A Jan. 17 WorldNetDaily article by Stewart Stogel complains that U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited quake-ravaged Haiti "with a small group of carefully selected and managed journalists."

No mention, howeer, of the small group of carefully selected and managed journalists -- including WND -- that are being allowed to cover the National Tea Party Convention, at which WND editor Joseph Farah is speaking.

Posted by Terry K. at 7:13 PM EST

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Richard Bartholomew catches WorldNetDaily uncritically repeating the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission's list of "the top 10 incidents of anti-Christian defamation, bigotry and discrimination in the U.S. from last year," which includes this example at number 7: "The overt homosexual participation in Obama's presidential inaugural events by 'Bishop' Vickie Eugene Robinson, the Gay Men's Chorus of Washington, D.C., and a homosexual marching band."

And World O'Crap deconstructs a Jan. 16 WND column by Geoffrey Botkin ranting against the existence of the birth control pill.

Posted by Terry K. at 3:03 PM EST

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So, one year to the day of the arrival in D.C. of “The One,” Obama effectively will become a lame duck president. His Obama Revolution will be finished. The Democratic stranglehold on D.C. power will be shattered. The November midterm elections will be a Democratic blood bath.

Obama’s first year has been a case study in misreading why an election was won (the economy, stupid!), followed by another misreading of the public mood (jobs, jobs, jobs!) and then using the “never waste a good crisis” thinking to try to install Far Left, European-style socialism through the White House political and economic agenda.

[...]

America is bouncing from one incompetent president — G.W. Bush — to another — Barack H. Obama.

How long can a great nation survive with the two parties producing such dunderheads?

We better get our act in gear in 2012. Or else.

-- John LeBoutillier, Jan. 18 Newsmax column

Posted by Terry K. at 11:04 AM EST

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It's not every day that a right-wing website attacks the pope, then brags about it. But that's what Accuracy in Media is doing.

A Jan. 12 column by Cliff Kincaid attacked "the global campaign by the Vatican to establish a 'World Political Authority' with 'teeth.'" He adds:

Don't look for Beck, O'Reilly or anybody else in the media to take on Pope Benedict XVI. It is just too controversial. Commentators who question the Vatican run the risk of being labeled anti-Catholic bigots.

Many Catholics, especially of a conservative persuasion, are embarrassed and troubled by what is happening inside their church. But they are mostly reluctant to say anything publicly. The facts, however, speak for themselves, and they are available on the Vatican's own website in the actual words and statements being uttered by the Pope.

[...]

So the Pope wants a strengthened United Nations to constitute a "World Political Authority" that will have the "teeth" to enforce its will on the nations of the world? Will somebody in the media explain why this is not global tyranny? This makes the controversy over Interpol look like peanuts.

This was followed up with a Jan. 13 press release about how Kincaid's column "has generated a lot of reaction," particularly after "Cliff discussed the column during an appearance on G. Gordon Liddy's national radio program." It adds that "Cliff and Gordon are both Catholics."

The press release included "ome of the comments we received in response to Cliff's column," which included comments both supportive and critical, interestingly by people who call themselves "traditional" Catholics, including a rant that "so-called Popes, who have deliberately undermined Catholicism as well as liberty for decades, now feel no compunction about ushering in the age of the anti-Christ, as described in Revelation."

For someone who calls himself a Catholic, Kincaid has engaged in a surprising amount of Catholic-bashing at AIM in recent months, from such things as purported links to ACORN and George Soros to support for health care reform.

Far be it from us to get into a religious debate (we were raised Catholic but are not currently practicing), but if you're publicly dissenting from the pope and the church hierarchy, shouldn't you stop calling yourself a Catholic?

Posted by Terry K. at 12:09 AM EST

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Last week, Financial Times ran a profile (registration required) of Newsmax that its subject loved the heck out of. Given the article's fluffiness on its subject -- for example, quoting Christopher Ruddy likening Newsmax to "a heartland publication" like Reader's Digest -- no wonder.

Being a fluffy profile, Financial Times skips over any evidence that Newsmax has ever been controverisal -- there isn't even a mention of its co-owner, Richard Mellon Scaife. Ruddy is allowed to claim that he " started Newsmax in 1998 with a $25,000 investment to give Americans 'an alternative to the mainstream news, the liberal media in New York and Washington'" without any mention of rabid anti-Clintonism that drove those early years.

There's also no mention of more recent controversies, such as Newsmax being forced to pull a column by John L. Perry for advocating a military coup against President Obama. We're pretty sure Reader's Digest has never advocated a coup against anyone. (And that was far from the only column Newsmax removed in recent months for its extremism.) Nor was there any mention of the spectacular failure of Newsmax's attempted career rehabilitation of Bernard Kerik.

