ConWeb Misleads on Mirandizing Detainees Topic: The ConWeb
A June 10 WorldNetDaily article by Chelsea Schilling regurgitates a Weekly Standard report claiming "the Obama Justice Department has quietly ordered FBI agents to read Miranda rights to high value detainees captured and held at U.S. detention facilities in Afghanistan, according a senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee." Since Schilling made no apparent effort to verify anything on her own, she has written an article that is dubious at best.
By contrast, the Washington Independent quoted Gen. David Petraeus as saying, "The real rumor yesterday is whether our forces were reading Miranda rights to detainees and the answer to that is no." And the Washington Post's Greg Sargent contacted a Justice Department spokesman, who said: "There has been no policy change and nor blanket instruction issued for FBI agents to Mirandize detainees overseas. While there have been specific cases in which FBI agents have Mirandized suspects overseas, at both Bagram and in other situations, in order to preserve the quality of evidence obtained, there has been no overall policy change with respect to detainees."
In other words, if there is indeed a policy to Mirandize detainees, it appears to have begun in the Bush administration. Indeed, the author of that Weekly Standard report, Stephen Hayes, said himself that "There are reports that this was happening on specific bases as going back as early as July 2008."'
The rest of the ConWeb behaved only slightly better on this story, reporting the claim but not the full truth.
A June 11 Newsmax article by Dave Eberhart repeats the claim and includes the Justice Department statement, but Eberhart ignores Hayes' statement that the Mirandizing began under the Bush administration.
David Limbaugh, in a June 12 column that appears at WorldNetDaily and Newsmax, asserted that "There are reports that [Obama's] Justice Department has quietly ordered the FBI to give Miranda warnings to enemy combatants captured at war in Afghanistan" without noting reports that it apparently started under the Bush administration.
Rich Galen, in his June 12 CNSNews.com column, also repeated the claim without noting that it apparently started under the Bush administration.
I don't know about you, but I find it troubling that the "oh, so tolerant leftists" who elected their illegal alien messiah have abandoned the Nazi theme in their political discussions.
That must mean the left is happy with the new government.
[...]
I'm sure you will be pleased – as I am – to know that America's brief flirtation with the Bush-Hitler Nazis has cooled, the jack-booted, Democrat prestitutes have made the world safe for dissent, and tolerance is once again the law of the land.
McMillan curiously fails to mention that his fellow WND columnists have filled the void with repeatedly likening President Obama to Nazis. If likening President Bush to Hitler was so terrible, why does McMillan tolerate likening Obama to Hitler?
Richard Bartholomew catches WorldNetDaily essentially using someone else's paid on the WND website to attack President Obama -- this time, essentially blaming him for the swine flu epidemic. The website to which the ad links, which sells a self-proclaimed "Flu Survival Kit," doesn't mention Obama directly, but it does claim:
The Globalists dug up frozen 1918 flu death cadavers in Siberia, extracted the DNA of the deadly Spanish flu and combined it with the very deadly Bird Flu (H5N1), mixed it with Swine Flu (H1N1) and merged it with a “carrier agent” of the highly contagious generic flu we all get to trigger certain and rapid human-to-human transmission.
This isn't the first time that WND has twisted an ad on its website into an attack on Obama.
I started writing about Obama's religious Muslim background in January 2007, and throughout 2007 and 2008 I presented evidence of Obama's identification as a Muslim when he was a child, his extremist Muslim family and his Islamic schooling. In December 2007, I wrote, "Barack Obama went to a madrassa in Jakarta. A madrassa in a Muslim country. Whether he was devout or secular, he knows what was taught. He knows what is in the Quran. Even if he is ambiguous, he knows the stakes involved. His father was a Muslim who took three wives (without divorcing). His stepfather and close members of his family are devout Muslims. Not an unimportant influence."
[...]
