NewsBusters Obsesses Over David Gregory's Gun Magazine, Ignores Dick Armey's Gunman Topic: NewsBusters
NewsBusters has been a bit obsessed over NBC's David Gregory displaying a high-capacity magazine for an assault rifle during a recent edition of "Meet the Press," in apparent violation of law in Washington, D.C, where the show is taped:
Tom Blumer wrote that "it would also be interesting to know if Gregory's possession of an AR-15 magazine or his showing it on the air violated any of NBC's corporate policies." He later chortled that Gregory "is under investigation by the Washington, DC Metro Police in connection with his apparent brandishing" of the magazine.
Blumer later discussed "the latest turns of events in the David Gregory Meet the Press magazine brandishing incident."
Matt Hadro complained that Howard Kurtz came to Gregory's defense over the "stunt."
But there has been no mention at NewsBusters or any other Media Research Center website of a Washington Post story about rampant infighting at the right-wing group FreedomWorks. The article begins with an account of how FreedomWorks chairman Dick Armey entered the offices with a gun-wielding assistant with the goal of taking control of the group:
Richard K. Armey, the group’s chairman and a former House majority leader, walked into the group’s Capitol Hill offices with his wife, Susan, and an aide holstering a handgun at his waist. The aim was to seize control of the group and expel Armey’s enemies: The gun-wielding assistant escorted FreedomWorks’ top two employees off the premises, while Armey suspended several others who broke down in sobs at the news.
Gregory brought only a magazine without a gun attached. Armey brought an actual guy with an actual gun. And the MRC is more concerned about Gregorty? Shouldn't they also be asking if Armey violated the law as well?
(Armey has denied knowing that his assistant had a gun on him, and that if he did, it was concealed.)
The MRC giving a pass to a right-wing activist for possible gun violations while bashing a non-conservative for committing a less henious offense is par for the course. Remember that MRC chief Brent Bozell couldn't be bothered to offer any substantive criticism of Rush Limbaugh's misogynistic tirades and even launched an "I Stand With Rush" website in response to the criticism he was afraid to make.
WND's Corsi Invents Obama Conspiracy to Name Inouye's Successor Topic: WorldNetDaily
Earlier this week, WorldNetDaily named its "lie of the year." Apparently, WND's own reporting wasn't eligible for the award, because things like repeatedly asserting that the Constitution states that only persons born to two citizen parents are "natural born citizens" would certainly qualify.
WND's Jerome Corsi has turned in an Dec. 27 article that will surely be a finalist for next year's award that is sadly too late for this year's contest. He begins:
Barack Obama has overruled the wish of the late Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, to name a Japanese-American congresswoman as his Senate successor, choosing instead to reward a Hawaii ally who played a key role in sidestepping Obama’s birth certificate controversy to certify him for the Hawaii presidential ballot in 2008.
Two things are wrong with that paragraph:
1) Obama does not appoint senators to fill out an unexpired term; governors do -- in this case, Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie.
2) Corsi provides no evidence whatsoever that Obama played any role in Abercrombie's appointment of his lieutenant governor, Brian Schatz, to fill out Inouye's term. After noting that Inouye's "deathbed" wish was that U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa be his successor, Corsi writes:
Everything seemed in place for Hanabusa until Obama decided to take the family to Hawaii for Christmas.
“We have a death-bed wish from a senator that is about the 30th person to lie in state at the Capitol. I think chances of that not happening are slim to none,” John Hart, chairman of Hawaii Pacific University’s Communications Department, told the Hawaii television station.
When Hawaii’s Lt. Gov. Brian Schatz flew back to Washington, there was no doubt Abercrombie succumbed to the wishes of Obama in making the final determination of Inouye’s successor.
That's it. Obama vacationed in Hawaii, and somehow that forced Abercrombie to appoint Schatz. Corsi provides no evidence that Obama had any contact whatsover with Abercrombie or anyone else regarding Inouye's seat.
