NewsBusters Gets Busted Making False Claim Topic: NewsBusters
Scott Whitlock asserted in an Aug. 16 NewsBusters post that ABC "hid the identity of a global warming activist" during a news segment:
The journalist featured a clip of Heidi Cullen, who ABC simply labeled as a "climatologist." She announced, "When you crank up the heat, when you globally warm the planet, you're going to see more extreme events."
Yet, Cullen is also the communications director for Climate Central, a group dedicated to "helping mainstream Americans understand how climate change connects to them, and arming our audiences with the knowledge they need to make informed decisions about their future."
But as Media Matters pointed out, the segment in question included "Climate Central" superimposed during the Cullen clip.
Whitlock has since inserted a correction into his post:
[08-17-11 Correction: ABC did have the words "Climate Central" in the upper left-hand corner of the screen. Though, the network did not offer any explanation of the group's advocacy.]
This correction did not appear on the front page of NewsBusters, which runs counter to the MRC's demands for correction placement by non-MRC media.
Cashin' In At The MRC Topic: Media Research Center
Romenesko gleans the latest IRS nonprofit group reports to find the salaries and assets of media watchdog groups. Turns out the MRC is doing quite well:
The conservative Media Research Center — it tells the IRS its mission is “to create a media culture in America where truth and liberty flourish” — reports in its Form 990 that it had net assets of $11,271,007 at the end of 2010. The salaries disclosed include:
Brent Bozell; president/director; $422,804 Brent Baker; vice president; $126,300 David Martin; executive vp/asst. treasurer; $215,000 Dan Gainor; Business & Media Institute vice president; $122,400 Terry Jeffrey; CNSNews.com editor-in-chief; $122,400
With $11 million burning a hole in its pocket, no wonder the MRC can afford to pay Bozell more than the president makes. Their brand of right-wing hate appears to be quite lucrative.
WND Back To Fearmongering About Vaccines Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily has long fearmongered about vaccines, which went somewhat into abeyance after research claiming a link between vaccines and autism was discredited. As we documented at the time, WND couldn't be bothered to devote an original article to the discrediting, leaving it to one of its columnists to write about it.
But now, WND is back in the fearmongering business with an Aug. 15 article by Michael Carl:
More than 100 children from Malawi's southern district of Nsanje have been forced at gunpoint to receive measles vaccinations, according to a report from the southern African nation.
And the partner in the forced medication program? The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, according to Natural News.
Carl made no apparent effort to verify the original report, which comes from a website of unknown veracity called Malawi Voice. It claims to "provide the true information to Malawians and other interested parties independently and honestly." That's basically what WND claims, and we know how that worked out.
Despite not bothering to verify any of the major claims he's reporting, Carl pretended they were true anyway giving space to activists like Brannon Howse -- who we last saw praying for liberal journalists to take their inspiration from Fox News and WND -- to attack the Gates Foundation and claim that "I believe the globalists have every desire to destroy parental authority and they will do so in the name of 'helping children'" and "Hitler also spoke of how the 'state' owned the German children."
As per WND style, the article's headline -- "Government vaccinations at gunpoint reported" -- is written vaguely in order to falsely suggest that this was going on in the United States.
In short: There's no reason to believe what Carl has written here, since he couldn't be bothered to find out of any of it was true before he wrote about it.
MRC Still Unhappy That Gays Are On TV, Part 2,487 Topic: NewsBusters
Yes, Media Research Center employee Matt Hadro wrote this in an Aug. 16 NewsBusters post:
CNN's own poll recently showed that voters 60-to-one believe the economy is the most pressing issue facing the United States, as opposed to policies toward gays and lesbians. CNN's Anderson Cooper apparently thought the views of Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann toward gays and lesbians important enough to merit the lead segment on his Monday show.
Les Kinsolving, Confederate Sympathizer Topic: WorldNetDaily
Who knew that Les Kinsolving was such a staunch defender of the Confederacy?
WorldNetDaily's White House reporter reveals his Southern sympathies in his Aug. 15 column, in which he complains that the NAACP wants to ban the Confederate flag from flying at the South Carolina capitol building.
