WND's Klein Still Unable to Handle Criticism, Just Like His Boss Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joseph Farah has long been unable to handle criticism of himself or his baby, WorldNetDaily, even when that criticism is wholly justified and factually accurate. That thin-skinned attitude is rubbing off on his protege, Aaron Klein -- we've encountered a coupleexamples of Klein-related defensiveness to his own shoddy reporting, as well as a dishonest response to criticism of a previous anti-Obama tome, "The Manchurian Candidate."
Well, Klein has a new Obama-bashing book out, and Klein and WND appear similarly unable to handle criticism.
An Oct. 8 WND article complains that "A syndicated news service attacked the New York Times best-selling book 'Fool Me Twice' as espousing 'conspiracy theories,' yet did not cite a single example of a conspiracy in the book, which unveils President Obama’s specific, second-term agenda."
As we've noted, "Fool Me Twice" appears to be nothing more than Klein's usual blend of biased speculation, guilt by association and conspiracy theories -- you know, just like "The Manchurian President." It's hard to "cite a single example of a conspiracy in the book" when the entire book is one big conspiracy theory.
WND uncritically repeats this Klein quote from the article:
“I don’t have an agenda beyond documenting for the American public what Barack Obama’s specific plans are or at least the recommendations that have been given to Obama that will most likely form the blueprint for a second term,” Klein said in the interview with Troy. “I was simply trying to do what the president will not, and that is spell out his actual plans if he gets elected.”
Klein is simply lying when he says he has no anti-Obama agenda. Bashing Obama is pretty much all he has been doing for the past four years. If he's so fair and balanced, where's his book on the "specific plans" of Mitt Romney?
Newsmax Spins for Romney on Abortion Remarks Topic: Newsmax
After Mitt Romney declared in an interview that “There’s no legislation with regards to abortion that I’m familiar with that would become part of my agenda," right-wing activists have been in spin mode trying to reconcile that statement with their support of him. And Newsmax -- now in full pro-Romney, anti-Obama mode -- is only too happy to be part of the spin machine.
An Oct. 10 article by Patrick Hobin and John Bachman let Newsmax reputation rehabilitation project subject Ralph Reed spin as hard as he could, insisting the issue was just "an issue of semantics":
Mitt Romney’s comments that abortion legislation would play no part in his White House agenda is consistent with his previously-stated positions, Ralph Reed, founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, told Newsmax.TV.
In the past Romney has said he would support a reversal of Roe vs. Wade, but Reed said he does not see his most recent comment, made in an interview with the Des Moines Register, as a deviation.
“He made it abundantly clear in the Des Moines Register interview that he would on day one, by executive order, reinstate the Mexico City policy which was originally instituted by Ronald Reagan and carried out by both Bush presidents that prohibits taxpayer funds from being used to promote or perform abortions overseas through the United Nations and other international agencies,” Reed said.
“Further, Mitt has made it abundantly clear that he favors repealing Obamacare, which we believe rations healthcare to the elderly and is therefore not pro-life and which also, through various means, promotes abortion,” he said.
Reed said the other issue that would affect abortion would be the make-up of the Supreme Court, where Romney has said he will appoint “strict constructionists."
"That was just an issue of semantics," sai Reed. "They asked him what his legislative agenda is. A judicial appointment is not legislation."
Another Oct. 10 article by Paul Scicchitano and Kathleen Walter featured Mike Huckabee insisting that right-wingers are "comfortable that he really is going to be a pro-life president."
Newsmax portrays itself as a reasonable, semi-balanced news organization, but it completely abandons that balance every time there's an election featuring a candidate it likes. It played that game in a Florida governor's race, it played it again earlier this year when it decided to push Newt Gingrich's candidacy, and it's doing that now.
Vox Day Laments That Marriage No Longer Means 'Expectation Of Regular Sex' For Men Topic: WorldNetDaily
Vox Day's issues with women are fairly legendary, so it's no surprise he'd go there again, which he does in his Oct. 7 WorldNetDaily column.
