WND's Farah Defends Walid Phares, But Doesn't Say From What Topic: WorldNetDaily
In his Nov. 4 WorldNetDaily column, Joseph Farah runs to the defense of Walid Phares by bashing criticism of him that he claims is coming from the Council on American-Islamic Relations:
What's bugging CAIR is that Phares is one of presidential candidate Mitt Romney's national security advisers. So the organization is touting Phares as an "extremist" (one of its favorite terms for anyone with whom it disagrees) and calling on Romney to let him go.
The anti-Phares campaign by CAIR was originally initiated by "civil rights" operative Randall Todd "Ismail" Hoyer, who began the attacks against Dr. Phares and was later jailed for terrorism offenses.
Mitt Romney may not be my choice for the Republican nomination, but his selection of Phares is a credit to his own discernment about national security issues.
While Farah references Phares' "extremism" and "terrorism," he fails to elaborate on the charges, nor does he link to any article in which those charges are detailed.
In fact, as we've noted, Phares -- a Newsmax columnist and a frequent interview subject at WND -- was a top official in a Lebanese sectarian religious militia responsible for massacres during that country's civil war.
Farah goes on to complain that CAIR "is smearing Walid Phares" -- but, as with WND's similar claim that right-wing anti-Muslim activists are being "slandered," there's nothing to explain exactly what the "smear" is.
As with the other story, it appears that the "smear" is that the truth is being told about Phares. And Farah hates the truth when it conflicts with his right-wing agenda.
MRC Now Disparaging Cain's Latest Accuser Topic: Media Research Center
Dan Gainor isn't the only Media Research Center official disparaging the alleged victims of Herman Cain's sexual harassment as being out for money.
MRC Culture & Media Institute managing editor Matt Philbin weighed in tweet-wise on Monday's press conference in which a woman represented by Gloria Allred made sexual harassment allegations against Herman Cain:
Meanwhile, Gainor is continuing his campaign of denigration, repeatingallegations about the woman's background:
We don't recall Gainor pointing this kind of stuff out regarding Bill Clinton's accusers of sexual impropriety.
Then, Gainor tweets: "Journalists ethical code says journalists should: Always question sources’ motives before promising anonymity." But that's what journalists did regarding Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey and Juanita Broddrick, and Gainor's employer did not like that.
Apparently, a little consistency is too much to ask from the MRC.
An unbylined Nov. 5 WorldNetDaily article slips in this statement amid yet another attack on the Council on American-Islamic Relations, this time on CAIR official Dawud Walid's criticism a prayer gathering that he called anti-Muslim:
As WND reported, Walid was a headliner at a conference in Detroit recently along with the co-author of a report that slanders critics of radical Islam, including Spencer, Daniel Pipes and Steven Emerson.
This is in reference to a report by the Center for American Progress that detailed how the above named writers, as well as David Horowitz and WND columnist Pamela Geller, promote anti-Muslim attitudes on the right.
WND, though, never explains exactly how these people were "slandered." (Plus, WND misuses the word "slander," defined in law as verbal, not written like the CAP report.) Instead, it links back to an Oct. 14 article (also unbylined) similarly stating that the report "slanders critics of radical Islam." But it this article too, WND never states how the right-wingers were "slandered."
If WND is going to make such a serious allegation such as slander, it should be able to back up its claim. So far it hasn't.
Further, the WND article tries to downplay claims that the prayer event, scheduled for next weekend in Detroit, has an anti-Muslim bent to it, repeating denials from event organizers and suggesting that the only evidence to the contrary is "a video posted on YouTube of a conversation with two church leaders he said were associated with the prayer event."
In fact, as Rachel Tabachnick writes, there are numerous conversations posted online in which even organizers discuss the anti-Muslim nature of it. One pastor claims that "We are literally dropping in a Delta Force" with the intent of raising "awareness of the Islamic threat." Another pastor says, "We need the harvest of the Muslim people. We can't just sit by and let them continue the on the way they are, worshipping their false god." One of the lead organizers of the event, Lou Engle, has repeatedly claimed that the event will be used to convert Muslims.
