In his April 29 article marking WorldNetDaily's 15th anniversary, Joe Kovacs waxes rhapsodic about the kind of hard-hitting news he gets to cover at WND, as opposed to the "mainstream" media where he used to work:
I had finally found a news agency that cared about reporting the news. I mean the real news. The news that matters. Not the daily body count of who shot whom and what’s the weather guess. I was working with some of the finest journalists alive, and everyone there knew (and still knows) that we indeed have a team gifted and blessed with extraordinary talent.
I think readers both old and new instantly recognize they get more real journalism from WND than any other news source on the planet, whether it was from the middle of nowhere, or now headquartered in new offices in the nation’s capital.
It was, and still is, all about finding and reporting the most important, hard-hitting, relevant and interesting information on any given day. Because we don’t follow the drumbeat of the mainstream media, we’re free to focus on what’s important to real people, without the phony-baloney hype and agenda-driven reports that seem so ubiquitous in today’s news industry.
And what's Kovacs' latest contribution to serving up "the real news, The news that matters" at WND? Suggesting that President Obama had something to do with the death of a medical examiner.
No, really. This is the beginning of Kovacs' April 30 article:
Medical examiners in Los Angeles are investigating the possible poisoning death of one of their own officials who may have worked on the case of Andrew Breitbart, the conservative firebrand who died March 1, the same day Sheriff Joe Arpaio announced probable cause for forgery in President Obama’s birth certificate.
Michael Cormier, a respected forensic technician for the Los Angeles County Coroner died under suspicious circumstances at his North Hollywood home April 20, the same day Breitbart’s cause of death was finally made public.
At no point does Kovacs even bother to establish that Corimer was involved in any way with Breitbart's autopsy, let alone any personal involvement by Obama in anything.
Oh, and as it turns out, LA Weekly learned that Corimer played no role whatsoever in Breitbart's autopsy, meaning that Kovacs' entire article is a sick joke.
What we learn from this is that Kovacs did not join WND to engage in disseminating "real news." He is a conspiratorial right-wing hack who wanted an outlet for his hack work, and WND -- which is in the midst of turning itself into an anti-Obama super PAC -- is the home for conspiratorial right-wing hacks.
This shows that there seems to be another reason Kovacs ditched thte "mainstream" media for WND: The mainstream media follows mainstream journalistic and ethical standards. WND has no such encumberances on its so-called journalism.
Put simply, WND is the only place Kovacs could publish this steaming pile of feces he calls a "news" story.
CNS' Bannister Whines About Obama Trip to Afghanistan Topic: CNSNews.com
Yes, Craig Bannister really did headline his May 1 CNSNews.com blog post this way: "Was Panetta Just A Pawn In Obama's Bid To Mislead Americans And Slip Out Of The Country Unnoticed?"
And yes, Bannister does spend his blog post whining that the White House did a few deceptive things, including placing a meeting with Leon Panetta, on the White House schedule in order to obscure the fact that Obama was actually on his way to Afghanistan. He huffs: "And, what's with all the cloak-and-dagger secrecy, anyway? I don't know about the rest of you. But, I, for one, resent being duped."
Um, Craig? Haven't many presidential trips to Iraq or Afghanistan by both Obama and President Bush not been officially announced until the president had actually arrivedin order to protect the president's security? Why, yes, they have. Here's an account of Bush's 2003 Thanksgiving trip to Baghdad to visit troops there:
President Bush (search) flew in under the cover of darkness on Thursday to dine with U.S. forces at a Baghdad International Airport mess hall. It was the first trip ever by an American president to Iraq — a mission tense with concern about his safety.
Bush's surprise trip delighted troops and stunned the nation -- including the president's own parents, who had traveled to Crawford, Texas (search), expecting to spend the holiday with their son. Media outlets were reporting on Thursday morning that Bush would be at his ranch all day, only to be told the truth after the fact, when he was safely in the air and headed back home.
It appears Bannister is so petty in his hatred for Obama that he will criticize him visiting the troops in a foreign country.
