Accuracy in Media Gets Lazy Topic: Accuracy in Media
It seems that the egregiously false Accuracy in Media blog post attacking Kevin Jennings -- which AIM later removed then apologized for, followed by another attempt to smear him -- may be just the tip of the laziness iceberg over there. Cliff Kincaid writes in a January 4 AIM Report:
I DON'T WATCH THE SHOW, BUT IT HAS BEEN BROUGHT TO MY ATTENTION THAT LESBIAN commentator Rachel Maddow of MSNBC devoted time and attention to the hanging death of a census worker in rural Kentucky with the word "fed" marked on his chest. Maddow thought this was a murder carried out by conservatives opposed to the federal government and inspired by conservatives in the media. Time magazine agreed, running an article claiming that, "The discovery of the body of Bill Sparkman, 51, a substitute teacher and a field worker for the bureau, comes at a time when talk media, tea parties and white-hot town-hall meetings have fanned antigovernment sentiment." Faiz Shakir of the Soros-funded Center for American Progress called it a "gruesome lynching" and tried to blame it on conservative Rep. Michelle Bachman, who had been critical of the Census. It turned out to be a suicide made up to look like a homicide for insurance purposes. It was a personal matter and had absolutely nothing to do with conservatives. Please send Maddow a postcard asking for an apology.
Read that again. Kincaid wants his minions to demand an apology from Maddow, even though he can't be bothered to watch her show and, thus, cannot explain exactly what she should apologize for.
If Kincaid had watched Maddow's show, he would know that while Maddow did cover the Sparkman case when it happened, the show also reported that Sparkman's death was ruled a suicide.
Also note that Kincaid apparently still can't get over the fact that Maddow is a lesbian, as evidenced by his need to identify her as a "lesbian commentator." He has previously described her as "a lesbian with hair so short that she looks like a man."
If Kincaid wants apologies, he might want to start by offering his own. To cite a couple recent non-Jennings-related examples, there's AIM's repetition of the false claim that less than 10 percent of Obama cabinet appointees have private-sector experience, or Kincaid's own sleazy smear of Ted Kennedy, that he "left a party, probably a drunken orgy, with this poor girl [Mary Jo Kopechne]."
CNS' Starr Launches Another Anti-Abortion Attack Topic: CNSNews.com
Penny Starr managed to avoid calling someone a baby-killer this time, but her anti-abortion bias was clearly evident in her Jan. 4 CNSNews.com article on a poll on the website of "pro-abortion group NARAL Pro-Choice America" to name "the person who has done the most for their movement."
As her description of NARAL suggests, Starr made frequent use of the pejorative and inaccurate term "pro-abortion," while using the euphemistic term "pro-life" to describe her side of the issue.
Starr went on to perform the usual right-wing whitewash of the murder of abortion doctor George Tiller, claiming he "was shot by a man known to have mental problems in May." As we've previously noted, Roeder's alleged mental illness has been cited by others, including WorldNetDaily, as a way to distance the anti-abortion movement from any culpability in Tiller's death.
Starr offered no evidence to support her claim. CNS' own reporting on Tiller's murder is scant; the only references at CNS to Roeder's alleged "mental problems" are passingreferences in AP articles, and no original CNS articles have addressed it.
Starr went on to uncritically quote Operation Rescue president Troy Newman commenting on the NARAL vote, failing to mention his group's ties to Roeder -- an Operation Rescue official helped Roeder track court dates for Tiller.
Another Reality-Defying 'Operation Spike' List From WND Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's long history of defying reality and fudging facts in its annual list of "underreported stories" continues with its offerings for 2009.
On first place on WND's list is "Overwhelming evidence the Fort Hood mass murderer was an Islamic terrorist acting as part of a larger, radical Islamic movement bent on infiltrating, subverting and ultimately conquering the U.S." In fact, WND offers no "overwhelming evidence," citing only a relationship with a radical former imam at a Virginia mosque.
Of course, "Obama's constitutional eligibility to be president" is on the list, despite WND's history of fraudulent reporting on the issue. "WND has reported dozens of legal challenges," it continues, even though WND could win one of its own "Operation Spike" awards for its longtime suppression of birther lawyer Orly Taitz's shoddy work.
WND also repeats a misleading claim that "Obama has spent at least $1.7 million to ward off all requests for his documentation." In fact, that money was paid to a law firm, and WND, in the documentation it has provided to back up the claim, offers no evidence that all of the money went to "ward off all requests for his documentation."