CNS' One-Sided Attack on Teachers Topic: CNSNews.com
A Nov. 1 CNSNews.com article by Elizabeth Harrington is a one-sided attack on teachers that largely regurgitates a study by the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute claiming that teachers are overpaid "if you take into account benefits, job security, summer vacations and other factors." Harrington makes no apparent effort contact anyone who might take issue with the study's findings.
That wouldn't have been hard to find. Media Matters details numerous studies finding that teachers are paid less than comparable workers, and their wages have fallen when adjusted for inflation. Politico quotes reform-minded former Washington, D.C., schools chief Michelle Rhee as stating that "we do not agree that teachers are overpaid."
That's just lazy reporting on Harrington's part, though it may also be that CNS isn't interested in reporting criticism of a study whose findings obviously serve its right-wing agenda.
WND Columnist Joins Emergency System Freakout Topic: WorldNetDaily
Patrice Lewis writes in her Nov. 4 WorldNetDaily column:
On Wednesday, Nov. 9, federal authorities will shut off all television and radio communications simultaneously at 2 p.m. Eastern to complete the first-ever test of the national Emergency Alert System (EAS). The test is supposed to last no more than two or three minutes. "In essence," notes The Blaze, "the authority to seize control of all television and civilian communication has been asserted by the executive branch and handed to a government agency." Officials later backed the test down to a more conventional 30 seconds after people expressed their concerns.
While some folks will applaud the warm fuzzy benefits of such a test – after all, who can argue the need to disseminate critical national-security information to everyone? – there are others who have darker suspicions. Why 2 p.m? Why not 2 a.m.? As one commenter said, "This is not a test – it is a demonstration. A test would be done at 4 a.m. so it would inconvenience as few as possible."
Yes, a demonstration. Our government is apparently eager to make evident its supremacy in our communications systems. "Now we know in the event of a major crisis, the American people will be told with one voice … about an emergency. All that's left to determine is who will control the EAS when that day comes, and what their message will be." One voice. No others allowed.
We're from the government, and we're here to help. Now shut up, sit down and do what we say.
Lewis conveniently doesn't mention that this system is the result of a bill introduced by a Republican congressman, Jim DeMint, received near-unanimous congressional support, and signed into law in 2006 by a Republican president.
If Bozell Hates Anti-Semitism So Much, Why Does He Publish Pat Buchanan? Topic: Media Research Center
We've detailed how Media Research Center chief Brent Bozell railed against isolated instances of anti-Semitism at Occupy Wall Street and related protests (and trying to pretend they were more widespread than they were) while assembling a motley crew of so-called "Jewish leaders" who lack anything beyond a cult-sized constituency to back him up.
If Bozell was genuinely concerned about anti-Semitism, he would have started rooting it out of his own organization.
The MRC's "news" division, CNSNews.com, publishes the twice-weekly syndicated column by Pat Buchanan. In May 2010, CNS published a Buchanan column in which he complained that if Elena Kagan's nomination was successful, there would be too many Jews on the Supureme Court: "If Kagan is confirmed, Jews, who represent less than 2 percent of the U.S. population, will have 33 percent of the Supreme Court seats. Is this the Democrats’ idea of diversity?"
As we noted at the time, Bozell said nothing about Buchanan's column, even though around the same time he and the MRC were excoriating Helen Thomas' statement that Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine."
In addition to Buchanan's borderline anti-Semitism -- in his new book, he attacks American Jews for having made themselves an "endangered species" by supporting the right of abortion -- he has refused to disavow the idea that minorities have inferior genes, attacked Barack Obama's mother as an "ethno-masocist," and appeared on a self-described "pro-White" radio show to promote his new book.
As opposed to the "Jewish leaders" Bozell scrounged up to criticize Occupy Wall Street, the Progressive Jewish Alliance and Jewish Funds for Justice have combined to call for MSNBC to stop giving airtime to Buchanan's bigotry.
Will Bozell follow this example and stop publishing Buchanan's column? Or will Bozell prove himself to be a partisan hack more interested in scoring political points than living out his declared principles?
We're guessing the former -- after all, one of his MRC lieutenants, Tim Graham, has already penned a defense of Buchanan.