Day begins his column by declaring, "When gasoline prices are rapidly approaching $5 per gallon, it is no secret that U.S. money does not buy what it used to." He seems not to have noticed the fact that this is happening only in California and is due to supply disruptions, not regular inflation; elsewhere in the country, prices are slowly declining.
This led to a complaint about the Federal Reserve, which led to Day likening "monetary debasement" to supposed debasement of marriage. Day quotes somebody named "Dalrock," whom he calls "an influential Christian writer on intersexual relations" even though he appears to be just a blogger hiding behind a pseudonym, lamenting about what "marriage for men no longer means":
being the legally and socially recognized head of the household
an expectation of regular sex
legal rights to children
lifetime commitment
Day doesn't quote the rest of "Dalrock's" post, but he goes on to complain that a woman who becomes a "career gal" becomes "older and less attractive" and also "omes with even more feminist attitude," adding, "She also now has a legal incentive to divorce in the form of cash and prizes and nearly guaranteed child custody. Oh, and we also have some new laws which assume you are an abuser if your wife decides she needs some drama or extra leverage against you."
"Dalrock" also grumbles about being unable to find a virgin to marry:
There’s just one more small thing. It took her so long to find you that you can’t reasonably expect her chastity to be perfectly in tact. I mean, it’s mostly there, but it suffered a ding or two. Her virginity was gone to her first boyfriend, but don’t worry it was very romantic and she still has fond memories of that special time. Not too long after that those jerks at the frat house did a number on her pride, but you can’t hold that against her. She’s a bright gal, and after that she learned how to hook up smart. There were, I think, a few other clips along the way. Nothing too serious, but after all remember it did take her forever to find you. Your little bird may not be quite as young and innocent as she would have been had she found you sooner, but there is always hope.
If this sounds familiar, it should. Day devoted a column last year to warning men not to marry "career women" because they have a bad habit of thinking for themselves. Earlier this year, Day complained: "In college, we were told that women were just as interested in sex as men, but that having sex with them while they were drunk was rape, having sex with them when they regretted it the next day was rape and not having sex with them was also rape if they felt sufficiently spurned."
Day spends the rest of his column grumbling about "government recognition of homosexual relationships," adding: "The government overvaluation of homosexuality is why 4.4 percent of the characters on U.S. television are now sexually abnormal, more than double their actual percentage of the general population."
AIM's Kincaid Suggests Biden Is Going Senile Topic: Accuracy in Media
In the midst of whining that the "major media" will purportedly crown Joe Biden the winner of Thursday's debate with Joe Biden and dredging up ancient allegations of plagiarism, Cliff Kincaid turns his Oct. 9 Accuracy in Media column to the subject of whether Biden is going senile:
But don’t expect the major media to remind voters of Biden’s history of plagiarism. They are gearing up to declare him the winner of Thursday’s vice-presidential debate, no matter what happens.
But another taboo subject remains: Does the so-called “Gaffe-O-Matic” Vice President suffer from Alzheimer’s or some form of dementia?
Henry I. Miller has written in Forbes that Biden’s utterances “suggest some sort of dementia.” Biden, who will be 70 in November, “frequently has fumbled and bumbled in his public remarks,” says Miller.
Conservative writer Ben Hart says, “Biden raised eyebrows most recently when he insisted in a speech to a predominantly black audience that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are ‘gonna put y’all back in chains.’ But this is just the latest in an endless catalogue of bizarre statements by Joe Biden, who often doesn’t seem to know where he is or even what century he’s living in. Much of the time, he appears to be confused, addled.”
He adds, “One or two crazy statements here and there would not be so alarming. But Biden is now saying crazy things every time he speaks, every time he opens his mouth. I actually listened to Biden’s entire ‘y’all in chains’ speech, and very little of it made any sense at all.”
Little of what Kincaid makes sense, beyond being an expression of hatred of anything not as far-right as he is. But have we accused him of being senile? No.
