Porter Still Hiding Info About Her Anti-Obama Crusade Topic: WorldNetDaily
A Jan. 8 WorldNetDaily article touts a bit of agitprop promoted by Faith2Action's Janet Folger Porter as the "Obama commercial they don't want you to see," in that several TV networks "refused to sell her time for a 60-second commercial." But WND makes no attempt to answer questions about Porter's activism on this issue.
As we've detailed, Porter appears to be using Faith2Action resources for her personal anti-Obama crusade without disclosing where the line is between Faith2Action and her anti-Obama activism, or whether funds donated to Faith2Action are being improperly used toward this crusade.
A domain is named at the end of the hilariously overdramatic ad, obamaforgery.com, which redirects to a page on the Faith2Action website. But according to the WHOIS database, the owner of the domain is hidden, listed only as owned by "Domains by Proxy."
The page itself names "attorney Philip J. Berg" as among those who readers should "learn more about and consider supporting the work of." But as we noted, Porter and Faith2Action appear to have financial connections to Berg that neither have adequately disclosed.
In the WND article, Porter mentioned "donors who contributed the funding that was to be used for the ads," but those donors are not identified.
Thus, Porter lends further obfuscation to her crusade. If she's demanding that Obama release information about himself, shouldn't she more forthcoming about her political backers, and where the line is between her personal crusade and Faith2Action?
In a Jan. 8 column, Joseph Farah declares WorldNetDaily to be "Obama Watch Central," insisting that "WND will be at the forefront of chronicling the continuing subterfuge we can expect from the incoming administration as well as Congress and the Supreme Court." Farah then adds: "Does this mean WND won't be 'fair' to Obama? No."
OK, we think we're done laughing now.
WND's coverage of Obama, as we've documented, has been one long parade of unfairness, lies and hate -- to the point where Farah will lie about one of WND's very few instances of actually showing fairness to Obama in order to perpetuate his own Obama-hate.
If Farah and WND were truly interested in fairness, it would not be publishing the rantings of cranks like Hilmar von Campe and Jack Cashill.
If Farah and WND were truly interested in fairness, they would not repeatedly publish writers who call Obama a Nazi.
If Farah and WND were truly interested in fairness, they would acknowlege and publicly retract their mistakes whyen they are pointed out, instead of smearing their critics and perpetuating litigation aimed at forcing WND to do what's right.
But Farah and WND won't do this.
Rather than perpetuate the facade of being a "vigilant watchdog on government waste, fraud, abuse and corruption," Farah should just come out and admit what being "Obama Watch Central" really means, as WND has already amply demonstrated:
Ponte's Democrat Derangement Syndrome Flares Up Again Topic: Newsmax
Lowell Ponte engages in another fit of Democrat Derangement Syndrome, using his Jan. 7 Newsmax column to hurl all sorts of baseless accusations regarding Al Franken's victory in the Minnesota Senate race recount.
Ponte baselessly asserts that the state canvassing board that oversaw the recount is "liberal" and "controlled by Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, an ultra-liberal Democrat with close ties to the controversial far-left activist group ACORN." In fact, as Media Matters detailed, both Franken's Republican opponent, Norm Coleman, and Republican Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty approved of the canvassing board's makeup, which included two judges appointed by Pawlenty, one of whom formerly worked for the Minnesota Republican Party.
Further, as we've noted, even Ponte's fellow travelers at Newsmax have offered no evidence of Ritchie's "close ties" to ACORN beyond a campaign endorsement.
Ponte also writes:
In one notorious case, a partisan Democrat precinct chief reportedly discovered a pile of absentee ballots in the trunk of her own car. All of these, according to early reports, were votes for Franken. She later denied that the ballots had been beyond the control of safeguards designed to prevent ballot tampering, and she denied that all had been votes for Franken.
But there's no evidence that there's a shred of truth to this story, and even Coleman's lawyer has said he's satisified there was no ballot-tampering regarding the purported incident.
Ponte uncritically regurgitates Coleman's various arguments regarding ballots. He also repeats state canvassing board member G. Barry Anderson's assertion that "very likely there was a double counting" of spoiled original and legally required duplicate ballots without also noting that Anderson is the member who's the former Republican Party employee.
Because this is a full-blown onset of Democrat Derangement Syndrome, Ponte can't keep himself from personally attacking Franken, calling him "former failed talk host for Air America Radio and minor star on NBC's comedy show 'Saturday Night Live.'" Ponte neglects the fact that Franken was also a longtime writer for "SNL," for which he received seven Emmy awards. Ponte apparently thinks such an achievement is "minor."