Buchanan clearly writes with a white racial consciousness, even a tribalism. This was also true of Buchanan when he first joined MSNBC. Some of the passages singled out by the lefties (on TPM Muckraker) do argue that whites are being submerged, even vanishing under diversity. I find this pessimism overwrought. But can blacks like Van Jones say with a straight face that they don’t have an angry racial consciousness, a tribalism? It’s only that they’re the oppressed ones? With a black president, when does this stop being true?
It's almost comical that they would claim with some sort of shock that Buchanan "takes every opportunity to stoke the racial anxiety and fear that exists among some white people. In short, Buchanan wants to pit white people against people of color." And what has Al Sharpton done, and the other black race-baiters, constantly pitting black people against allegedly racist Republicans? If stoking racial anxiety is disqualifying, why does Sharpton been awarded a nightly platform?
[...]
Most Americans today don’t want to be that racially conscious, that white Americans panic over still “steering” the national wheel as a racial royal "We." Conservatives often especially want to prove they’re not racially obsessed. This (in some part) explains the current wave for Herman Cain – which is not to dismiss his successful life and leadership.
But some of Buchanan’s allegedly offensive prose is simply true. Take the passage about minority journalism organizations: “Half a century after Martin Luther King envisioned a day when his children would be judged ‘not by the color of their skin, but the content of their character,’ journalists of color are demanding the hiring and promotion of journalists based on the color of their skin.” Merit is not completely overlooked, but it can certainly seem secondary when groups are organized around skin color.
Graham then goes on to play the equivocation (and gay-bashing) card: "Again, you have to laugh at the idea that Buchanan's the 'extremist,' while gay groups that want to teach sex education to six-year-olds and let seven-year-old 'transgendered' boys join the Girl Scouts aren't extreme. They're the 'sane, clear-thinking people.'"
Graham made no mention, however, of Buchanan's complaints about Jews, even though his boss purports to be fighting against such things.
Did WND's Farah Plagiarize From Wikipedia? Topic: WorldNetDaily
We've detailed WorldNetDaily's misguided war of Wikipedia. WND's boss, however, seems not so averse to making use of Wikipedia when it suits his purposes.
In his Sept. 22 WND column defending birther-leaning Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio:
He was born in Springfield, Mass., to Italian immigrant parents, both from Avellino, Italy. His mother died giving birth to him in 1932, and he was raised by his father, a grocery store owner. At 18, Arpaio enlisted in the U.S. Army and served from 1950 through 1954. After his discharge, he moved to Washington and became a police officer. He also served in the Las Vegas police department for a time, before being appointed as a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, which later became the Drug Enforcement Administration. During his 25-year stint in the DEA, he was stationed in Argentina, Turkey and Mexico and ultimately headed the DEA's Arizona office.
In 1992, he campaigned and won the position of Maricopa County sheriff. He was re-elected in 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008.
Here's the description of Arpaio that appears on his Wikipedia page:
Arpaio was born in Springfield, Massachusetts to Italian parents both from Avellino, Italy. Arpaio's mother died while giving birth to him, and Arpaio was raised by his father, a grocery store owner. Arpaio completed high school and worked in his father's business until age 18 when he enlisted in the United States Army. Arpaio served in the Army from 1950 to 1954 in the Medical Detachment Division and was stationed in France for part of the time as a military policeman.
Following his discharge in 1954, Arpaio moved to Washington, D.C. and became a police officer, moving in 1957 to Las Vegas, Nevada. He served as a police officer in Las Vegas for six months before being appointed as a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, which later became part of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). During his 25-year tenure with the DEA, he was stationed in Argentina, Turkey and Mexico, and advanced through the ranks to the position of head of the DEA's Arizona branch.
In 1992, Arpaio successfully campaigned for the office of Maricopa County Sheriff. The voters of Maricopa County re-elected him in 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008.
It looks like Farah copied-and-pasted from Wikipedia, did a little editing, and voila, a good chunk of his column is filled in.
Of course, this isn't the first time Farah has plagarized from others.
(Thanks to a loyal ConWebWatch reader for the tip.)
MRC's Gainor Still Sliming Cain Accusers As Gold-Diggers Topic: Media Research Center
We've detailed how Media Research Center vice president Dan Gainor has been using Twitter to attack the as-yet-unnamed victims of Herman Cain's alleged sexual harassment as gold-diggers out for a book deal. He's still at it.
In one tweet, Gainor even used the #golddigger hashtag in writing, "Free Five Guys lunch (DC area only w me) to person who can guess exact amount of book deal advance for Cain accuser."
Gainor also wrote of one accuser: "So if she gets a book deal, does she have to refund cash to NRA?"
Funny, we don't remember Gainor or anyone else at the MRC being bothered by Kathleen Willey's book deal or how Gennifer Flowers changed her story after getting a sizable payoff from a tabloid.
Meanwhile, Gainor sounds like a birther in a ranting tweet about President Obama:
Yes, this man is a major figure at a major "educational" nonprofit group. How does the MRC have that tax status when it's making such blatantly partisan statements?
WND's Sue-Happy Lawyer Is In Trouble Topic: WorldNetDaily
We already know Larry Klayman is a sue-happy defamer. Now it appears he is so bad at being a sue-happy defamer that he can't even make an actual living at it.
The Miami New Times reports that Klayman -- a WorldNetDaily columnist who is representing WND in its defamation lawsuit against Esquire magazine -- has been reprimanded by the Florida bar for taking a $25,000 payment from a woman to represent her in a criminal case but failing to do any legal work for her. After he was ordered to return $5,000 of the money as agreed to in mediation, he failed to keep up the payments.
IN a 2010 letter to the Florida bar explaining why he hadn't kept up with the payments, Klayman wrote:
I have and have had very little funds, as my financial situation continues to be dire. I do not own any investments or retirement plans and just have a few pieces of jewelry and clothing, a television, a radio, a bed and clothing and shoes. I rent my apartment. The jewelry is a watch which is of negligible value, and consists of a watch and a ring valued currently under $200.00.
I am in the process of gathering my financial information which is scattered about three states, where I formerly resided in whole or in part, and will soon file for bankruptcy pro se. I cannot afford bankruptcy counsel, having been asked for a $5000.00 retainer which I cannot afford. I will not use this bankruptcy to discharge my obligation under the mediation agreement as I am committed to honoring it. Its just that my financial situation has been so poor.
Klayman told Miami New Times that he has since paid the woman the $5,000 he was ordered to repay her.
Meanwhile, Klayman's license to practice law in Pennsylvania is on "administrative suspension." And as we've previously noted, Klayman's $10 million lawsuitagainst the White House Correspondents Association as part of WND's snit fit over not being able to buy as many seats as it wanted for the White House Correspondent's Dinner was essentially laughed out of court. (When we asked Klayman about it, he huffed that "we decided not to pursue that." So why file the lawsuit in the first place if you have no intention of pursing it? Aside from the publicity-stunt aspect, that is.)
NewsBusters Joins CNS In Headline-Rewriting Game Topic: Media Research Center
We've detailed CNSNews.com's propensity for rewriting Associated Press headlines to add right-wing bias. But another Media Research Center division is rewriting headlines too -- but this time, to remove something.
Ann Coulter's Nov. 2 column went out with the headline "Why our blacks are better than their blacks," an echo of her previous statement regarding the Herman Cain sexual harassment scandal:
That headline was apparently too much for NewsBusters, whose version of the column carries the much more cumbersome headline "How Dems and Liberal Media Cynically Use Race to Bash Conservatives, Especially Black Ones."
It seems NewsBusters understands that Coulter's statement was inflammatory and racially charged -- but not enough to criticize her in public for it. Changing Coulter's headline is a cowardly, passive-aggressive way of dealing with it, even as MRC chief Brent Bozell is crying racism over the truth being reported about Cain.
WND Columnist Is Under the Delusion WND Tells The Truth Topic: WorldNetDaily
Yes, Andrea Shea King really did begin her Oct. 31 WorldNetDaily column this way:
Unlike Internet news outlets such as WND, the liberal, so-called "mainstream media" does not report the truth – the unvarnished truth. In fact, if the liberal media can't get the story to fit its liberal template, it simply does not get reported. What tea party march on Washington? Journalistic integrity or ethics are impediments to their worldview and their agenda.