WND's Farah Can't Figure Out Why Nobody Believes His Website Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joseph Farah whines in his Oct. 6 WorldNetDaily column:
Last Thursday, WND broke the stunning news that Barack Obama’s administration offered a secret election-eve deal to Iran that would result in reduced sanctions in exchange for a phony diplomatic coup designed to bolster his vote Nov. 6.
The report is based on hard intelligence gathered by Reza Kahlili, the highly esteemed former CIA spy inside the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and counterterrorism expert.
It was a big story – one the major media, and even most of the so-called alternative media, ignored.
As we pointed out the last time Farah bemoaned that WND was being ignored, there's a good reason for that -- WND has so beclowned itself by obsessing over anti-Obama conspiracy theories that it simply can't be trusted, even if what is being reported turns out to be true.
By being associated with WND -- where he has been writing since July -- Kahlili (a pseudonym) can't be trusted. The source for his big supposed scoop comes from "a source affiliated with high Iranian officials ... who remains anonymous for security reasons." What does that mean? Why trust his anonymous sources, a common tactic used by WND writers (i.e. Aaron Klein) to forward smears against the website's enemies, like President Obama? Farah asserts that Kahlili's report has "credible sourcing," but where's the proof?
As we've also noted, Kahlili's fearmongering claims are treated with skepticism by actual Middle East analysts, and he's best known for his discredited claim that Iran was planning nuclear suicide bombings with "a thousand suitcase bombs spread around Europe and the U.S."
Kahlili appears to be nothing more than another rabid Obama-hater who found his way to Obama Hate Central at WND.
WND's stable of Obama-hating obsessives have so dedicated themselves to bringing down Obama at any cost that they've made complete fools of themselves in the process and are too ethically challenged to admit it.
Jerome Corsi's birther conspiracy has completely collapsed -- so much that Corsi is pursuing a separate conspiracy theory that completely undermines it -- but WND has forbidden any mention of its collapse or of any of the writers who proved birthers wrong.
A news organization that cared about the truth would have reported all the birther facts, not just the ones that confirm its utterly discredited conspiracy theory. WND is not that organization.
And more Obama derangement pops up on WND every day. The latest example is an Oct. 9 article in which Corsi blows up blurry photos to make the purported claim that a ring Obama has worn reads "There is no god except Allah."
The fact that no sane person trusts WND is the fault of Farah and his stable of writers. Nobody else. It's too bad fpr Farah that he's so far down his rabbit hole of hate he can't recognize that.
Starr proved her bias once again in a Oct. 8 tweet in which she declared, "Obama basically hates Columbus."
Starr was promoting her CNS article in which she notes that President Obama's Columbus Day declaration stated that Americans should "“reflect on the tragic burdens tribal communities bore" since Christopher Columbus' arrival in the New World.
How does acknowledging the indisuputable facts of history equal "basically hating Columbus"? Starr doesn't explain.
Starr's tweet does, however, expose that she wrote her article with malicious intent, not an attempt to inform.
Funny that the bias-hunters at CNS's parent, the Media Research Center, just can't seem to find the bias in its own "news" organization, let alone remedy it.
WorldNetDaily doesn't believe in telling the other side of the story when that side involves something it disagrees with, which explains WND's Oct. 6 article on a Planned Parenthood-taught program in an Oregon school district.
WND publishes only attacks Planned Parenthood -- quoting only an anti-Planned Parenthood website and a "Christian news" website, and making no effort to actually talk to any Planned Parenthood official -- even repeating falsehoods about the organization. Here's how the unbylined article begins:
The Obama administration has a program that distributes funding to Planned Parenthood to indoctrinate children with the abortion industry’s perspective of sexuality, and the industry giant’s workers routinely are given students in public schools for their work.
At no point does WND offer evidence that any of those assertions are true.
WND goes on to repeat a claim that Planned Parenthood "derive[s] most of their income from the killing of unborn children." That's completely false -- only about 15 percent of the organization's income comes from abortion.
Curiously, though the article is about a class in the Salem, Oregon, school district taht Planned Parenthood is involved in, at no point does WND describe the contents of the class. Apparently, it was so busy fearmongering and slanting the story it forgot. Of course, it could also nbe that the opponents of the class don't care what it's about since they too are too busy trying to fearmonger.
What is being taught is the Teen Outreach Program, which has the goal of reducing teen pregnancy. According to the Salem Statesman Journal (via Nexis), a major component of TOP is after-school community service projects that each student takes part in.
Apparently, WND and the Oregon opponents don't believe that to be a worthy goal. Nor, it seems, do they believe in telling facts that contradict their worldviews and agendas.
NEW ARTICLE: Noel Sheppard vs. The Truth Topic: NewsBusters
The NewsBusters associate editor just can't stand it when people report the facts about conservatives. As a bonus, Sheppard really doesn't critics of conservatives to say anything at all. Read more >>
Jon Dougherty's Love Letter to Romney Topic: WorldNetDaily
We've noted the return of Jon Dougherty to WorldNetDaily. And how is Dougherty using this platform in his Oct. 6 column? Penning a slobbering love letter to Mitt Romney. Behold:
Mitt Romney doesn’t need to be president of the United States.
A wealthy guy with a stable home, a great family and the world as his oyster, he doesn’t need the rigors of a presidential campaign, let alone the endless, trying hours and the plethora of pressing issues that await him should he win in November.
He doesn’t need the constant scrutiny of his personal life and finances or the carping of a hostile press wholly in the bag for his opponent. He doesn’t deserve to be harangued by the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.
So why is Romney even running? Why did he leave the comfort and security of Bain Capital, a highly successful firm he helped build and which provided him a rare opportunity to become a billionaire?
Why did he instead choose to run the Winter Olympics and then the state of Massachusetts?
Why does such a rich guy, whom we’ve been told is so affluent he couldn’t possibly care about the rest of us, let alone relate to our needs and concerns, want to put himself and his family through what is arguably the most rigorous, stressful and soul-sucking process that is a presidential campaign?
[...]
I think it’s because Mitt Romney is a noble man. And his bid for the presidency is perhaps the most noble gesture of our time.
[...]
Mitt Romney is a rich guy. He doesn’t need to be president. The fact that he still wants to be, given all that he has endured, is genuinely noble.
Instead of trying to tear him apart we should be thanking him for offering up his experience and service. It’s not like he needs the money.
Too bad WND is so far out of the mainstream that Dougherty's love letter doesn't matter, but nice try, Jon.
MRC's Graham Seethes Over ABC Weatherman's Gay Marriage Topic: Media Research Center
Media Research Center director of media analysis Tim Graham doens't seem to think that gays deserve any sort of happiness.
One doesn't have to read too far between the lines to pick up on the underlying hostility behind Graham's Oct. 6 NewsBusters post on ABC weatherman Sam Champion announcing that he plans to marry his same-sex partner. The headline alone deliberately splits "weatherman" into two words -- "ABC Weather Man To 'Marry' A Man" -- in order to drive his hostile point home.
Graham also puts "gay marriage" in scare quotes. Twice. He also seems very unhappy that Champion's co-workers and friends would dare to tweet their wishes for wedding bliss.
The entire tone of Graham's post is of someone trying really hard to keep things as bland as possible and not to spew his anti-gay hostility all over the page. But his employer is rabidly anti-gay, so that's to be expected.
When A Preacher Assaults Our President Topic: WorldNetDaily
How often does Bradlee Dean have to run to the confessional to ask forgiveness from the God he purports to be preaching on behalf of? A lot, we're guessing, given all the hatred and bile in his heart.
Another example of that pops up in his Oct. 4 WorldNetDaily column, headlined "When a president assaults our military," where Dean spews the following chunk of Obama derangement:
Since Obama took his oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, he has not only battered the Constitution, but has assaulted America’s armed forces who love America and her laws so much that they lay down their lives to defend her freedoms.
