Mother Jones, details how prior to his emergence as an anti-Muslim activist and current adviser to Mitt Romney's campaign, Walid Phares was a top official in a Lebanese sectarian religious militia responsible for massacres during that country's civil war.

Phares is a Newsmax columnist and a frequent interview subject at WorldNetDaily.

Posted by Terry K. at 9:41 AM EDT

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You thought that a vindictive online stalker was an odd person for WorldNetDaily to defend? Wait 'til you meet its latest poster boy.

An unbylined Oct. 27 WND article tells the case of Darren Huff, who this week was the subject of "a convoluted federal court result in which a defendant was convicted of ferrying guns across state lines, from his home in Georgia to Madisonville, Tenn., without using them." WND continues:

Huff had been stopped by Tennessee law enforcement officers in April 2010 and he reportedly told them he was en route to support efforts to arrest Monroe County officials who refused to allow a grand jury to consider allegations against Obama.

The AP reported that officers said Huff was carrying a loaded Colt .45 plus an assault rifle and ammunition. Huff testified in court that he was en route to help Walter Fitzpatrick, a Tennessee retiree who was placed under arrest when he tried to make a citizen's arrest on a grand jury foreman.

You might remember Fitzpatrick as an earlier WND poster boy, about whom WND hid his lengthy history of contacts with law enforcement, ranging from numerous instances of alleged domestic violence and harassment to restraining orders and various other judgments filed against him. Fitzpatrick was also court-martialed and convicted of failing to properly supervise the spending of his ship's "morale, welfare and recreation" money, effectively ending his Navy career.

Needless to say, WND isn't telling the whole story about Huff. As Talking Points Memo reported, Huff is on videotape telling offers during his stop by Tennessee law enforcement that "I’ve got my .45 because ain’t no government official gonna go peacefully" -- which would seem to run counter to the Huff statement WND reported that "I have never made a statement about taking over the courthouse, the city, the state, nothing."

WND mentions that Huff is a member of "a Georgia militia," but not its name -- Oath Keepers, which last year insisted wasn't an militia (though it if was, it wouldn't be a bad thing). That took place during the child custody case of an Oath Keepers member whose membership in the group was made an issue by WND in order to obscure allegations of child abuse.

But that's not the best part that WND won't tell you. Wonkette reports that according to the FBI’s “Returned Property” document, the items that were given back to Huff after his arrest included a "one (1) pink dildo with remote," "one (1) DVD containing pornographic material 'Tranny Hunter'," "four (4) condoms," and "one (1) bottle of KY Gel."

This is who WND considers a respectable birther and Second Amendment supporter. WND must be so proud.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:09 AM EDT

Updated: Friday, October 28, 2011 1:11 AM EDT

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Remember earlier this year, when the Media Research Center's Culture & Media Institute went into freakout mode over a J. Crew ad featuring one of the clothing firm's designers painting her young son's toenails pink, declaring that it was "blatant propaganda celebrating transgendered children"? Well, they're feeling pretty smug over the latest chapter in this story: the designer, Jenna Lyons, is involved in a messy divorce battle with her husband, which includes allegations that Lyons "has fallen in love with another woman."

The MRC now feels vindicated in its attack on Lyons.

An Oct. 25 NewsBusters post by Paul Wilson declares a weird sort of victory, baselessly asserting that the Lyons ad "was clearly meant to serve as pro-transgender propaganda or at least normalize gender confusion," and huffed that "many in the media scornfully dismissed the transgender aspects of the ad, and portrayed members of the conservative community as hysterical, hypersensitive fools.: Wilson added: "But the company line at J. Crew, and recent behavior of Lyons, tells a different story. Could it possibly be that the media was wrong on this issue, and CMI was right?"

Um, no. He has no proof beyond his own vivid imagination that the ad "was clearly meant to serve as pro-transgender propaganda," utterly discounting the fact that young children like bright colors, think it's fun to paint themselves bright colors, and haven't assigned gender roles to those colors.

The bottom line is that CMI's attack on Lyons was driven by homophobia, and claiming that the attack is vindicated because she may have a female lover is homophobia as well. Wilson is confusing vindication with bigotry.

Posted by Terry K. at 4:27 PM EDT

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In an Oct. 21 NewsBusters post, Kyle Drennen expresses his unhappiness that NBC reported that Herman Cain's presidential campaign appears to be less about running for president than it is about selling his books and building his brand.

Drennen doesn't counter any of the facts NBC reports or even the premist -- perhaps because they appear to be true. Indeed, Cain has no real campaign structure in any of the key primary states, including South Carolina and Iowa.

There's no "liberal bias" involved in Drennen's complaint -- he's simply upset that the media reported facts he'd rather see ignored.

Posted by Terry K. at 10:52 AM EDT

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Les Kinsolving can't be much of a reporter if he can't be bothered to stop dishonesty in his name by his own employer.

An Oct. 21 WorldNetDaily article, like so many others, portrays White House press secretary Jay Carney's declining to take a question from Kinsolving as a deliberate attempt to avoid a question -- even though neither Kinsolving nor WND provide any evidence that Carney knew the question Kinsolving was going to ask.

And even if Carney had know the question, Kinsolving has demonstrated himself to be such a right-wing hack that Carney was fully justified in thinking that Kinsolving is a crank and not a real reporter.

Is Kinsolving so weak and powerless and lacking in personal integrity that he is unable or unwilling to do anything about the dishonest depictions of Carney that appear in these whining WND articles (which we doubt Kinsolving actually writes)? Or is he fully complicit in the dishonesty of his employer?

Either way, just consider it another justifiable reason for Carney -- or anyone else -- to never taking a question from Kinsolving.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:01 AM EDT

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Fred Lucas writes in an Oct. 24 CNSNews.com article:

Vice President Joe Biden said yesterday on CNN that nobody can say "that the stimulus did not create jobs," but he did not specificy how many jobs he believes President Barack Obama's stimulus created and how much each of those jobs cost.

According to the most recent report on the stimulus by the Congressional Budget Office, the law had created a maximum of 2 million jobs as the fourth quarter of 2011 at a cost of $412,500 per job.

[...]

CBO estimated that the actual total might be greater than that. In its calculation, there will be between 600,000 and 2 million people employed in the fourth quarter of 2011 as a result of the stimulus.

Taking the high-end number of 2 million and dividing it by the $825 billion cost of the stimulus yields a cost of $412,500 per job.

Unfortunately for Lucas, that crude calculation is not how this sort of thing works. As PolitiFact details:

We checked the White House report, and of the $666 billion stimulus total, 43 percent was spent on tax cuts for individuals and businesses; 19 percent went to state governments, primarily for education and Medicaid; and 13 percent paid for government benefits to individuals such as unemployment and food stamps.

The remainder, about 24 percent, was spent on projects such as infrastructure improvement, health information technology and research on renewable energy.

The White House points out that Recovery Act dollars didn’t just fund salaries — as the blog item implies. Lumping all stimulus costs together and classifying the total as salaries produces an inflated figure.

Lucas misleads further by dividing the entire amount of the stimulus by the number of jobs existing in a single quarter, ignoring jobs created earlier.

Lucas tried this same sort of dishonest calculation last month too.

Posted by Terry K. at 8:46 PM EDT

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Why is WorldNetDaily still defending an online stalker?

We have no earthly idea, but an Oct. 21 WND article (this one unbylined) takes the side of stalker Mike Palmer once again -- and once again hides the real facts of the case.

WND narrowly focuses on the loss of Palmer's gun rights as a result of a restraining order against him. As it has done before, WND discusses in only the vaguest of terms why there is a restraining order against Palmer:

The summary suspension of 2nd Amendment rights for Mike Palmer, a 55-year-old Christian missionary from Phoenix, was issued in a complaint by Melody Thomas-Morgan of Prescott, Ariz., who charged that an online discussion was a threat to her life.

The discussion concerned the "wages of sin is death," and the reader claimed that Palmer was threatening her with "death," with that word in quotes in the legal filings.