Corsi is simply making stuff up -- or, to put it less charitably, he's lying. There's still time for WND to pick a new "lie of the year" -- the year's not over yet, after all.
MRC's War on Fact-Checking Continues Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's war on fact-checkers has extended to its year-end awards.
This year's MRC "Awards for the Year's Worst Reporting" includes "The True But False Award for Fatuous Fact Checking." The winner was MSNBC's Martin Bashir, who is quoted as saying that "more people were collecting food stamps under George W. Bush than are under President Obama." The MRC responds: "In fact, U.S. Department of Agriculture showed more than 46 million Americans on food stamps at the end of 2011, a figure 40 percent greater than the highest number of recipients recorded during the Bush years (31.98 million, in January 2009)."
The statistic Bashir was citing actually involved the number of people added to the food stamp rolls under Bush and Obama as of the time Bashir said it -- as FactCheck.org confirms -- but he erroneously referred instead to the total number of recipients. The MRC makes no mention of Bashir merely inadvertently misstating statistics, and is certainly not going to give him credit for what he intended to say.
The MRC also takes refuge in so narrowly interpreting statistics as "technically accurate" in a way that ignores the broader context. It attacks NBC's David Gregory for accurately pointing out that "the debt exploded under the Bush administration" to play up Michele Bachmann's assertion that the fiscal year 2007 federal budget deficit under Bush was $162 billion, a cherry-picked number that deliberately ignores the overall growth of the deficit under eight years of Bush.
WND's Corsi Intends to Swift-Boat Kerry Again Topic: WorldNetDaily
Jerome Corsi arrived in the ConWeb -- and later won a job at WorldNetDaily -- with his attacks on John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign as the co-author of the book "Unfit for Command," which contained factually dubious claims about Kerry's Vietnam War service.
With Kerry's nomination to be secretary of state, Corsi has voted to swift-boat Kerry again. Corsi declared in a dec. 21 WND column:
To coincide with Kerry’s confirmation hearings, I plan to author a series of articles to be published in WND, reminding readers of the radical roots of Kerry’s political career, beginning with his opposition to the Vietnam War, despite advancing exaggerated claims about his three Purple Hearts supposedly earned as a military hero in that same conflict.
In writing these articles, I plan to be speaking only for myself, in that I am not authorized nor will I seek to be authorized to speak for Adm. Hoffman or John O’Neill, or any of the other courageous participants of Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth.
Corsi went on to tout O'Neill's appearance last month on Sean Hannity's Fox News show attacking Kerry, even though the claims made by O'Neill and his Swift Boat Veterans group have been discredited.
Corsi also makes an odd bit of disclosure:
I need to make clear that while I co-authored “Unfit for Command” and was invited to attend meetings held by Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth, I myself never served in the U.S. military.
I went to my draft physical in downtown Cleveland in 1968, prepared to be inducted that day, only to be disqualified for medical reasons due to hereditary eczema, an illness I continue to suffer from.
"Hereditary eczema"? Sounds a lot like the pilonidal cyst that kept Rush Limbaugh out of Vietnam. Still, it's interesting that two great conservative champions managed to find a way of getting out of military service.
Will Corsi correct any of the errors he and his Swift Boat buddies made during their last swift-boating of Kerry? We shall see.
CNS Cites Only Conservative 'Legal Experts' To Opine on Bork's Death Topic: CNSNews.com
A Dec. 19 CNSNews.com article by Pete Winn cites only conservative "legal experts" to mourn the death of right-wing jurist Robert Bork. Winn does not identify any of them as conservative (though he does identify Bork as one), nor does he quote any liberal "legal experts" on Bork's death.
Winn identifies Michael McConnell as "One of America’s foremost experts on constitutional law" and "a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution." The Hoover Institution is, ofcourse, a right-wing think tank; McConnell himself has endorsed a constitutional amendment to ban abortion.
Winn quotes McConnell as saying that Bork's death "should cause a lot of people to be doing some soul searching about the way in which the judicial confirmation process is conducted, because his nomination battle was really the first – and hit a new low – in terms of inaccurate and distorted characterizations of his record and attacks on his character." Winn provides no counterpoint to McConnell.
