Ellis Washington Gets It Wrong on Egypt Topic: WorldNetDaily
It wouldn't be Ellis Washington if he wasn't spewing hatred and getting stuff flamboyantly wrong, and he hits the mark on both in his Feb. 5 WorldNetDaily column.
Washington begins with "paraphrasing the telling words" of Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson as "The Constitution is not a suicide pact." A paraphrase means that you keep the essential meaning of what was said, and Washington didn't do that. Jackson never said that "The Constitution is not a suicide pact"; he said, according to the Wikipedia link Washington supplied regarding a court ruling to which Jackson supplied a minority opinion on, that "There is danger that, if the Court does not temper its doctrinaire logic with a little practical wisdom, it will convert the constitutional Bill of Rights into a suicide pact."
From that factual error, Washington moves on to ranting about how "The world stands at the brink – the Progressive/Muslim Axis vs. Natural Law/Christianity." This segues into a discussion of events in Egypt, in which he dismisses both Joe Biden and Mohamed ElBaradei as "what Lenin called useful idiots."
Washington then segues into an anti-Egypt tirade:
The Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty of 1979 began America's financial aid of Egypt, which amounts to scores of billions of dollars to date. Most of that money goes to Egypt's military. Egypt, along with several other Muslim nations fought (and lost), four major wars against Israel in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973. Why for the past three decades have we given money to build Egypt's military and keep a dictator in power? Because they signed that treasonous false peace treaty in 1979 with that nitwit Jimmy Carter while Egypt secretly ships hundreds of tons of weaponry though their shared tunnels into Gaza, which Hamas uses to kill Israelis.
Washington offered no evidence that the Egyptian government is secretly shipping arms to Hamas that were purchased with U.S. foreign aid. In fact, quite the opposite is occuring: Mubarak's government usually destroys tunnels to Gaza, and the smuggled weapons are made in Russia and China, not America.
And Washington's depiction of the Israel-Egypt peace treaty as "treasonous" is bizarre, since the treaty has largely held for 30 years.
Washington concludes by descending into derangement over various things:
America must break the servile bondage of the Progressive-Muslim Axis over American foreign policy. The trillions spent in foreign aid and war over there we've essentially flushed down the toilet. What has 35 years of Middle Eastern "diplomacy" gotten us but 9/11, two Iraq wars, Afghanistan and the devolution of American exceptionalism?
I am not promoting neo-isolationist policies America had prior to the World Wars, but how about breaking the slave chains of China, Iran and the Saudis and returning to a robust Reagan foreign policy where we manufacture what we need here in this country without needless regulation and union thuggery? How about America mining for our own rich natural resources in coal, oil, natural gas, shale and other profitable minerals needed for computers, manufacturing and weaponry? America is literally the Saudi Arabia of coal, oil shale and natural gas, but for too long we've allowed gutless politicians to be controlled by the environmental fanatics, union thugs and the regulatory Gestapo.
Stop the Progressive-Muslim Axis. America needs a pragmatic and narrowly defined foreign policy that makes alliances with Christian or Christian-friendly nations and avoids what President George Washington warned against, entangling alliances with those nations whose ideology and culture seek our destruction.
Any nation that we have to bribe with foreign aid (i.e., voluntary extortion) isn't a faithful or true ally and will only push America into bankruptcy and into treasonous geopolitical entanglements.
Only Christians should get U.S. foreign aid? Really?
Ed Fuelner's Feb. 3 CNSNews.com column touts Ronald Reagan's "true legacy," but somehow manages to avoid using the words "deficit" and "debt." And he avoids mention that wages for most Americans stayed essentially flat throughout the 1980s.
What WND Didn't Report About Abdullah Adhami Topic: WorldNetDaily
Aaron Klein has been pushing attacks on a newly named adviser to the Park51 Islamic center and mosque, Abdullah Adhami:
A Jan. 20 article stated that Adhami said that "Muslims have 'more of a right' than Jews to the biblical prophet Moses."
A Jan. 23 article claimed that Adhami said that "Those who leave Islam and preach against the Muslim religion must be jailed." As we detailed, Klein took this out of context.
A Jan. 30 article asserted that Adhami said that "'True' Muslims who enter the highest levels of Muslim paradise are those who pay the ultimate price of sacrifice for the goal of implementing Shariah Islamic law."
Curiously, Klein did not relay one attack on Adhami that has appeared elsewhere: that "an enormously, overwhelming percentage of people struggle with homosexual feeling because of some form of violent emotional or sexual abuse at some point in their life."
Why did Klein pass on this opportunity to pile on Adhami? Perhaps because This view isn't all that far from the WND corporate view.