In fact, there is no "discussion" occurring. As we've detailed, Palmer is the friend and "spiritual mentor" of Thomas-Morgan's ex-husband, and is using his blog to harrass her and her children on the ex's behalf. Palmer's discussion of Thomas-Morgan's "death" on his blog can resaonbly be interpreted as a threat to her life.

Why doesn't WND tell the real truth about Palmer, or even bother to contact Thomas-Morgan so she can tell her side of the story? Because WND has a history of taking the side of creepy people who must be whitewashed for public consumption.

In siding with a vindictive online stalker, WND has taken the side of yet another creepy person. Why should anyone take this "news" organization seriously?

Posted by Terry K. at 3:06 PM EDT

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Noel Sheppard whines in an Oct. 22 NewsBusters post: "Academy Award-winning actress Kathy Bates wants President Obama "to stand up on his hind legs and fight these rat bastards."

While that was going on, Fox Business host called Vice President Joe Biden "numb nuts." Sheppard has yet to speak out about that disrespectful statement not by an actor but by the host of a TV "news' show-- presumably because he approves of the insult.

Another day, another double standard in NewsBusters land...

Posted by Terry K. at 10:33 AM EDT

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The painfully unfunny D.J. Dolce managed to become even more so by embracing one of the darkest, sleaziest corners of Obama derangement in her Oct. 24 WorldNetDaily video:

You know it's odd how people closely associated with the Democratic Party end up dead? Donald Young, the openly gay choir director at Obama's church, and two othter gay men were systematically executed within the same month during Obama's campaign. Another gay man, Larry Sinclair, came forward claiming he had sexual relations with Barack Obama, and that coming forward was the only way to prevent his own execution.

Sounds interesting, but if you've ever heard Larry Sinclair talk, you'd know he's clearly out of his mind. But then again, all gay men are out of their minds. I guess we'll never know the truth.

Yeah, she went there -- joining fellow WND employee Jerome Corsi in indulging in Obama hatred so deranged that they're willing to take Larry Sinclair seriously. Dolce's alleged joke about Sinclair notwithstanding, she clearly believes him, otherwise his claims wouldn't be the star of her little video.

Dolce goes on to take a tired hit at Ted Kennedy and Chappaquiddick, finally resurrecting the discredited Clinton "body count."

It appears Dolce has contracted a severe case of Obama derangement from her husband, Molotov Mitchell.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:17 AM EDT

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Following in the steps of Newsmax's Ronald Kessler, CNSNews.com's Penny Starr joins in the mea-culpa rehabilitation -- and book promotion -- tour of of former Bush administration aide Timothy Gogelein.

Starr establishes the soft, non-challenging tone for her Oct. 19 article in the very first paragraph:

Sitting in his Washington, D.C., office surrounded by dozens of photographs and memorabilia documenting his successful career as a political liaison, Timothy S. Goeglein looks younger than his years and welcomes his guest with a smile.

After that, Starr breezes through Goeglein's mea culpa over his history of plagiarism that resulted in his resignation from the administration, and gets right on to touting how "Bush’s Christian faith influenced the policy decisions the president made over the course of his two terms in office." Starr is clearly not going to question Goeglein's story, nor (like Kessler) is she going to do any sort of checking to see if Goeglein committed any plagiarism in his book.

Posted by Terry K. at 7:51 PM EDT

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In an Oct. 19 WorldNetdaily column, Joseph Farah came to the defense of Pat Buchanan and his new book, "Suicide of a Superpower," which Farah delcared "is 100 percent spot on." Farah wrote:

He's being called all the names you would expect him to be called from clueless people and by those who actively seek the end of America as we have known it.

But Buchanan is not the bigot or racist his detractors contend he is.

It's a simple case of arithmetic. When he says Americans of European descent are not procreating at levels that reach even population replacement levels, he is not suggesting that whites are the only people capable of self-government. 

Actually, Buchanan pretty much is a bigot, and given that record, he pretty much is saying that whites are the only people capable of self-government. 