In its entry on "The true impact on the U.S. and world economies of cap-and-trade, should it become law," WND noted "the opinion of 31,478 scientists, including more than 9,000 Ph.D.s, who agree humans have nothing to do with any "global warming," if such even exists." But as we've noted, many of the "scientists" and "Ph.D.s" on the list are not trained in disciplines related to climate science, making the value of such a petition dubious at best.
Under the entry of "The true cause of the subprime meltdown that led to the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression," WND writes:
ACORN has a long history of urging lenders to extend home mortgages to subprime borrowers. In the 1980s, the group pushed charges that the home lending practices of banks amounted to "red-lining" in violation of the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act.
In 1994, Obama, a graduate of Harvard Law School then fresh from his Project Vote! experience, represented ACORN in a case in which the organization pressured Citibank to make more loans to marginally qualified African-American applicants "in a race neutral way."
Infact, most of the subprime lending over the past decade was done by institutions not subject to the Community Reinvestment Act. Further, regarding the Citibank lawsuit, Obama was a junior member of an eight-lawyer team that worked on the case. The lawsuit did not "pressure Citibank to make more loans to marginally qualified African-American applicants"; according to the lawsuit, it charged that Citibank "rejected loan applications of minority applicants while approving loan applications filed by white applicants with similar financial characteristics and credit histories."
WND also referenced "The exposure of ACORN's criminality by a freelance undercover probe," citing "Two young enterprising journalists, Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe." Unmentioned : the fact that many of the claims of "criminality" made by O'Keefe and Giles and their handler, Andrew Breitbart, simply aren't supported by the selectively edited videos they have released.
I keep asking myself the same haunting question: How on earth did this community organizer ever become president of the greatest country in the world?
Am I the only one who feels this way?
[...]
By 2012 America will have looked back at the election of 2008 and will wish Sarah Palin had been at the helm. She has more experience in leadership in her bra strap than Obama in his entire empty suit.
Hirsen Silent on One Particular Doctor-Shopping Case Topic: Newsmax
A Dec. 29 Newsmax item by James Hirsen stated that "the unpleasant subject of celebrity doctor shopping has once again been highlighted" due to the death of actress Brittany Murphy, adding that "Anna Nicole Smith, Heath Ledger, Michael Jackson and Murphy were able to obtain a multitude of dangerous prescription drugs, revealing an apparent failure and inconsistency in the law."
Hirsen conspicuously leaves one famous name off his list: Rush Limbaugh.
Limbaugh was arrested on a charge of doctor-shopping for painkillers in Florida in 2006; he reached an agreement with prosecutors in which the charges were dropped on the condition that Limbaugh attend a treatment program and pay court costs.
We previously noted Brent Bozell's hypocrisy in bashing celebrities who issue political opinions while providing space for at least two celebrities on his NewsBusters blog.But there's sonmething else worth noting out of that same Newsmax article in which he engaged in celebrity-bashing.
After noting Ed Schultz's statement that Republicans "want to see you dead. They'd rather make money off your dead corpse," Bozell declared it "the most hideous of character assassination attacks, saying we want to kill people, and literally saying it. We want to see them dead." He added: "Just think what would happen if Rush Limbaugh went on the air and said that about a liberal. It would be the end of his career."
As it so happens, Limbaugh has made numerous such statements. And lst time we checked, his career has been going along just fine.
Bozell and the MRC have longserved as an uncritical defender of Limbaugh.
Ellis Washington Derangement Syndrome Watch Topic: WorldNetDaily
Since the end of World War II, I contend that we have an even more wicked, incorrigible enemy that Western civilization must fight, but unlike Hitler's conspicuous legions of Brownshirts and SS shock troops goose-stepping in front of the Reichstag, this enemy of modern times, this Liberal-Muslim Axis has as its greatest weapon deception, lies and Machiavellian tactics. They hide in the halls of Congress, the White House, the courts, behind 501(c)(3) organizations.
[...]
Liberalism and Islam are essential mirror images of one another whose end worships power and control above all else. Liberalism is a political philosophy that over the past 300 years has morphed into a pagan cult-like religion of death, exerting absolute political hegemony and societal domination. As a religion, liberalism can move and function in ways that other bona fide religions (Judaism, Christianity) could never venture while at the same time wielding dictatorial political power over virtually the entire world.