WND's Farah: Obama Is 'At War With God' Topic: WorldNetDaily
Yet, Joe the Plumber insists he doesn’t question Obama’s faith.
“I don’t question his faith, and when I read or hear people claiming he’s not a Christian because of this or that, I don’t like it,” he wrote in his letter to CBN. “[But] Barack Obama once famously told me he just wanted to spread the wealth around and I take him at his word about that as well. After three years of watching the policies he’s put forth, the agenda he’s pushed and the detrimental effect it’s had on our country, I don’t question it one bit.”
How about this?
his support of same-sex marriage
his support of open homosexual activity in the military
his support of killing innocent babies in the womb
his support for withholding life support for survivors of abortion
his support for forcing those of Christian conscience to provide sterilization and abortion services to their employees through mandatory health-care programs
Barack Obama has been at war with God before he took office and ever since.
MRC Still Lashing Out At Anyone Debunking Idea Of 'Liberal Media Bias' Topic: Media Research Center
As studies undermining the Media Research Center's cherished agenda of liberal media bias continue to pile up, the MRC has been furiouslyspinning them away. The latest offender is a Washington Post article examining the idea of liberal media bias.
Saturday’s Washington Post included a story dismissing the public for believing the media has a bias, complete with the headline “Public has its own biases about media.” It sounded like a twist on "I Know You Are, But What Am I?" Media reporter Paul Farhi argued studies finding an increased perception of the media favoring “one side” since 1985 are somehow dashed because professors and their studies disagree.
Graham goes on to praise Farhi for citing right-wing media critic Tim Groseclose's claim that pretty much every media outlet has a liberal bias, then criticized him for having "quickly dismissed him" (though neither Graham nor Farhi noted the shaky methodology that Groseclose employed to reach his dubious conclusion). Graham then attacks a researcher Farhi cited, David D’Alessio, who points out that left-leaning reporting is balanced by reporting more favorable to conservatives. Graham then bashes Farhi for not identifying D’Alessio as a "liberal," even though the only evidence he offers to back up that claim is that he once "attack[ed] Richard Nixon" -- actually, D'Alessio was citing Nixon's attempts to manipulate the media by attacking its objectivity, something that the MRC is still doing today -- and that his conclusions deviate from the MRC's right-wing agenda.
Graham then nonsensically claims: "The story denying liberal bias only underlines liberal bias." Well, only if you work for the MRC, which starts with the partisan-driven -- not research-driven -- conclusion of liberal bias and then selectively cite evidence to back it up.
Graham goes on to get hilariously huffy that Farhi mentioned the MRC in the same breath as Media Matters:
Dear Paul: FAIR was founded in 1986, and the MRC in 1987 (and technically, Brent Bozell's and Brent Baker's MRC was under way at the National Conservative Foundation in 1985). It's at best misleading to pair the MRC on a timeline with Media Matters, which Hillary Clinton helped start in 2004. The MRC, celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, deserves to be in a "long ago" sentence.
Graham concludes by clinging to his preconceived notions:
Here's the big picture: the liberal media may not be more biased to the left today than it was in the of Reagan's tenure in 1985, but that's not the point. The point is the public is smart/jaded enough to realize now that the liberal media can't pretend not be liberal -- and yet, they keep pretending. Farhi's piece reads like "there's little to the idea we're more biased than we were in 1985 -- and we were denying it, then, too."
Graham doesn't seem to know the difference between political talking points and research. And if you've seen what passes for research at the MRC, you'd know why that is.
Confirmed: WND Was Headquartered At Roy Masters' Ranch Topic: WorldNetDaily
Back in 2006, we detailed the links WorldNetDaily had in its early years to an evangelist, talk-radio mogul and accused cult leader named Roy Masters. There was one thing we had trouble nailing down at the time: whether WND was originally headquartered on Masters-owned property in a remote area of Oregon. We knew it was near, but not if it was actually on.
