CNS Joins Latest Bamboozlement on Obama Trip Topic: CNSNews.com
CNN's Ed Henry has pointed out how Obama "critics" -- which is to say, conservatives -- have been keeping the bogus story of the cost of President Obama's Asia trip alive, now that the $200 million figure it's been peddling has been discontinued, by claiming that the White House "won't say how much it's really costing." That's the template the ConWeb is currently following.
We've already noted how WorldNetDaily's Les Kinsolving and Pat Boone have already done this. Now CNSNews.com has joined the bamboozlement with a Nov. 5 article by Nicholas Ballasy, who writes that "National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer told reporters that the alleged $200M a day cost of President Obama’s trip to Asia is 'wildly inflated' but he did not specify the actual cost.
But as Henry stated, the reason the actual cost is not being released is for security reasons.
It seems that the ConWeb wants to compromise the president's security. Wonder why...
Ellis Washington Doesn't Like Juvenile Justice Topic: WorldNetDaily
What is Ellis Washington ranting about in this week's WorldNetDaily column? The existence of a juvenile justice system:
Lochner notwithstanding, the creation of the juvenile justice system in 1899 was a shining example of Fabian socialism (gradualism) where progressive politicians (Republicans and Democrats) became masters of exploiting laws under the pretense of "helping people" not because they loved the people, but in a Machiavellian sense to guarantee a perpetually dependent class of people who lazily vote themselves largess out of the federal treasury. Today we call this kind of politics earmarks, payola and pork projects.
Progressives and the Democratic Party were simply the side who won when they successfully implemented juvenile law statutes in all 50 states by 1925 without even a pretense of constitutional legitimacy because the progressive reformers, academics and the liberal media shamelessly used the idea of protecting the welfare of the children to cover up their unconstitutional schemes.
Um, yeah. But the real news is that Washington says this ranting is apparently based on "a two-part law review article I'm writing on the historical background the progressive movement and its creation of the juvenile justice system. The second part will be published later this year."
What law review would publish someone like Washington? One that is mercifully ignorant of his work, preferably one far, far outside the United States. Washington found the perfect outlet: "Juridica," the law review of Danubius University in Romania.
Yes, Washington had to scrounge up a law review in Romania to publish him.
The first part of Washington's law review article carries an interesting byline for him, calling him a "Professor of Law and History" at Spring Arbor University. It's a small Methodist school in Michigan. But we looked on the college's website and couldn't find any mention whatsoever of Washington, let alone evidence that he was a "professor" there.
The lack of evidence to support his employment at Spring Arbor suggests that this is just as dishonest as his claim to be the "former editor of the Michigan Law Review."
Pat Boone Embraces Bogus Obama Trip Cost Topic: WorldNetDaily
Pat Boone demonstrates yet again his utter indifference to the facts -- and that he'll mindlessly repeat any lie as long as it hurts President Obama -- with his Nov. 6 WorldNetDaily column, in which heswallowshook, line and sinker the bogus claims about the costs ofObama's Asian trip:
I simply could not believe what I'd heard. It couldn't be so. I Googled "Obama's $200 million a day trip" – and found it was so!
Though liberal-tinted Snopes and ultra-liberal Huffington Post tried to downplay and justify the obscene expenditure – the numbers of fellow travelers involved and the numbers of planes and all the inexcusably extravagant "security measures" and the rest of the details for Obama's trip to Asia – I found that Reuters and other international news services confirmed the earlier stories. (While the administration denies the reported figure, it will not confirm any specific taxpayer cost of the president's Asian adventure.)
[...]
According to the various news services, and not denied by the administration, this president is taking an entourage of 3,000 with him on a 10-day trip to India, Indonesia, China and Korea. The reports indicate he'll need 40 planes, the whole Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai (recently the target of the murderous Islamist terrorists from Pakistan), and 30 or more U.S. warships maneuvered into the region for "security" for the whole mob. This is the choice of a president who should feel chastened and at least mildly repudiated by the unprecedented voter turnover of the House of Representatives to conservatives, and by all the polls, even the most liberal, that document the massive disapproval of his policies by an angry electorate.
Only a few tidbits of explanation have been offered by his aides as to the purposes and goals of this trip, but no one has been able to come up with any rationale for such an unprecedented, ostentatious caravan.
And the reported tab for this untimely Gypsy expedition? Two hundred million dollars, more or less, each and every day! And for 10 days, totaling somewhere in the vicinity of 2 billion dollars! I say it again … 2 billion dollars!