Winn also features Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice , failing to identify the right-wing nature of he and his organization.
Winn additionally features Steven G. Calabresi, who "served as a law clerk to Judge Bork and was his biographer." Calabresi clearly cannot be expected to provide an objective opinion about Bork, and he fulfills that promise, likening Bork to St. Thomas More.
Despite CNS' mission statement to "fairly present all legitimate sides of a story," Winn can't be bothered to do that here. There's no mention, for example, of Bork's key role in President Nixon's Watergate-era "Saturday Night Massacre" firing of special prosecutor Archibald Cox. It seems reporting such facts is forbidden at the Media Research Center.
WorldNetDaily has published David Kupelian's theme-setting essay from the current issue of WND's Whistleblower magazine, which portrays President Obama's re-election as an "American Tribulation." Indeed, Kupelian is quite butt-hurt about Obama's victory, blaming it on voters being too stupid to figure out the truth:
My 23-year-old daughter called me mid-evening on Election Day, right after it became apparent that the unthinkable had occurred – that Team Obama would have another four long years to transform and dismantle all that Americans loved, all that we fought for, all that we “built.”
“Dad,” she said urgently, “what the hell just happened?”
I confirmed the bad tidings she was hearing on Fox News and explained the vexing electoral math. And then, after dialoguing briefly about the implications of this election, I was moved to more-or-less apologize to her: “I always wanted to leave behind a good country for you and your brother to grow up in, but it isn’t looking that way right now. This is really bad. I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter so much for me,” I added. “I’ve lived most of my life in the real America. It’s for young people like you that I’m heartsick.” And of course, I reassured her that all was not lost, that there was hope, and that I would continue to “fight the good fight” as a journalist – though I couldn’t promise what the outcome would be.
Since the election, every right-thinking American has been asking the same sorts of questions: How could this have happened? What do we do now? Is there even a way back to the America of our youth?
As a nation – and I’m speaking now of the voting majority, not all of us, obviously – we have squandered the priceless inheritance of our forefathers. We have wandered off into a far country and wasted our substance on immorality and profligate spending. We mock the faith of our fathers. We ignore the Constitution they bequeathed to us. We spit on the moral code they gave us, on which America and Western Civilization were founded. Our wealth – once the natural reward of the mighty engines of industry and innovation that thrive in a free country – is largely an illusion today, based on debt.
America is broken.
And yet, in this strangely wondrous world of ours, the Good Lord seems to bring us back to Him – back to understanding and repentance, to redemption and salvation – by breaking us. He brings us to our knees and allows us to suffer the consequences of our own folly until, as the “prodigal sons” we all are, we too come to our senses and look for a way back to our original estate.
Remember, America’s problem is not Barack Obama. Our problem is that half of our population, after watching a lying, supremely demagogic president methodically unravel America for four excruciating years, could see fit to elect him a second time. Our problem is that millions of us think it’s perfectly fine to rip apart innocent children before they’re born, and to steal from those who work hard and “redistribute” their goods to others. Our problem is that millions of us think it’s wonderful and proper for men to marry men and women to marry women and to persecute those who rightly point out that this is both immoral and mad.
Our problem is that millions of us – and more to the point, virtually the entirety of government, academia, popular culture and “mainstream media” – embrace the most absurd, preposterous and destructive lies as though they were great and enlightened truths.
Millions of people living in American today are, quite literally, madly in love with lies, deception and selfishness.
That’s our problem. Electing Obama is just a symptom.
Like his boss, Joseph Farah, Kupelian apparently has not considered that Obama's re-election may be God's judgment against him for the lies and the libel and the smears he has caused to be published at WND. Perhaps, like Farah, he doesn't want to face up to his own culpability in trying to personally destroy a man with lies and hate. Perhaps he is too blind to see that the "preposterous lies" are coming from his own "news" organization.
