ConWebBlog: The Weblog of ConWebWatch

your New Media watchdog

ConWebWatch: home | archive/search | about | primer | shop

Thursday, January 14, 2010
CNS Gives Alveda King Unchallenged Platform to Spread Bile
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNSNews.com's Fred Lucas devotes an entire Jan. 12 article to the rantings of anti-abortion activist Alveda King, who radically distorts Harry Reid's controversial comments about Barack Obama:

“I don’t care who said it,” she told CNSNews.com. “It doesn’t matter to me. It’s still wrong. It’s outrageous to say that we are going to let a man have a position because he is light-skinned and he uses a Negro dialect when it is convenient.
 
“I think that’s terrible,” she said. “What he’s really saying is, ‘Now we have a White House Negro.’

[...]

“I believe Sen. Reid’s apology was a good place to start,” King said. “If he really means what he’s saying, he needs to take eugenics and genocide abortion funding out of all legislation in Washington, D.C. A lip service apology is simply that. But if his actions mean, ‘I’m not a racist, I really want to help African Americans,’ he could start by making sure that no more of us are killed through legislation that is going to pay for genocide.”

Lucas permits no one to respond to King's outrageously offensive interpretations or counter her even more extreme (not to mention unsupported) claim that health care reform is "eugenics" and "genocide." This fits in with CNS' longtime pattern of uncritically presenting right-wing views while progressive views rarely stand unchallenged. It seems that CNS' mission statement to "fairly present all legitimate sides of a story" is no longer operative.

As CNS has done before, he also refers to her as "Dr. Alveda King" even though her doctorate is not earned -- it's honorary.


Posted by Terry K. at 10:25 AM EST
Kathy Shaidle, Gay-Basher
Topic: Horowitz

Kathy Shaidle not only is a blogger for NewsReal, where she remains unable to comprehend the simple fact that George Soros does not fund Media Matters, she also writes a weekly column summarizing talk radio for WorldNetDaily.

WND seems to be an appropriate home for her since they both share an interest in gay-bashing.

Her personal Five Feet of Fury blog currently hosts an ad for a subsidy-published book written by a "nuclear submarine force engineer" who insists that homosexuality is a "sexual dysfunction." (And really, who better to analyze the issue of sexuality than an engineer?)

Actually, that's a relatively minor offense -- blogging doesn't pay so any ad revenue is generally tolerated, right-wingers like Shaidle (and, presumably, her readers) eat these books up, and an obsession with homosexuality seems right up her alley.

Here's a post outlining her response to a story that a claim of a playwright ("who still hasn't died of AIDS for some reason") that Abraham Lincoln was gay was made up to "raise awareness": "Dear gays: this is why people hate you."

And here's another one tastefully responding to a British education official named Ed Balls who, after police were called on an 11-year-old for calling a classmate "gay," said that "Even casual use of homophobic language in schools can create an atmosphere that isolates young people and can be the forerunner of more serious forms of bullying."

Shaidle's bon mot: "Not like sending four cops to some kid's house, you dumb fag!" And her headline: "Bullied as a child for obvious reasons, Mr. Balls takes it out on little kids."

So, was Shaidle bullied as a child? Or was she the bullier? We somehow suspect the latter.

WND obviously has no problem with such gay-bashing. But what about the Horowitz empire, which operates NewsReal? After all, managing editor David Swindle insists that commenters refrain from "Abusive, Ad Hominem, Overly Mean-Spirited" comments and "Hyperbolic Nazi References" -- though, as we've noted, that doesn't seem to apply to NewsReal's bloggers.

We predict Shaidle will get to keep her NewsReal job, as long as she keeps her overt homophobia confined to her personal blog (covert homophobia, we suspect, is mostly tolerated). After all, she does serve as NewsReal's reliable (if not coherent or factually accurate) basher of our employer, and that seems to be good enough for the Horowitz folks.


Posted by Terry K. at 2:16 AM EST
Knight Doesn't Quite Condemn Execution of Gays in Uganda
Topic: WorldNetDaily

A Jan. 13 WorldNetDaily column by Robert Knight of Coral Ridge Ministries runs to the defense of anti-gay preachers who were caught spreading their anti-gay hatred in Uganda, which has led to a law permitting the execution of homosexuals. But it's more what Knight doesn't say than what he does.

Knight insists that Scott Lively and his companions are "honest and courageous men who, out of Christian compassion, dare to tell the truth about homosexuality," and that a New York Times editorial calling them out for helping to "feed this hatred" in Uganda contains "wild, unsubstantiated charges; villains; hysterical calls for action; and a smug, holier-than-thou tone that would put 'Saturday Night Live''s Church Lady to shame."