[...]
Since the 1860s and the advent of the scientific cult of Darwinian evolution (so essential to the Liberal-Muslim Axis), the Judeo-Christian traditions found in Natural Law philosophy have been meticulously removed from the rule of law. Under perverse notions of fairness, equality, egalitarianism (which is an equality of results), President Obama and his homeland security secretary, Janet Napolitano, as well as their equivalents across the world, force law-abiding citizens to undergo increasingly invasive procedures to board a plane. Every time a Muslim attempts or commits a terrorist attack on an airplane the Liberal-Muslim Axis therefore places more laws on our backs.
Only courageous patriots can ultimately defeat this diabolical Liberal-Muslim Axis. Let us start this New Year with this strategy as our aspiration. Let all red-blooded Americans endeavor to make the Democratic Party into the Whig Party of the 21st century and begin to terrify the terrorists before they lift a hand against our wonderful country.
WorldNetDaily has a long history of anti-gay animus -- typified in the past couple weeks alone by endorsing the execution of gays and expressing shock at the mere idea that that conservatives might be within close proximity to gay people -- continues with its latest fear-mongering adventure.
A Jan. 1 WND article by Bob Unruh repeats a right-wing group's complaint that "slaying of a homosexual man by a same-sex-marriage advocate is being suppressed from media lists of the top news stories of 2009 in Maine." Unruh uncritically repeats claims by the group that "it is almost certain that the shooter and the victim were engaged in debauchery during the evening" and that the alleged shooter "as a member of Portland's Harbor Masters homosexual leather club, a group dedicated to the practice of sadomasochism." The alleged shooter "and his partner, Buck, were testifying in favor of legalizing homosexual marriage in Maine" four days after the shooting incident, Unruh reported.
Unruh goes on to add that "This case of homosexual-related crimes being ignored by the national media is hardly unique." That's a rich claim given WND's own history of ignoring facts that don't mesh with its right-wing, anti-Obama ideology -- most notably Orly Taitz's record of shoddylawyering.
This story was followed by a column by Joseph Farah -- who has his ownhistory of anti-gay freak-outs -- on the subject, in which he suggests that the Mainecase is an argument against gay marriage. He continues:
Well, I have a feeling that if the shoe were on the other foot, a case like this would have received much more national media attention.
Let me give you a hypothetical example.
Let's pretend that it was a married Christian who got up and made the impassioned plea against same-sex marriage. It later turned out he had killed a prostitute with whom he was cavorting in a stupor induced by the use of drugs and alcohol.
Of course, that's a flawed example. The preceding offense is much different -- prostituion is illegal; possession of a gun is not. Further, the offense is less tangentally related to marriage than the Maine shooting. The "married Christian" is showing massive hypocrisy by dallying with prostitutes; neither Farah nor WND offer evidence that the alleged Maine shooter was in a sexual relationship with the man he shot, or that the victim was a prostitute.
That the shooter belonged to, in Farah's words, "a local homosexual sadomasochistic leather club" is utterly irrelevant, since sadomasochism is hardly limited to homosexuals, nor is it illegal.
Newsmax Repeats False White House Visit Claim Topic: Newsmax
A Dec. 31 Newsmax article by John Rossomando states that "White House records show that ACORN CEO Bertha E. Lewis visited him in the White House in early September," citing "Andrew Breitbart’s blog BigGovernment.com."
Only, not so much.
As Politico has reported, the Bertha Lewis who visited the White House is not the one who heads ACORN, whose middle initial is M, not E. Further, as Media Matters adds, more than 100 Bertha Lewises show up in a WhitePages.com serach.
Perhaps Rossomando shouldn't be treating every single thing Breitbart reports as gospel truth.
In his Jan. 1 WorldNetDaily column, Robert Ringer describes Saul Alinsky this way: "Like all crusade leaders, he clearly had a huge ego – an ego that made him comfortable in the role of arbiter of right and wrong." This is clearly not a criticism of the man, because Ringer exercises his own ego in declaring himself moral arbiter over Alinsky and Barack Obama.
Just two paragraphs after making that statement, Ringer pronounces his judgment in "psychoanalyzing Saul Alinsky," declaring him to be "a man in search of a cause ... in search of a following to carry on an ill-defined campaign against the power elite."