Kupelian keeps up the increasingly apocalyptic tone WND has adopted since Obama's re-election by referring to it as an "American tribulation," just like his magazine:
The coming tribulation in America requires, more than ever, that we discover and practice something Jesus commanded of us, and which he exemplified with his life and death: “Love your enemies.” That commandment isn’t quite as inscrutable and paradoxical as we sometimes think. “Love your enemies” just means don’t hate your enemies – don’t resent them, don’t be upset, enraged, fuming and bitter over their outrages. That’s what they want, that’s how they win – think about it. As the popular Christian saying goes, “Hate the sin, but not the sinner.” Remember, on the deepest level, “they know not what they do.”
Really? WND has been spreading nothing but hatred for Obama for the past four years. It has been the very definition of "upset, enraged, fuming and bitter."
Is Kupelian so far in denial that he can't help but delude himself, or does he understand he has to change the subject away from the evil he and his website has perpetrated?
NewsBusters' Double Standard on Likening People to Terrorists Topic: NewsBusters
The hypocrisy at the Media Research Center truly knows no bounds.
In a Dec. 23 NewsBusters post, Tim Graham complains that a gun-control advocate likened "gun-rights advocates" to terrorists and that NPR host Terry Gross "explicitly comparing the war on terror to the government’s war on gun rights." Not that Graham can name any actual concrete proposal by the government that would qualify as a "war on gun rights."
Then, the very next day -- the very next day! -- Tom Blumer likens journalists to terrorists:
What similarities are there between a domestic terrorist organization and the alleged journalists at the Journal News headquartered in White Plains, New York? At least two biggies: total lack of respect for privacy and complete disregard for others' safety.
Blumer is upset that a New York newspaper published a map of concealed-carry permit holders in its area, claiming that it "Gives criminals an easy roadmap for identifying homes from which they might steal guns" and "identifies who doesn't have 'pistols' as targets who will likely be less able to resist robbery, assault, or worse, both at home and especially in public." Blumer does concede, however, that this information was already public before the newspaper published it.
So, essentially, Blumer is calling a newspaper a terrorist organization for publishing publicly available information. But you already knew that the MRC is an anti-media organization.
If it was bad for Terry Gross and her guests to invoke terrorism, why is it OK for Blumer to do so, just a few posts away from where his rhetorical device was denounced?
WND's 'Man of the Decade' Timing Is A Bit Off Topic: WorldNetDaily
A Dec. 20 WorldNetDaily article by Taylor Rose rather peculiarly touts Rep. Ron Paul as WND's "Man of the Decade":
WND’s “Man of the Decade” award is designated for the man who has, over many years, done the most to represent goodness, perseverance, manliness and character. The recipient should be someone prominent enough to have had an impact on wider American and global opinion. Their successes and failures for the year are to be weighed and considered.
There were no runners-up considered in the category.
What Rose doesn't explain: Why a "Man of the Decade" now? It's not a year ending in zero, which is when decade-long honors are given. It doesn't coincide with anything at WND, which is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year. It has never given such an award before that we can remember.
Given that nobody else was considered for this so-called award, it seems likely that WND just wanted to give some kind of award to Paul before he left Congress at the end of the year, logic be damned.
MRC's Graham Thinks Wash. Post Just Invented 'Saturday Night Massacre' Term Topic: NewsBusters
Tim Graham spends a Dec. 20 NewsBusters post having a hissy fit over the Washington Post's story on the death of right-wing jurist Robert Bork noting his key role in President Nixon's "Saturday Night Massacre" firing of special prosecutor Archibald Cox:
In the immediate aftermath of a real massacre, couldn't the Post back off its ancient ideological hissy fits and acknowledge that firing a special prosecutor -- and the resignation of several officials who didn't want to do the firing -- is not comparable to Adam Lanza mowing down first-graders? Could there be a one-week grace period on overheated Watergate metaphors? Apparently not. When liberal justices die, do they discuss the actual "massacre" of American abortion they legalized?
