Colin Powell Derangement Syndrome Topic: WorldNetDaily
Now, along comes one of the great frauds of our time, Colin “Putz” Powell. For years, Gen. Putz has used the Republican Party to boost his career, with nary a negative word about the GOP.
But all that ended when a black presidential candidate came along – a candidate with virtually no credentials other than his ties to notorious anti-American radicals. Gen. Putz quickly jumped on the race bandwagon and enthusiastically supported him. For sure, it was “racism, straight up.”
[...]
Gen. Putz then went on to complain that some Republicans had dared to question Barack Obama’s birth certificate. As with his credentials, how dare anyone question his place of birth, even though he refused to allow anyone to see his birth certificate for years, then finally “settled” the matter by having a multi-layered PDF version of it posted on the Internet.
Gen. Putz also cavalierly alluded to Sarah Palin’s statement that Obama was “shuckin’ and jiving” on the Benghazi issue. Sorry, but as painful as it may be for the far left to hear it, the truth is that Obama shamelessly goes into his shuck-and-jive act whenever it suits his purposes – especially when he addresses black audiences or labor-union events.
But Gen. Putz also has a sense of humor, which was on full display when he lamented that a “significant shift to the right” in the Republican Party has produced “two losing presidential campaigns.” He then added, “I think the Republican Party right now is having an identity problem” and that “if it’s just going to represent the far right wing of the political spectrum, I think the party is in difficulty.”
First of all, Gen. Putz, the Republican Party has been shifting to the left – not the right – for at least the last 25 years – so much so that it literally handed Obama another four years to carry out his anti-American plans when millions of Republicans refused to vote in 2012. Listen up, Gen. Putz: The Republican Party is “in difficulty” because it has shifted in the direction of the Romneys, the McCains, the Boehners and the McConnells.
[...]
So, am I ready to anoint Colin Powell chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Putzes? Not so fast. Let’s be fair to hard cases like Putz Buffett, Putz Christie and Putz Boehner. After all, these men have invested a lot of time honing the art of putzing and have shown no signs of letting up. I say, putzes of the world, unite!
Brent Bozell Heathers Colin Powell Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center loves to give conservatives who dare to deviate from the right-wing party line the Heather treatment, questioning their conservative credentials with attitudes that range from snark to viciousness. Now the MRC's head honcho wants in on the act.
Brent Bozell's Jan. 16 column is one big Heather-fest, starting off with his usual whining:
The Republican Party is desperately in need of some good advice. It needs to return to Ronald Reagan conservatism and give America a two-party system, not a tinny echo of Obama. But our liberal media keep desperately inviting fake Republicans to offer advice to the GOP.
They want to create a new Republican Party, one that rejects the principles of the man who championed freedom.
After complaining about Michael Bloomberg -- who was a Republican only for the purpose of running for mayor of New York City and is currently an independent, thus making him a poor example -- Bozell turns his Heathering sights on Colin Powell:
Exhibit B: Colin Powell, who voted for Obama twice, but still insists he's a Reagan Republican. Indeed, since becoming a Republican, all he's done is criticize the GOP. NBC brought him on "Meet the Press" to declare, "If it's just going to represent the far right-wing of the political spectrum, I think the Party is in difficulty. I'm a moderate but I'm still a Republican."
Powell thinks he's a Republican, and the GOP has an "identity problem." But the "identity problem" is Powell's — voting for Obama is neither Republican nor "moderate." Today's Republican establishment isn't to the right of Reagan. It is to the left of the man who won one of the largest landslides in history with an unequivocal conservative agenda.
In other words: Powell is not as rigidly dogmatic as Bozell is, therefore he's not a real Republican.
By the way, what's happening with Bozell's big threat to "start looking for a new home" if Republicans agreed to a tax hike in fiscal cliff negotiations (which they did)? If Bozell is still defending the honor of the Republican Party, that means his threat was just a petulant bluff.
Bozell goes on to give the Heather treatment to another heretic, Republican strategist Mike Murphy:
Mike Murphy and his friends in the media are on the very same page: To "modernize" the Republican Party is to put conservatism through a shredder. On NBC back in November, Murphy warned if "we don't modernize conservatism, we can go extinct ... We've got to get kind of a party view of America that's not right out of Rush Limbaugh's dream journal."
By the by, how does one "modernize" principles?
Limbaugh's dream is Reagan's dream. You can't be against Rush and for Reagan.
Unless Bozell is tellins us that Reagan called women sluts and advocated conducting abortions with guns, we're pretty sure you can separate the two.
Prayer Breakfast Organizer Flip-Flops on Farah's Invitation Topic: WorldNetDaily
Last week we noted how Media Matters (disclosure: my employer) reported on WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah being removed from the guest list of a Inauguration Day prayer breakfast. Since then, somebody's story has changed.
