Is Joseph Farah Writing About Himself? Topic: WorldNetDaily
In his June 9 column, WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah is strangely vocal about Keith Olbermann's claims that Fox News shares some culpability in the killing of abortion doctor George Tiller by repeatedly attacking him on the channel. Farah offers no cogent defense of Fox News; rather, he attacks Olbermann, accusing him of wanting to having it both ways and claiming that he is inciting murder by naming people -- specifically, Farah -- to his nightly "Worst Person in the World" list.
Farah concludes by writing of Olbermann: "He'll lie. He'll deceive. He'll cheat. He'll distort. And, yes, he'll incite – even while accusing others of doing just what he does."
Isn't Farah talking about himself here?
Farah and WND have a long history of lies, distortion and deception, not to mention incitement -- as we've detailed, WND has attacked Tiller in the same manner that Fox News has, and the term "Tiller the killer" appears no less than 94 times on the WND website.
Is Farah really trying to cover his own butt here by issuing a pre-emptive strike on Olbermann? It appears so.
Farah's article is full of projection: He asserts that Olbermann built his show around "character assassination, partisan smears, predictable ideological tripe, party-line goose-stepping and self-important, self-righteous political correctness," won't retract his claims because "He knows no one else takes him seriously," and insisted that "in his desperation to establish an audience for his bloviating, Olbermann will continue to tear down others."
Much, if not all, of which can be said about Farah as well, though we suspect that Farah is still self-delusional enough to think that there are people who still take him seriously.
UPDATE: It's worth noting that Farah --unlike most anti-abortion activists -- has yet to denounce Tiller's shooting. He wrote in his June 4 column that "all responsible people have had the opportunity to denounce the murder of abortionist George Tiller," but he does not indicate that he himself is one of them.
Janet Porter's June 9 WorldNetDaily column is chock full of lies and disproven conspiracies.
She begins by asserting that the hate-crimes bill before Congress will provide "elevated protection to hundreds of sexual deviances, including pedophilia." It doesn't.
Porter then goes on to embrace the discredited conspiracy regarding closing Chrysler dealerships:
They said we couldn't let the auto industry go bankrupt. Now they have government control and bankruptcy. And with Obama's henchmen in the boardroom, the dealerships they're closing down have something in common: They're Republican. WorldNetDaily reporter Chelsea Shilling uncovered the facts: Only seven of the 789 closed dealerships were Democrats. And five of those seven gave money to Obama's opponents: Clinton or Edwards. Only two of the 789 dealerships gave money to Obama. Apparently their $200 and $250 contributions weren't enough to keep them open.
As we detailed, Schilling -- as well as all others pushing this conspiracy -- ignored the fact that car dealers as a whole overwhelmingly support Republicans, so it's no surprise that the closing dealers would be mostly Republican as well.
Porter has a longhistory of reporting false and dubious claims.
CNS Still Repeating Dubious Waterboarding Claim Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com just won't let go of making a claim even after considerable doubt has been raised about it.
A June 8 CNS article by Terry Jeffrey asserts once again that the waterboarding of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed disrupted the "second wave" plot to crash a hijacked airliner into a Los Angeles skyscraper. At no point does Jeffrey note -- as CNS has consistently refused to do -- that the Bush administration has claimed that the Los Angeles plot was foiled in February 2002, more than a year before Mohammed's capture in March 2003 -- meaning that waterboarding Mohammed could not have foiled it.
Newsmax's Patten Misleads on Unionization Bill Topic: Newsmax
A June 8 Newsmax article by David Patten asserts that the Employee Free Choice Act "would eliminate the current requirement that a vote to unionize must come via secret ballot."
In fact, what the bill eliminates is the employers' right to insist on holding a secret-ballot election to determine whether workers favored unionization. Employees would still have the right to hold a secret-ballot election.
Patten also states: "Making the ballot public, opponents contend, would open the door to union intimidation." At no point does he note that intimidation and harrassment of workers by employers oppose unionization is rife under current law.
The election of 2008 was no doubt an historic event in American history.
We elected the first multi-racial president who has lived in various countries amongst many different religions and cultures – a man who grew up in the Muslim faith as well as the Christian faith. He also received one of the finest educations available.
Given his background, there are many questions about where Barack Obama's true allegiance lies.
Examiner Doubles Down on Right-Wing Bias Topic: Washington Examiner
Media Bistro reports that the Washington Examiner is adding even more conservative activists to its staff.
David Freddoso -- who penned a misinformation-riddled attack book on Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign -- will be an investigative writer for the commentary section. Apparently he can't be trusted to report fairly, which means his work is banned from appearing in the regular news section.
Also joining as commentary managing editor is J.P. Freire, who formerly worked for the American Spectator. Last year, Freire was caught in a bit of hypocrisy, railing against the New York Times report that stafferson John McCain's campaign were concerned that the candidate was too close to lobbyist Vicki Iseman when the Spectator has a long history of reporting salacious rumors about Bill Clinton.
As we've detailed, the Examiner has pretty much outlawed non-conservative opinion on its editorial pages, a hardline stance that appears to be bleeding over into its news copy.
Newsmax Kerik Rehabilitation Watch Topic: Newsmax
As part of its continuing rehabilitation of Bernard Kerik, Newsmax published a June 7 column by Kerik weighing in on President Obama's speech in Cairo -- even though Kerik has demonstrated no known expertise in Middle East politics.
Floyd Brown Misleads on His Obama Smear Topic: WorldNetDaily
Floyd and Mary Beth Brown's June 5 WorldNetDaily column essentially demands a apology from people who criticized Floyd Brown's smear ad of Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign, which asked if Obama was a Muslim. The Browns claim that Obama's "coming out to the Muslim world" has proven them right.
But Brown's ad was very disingenuous. As the Huffington Post's Sam Stein reported at the time:
There is much context left to fill. For starters, the school Obama attended at the time was Catholic -- a spokesman for Indonesia's Ministry of Religious Affairs said as much. And while someone did list Obama as a Muslim (the religion of his step father) on a document that required students to list religious affiliations, the campaign has insisted that it was a mistake.
[...]
Moreover, Brown's own ad concludes that the issue is inconsequential. "Maybe it doesn't matter if Obama were a Muslim back then," the spot goes, before questioning why he won't tell the truth now.
What may be more telling than the smear ad is the reaction that it engenders. Brown has a history of using barely discreet racist messaging to drive political discussion. So it is hardly a surprise to see him meddling in the Obama-is-a-Muslim affairs.
Further, at no point does Brown concede -- then or now -- that Obama is a Christian. He's too wedded to the Muslim smear.
President Obama used the first-person singular pronoun "I" 34 times on Monday when he announced he was nationalizing General Motors. He used “Congress” once and “law” not at all.
WND's Latest Lie on Obama Birth Certificate Topic: WorldNetDaily
One has to almost admire the sheer balls WorldNetDaily exhibits in outrightlying to its readers.
WND does it again in a June 7 article hyperbolically claiming that "The Hawaiian certification of live birth Barack Obama posted on his campaign website and distributed to select news organizations as proof he was a 'natural born citizen' would not be accepted as a 'birth certificate' even for some Hawaiian state government eligibility issues" -- though WND names exactly one issue for which that is the case, the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands. At no point does WND explain what the program does: lease lands to those of "native Hawaiian" ancestry. That is, "any descendant of not less than one-half part of the blood of the races inhabiting the Hawaiian Islands previous to 1778."
That is not a program Obama would be applying for, since we know his ancestry is not native Hawaiian, so whether his birth certificate is sufficient to apply for the program is irrelevant.
But that's not the lie. This is:
Obama's "citizenship" was never the question raised during the campaign or after the election. The issue raised by WND has consistently been that Obama failed to prove he was actually born in Hawaii and thus constitutionally qualified to become president as a "natural born citizen" – which requires that the birth took place in the United States.
Bull, bull, bull. If you're questioning whether Obama is a "natural born citizen," you're questioning his citizenship. And let's look in the WND archive to see how much WND is unconcerned with "citizenship":
Newsmax's Hirsen Mum on Mel Gibson's Divorce Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax's James Hirsen has made something of a career out of bashing Hollywood -- he once claimed that "you want to make it in Hollywood these days, guess you have to be prepared to take the Hypocritic Oath."
There's no shortage of hypocrisy in Hollywood, of course, from political causes to self-proclaimed family men who jettison their wives for newer models -- like, say, MelGibson (who, as a bonus, has gotten said newer model pregnant out of wedlock). Given that Gibson is a Catholic so devout that he created his own splinter sect that rejects the Vatican II church reforms of the 1960s, and that Catholicism generally rejects the very idea of divorce, Gibson is a perfect hypocrisy target for the likes of Hirsen.
At least, he would be if Hirsen wasn't involved with Gibson and his sect.
As we've detailed, Hirsen heads something called the World Faith Foundation, which owns a tract of land in western Pennsylvania purchased for the purpose of permitting Gibson's father, Hutton Gibson, to found a branch of Gibson's ultraconservative splinter sect.
Not only has Hirsen failed to tell his readers about his relationship with Gibson even as performed PR duty by fluffing Gibson's movies and assailing Gibson's critics, he has completely ignored the story of Gibson's divorce.
That may be a bigger hypocrisy than anything found in Hollywood.
Boone Takes Obama Out of Context, Makes Up Quotes Topic: WorldNetDaily
Pat Boone's June 6 column, published at WorldNetDaily, begins with a series of out-of-context and manufactured quotes of President Obama in an effort to smear him as "a president without a country."
For instance, Boone quotes Obama as saying, "We're no longer a Christian nation," which he later responds to by writing, "America is emphatically a Christian nation, and has been from its inception!" In fact, Boone hides the full context of Obama's statement, which highlights the diversity of America:
Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation – at least, not just. We are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, and a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.
Boone also quotes Obama as saying, "America has been arrogant," suggesting he got the idea "during the 20 years you were a member of the Trinity United Church of Christ under your pastor, Jeremiah Wright." But there's no evidence Obama said that exact quote. Boone appears to be referring to Obama's speech in Strasbourg, France, in which he said that "here have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive." ButBoone ignores what Obama said immediately after that:
But in Europe, there is an anti-Americanism that is at once casual but can also be insidious. Instead of recognizing the good that America so often does in the world, there have been times where Europeans choose to blame America for much of what's bad.
On both sides of the Atlantic, these attitudes have become all too common. They are not wise. They do not represent the truth. They threaten to widen the divide across the Atlantic and leave us both more isolated. They fail to acknowledge the fundamental truth that America cannot confront the challenges of this century alone, but that Europe cannot confront them without America.
Boone served up another purported Obama quote: "After 9/11, America didn't always live up to her ideals." But like the previous statement, that's a paraphrase. It appears to be taken from Obama's recent speech in Cairo, and again, it's taken out of context:
And finally, just as America can never tolerate violence by extremists, we must never alter our principles. 9/11 was an enormous trauma to our country. The fear and anger that it provoked was understandable, but in some cases, it led us to act contrary to our ideals. We are taking concrete actions to change course. I have unequivocally prohibited the use of torture by the United States, and I have ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed by early next year.
So America will defend itself respectful of the sovereignty of nations and the rule of law. And we will do so in partnership with Muslim communities which are also threatened. The sooner the extremists are isolated and unwelcome in Muslim communities, the sooner we will all be safer.
One wonders what country Boone belongs to that allows him to think he can misquote and distort Obama's words and get away with it.
UPDATE: Newsmax published Boone's misleading column as well.
CNS Reports Claim NY Times Retracted Topic: CNSNews.com
A June 5 CNSNews.com article by Fred Lucas asserts that "one in seven" detainees released from the Guantanamo Bay detention facility "were confirmed as having re-engaged in terrorist activity" or "suspected of doing so."
Unfortunately for Lucas and CNS, the New York Times just retracted a significant portion of that very same claim.
In an editor's note appended to its original May 21 article on the report, the Times stated:
The article said that the Pentagon had found about one in seven of former Guantánamo prisoners had "returned to terrorism or other militant activity," or as the headline put it, had "rejoined jihad."
Those phrases accepted a premise of the report that all the former prisoners had been engaged in terrorism before their detention. Because that premise remains unproved, the day the article appeared in the newspaper, editors changed the headline and the first paragraph on the Times Web site to refer to prisoners the report said had engaged in terrorism or militant activity since their release.
The article and headline also conflated two categories of former prisoners. In the Pentagon report, 27 former Guantánamo prisoners were described as having been confirmed as engaging in terrorism, with another 47 suspected of doing so without substantiation. The article should have distinguished between the two categories, to say that about one in 20 of former Guantánamo prisoners described in the Pentagon report were now said to be engaging in terrorism. (The larger share — about one in seven —applies to the total number described in the report as confirmed or suspected of engaging in terrorism.)
While Lucas does specifically state that his "one in seven" number includes those both "confirmed" and "suspected" of engaging in terrorism, the headline on his article -- "DOD Report: One in Seven Released Gitmo Detainees Returns to Terrorism" -- does not. And Lucas accepts the Pentagon's unproven premise that the released Gitmo detainees engaged in "terrorist activity" prior to their detention. Without that knowledge, Lucas' statement the released detainees in question had "re-engaged" in "terrorist activity" is unproven as well.
Lucas also fails to state one important and obvious fact about those detainee releases: they occurred under the Bush administration. Indeed, President Bush is not mentioned anywhere in his article.
NewsBusters Embraces Dubious Global Warming Item Topic: NewsBusters
The Boston Phoenix highlights a June 5 NewsBusters post by P.J. Gladnick repeating a Daily Tech report by Michael Andrews asserting that NASA, in a "new" study, has concluded that the sun, not man, is the cause of global warming.
Only, not so much. According to the Phoenix:
But when Andrews writes of a "new research report," he's a bit off, seeing as A) it's not new, and B) there's no report.
What seems to have happened is that in May 2008, a NASA guy wrote a general interest article, relying on NASA materials and quoting NASA researchers, about solar variability and climate change. It ran on Science Daily's site on May 12, 2008. The article is about how climate-change researchers are working to understand the relationship between solar variability and earth's atmosphere, in order to more accurately measure and predict the real global warming problem happening now, being caused by man-made emissions. (Andrews concedes that the "NASA study" blames current global warming on human behavior, but writes that this was where the study "went badly off the tracks.")
Andrews appears to have just stumbled across the article, didn't notice the old date, mistook it to be refering to a new study, completely misinterpreted the actual substance of the article, and -- voila! -- hot news item!
Lowell Ponte's New Obama Conspiracy Topic: Newsmax
Democrat Derangement Syndrome sufferer Lowell Ponte invents a new Obama conspiracy in his June 5 Newsmax column:
Obama deliberately arranged to meet his wife, Michelle, in Paris later in his trip. The apparent reason: Muslim fundamentalists would expect a woman in the presence of the Saudi ruler to wear a veil.
Ponte offers no evidence to support the "apparent"-ness of this claim.