And so now we have our first Muslim presidency, just eight years after 9/11. The media can spin their subjugation and adulation a million different ways, but America did not vote for a "Muslim presidency," which is what this is. Everything this president has done so far has helped foster America's submission to Islam.
The Cairo speech was just the beginning. Imagine what the next three and a half years will bring to what Obama has called "one of the largest Muslim countries in the world."
WND, Von Brunn Also Share Hatred of Federal Reserve Topic: WorldNetDaily
Turns out that an affinity for questions about Barack Obama's birth certificate is not the only thing WorldNetDaily shares with alleged Holocaust Memorial Museum shooter James von Brunn. They both despise the Federal Reserve as well.
In 1981, as TPM describes it, von Brunn "pulled out a sawed-off shotgun at the Federal Reserve Board headquarters, claiming to have planted a bomb and threatening to take members of the Board hostage." He has also written:
The FED is a private corporation whose stock is owned by International Bankers. It is not an agency of the United States Government. It is one of many parasitical Rothschild Central Banks infesting the world stage. Its power ascends over every U.S. citizen from cradle to grave. Every dollar in your wallet is a note issued by the FED. The U.S. Government redeems that note (principal and interest) with your taxes. Through its enormous resources and power the FED controls the machinery of the U.S. Government.
WND's hatred of the Fed appears to be as virulent, if not as violent. WND's store sells numerous books and videos attacking the Fed. Compare the language used by WND to promote them with von Brunn's own statement above:
"Web of Debt: The Shocking Truth About Our Money System and How We Can Break Free," which claims the following: "Except for coins, all of our money is now created as loans advanced by private banking institutions—including the private Federal Reserve. Banks create the principal but not the interest to service their loans. To find the interest, new loans must continually be taken out, expanding the money supply, inflating prices—and robbing you of the value of your money. Web of Debt unravels the deception and presents a crystal clear picture of the financial abyss towards which we are heading."
"The Money Masters: How Banks Create the World's Money," which WND has promoted thusly: "With the U.S. and global economies looking more disastrous every day, more Americans than ever are asking whether the Federal Reserve really is what they've long been told – the protector of America's money policy and financial well-being – or, as critics allege, an unaccountable, private banking cartel siphoning off citizens' wealth and manipulating America's economy for the benefit of a hidden elite."
"The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve": "Banking and the Federal Reserve ... a dry and boring subject? Don't believe it! Once you pick up this book you'll be hooked in five minutes. This book reads like a detective story — which it really is; but it's all true. "The Creature from Jekyll Island" is about the most blatant scam of all history. You'll find it all here: the cause of wars, boom-bust cycles, inflation, depression, prosperity and more."
WND Whistleblower magazine, July 2006, "THE FEDERAL RESERVE: FRAUD OF THE CENTURY": "Whistleblower documents authoritatively and with uncommon clarity how the "Federal Reserve" – which is neither part of the federal government, nor does it rely on monetary reserves – is an unconstitutional, unelected cartel that literally creates the devastating problems it was supposed to prevent."
Wanna bet von Brunn owns some, if not all, of these titles? We have to wonder if he bought his copies from WND.
WND editor Joseph Farah, in a 2001 column, called the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913 "a coup in which a small group of bankers got a blank check to set monetary policy, and, thus, all policy, for the entire nation. No watchdogs. No guardrails. No accountability. Nada. Zip. Zilch."
WND has also promoted an effort led by Ron Paul to audit the Federal Reserve. A June 11 article by Bob Unruh states:
Paul long has opposed the power held by the Federal Reserve and its ability to manipulate the nation's economy and over the years has launched multiple proposals to get rid of the quasi-governmental agency, without significant support.
That language -- as well as Farah's -- again is not far from von Brunn's writings (though lacking the overt anti-Semitism).
Just has WND disappeared facts that make the anti-abortion movement look bad regarding the killing of George Tiller, WND has so far refused to admit its shared interest with von Brunn in Obama's birth certificate. Don't expect WND to admit this shared Fed obsession either.