That's followed up by once again declaring Obama "soulless," adding: "In Obama, I see no laughter, no beauty, no love, and no creativity." What is his evidence for this claim? What empirical basis does he use to declare this? Who knows? He feels no need to share what, if any, standards he's using with his readers.
In other words, it seems that Ringer is on nothing more than an ego trip, using his column at an extremist website and his alleged status as, according to his end-of-column bio, "author of three No. 1 best-sellers, including two books listed by the New York Times among the 15 best-selling motivational books of all time" as a shield around hisvicioushatred of Obama.
Even the name of his column, "A Voice of Sanity," is increasingly delusional -- after all, isn't it the crazy ones who keep insisting that they're sane?
Bozell's Double Standard on Celebrities' Politcal Opinions Topic: Media Research Center
The MRC's Brent Bozell promoted his organization's list of insuffiently conservative quotes of the year in a Dec. 31 Newsmax interview, keeping up the ruse that a blog post by a non-reporter working for a non-news organization -- winner of the MRC's top award -- constitutes "reporting."
As we've detailed, the selection of this quote is more about the MRC's near-pathological hatred of Ted Kennedy than its stated goal of exposing "the year's worst reporting."
But Bozell also made this statement about insufficiently conservative statements by celebrities: "This is why you listen to these people from Hollywood and you tell them they really need to stick to memorizing their lines and repeating their lines. Don’t use that mind of yours. Don’t exercise that brain muscle, because you tend to make a fool out of yourself."
If Bozell is so opposed to celebrities expressing political opinions, why does his NewsBusters blog include in its roster of bloggers Pat Boone and Charlie Daniels?
Is Frank Rosenbloom taking secret liberties with the prescription medications he has access to as a medical doctor? That's the only explanation we can think of for his Jan. 1 WorldNetDaily column, in which he embarks on a wild anti-Obama fantasia:
It's Jan. 20, 2017, and we are gathered together in a small house on the edge of a lake in Eastern Texas. We comprise multiple families and by occupation include former college professors, lawyers and physicians. All of us are conservative, forced to withdraw from our professions and seek refuge in an out-of-the-way place in a red state. Three months ago, we refused to sign the required pledge to abide by the "Freedom of Choice" law, which mandates the promotion of abortion, homosexuality and other anti-Judeo-Christian acts.
All eyes are glued to NBC News, the sole remaining newscast, for coverage of the inauguration of President Barack Hussein Obama for his third term in office. In 2015, both houses of Congress voted to abolish presidential term limits. No amendment to the Constitution was needed, they argued, as it had become irrelevant in a "real democracy." Challenges to the new law were struck down by the Supreme Court, with Chief Justice Michelle Obama stating: "The people have spoken."
Important speakers at the event included Prime Minister Nancy Pelosi. She was recently elevated to her new position for a 10-year term by presidential order. Pro-Consul Harry Reid, lifetime Senate leader, and Vice President and Propaganda Minister Joe Biden also spoke.
The new Chinese premier, Chew Us Up, spoke for over one hour, praising President Obama for inviting China to share the naval base at Pearl Harbor following their successful retaking of Taiwan. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez lauded Mr. Obama for his efforts to promote socialism. Chavez and his wife will be vacationing with President Obama and Chief Justice Michelle Obama in Australia after the inevitable fall of that isolated nation to the ongoing Chinese naval blockade. He also noted the recent Chinese occupation of Mongolia as a major step toward relieving the pressure of overpopulation in his country.
[...]
When states went bankrupt, the federal government seized control with the help of Mr. Obama's civilian domestic security force, The Acorn Brigade, also known as the "Nut Squad." In exchange for federal bailouts, the states had to relinquish all states' rights. Mr. Obama redistributed the property repossessed by the states to previously illegal immigrants and the poor. This, along with government-funded free health care, ensured that one party rule would continue indefinitely.
Conservatives predicted that it would happen, but the warnings fell on mostly deaf ears. Now, as many former supporters of Mr. Obama suffer the same fate, they realize, much too late, the consequences of ignoring history.
Dec. 24, 2009: the night the U.S. died, a day that will live in infamy; it will be viewed by future generations as the darkest day in world history. The names of the perpetrators of the death of freedom for the entire world, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid,will be remembered, alongside those of earlier tyrants, for all time.
We don't know what to say. Is there a doctor in the house to talk Rosenbloom down from his bad trip?