How does Obama repay them? He cuts their funding, does nothing when hundreds of thousands of our veterans are still awaiting medical benefits, ignores the wishes of the military branches who desired to keep Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in place, sues states such as Ohio to block military votes, complains about taking pictures with our soldiers and calls the killing of four Americans in Libya (two of them former Navy SEALs) a “bump in the road.”
Polls show that most U.S. troops and their families don't care whether gays are allowed to serve openly.
Efforts by the Obama campaign to expand early voting in Ohio had no effect whatsoever on military voting.
Obama did not say that the deaths of Americans in Libya were a "bump in the road."
That's four lies in a single paragraph. That's not an accident -- that's deliberate mendacity. That calls for more than forgiveness from God -- it calls for a printed correction and sincere apology on the pages of WND. We can't imagine that his God would tell him to tell easily debunked lies in public -- such a God would not deserve worship (Unless God was telling Dean to do so in order to humble him, in which case that would be totally cool).
Does Dean have the moral character to admit and correct his errors? It appears not -- after all, he has as his attorney Larry Klayman, a failed lawyer who has effectively admitted in court to "inappropriate behavior" with his children.
Something tells us that Dean is not the paragon of moral virtue he claims to be. If he lies so blatantly and unashamedly in public, what does he do in private?
CNS Reporter Ignores Facts on Pa. Voter ID Law Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com reporter Pete Winn uses an Oct. 4 CNS blog post -- even though the tone and structure are barely different from the "news" articles he writes -- to make a big deal out of Viviette Applewhite, the 93-year-old woman who is the lead plaintiff in the fight against Pennsylvania's voter ID law, got her state ID.
Winn notes that "she got her ID just one day after Pennsylvania Judge Robert Simpson initially upheld Pennsylvania's voter ID law – the same law that Simpson put on hold Tuesday," and he quotes only pro-voter ID conservatives to push the idea that the Pennsylvania law can't possibly be that onerous if Appelwhite got one.Meanwhile, Winn sneeringly referred to "the liberal lawyers of the ACLU" and claimed he tried to contact them for his "story."
But Winn largely ignores the fact that Applewhite has been trying to get such a state ID for years without success and that it was only after she became a plaintiff in the ACLU lawsuit that she did. The Associated Press reported that "she’d been rejected for years because she lacked appropriate documentation to receive the card."
Winn goes on to quote one conservative activist questioning the ACLU's claim that there are “thousands of Ms. Applewhites out there” who still don’t have ID, writing that "credible estimates place the number of people in Pennsylvania who may have difficulty getting a picture ID in the 'hundreds, not thousands.'" Winn does not identify these supposedly "credible estimates."
Meanwhile, one study estimates that 14.4 percent of eligible voters in Pennsylvania lack a valid form of photo identification under the new law.
Of course, Winn would ignored these very same facts had his blog post been a "news" story.
WND's Farah Upset That You Can't Hurl Anti-Gay Slurs in Public Topic: WorldNetDaily
It's hard out there for a gay-basher, as WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah has discovered.
In his Oct. 2 column, Farah is shocked -- shocked! -- to discover that hurling anti-gay slurs in public is no longer a great American tradition (even as he hurls a few more anti-gay slurs along the way):
Are Mom and apple pie next?
Those may be the next targets of the homosexual fascists – who are like the anti-American poofy sect of the Taliban.
It’s not enough to institute speech codes in colleges and universities. It’s not enough to chill free speech in the media. It’s not enough to shamelessly parade their sexuality in front of America’s children on the streets, in schools and on television.
Now the crude, vulgar, name-calling, arrogant pink-shirt gestapo is going after baseball and other American sports.
What? Farah's mom spewed anti-gay slurs too?
What set Farah off this time was that baseball player Yunel Escobar was busted for writing the Spanish phrase "tu ere maricon" -- which roughly translates to "you are a faggot" -- on his eye black. Farah was upset that Escobar had to pay a fine and undergo "sensitivity counseling." He continues his rant about the "gay gestapo":
Major League Baseball is falling right in line with this kind of “political correctness.” The National Football League and college football are going even further – banning all eye-black messages. Why? Well, it started when Tim Tebow used Bible verse messages on his eye black.