We could find no Reuters article mentioning, let alone "confirming" as Boone claims, the $200 million figure. Perhaps Boone can share his research with us.
Nevertheless, Boone's lie-based outrage provides him with the opportunity to slip yet again into full-on tirade mode:
It's hard not to see this scenario as an arrogant, thumb-in-your eye gesture to a conservative uprising that all the president's men knew was coming. It's hard not to see this as an angry, imperious response to an impudent, ignorant tea party that dared to question this Man of Destiny. It's as if you can hear him say, "You think you'll elect a few hicks to undo what I've already done, and try to stop all that I've already set in motion? You don't know yet whom you're dealing with. You don't seem to see that I've already got all the power in place I'll ever need. I'll show you. I'll take a procession to exotic places, to foreign capitals, to meet with international leaders and visit the home of my youth like the conquering hero I've become. I'll dazzle the world capitals with a procession of pomp and power and lavish spending rivaling even the splendor of King Solomon. And you conservative upstarts can pay for the whole thing!"
Pat Boone is a documented liar, and his propensity for lying eliminates any moral authority he might claim for his anti-Obama screeds.
AIM's Favorite Coward Pens Gay-Bashing Tirade Topic: Accuracy in Media
Accuracy in Media's favorite pseudonymous coward, "Jonah Knox," uses his Nov. 5 AIM column to ask the question, "Will the Tea Party Tackle the Moral Crisis?" And by "moral crisis," "Knox" means the existence of gays.
"Knox" wrote that failed New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino "initially made correct statements about homosexuality, but homosexuals and their leftist allies came out in force to smear him." But he lamented that "Paladino later backed down from his comments which earned him a reprieve from GOProud but proved that his conservatism was itself questionable."
"Knox" then attacked MSNBC's Ed Schultz because he "used Paladino’s remarks to accuse the GOP of “homophobia,” which is supposed to be an unwarranted fear of a 'lifestyle' that is characterized by serious health problems that frequently result in disease and death. It’s not homophobia but common sense and concerns for public health that make people recoil from embracing 'gay rights.'"
Yeah, you see where this is going, and it deteriorates quickly. "Knox" goes on to assert that "there is an urgent need for conservatives concerned about morality and values to understand why the agenda of the 'gay conservatives' has to be exposed and defeated." He recites a laundry list of alleged "crimes committed by homosexuals in the U.S. and worldwide are either unreported or not described by their true nature." Among them: "Perez Hilton calling Carrie Prejean a c***." You really want to throw Hilton in prison for that, "Jonah"?
"Knox" also asserts that "There is a clear connection between Marxism and homosexuality," citing as evidence two guys alleged to be communist. "Knox" apparently thinks that two people comprise a scientifically valid sample.
Given that "Knox" hates gays as much as AIM's Cliff Kincaid does, how do we know that "Knox" really isn't Kincaid himself?
NewsBusters Defends Bad Indian Journalism Topic: NewsBusters
In a Nov. 5 NewsBusters post, Ken Shepherd complains that, on MSNBC's "Hardball," Salon's Joan Walsh is "imagining the rationale of conservative critics" in their criticizing of the purported cost of President Obama's trip to India. But Shepherd goes on to imagine he knows something about journalism in India.
Shepherd writes that "Hardball" host Chris Matthews "was content to put down Indian journalism." But Shepherd fails to fully explain why Matthews would do such a thing -- or even why Indian journalism should be defended, as Shepherd seems to be saying.
As we've detailed, conservative media have been running with the utterly bogus claim that Obama's trip to India and Asia will cost $200 million a day. This claim came from an anonymous report in an Indian newspaper. The conservative media and radio hosts who promoted the claim made no effort to confirm its accuracy.
NewsBusters has previously attacked reporters that use anonymous sources in stories about conservaties like Sarah Palin. Why is it OK for anonymous sources to be used against a Democrat? Perhaps Shepherd should answer that question.
Obama Derangement Syndrome Watch, Robert Ringer Division Topic: WorldNetDaily
More to the point, what you will be witnessing over the next two years is what is known in finer communist circles as The Big Fakeout. As I pointed out in my article "The Great Pretender," Obama has had a Marxist agenda since even before his pot-smoking days at Columbia. It's right there for all the world to read in "Dreams from My Father." Or in Dinesh D'Souza's and Stanley Kurtz's books, "The Roots of Obama's Rage" and "Radical-in-Chief." To paraphrase Ursula the sea witch in "The Little Mermaid," fundamentally transforming the United States of America is what he lives for. Literally!