Bozell Runs to Coulter's Defense -- Again Topic: Media Research Center
We've previouslydetailed the long love affair between Brent Bozell's Media Research Center and Ann Coulter, and its history of refusing to criticize anything she says, no matter how offensive. So it's no surprise that Bozell leaps to Coulter's defense yet again.
In a Jan. 6 MRC press release, Bozell completely swallows the anonymous, unverified claims made by Matt Drudge that Coulter was "banned for life" from NBC as indicated by her getting bumped from the "Today" show (even though she was rebooked two days later): "Ann, as a veteran banee from NBC, I can well attest to the fact that you will, in fact, survive this ordeal." Well, we've never appeared on NBC, but we don't go around claiming we've been "banned." Rebooking aside, Bozell rants against NBC:
“As for NBC, I have only one question: Have you lost your collective mind? Every broadcast network, yours included, is bleeding to death, your audiences abandoning you by the millions. The biggest body leaving is conservatives who correctly see you as having abandoned any pretense of objectivity in favor of a leftist political agenda. And how do you respond? By banning one of the best-known conservative voices in America. This is your commitment to political balance and the very idea of free speech, and the reason why, when the last of you leaves the building, you need to remember to turn out the lights.”
In his Jan. 7 column, Bozell demonstrates his utter hypocrisy on the issue. After citing "a list of inflammatory liberals who are welcomed on the TV morning shows," Bozell writes:
Call Coulter outrageous, call her a bomb-thrower, even state she goes beyond the pale of civility, if that’s your read. But do not assign that label to Coulter and then present your on-air love and kisses and giggles to all the public leftist hate-spewing that far exceeds any perceived incivility by Coulter. That is utterly transparent liberalism, and utterly transparent hypocrisy.
Doesn't that work the other way, too? If Bozell is going to get all apoplectic over the idea that controversial liberals appear on TV, shouldn't he treat Coulter the same way? Nope -- rather, he defends Coulter as being "fun for conservatives."
Just as he has defended Coulter all along, no matter what she says.
As we've wondered previously: Does Coulter have some sort of blackmail material on Bozell that makes him act so reflexively?
On the Jan. 5 edition of MSNBC's "Countdown," Keith Olbermann named WorldNetDaily's Joseph Farah that day's "Worst Person in the World" over his claim that none of the "forgery experts" contacted by WND "could report conclusively that the electronic image" of Barack Obama's birth certificate "was authentic or that it was a forgery" -- which contradicts an August 2008 WND article calling the certificate "authentic."
CNS Bush Rehabilitation Series Continues Topic: CNSNews.com
Is CNSNews.com looking to rehabilitate President Bush as he leaves office? It appears so.
A day after penning a article uncritically promoting President Bush's claim that he has had "an eight-year commitment to strong environmental protection and conservation ... contrary to the conventional wisdom of many in the news media," CNS' Fred Lucas wrote a Jan. 8 article featuring Bush national security adviser Stephen Hadley "praising the often-maligned foreign policy of President George W. Bush."
Lucas devotes a single paragraph to what he claims "Obama and other Democrats" have said about Bush's foreign policy -- the only word directly quoted is "cowboy," and he doesn't identify who said it -- and no response to Hadley's claims was apparently sought. Thus, claims by Hadley such as "History will remember George W. Bush as a president who never wavered, kept the nation safe, and brought the blessing of liberty to millions around the world" are allowed to stand unchallenged.
Dick Morris' Jan. 6 Newsmax column claims the following about Barack Obama's proposed stimulus plan:
Under Obama's plan, the majority of American voters would pay no federal income taxes but would get money from the government instead. That is, these "refundable tax credits" are basically welfare checks — and Obama's plan would leave the most of us collecting, not paying.
[...]
Obama's plan — he'd give all couples a $1,000 refundable tax credit and all single people $500 — would funnel more than $50 billion to the lowest half of the country, thereby completely wiping out their total federal tax liability. In most cases, it would trigger a "refund" welfare check.
In one stroke, this would transform the majority of voters from taxpayers into tax eaters, and leave an increasingly small minority to pay the bill. Regardless of whether this is good economics, it is very dangerous politics.
In fact, a tax credit for low-income wage-earners would not "completely wip[e] out their total federal tax liability." In fact, all wage-earners also pay Social Security and Medicare (FICA) taxes, and many pay federal excise taxes on gasoline, which a $1,000 tax credit would likely not "wipe out."
Meanwhile, a Jan. 7 Newsmax column by Morris regurgitates claims by Republican Norm Coleman's Minnesota Senate campaign that Democrat Al Franken is stealing the election by winning the recount and shills for a Republican lawyers' group on Coleman's side:
As John F. Kennedy once said, "sometimes partisanship demands too much." Watching Al Franken and the Democrats steal this election, vote by vote, is a horrific sight that makes a mockery of the electoral process, the fundamental element in our democracy.
If this travesty is allowed to stand, it essentially means that any close election constitutes an open invitation to steal the victory.
We must not allow the Minnesota Democrats to get away with this election heist. The Republican National Lawyers Association is litigating the issue and needs all the support they can get to fund their court case.
Morris repeats the claims that "fraudulent, duplicate ballots" were counted, but as we've detailed, the duplicate ballot issue is largely bogus, and weeding out the purported duplicate ballots would mean that legitimately cast ballots would also be eliminated. Further, as Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com, notes, Morris and Coleman are baselessly assuming that fraud is the only possible reason for the existence for those "duplicate ballots" being counted.
Jamison Foser at County Fair notes a Jan. 7 NewsBusters post by Kerry Picket blasting Leon Panetta for his "pathetic excuses in 1996 over why several hundred FBI background reports on American citizens were obtained by Craig Livingstone." The problem, according to Foser:
Picket apparently doesn't realize that Panetta wasn't White House chief of staff when Craig Livingstone was hired, or when the files were obtained. He was chief of staff in 1996, when the investigations began, which is why he commented on them.
So, to sum up: Leon Panetta wasn't responsible for "Filegate," in which no laws were broken. As a result, Newsbusters' Kerry Picket thinks we can't count on Panetta to keep the nation safe. Got it?
Will Newsmax Note Rebuttal to Coulter? Topic: Newsmax
A Jan. 7 Newsmax article by Phil Brennan reported on an analysis by "far left attack dog Media Matters for America" (disclosure: my employer) detailing numerous false and misleading statements in Ann Coulter's new book, "Guilty," claiming that the article "unmasks some of the left’s sleaziest tactics." (Tellingly, Brennan offerds no link to the Media Matters article so his readers can judge for themselves.) Brennan then gives Coulter an opportunity to respond to selected claims Media Matters makes about "her meticulously researched book."
Media Matters has now rebutted Coulter's claims, pointing out that her response compounds the original documented falsehoods she made.
So, the question now is: Does Brennan have enough journalistic integrity to inform his readers about this rebuttal? Or is he so invested in his obvious hatred for Media Matters -- he also quotes "widely respected pollster Frank Luntz" calling it "one of the most destructive organizations associated with American politics today," failing to note that Luntz is a conservative and the statement appears to be a petty reaction to Media Matters' coverage of Luntz -- that he will hide the truth from his readers?
Heritage Foundation Chart Misleads on New Deal Unemployment Topic: Washington Examiner
A "charticle" on the editorial page of the Jan. 7 Washington Examiner (scanned below) is a graph of unemployment rates during the Great Depression -- as supplied by the conservative Heritage Foundation -- in an apparent attempt to forward the right-wing meme that the New Deal did nothing to stop the Depression. But the chart is highly misleading.
First, the numbers priovided, described as "percentage of jobless nonfarm workers," are skewed. As Media Matters points out, government labor statistics from the 1930s did not count those as employed through government work programs as actually being employed. But the numbers here -- which puts "unemployment" above 20 percent from 1931 through 1940 -- are much higher than even those government numbers, not to mention those of other Heritage writers. While the chart pegs unemployment in 1940 at around 21 percent, a Dec. 16 piece by Heritage senior research fellow Ronald Utt states that in 1940, "America's unemployment rate stood at 14.6 percent."
Second, while the chart lists events that have nothing to do with the unemployment rate -- "court packing"? -- it fails to note why unemployment increased in 1938, one even cited by folks like those at the Examiner as evidence that the New Deal failed. In fact, as Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman notes, in 1937 "the Roosevelt administration cut spending and raised taxes, precipitating an economic relapse that drove the unemployment rate back into double digits and led to a major defeat in the 1938 midterm elections. ... F.D.R. thought he was being prudent by reining in his spending plans; in reality, he was taking big risks with the economy and with his legacy."
CNS Mouths Bush Self-Aggrandizment on Environment Topic: CNSNews.com
A Jan. 7 CNSNews.com article by Fred Lucas uncritically repeats President Bush's claim that his term as president marks "an eight-year commitment to strong environmental protection and conservation ... contrary to the conventional wisdom of many in the news media."
Lucas makes no apparent attempt to contact anyone in "the news media" or any non-conservative environmentalist for their views on Bush's assertion. Rather, he quotes Bush's White House press secretary Dana Perino echoed Bush's claim. He also quotes an "environmental expert and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank," and a "senior legal policy analyst for the conservative Heritage Foundation" criticizing a specific Bush order as unnecessary and legally questionable, but they offer no counter to Bush's claims about his environmental record.
Criticism of Bush from the right is hardly a substitute for criticism of Bush from the left, and it hardly makes for a factually balanced article.
Porter, WND Still Clinging to Obama Birth Certificate Fantasy Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily columnist Janet Folger Porter is still desperately clinging to the hate-driven, fraudulent fantasy that Barack Obama is not an American citizen. From her Jan. 6 column:
What if an imposter from another country ran for the presidency and won?
What if the media blocked any news of his birthplace and citizenship?
What if the media censorship even blocked paid advertising that tried to expose it?
What if no one had the courage to challenge or verify it?
What if he was inaugurated illegally?
What if the military had to answer to a commander in chief who was illegitimate?
What if every law he signed was invalid?
What if every appointment he made was improper?
What if it all happened on our watch?
[...]
Write to the Supreme Court and ask them to do what they took an oath to do: make sure the Constitution is being upheld.
Porter has yet to address the concerns we've raised that she may be misusing the resources of her group Faith2Action for her own personal anti-Obama crusade, either here or at the Faith2Action website.
Meanwhile, Bob Unruh uncritically quotes Porter's rant in a Jan. 6 WND article insisting that "The lingering questions continue to leave a cloud over the impending presidency of a man whose relatives have reported he was born in Kenya and who has decided, for whatever reason, not to release a bona fide copy of his original birth certificate in its complete form."
Of course, neither Unruh nor Porter mention the fact that WND itself declared the birth certificate to be "authentic," adding that the lawsuit on the issue filed by Philip Berg "relies on discredited claims."
Kincaid Ignores AIM's Embrace of Luntz's Linguistics Topic: Accuracy in Media
A Jan. 4 Accuracy in Media column by Cliff Kincaid accuses Barack Obama of telling "lies" by calling his stimulus plan the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan" when it is "mainly designed to bail out state and local governments that have already spent too much taxpayer money." Kincaid cites Republican pollster Frank Luntz complimenting Obama's use of the term and adding, "Our media are not going to fall for this ploy, are they?"
So, with this criticism, you'd think that Kincaid and AIM would eschew all linguistic fanciness, right? Wrong.
Luntz himself is a noted political linguist; as The New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg reported in 2006, Luntz was one of the right-wingers who has recently pushed the idea of inaccurately calling the Democratic Party the "Democrat Party." And indeed, there are numerous references to "Democrat Party" on the AIM website.
Hertzberg also noted that Luntz also promoted the term "death tax" for the estate tax. Several references to "death tax" can be found at AIM as well.
If Kincaid is criticizing Luntz's praise of Obama's linguistics as an embrace of "dishonest rhetoric," shouldn't Kincaid and AIM refrain from embracing Luntz's own arguably dishonest linguistics?
Regarding Rick Warren's decision to give the prayer at Barack Obama's inauguration, assume for a moment that we had just elected a man to be president who, during the campaign, spoke to a rally of the Ku Klux Klan – all the while reassuring us how important his Christian faith is to him. Let's also assume that, during this rally, he told the assembled cone heads that he thinks America should return to the times when only white male landowners were allowed to vote.
The question is, could anyone in America be stupid enough to think that Rick Warren would give the invocation for this guy's inauguration?
[...]
On one hand, Obama needs someone who can give him cover with the Christian community. His goal is to hide from them the fact that he is a heretic and moral degenerate.
Newsmax Again Baselessly Claims Franken 'Vote Grab' Topic: Newsmax
A Jan. 5 Newsmax article by David Patten is headlined, "Franken's Coup: Anatomy of a Vote Grab," but Patten doesn't really provide that regarding the Minnesota Senate race. Instead, he uncritically repeats claims by the campaign of Al Franken's opponent, Norm Coleman, and other conservatives making various allegations about the race's recount and allows no one to respond.
This is the second time that Patten has baselessly accused Franken of a "vote grab."
As he has previously, Patten claimed that Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie "has been criticized for ties to the ACORN voter-registration organization the federal government is investigating for alleged vote fraud, as well as to left-wing billionaire George Soros." But that criticism is coming only from Patten and his right-wing fellow travelers -- as we've noted, those "ties," according to Patten's own reporting, are limited to getting endorsed by ACORN and taking a campaign donation from Soros. (Patten claimed this was evidence of "extensive ties.")
Patten quotes mostly Coleman campaign officials and right-wingers in his article, but does not permit anyone to respond to the claims they make. He also hides the true identity of one person he quotes, "Kevin Hassett of Bloomberg.com." In fact, Hassett is a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute; Bloomberg merely published his commentary about the Minnesota Senate race.
Patten lets his anti-Franken bias show in other ways as well. He complained that the Minnesota canvassing board "deposed Coleman as the apparent winner" and that Coleman has been victimized by "a nightmarish electoral chronology."