There's also no mention of the virulent anti-Obama strain at Newsmax as personified by columnist like Perry and Pamela Geller, or the anti-immigration attacks of James Walsh -- also not exactly Reader's Digest material.

The FT profile is not completely worthless, however; it includes some interesting numbers -- it employs 110 and expects to see $35 million in revenue in 2009, up from $25 million in 2008. It's also spending $500,000 a year on Newsmax.tv, which Ruddy claims "isn’t paying off in terms of advertising but it is paying off in terms of subscriptions" to its magazine and it financial- and health-related newsletters.

Posted by Terry K. at 9:56 PM EST

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Ellis Washington keeps up his record of flamboyantly wrong commentary with his Jan. 16 WorldNetDaily column, in which he states:

Obama and the Democrats are essentially tyrannical fascists. If you doubt me, remember Russia for over 300 years was ruled by a total of 18 czars of the Romanov dynasty. However, as David Rothkopf of "Foreign Policy" noted, the Obama administration had appointed more czars than that in just three months. That number doesn't even include his health-care czar.

It seems to have escaped Washington's notice that 1) "czar" is not the actual title of any of these officials, 2) they are in each charge of narrowly defined issues and, thus, lack the all-encompassing dictatorial power of a Romanov czar, 3) a significant number of the Obama administration "czars" were approved by Congress, exploding Washington's "tyrannical fascist" view of the current government, and 4) President Bush had a lot of czars too.

Remember, Washington is the "authorized biographer for the conservative intellectual Dr. Michael Savage."

Posted by Terry K. at 12:40 PM EST

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WorldNetDaily published a Jan. 14 column by Trudy W. Schuett that goes on a weird rant about "Abusegate," which she claims is equal to "Climategate." Lots of attacks on "zealots of the feminist faith" and "women's studies" and "Marxist ideals," but Schuett never really explains what exactly "Abusegate" is or why it deserves the -gate suffix.

She hints at what it is toward the end of the column:

This is probably the most astonishing fact of Abusegate: While Climategate has at least some basis in research and scientific theory, there is none whatsoever behind the myriad programs and laws established since the 1970s by the so-called "Battered Women's Movement." Even the term itself was created for its impact by feminists whose goals had very little to do with providing aid for women.

[...]

Since the early days of the Battered Women's Movement, nearly everything that has come after has been based on feminist principles devised out of thin air. Even today, in the U.S. there is no standard definition of what domestic violence is or is not. Yet thousands of men are incarcerated, families destroyed, and women and children thrown into a permanent condition of life in turmoil because of nothing but the aberrant personal beliefs of a few women a generation ago.

While the feminists of the 20th century are dying off or retiring, their ugly legacy of opportunism remains. Legions of divorce lawyers, shelter advocates and organizations providing feminist education all benefit from the multi-billion dollar industry that now forms the basis of society's approach to partner abuse.

The real tragedy of Abusegate is that victims of genuine partner abuse are still left without hope and support. They have been doubly victimized by a society that has been too willing to accept answers without first considering the problem.

But still, Schuett fails to explain exactly what the problem is. Is she saying that women aren't abused? That men are abused by women in equal numbers? And who are the "victims of genuine partner abuse" she's referring to? Her rant is so unfocused as to be completely ineffective, preaching only to the converted -- which, it seems, WND is. As we've detailed, WND has been supportive of so-called men'srights, particularly in the area of paternity and child custody.

A little searching uncovered this at Men's News Daily, from a group called RADAR -- Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting, where we find things such as arguments against restraining orders and against the Violence Against Women Act. From the Men's News Daily item:

Abusegate refers to the systematic distortion of the truth about partner aggression by representatives of the domestic violence industry. These falsehoods form the basis of a well-financed but harmful effort to curb partner violence.

It's accompanied by a link to a long list of "domestic violence myths," but the argument is better summed up in a one-page flyer that is also linked:

What is the truth about intimate partner aggression? Nearly 200 scientific studies point to this simple conclusion: Women are at least as likely as men to engage in partner aggression. 

[...]

Men are often injured by their wives or girlfriends. According to a 2000 meta-analysis by John Archer, PhD, men suffer 38% of all injuries arising from partner aggression. But men often don’t report the incident, so they endure their pain in silence. As a result, the media often presents a one-sided view of domestic violence.

[...]

Warren Moon was the first Black quarterback to be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. One evening Warren Moon got into a fight with his wife. The police were called and Mr. Moon was arrested. Against Mrs. Moon’s wishes, the case went to trial. 
 