Blue Jays pitcher Varlos Villanueva learned an interesting lesson from Escobar’s experience, too: “He has to step up, especially how things are nowadays. You just have to watch what you say, or what you express out there.”
And that’s supposed to be a good thing in American society?
Should non-homosexual Americans be fined, suspended and humiliated for a remark that wouldn’t draw a second glance in most homosexual bathhouses?
WND has a long history of pushing an anti-gay agenda, and it employs the rabidly anti-gay Molotov Mitchell, who has endorsed the "kill the gays" law in Uganda and laughably pretends to be the "best friend" of gays.
In an Oct. 5 NewsBusters post, Mark Finkelstein approvingly quotes CNBC's Rick Santelli casting doubt on newly released unemployment numbers, adding: "The Obama campaign is sure to jump on the news today--but Santelli has put a big question mark over the validity of the data."
Finkelstein and Santelli are buying into the right-wingconspiracy theory that the Obama administration somehow tinkered with unemployment data in order to make it look good before the November election. In fact, actual experts agree that the numbers have not been manipulated.
WND's Unruh Dishonestly Writes About Obama's Executive Orders Topic: WorldNetDaily
The rank dishonesty of Bob Unruh's Oct. 6 WorldNetDaily article begins with the headline: "'Stroke of the pen. Law of the land. Kinda cool': Obama's executive orders more and more dispensing with Congress."
Now, you would think that this was said about Obama's executive orders, or even said by Obama himself. Wrong -- as Unruh eventually gets around to noting in the 17th paragraph of his article, the quote has nothing whatsoever to do with Obama -- it was reportedly said by Clinton presidential aide Paul Begala in 1998.
Then there's Unruh's scaremongering opening:
Barack Obama has used executive orders to seal presidential records; create a faith council, an economic council, and a domestic policy council, a council on women and girls and dozens more; study bioethics, change pay grades, set up a team of governors to synchronize state and federal military operations in the U.S.; improve regulatory review; create a jobs council; set up immunity for Bosnia, revoke some earlier orders and talk about finances. GASP!
And he’s used them to talk about fiscal responsibility, ensure abortions through Obamacare; review Guantanamo Bay operations; promote diversity; amend court-martial procedures; launch a national women action plan, talk about Syria, talk about North Korea, encourage efficient government, target transnational crime groups, promote efficient spending and many, many more. WHEW!
Now critics are saying that if it looks like he’s trying to run the country single-handedly, their perceptions aren’t far off.
Take the first part of that first paragraph: "Barack Obama has used executive orders to seal presidential records." In fact, the very first executive order Obama signed opened access to presidential records, by reversing an executive order issued under the Bush administration (and dating about to the Reagan presidency) that allowed heirs or designees to a deceased president to claim executive privilege to block release of documents. The new executive order limits such assertions of executive privilege to living former presidents.
The ostensible purpose of Unruh's article was to respond to a chain email claiming "Obama has issued 923 executive orders in three and a half years." He had to admit that the figure was false, but he was even dishonest about that.
First off, Unruh couldn't even come right out and state it was false, instead writing, "Experts told WND that while Obama’s pace is above some other presidents, the figure of more than 900 is unrealistic." Unruh uses only "unrealistic" and "debunked" -- but never the word "false" -- describe the claim.
Even the statement that "Obama’s pace is above some other presidents" is dishonest; his statistics show that Obama's yearly pace is below every single president since FDR, except for George W. Bush. Unruh then tried to discount that by claiming that they were "dealing with different circumstances."
From there, Unruh dropped a reference to " the far left-leaning FactCheck" without proving the claim, plugged Aaron Klein's "new hot-selling" anti-Obama book, and for no apparent reason threw in the video for an anti-Obama song by Ray Stevens.
It's hard to believe that Unruh once worked for the Associated Press, since this article -- not to mention much of his work for WND -- violates pretty much every journalistic principle he would have learned there.
