannot stand idly by while others misrepresent and falsify my words to wrongly smear America's best cable news network.
Is Klein looking to get a job with Fox News someday? He might have a better chance if he would just stop being so defensive and admit that his article suggested that Fox News paid the ransom, even if he didn't actually say that Fox did. He can then devote even more of his attention to smearing Ehud Olmert.
Farah Finally Notices Politically Motivated Bush IRS Audits Topic: WorldNetDaily
In his Nov. 18 WorldNetDaily column, Joseph Farah expresses his displeasure that the IRS is conducting an audit of a church for its criticism of the Iraq war and other Bush administration policies. Reminding us that "I was a victim of just this kind of official harassment at the hands of the IRS during the Clinton administration," Farah concluded, "It is no more justifiable for a Republican administration to use the IRS as a political attack dog than it is for a Democratic White House. It is no more constitutional. It is no more moral. It is no more American when perpetrated by President Bush's administration."
What took him so long to figure this out?
A year and a half ago, we noted that the Bush IRS was accused of conducting politically motivated audits of groups, such as the NAACP, that had been critical of the Bush administration; a month ago, we noted other groups being targeted. But Farah has not recognized that controversy. It's only when a church was involved -- albeit a church whose pastor, Farah writes, "sounds like a polar opposite of me in many ways" -- that he suddenly is concerned about it.
It's not that hard to scoop WND, but given that it considers itself "a watchdog exposing government waste, fraud, corruption and abuse of power," we'll take pride in a year-and-a-half-long jump start.
Anti-Gay WND Writer Misleads on S. Africa HIV Topic: WorldNetDaily
A Nov. 16 WorldNetDaily article by Mary Jo Anderson on a vote to legalize same-sex marriage in South Africa almost exclusively features criticism of the decision -- not surprising giving the author's anti-gay bias; she wrote a anti-gay marriage book (sold by WND, of course) called "Male and Female He Made Them" -- but she also includes some misleading, incomplete information.
Anderson wrote:
Medical workers also questioned the new law.
South Africa has over five million HIV-positive citizens, including infants born with the virus. Criticism swirls around the government's failure to treat sufficient numbers of HIV patients with appropriate drugs.
"They keep on moving the goalposts over the number of people receiving anti-retroviral drugs," noted Diane Kohler Barnard, the health spokeswoman for the Democratic Alliance, an opposition party to the ruling African National Congress.
A couple of problems: The "medical worker" Anderson quotes is not questioning the same-sex marriage law; she's questioning the availability of AIDS-fighting drugs, which Anderson doesn't indicate has anything to do with the new law.
Further, Anderson's attempt to bring up HIV seems a very clumsy to work in the filthy-gay angle without discussing the facts involving the demographics of HIV victims in Africa -- which indicate an epidemic among heterosexuals. Her noting of "infants born with the virus" belies that clumsiness; in fact, according to the international charity AVERT, the HIV prevalence rate among pregnant women was 30.2 percent -- a clear indicator that HIV in South Africa is not limited to the homosexual community. Further:
One research study states that "[t]he pattern of HIV transmission in our region has changed from homosexual to heterosexual."
A 2002 article in the International Journal of Epidemiology states: "Since establishing a foothold in South Africa, the heterosexual HIV epidemic has had a distinctive character—‘explosive' spread with no sign of a ‘saturation' plateau and predominance in women at younger age."
Since heterosexuals in South Africa are apparently much more at risk for HIV than gays, there was no reason for Anderson to bring it up in a story about gay marriage, other than to take a gratuitous, inaccurate guilt-by-association swipe at gays.
A major theme at NewsBusters the past few days is accusing the MSM of withholding negative news about Democrats until after the November elections, presumably to give the Dems a better shot at winning. The lead target of this is Rep. John Murtha. This little conspiracy theory is best summed up by Tim Graham in a Nov. 18 post:
For about a year, John Murtha was portrayed by the liberal media as a bold Marine hero of the anti-war movement. So why did they almost never mention Murtha's sleazy role as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Abscam probe? And why is it important now? If the question was Murtha's fitness to be House Majority Leader, surely it was known that Murtha was running for that post before the midterm elections. The media withholding this story line until it fit with the timing of the Democratic Party's mainstream defines a liberal media bias. It was certainly considered bad form when our CNSNews.com wrote about it in January:
But as we detailed back then, CNS editor in chief David Thibault essentially admitted that the stories were a partisan attack on Murtha in retaliation for his anti-war stance, and they were seen as such by pretty much everyone, given that the main sources for those articles were Murtha's political enemies. And the issue of Murtha running for the majority leader post was moot before the election because he first had to win re-election and the Democrats had to take control of the House (a prospect that the MRC boys were discounting at the time, if we remember correctly). Of course, as we've noted, CNS kept up its partisan attacks on Murtha before the election by giving lots of attention to Murtha's critics.