In fact, the editorial does back up its claims -- a companion Times article (unmentioned by Knight) detailing how Lively and Co., in their Uganda visit, "discussed how to make gay people straight, how gay men often sodomized teenage boys and how 'the gay movement is an evil institution' whose goal is 'to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity.'"

The Times, Knight asserts, "ignores the Christian men's pointed criticisms of the proposed Uganda law." He goes on to rant that there are "militant gay activists in the newsrooms." Knight continues:

The current homosexuality bill is seriously flawed. It contains such overreaches as jail terms for people who do not report homosexual activity and life imprisonment for people who engage in the behavior. But the Times and the Post go beyond criticizing the harsher aspects of the law and attack the underlying concern of Ugandans to defend marriage and family, avoid the corruption of their children and put the brakes on AIDS and other diseases.

Missing from Knight's column: any mention of the fact that the bill would permit the death penalty for homosexual behavior. Also missing: any condemnation of that. Life sentences are "overreaches," but the death penalty isn't?

Knight concludes by complaining that the media "outinely depict pro-marriage Americans as motivated solely by hatred and prejudice, never by genuine, heartfelt concerns." How is condoning the death penalty for sexual behavior you don't like, as Knight appears to be doing, be seen as "heartfelt"?


Posted by Terry K. at 1:50 AM EST
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
New Article -- 2010 Slanties: Call It The Slant-E
Topic: The ConWeb
Who's at the top of the ConWeb heap of biased reporting and outrageous statements? We've picked the winners. Read more >>

Posted by Terry K. at 1:57 PM EST
Is Newsmax Trying to Tell Us Something?
Topic: Newsmax

From the nameplate banner on Newsmax's front page just a few minutes ago:


Posted by Terry K. at 1:40 PM EST
WND Double Standard Watch
Topic: WorldNetDaily

A Jan. 11 WorldNetDaily article by Michael Carl describes a manslaughter case in Maine as exemplifying "the violence of the homosexual lifestyle."

It's worth noting, however, WND failed to describe the case of a homeschooling family in which corporal and sexual abuse occurred as exemplifying "the violence of the homeschooling lifestyle" -- indeed, WND portrayed the family as victims of state persecution while whitewashing the abuse.


Posted by Terry K. at 11:37 AM EST
Will Farah Demand Tea Party Convention Be Open to Reporters?
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Joseph Farah and WorldNetDaily made a minor ruckus over being denied press credentials for the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen (despite Farah's refusal to acknowledge the U.N.'s right to exist and desire to see it destroyed).

Will Farah demand the same openness from an organizaiton to which he's speaking?

As we've noted, Farah is trying to ride Sarah Palin's coattails by becoming a speaker, like Palin, at the upcoming Tea Party Naiton convention. But as the Washington Independent reports, reporters have largely been prohibited from covering the convention, and only "selected" members of the press will be allowed.

Will Farah allow his speech to be covered by the press? Hard to say -- despite his professed support for openness when WND wants to report on it, Farah's own record of transparency is less than steller. We've detailed Farah's 2007 participatation in a meeting of the Council for National Policy, a secretive right-wing group. Despite reporters being essentially barred from the meeting, WND published an article on news from the conference, which we must assume was cldeared with CNP officials before publication -- a huge ethical no-no for journalists.

Farah loves his journalistic freedom -- but only when it suits him. He has no problem acquiescing to secrecy when that suits his partisan agenda.

Does Farah have the moral conscience to demand that the tea party conference he's speaking at allow reporters to cover it -- or to lodge a public protest or even refuse to participate if it doesn't? History suggests he does not.


Posted by Terry K. at 10:09 AM EST
Meanwhile ...
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Newsweek demolishes the web of conspiratorial falsehoods woven by Chuck Norris in his Jan. 10 WorldNetDaily column about President Obama's executive order extending certain "privileges, exemptions, and immunities" to Interpol.

In his column, Norris bizarrely claims that "Interpol will become Obama's secret vault for terrorists' criminal records and evidence – and whatever else he and his Cabinet want to place in there," such as "his original, long-form birth certificate."


Posted by Terry K. at 1:21 AM EST
Even Molotov Knows His Humor Video Sucks
Topic: WorldNetDaily

When your "comedy" video is more notable for being hateful and homophobic than funny, you've got a problem. And so Molotov Mitchell minion D.J. Dolce keeps up the hateful "humor" in her latest WorldNetDaily video:

Randall Terry has recently called for the burning of effigies of health care marauders Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama. This is not to be confused with Molotov Mitchell's call for the actual burning of Pelosi, Reid and Obama.