While doing what he does best – reading nonstop lies from his teleprompters – now that the elections are over, BHO will have his non-elected thugs and progressive allies in both parties of Congress pushing the anti-freedom accelerator to the floor to make certain that even if he isn't re-elected in 2012, it will be too late for an electorate of sheep and an impotent Congress to do anything about it.
The bottom line is that it's wishful thinking to believe that progressives are going to go away. Most people do not realize that they've been working behind the scenes in America for more than a hundred years, and have no intention of giving up the enormous gains they have achieved under the Obamafia. Rest assured that the teachings of Mao, Lenin, Alinsky, et al. are alive and well, as was so clearly demonstrated at the communist gathering "One Nation Working Together" in Washington on Oct. 2.
Of course, Obama has no intention of losing in 2012. As they have clearly demonstrated over the past month or so, he and his cronies will do anything – make that anything – to maintain control of the reins of power. That includes staging a phony crisis, if necessary, as a justification for declaring a state of emergency as the 2012 presidential election draws near, implementing authoritarian control of the government and, where necessary, employing violence – a trademark of the far left that all too many people fail to take seriously.
MRC Cheers Olbermann Suspension, But Defended Fox News' Donations Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center has long despised Keith Olbermann, and when MSNBC suspended Olbermann over donations he made to Democratic candidates, the MRC was quick to pile on.
Keith Olbermann is officially the Worst Hypocrite in the World. He rails about a ‘national cable news outlet’ that ‘starts to donate to partisan groups of one party,’ then does exactly that.
But it begs a bigger questions: why did it take NBC so long? This man has been using his perch as a newsman at MSNBC to promote a radical left-wing and hate-filled agenda for years. And they fire him over three contributions? NBC needs to review its own policies.
(By contrast, Bozell asserted that NPR's firing of Juan Williams showed that it was "kowtowing to the agenda of radical anti-Americans like CAIR, and doing the bidding of George Soros, who hates Fox News with a passion.")
Over at NewsBusters, Tim Graham highlighted the alleged hypocrisy of Olbermann's donations given his "grandstanding on the need for national legislation to restrain a 'national cable-news outlet' for donating to federal candidates." And Noel Sheppard was offended that Rachel Maddow "point[ed] numerous fingers at Fox News personalities that have made their own political donations," huffing that "mounting a defense for her friend by pointing out that folks did the same thing at a rival network with a different employee code of conduct was irrelevant."
Of course, unmentioned by all at the MRC was the fact that it defended in increasingly logic-defying ways the $1 million donation by Fox News' parent, News Corp., to the Republican Governor's Association.
Sheppard's taking refuge in corporate policies -- because it's not prohibited, it's OK no matter what ethics dictate -- may very well be the lamest defense yet.
AIM's Self-Appointed 'Senator Bob' Topic: Accuracy in Media
A Nov. 4 Accuracy in Media column carries an interesting byline: "Senator Bob" Smith. The explanation comes at the end of the column:
Former Senator Bob Smith (R-NH), known as "Senator Bob," has joined Accuracy in Media as a Special Contributor. His columns and commentaries on media and politics will be available on a regular basis on the AIM website at www.aim.org.
So Smith is not a senator, he's a former senator. He may want to be called "Senator Bob," but it misleads about Smith's current status.
Why is AIM -- which supposedly believes in, you know, accuracy in media -- enabling Smith to perpetuate the false idea that he's still a senator? He may miss the job, but it's not AIM's job to help him delude himself.
WND Still Wants to Hang Onto Bogus Obama Trip Cost Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily has already promoted bogus claims about the cost and extent of President Obama's visit to Asia, while making no effort to verify the claim. Now that no sane person is credibly promoting the claim, WND wants to change the subject.
A Nov. 4 WND article details WND White House correspondent's bantering with White House press secretary Robert Gibbs over the purpoted $200 million per day cost cost, pretending that the issue is not that the claim WND reported has been discredited, but that the White House won't release "the actual cost."
It's not until the 17th and final paragraph that it's revealed that the Pentagon has discredited a related claim, that it would deploy 34 ships and an aircraft carrier during the trip. Even then, WND adds that "Kinsolving then pointed out the Pentagon, while denying the '34 ships' report, did not say how many vessels would be deployed as part of the president's security."