Aaron Klein Desperate Obama Smear Watch Topic: WorldNetDaily
In a June 10 WorldNetDaily article, Aaron Klein trots out his terrorist buddies once again for a little Obama-smearing, giving them voice to claim that a photo of President Obama with his feet up on a desk while allegedly talking to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the phone was insulting to Israelis because showing the soles of one's shoes is considered an insult in the Arab world.
But Klein also writes that "flashing shoe soles is not usually viewed as an insult in Judaism." If Israelis don't generally consider it an insult, why does it matter if Israel's enemies do?
This just demonstrates once again howdesperate Klein is to do everything possible to smear Obama-- and why he has so little credibility as a journalist as a result.
There's also the question -- as there was with the endorsement of Obama's candidacy by a Hamas official in an interview with Klein -- whether the terrorists Klein interviewed were knowingly taking part in advancing Klein's anti-Obama agenda.
Newsmax Publishes Rabbi Who Blames Obama for Von Brunn Shooting Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax achieved new heights in Obama-hate by publishing a June 10 column by Rabbi Morton H. Pomerantz essentially blaming President Obama for "creating a climate of hate" that led to James von Brunn's shooting at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington:
Our new president did not tell a virulent anti-Semite to travel to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington to kill Jews, but he is most certainly creating a climate of hate against us.
It is no coincidence that we are witnessing this level of hatred toward Jews as President Barack Obama positions America against the Jewish state.
In the midst of his anti-Obama right-wing screed, Pomerantz falsely claims that Obama's speech in Cairo "praises — unconditionally — a religion and culture that has a long history of being antithetical to the very values that have made America a great nation." In fact, Obama repeatedly criticized violent extremism in the Islamic world and vociferiously criticized those who defend the events of 9/11: "But let us be clear: Al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 people on that day. The victims were innocent men, women and children from America and many other nations who had done nothing to harm anybody. And yet al Qaeda chose to ruthlessly murder these people, claimed credit for the attack, and even now states their determination to kill on a massive scale. They have affiliates in many countries and are trying to expand their reach. These are not opinions to be debated; these are facts to be dealt with."
WND Personally Attacks Fox News Anchor (And Repeats A Birther Lie) Topic: WorldNetDaily
As we know all too well, when WorldNetDaily and its editors are confronted by facts that make them look bad, they respond with personal attacks against their accusers.
Fox News' Shepard Smith is the latest to learn that lesson. A June 10 WND article by Joe Kovacs repeats Smith's statement during coverage of the shooting of a security guard at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington that "there is no truth whatsoever – zero" to claims that Obama is "not a citizen of the United States." Kovacs responded to Smith's statement by devoting five paragraphs to rehashing a 2000 incident in which a car driven by Shepard allegedly clipped another reporter who was saving a parking space for a friend -- despite its irrelevance to anything going on today.
At no point, however, does Kovacs mention the reason that Smith brought up the subject: The accused shooter, James von Brunn, is a white supremacist who also believes in the WND-promoted conspiracy that Obama is hiding evidence that he's not a "natural-born citizen" and, thus, ineligible to be president. As we've noted, von Brunn's name is on an Internet posting of a list of Obama-related documents that have supposedly not been released to the public; the day before the Holocaust Museum shooting, WND published an article that appears to have been inspired by von Brunn's list.
Meanwhle, in defending WND's pursuit of the birth certificate conspiracy, Kovacs repeats a false claim about it: that "the woman the president says is his paternal grandmother, Sarah Obama, claimed to have been present at her grandson's birth in Mombasa, Kenya."
As we noted in our compilation of lies told by WND about Obama, David Wiegel of Slate reported that the claim is based on an edited transcript and a muddled translation.