We have our answer now, thanks to WND news editor Joe Kovacs. As part of WND's 15th anniversary, Kovacs tells the story of how he came to WND from "mainstream journalism." He shares this tidbit:
I was finally brought aboard in October of 1999 to be the guy who puts together the WND news pages and write catchy headlines. Moving from South Florida to the northwestern part of America was a big change. There was hardly anything in Josephine County, Ore., that resembled civilization as I knew it. It was like I somehow traveled through a time warp and ended back in the Old West. There was one lonely Burger King present in a town called Grants Pass, so I figured it had at least some connection to the 20th century, which was about to change into the 21st.
The original WND “headquarters” – if you can call it that – was in an extremely remote location called Selma, Ore., adjacent to Cave Junction. The office consisted of a glorified barn situated on Tall Timber Ranch.
Tall Timber Ranch is owned and operated by Masters' organization, the Foundation of Human Understanding. That ownership is confirmed in an appellate court filing denying Masters' FHU a church tax exemption.
Meanwhile, Masters' son Mark continues to operate Talk Radio Network, which syndicates the likes of Michael Savage, Laura Ingraham, Monica Crowley and (of course) Roy Masters.
So thank you, Joe, for filling in a missing puzzle piece on WND. Now, how about explaining why you, Joseph Farah and crew spent so many years hanging out with an accused cult leader?
Kessler: Full Metal Romney-Fluffing! Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax's love affair with Newt Gingrich may be doing a slow, harddeath, but that just means that Ronald Kessler can engage in Romney-fluffing -- which he's been doing since, oh, 2007 -- with increasing impunity.
Which brings us to Kessler's April 27 column, in which starts: "Senior members of Mitt Romney’s campaign staff view President Obama’s re-election campaign as confused and lacking a message." Kessler spends the rest of his column fleshing out that thought, as well as lovingly detail why Romney's employees think their boss is so awesome, something Romney himself is apparently too modest to tell the voters about:
One thing Romney will not do is boast about how he saved the life of the teenage daughter of his Bain Capital partner Robert Gay. As noted in my story Media Suppress Romney’s Human Side, Romney organized a successful effort to find her when she had disappeared in New York. He wound up rescuing her when doctors determined she was just on the verge of dying from a massive overdose of ecstasy.
Of course, Romney doesn't have to boast about that when surrogates like Kessler will happily do it for him, as he's been doing since, oh, 2007.
Noel Sheppard Unhappy The Truth Was Told About Limbaugh Topic: NewsBusters
Noel Sheppard uses an April 26 NewsBusters post to have a fit over MSNBC's Martin Bashir pointing out that "the sort of comedy" that Rush Limbaugh enjoys "generally is sexist, homophobic, and racist."
For all of his fulminating -- the most he can muster is bashing MSNBC as "a channel that claims to be a news network" -- Sheppard makes no effort whatsoever to disprove Bashir's assertion. Perhaps that's because he knows Bashir is right.
If Sheppard couldn't deny the truth of Bashir's words, why is he attacking Bashir? Becuase he told the truth about Limbaugh, and Sheppard is apparently incapable of accepting the truth about his hero.
Sue-Happy Klayman Wants to Indict Zimmerman Prosecutor Topic: WorldNetDaily
Sue-happy defamer Larry Klayman is at it again, using his April 26 WorldNetDaily column to demand that Florida state attorney, Angela Corey, whose indictment charged George Zimmerman with second-degree murder in the death of Trayvon Martin, be "indicted" for "perjury, obstruction of justice and other related crimes for cooking the charges against Zimmerman." Why? Because she issued her indictment of Zimmerman "without presenting any 'evidence' to a neutral grand jury."
Klayman doesn't explain why the Zimmerman case should go before a grand jury when, to our knowledge, he has never made that demand for any other murder case.