WND doesn't want to tell you the reason the White House doesn't reveal the actual cost of the trip: national security. As CNN's Anderson Cooper reported, the White House doesn't comment on trip logistics for security reasons. Plus, Cooper noted, given the costs of previous presidential overseas trips, there's no way the trip would cost anywhere near $200 million a day, even accounting for inflation and given that the war in Afghanistan costs $190 million a day.
Cooper added that "these facts could have easily been checked by anyone who is spreading this story." The fact that WND couldn't be bothered to check tells you all you need to know about its commitment to journalism -- or, rather, its total lack of commitment.
Terry Jeffrey writes in a Nov. 4 CNSNews.com "news" article:
Democratic congressional candidates dominated the midterm election vote Tuesday—winning 68 percent--among the 3 percent of the electorate who said they were gay, lesbian or bisexual, according to the exit poll conducted for the major television networks by Edison Research.
By contrast, Republican House candidates won the heterosexual vote, defeating Democrats among this demographic 52 percent to 46 percent.
Jeffrey goes on to write, "Even in San Francisco, however, there were only 8,902 same-sex-couple households out of a total of 329,700 households. That means same-sex-couple households accounted for only 2.7 percent of households in San Francisco, according to the 2000 Census." He adds: "Most of the City of San Francisco is represented in the U.S. House of Representatives by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose party lost its majority in the House in Tuesday's election."
To hammer home thatpoint, Jeffrey's article is illustrated with a picture of San Francisco. Nowhere does he explain why he's singling out SF here.
This is not the first time Jeffrey has targeted San Francisco: Last month he devoted a column to how "arts" organizations in San Francisco (Jeffrey's scare quotes, not ours) received stimulus money.
NewsBusters Plays Dumb About Impeachment Topic: NewsBusters
Mark Finkelstein writes in a Nov. 3 NewsBusters post:
I'm an official card-carrying member of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, sitting in every morning on the super-secret nationwide conference call during which we receive our marching orders from the Forces of Evil. But unless I've missed something—and granted, maybe the extra-bold coffee doesn't always kick in—not once have I heard mention of a plan to impeach Pres. Obama.
So what does Ed Schultz know that I don't? He splattered his MSNBC show this evening with incessant dark speculation to the effect that the new Republican majority is plotting to impeach Pres. Obama.
Really? Apparently Finkelstein doesn't read fellow right-wing outlet WorldNetDaily, which regularly agitates for impeachment? And he apparently has never heard of famous Republican strategist Floyd Brown, who has entirewebsites dedicated to the impeachment cause, which he's been pushing for more than a year now. Heck, Brown's Western Journalism Center and WND even got together to pen a (falsehood-laden) "case for impeachment."
Or maybe Finkelstein missed Jonathan Chait's prediction that Republicans will impeach Obama for whatever reason? Finkelstein previously praised Chait's pondering that conservatives' worst claims about the Clintons might be correct.
Finkelstein, by the way, followed that declaration of ignorance with an ellipsis-filled Schultz transcript suggesting that he was taking a thing or two out of context.
The next day, Finkelstein followed up by claiming that Schultz "was 'obsessed' with the nutty notion that Republicans are plotting to impeach Pres. Obama." Still no acknowledgment that his fellow right-wing activists are agitating for this to happen.
AIM Plays Dumb About Wash. Times Topic: Accuracy in Media
In a Nov. 3 Accuracy in Media blog post, Don Irvine writes about the repurchase of the Washington Times by Rev. Sun Myung Moon:
According to the Washington Post the Times had been receiving a $35 million subsidy in order to continue operating and when that was cut off the paper wasn’t able to survive in its current form. The new owners will also need a similar subsidy or cash infusion if they expect to rebuild the paper and pay its bills since advertising and circulation revenue will fall far short of the break even mark. And frankly I don’t know of any church that can provide this type of subsidy especially during a recession.
Irvine conveniently ignores the fact that the Times has never made money and that Moon's Unification Church has always subsidized it. The Washington Post reported in 2002 that Moon's operation had subsidized the Times to the tune of about $1.7 billion since the paper's founding in 1982.
It's silly for Irvine to pretend the Times' subsidy is something recent, especially given that we can't recall anyone at AIM being overly concerned about the subsidy before.
Sycophantically quoting yet another attack on President Obama by "talk-radio titan" Rush Limbaugh, this time for going to India, Fitzpatrick writes:
Obama's trip to Mumbai reportedly will cost American taxpayers "a whopping $200 million per day" according the Press Trust of India.