In related news, an effigy of Obama was found hanging in Plains, Georgia. Secret Service are going to have their hands full as half the country are suspects. OK, OK, three-fourths of the country are suspects.

[...]

In Uganda, legislators are poised to pass a new law that could criminalize homosexuality, and the author of the bill has received written death threats. In an attempt to keep things civil, Obama has asked Lindsey Graham to, quote, cut it out before someone gets hurt.

No, that's funny! Becuase Lindsey Graham is secretly gay.

(Mitchell, you'll recall, has endorsed the law, which goes well beyond criminalizing homosexuality to actually permitting the execution of homosexuals.)

Even the canned laughter is rebelling against it. At one point an off-camera voice shouts, "That's not funny!" -- which tells us that even Mitchell and Dolce have a good idea just how painfully lame this exercise is.

But then, it's not about the funny -- it's about the hate.


Posted by Terry K. at 12:47 AM EST
Updated: Wednesday, January 13, 2010 12:50 AM EST
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Newsmax Removes Geller's Anti-Obama Screed (One of Them, Anyway)
Topic: Newsmax

Last month, we predicted that Pamela Geller would be the next Newsmax columnist to go too far -- following in the footsteps of John L. Perry and Pat Boone -- resulting in Newsmax quitely deleting one of her offensive screeds.

Looks like it's already happenened.

We noted that in a Nov. 17 column, Geller asserted that President Obama was "dropping another O-bomb on America with the decision to try the masterminds of the shocking attack of Sept. 11, 2001, in a New York courtroom," going on to assert that "America electing an America-hater for president vanquished our moral authority" and concluding that "As long as he is president, the man will never stop punishing America for being so foolish as to elect him."

But in updating the links to Geller's columns in our article following Newsmax's recent re-indexing of its website, we discovered that the Nov. 17 column has disappeared. Columns are now grouped by month, and Geller's November grouping is missing the one from Nov. 17.

As per usual, Newsmax did not tell its readers the column was removed, let alone explain why.

Interestingly, an Aug. 26 column in which she first asserted that "America electing an America-hater for president vanquished our moral authority" remains live. Also in that column, Geller describes Obama's proposed  "civilian community service corps" as a "stateside army" -- which, as we've previously detailed, is a utter lie.

Looks like Newsmax has more pruning to do in order to eradicate Geller's obsessive Obama hatred.


Posted by Terry K. at 1:35 PM EST
WND Throws Another Tantrum
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Joseph Farah seems to think that Fox News has an obligation to cover whatever silly stuff WorldNetDaily publishes.

Last October, Farah whined becuase Fox wouldn't cover the WND-published anti-CAIR book to his satisfaction, even though the anti-Muslim bias of the book's authors is more than clear to everyone, even Fox. Now WND is taking a more histrionic approach to said whining.

Farah gives it another shot in his Jan. 11 column, this time expressing anger and jealousy that CAIR's Ibrahim Hooper has been on Fox News while he hasn't, suggesting that this is because a Saudi businessman who has donated to CAIR is also an investor in Fox News' parent, News Corp. Because of this, Farah writes, "Fox just isn't the news organization many of you think and hope it is."

Thisis accompanied by an unbylined Jan. 11 article that begins this way:

Long a reliably patriotic media source in the war on terror, Fox News may now be among news outlets who have fallen under the spell of the Council on American-Islamic Relations' propaganda machine.

"We own the media," CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper privately brags, according to a source currently working inside the aggressive Islamist lobby group.

Fox News host Bill O'Reilly last week invited the TV-savvy Hooper on his show to debate passenger profiling, the second guest appearance by the CAIR spokesman in a month. At the end of the segment, O'Reilly thanked Hooper and called him a "stand-up guy," sending shockwaves through the conservative blogosphere.

So it's patriotic to give airtime to Muslim-haters?

Like a 2-year-old, WND likes to throw tantrums when it doesn't get what it wants. That's basically what's happening here.


Posted by Terry K. at 11:52 AM EST
CNS Uncrtically Quotes Reid-Hater Msssie
Topic: CNSNews.com

A Jan. 11 CNSNews.com article by Fred Lucas uncritically quotes Mychal Massie:

Mychal Massie, chairman of the black conservative group Project 21, denounced Reid’s remarks.

“Harry Reid is a loathsome individual whose apology was based on exposure, not repentance,” Massie said in a statement. “Reid's comments are proof positive that the racial animus of the past is alive and prevalent among liberals today, notwithstanding the fact that their standard-bearer is a black man.”

Lucas doesn't mention that Massie has engaged in his own hate speech against Reid, likening him to Bull Connor and Orval Faubus. (and hypocritically denouncing Charlie Rangel for saying "George Bush is our Bull Connor") and claiming that Reid's supposed racisim means "He is simply being true to his inbred familial heritage" as a Mormon.