Placed on the witness stand, Mrs. Moon admitted that she was the one who had started the fight by throwing a candlestick, and that her husband had only acted in self-defense. Warren Moon was acquitted.

Domestic violence is not a gender-specific problem.

We don't know what the truth is, but there is something that doesn't pass the smell test about a right-wing-driven movement with the apparent goal to paint men as victims and women as aggressors, even though historically that is not the case.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:48 AM EST

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Look over in the right-hand bar of our blog, and you'll see the all-new ConWebWatch Twitter feed, which collects the tweets of ConWeb organizations and figures. We'll be adding more as we find them.

One we won't be adding, unfortunately, is that of WorldNetDaily's Aaron Klein -- he's blocked us from following him or adding him to our tweet feed. Why is he so afraid of us? Because we tell the truth about him?

Posted by Terry K. at 11:22 PM EST

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Jack Cashill keeps up his endorsement of illegal acts in his Jan. 14 WorldNetDaily column, in which he once again lovingly condones the murder of abortion doctor George Tiller and laments that shooter Scott Roeder will be held accountable for it:

Although no one would guess it from the fussy local coverage of Scott Roeder's trial for the murder of Wichita abortionist George Tiller, the Kansas-Missouri borderlands have a long-storied tolerance for frontier justice.

[...]

Scott Roeder, however, can expect no book, no movie, no boyhood home, no historic site, no mural in the Kansas State House, no jailhouse visits from Bob Dylan or Bianca Jagger.

Yet, based on existing evidence, Roeder has a much stronger claim to historical vindication than Brown or the James brothers and one at least comparable to the citizens of Skidmore.

[...]

Barring the unforeseen, the state of Kansas will be more likely to memorialize Tiller's boyhood home than Roeder's.

Pro-lifers will not memorialize Roeder either. Conservatives do not really cotton to murderers the way the left does. There are no Mumias on the right, no Ches, no Peltiers, no Maos, no Saccos, no Vanzettis, never have been.

Roeder has found this out the hard way.

The funny thing is, Cashill is working at cross purposes with the publisher of his column. As we've detailed, WND has largely run away from Roeder, depicting him as mentally unstable and "not associated with the mainstream pro-life movement" in order to downplay the movement's historic violence (which we saw again most recently at CNSNews.com).

Cashill's enthusiastic endorsement of murder only reminds us just how extremist WND is.

Posted by Terry K. at 10:20 AM EST

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A Jan. 15 WorldNetDaily article by Chelsea Schilling gushes that "The upcoming National Tea Party Convention is already a resounding success – with tickets to the convention sold out and only a few tables remaining at the final banquet." Schilling also baselessly asserts that "There has been a frenzy to purchase tickets since it was first announced WND founder Joseph Farah will join former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin as speaker at the first national tea-party convention."

The fact that non-right-wing media have been banned from covering the convention?As far Schilling is concerned, it's not aban at all:

[Organizer Judson] Phillips told WND Tea Party Nation has received hundreds of requests from media outlets from all over the world that are seeking to cover the event.

"We've gotten inquiries from small-town weeklies, bloggers, big media, England, France, Japan, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal," he said. "I got one from Croatia two days ago."

However, the organization is limiting convention press access to a small group of prominent media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Fox News and WorldNetDaily.

See, they're not biased -- they're "prominent."

Since Schilling and WND aren't interested in telling the truth about the convention,  there's nary a word about the controversies surrounding it. As the Washington Independent has detailed, there have been complaints over the the $549 registration fee, criticism of the $100,000 speaking fee Palin is reportedly receiving, and attacks by other conservative activists calling the convention a money-making scam for Phillips.

WorldNetDaily is already sleeping with Orly Taitz. Is there enough room in that bed for an entire tea party convention too?

Posted by Terry K. at 12:51 AM EST

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Writing a story that's utterly false appears not to be an impediment to journalism at CNSNews.com.

As we've detailed, a Jan. 14 article by Matt Cover attempting to attack TSA nominee Erroll Southers for purportedly equating Christians with terrorists falsely portrays Southers' use of "Christian identity" as a generic phrase describing all Christians. In fact, context shows that Southers is referring to Christian Identity, an extremist sect which, according to the Anti-Defamation League, is "virulently racist and anti-Semitic beliefs" and is tied to several domestic terrorists. 

So far, as of 3 p.m. ET, CNS has not only not corrected or withdrawn the article,  it's promoting the article on its website as the lead story:

Posted by Terry K. at 3:01 PM EST

Updated: Saturday, January 16, 2010 10:20 AM EST

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Newsmax is weeks late to the party, but it is taking the Aaron Klein route of one-sided bashing of anti-Semitism czar Hannah Rosenthal and Jewish group J Street.