Is Graham really not aware that the Post did not just invent the term "Saturday Night Massacre" to describe Bork's actions? That it has been called such since shortly after the incident in 1973? It's even in the Encyclopedia Brittanica, for Pete's sake.
The Post was not making a comparison, they were calling it what is has always been called. Is Graham really that stupid, or is he just so desperate to find sometyhing to attack that he felt he had to do this?
WND Columnists Ramp Up Obama Derangement On Sandy Hook Massacre Topic: WorldNetDaily
Bradlee Dean moves past maliciouslying and into full-blown derangement in his Dec. 20 WorldNetDaily column, in which he argues that the Sandy Hook massacre was a setup to aid the passage of a gun treaty at the United Nations:
Shortly after the horrific shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., where Adam Lanza killed 26 people, Barack Obama, the “Architect of this new America,” put himself in front of the cameras to address the massacre and read a scripted plea, attempting to cry over “our children.” He then promised “meaningful action.”
According to Obama’s record, “meaningful action” has been to vote over 241 times in favor of murdering 3,700 of “our children” in the womb per day, going so far as to make sure babies are “snuffed” out if they happen to be born alive.
“Meaningful action” to Obama is gunrunning high-powered assault rifles to Mexican drug lords, leading to the deaths of 300 Mexicans, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and now a Mexican beauty queen. This was in an obvious attempt to pass gun-control legislation, only to blame the American people.
The Sandy Hook shooting occurred just days after Sen. Rand Paul sent out an alert that the U.N. was set to pass the final version of the Small Arms Treaty, supported by Obama the day after election.
Part of the treaty bans the trade, sale and ownership of all semi-automatic weapons … like the one Adam Lanza used to kill 20 children and 6 adults.
The “Batman shooting” in Aurora, Colo., also happened to coincide with the same time as negotiations of the U.N. Small Arms Treaty.
The timing is impeccable.
As we reflect upon massacres such as Sandy Hook, Aurora, the Sikh Temple in Wisconsin, Tuscon, Ariz., and Columbine, we cannot help but see the similarities: conflicting news reports on what happened, who did the killing and the number of shooters. Eyewitnesses in all of these massacres said there were more shooters than the media maintain, indicating the shootings were coordinated and planned. (See linked reports above.)
Those "linked reports" go to fringe websites like those of Alex Jones.
Adolf Hitler was responsible for attacking his own Reichstag to start a world war. Hitler was also responsible for sending his brownshirts to incite the people so he could play the role of solving their problems. No one believed Hitler was guilty of these crimes until after the fact.
Dean also includes a video suggesting that the Oklahoma City bombing and the Columbine shooting were similarly staged.
Meanwhile, Dean's fellow WND columnist Erik Rush -- after writing that "the Newtown massacre has presented the Obama administration with a stellar opportunity to divert attention from its own abject criminality" -- suggests armed resisitance against anyone who tries to restrict guns, presumably including Obama:
It is of the utmost importance that Americans become aware of the dedicated efforts that are being made to transform us from citizens into subjects, and that we are already at war. This is a war we have not seen the likes of previously and that will challenge notions of war for centuries to come. Even if we did not have the Second Amendment to stand on, I would still support gun rights, because guns are not the issue – power is. Next will come edged weapons control, then blunt weapons control, then compulsory periodic assessments of citizens by government psychologists.
There are millions of Americans for whom “it can’t happen here” has been well-inculcated into their worldview; these have been conditioned to operate at the basest of intellectual levels. They are also the ones who will blindly obey any laws enacted by government, whether these imperceptibly erode their liberties, or require their reporting neighbors to secret police.
There are also Americans – some misguided, some ideologues – who work every day of the week in the cause of compromising our liberties. They are just as dangerous and criminal as those who would stifle any of the liberties contained in the Bill of Rights.
I suppose suggesting that we shoot them wouldn’t be taken very well – although that is precisely what it came down to 236 years ago.