Needless to say, Klayman's inflated ego compels him to tray and interject himself in the case:
This week, I penned a letter to Corey on behalf of the American people, demanding that she dismiss her indictment of Zimmerman and present all of the evidence, including but not limited to the exculpatory photo, to a neutral grand jury that would then make the call whether to indict the young Hispanic and, ironically, part-black man, it now turns out. If Corey does not respond affirmatively to my letter and do the right thing and mete out justice on behalf of We the People, she should be made an example of and indicted herself for perjury, obstruction of justice and other related crimes for cooking the charges against Zimmerman.
It’s time that establishment political hacks like Corey – who are doing the bidding for other hacks like Sharpton, Jackson and the New Black Panthers, not to mention our black racist president – are held to account under the “people’s law.” When public officials pervert justice at the expense of ordinary citizens, we have no choice but to rise up and do what needs to be legally done. These are the times that try men’s souls, and its time to “try” dishonest prosecutors and other government “whores” like Corey for their crimes against not just George Zimmerman, but the integrity of our justice system and our nation as a whole.
The actions of Angela Corey are not isolated; they permeate and have infested our three branches of government and are destroying the country. They must be put to an end!
It wouldn't be Klayman if he didn't also exhibit a measure of Obama derangement, and he comes through here, ranting that Obama is an "illegitimate president" who must be "indicted for his fraudulent and treasonous acts," and claiming that Obama's statement that if he had a son he would look like Martin "were taken as his own 'indictment' of Zimmerman – effectively endorsing the racist actions of his friends Sharpton and Jackson and a host of other black supremacists." Of course, that's just Klayman's overheated brain in action.
Bozell Wants Moonie Times to Win A Pulitzer Topic: Media Research Center
Brent Bozell spends his April 24 column sneering at the Huffington Post winning a Pulitzer Prize, huffing, "The Pulitzer judges who would rather swallow rat poison than give an award to a conservative outlet like The Washington Times are bestowing kudos on a site that thrives on celebrity dreck like 'Miley Shows Off Legs in Lacy Shorts' and 'Kim Wears Kanye’s Initials on Her Ears.'"
Bozell identifies no work from the money-losing plaything of a Korean cult leader who thinks he's the Messiah that should have gotten the Pulitzer instead of HuffPo -- perhaps he thinks its exhibition of Obama Derangement Syndrome should have gotten the prize.
Bozell is also upset that lesbians were involved somehow:
The Pulitzer judges even bestowed an imprimatur on The Stranger, a Seattle alternative weekly rag edited for six years by radical sex columnist Dan Savage. Eli Sanders won the Feature Writing category for a story on a horrific local double-rape of two lesbians, one of whom was stabbed to death.
The Stranger staff’s reaction to the Pulitzer wasn’t solemn. Big surprise, that. Their website quickly added “Winner of the Pulitzer Prize” like a slogan and asked on their blog, “Hey, Eli: Is that a Pulitzer Prize in your pocket, or are you just happy to see us?” Unless I miss my guess, this is the first Pulitzer Prize for a newspaper that also operates an annual home-video pornography competition (called the Hump! Festival).
So Bozell thinks this case was "horrific" but that it was somehow political correctness for the Pulitzer to have gone to a story involving lesbians? Yes, Brent, we know you and your organization are dedicated to gay-bashing, but isn't this a bit petty even for you?
Maybe it's professional jealousy. His own "news" organization, CNSNews.com, is little more these days than an anti-Obama propanganda machine, and Terry Jeffrey and crew wouldn't know real journalism if they was bit on their collective behinds by it.
Bozell, of course, could do something about that -- dump the partisans and hire some real journalists who are more interesting in reporting the facts than scoring political points. But scoring political points, not journalism, is what the Media Research Center is about, is it?
CNS Bashes College Obama Spoke At For Offering Class on Disney Films Topic: CNSNews.com
This, seriously, is the lead, and the entire point, of Fred Lucas' April 26 CNSNews.com article:
President Obama this week advocated his plans for federally subsidized student loans and his desire to keep college costs down at the University of Colorado, a school whose Women and Gender Studies program includes a course on “Disney’s Women and Girls,” and where the full cost for an on-campus in-state student this year was $26,877.
