NewsBusters' Noel Sheppard loves pretending that insults and partisan attacks are "media criticism," no matter how much that might violate the Media Research Center's 501(c)3 nonprofit status.

Sheppard keeps that up with an Aug. 16 post touting Rush Limbaugh's insult wondering "which NBC personality" might be found in President Obama's next colonoscopy.

Sheppard knows how to keep it classy, doesn't he?

Posted by Terry K. at 9:22 PM EDT

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Henry Lamb was in fearmongering mode in his Aug. 12 WorldNetDaily column about how the government and the United Nations "plan to force farmers off their land." One purported instance he cites of this so-called "plan":

How will they do it? Let us count the ways.

Consider the Department of Transportation's recent announcement of its intention to reclassify farm vehicles and implements as "commercial" vehicles and require all drivers of these vehicles to hold a Commercial Driver's License. Applicants for a CDL must be 21 years of age, submit a medical record, a complete driving record from any state in which a license has been obtained and pass rigorous written and driving tests. CDL holders must keep a log of their activities available to law enforcement at any time, must not work more than 12 consecutive hours, must carry at least $750,000 in liability insurance and many more requirements that farmers and ranchers just can't meet.

Farm children have always helped by learning early how to drive farm vehicles. Grandpa could drive the tractor, when he could not do the heavy lifting he did as a youngster. This DOT regulation will end farming and ranching as it has always been known in this country. Farmers and ranchers cannot afford to pay professional CDL holders to come plow the fields, mow the hay, or harvest the corn. Farmers and ranchers who can no longer make a living from the land will have no choice but to sell their land and move to a "stack-'n'-pack" sustainable community. The only potential buyers for these farms are corporate agricultural conglomerates, land trusts, or the government. Since comprehensive land-use plans or other government regulations preclude the possibility of development in the open space, farmers and ranchers will never get the real value of the land.

Just one little thing: It's not true. From the Wall Street Journal:

Here’s what they were thinking. Earlier this year, the State of Illinois began regulating certain kinds of farmers as commercial motor vehicle drivers, a move that caused a lot of consternation in the Illinois farming community, seeing as it would require stiff new driving tests, periodic drug testing and other hurdles. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration stepped in to clarify whether the states had the right to do what Illinois had done, and on May 31, the U.S. Department of Transportation issued a public notice asking for comment on the commercial licensing of farm equipment.

Many in the farm community saw that notice as evidence that federal regulations were brewing, and the rumor went viral. That speeded up the process in Washington. Last Wednesday, the agency moved to put the issue to rest. The guidance the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration put out did exactly opposite what Gov. Perry said. It told the states “the common sense exemptions that allow farmers, their employers, and their families to accomplish their day-to-day work and transport their products to market” should remain in place.

“We have no intention of instituting onerous regulations on the hardworking families who feed our country and fuel our economy,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, himself an Illinoisan and a Republican, said in the agency’s statement Aug. 10.

Just some more of that misinformation WND editor Joseph Farah admits his website publishes. Will WND bother to issue a correction, or will it simply magically disappear Lamb's claim without admitting changes were made to his column?

Posted by Terry K. at 6:29 PM EDT

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From the healthcare industry to Wall Street, Obama never misses a chance to demonize business. From taxation to regulation to healthcare, he has undercut incentives for businesses to thrive and to hire more employees. Instead of improving the economy, he has made it worse.

Obama may be presiding over the decline of America, but that does not seem to concern him. He has spent years apologizing for America. At his nuclear proliferation conference, Obama told Americans, “Whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower.”

By its very nature, capitalism produces inequality in income and wealth. In general, those who strive to achieve do better under capitalism than those who do not. Obama rejects this underlying premise of the capitalist system that is a key to this country’s success.

His views are not dissimilar to those of Karl Marx, who said, “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” And that is what is wrong with President Obama.

-- Ronald Kessler, Aug. 12 Newsmax column

Posted by Terry K. at 4:25 PM EDT

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The Heritage Foundation's Ed Feulner asserted in an Aug. 12 CNSNews.com column: "If the Obama administration were serious about lowering gasoline prices, it would immediately lift the moratorium it placed on deep-water drilling."