But Farah is not done being Buchanan-esque. He goes on to write regarding abortion:

But, besides the human toll in tens of millions of innocent lives snuffed out, and besides the emotional toll abortion inflicts on women, now there is a new concern – the very survival of the nation and all it represents in the world. It turns out abortion didn't bring freedom at all. It brought death not only to unborn babies, but it has brought the nation's heritage of liberty to the brink of death, too.

On the subject of "Assimilation and education," Farah writes:

Those who America chooses to let in the door need to immerse themselves in the English language and American culture as quickly as they can or be prepared for a short visit. And America needs to get its school system out of the hands of the National Education Association union thugs who have far too much power in local, state and national education policy, and back into the hands of parents.

No wonder Farah doesn't think Buchanan is a bigot. He can't see it because he's the same kind of bigot Buchanan is.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:00 PM EDT

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Only in the wacky, bile-filled world of Brent Bozell can a non-NPR employee who has never expressed a political opinion on NPR serve as the reason for NPR to be stripped of federal funding.

An Oct. 20 Media Research Center press release quotes Bozell's ranting about Lisa Simeone, a host for an NPR-distributed show who popped up as a spokesperson for a group involved in an Occupy Wall Street-related protest in Washington, in a letter to House Republican Leader John Boehner demanding NPR lose its federal funding:

NPR is out of control, using taxpayer money to lend support to a sometimes violent and lawless mob set on crippling the financial backbone of our country.

NPR is not an objective, independent news broker. NPR is a shill for George Soros and other liberal funders, doing the bidding of these donors and acting in tandem with their political interests. And as you will see in the attached report, we have carefully documented such instances. NPR is a rogue operation which must be eliminated once and for all. It wasn’t necessary, we can’t afford it, and it continues to violate its own ethical standards of non-partisanship.

Never mind that Simeone is not an NPR employee -- she was a freelancer. Never mind that Bozell offered no evidence whatsoever that Simeone expressed any political opinion on the air -- highly unlikely given one of the shows she hosted is called "World of Opera."Never mind that Bozell offers no evidence whatsoever that Simeone's involvement with Occupy Wall Street-related protest constitutes NPR "using taxpayer money to lend support to a sometimes violent and lawless mob set on crippling the financial backbone of our country."

Forget all of that. Bozell is on a rant, and Simeone holds a politcal opinion he doesn't like.

Also, never mind that NPR cut ties with Simeone after her activism was exposed. Bozell sure doesn't care, even though he acknowledged that fact in his letter to Boehner.

It all boils down to one thing: Simeone holds a politcal opinion Bozell doesn't like. And he wants that opinion silenced. That he's willing to try and sic powerful politicians on NPR in order to shut down political opinion he doesn't like is scary.

Oh, and that  supposedly "carefully documented" report of public broadcasting's supposed liberalism? That's just the MRC's 20 cherry-picked instances of supposed liberal bias from tens of thousands of hours of public radio and TV broadcasting over 25 years, which it pretends is representative of all public broadcasting. It's not, and the MRC provides no evidence that it is.

The MRC is even turning on a normally friendly media critic to further its anti-NPR jihad. The Balitimore Sun's David Zurawik -- whom the MRC has fluffed when he took the side of its right-wing agenda -- made the mistake of pointing out the hypocrisy of "some of the folks on the right" who are bashing Simeone while "they slavishly take their marching orders from a certain cable TV channel chairman."

That incurred the wrath of the MRC's Tim Graham, who huffed in an Oct. 24 NewsBusters post: "This seems to ignore that liberals aren't watching the government turn a half-billion taxpayer dollars over to Rupert Murdoch every year." He continued:

Simeone has displayed all the arrogance you would expect from the leftists on NPR. She expected there was no reason to object to her both working on public radio shows and demanding on the sidewalks that "money that's being spent and wasted on slaughter come home here to spent in the U.S. on human needs." Apparently, those "human needs" are for more public radio, since no one ever suggests NPR be cut so we can fund food stamps.