And now, Klein won't have the opportunity; Adhami has quit the Park51 project. Yet Klein hasn't reported that either -- perhaps because Adhami's remarks on homosexuality, and not what Klein reported, have been cited as a reason why.
NewsBusters' Double Standard on Videotaped Stings Topic: NewsBusters
NewsBusters hasbeendutifullypromoting the hoax videos of Lila Rose attempting to entrap Planned Parenthood -- even deceiving to do so. But apparenyly only conservatives are allowed to do undercover sting operations.
A Feb. 3 NewsBusters post by Scott Whitlock complains:
ABC and reporter John Quinones on Thursday stretched the bounds of journalism, hiring an actor to play a racist security guard as a way of testing how the people of Arizona would react to the state's "anti-immigration law."
Previewing the network's "What Would You Do?" segment for Friday's 20/20, Quinones explained the undercover concept: "So, I go undercover, pretending to be someone who is about to be arrested and deported, simply by the way I look."
The piece featured a cartoonish "security guard" harassing Mexican actors in Tucson, Arizona. Presumably, ABC chose a security guard because impersonating a police officer is illegal. The actor walked into a restaurant and spewed, "I'm just looking to make sure these guys are legal citizens. And if they're not legal citizens, they shouldn't be here. They should be deported. They look Mexican."
Of course, having this man pretend to be a security guard really makes no sense. (A security guard is going to deport people?) Secondly, for journalists that often attack conservative sting operations, it's rather odd to see ABC manipulate such a scenario.
The Radio, Television and Digital News Association ethics guide states: "Use surreptitious newsgathering techniques, including hidden cameras or microphones, only if there is no other way to obtain stories of significant public importance and only if the technique is explained to the audience." Was this the only way ABC could do such a story?
Given the MRC's enthusiasm for Rose's bogus sting operation, it's utterly hypocritical for Whitlock to complain about ABC doing something similar.
Will Whitlock apply those same RTDNA standards to Lila Rose? Probably not.
WND's Klein Still Serving As A Mubarak Mouthpiece Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's Aaron Klein keeps up his desperate efforts to prop up the Mubarak regime with a Feb. 6 article attacking the dictator's opposition as linked to George Soros.
Klein complains that Soros-funded Open Society Institute's Middle East and North Africa Initiative "has provided numerous grants to a wide range of projects that promote so-called democratic issues across the region, including in Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood stands to gain from any future election." Klein also criticized the OSI's Justice Initiative for having "helped represent Muslim Brotherhood leaders seeking election or more authority in the country."
But Klein doesn't mention what the initiatives has done, let alone explain why things like protesting Egypt's detention of a man for 15 years without a trial or even any charges filed against him is "so-called democratic" instead of actually democratic.
In all, this is just another pathetic attempt by Klein to aid his favorite dictator.
"Few are recognizing what an opportunity the House Republicans have to force Washington to downsize," says Joseph Farah, editor and chief executive officer of WND and the author of the petition and organizer of the "No More Red Ink" campaign. "If Republicans in the House unite around this idea, there is nothing the White House or the Senate can do to exceed the debt limit. This is a golden opportunity for real change in policy that must not be frittered away in favor of deals with the Democrats."
The second phase of the "No More Red Ink" campaign allows Americans to send a "red ink" letter to every member of the House majority urging them to vote "no" on raising the debt limit. The letters are individually addressed to each member, with guaranteed delivery by Fed Ex for a cost of just $29.99. It would cost an individual more than $100 in postage alone to send the 242 letters with no guaranty of delivery and certainly nowhere near the impact.
And nowhere near the profit for WND. It charged $29.95 to send out factually inaccurate "pink slips" to all members of Congress; now, it's sending half as many "red ink" letters for the same price. More money for WND!
UPDATE: A Feb. 6 WND article states that it has "shipped the first 125,000 'red ink' letters to House Republicans." As with the "pink slip" campaign, counting by numbers of letters sent sound much more impressive than it actually is. Divide 125,000 by 242, and you get a mere 516 people who paid WND their hard-earned $29.95. Multiply those numbers, though, and WND has already grossed more than $15,000 on this venture -- and you know it didn't cost WND nearly that much to print and ship those letters.
WND's Klayman: Obama Is Pretending To Be A Christian Topic: WorldNetDaily
Larry Klayman kicks off his Feb. 5 WorldNetDaily column this way:
Thursday was the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. Weakened politically and likely at this point in his administration to lose the 2012 presidential election, the "mullah in chief," Barack Hussein Obama decided to show his face at the annual event and pretend that he is a believer in Judeo-Christian culture and ideology. But, as has been true throughout his presidency, Obama's actions speak much louder than his insincere if not fraudulent words.
Klayman then served up a, shall we say, alternative history of the past year:
We all remember last year's Obama outrage; canceling the White House commemoration of May's National Day of Prayer and instead celebrating the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in the people's house. To add insult to injury, the president used the occasion to effectively endorse the Ground Zero mosque. What we witnessed before this shocking display was a chief executive who went out of his way to humiliate Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, when he first interrupted and then left the Jewish leader waiting during a meeting in the White House, while Obama went off to have a cozy dinner with first lady Michelle. That's not to mention the administration's generally hostile attitude and approach toward Israel and its now obsessive "outreach" to radical Arabic interests. Couple this with Obama's dissing of and failure to support the Persian freedom movement in Iran, a natural ally of Israel and the West if there is regime change, and we have the backdrop of a president, true to his black Muslim Chicago roots, not only obsessed with the radical Arab world, but also hostile to Jews, Christians and Persians.
Klayman then fell into line with his fellow dictator-lovers at WND by claiming Obama was "literally throwing President Hosni Mubarak, a 30-year ally of the United States and Israel, under the proverbial bus."
All of this showed Obama's true colors – even if we did not need to be reminded given his conduct of the last few years. He has a knee-jerk reflexive ultra-leftist reaction to world events and exhibits a frightening degree of disloyalty toward American allies who have stood with the United States and Israel. This may stem from his own heritage as the son of a anti-colonialist, America-hating Kenyan father, or it may have been also acquired over the years from Obama's association with the likes of Rev. Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright of the Trinity United Church of Christ, Bill Ayers, a noted anarchist and domestic terrorist, and, of course, his own wife, Michelle – who is a liberal extremist. But whatever the cause, the president is a highly dangerous man bent on destroying vital U.S. strategic alliances and undermining Israel and the Iranian freedom movement in particular.
All in all, a fine exhibition of Obama derangement.
NewsBusters Silent About Bozell's Desire to Slug Chris Matthews Topic: NewsBusters
A Feb. 4 NewsBusters post highlights MRC chief Brent Bozell's weekly appearance on Fox News' "Hannity," and how he complained about "the mainstream media personalities who have credited President Obama with the popular uprising against dictator Hosni Mubarak in Egypt."
But curiously, the post is silent about one part of Bozell's appearance, though it's in the accompanying video. After Hannity plays a clip of Chris Matthews, Bozell responds: "My first reaction is, let's put aside civility for just a minute and to say, I'm just so sick and tired of these disgusting, horrible, despicable attacks, I'm going to slug you and deck you one of these days. But that's wrong. That's the wrong reaction."
You'd think a media critic threatening violence against a TV commentator would be news. Apparently it's not at NewsBusters -- especially with the threat-maker is the guy who runs the joint.
Aaron Klein's Strange Connection To Journalist Attacked in Egypt Topic: WorldNetDaily
As WorldNetDaily's Aaron Klein sides with a dictator, that dictator's supporters are beating up and detaining journalists. And it turns out one of those attacked journalists has a previous connection to Klein.
Olaf Wiig is a freelance cameraman who regularly works with Fox News, and he and Fox correspondent Greg Palkot were severely beaten by pro-Mubarak supporters. In 2006, Wiig and another Fox News reporter, Steve Centanni, were kidnapped in Gaza and held for two weeks before being released.
As we detailed at the tine, when Klein reported on the story for WND, he claimed that a $2 million ransom had been paid for the reporters' release, and he suggested that Fox News had paid it. Fox News was quick to shoot down that claim, which led to much huffiness on the part of WND editor Joseph Farah insisting that Klein had never made such a claim. That's only technically true; while Klein did not assert that Fox News had paid a ransom, nowhere did he state that it didn't.
Klein, meanwhile, followed up with a column that was part defense ("No source stated or implied the money came from Fox News") and part suck-up ("I cannot stand idly by while others misrepresent and falsify my words to wrongly smear America's best cable news network").
The suck-up worked -- Klein has regularly appeared on Fox News and its Fox Business sister network since that time, most recently on Jan. 31 pontificating about Egypt.
It's incredibly ironic that a news cameraman whose kidnapping Klein misreported on has been attacked by a dictatorial regime Klein is helping to cling to power.
Obama Derangement Syndrome Watch Topic: Accuracy in Media
Ironically, the only actual and natural ally the U.S. has in the Middle East, Israel, has been beaten about with Obama’s absurd demands that it not construct new housing in its own capitol, Jerusalem.
In the first two years of Obama’s presidency, it has become obvious to everyone, friend and foe alike, that he is anti-Israel. Perhaps he was trying to signal some kind of accommodation with Iran? Or maybe he just doesn’t like a Jewish presence in the Islamic Middle East?
[...]
The problem, of course, is that we have a President who is intellectually, emotionally, philosophically, and in all other ways not up to this crisis.