Kinsolving brings up the description of the Civil War preferred by Confederate sympathizers, the "War of Northern Aggression." Then, in a fit of tone-deafness and weird loathing that marks his hatred of homosexuals, coninues:
If South Carolina ever decides to dishonor the memory of so many of its men who died in what might well be termed the Second American Revolution – and if Mississippi ever yields to similar pressure to remove the Confederate battle flag from its state flag – can we imagine the next demands of the frequently incredible NAACP (which remains tongue-tied at the scandalous racial segregation now practiced by the Congressional Black Caucus)?
Think of the possibility that the NAACP might demand the name of the capital city of Washington be changed because the father of our country was a slave owner.
Think of the NAACP demanding that the Washington Monument be renamed – in honor of John Brown. And further demanding that the name of our nation's capital be changed from Washington to Nat Turner City, and the state of Washington to the state of Malcolm X.
There would, of course, also be a need to remove the name and photograph of Gen. and President Ulysses Grant from our currency, for he too was a slave owner, as was Mrs. Grant, who, with her two slaves, was very nearly captured by Confederate cavalry.
On top of the absurdity of naming a state for Malcolm X, Kinsolving seems not to understand the difference between founding fathers who owned slaves but did not fight under any banner to preserve it, and states who fought a war of secession in order to preserve the institution of slavery, which is what the Confederate battle flag represents.
Kinsolving, it seems, loves the Confederacy as much has he hates gays.
It's almost like Kinsolving was using this column to audition for a job with the Washington Times. He's a little late for that: The Times' Confederacy fetishists, like Wesley Pruden and Robert Stacy McCain, have long since departed the paper.
MRC Invents 'Gay Slurs' Against Bachmann, Ignores Actual Gay Slur By Limbaugh Topic: Media Research Center
Given the Media Research Center's anti-gay agenda, you'd think it wouldn't be bothered by gay slurs. And you'd be right -- except when conservatives are the alleged target.
Thus, we have the spectacle of Matt Philbin whining in an Aug. 16 MRC Culture & Media Institute article that "liberals" are being mean to Michele Bachmann's husband by suggesting that he's gay. The headline on Philbin's article: "Lefty Hypocrites Level Gay Slurs."
That hypocrisy, of course, pales against the MRC's record of gay-bashing bigotry, which results in howls of outrage anytime a homosexual appears on TV without being denounced for being all gay and stuff.
We suspect Philbin cares only because Bachmann is currently a leading Republican presidential candidate. No mention at all of an actual gay Republican presidential candidate, Fred Karger. No, the MRC is too busy bashing him for getting any media coverage at all.
Meanwhile, as Philbin was trying to generate a controversy that really didn't exist, he was ignoring actual gay slurs.
Rush Limbaugh said on his Aug. 16 radio show that a person who asked a favorable question of President Obama during his bus tour was a "classic butt boy," adding that there are "Obama butt boys all over the place." "Butt boy," of course, is a fairly prominent anti-gay slur.
Will Philbin, with his newfound sensitivity toward gay issues, hold Limbaugh accoutable for his gay slur? Or will he follow MRC policy by ignoring Limbaugh's strange obsession with anal sex?
CNS' Jeffrey Attacks George Will For Criticizing Bachmann Topic: CNSNews.com
When the editor-in-chief of a "news" website seems much more concerned with attacking his enemies instead of reporting the news, you know a line has been crossed.
Terry Jeffrey is so determined to turn the CNSNews.com, the site of which he is editor-in-chief, into a right-wing attack machinethat he's even violating longstanding MRC policy not to criticize fellow conservatives. Here's how Jeffrey kicked off an Aug. 14 article:
Washington Post columnist George Will, who has never commanded anything with greater throw-weight than a word processor, suggested on ABC’s “This Week” this morning that President Barack Obama would have an easier time in the general election defeating Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann than Texas Gov. Rick Perry because the “threshold question in any presidential race” is “[s]hould this person have control of nuclear weapons.”
Earlier this year, Will used very similar terms to deprecate what he also perceives to be former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's lack of fitness to control the U.S. nuclear arsenal as president.
Yeowch. Jeffrey continues his rant:
Palin, Bachmann and Perry all have one thing in common: They are conservative Republicans. Palin and Perry have one thing in common that they do not share with Bachmann: They both have served as governors of states.
Yet Bachmann has one qualification neither Perry nor Palin has: As a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, she has served in a federal office that has oversight over national security issues.
And Palin and Bachmann have one common characteristic they do not share with Perry: They are both women.
Is this why Will deprecates Palin's and Bachmann's fitness to command the U.S. nuclear arsenal, but not Perry's?