New media roots around, digs out the facts and reports them, regardless of where they may lead and irrespective of any discomfort they might bring. The "elite" media, on the other hand, selectively brings you only the "news" it wants you to know.
Does King even read the website she writes for? WND not only repeatedlytellslies, news does not get reported that does not fit its right-wing template. For instance, shouldn't Jerome Corsi have told his WND readers about a book that debunks birther claims? Yes, but he won't because he is a chief source of the claims the book debunks.
King goes on to regurgitate "new media journalistic star" James O'Keefe's latest joke of an "undercover investigation," touting how it "calls into question the reporters behind the headlines." Well, actually not so much: All O'Keefe captured, according to the Washington Post's Erik Wemple, was "a couple of professors prattling on in not-so-fascinating ways about media and politics." One of O'Keefe's targets, journalism professor Jay Rosen, put it, the heavily edited tape O'Keefe released was "incoherent, context-less and, frankly, boring."
If King can't recognize WND's numerous journalistic lapses (then again, she is on the WND payroll, so it's in her monetary interest not to recognize them), she's certainly prone to thinking that O'Keefe is a "journalistic star."
MRC Is Unhappy That News About Cain Is Being Reported Topic: Media Research Center
There's lots of outrage at the Media Research Center that news is being reported by news reporters.
Scott Whitlock complained that "The network evening newscasts on Tuesday and the morning shows on Wednesday continued to hype the Herman Cain "firestorm," creating 12 more stories in less than 24 hours." Not that any of the reporting was wrong or misleading -- the problem was that it was being reported, period.
Matt Hadro spun Cain's confrontation with reporters who committed the offense of asking questions he didn't want to answer about the sexual harassment allegations as having "briefly raised his voice at reporters on Wednesday and his staff moved them aside."
Whitlock returned with another story-count item, grousing that "NBC, CBS and ABC have developed an insatiable hunger for the Herman Cain sexual harassment story, devoting an incredible 50 stories to the allegations since Monday morning. In contrast, over a similar period these networks mostly ignored far more substantial and serious scandals relating to Bill Clinton." Whitlock ignores the fact that, as we've pointed out, the allegations against Cain are documented (if Cain would only give the National Restaurant Association permission to lift the confidentiality clause barring the victims from speaking publicly), while Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey and Juanita Broaddrick were all exploited by Clinton-haters as a tool to bring down the president and had other credibility problems.
Like many of its news articles, WorldNetDaily's birther activism is defined in no small part by anonymous sources. Aaron Klein, for instance, claims that anonymous "independent forensics experts" have found that Barack Obama's long-form birth certificate is a fake, and Jerome Corsi has cited at least one anonymous "expert" to back up his claim the the birth certificate is fake.
A Nov. 1 WND article by Corsi follows in that tradition, claiming that "Sources close to the sheriff's law enforcement investigation" say that the sheriff's posse appointed by Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio plan to "demand the original microfilm of Obama's birth certificate." No named source backs up Corsi's claim.
Meanwhile, an earlier WND article on the sheriff's posse dropped this tidbit about how stacked this silly little posse is: "Earlier this month, WND senior staff reporter Jerome R. Corsi spent 18 hours over a two-day period in Arizona briefing the Cold Case Posse on a wide range of evidence regarding Obama's eligibility. There was no mention that anyone who contradicts Corsi's conspiratorial claims was invited to tell their story before the posse, such as John Woodman, author of a book debunking many of Corsi's birther claims.
If not, that makes this sham a kangaroo court, not a posse.
CNS Repeats Cain's Falsehoods About Planned Parenthood Topic: CNSNews.com
An Oct. 31 CNSNews.com article by Michael Chapman uncritically repeated two claims by Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain -- that “75 percent" of Planned Parenthood facilities "were built in the black community,” and that Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger "did talk about preventing the increasing number of poor blacks in this country by preventing black babies from being born.”
Chapman didn't report that neither claim is true.
The Washington Post's Glenn Kessler debunked both claims. While Sanger was involved in the now-discredited eugenics movement that was popular during her lifetime, Cain's claim that she specifically sought to have "black babies" aborted is taken out of context:
But don’t believe everything you read on the Internet. The most damning quote by Sanger has been taken out of context. Meanwhile, a number of doctoral dissertations have closely examined the early days of Planned Parenthood and its relationship with the African American community, and found nothing to confirm these allegations.