Media Matters' source for the story was Rev. Merrie Turner, organizer of the prayer breakfast. But Turner is suddenly singing a different tune.
A Jan. 15 WND article by Bob Unruh said that Turner has "repudiated" what she told to Media Matters:
“The misinformation resulted from a number of factors: a confusion over the exact status of guests combined with the fluidity of the program, erroneous assumptions, miscommunication, a train of questioning by Media Matters as to whether we would allow anyone to use the event as a platform to attack the president, my desire to clarify that the event was not about anyone doing so, and what appears to be the aim of Media Matters to attack and humiliate Joseph Farah.”
She explained, “Joseph Farah was asked for his help regarding the event. He graciously gave it. He never invited himself to the event. Nor did he ever ask or expect anything in return. We affirm that the event is to pray for America at a critical time and juncture, for the American presidency and government. We also want to clearly state and affirm that it would be an honor to have Joseph Farah be part.
“I am truly sorry for anything said or spoken, any confusion and miscommunication, and for any distress this may have caused Joseph Farah,” she said.
Media Matters responded to the WND article by pointing out that Turner "has made no effort to contact Media Matters with any complaint about the report or any requests for corrections or clarifications about her comments," and that Turner is refusing to respond to requests for clarification and even hung up on a Media Matters reporter.
What happened? Did Turner get caught telling the truth and then had to backpedal to salvage relationships with Farah allies? We don't know; we do know that WND has no interest in finding out.
Meanwhile, Farah used his Jan. 16 column to rehash Unruh's artile, bash Media Matters and its "libel" against him , and whine that "the Media Matters story was picked up uncritically by news outlets, especially ones labeling themselves as 'Christian.'"
Curiously missing from Farah's column: any mention of Media Matters' response to Turner's flip-flop, even though it was published several hours before Farah's column appeared.
Farah seems to have not considered the possibility that Turner is only telling him what he wants to hear to get himself out of trouble.
Also, Farah obviously does not know the definition of libel, even though he has worked in journalism for three decades. Here's a refresher for Farah:
Accurately reporting what a source said before deciding he didn't actually say it, but never contacted the reporter to change his story or demand a correction, is not libel.
We hope that clears things up a little. Now, will Farah give up his persecution complex, start acting like the reporter he pretends to be and figure out which story Turner told is the truth?
Newsmax Fearmongers About Obama's Executive Actions on Guns Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax's Jim Meyers turns up the fearmongering over President Obama's executive actions on gun regulations in a Jan. 16 article:
You’re visiting a doctor because you have flu symptoms. After checking your heart, pulse and other vital signs, the doctor says, “By the way, the federal government has authorized me to ask you: What type and how many guns do you have in your home?"
Sound like George Orwell’s 1984?
No. It’s 2013.
And if President Barack Obama gets his way by executive order, doctors across the country could play a key role in his new gun control initiative.
In fact, Obama's executive action does not require doctors to ask patients about guns, nor does it require doctors to report gun owners to law enforcement.
Newsmax promoted Meyers' story on its front page with this misleading graphic:
Not even Meyer offers any evidence to back up the suggestion that doctors will turn children into snitches against their parents.
To WND, "America" = Right-Wing Activists Topic: WorldNetDaily
A Jan. 16 WorldNetDaily article by Taylor Rose carries the subhead "America's reaction to sweeping gun control agenda." And who does Rose think is "America" for the purposes of his article?
Representatives of two right-wing pro-gun groups, the Second Amendment Foundation and Gun Owners of America.
A representative of the right-wing Heartland Institute.
And a sheriff who vows not to enforce any law he disagrees with.
That may be an accurate depiction of WND's readership and staff (especially the plagiarism part), but it's hardly representative of America.
Also, Rose seems to be picking up some bad habits from his WND colleagues -- is harticle includes only right-wing activists criticizing Obama and no one is permitted to respond to the criticism.
The utter and rank hypocrisy of NewsBusters associate editor Noel Sheppard knows no bounds.
We recently highlighted Sheppard's complaint that Stephen Colbert called the National Rifle Association's Wayne LaPierre Wednesday, "f--ked in the head"; Sheppard went on to use Colbert as an example of the deplorable state of political discourse, despite Sheppard's own record of condoning insults against non-conservatives.
Now, just a mere five days after his rant against Colbert and "the toxic political tone in our nation," Sheppard flip-flopped again. In a Jan. 15 post, Sheppard approvingly quotes Colbert telling CNN host Piers Morgan to "get the f--k out of Dodge." Sheppard added: "Colbert's expletive was obviously deleted, and meant as a joke. Despite this, I quite imagine many across the fruited plain - including those that have signed a White House petition for Morgan's deportation - agree with him."
Funny that Colbert gets the joke defense here, when Sheppard refused to concede that Colbert's similar remark to LaPierre was a joke. Doesn't Sheppard understand how silly he looks by having such blatant double standards?