Graham added: "So let's take two seconds to wonder if it was discovered that an NPR host was very publicly serving as a spokesperson for the Tea Party, how long would it take NPR to dump them, and for liberals to applaud that it was the only proper ethical course?" This is a presumed reference to Juan Williams. But Graham ignores the fact that, unlike Williams, Simeone was not a direct NPR employee, was not paid to express political opinions and apparently never expressed any political opinions on NPR's air.

Graham is just following the MRC's agenda -- like Bozell, he too wants to see opinion he doesn't agree with silenced.

Posted by Terry K. at 9:15 AM EDT

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WorldNetDaily's teaming up with Herman Cain to distribute his 9-9-9 plan is only the tip of the iceberg.

WND has been fans of Herman Cain for a long time -- after all, it publishes Cain's weekly column, and as far back as July 2010 it was fawning over him as "Obama's worst nightmare" -- so Cain's recent surge in the polls has sent WND's writers into a Cain-gasmic frenzy.

 The lead cheerleader, of course, is WND editor Joseph Farah:

It looks like a genuine, home-spun, non-politician, conservative candidate for the Republican presidential nomination is emerging.

His name is Herman Cain.

And the evidence of the threat he represents to a second term of Barack Obama is clear from the attacks being leveled in his direction by the media, by the Democrats and by the sycophantic entitlement mongers who think government's coercive power should be used to get "their fair share" even though they don't work to earn it.

-- Joseph Farah, Oct. 7

I have to admit, when I first heard from Cain himself that he was going to seek the presidency, long before he made it public, I was, shall we say, skeptical.

It wasn't because I didn't think Cain was a great man, with great accomplishments already under his belt and capable of even more. It was because he was, at the time, virtually unknown across the country – except to tea-party activists who had seen him, heard him and loved him.

But as I examine the polls every day, there is no denying that he is in the midst of a meteoric rise as the favorite candidate of many if not most Republicans who have a stated preference. Cain is for real. And I couldn't be more delighted about that.

Cain has character. He has principles. He loves America. And I have no doubt about the fact that his campaign is based on doing what's right for America more than it is based on ego.

[...]

Herman Cain is every bit the adult we should look for in a president. He can be a fatherly figure to the entire nation – especially young black males who have been deprived of them by government paternalism and a culture gone mad.

It was Obama who sought to "transform" America.

But I suspect that a Cain presidency will be far more transformative in the best sense of the word – and offer far more healing for the nation.

-- Joseph Farah, Oct. 13

The best news to date is the unexpectedly positive response from the public to Herman Cain's candidacy. He is not just seen as a great new voice in Republican politics – someone who makes the debates more interesting. He is perceived as the favorite candidate among the grass-roots Republican voters nationwide, according to an increasing number of polls.

That doesn't necessarily translate into caucus and primary wins – because that takes campaign organization on the ground. But Cain has done enormously well – and he hasn't received a lick of encouragement from the Republican establishment, which is exactly what we should expect – and which is exactly what makes him so exciting.

-- Joseph Farah, Oct. 16

Most of WND's columnists are similarly on board the Cain bandwagon. For instance:

In the spring of 1969, Herman Cain and I independently came to the same decision; we would start our graduate studies at Purdue University in the fall.

Although Cain did not know it at the time, by choosing to become a Purdue Boilermaker he was rendering himself an outlier in a political arena that our putative Ivy League betters have come to dominate.

[...]

The ones who survived the ODs and the shoot-outs, the self-immolations and the accidental bombings, these are the people who now run our media.

I think America is ready for a Boilermaker president, but are they?

-- Jack Cashill, Oct. 12

What makes Herman Cain so interesting is the passion and clarity of his view of American freedom and his Reagan-like ability to communicate and excite grass-roots Americans.

A new Gallup poll on candidate positive intensity – the percentage of those with strongly favorable opinion minus those with strongly unfavorable opinion – shows Cain so far ahead of the rest of the Republican field it is ridiculous.