The more interesting question: Why are Will's statements so out of bounds that Jeffrey responded so forcefully, when the MRC has ignored arguably more egregious acts by Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter? Is it because Jeffrey is operating CNS as a partisan attack website in violation of the MRC's 501(c)3 tax status?
WND Ramps Up Anti-Perry Campaign Topic: WorldNetDaily
A few weeks back, WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah explained why he wasn't voting for Rick Perry (he doesn't hate gays as much as Farah does). Turns out that, along with a previous Farah column bashing Perry for wanting to vaccinate girls against a type of cervical cancer, was just the beginning of WND's anti-Perry efforts.
Farah cranked out yet another Perry-bashing column on Aug. 5,complaining that "Some people still don't appreciate why Rick Perry's remark to Republican fat cats condoning the New York Legislature's vote to approve same-sex marriage should disqualify him from consideration for the Republican presidential nomination," declaring that you should "Cross Perry off your list of acceptable candidates to oppose Obama in 2012."
With Perry officially entering the race, WND has ratcheted up the Perry-bashing. An Aug. 14 column by Steve Baldwin listed "10 areas in which Perry has taken positions anathema to conservative principles," for which he is demanding answers.Like: "Are you still a member of the Bilderbergs? Why would you be invited to join this group?"
The same day, self-proclaimed prophet Joel Richardson wrote a column attacking Perry for "an apparently close relationship Perry has fostered over the years with a Muslim leader know [sic] as 'His Highness' Prince Shah Karim Al-Husayni, the Aga Khan IV." Richardson engages in his usual Islam-bashing:
It should also be mentioned that one of the doctrines espoused by Ismaili Muslims is the doctrine of Taqiyya. In simple terms, the doctrine of Taqiyya allows Muslims to purposefully hide or lie about their true religious beliefs to "unbelievers" or even Muslims of different sects. Of course, it is doubtful that the children of Texas will learn anything of Taqiyya in their Perry-sponsored education concerning Islam.
Of course, while lying in the name of religion may seem like a foreign concept to most, it is the principle of "the ends justify the means" that underscores many aspects of the Islamic approach to win the West.
One can only hope that such is not the principle driving Gov. Perry's campaign for the presidency.
Of course, people who are not hysterically anti-Muslim have little problem with that relationship.
Nevertheless, Pamela Geller was in full anti-Muslim freakout mode in her Aug. 16 column, headlined "Yes, Rick Perry is the 5th column candidate." Geller huffs that "I want a presidential candidate who is unafraid of the stealth jihadists in our midst, and who will vow that he will clean out the infiltratord," then rails against the Aga Khan, concluding:
The fact that Hamas-tied CAIR, one of the top five groups named in AFDI's Threats to Freedom Index, immediately praised Perry, speaks volumes. All this speaks to a pattern. And the pattern is not good. It speaks to a pattern of going along with our civilization path to suicide. No matter who wins the nomination, I will support him or her with every breath of my body. But I am going to fight like a cat to get the right cat there. Of course, a candidate should make nice with Muslims who oppose jihad. But introducing the Islamic whitewash into our public schools and universities is the most dangerous thing you can do. It is not my intention to damn all Muslims, but we need a president who will call out the Islamic supremacist groups on stealth jihad. That is real political courage, not calling for tax cuts.
We have had enough of dhimmi candidates who kowtow, out of ignorance or financial interest or both, to Islamic supremacists. In my new book, "Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance," I detail the advances it is making, and show how Americans can and must resist. Do you really think that Rick Perry, in light of the information above, is really the man who is going to lead that resistance? Has Gov. Perry addressed the jihad ideology that has been responsible in recent years for the slaughter of thousands across the world? Or is he busy putting lipstick on a halal pig?
NEW ARTICLE: Not-So-Special Reports, Part 2 Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center keeps up its record of reports that reflect its right-wing agenda more than any genuine media research. Read more >>
Sheppard Still Thinks Insults Are Media Criticism Topic: NewsBusters
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.
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.
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?
Obama Derangement Syndrome Watch, Ronald Kessler Edition Topic: Newsmax
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.
CNS Columnist Gets It Wrong on Oil Drilling Moratorium Topic: CNSNews.com
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.
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 tellthetruth.) 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?
Terry Jeffrey, Arcane Debt Number-Cruncher Topic: CNSNews.com
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:
