The NewsBusters Comedy Police Have Spoken! Topic: NewsBusters
Who knew that NewsBusters has a division that decides what is and isn't a joke?
Last month, if you'll remember, NewsBusters' Tom Blumer was in freakout mode because he decided that North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue was dead serious when she said that "I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years," going on to attack anyone who portrayed it as a joke.
Conversely, an Oct. 12 post by Ken Shepherd asserts that Michele Bachmann was totally joking when she said that "When you take the 9-9-9 plan and you turn it upside won, the devil is in the details," and that it's bizarre for MSNBC's Chris Matthews to take her seriously and think that it "may be something more sinister, or at least cynically calculated to appeal to 'strange, far right' Christian voters."
For some reason, Shepherd didn't fully quote Bachmann, only the "devil's in the details" part.
Well. Glad we cleared that up. But should an organization that puts out a painfully unfunny "comedy" webcast really be trusted to make judgments about what is and isn't a joke?
Dishonesty: WND's Farah Blames 'Major Media' For Mistake His Own Website Made Topic: WorldNetDaily
We've detailed how WorldNetDaily is publishing the memoir of notoriously corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Now it's carrying water for Abramoff with a show of dishonesty that must make Abramoff smile.
An Oct. 15 WND article reports, under the emphatic headline "Court did not order garnishment on Abramoff book":
WASHINGTON – Despite reports in the Washington Post, USA Today and many other news outlets, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has not issued a garnishment order on Jack Abramoff's earnings from his upcoming WND Books release "Capitol Punishment: The Hard Truth About Washington From America's Most Notorious Lobbyist."
While the Justice Department made a request to the court to garnish all of Abramoff's earnings from the book, no order has been signed or issued to WND, said Joseph Farah, chief executive officer of both WND and WND Books.
"It's just another case of the major media getting the story all wrong," said Farah.
You know who else got that story "all wrong"? WorldNetDaily.
A now-deleted Oct. 14 WND article states, under the similarly emphatic headline "Court garnishes Abramoff's earnings from WND Books expose":
Any further money convicted ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff earns from his upcoming book "Capitol Punishment: The Hard Truth About Washington From America's Most Notorious Lobbyist" must be used to pay back his former clients, a federal court in the nation's capital has ordered.
The Oct. 11 order issued by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia explains to Abramoff's publisher, WND Books, that he still owes a balance of $22.7 million on the $23.1 million he was ordered to pay as restitution after his conviction in 2006 of fraud, corruption and conspiracy in lobbying deals.
Most of the money is owed to Native American tribes Abramoff represented who were seeking influence in Washington for their gaming interests. The scandal led to the convictions of 20 people for payoffs in exchange for political favors, including Republican Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio.
That story is still in Google cache. Here's a screenshot:
Yet nowhere does Farah admit his own website reported the exact same "all wrong" thing he complains the "major media" did. He simply made the original story magically disappear -- WND regularly violates journalistic ethics by trying to make its mistakes magically disappear without offering corrections.
Did Farah really think he could get away with this deception? Does he not know how easy it is recover altered or deleted material on the Internet?
Farah is so utterly craven and dishonest that he will blame others for something his own website did.
This is not journalism -- it's the work of a soulless hack who acts like he has something to hide. And it's yet another reason WND simply cannot be trusted.
UPDATE: The story remains live on the beta version of WND's redesigned website. Oops!
UPDATE 2: WND has now deleted the follow-up story too. But never fear, it's still in Google cache, and here's a screenshot:
How stupid does Farah think WND readers are? Very stupid, apparently.
WND's New Rehab Project: Jack Abramoff Topic: WorldNetDaily
Newsmax now has some competition in the conservative imagerehabilitation business.
WorldNetDaily picked a rehab project with a high degree of difficulty: Jack Abramoff, the notorious lobbyist who served more than three years in federal prison for fraud, corruption and conspiracy. WND is publishing his autobiography, which purports to tell "the hard truth about Washington corrpution" -- and, of course, whitewash Abramoff's own deeds:
The name Jack Abramoff is synonymous with Washington scandal, but the fascinating facts of his case are either largely unknown or wildly misunderstood. His memoir will serve as a corrective - an engrossing, informative work of political nonfiction that is also a gripping real-life thriller.
The biggest surprise twist comes in the form of Abramoff himself, a smart, funny, charming, clear-eyed narrator who confounds every expectation of the media's villainous portrait. He's a perfect bundle of contradictions: an Orthodox Jew and upstanding family man with a staunch moral streak, caught in multiple scandals of bribery and corruption with an undercurrent of murder.
Abramoff represented Indian tribes whose lucrative casinos were constantly under threat from proposed changes in law; though he charged the tribes many millions, he saved them billions by ensuring votes to support the livelihoods of their reservations.
Much of Jack's share was funneled not into his own coffers, but to charities. Abramoff on the front pages could not be further from the Jack Abramoff who's ready to tell his honest and compelling story.
Uh, yeah.
If you'll recall, WND largely ignored Abramoff's corrpution when it was first being reported -- it couldn't be bothered to devote an original "news" article to his misdeeds at the time, even though WND claims to be dedicated "exposing wrongdoing, corruption and abuse of power" -- so one could say that WND is the ideal publisher of Abramoff's self-aggrandizing memoir.
Another way these two were destined to be together: WND has engaged in some Abramoff-esque deception and double talk about a story it did on Abramoff.
Newsmax Baselessly Portrays Clooney Movie As 'Flop' Topic: Newsmax
James Hirsen devoted his Oct. 10 Newsmax column to slagging the new George Clooney-Ryan Gosling movie "The Ides of March," under the headline "Clooney's Leftist Movie Flops at Box Office":
George Clooney’s latest movie, “The Ides of March,” debuted over the weekend and left Sony studio execs scratching their heads over the less-than-expected box-office take of $10.4 million.
Audiences weren't exactly raving about the film either, but they still liked it enough to grant it a "B" at CinemaScore. By comparison, “Real Steal,” the weekend's No. 1 box-office movie, hauled in $27.3 million and scored an "A."
After decent reviews from critics and a warm reception at the Venice and Toronto film fests, Sony executives were expecting a lot more from “Ides.” But now future hopes of profitability rest with the awards that the film may potentially garner.
Hirsen doesn't b ack up his claim that studio executives expected a bigger opening weekend from the movie. In fact, it appears tohave performed close to industry expectations. Entertainment Weekly's John Young, for instance, predicted it would earn $12 million.
Hirsen goes on to discredit his own depiction, noting that "the movie’s production budget after rebates came in at about $12.5 million." That means it will recover its production costs and much of its marketing costs through the theatrical run alone; the DVD release and cable and streaming rights will mean that it turns a solid profit.Only in Hirsen's world, apparently, is a film that makes money considered a "flop."
Hirsen's real reason for attacking the movie, though, is because it allegedly advances a political agenda he opposes:
The movie, which is based on Beau Willimon's 2008 play titled “Farragut North,” is a left-of-center dream sequence. The truth is that Clooney’s character would only be able to obtain a nomination from a major political party or be elected to high office in a make-believe world.
The character's No. 1 issue is greener energy, which he claims is the pat solution to end warfare in the world. He also wants to outlaw the internal combustion engine and is proud of not being religious minded, even going as far as to belittle opponents who talk about their faith.
A.O. Scott of The New York Times called the movie "an image of the liberal heart's desire," and the Los Angeles Times described Clooney's character as "a hardcore liberal's dream candidate."
“Ides” portrays members of the GOP and centrist Democrats as dastardly villains, which should strike the fancy of many of the voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, who may just toss some nominations at the film.
Casting false aspersions simply because you oppose its message may make Hirsen a loyal conservative, but it also makes him a highly irresponsible and unethical journalist.
WND Launches Anti-Mormon Attack on Romney Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily has never been terribly fond of Mormons: WND columnist Mychal Massie once declared that Harry Reid was a racist because of his "inbred familial heritage" as a Mormon. Nor has WND particularly liked Mitt Romney; editor Joseph Farah declared that Romney is "the worst possible choice to succeed Obama" because he "is insulting to the intelligence of any real conservative."
Put the two hatreds together, and you getan Oct. 12 WND article by Joe Kovacs, which uses Romney to engage in anti-Mormon fearmongering:
"While he attempts to portray Mormonism as just another Christian religion, Mitt Romney counts on his skills to shift our attention away from what he truly believes," says Tricia Erickson, author of "Can Mitt Romney Serve Two Masters? The Mormon Church Versus the Office of the Presidency of the United States of America."
"If the American people knew what he truly believed, they would surely not place him in the highest office in the land."
Yet others, such as professor Richard Bushman, a Mormon and previous missionary himself who has taught at Harvard, Columbia and Brown Universities, are defending the faith. He calls Erickson "disillusioned" and someone who "instead of walking away felt an obligation to discredit [her] former faith."
[...]
Erickson says Romney believes:
He will become a "god" in the afterlife and be given his own planet
Satan is Jesus' literal brother
Jesus was not born of a virgin birth
He will be given his own afterlife kingdom where he will have sexual relations with his wife, Ann, to populate his kingdom with spirit children as God the Father Himself has a wife on His own planet.
"Mormonism teaches we pre-existed on God the Father's planet as spirit children before we were planted in our mother's wombs," Erickson told WND. "And the reason why we're here according to Mormonism, is so that we can work out our own progression to godhood and our own planets themselves."
The author, who herself was married in a Mormon temple at age 19 but now considers herself a non-denominational Christian, says there's a secret agenda Mormon officials don't like to talk about publicly.
"A complete takeover of the government," she said. "They have more people in the CIA, the FBI. They have an employment office for Mormons in D.C. to be able to infiltrate them into the government."
"They've been trying since the beginning to get someone in the presidency, because they believe they have to establish their authority so when Jesus comes to Earth, the Mormon Church will take control of the government and the Mormons will be the government of God on Earth," she continued.
It's funny that an online stalker wanting to keep his weapons is not extreme in the eyes of WND, but the idea of a Mormon president is. Strange priorities there.
Shortly thereafter, Graham retweeted it, with a crucial modification:
Yes, Graham wants us to be aware that an Obama appointee is a lesbian. Why? It's not like the appointee's sexual orientation has any irrelevance whatsoever to the story.
As just one example, this time from the Democratic side of the aisle, our president, Barack Hussein Obama, Muslim under Islamic law as his father was Muslim and clearly Muslim in his heart, is in the process of orchestrating what Netanyahu branded "theatre of the absurd" with regard to Israel, a vital ally and one that is essential for U.S. national security in the oil-rich region of the Middle East. Having disparaged Israel and its leaders for the last three years, sided with Arab states bent on its destruction, supported a false "Arab Spring" that resulted in the removal of vital allies like former President Mubarak in Egypt, giving rise to the ascension of the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood in not only Egypt but several other Arab states which surround Israel, it should come as no surprise that the Palestinian Authority, which already was granted autonomy by Israel to govern itself on the West Bank, and its comrade in arms, Hamas, the terrorist group which rules Gaza and subjects Israelis to constant rocket attacks, has circumvented direct negotiations with Israel and gone to the "terrorist friendly" United Nations to impose a Palestinian state on the world. Coupled with the appearance if not reality that Obama and his administration – including the self-hating ultra-leftist Jews Obama surrounds himself with for political cover in the White House – are anti-Semitic, the Palestinians obviously felt emboldened to pursue this course. They have a not-too-stealth ally in the president of the United States and his sleazy minions. In effect, Obama stood by and let this happen.
But now that recent polls and election results show that Obama and his fellow Democrats are rapidly losing their traditional hold on Jewish political donors and fundraisers, our glib "mullah in chief" – two faced as ever – seeks to create the newly crafted impression that he is now solidly behind Israel and direct negotiations, rather than a United Nation's imposed Palestinian state.
Poor President Obama. His leftist backers have momentarily fallen out of love with him for not destroying the country fast enough. Obama must ask himself, "What would Hugo Chavez do?"
[...]
Obama's birdbrained policies are so exasperatingly ridiculous he's lucky no one is invoking the 25th Amendment to challenge his mental capacity to serve.
-- David Limbaugh, Sept. 25 column published at WorldNetDaily
We know that President Obama has enjoyed a great deal of political latitude because he is black; one might offer the axiom "for better or worse," but mostly it has been for the worse, since his intention remains essentially to kill America off. I believe that if Obama were just another old white guy, he would have long since been impeached. Had he avoided removal from office, right now sage Democratic elders would be advising him not to seek their party's nomination.
[...]
Even if we ignore Obama's ushering-in-a-collectivist-totalitarian-state agenda, we can examine his relative commercial viability and find plenty of reasons why he should be relegated to the scrap heap of history. There's the fact that he took a bad economic situation in America and made it markedly worse. There's his foreign policy, which has made America a mockery on the international stage. There's his exacerbation of racial and class tensions in America. Finally, there's the fact that very few Americans are currently satisfied with his performance – and, as we all know, the customer is always right.
Congress and the courts have allowed an illegal usurper with no public background, multiple Social Security numbers, a forfeited law license and whose released birth certificate clearly shows he does not meet the qualifications in the Constitution – to occupy the office of the presidency.
They have allowed illegal gun running by government agents at taxpayer expense that has killed Border Patrol agents. They have passed unconstitutional legislation by the bushel. They have created an illegal federal police force that runs roughshod over travelers' constitutional protections. They have engaged in massive political corruption to enrich themselves and their friends at public expense. And they have protected the criminals from justice with the our own Department of Justice.
With early polls showing them facing massive losses, why wouldn't they go for the elections?
Let's get something straight: To suspend the Constitution (which every elected official has sworn an oath to uphold), you would have to be greater than the Constitution. Is that how North Carolina's Evita-in-waiting defines herself? Is that how the Kenyan community-organizing paper hangar [sic] in the White House defines himself?
Liberals such as Obama would have us believe that they enthusiastically embrace the American ideal and that they just want to expand the safety net a little bit to help the poor. They are the champions of the middle class.
Sorry, with their decades-long track record of failure, they no longer get a pass for their allegedly good intentions. Obama is a human wrecking ball single-handedly destroying our economy and bankrupting the nation. Hardest hit: the middle class. For him to masquerade as the grand protector of the middle class is like Winston Churchill passing himself off as a pacifist.
-- David Limbaugh, Sept. 29 column, published at WorldNetDaily
But despite all that time and effort, and despite the fact Obama thinks his catering to militant Hispanics will assure him the whole, Spanish-speaking enchilada on Election Day - the truth is, the man who is president can't even be assured his divide and conquer strategy is working.
He promises whatever the militants want. He argues against the common sense of a nation having secure borders. He ignores the welfare and safety of American citizens living along the border. He uses the power of the Justice Department to bring legal action against states that take steps to protect themselves from the encroachment of illegal aliens in their jurisdiction.
He spouts the rhetoric of "equality" but avoids it at every turn.
I suspect Obama forgets that just because people don't speak English, it does not mean they're stupid.
I'm not sure that anyone has ever asked Michelle Obama what woman in public life she has admired the most. I'm guessing that, being the lover of the high life that she is, Eleanor Roosevelt and even Hillary Clinton are just as unlikely to be her response as Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir or Sarah Palin. If injected with a dose of truth serum, I'm betting it would be Eva Peron or Imelda Marcos.
Whether by unintended consequences or by inexplicable design, Obama's latest bill once again will repress the market – as opposed to creating jobs (or "saving" them, as he likes to say).
Since we are speaking of the Chicago-machine politician schooled in Sal Alinsky tactics, we cannot overlook the possibility of Obama trying to create yet another group of aggrieved government dependents. First, expand a "power base" by creating a "new norm" of perpetually high unemployment rates. Then, extend new government "rights" to this base, thus creating a larger Democratic voting bloc. Add this new aggrieved group to the list of fragmented constituencies, and voila: Obama might be able to squeak out a win in 2012!
Whether the Professor-in-Chief is malignant, clueless or both, he his proactively impairing the prosperity of the country.
When I look at the photographic evidence of Barack Obama – or whatever his name really is – standing with members of the virulently racist NBPP, I can't help but long to see him bodily dragged from his current residence like a common criminal for daring to so profane the People's House. Of course, this desire will be viewed as extreme. Dragged, like a common criminal? Where's his respect for the office?
To those I would reply that Obama killed off any sanctity of the office of the president on the day he parked his vile carcass in the White House.
There are quite a few other parties deeply involved in this sordid tale, people in power who knew what Obama was when they decided to support him. If there is any justice left in our land, one day they will be wearing orange jumpsuits right alongside him.
CNS Can't Understand Why Inaccurate Pollster Is Ignored Topic: CNSNews.com
In an Oct. 13 blog post, CNSNews.com communications director Craig Bannister complains:
Topping all other GOP contenders in a Rassmussen poll won’t help get you into the upcoming CNN GOP presidential debate – but, being a favorite in media polls will.
CNN’s self-described “objective criteria” for participation in its upcoming “Western Republican Presidential Debate” on Oct. 18 requires a candidate to meet a minimum two percent popularity threshold in at least three polls:
“A person must receive an average of at least 2.00 percent in at least three national polls released between September 1st and October 16th that were conducted by the following organization: ABC, AP, Bloomberg, CBS News/New York Times, CNN, FOX, Gallup, Los Angeles Times, Marist, McClatchy, NBC, Newsweek, Pew, Quinnipiac, Reuters, USA Today and Time.”
So, they’ll accept Gallup and Quinnipiac numbers (and, Marist?) – and those of 14 media groups – but, not Rassmussen poll results.
What did Rassmussen ever do to CNN?
Well, they suck. As analyst Nate Silver details about Rasmussen's polling for the November 2010 midterm elections:
The 105 polls released in Senate and gubernatorial races by Rasmussen Reports and its subsidiary, Pulse Opinion Research, missed the final margin between the candidates by 5.8 points, a considerably higher figure than that achieved by most other pollsters. Some 13 of its polls missed by 10 or more points, including one in the Hawaii Senate race that missed the final margin between the candidates by 40 points, the largest error ever recorded in a general election in FiveThirtyEight’s database, which includes all polls conducted since 1998.
Moreover, Rasmussen’s polls were quite biased, overestimating the standing of the Republican candidate by almost 4 points on average. In just 12 cases, Rasmussen’s polls overestimated the margin for the Democrat by 3 or more points. But it did so for the Republican candidate in 55 cases — that is, in more than half of the polls that it issued.
[...]
Rasmussen’s polls have come under heavy criticism throughout this election cycle, including from FiveThirtyEight. We have critiqued the firm for its cavalier attitude toward polling convention. Rasmussen, for instance, generally conducts all of its interviews during a single, 4-hour window; speaks with the first person it reaches on the phone rather than using a random selection process; does not call cellphones; does not call back respondents whom it misses initially; and uses a computer script rather than live interviewers to conduct its surveys. These are cost-saving measures which contribute to very low response rates and may lead to biased samples.
Rasmussen also weights their surveys based on preordained assumptions about the party identification of voters in each state, a relatively unusual practice that many polling firms consider dubious since party identification (unlike characteristics like age and gender) is often quite fluid.
Bannister tries to defend Rasmussen by noting that "Rassmussen’s Website boasts about coverage he’s gotten from two media organization’s not listed by CNN." But both of those quotes talk only about company head Scott Rasmussen, not about the accuracy of his polls (or lack thereof).
WND's Craige McMillan Brings the Hate Topic: WorldNetDaily
Craige McMillan really pegs the crazy meter in his Oct. 12 WorldNetDaily column. Let us count the ways:
Take a good look at the faces of the protesters you see in the streets, America. They are destined to become your new masters.
They are run from the White House.
Your tax dollars are paying them to overthrow the Constitution.
The community organizer directing them – by his own admission – lacks the natural born citizen qualification necessary to hold the office of the president.
Um, no he hasn't.
The Justice Department is corrupt. It is complicit in selling guns to Mexican drug lords that were used to kill American border patrol agents. This chief law-enforcement officer has repeatedly lied to Congress to cover up his gunrunning. His office has been from the beginning a political tool for the personal and political gain of the Oval Office occupant.
Secret evidence now lands American citizens on secret government lists, to be killed at will by the government without a jury trial.
An illegal federal police force (TSA) now demands "your papers" to move about the country. In fact, they not only demand your papers – they demand to put the long arm of the law up your privates.
Seems like McMillan is wishing that will happen to him someday.
Christians, for their moral stands against abortion and homosexuality, as well as their allegiance to Jesus Christ, and the wealthy, for their money and property, are both being demonized by the new National Socialists (Nazis) who wish to silence moral opposition to their rule and take the money and property for their own.
Congress is complicit with the new Nazis. Democrats in the Senate have made clear there is no such thing as an impeachable offense, be it lying under oath, usurpery or treason committed against the United States. In fact, both Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi lied and violated their oath to protect the Constitution when they certified Obama without investigating the natural born citizenship claim.
Not being a birther makes you a Nazi? We had no idea.
Millions of illegal immigrants are being fast-tracked to the taxpayer benefit offices, and from thence to the election polls, to dilute the votes of American citizens next year. Others are simply not being deported or detained for their illegal entry and false identifications in this country. Lies and deceit are a standard of the new, rising party.
Not to mention the standard of McMillan.
While the new Nazis scratch and claw their way to permanent power, the conservative opposition tut-tuts how sad it all is. No, it's not sad now. It will be sad when they take your house, your savings, shoot you in the head and bury you in a mass grave outside of town with the others who have opposed their thievery and assent to power. That will be sad.
In the meantime, their is vague talk about administration members who have shredded the Constitution for personal and political gain "losing their jobs." This is laughable and pathetic. These people have attacked the deepest foundations of our democratic republic for their own personal power and financial gain. They seek nothing less than the destruction of liberty and freedom that this nation has always represented to the world. They need to lose their jobs – and then spend the rest of their natural lives in confinement for their crimes against humanity.
When I hear these words spoken by a "front-running" presidential candidate, then I will believe that a sliver of hope yet remains for America.
That makes the second columnist this week calling for imprisonment of the current administration for not agreeing with right-wing extremists. That's not the definition of a crime -- that's the definition of the Nazism McMillan purports to be raging against.
Congratulations, Mr. McMillan. You've demonstrated yourself to be a lying, rabid hatemonger who is just one step away from advocating violence to forward your anti-Obama hatred. No wonder Joseph Farah keeps you as a WND columnist.
NewsBusters: Anita Hill Lied! A 20-Year-Old USA Today Poll Said So! Topic: NewsBusters
Who are you going to believe, a lie detector or an opinion poll? That's the question Scott Whitlock sets up in an Oct. 12 NewsBusters post on an interview of Anita Hill, who testified against Clarence Thomas during his Supreme Court nomination in 1991.
First, Whitlock complained that interviewer Andrea Mitchell didn't "challenge the honesty of Hill."Then, after noting that Mitchell pointed out that Hill "took a lie-detector test, a polygraph exam, privately administered from a former FBI official and that was not paid any attention to. There were other corroborating witnesses who were not permitted to testify," Whitlock responded: "Also, an October 14, 1991 USA Today poll found that 47 percent of Americans believed Thomas. Only 24 percent found Hill to be telling the truth."
Whitlock doesn't explain why he wants us to trust what an opinion poll once said about Hill's allegation over the results of a lie detector test. Still, it's part of the Media Research Center's revisionism on Hill, led by Tim Graham repeatedly -- and baselessly -- insisting that Hill is a liar.
WND's Klein Again Grants Anonymity to Terrorists Topic: WorldNetDaily
We've detailed how WorldNetDaily loves to grant anonymity for seemingly everyone he interviews -- including terrorists, in total contradiction of WND editor Joseph Farah's assertion that Klein "doesn't use anonymous sources when he quotes senior terrorist leaders in Gaza and many of the most prominent Islamists in the world."
Klein does exactly that once again in an Oct. 11 WND article, in which he cites anonymous "Hamas leaders" as denying that an agreement has been reached for the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was captured in 2006 by Palestinian militants during a raid on his military outpost.
Klein curiously cites only the Middle East satellite network Al Arabiyya as reporting Shalit's imminent release. In fact, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also made the claim.
So Klein is apparently taking the word of Middle Eastern terrorists over the right-wing head of Israel. Nice.
CNSNews.com has a bit of a thing for Rick Santorum.
Earlier this year, an interview CNS editor in chief Terry Jeffrey conducted with Santorum got lots of attention -- though for a Santorum statement someone else found, not anything CNS originally reported about it.
This week, though, CNS has flooded the zone to uncritically report the pearls coming out of Santorum's mouth:
In an Oct. 10 article, Jeffrey details Santorum's insistence on "Fox News Sunday" that it is "simply not true" that being black is the equivalent of being homosexual.
An Oct. 10 article by Matt Cover was also derived from Santorum's "Fox News Sunday" appearance, this one featuring his assertion that "every Mormon he knows shares his values--except Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid."
A third Oct. 10 article, by Fred Lucas, promotes Jeffrey's latest Obama-bashing hobby horse, regulations in health care reform that purportedly forces Catholic institutions to cover "sterilization and contraceptives, including drugs that cause abortions."
As we've pointed out when Jeffrey raised the issue, the drugs that Jeffrey and Lucas are talking about don't cause abortions according to the medical definition of the word.
Santorum is a Catholic -- just like MRC chief Brent Bozell and (by all appearances) Jeffrey, which may explain why CNS has been pushing right-wing Catholic issues like contraception of late.
Newsmax's Ronald Kessler wants to blow up some stuff.
In an Oct. 11 article, Kessler declares that the U.S. should bomb Iran's nuclear facilities in retaliation for an alleged plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ambassador in the U.S.:
Kessler said that in an interview he had with Dick Cheney, the former vice-president had said he believed Israel would strike Tehran’s nuclear facilities if the U.S. refused. “But it would be much better if the U.S. did it because otherwise we are going to be in a position where we are going to be held hostage to Iran threatening to detonate a nuclear weapon on our soil unless we give in to whatever demands they might have.”
Ahmadinejad has described the alleged links with his government as “a fabrication,” but Kessler said nothing he says can be trusted. “He is basically nuts,” he said. “That’s what we had with Adolf Hitler – a raving lunatic.
“I would put Ahmadinejad in the same bracket as Hitler, definitely. Nobody thought Hitler would carry out any of his threats. We allowed Germany to re-arm despite the Armistice after World War I and look what we got – millions of deaths.
“We have the same people in denial, people who are isolationists in the United States who didn’t want to go after Nazi Germany and the result was World War II, so it’s the same situation. If we don’t learn from history we are going to repeat it.”
Kessler described the foiled plot as “proof that Ahmadinejad has no compunction about engaging in an act of war with the United States. “They have the capability of developing a nuclear weapon and we simply cannot take a chance that he is going to develop and use it.”
But, he said the United States can avoid a full-fledged war with Iran. “We would just limit the bombing to their nuclear facilities and not go after their population or their military forces.
“But we have to protect ourselves, we have to do what we have to do.”
MRC's Gainor Thinks TV Scriptwriters Are Journalists Topic: Media Research Center
Dan Gainor has big news to announce in his Oct. 12 NewsBusters post: "The big news here is that two separate news unions, including the newspaper guild [sic], the recognized union for many print and online journalists, and the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) are fully behind the radical message of Occupy Wall Street."
Only, not so much. The link he provides to prove this does not list the Newspaper Guild (Gainor seems to have decided that's not a proper union name and insists on not capitalizing it) among the organizations who "stand in solidarity" with Occupy Wall Street. Rather, he claims: "The newspaper guild [sic] is part of the Communications Workers of America, listed prominently among 16 union supporters of Occupy Wall Street." That's not the same thing.
The other group Gainor is freaking out about, the Writers Guild of America, East, isn't really for journalists. As Gainor himself notes later in his post, the Writers Guild is a “labor union of thousands of professionals who are the primary creators of what is seen or heard on television and film in the U.S.,” and that includes “everything from big budget movies to independent films, late night comedy/variety shows to daytime serials, broadcast and radio news, web series, documentaries, and animation.”
In other words, the Writers Guild is largely stacked with people who write scripts for entertainment shows, not news reporters.
As for Gainor's attempt to throw around the Society of Professional Journalists' ethics code, he might want to work in-house first by sending a copy of that to the MRC's own "news" division, CNSNews.com. After all, they don't seemterriblyinterested in following ethical principles these days.
WND Still Defending Vindictive Online Stalker Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily is still taking the side of an online stalker in his quest to keep his guns in the face of a restraining order against him.
We've previously detailed how Mike Palmer created a blog to harrass the ex-wife of a friend and make vaguely threatening statements about her "death" -- the header of his blog declares that she's writing about the woman's "death and death."The woman obtained a restraining order against Palmer, a condition of which is that he give up his weapons. Incredibly WND took Palmer's side to portray this as a gun-rights issue, obscuring the facts about Palmer and his threats in the process.
An Oct. 10 WND article by Bob Unruh keeps up the support, as well as the obscuring of facts. Unruh writes that the woman Palmer is targeting is merely a "reader" of the blog who "complained that the online discussion was a threat to her life. In fact, the woman is the entire focus of the blog; Palmer is specifically attacking her and making threatening statements toward her.
As before, WND makes no apparent effort to contact the woman and allow her to respond to Palmer's attacks.
With this enthusiastic support, WND is essentially enabling this online stalker's creepy, vindictive attacks against a women with whom he has a personal grudge. Last time we checked, enabling grudges does not qualify as journalism.