-- Star Parker, Oct. 14

Any unbiased observer watching the current Republican presidential contest is aware that Herman Cain is causing a great deal of heartburn for the far left. Recently, Cain was verbally assaulted by a college professor and a celebrity. It was an unprovoked assault owing to the fact that Cain had the "audacity" to imply that "brainwashed" blacks should be allowed to "think for themselves."

-- Ben Kinchlow, Oct. 16

Rove and RNC Chairman Reince Priebus may want Romney – but if the Party were smart, they'd be on bent knees with crucifixes, rosaries, or whatever, praying that Herman Cain would win. Herman's winning may not be the death knell, but it would deal the left a blow from which they and their minions would never fully recover. It would change the face of conservative politics and elections for the foreseeable future.

More importantly, Herman Cain has the opportunity not to just win in a way that destroys the cookie-cutter campaign models. It's precisely because Cain's model doesn't require raising the monies and having the nationwide organization that he has a chance to empower the people in a way not witnessed in modern history. I'm betting that one or more of the political geniuses thought about that, but dismissed it as impossible. Impossible, because they're too smart to realize that they and their polls don't know what the American people think. They only know what their mirror images tell them we think.

Herman is leading, and it's not because he's the flavor of the week. It's because what he is saying and doing resonates with the people, and many of us believe it was doing so before the Florida debate that supposedly ignited his campaign. The dichotomy between Cain and the other candidates is night and day. Respected economic minds are supporting his 9-9-9 plan.

He speaks from the core of his being. His detractors have to come up with new phrases and political verbiage to define him. Their problem, in the final analysis, is they're married to the old way of doing things. There is a synecdoche of the Constitution to the people and between opportunity and the person that is clearly understood in Cain's message. His speeches don't come across as canned or contrived. He's not saying what he thinks we want to hear – he's saying what needs to be said.

-- Mychal Massie, Oct. 17

Herman Cain would make a great president of the United States. He is my candidate, and he has a good chance of becoming the candidate of the Republican Party.

Cain's only weakness is political inexperience, and that leads to mistakes in his campaign, but it is not a disqualification for the office. In fact, in the eyes of most voters, it is more a blessing than a curse.

[...]

Herman Cain is electable precisely for the reasons many pundits dismiss him: He is not a professional politician. That's a good thing. He is instead a professional manager of strong character and conservative values, and that is exactly what the voters want in 2012.

-- Tom Tancredo, Oct. 21

A couple of WND columnists, though, are not fully on board with WND's Cainiac agenda. Vox Day delcared in May that, as a former Federal Reserve regional official, "Herman Cain is far too financially and economically dubious to be given any serious thought as a conservative presidential candidate."

Alan Keyes is not happy with Cain either, asserting that "Herman Cain's professed beliefs are not deeply rooted or thought through enough to stand strong against the storm. He falls far short of being the person the nation needs in the White House to help us do so." Keyes was also put out by Cain's supposed joke that he would electrify a border fence: "Since from its beginning, America has acknowledged God as the source of human rights; joking about measures that affect the unalienable right to life comes dangerously close to mocking Him."

But they are in the decided minority at WND. Joseph Farah's Cain bandwagon will happily leave them behind.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:21 AM EDT

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In an Oct. 19 NewsBusters post, Ken Shepherd writes:"In a front-page story today, Politico's Darren Samuelsohn relayed the ire of liberal think tanks and blogs 'bemoaning the "out of proportion" Solyndra coverage' in the media. We at NewsBusters are not sure what planet these folks are living on."

We wonder what planet Shepherd lives on, where everything outside the three broadcast networks is not part of "the media."

Shepherd selectively focuses only on ABC, CBS and NBC in claiming that they ran "just 19 stories" on Solyndra. Such a deliberately narrow focus ignores the fact that major newspapers have been pushing the Solyndra controversy, while ignoring other scandals, such as military contracting fraud, that cost the government much more money than Solyndra has. Further, Fox News has been practically obsessed by Solyndra, devoting a whopping eight hours of broadcast time to it in September alone.

It's a peculiar definition of "media" Shepherd is using, which happens to exclude most of it.

Posted by Terry K. at 10:52 PM EDT

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