Just one problem with that: As Media Matters points out, the Obama administration lifted the moratorium last October. Further, experts say that minor changes in U.S. production have little impact on the global oil market, which determines the price of gasoline.

Posted by Terry K. at 9:13 AM EDT

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Joseph Farah says he's not fighting with Ann Coulter over her new closer ties to GOProud, which exploded in a war of words last year. Which, of course, is why Farah devoted two columns to it.

Farah's Aug. 11 column kicks off in his usual self-aggrandizing way:

I just learned from news reports that Ann Coulter, the doyenne of celebrity conservatism, has joined the advisory board of the faux conservative homosexual activist group GOProud, recently dropped as a potential sponsor of the Conservative Political Action Conference, thanks largely, if I do say so myself, to my efforts.

I'm hardly shocked by this announcement by Coulter. In fact, WND insiders will know I actually predicted it.

Farah goes on to declare that he has "principles I will never compromise," and "One of those principles is that I do not condone or excuse sinful behavior as defined by the Bible." (One principle he seems all to willing to compromise, meanwhile, is using his website to tell the truth.) Farah concluded: "I'm so sorry to see Ann Coulter, once seemingly a non-compromising, hard-charging conservative pit bull, reduced to flacking for the faddish and unseemly cause of 'doing what's right in your own eyes.' That's not conservatism. That's libertinism."

The next day, Farah continued to rant against Coulter, this time for promoting the heretical idea that gays are born that way:

Look, I'm not picking a fight with Ann Coulter. There are many people in the world doing more destructive things and sowing more confusion. But she's a big girl, and she knows how to defend herself. And, as they used to say, you're either part of the problem or part of the solution.

That there is no scientific or anecdotal evidence for the "gay gene" theory does not seem to bother Coulter.

There are thousands of formerly homosexual people who have left the lifestyle for monogamous heterosexual relationships. Those people represent inconvenient statistics to the "gay gene" theory, which is, by the way, an entirely liberal invention – much like global warming.

Farah then promotes his theory of why gays can't be conservative, and vice versa:

The reason homosexuals tend not to be conservatives is because they tend to reject the notion that we live in a universe of moral absolutes dictated by a sovereign deity. People who choose to live their lives contrary to God's laws generally reject those laws as real or binding on them. And people who do that also tend not to be conservatives.

[...]

Conservatives, by definition, are not people who want to destroy the foundations of Judeo-Christian civilization. But those who attack marriage, who devalue God's order, who reduce the effectiveness of America's armed forces and who seek to place legal restrictions on those who uphold their own deeply held religious convictions are not conservatives.

Isn't it really that simple?

Even the normally publicity-seeking Coulter has not bothered to respond to Farah over this.

Meanwhile, there's another area where Farah is quite willing to bend principles: if he can make a buck off it. Last year, when Farah kicked Coulter off his "Taking America Back" conference in retaliation for her GOProud ties, he declared that WND wouldn't stop running her column over it. WND is one of a select few websites allowed to publish her column the evening before its print date, something that presumably draws a significant amount of traffic to WND. If Farah canceled her column, he would likely see WND's viewership decline.

An Aug. 10 WND "news" article on Coulter's new ties with GOProud reminded readers that during the battles of last year, "Farah said there was no question that Coulter would remain a weekly columnist for WND." Farah has yet to repeat that view in response to Coulter's latest. Is Coulter that much of a traffic-driver that Farah dare not abandon her?

Posted by Terry K. at 12:07 AM EDT

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Terry Jeffrey's national debt analogies just keep getting more absurd and arcane. Here are a few of his previous, pithy, conservative-blogger-quotable comparisons:

Obama Added More to National Debt in First 19 Months Than All Presidents from Washington Through Reagan Combined, Says Gov’t Data

111th Congress Added More Debt Than First 100 Congresses Combined: $10,429 Per Person in U.S.

U.S. Debt Jumped $72 Billion Same Day U.S. House Voted to Cut Spending $6 Billion

U.S. Must Borrow Another $5,240 Per Household Just to Fund Gov't at Current Level Through Sept. 30

Uncle Sam’s Latest Line of Credit: $1,888,174,000,000.00 Spent Out of $1,900,000,000,000.00

Gov’t Has Borrowed $803.73 Per U.S. Household Since GOP Majority Enacted Its First Spending Bill Last Month

Now comes this arcane bit of number-crunching from Jeffrey in an Aug. 8 article: "Obama Increased Inflation-Adjusted Debt More in 4 Days Than U.S. Did Through Entire 1950," later adjusted to "Obama Increased Debt More in 4 Days Than Truman and Eisenhower Did in 10 Years."

Posted by Terry K. at 7:02 PM EDT

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Do you think the legions of petty bureaucrats at the Federal Reserve would have a job if America were on the gold standard? People like Dr. Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner should be in orange jumpsuits on their way to prison along with all of the rats on board the Obama Titanic who jumped overboard months ago because they knew that the America ship of state was on fire and sinking.

The answer? Gold, chains and the Constitution

If America hadn't created free public education in the 1850s, which are merely Marxist, Darwinist, Freudian propaganda factories and temples to education atheism, we would have long ago learned the moral and constitutional words of President Thomas Jefferson, who like a prophet of old proclaimed, Let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.

Unless America elects enough tea-party Republicans to not only kill Obamacare, QE1, QE2, Stimulus, TARP, Wall Street kleptocracy bailouts, but also LBJ's Great Society, FDR's New Deal and replace the IRS with a flat tax, then America as a superpower and the greatest of all great nations is kaput. To paraphrase Jefferson, America's return to the gold standard will be a good first step to enforce fiscal discipline, a balanced budget, limit government intervention and restart the Reagan revolution by binding liberal Democrats down from economic, political and legal mischief, shackling these thieves (and their RINO co-conspirators) to the chains of the Constitution.

-- Ellis Washington, Aug. 12 WorldNetDaily column

Posted by Terry K. at 4:42 PM EDT

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CNSNews.com is serving up further evidence that it's abandoning real journalism to be a Republican attack dog.

When Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid named his three Democrats to the congressional "super committee" to negotiate federal budget issues, CNS responded with an Aug. 10 article by Susan Jones headlined "Three Liberal Dems Named to Deficit Reduction ‘Super Committee’," in which the first person she quotes is Republican National Committee chairman Reince Preibus, who declared that the selections "absolute proof that Democrats are not serious about deficit reduction." 

After Republicans named their House and Senate picks to the super committee, Jones penned another article merely naming who they are, failing to quote Democratic reaction to the picks. 

The double standard continued after the three Democratic House picks were named. An Aug. 11 article by Terry Jeffrey declared that all six Democrats "compiled voting records last year that earned them grades of 'F' from the National Taxpayers Union."

Not only did Jeffrey not report how the Republican members did on a liberal-leaning scale, he insisted that the NTU is "a nonpartisan organization," ignoring that the group is beloved by conservatives and funded by right-wing foundations.

Posted by Terry K. at 11:45 AM EDT

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Columnists at WorldNetDaily have been edging closer to advocating armed insurrection against the Obama administration.

Robert Ringer complains in his Aug. 10 WND column that not enough was cut from the budget in the recent debt ceiling, attacking MSNBC's Martin Bashir (whom he misidentifies as being with CNBC) claiming that the tea party "could potentially become a violent movement." He adds:

Maybe the tea-party people do need to get violent, given that the left will continue to accuse them of doing so regardless of how civil they act. Even if they throw out of office enough RINOs who still don't get the tea-party message and bring in a whole new group of Republicans who are willing to take a chainsaw to the budget (rather than just getting excited about "changing the terms of the debate" in Washington), the violence that Messrs. [Martin] Bashir and [Stanton] Peele so worry about is sure to happen anyway.

However, violence that results from real (as opposed to imaginary) spending cuts won't come from the tea-party folks. It will come from those who are unwilling to give up the good life they've become so accustomed to as a result of the government's redistribution-of-wealth policies.

But let's see the spending cuts first. We can worry about the violence later.