A June 10 NewsBusters post by P.J. Gladnick indulges in the Depiction-Equals-Approval Fallacy, baselessly asserting that by writing about Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's vulgar language, Reuters reporter Charlie Devereux is saying that "a foul mouth in a nation's leader is something to be lauded if that leader happens to be Hugo Chavez of Venezuela." Gladnick's evidence: "Devereux even cites Chavez's foul mouth as a key to his success."
In fact, despite Gladnick's suggestions to the contrary, at no point in his article does Devereux praise Chavez's language -- he merely describes it and explains it by putting it into the context of the larger Venezuelan culture. And despite the suggestion of bias in the article, even Gladnick concedes that Devereux quotes a Venezuelan who isn't enamored byChavez's vulgarities.
Gladnick seems to be unclear as to the purpose of reporting. Gladnick is, quite simply, lying when he claims that Devereux supports Chavez based on this article alone.
Talking Points Memo has uncovered a Internet bulletin board posting by James von Brunn -- accused in the shooting of a security guard inside the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington today -- listing all the documents regarding Barack Obama that have supposedly not been released to the public.
Coincidentially, a June 9 WorldNetDaily article by ChelseaSchilling details "more than a dozen other documents" regarding Obama that "remain unreleased or otherwise blocked from the public eye."
Did the list von Brunn posted inspire Schilling's WND article?
(Note: Von Brunn's post lacks the racist, anti-Semitic tone found on other von Brunn writings, so we doubt that he was the author -- he was likely repeating some email spam. Still, that would mean WND is getting its story ideas from email spam. Is that any way to run a "news" organization?)
Molotov Mitchell: Tiller Died In 'Fourth-Trimester Abortion' Topic: WorldNetDaily
In his June 10 WorldNetDaily video, Molotov Mitchell appears to endorse the killing of abortion doctor George Tiller, asserting he "killed babies for money" and claiming: "Two weeks ago, George Tiller was killed in a fourth-trimester abortion, a lethal lead injection."
Mitchell also said: "You can't call someone a racist just because they disagree with you." But isn't that exactly what Mitchell did to Sonia Sotomayor last week?
In a June 9 NewsBusters post, Tom Blumer criticizes President Obama's use of the term "create or save jobs" by embracing a Wall Street Journal op-ed by former George W. Bush speechwriter William McGurn. Blumer dutifully cut-and-pasted McGurn's quoting of former Bush communications aide Tony Fratto's claim that "We would never have used a formula like 'save or create.'"
Nowhere does Blumer mention that Fratto's claim is false -- as Media Matters notes, the Bush administration did make use of the "save or create" formula.
Ah, but such shoddy work is what we've come to expect from Blumer, isn't it?
Speaking of shoddy blogging from Blumer, Sadly, No! reports that a Blumer post attacking the media for not noting that acounty prosecutor in Florida for allegedly harrassing a pizza delivery woman was not a Democrat 1) ignored that the prosecutor in question was a career employee, not an elected official, and 2) failed to offer any proof that the prosecutor was, in fact, a Democrat. Blumer's post was deleted by NewsBusters without explanation or apology.
Meanwhile, here's a Google cache of the same post at Blumer's BizzyBlog, where we could also find no evidence of an explanation or apology.
AIM's Kline Confuses Critical Thinking, Partisan Attacks Topic: Accuracy in Media
Accuracy in Academia's Malcolm Kline asserts in a June 9 Accuracy in Media column: "Critical thinking seems to have eluded the media and academic elites in their mostly gushing reaction to the President's speech on the Middle East, given in Cairo. Fortunately, the people who really know something about the issues involved are attempting to fill the void." But the people Kline calls upon to "fill the void" -- that is, to attack Obama -- have their own problems, and Kline offers no evidence that they "really know something about the issues involved."
Kline first cites Frank Gaffney, who complains that "There was not one reference to terrorism, let alone Islamic terrorism." At no point do Kline or Gaffney acknowledge that Obama made numerous references to "violent extremism," let alone explain why that is not a reference to terrorism.