A Jan. 13 article by Jim Meyers uncritically repeats an attack by the American Israeli Action Coalition -- which purports to be "a united voice of American citizens living in Israel" -- on Rosenthal and J Street, condemning Rosenthal for her comparatively mild criticism of Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren for refusing to attend a J Street conference.

Meyers makes no apparent attempt to contact Rosenthal or J Street for a response. He merely regurgitates AIAC's unsupported claims that NJ Street is "a radical, far left, anti-Israel, American organization funded by Arab and radical sources" which "has been almost universally condemned by mainstream Jewish organizations."

Further, nowhere does Meyers explain how AIAC executive director Aaron Tirschwell's assertion that "Rosenthal has committed an unpardonable sin" is not a gross overreaction to what Rosenthal actually said. The only statements of Rosenthal's that Meyers quotes is that Oren’s decision was "most unfortunate" and that he would have “learned a lot” at the J Street conference.

Meyers also avoids identifying AIAC's political slant, which, given the virulence of its attack on Rosenthal and its support for Benjamin Netanyahu, can only be described as right-wing.

Posted by Terry K. at 11:38 AM EST

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You would have more credibility bashing Google if WorldNetDaily didn't belong to Google's ad network.

Just sayin'...

Posted by Terry K. at 10:26 AM EST

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A Jan. 14 CNSNews.com article by Matt Cover carries the headling "Obama’s TSA Nominee Characterized Groups That Were Domestic Security Threats as ‘Anti-Abortion’ and Having ‘Christian Identity.’" Throughout the article, Cover treats Transportation Security Administration nominee Erroll Southers' references to "Christian identity" -- note the lowercase of "identity" -- as a generic reference, suggesting that Southers thinks all Christians are terrorists or security threats.

Nothing could be further from the truth. As Media Matters points out, Christian Identity, as Southers was using it, is the name of a specific extremist movement that has, according to the Anti-Defamation League, "virulently racist and anti-Semitic beliefs" and is tied to several domestic terrorists. It is most definitely not a generic reference to Christians.

Cover and CNS should perhaps fact-check the attacks they pick up from right-wing blogs before repeating them. Now, it needs to issue a major correction and retraction. Will it?

Posted by Terry K. at 2:18 AM EST

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In his Jan. 14 WorldNetDaily video, Jackie Mason goes on the most bizarre defense of Harry Reid's remarks ever -- by attacking blacks for being offended by it. In fact, Al Sharpton, who is presumably the kind of person Mason has in mind, is just fine with Reid's remarks; the only people manufacturing outrage are right-wingers trying to make political hay.

Mason asked: "If anybody should be offended, shouldn't the white people be offended?" He went on to claim that "Black people enjoy the idea of believing that every white man is a racist," adding that "Black people say the most racist things every day about white people. How come they're never defensive about it?"

But Jackie was just getting warmed up to spew this:

Here they had a black person who just beat a white person in a presidential contest. The white person was a war hero, was 30 years in the Senate. The black person showed no record of accomplishment in any way. Now let me ask you a question. If you were a foreigner who came into this country, what kind of racism would you interpret that as? You would interpret that as racism against whites. You would say it's impossible for a white person to stand a chance in America. How much do you have to accomplish to still be recognized? Why could a black person who accomplished nothing vanquish a white person who's a hero with a whole history of a lifetime of accomplishment? When a black person just shows up, all of a sudden he's elected. What does it prove? It proves this must be a racist society. But not against blacks -- obviously a racist society against whites. Whites are suffering from a racist society, that's what anybody would interpret it as.

But somehow, even this can't be said because it's not nice. Every time you mention something blacks, even if you're right and 100 percent right, and even if you're insulting the whites, somehow the blacks are the ones offended. This is perverted, this is sick, this is deranged, and this need that black people have to make you feel that you're a racist is a power trip. It's a phony power trip to make you feel that somehow you're destined to be the bosses and they have to serve you and cater to you and they have to be humbled in front of you and humiliated in front of you and they have to be eating humble pie for the rest of their lives just because they're white.

We don't need this kind of racism anymore. This is a racist society against whites, and black people should stop intimidating the whites when there's nothing involved and there's no excuse for it, and it's a fraud and a fake and a phony power trip. Give up the whole idea of racism unless you want to talk about how the white people are the ones suffering from it, not the blacks. You got that? That's it.

Remember, Mason does have issues with black people in general and Obama in particular, calling them "schvartze" while denying it's not an insult.

To use a word Mason would understand: Oy.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:04 AM EST

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