Ponte: 'Unionization Often Leads to Violence' Topic: Newsmax
Lowell Ponte writes in his Dec. 30 Newsmax column as an argument for not allowing Transportation Safety Administration employees to join a union:
Unionization often leads to violence. Ask the black conservative who was severely beaten in St. Louis a few months ago by goons of the Service Employees International Union or the anti-Democrat protesters Teamsters thugs beat in Philadelphia.
Choosing Kenneth Gladney, the "black conservative who was severely beaten," may not have been Ponte's best example, since the evidence Gladney was "severely beaten" is dubious at best.
We're not sure what Ponte is referring to regarding the "anti-Democrat protesters Teamsters thugs beat in Philadelphia," but it appears to be a 1998 incident involving anti-Clinton protesters; years of Judicial Watch-fueled litigation resulted in a settlement in which, apparently, the Teamsters paid an undisclosed sum to the protesters and did not admit any wrongdoing.
Two incidents a decade apart, which did not involve unionization, are evidence that "Unionization often leads to violence"? To Ponte it is. And isn't a significant amount of unionization-related violence instigated by the employer who's fighting unionization and not the union?
WND Still Waging Losing Battle Against Wikipedia Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily has long waged battle against Wikipedia, a battle marked by a serious misunderstanding on WND's part about how Wikipedia works.
That fundamental misunderstanding continues in a Dec. 30 article by Chelsea Schilling detailing all the upsetting things that have been posted about WND and editor Joseph Farah on their respective Wikipedia pages.Schilling describes it as a "Wikipedia campaign of hurling smears at WND's founder, Joseph Farah." One of those claims is that Farah was called a "noted homosexual" -- and we know how touchy Farah is about anything regarding Teh Gay. (But Farah's anti-gay paranoia didn't keep WND from publishing Molotov Mitchell's gay-baiting smear, did it?)
There is, however, one little hitch to Farah's pending litigiousness: There's no evidence of the existence of a "Wikipedia campaign" against Farah or WND. Wikipedia users -- not any official operator of Wikipedia -- are the ones who made those changes and, therefore, should be the primary target of a libel lawsuit.
Nevertheless, Farah comments further: "Wikipedia has now demonstrated a long pattern of defamatory attacks on me and my work. We are very close, I believe, to being able to make a strong libel case against this phony 'free encyclopedia' viewed by hundreds of millions of people." Again, Farah should be directing his ire at those users, not Wikipedia itself.
the funny thing is, WND has previously defended such behavior. A June 16 article by Bob Unruh complained that a federal prosecutor, citing death threats, was seeking "newspaper readers who participated in a forum about a tax protest case" -- even highlighting an ACLU chapter's statement that it "always fought for the fundamental right to engage in anonymous political speech and we want to protect the rights of anonymous commenters."
Really, what those anonymous Wikipedia editors are doing is nothing more than political speech protected by the First Amendment. If newspaper commenters -- and death threat-hurling WND commenters -- are protected, why not Wikipedia? If Wikipedia is to be held responsible for the actions of its commenters, shouldn't WND be getting a visit from the Secret Service right about now?
Farah has no libel case because he has no evidence that Wikipedia itself or anyone directly employed by it has a policy of deliberately or recklessly maligning WND or Farah -- unlike, say, the case Clark Jones had against WND, which WND abruptly settled after seven years of litigation.
Further, the fact that WND lies about or libels people -- mostlyPresidentObama, but the list of WND's victims includes us as well -- seemingly on a daily basis also pretty much negates any whining about libel by WND, not to mention highlights the rank hypocrisy of WND's little anti-Wikipedia jihad.
Whether the individual far-left zealot in America is stupid, deluded or evil, the end game shall play out in the same manner: It will result in a society in which an unproductive, mediocre, larcenous few squeeze everyone else for their profit and pleasure.
Our current president is one of those few. This is indeed sad, for, in addition to the groundbreaking nature of his presidency, Barack Obama is obviously a gifted man. He could have actually accomplished something meaningful with his life; instead, he has dedicated that life – from early on, mind you – to destroying the greatest nation, and people, that has ever come along.
Can you think of a greater evil?
[...]
I do not advocate extreme measures. However, if Americans who have recently become aware of how deeply imperiled we are, and those who shortly will be, do not dedicate themselves to utterly disenfranchising the political left over the next five to 10 years, they will, in a very short time, become impossible to extricate without the expenditure of force, blood and lives.