That's it. The rest of Lucas' article is dedicated to bashing the school for offering this class -- as well as for offering a "Women and Gender Studies" program -- and Obama for speaking there.
In its utter hatred of literally everything Obama says and does, CNS is starting to become as anti-education as WorldNetDaily.
"There is no slur against conservatives that's off the table" for the so-called journalists at MSNBC, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell told Sean Hannity last night. The Media Research Center president made that remark after viewing a clip of Hardball host Chris Matthews calling the GOP the "Grand Wizard crowd," a not-so-thinly veiled suggestion that conservatives are violent racists.
That's right -- the person who called President Obama a "skinny ghetto crackhead" is complaining about people saying mean things about conservatives.
WND's Corsi Dives Back Into the Obama-Hate Cesspool Topic: WorldNetDaily
Jerome corsi does love to dive into the cesspool when it comes to hating President Obama, and he does so again in an April 25 WorldNetDaily article promoting an upcoming film claiming that "Frank Marshall Davis, the radical poet and journalist who was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party USA, was the real, biological and ideological father of Barack Obama."
The sleaze part comes here:
[Director Joel] Gilbert’s research turned shocking when he obtained seven indecent photos of Ann Dunham, Obama’s mother, at Frank Marshall Davis’ house, suggesting an intimate connection between Dunham and Davis.
“I was not happy to include these racy photos in the film but found it necessary to substantiate the intimate relationship between the two,” he said. “Those photos ended up in a men’s mail-order catalog of nude women, likely sold to them by Davis. I placed black bars on parts of the photos to be respectful.”
Why do we suspect that Gilbert is lying about being "not happy" to include those "racy photos" in his film? At this point, there is no substantiation provided to back up Gilbert's claim that these photos he claims to have are of Ann Dunham. And we're also sure that Corsi is panting at the opportunity to get a special viewing of them for himself.
MRC's Hadro Still Freaking Out About Gays on CNN Topic: NewsBusters
We'vedetailed how the Media Research Center's Matt Hadro's apparent main job is to complain whenever gays appear on CNN. He does so again in an April 25 NewsBusters post in which he huffs that "CNN continued to show its unvarnished support for the GLAAD" for an interview by anchor Kyra Phillips that was allegedly "dripping with sympathy for a lesbian mother recently removed by the Boy Scouts as local cub den leader because of her orientation." He further complains:
Phillips fawned over the subject's son as she asked him such questions as "tell me what makes your mom such a great den leader" and "Do you think it's pretty cool to have two mommies?" CNN claims to be a serious news network, but Phillips' "interview" could have passed for Oprah any day of the week as she helped Jennifer Tyrrell carry out her "mission" of changing the Boy Scout protocol of no gay den leaders.
Of course, having a lesbian Boy Scout leader is hardly the same thing as a gay male Boy Scout leader. But all gays must be denigrated by Hadro and his MRC co-workers, apparently.
WND's Corsi Is Still Fluffing Arpaio Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily is little more than the PR agency for Joe Arpaio, and Jerome Corsi may as well be on Arpaio's payroll (if he isn't already) for all the fawning articles he's written about the sheriff.
We see this again in an April 23 WND article by Corsi touting how Arpaio "finds himself under increasing attack as he prepares to release new findings in his investigation of President Obama’s eligibility for the state’s 2012 election ballot." WND is obviously colluding with Arpaio to promote the utterly discredited cold case posse "investigation" of Obama -- how discredited? Corsi and WND refuse to even acknowledge the fact that it has been substantively criticized -- and won't even come clean with its readers of the depths of that entanglement.
Corsi also engages in alternate-universe explanations to brush away Arpaio's many growing scandals:
As WND reported, new impetus was given to the anti-Arpaio campaign by the recent disbarment of Maricopa County attorney Andrew Thomas in a complicated corruption case.