Gaffney stated that Obama "referred four times in his speech to 'the Holy Koran,'" adding, "It seems unimaginable that he ever would ever use the adjective to describe the Bible or the Book of Mormon." In fact, Obama did reference the "Holy Bible" during his speech.
Kline and Gaffney also take Obama out of context, highlighting Obama's statement that "I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear" but failing to note what Obama said immediately after that:
But that same principle must apply to Muslim perceptions of America. (Applause.) Just as Muslims do not fit a crude stereotype, America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire. The United States has been one of the greatest sources of progress that the world has ever known. We were born out of revolution against an empire. We were founded upon the ideal that all are created equal, and we have shed blood and struggled for centuries to give meaning to those words -- within our borders, and around the world. We are shaped by every culture, drawn from every end of the Earth, and dedicated to a simple concept: E pluribus unum -- "Out of many, one."
Further, Kline fails to mention a separate attack by Gaffney on Obama that calls his so-called expertise into question and highlights the partisan nature of his critique. In a June 9 Washington Times column -- reprinted by Newsmax -- Gaffney wrote:
During his White House years, William Jefferson Clinton -- someone Judge Sonia Sotomayor might call a "white male" -- was dubbed "America's first black president" by a black admirer. Applying the standard of identity politics and pandering to a special interest that earned Mr. Clinton that distinction, Barack Hussein Obama would have to be considered America's first Muslim president.
This is not to say, necessarily, that Mr. Obama actually is a Muslim any more than Mr. Clinton actually is black. After his five months in office, and most especially after his just-concluded visit to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, however, a stunning conclusion seems increasingly plausible: The man now happy to have his Islamic-rooted middle name featured prominently has engaged in the most consequential bait-and-switch since Adolf Hitler duped Neville Chamberlain over Czechoslovakia at Munich.
[...]
In the final analysis, it may be beside the point whether Mr. Obama actually is a Muslim. In the Speech and elsewhere, he has aligned himself with adherents to what authoritative Islam calls Shariah -- notably, the dangerous global movement known as the Muslim Brotherhood -- to a degree that makes Mr. Clinton's fabled affinity for blacks pale by comparison.
Kline's other so-called expert is Jim Kouri, whom he describes only as "vice president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police." Kline, who presents Kouri as someone with expertise on the Quran, offers no evidence that Kouri is among "the people who really know something about the issues involved." Indeed, as we've detailed, Kouri is an Obama-hater who has made numerous unsupported attacks against the president; Kouri has also mounted a bizarre defense of the Branch Davidians.
Kline's selective quoting of Kouri conveniently hides the screed-like nature of the rant from which Kline is quoting. Unmentioned is Kouri's assertion that Obama "needs to be educated about Islamofascism, terrorism, and religous radicalism," his reference to "the sycophants who call themselves reporters," and his utterly unsupported claim that "I've heard some liberal-left newsman on a radio show say that Israel was engaged in 'state terrorism' against the Lebanese people."
Your Phil Brennan Bamboozlement of the Day Topic: Newsmax
Phil Brennan asserts in his June 9 Newsmax column that the Earth is "demonstrably cooling." As we've pointed out in Brennan's previous attempts to peddle this claim, the 11 warmest years on record occurred in the past 13 years, and most scientists believe the Earth remains in a warming trend.
Brennan also criticizes efforts to reduce "atmospheric levels of CO2 in the absurd belief that this benign gas necessary for plant health somehow causes global warming." In fact, as we've also noted, no one is claiming that carbon dioxide, in and of itself, is a pollutant, as Brennan suggests. Rather, scientists argue that excessive levels of CO2 in the atmosphere can have a polluting effect.
New Article: Keeping Up Appearances Topic: WorldNetDaily
To avoid harming the anti-abortion agenda, WorldNetDaily and CNS would rather that its readers not know certain things regarding the death of George Tiller, such as Randall Terry's reaction to it and the alleged killer's ties to Operation Rescue. Read more >>