Remember that Ringer once wrote a book called "Winning Through Intimidation," and you have an idea of where he's coming from.

Meanwhile, WND columnist is calling for an "Assault on Washington" next month. From an Aug. 9 press release:

Today, Larry Klayman, the founder of Judicial Watch and Freedom Watch, called for a peaceful "Assault on Washington," to make it known to our nation's politicians and so called leaders that their days are over and that they should resign or face other strong peaceful action by "We the People." These "leaders" include but are not limited to President Barack Obama, his Treasury Secretary Timothy Geitner, Speaker of the House John Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Canter, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Klayman stated:

"All of these entrenched Washington establishment politicians sold the country out in the last weeks when they agreed to a phony deficit reduction package, which they crowed about for days as if they had accomplished a 'Godly' feat, only to see that Standard and Poors and the financial markets saw through their deceitful and traitorous charade. Now the nation is in a downward nosedive, with disastrous ramifications not only for us but the world.

"All political persuasions must now unite for the good of nation, go to Washington and, Ghandi style, use 'civil disobedience' to have them removed. They cannot be removed through impeachment, since the establishment, right, left and center, will protect itself. Short of violent revolt, which I do not advocate, this is the only means to 'disinfest' our nation of these 'leaders' who are taking the nation down the primrose path of destruction. We cannot wait until the 2012 elections, as time is short as the nation sinks further into an abyss.

"I therefore call for all concerned Americans to join the 'Assault on Washington' beginning on September 17, 2011, and throughout the week. Fittingly, this is Constitution Week! Further announcements will be made to organize this.

"I welcome the participation of all persons and groups who peacefully want to now rid our nation of the Democrat and Republican self serving political leaders who are in the process of destroying our nation, before it is too late."

Klaymanis calling for an "Assault on Washington" and he thinks it will be peaceful? Really?

Klayman expands on this in his Aug. 12 WND column:

Please contact me through my website and notify your compatriots that strong peaceful action is now necessary. Whether we succeed at removing some or all of the "leaders" who have destroyed the nation is not the only objective. We the People must make it clear to these corrupt establishment hacks that there is a price to be paid for their destructive acts and that now is the time to shape up or ship out. Civil disobedience is not the only means short of violence, the latter of which I do not advocate. We must be prepared, though, to ratchet up the pressure!

Lets keep our beloved country afloat and instead figuratively send the "traitors" to the bottom of the ocean. Now is the time that tries all men's souls. And, in the words of another Founding Father, Patrick Henry, "Give me liberty or give me death." If our Founding Fathers would risk their lives, then we can certainly take strong action, too. The establishment has repeatedly ignored our grievances, just as the British crown did in the years leading up to 1776. And, with each new crop of "elected" so-called conservative and libertarian representatives in the current world of Washington, D.C., most of these "Tories" are co-opted by the likes of John Boehner, a phony conservative if there ever was one. This has left us with no other option. The market collapse of this week, our downgrading as a credit-worthy nation – the first time in American history – and the spreading violence in Europe more than underscores this reality.

Klayman's rhetoric is still clashing: You can't smear the opposition as "traitors" and invoke Patrick Henry and then insist that you will remain peaceful.

Posted by Terry K. at 8:42 AM EDT

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An Aug. 12 Newsmax article by David Patten promotes the 11th Circuit U.S. Couirt of Appeals ruling against the individual mandate in President Obama's health care reform law, citing various "experts" to inveigh against the law and in favor of the ruling. But all of Patten's "experts" are conservatives not identified as such, Patten ignores another appellate court ruling in favor of the reform law, and he misleads about the nature of how judges have ruled on the law.

Patten quotes "healthcare expert" Betsy McCaughey -- a longtime serial misleader on health care reform -- asserting that the ruling is "a very important day for all Americans who care about individual liberty, and a very important day for those who are concerned about the economic growth urgently needed by this nation" and that it "effectively puts the brakes on cash-strapped states’ implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act." But Patten buries the fact that the Sixth Circuit federal appeals court ruled in favor of the constitutionality of the law in June, writing only that "In June, a Cincinnati court ruled in favor of the law in a case brought by the Thomas More Law Center." Patten failed to identify that ruling as coming from a federal appellate court, just like the 11th Circuit ruling.