MRC Ignores Its Soros-Bashing To Criticize Koch-Bashing Topic: Media Research Center
Liz Thatcher starts her Dec. 14 Media Research Center Business & Media Institute report on the right-wing Koch brothers by writing, "Few wealthy individuals are demonized as much as Charles and David Koch." Thatcher also made a point of noting the "death threats" the brothers allegedly receive.
Thatcher, of course, doesn't mention that one of those wealthy individuals who is so demonized is George Soros, and that it's her MRC co-workers who are doing that demonizing.
Lead among those is Thatcher's boss, Dan Gainor, who has obsessed over Soros donating less money to liberal media organizations in a decade that billionaires like Rupert Murdoch, Richard Mellon Scaife, and Sun Myung Moon have spent propping up right-wing newspapers in a single year.
Thatcher's article was followed by a Dec. 18 BMI article by Mike Ciandella attacking professor Jeffrey Sachs as a "Soros crony."
Thatcher engaged in her own demonization of Soros, bashing him as a "left-wing billionaire ... who has been open about his wish to change America." She also doesn't mention that such anti-Soros demonization means he gets death threats too.
Thatcher also touts how the Kochs are "big funders of conservative and libertarian-leaning groups and politicians," but doesn't disclose that the MRC has received Koch money through Koch-controlled charities like the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundationand the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation.
WND's Prelutsky Blames Jews For the 'War on Christmas' Topic: WorldNetDaily
Although it seems a long time ago, it really wasn’t, that people who came here from other places made every attempt to fit in. Assimilation wasn’t a threat to anyone; it was what the Statue of Liberty represented. E pluribus unum, one out of many, was our motto. The world’s melting pot was our nickname. It didn’t mean that any group of people had to check their customs, culture or cuisine, at the door. It did mean that they, and especially their children, learned English, and that they learned to live and let live.
That has changed, as you may have noticed. And I lay a great deal of the blame at the feet of my fellow Jews. When it comes to pushing the multicultural, anti-Christian agenda, you find Jewish judges, Jewish journalists and the largely Jewish funded ACLU at the forefront. What makes them even more obnoxious is that, by and large, the Jews who are leading the crusade against what is, we should never forget, a national holiday, are secular. So it’s not even a question of their religion being shortchanged; they hate their own, as well. They’re the pinheads who pretend that “separation of church and state” appears in the Constitution.
I should confess that because my family was Jewish, Christmas was never celebrated while I was growing up. But what was there not to like about the holiday? To begin with, it provided a welcome two-week break from school. The decorated trees were pretty, the lights were beautiful, “It’s a Wonderful Life” was a great movie, and some of the best Christmas songs were even written by Jews.
But the dirty little secret in America is that in spite of the occasional over-publicized rants by the likes of Mel Gibson and Michael Richards, anti-Semitism is no longer a problem in society; it’s been replaced by a rampant anti-Christianity.
[...]
It is the ACLU, which is largely funded by Jews and has a legal department that is almost exclusively Jewish, that is leading the attack against Christianity in America. It is they who have conned far too many people into believing that when the First Amendment states that Congress is prohibited from establishing a state religion, what it really means is that a Christmas wreath can’t be placed on City Hall. They also cynically ignore the part that prohibits Congress from “abridging the free exercise” of religion.
You may have noticed, though, that the ACLU is highly selective when it comes to religious intolerance. The same group of self-righteous shysters who, at the drop of a “Merry Christmas” will slap you with an injunction, will fight for the right of an American Indian to ingest peyote and a devout Islamic woman to appear veiled on her driver’s license.
I happen to despise bullies and bigots. I hate them when they represent the majority, but no less when, like too many Jews in America, they represent an infinitesimal minority.
I am getting the idea that these self-righteous secular Jews won’t be happy until they pull off their own version of the Spanish Inquisition, forcing Christians to either deny their faith and convert to agnosticism or suffer the consequences.
TPM's Ryan J. Reilly reports that Ronald Kessler is leaving Newsmax due to "editorial changes." We haven't seen any other confirmation of this yet, but it seems to be a reliable report, and it ends six years of largely hacktastic work.
Kessler joined Newsmax in 2006, where he set the tone of his Newsmax tenure by writing fawningly about the Bush administration and bashing Democrats. He cranked that up for the 2006 election, to the point where he essentially blamed then-Rep. Mark Foley's dalliances with congressional pages on the pages, not Foley.
For the 2008 presidential campaign, Kessler was Mitt Romney's man, writing fluff pieces and being kinda creepy toward Romney's wife. But when Romney lost the nomination, he was a good Republican soldier and promoted John McCain, despite having spent the previous several months bashing him to boost Romney's prospects. He also attacked Barack Obama by obsessing over Jeremiah Wright.
Amidst trying to turn Jews against Obama and regularly turning over his Newsmax platform to his budy David Keene, Kessler found a new cause for the 2012 election: Donald Trump. Kessler led Newsmax's boosterism of Trump's presidential ambitions, which led to an ill-fated attempt to host a presidential debate together.
Once it was clear that Trump would not run despite Kessler's best efforts, Kessler returned to his once and future presidential love, Mitt Romney, going so far as to declare that Romney would beat Obama in a landslide.
If this is truly the end of Kessler at Newsmax, we bid him a sad farewell, if only because his brand of biased, obsequious reporting is one of the reasons ConWebWatch exists.
Clinton Derangement Syndrome, Mychal Massie Division Topic: WorldNetDaily
In the past year Hillary Clinton has been photographed swilling booze and waddling around on dance floors the world over. And though she presented an unflattering exhibition of cankles and perspiration, she managed to stay upright. She suffered no symptoms from dehydration, and she was able to keep her diplomatic appointments the following day.
But with her appearances before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee this week hanging over her head like the sword of Damocles – she first developed a tummy ache and then, to further bury herself in the part, we’re told she became dehydrated, fainted and suffered a concussion.
And while we’re told she’s resting at home, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear she was observed driving around New York in a red 1961 Ferrari 250GT California Spyder a la a certain Mr. Ferris Bueller.
Newsmax's Hirsen Pushes Dubious Link Between Video Games, Violence Topic: Newsmax
James Hirsen writres in his Dec. 17 Newsmax column on the Newtown massacre:
The time has come for industry figures to take the lead in examining the violent content of entertainment product. Empirical data now exists that links violent content in a variety of media forms to overly aggressive behavior in individuals.
The video gaming industry, however, is of the most pressing concern and deserves particular scrutiny due to the unique characteristics inherent in video game products and the greater potentiality for negative societal consequences as a result of active engagement.
Video games are distinctively interactive and have actually been shown to have addictive qualities. Many of the games are laden with highly charged content.
In November 2012 an Australian National University psychology researcher confirmed the addictive nature of video games, discovering that frequent gamers had “attentional bias,” i.e., individuals were unable to stop thinking about gaming when attempting to focus on other tasks, a phenomenon that also occurs in alcohol, drug, and gambling addictions.
Hirsen doesn't mention that the study also portrays video game addiction as more of a symptom, rather an cause, of other issues:
"Addicts were also more likely to have psychological traits associated with avoiding problems and difficulties rather than actively dealing with their problems....According to Victoria University researcher Daniel Loton, the correlation suggests that excessive computer gaming may be a symptom of possibly unrelated mental anxieties as gamers seek to avoid their problems through immersion in gaming. He said the suggestion that excessive gaming may be a "coping mechanism" is reinforced by the finding that excessive gaming didn't appear to be damaging a gamer's success or satisfaction at work or study. "In fact, excessive players showed marginally higher success in their studies, failing fewer subjects and scoring higher grade averages than they had intended,'' said Mr Loton, a PhD candidate at VU's school of education.
"The excessive gaming may be a coping mechanism for dealing with pre-existing mental health problems," he told the HES."
Further, the Washington Post compiled data showing there appears to be no direct correlation between video game consumption and gun violence, and that countries with higher video game spending per capita than the U.S. have lower rates of gun-related murders.