Most people would say such virulently hateful attacks make Massie unqualifed to offer a reasonable opinion about Reid. Not Fred Lucas.


Posted by Terry K. at 10:57 AM EST
NewsBusters' Double Standard on Bailed-Out Businesses
Topic: NewsBusters

A Jan. 9 NewsBusters post by Noel Sheppard laments the existence of "a campaign started by the far-left website the Huffington Post to get people to pull their money from the larger national banks and deposit their savings into 'smaller, community-oriented financial institutions.'" Sheppard asserts that "an organized run on these banks" could result in "more financial insolvencies, layoffs, and further damage to an already teetering economy." Adds Sheppard: "With ten percent unemployment, and America's banks struggling to get back on their feet, ABC should be ashamed of itself for reporting on this campaign by Huffington and her ilk."

Sheppard omits the full purpose of the campaign: to move money into smaller institutions "that generally avoided the reckless investments and schemes that helped cause the financial crisis."

Which brings us to the hypocrisy part -- while Sheppard wants to save big banks that had to be bailed out, his NewsBusters colleague Tom Blumer has long been rooting for the demise of automakers that accepted a federal bailout.

Indeed, the day before Sheppard's post, Blumer was attacking "Government/General Motors" (such posts are usually accompanied by the graphic shown here) cheering that it was about to lose its long-held title as America's biggest automaker. Blumer snorted that "the company walked away from about $30 billion in debt in the bankruptcy process and waltzed out of bankruptcy court after having received over $50 billion in government aid."

And in a Jan. 11 post, Blumer bashed both GM And Chrysler for "vaguely holding forth on the prospect of reopening previously shuttered production facilities," chortling that the companies' sales don't justify it, and happily noting that Ford, which did not take bailout money, "is stealing the show, in one case on the energy-efficient turf GM and Chrysler that is supposedly going to be their specialty."

NewsBusters needs to explain why it wants bailed-out automakers to die -- which would result in, in Sheppard's words, "financial insolvencies, layoffs, and further damage to an already teetering economy" -- but not bailed-out banks.


Posted by Terry K. at 10:09 AM EST
WND Columnist Still Hates Lesbian Mayor
Topic: WorldNetDaily

We've previously noted WorldNetDaily columnist Dave Welch's revulsion that a lesbian had been elected mayor of Houston, stating, "We let our position on the wall be breached by the enemy." Well, he's still revulsed.

In his Jan. 9 WND column, Welch lashes out at Joel Osteen for giving a prayer at the inauguration of Mayor Annise Parker -- or, more to the point, Osteen's statement that "we thank you just for raising her up":

Every pastor I have heard from agrees Joel crossed the line in declaring that God "raised up" a mayor who denies Him, mocks him through her life and represents a complete perversion of His creation and created order – then thanking Him for doing so. Did God raise up Barack Hussein Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, etc. as well? Proverbs 16:4 tells us that God makes even the wicked for the "day of evil." Commentator Matthew Henry stated:

He makes some use even of wicked men, as of other things, to be his sword, his hand (Psalm 17:13, 14), flagellum Dei – the scourge of God. ("Matthew Henry Unabridged")

I don't think, by the way, this context is what Joel had in mind during his prayer.

It is an important question, because as in all things we must look past surface symptoms to root causes, whether a lesion on the skin that is an external sign of internal cancer or wicked rulers that are political indicators of cancer of the soul among the people.

As he has before, Welch portrayed Parker's election as a moral failing of the citizenry, claiming that the citizens are "choosing governing leaders for selfish, self-serving and immoral or amoral reasons." Welch doesn't mention any of the civic issues that presumably propelled Parker to victory.


Posted by Terry K. at 12:56 AM EST
Monday, January 11, 2010
Advice For NewsBusters
Topic: NewsBusters

Dear Tim Graham: Complaining about Rachel Maddow allegedly mocking "little Todd Tiahrt" and "tiny Todd Tiahrt" might have been a little more effective had it not been preceded by your MRC colleague Brent Baker devoting an entire post to George Stephanopoulos' booster seat.

Just sayin'...


Posted by Terry K. at 3:05 PM EST

Newer | Latest | Older

Bookmark and Share

Get the WorldNetDaily Lies sticker!

Find more neat stuff at the ConWebWatch store!

Buy through this Amazon link and support ConWebWatch!

Support This Site

« January 2010 »
S M T W T F S
1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30
31

Bloggers' Rights at EFF
Support Bloggers' Rights!

News Media Blog Network

Add to Google