Newsmax published no analysis of that ruling, only a short AP article.

Patten wrote the "Cincinnati court" ruling "was notable because one of the judges in the majority was a Republican," adding:

So far, federal judges in Florida and Virginia have ruled against the Act, while judges in Michigan and Virginia upheld it. Judges appointed by Democrats have consistently upheld the law, while Republican judges generally ruled against it. But Friday, one Republican judicial appointee and one Democratic judicial appointee concurred that the individual mandate is unconstitutional.

As Patten hinted but didn't explain, just like in the 11th Circuit, the Sixth Circuit ruling had a Republican-appointed judge and a Democratic-appointed judge in concurrence in favor of the law. Indeed, that Republican judge was appointed by President Bush with 41 Senate Democrats voting against him.

As we've detailed, Patten as a long history of slavishly following conservative talking points in his reporting.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:19 AM EDT

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Cliff Kincaid has identified the real culprit in Newsweek's criticism of Michele Bachmann. From his Aug. 11 Accuracy in Media column:

What has been ignored in the controversy is the fact that Tina Brown’s Daily Beast website, which acquired Newsweek, is owned by billionaire Barry Diller, identified by Out magazine as one of the top 50 most powerful homosexuals in the U.S. The publication said that Diller, who is not “out” of the closet, has “a long list of high-powered boyfriends” and a reputation as “the godfather of the velvet mafia, which includes his close friends Calvin Klein and David Geffen.”

This helps explain why Newsweek is targeting Bachmann, a supporter of traditional morality.

It's always the gays as far as Kincaid is concerned, isn't it?

Posted by Terry K. at 9:22 PM EDT

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Both NewsBusters and CNSNews.com devoted articles about Brent Bozell providing what CNS called his "succinct take on Thursday’s Republican debate in Ames, Iowa."

What does this have to do with the MRC's declared mission to "bring balance to the news media"? Nothing that we can see. Is using these resources to promote Bozell's partisan views legal under the MRC's 501(c)3 nonprofit status? We're no lawyers, but we suspect it isn't.

The MRC has been doing this sort of thing more lately.

Posted by Terry K. at 9:17 AM EDT

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Aaron Klein writes in an Aug. 12 WorldNetDaily article:

Israel stopped what would have been a spectacular border terrorist attack planned from inside the Gaza Strip, according to Egyptian security officials.

The Egyptian officials said there is information the attack Tuesday was aimed at the sole pipeline that supplies Gaza with gas. The pipeline, located at the Israeli town of Nahal Oz, is manned and provided by Israel.

Israeli security officials would not comment on the matter.

Why should anyone trust anonymous "Egyptian security officials" about what's going on in Israel? Klein doesn't explain why we should.

In other words, just another hollow, anonymously sourced article from Klein.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:09 AM EDT

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As NewsBusters has already shown this week, the Media Research Center doesn't like it when gays are portrayed in the media as anything other than leading deviant, sinful lifestyles. The MRC served up a big taste of that last week by attacking TV networks for depicting them at all.

An Aug. 4 MRC Culture & Media Institute article by Paul Wilson complained about the "he disproportionate airtime" given to "gay characters and issues." Wilson railed against "the mistaken notion that homosexuality is widespread in America" and whined that "the near-ubiquity of homosexual characters on television flies in the face of demographic reality," since "the homosexual population in the United States is around 2 to 4 percent."

Wilson focused on the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation's "Network Responsibility Index," which tracks appearances of LGBT characters on TV shows. Wilson huffed that GLAAD was "handing out the pats on the head" to networks for being "pro-homosexual," concluding, "So if it seems that you can't flip through the channels today without running across gay characters or story lines, you're right. You can't. And GLAAD's there to make sure of it." But Wilson offers no evidence that GLAAD "makes sure" gays are depicted on TV or punishes networks who don't.

In other words, just another anti-gay freakout from an organization prone to them.

Posted by Terry K. at 10:39 AM EDT

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