Farah Silent on Pombo's Corrpution Topic: WorldNetDaily
In his Nov. 17 WorldNetDaily column, Joseph Farah lamented losses in the November midterm election by three "members of Congress who understand the Constitution and abide by it." One of them was Rep. Richard Pombo, Farah's co-author on the book "This Land Is Our Land" (and contradicting standard WND practice, Farah does disclose this):
Pombo is chairman of the House Resources Committee, where he spent much of his time trying to overhaul one of the most ridiculous pieces of legislation in the history of our country – the Endangered Species Act.
Pombo was targeted with millions of dollars by environmentalist extremist groups that don't really care about conservation or endangered animals but do care about government control and political power.
After all the shock expressed by Americans over eminent domain in the last two years, men like Pombo, who have been fighting for personal property rights for decades, should have been returned to power, not turned out. But this was a strange election cycle, indeed. It was quite an upset.
He is a good man. He will be missed not just by people in his congressional district, but by all freedom-loving Americans.
But by dismissing Pombo's loss as the result of "a strange election cycle" and being the target of "environmentalist extremist groups," Farah fails to acknowledge another noteworthy reason he lost: allegations of corruption. Pombo has beenlinked to disgraced ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and accused of using federal funds to pay for a 10-day family trip in an RV through several national parks. In fact, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) -- whom WND authoritatively cited for its allegations of corruption against John Murtha -- called Pombo one of the 13 most corrupt Members of Congress.
Is Aaron Klein Abetting Military Sedition in Israel? Topic: WorldNetDaily
A Nov. 17 WorldNetDaily article by Aaron Klein is the latest in a line of articles to cite anonymous Israeli military sources to criticize Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert and his prosecution of the fight against extremists in Gaza.
This made us think of an April column by the Washington Times' Tony Blankley, in which he suggests that retired U.S. military officials are guilty of sedition for criticizing the Bush administration's prosecution of the Iraq war. As support, Blankley cites the Uniform Code of Military Justice:
Article 88 -- Contempt toward officials Text.
"Any commissioned officer who uses contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Transportation, or the Governor or legislature of any State, Territory, Commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present shall be punished as a court-martial may direct."
This got us to wondering: Does Israel's military have similar sedition laws? The anonymous "military officials" certainly have as their goal the undermining of Olmert's authority to wage war as a head of state -- an undermining Klein is all to happy to abet given his own longtimehostility toward Olmert.
We're not familiar enough with the Israeli military to know for sure. But if military criticism of civilian leaders is considered seditious and treasonous in the U.S., it most likely is similarly so in Israel as well. As as we've previously noted, WND writers have previously denounced criticism of Bush's conduct of the Iraq war; why should that policy change just because WND doesn't like the person in charge?
It's nice (we think) to discover that we're on the same wavelength as NewsMax's Ronald Kessler.
Coinciding nicely with our new item detailing Kessler's Bush administration sycophancy, Kessler serves up a new NewsMax article that reinforces our view. This time, he's featuring Republican strategist Mary Matalin insisting that "[t]he Democrats' takeover of Congress is the 'last gasp of liberals' " and complaining that the Bush administration has gotten "credit for nothing that goes right and blame for everything that goes wrong."
Huston Still Misleads on Murtha Topic: NewsBusters
A Nov. 17 NewsBusters post by Warner Todd Huston repeats his unsupported contention that Rep. John Murtha is "extreme," then misleadingly described his position on Iraq. Huston wrote that the media "refused to portray Murtha's position as 'extreme', even as he supports pulling out of Iraq immediately."
But as we noted, Murtha's position on Iraq is to pull out at the "earliest practicable date" -- which, despite Huston's suggestion, is not synonymous with "immediately."