[...]
What about Cain’s claim that Sanger wanted to “kill black babies” and thus spoke of “preventing the increasing number of poor blacks in this country by preventing black babies from being born?” Starting in 1916, Sanger’s clinics at first were aimed mainly at poor immigrant women; a Harlem clinic was opened in the 1930s. In the late 1930s, Sanger began an effort to bring the clinics to the rural south, in what was called “The Negro Project.”
Sanger recruited a who’s who of black leaders to support the effort and, in letters to the project’s director, urged that white men who were outsiders should not run the clinics. She said the effort would gain more credibility with greater community involvement, given natural suspicions.
“The minister's work is also important and he should be trained, perhaps by the Federation as to our ideals and the goal that we hope to reach,” Sanger wrote in a letter in 1939. “We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.”
In that context, the sentence, while inartfully written, does not back up Cain’s claim. (We received no further evidence from the Cain campaign.)
Cain's claim that most Planned Parenthood facilities are located "in the black community" is even more false, Kessler writes:
Cain also claimed that 75 percent of Planned Parenthood’s clinics were built in African American communities. That is clearly incorrect historically, but is that true today?
Tait Sye, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood, said that 73 percent of Planned Parenthood’s 800 facilities are in rural areas or what are known as Health Professional Shortage Areas, defined as areas with “too few primary care providers, high infant mortality, high poverty and/or high elderly population.” In other words, clinics are opened in areas of medical need.
Clearly, not all of these would be in minority areas, so Cain’s figure is obviously much too high. Indeed, the Guttmacher Institute — which supports abortion rights — earlier this year calculated that fewer than one in 10 of all abortion clinics (totaling about 1,800 in 2008) were located in predominantly African American neighborhoods.
Black women do have much higher abortion rates than white women, but that is linked to the fact that they have much higher rates of unintended pregnancies — not where clinics are located.
That also seems to shoot down Chapman's thesis that Cain's false claim "seems to be indirectly confirmed" by the higher rate of abortion among blacks.
Chapman also drops a reference to "Dr. Alveda King" even though, as we've documented, her doctorate is honorary and not an earned title.
Is it too much for Chapman to publish the truth about Cain's claims? Given that Cain is a personal friend of his boss, Brent Bozell, probably so.
NewsBusters Also Touted Writer Who Inspired Violent Militia Plot Topic: NewsBusters
WorldNetDaily wasn't alone in touting the work of Mike Vanderboegh, whose self-published novel apparently inspired a group of militia members to formulate a plot to attack federal office buildings and disperse biological poison. The militia members were arrested before they could put the plot into action.
NewsBusters touted or served as an apologist for Vanderboegh on several instances:
A May 2006 post by Tim Graham complained about a Time magazine article that highlighted Vanderboegh as part of a group of former right-wing militia members who had since become active in the immigration debate. Graham bashed Time for "cribbing from the SPLC" in its profile of Vanderboegh, though he didn't challenge the accuracy of what was written about him.
A March 2010 post by Brent Baker criticized the TV networks for reporting extremist rhetoric regarding the passage of health care reform. One report Baker cited included a clip of Vanderboegh saying, "The muzzles of three million rifles who can be – if required – pointed directly at the hearts of anyone who wants to be a tyrant in this country."
NewsBusters republished a March 30 column by Michelle Malkin touting the work of "gun rights advocates David Codrea and Mike Vanderboegh" in exposing the Fast and Furious gun-walking scandal.
A Sept. 9 post by P.J. Gladnick excerpted a blog by Codrea touting "efforts made by this reporter, Mike Vanderboegh of Sipsey Street Irregulars, and a handful of supportive readers" on exposing the scandal.
An Oct. 16 post by Tom Blumer excerpted Vanderboegh's blog for a "succinct summary (HT Ed Driscoll) of the establishment press's coverage of Issa's actions since the subpoenas' issuance."
Will NewsBusters tell its readers about the violent militia plot and the man who inspired it? Don't count on it.