Establishment media have largely ignored, however, the fact that Thomas and Assistant Prosecutor Lisa Aubuchon were disbarred for filing criminal charges against Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Gary Donahoe and two members of the Board of Supervisors, which oversees Arpaio’s office, Mary Rose Wilcox and Don Stapley. Both are determined Arpaio foes.
Uh, Jerry, that was kind of the point. Thomas and Auchubon filed trumped-up charges against these board members precisely because they were "determined Arpaio foes." It's called legal harrassment and intimidation. That's why they were disbarred, and all Corsi's conspiratorial spin won't change that.
Corsi also regurgitates earlier attacks on Arpaio critic Randy Parraz as a "radical outside agitator " with an "elite education." Um, doesn't Corsi have a degree from elite educational institution Harvard? Yes, he does.
Corsi even throws in the Fast and Furious investigation, even though it has nothing whatsoever to do with Arpaio.
Think about it: A man with a Harvard degree is spending his twilight years trying to prop up a corrupt sheriff who makes discredited attacks on the president of the United States. Sad, isn't it?
CNS Busted for Dishonestly Editing Biden Speech Topic: CNSNews.com
Michael Chapman writes in an April 26 CNSNews.com article:
Vice President Joe Biden said that when he was first elected to the U.S. Senate back in 1972, his view of U.S. military commanders was epitomized by actor Slim Pickens in the movie “Dr. Strangelove,” riding an atomic bomb like a cowboy and “yelling yippee-ki-yay!”
In a campaign speech focusing on foreign policy, delivered at New York University on Thursday, Biden said he ran for the Senate in 1972 “because I thought the policy we had in Vietnam, I didn't argue it as immoral, but I thought it just didn't make sense, the notion of dominoes and so on and so forth."
“And I came to Washington as a 29-year-old kid," said Biden. "I got elected. Before I was eligible to serve, I had to literally wait to be sworn in because I wasn’t eligible under the Constitution. You must be 30 years old. And my image of the military commanders at the time was, if you ever saw that old movie, if you ever rented it, where Slim Pickens is on the back of an atom bomb, dropping out of an aircraft, yelling, yippee-ki-yay! And 'Dr. Strangelove' was the movie.”
In his remarks on Thursday, Biden praised retired Gen. Wesley Clark, who commanded allied forces in the Kosovo war during the Clinton administration, and who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2003-04. Clark first endorsed Hillary Clinton and then Barack Obama for president in the 2008 race.
That's the entirety of the article. Chapman curiously didn't report what Biden said immediately after that:
But I have to tell you after all the time I’ve served in public office, if you asked me who the most impressive women and men that I have met in government in the last 40 years, six of them would be men or women wearing a uniform. It’s a different military. This guy was not only a great warrior -- I mean literally a warrior, but this guy is a diplomat. This guy is an incredibly bright man, extremely well educated. He understands the role of the military within our system, and he understands the Constitution.
And there are -- Thank God, there’s others like him that are still around today. Wes, thanks for being one of those many folks who changed my impression from my younger years. It’s a pleasure to be with you.
This deliberate, biased editing of Biden to make him look bad is just another part of CNS' propaganda operation against the Obama administration.
Later, after we pointed out the dishonest editing in the comments, CNS re-edited the article to add the full context:
In his remarks on Thursday, Biden went on to say that his views of military commanders subsequently changed, and he particularly praised retired Gen. Wesley Clark, who commanded allied forces in the Kosovo war during the Clinton administration, and who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2003-04.
"But I have to tell you after all the time I’ve served in public office, if you asked me who the most impressive women and men that I have met in government in the last 40 years, six of them would be men or women wearing a uniform," said Biden. "It’s a different military. This guy [Gen. Clark] was not only a great warrior--I mean literally a warrior, but this guy is a diplomat. This guy is an incredibly bright man, extremely well educated. He understands the role of the military within our system, and he understands the Constitution."
But CNS didn't alert readers that the story has been edited -- another dishonest act. And the video accompanying the item remains dishonestly edited, cropped to show only the "Dr. Strangelove" reference and not the full context.