President and Mrs. Obama are reportedly bringing along a tremendous entourage of about 3,000 people, ranging from U.S. government officials to journalists to Secret Service agents to private chefs, for a two-day visit beginning Nov. 6.
Since Fitzpatrick is apparently only interested in copy-and-pasting instead of doing actual reporting, it should be no surprise to learn that the claim is bogus.
According to Media Matters, White House spokesman Matt Lehrich responded, "The numbers reported in this article have no basis in reality. Due to security concerns, we are unable to outline details associated with security procedures and costs, but it's safe to say these numbers are wildly inflated."
Fitzpatrick could have done that, but he chose not to. In WorldNetDaily, he seems to have found a place that will tolerate his lazy "reporting" since bashing Obama is more important than the facts.
Newsmax Repeats Bogus Attack on Gore Topic: Newsmax
An Oct. 31 Newsmax article reports that, according to the UK's Daily Mail, "Climate crusader Al Gore did his part to warm the planet last week, leaving his car idling for an hour as he gave a lecture on sustainable development in Sweden." But there's no evidence that this ever happened.
The Daily Mail sourced its claim to Marc Morano's Climate Depot, which, in turn, repeats a claim by "journalist and communications consultant" Einar Du Rietz that is "Reprinted from CFACT.EU." But both CFACT.EU and Climate Depot are operated by the same group, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, and Du Reitz offers no proof to back up his claim.
Meanwhile, a Gore spokesman told Media Matters that the story is false and that Gore did not leave his car idling.
Four days after its original post, Climate Depot appended an update asserting that "Swedish Newspaper GT Expressen Has Photographic Proof & Eyewitnesses of Gore's Limo Idling." But the GT Expressen article (translation) cites no "eyewitnesses," and the "photographic proof" -- a picture of a guy standing next to a car -- is hardly proof of anything. (GT Expressen is a right-leaning tabloid.)
A day later, Climate Depot appended another update noting Gore's denial and adding:
Rebuttal to Gore: 'Our post is accurate. The bottom line is this: Al Gore continues to arrogantly refuse to make himself available to journalistic inquiry. Mr. Gore continues to make travel and lifestyle choices that reveal his belief that making do with less is for you and me, but not for him.'
But Climate Depot has yet to offer any actual proof to back up its claim, and it has never conclusively demonstrated that its "post is accurate."
As we've detailed, Morano, a former reporter for CNSNews.com, has a history of pushing bogus attacks on global warming.
NewsBusters' Blumer Still Blames Liberal Bias for Newspaper Woes Topic: NewsBusters
Two years ago, we detailed how NewsBusters' Tom Blumer believes the only possible explanation for shrinking newspaper circulation is those papers' supposed liberal bias, ignoring all other, more plausible causes. He's still at it.
Blumer took a stab at advancing the false meme again in an Oct. 31 NewsBusters post:
As usual, they'll blame the Internet, and reject the possibility that persistent, pervasive bias and blind adherence to politically correct reporting priorities have anything to do with the results. But as I've similarly asked before, how does one explain away the fact that the only daily paper in the nation's top 25 that has shown consistent gains during the past several years is the (usually) fair and balanced Wall Street Journal?
[...]
Excluding the Wall Street Journal, circulation at the nation's top two dozen papers has dropped over 28% in the past 5-1/2 years -- and we're supposed to believe that it's all due to technology? If bias weren't a signfiicant problem, we would expect that the same players who dominated print media for decades would be dominant forces in Internet-based news -- but to a large extent, they're not.
Blumer ignores the fact that aside from the Wall Street Journal -- whose circulation presumably has more to do with its $15 million effort to move into local news in New York City than the overall quality of its reporting, which is becoming as conservative as the paper's editorial pages -- other conservative newspapers have seen circulation drops (i.e. the New York Post). Most notably, the Washington Times has plunged by nearly half in the past two years.
Technology is a bigger issue than Blumer makes it out to be. Much of the content of newspapers like the Washington Post and the New York Times is free (though both papers offer electronic subscriptions), which much of the content of the Journal is behind a pay wall, requiring a subscription to access it. The Journal is by far the biggest e-newspaper with nearly 450,000 electronic subscriptions. Since e-subscriptions count toward total circulation, that boosts the Journal's circulation numbers.
So Blumer is still wrong and, like his MRC bretheren, still too blindered by its "liberal bias" tunnel vision to bother with the facts.