WND Hides Full Story On Planned Parenthood Videos Topic: WorldNetDaily
A Feb. 4 WorldNetDaily article by Bob Unruh uncritically touts the dubious entrapment videos made at Planned Parenthood clinics by anti-abortion activist Lila Rose with the headline "Sex-trafficking ring cover-up documented in 2nd video." But Unruh doesn't report what Planned Parenthood did after the events depicted in that second video.
As Media Matters notes, following the meeting with Rose's band of entrapment artists, Planned Parenthood reported the conversation to the FBI. Rather than report that, though, Unruh uncritically repeated Rose's unsupported attacks on Planned Parenthood.
Telling only one side of the story is not journalism -- but then, WND doesn't do journalism.
John Lott's brief Feb. 1 Newsmax column asserts that "Virtually no criminal guns are obtained from gun shows" and "Background checks do not stop criminals from getting guns." The FBI begs to differ.
CNS' Latest Gotcha Question Is False Topic: CNSNews.com
Nicholas Ballasy -- the CNSNews.com ambush reporter who we last saw getting pwned by Barney Frank -- tells about his latest gotcha attack in a Feb. 1 article:
Four senators who say they want to cap federal spending over the next 10 years declined to say whether they would support cutting the wages of even a single federal employee.
Federal workers in 2009 made an average of $123,049 in salary and benefits, which is more than twice the average of $61,051 that workers made in the private sector, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
But the idea that federal workers make twice as much as private-sector employees is not a meaningful analysis. FactCheck.org points out two serious flaws with the BEA analysis Ballasy is citing:
The BEA figure is inflated by including compensation that is actually paid to benefit retirees, not just for current workers. The figure is at least several thousand dollars too high, by FactCheck's calculations.
The average federal civilian worker is better educated, more experienced and more likely to have management or professional responsibilities than the average private worker.
Further, according to FactCheck, other studies have found that while lower-skilled federal workers make more than private sector workers (but not as much as the flawed numbers Ballasy cites), high-skilled federal workers make less.
WND Keeps Shilling For Its Favorite Dictator Topic: WorldNetDaily
The Mubarak mouthpieces at WorldNetDaily are apparently all in for their favorite dictator -- and the unsubstantiated sources it's relying on to push its attacks on President Obama.
A Feb. 3 article by Bob Unruh keeps up the attack by repeating a pair of unverified claims:
There have been reports that Barack Obama's administration secretly met with the Muslim Brotherhood to discuss the future of Egypt after President Hosni Mubarak and that Washington has told the Egyptian army it should remove Mubarak from office.
The first is from an article by Aaron Klein whose only source is an anonymous "Egyptian intelligence official" who can be presumed to be working for the Mubarak regime.The second comes from DEBKAfile, which -- like Klein -- cites no on-the-record sources.
The Jerusalem-based DEBKA is considered a sympathizer of right-wing Israeli politics, which like WND wants to see Mubarak stay in power. It's also known for peddling false rumors alongside whatever scoops it manages. Further, DEBKA used to have a business arrangement with WND, which sold DEBKA's intelligence newsletter through its online store and publish regular articles based on DEBKA claims.
Unruh then repeats some random columnist for an Egyptian paper mouthing the Mubarak -- and WND -- line that Obama has an agenda of subversion against Israel. WND picked that up from a group called MEMRI that is known for selectively translating Arabic media and for having, yes, a bias toward rifht-wing Israeli politics.
Indeed, MEMRI offered no translation of the entire column cited by WND, and Unruh filled out his article from other columnists MEMRI offered translations of.
This gives us further insight into WND's fealty toward a dictator -- it's following the orders of right-wing Israelis. As we know, Klein is fond of Israeli right-wingers -- has repeatedlyparroted the right-wing Israeli line and even whitewashes far-right Israeli extremists. He has even proclaimed his admiration for extremist activist Meir Kahane, who advocated expelling all Arabs from Israel and whose Kach party (and its successor Kahane Chai) has been outlawed in Israel for its connections to violence.
If Klein is so cozy with such violent extremists, why would he lead WND in cozying up to a brutal dictator?
By the way, here's the fruit of Klein's propping up of Mubarak: the long list of journalists who have been threatened, attacked or detaining while covering the unrest in Egypt. And here's the video of CNN's Anderson Cooper and his camera crew getting attacked by Mubarak supporters.
Does Klein have a conscience? Does he remain so blinded by his hatred of Obama that he doesn't whose blood ends up on his hands in the process of feeding that hate? OR does he think the journalists who have been attacked in Egypt deserve it?
It's time for Klein to explain why he is so actively working against America -- and for WND to explain why it's paying Klein to do so.