WorldNetDaily -- which has longengaged in fearmongering over vaccines -- devotes a Jan. 14 article to an anti-vaccine rant by right-wing radio host MIchael Savage:
“The flu vaccine?” he asked. “No, I wouldn’t take it.”
Savage noted “not everything your government tells you is true.”
“So it’s good to have a cynic in radio who questions authority,” he said.
[...]
The vaccine, he pointed out, contains formaldehyde and thimerosal – an organic compound containing mercury, which impairs the neurological and immune systems – along with detergents, antibiotics and allergens that cause infertility.
The CDC itself, he noted, lists some of these ingredients on its own website as harmful, though it insists the amounts in vaccines is negligible.
Someone may well say, Savage acknowledged,” Well, I took the shot and it didn’t kill me.”
But when you’re older, he argued, “and you get ALS or Alzheimer’s disease or MS, or you watch your kid develop seizures, or your kid becomes autistic, God forbid, what are you going to say?”
The relationship between the vaccine and any one person acquiring these diseases can’t be known for certain, he said, “But why increase the chances of inducing such illnesses in yourself and your children?”
Needless to say, WND made no attempt to talk to an actual medical expert for a response to Savage's paranoia. Nor did WND disclose its business relationship with Savage in the form of hosting his website. Such refusal to disclose a conflict of interest runs counter to accepted journalistic ethics.
NEW ARTICLE -- 2013 Slanties: Oppa Slantie Style Topic: The ConWeb
Biased reporting, wild claims, bizarre conspiracy theories -- it must be time to review the year in the ConWeb. Hey, sexy lady, let's do this! Read more >>
WND's John Rocker Thinks We Should Emulate Alex Jones -- Then Says Armed Jews Could Have Stopped Holocaust Topic: WorldNetDaily
John Rocker writes in his Jan. 14 WorldNetDaily column:
Now, there are many areas where Alex Jones, the host of “The Alex Jones Show” and man behind InfoWars.com, and I disagree politically, but having appeared on his show before I can say that his stance for freedom, American sovereignty and the Second Amendment deserves not just respect but emulation.
Appearing on “Piers Morgan Tonight” with Piers Morgan, a British expatriate who serves as a 21st century version of a King George Redcoat championing the disarming of the American people, Jones let him have it in a way that no individual from the GOP or the NRA – save the late, great Charlton Heston who is sorely needed now – has dared when confronting any mouthpiece for Obama’s gun-grab.
Here’s the main point of the conversation, with Jones telling Morgan, “The Second Amendment isn’t there for duck hunting, it’s there to protect us from tyrannical government and street thugs.”
He’d even go one step further, saying, “1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms.”
Jones has the type of energy I like and, more importantly, that is desperately needed by patriotic Americans who are beginning to view the actions of the Obama administration as treasonous and the milquetoast response by the GOP as pedestrian.
Meanwhile, Rocker does his best Alex Jones emulation:
Absolute certainties are a rare thing in this life, but one I think can be collectively agreed upon is the undeniable fact that the Holocaust would have never taken place had the Jewish citizenry of Hitler’s Germany had the right to bear arms and defended themselves with those arms.
Despite this being a popular talking point by some on the right wing, this is demonstrably false. Gun ownership was never widespread in Germany, even when there were few if any controls on people’s rights to own firearms. To suggest, then, that the Holocaust was made possible by the lack of armed Jews is pure nonsense on the facts alone.
More significantly, Rocker’s nonsense here downplays if not ignores the fact that it was not some tangential gun policy that led to the Holocaust, but the actual policy of implementing the Holocaust which led to the Holocaust. Jews were not targets of opportunity by the Nazis, seized upon because, hey look, they’re unarmed. They were intentionally and systematically targeted for persecution and extermination by the government, which had millions of troops under its command, armed with state-of-the-art weaponry. To suggest that some “Red Dawn”-style uprising would have prevented the Nazis from committing their crimes against humanity is pure, facile revenge fantasy, the likes of which can only be espoused by a person who has no experience with persecution.
Or maybe it’s worse. Perhaps Rocker and his ilk really don’t think that armed Jews would have stopped the Nazis and, instead, are cynically using the Holocaust as a prop in the latest act of political theater. Perhaps they view the Holocaust as a useful and emotionally-laden example with which to guilt, shame or manipulate their opponents in a modern day political dustup.
If so, it’s more despicable than it is ignorant. Way more despicable than anything the younger Rocker told Jeff Pearlman in that interview that got him into trouble back in the 90s.
Thanks, John Rocker, for providing yet another reason why nobody believes WND.
Newsmax Takes Another Dip In the Birther Pool Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax has never had the rabid birther obsession that WorldNetDaily does, but itdoesdabblein the birther cesspool on occasion.
It takes another dip with a Jan. 13 "Insider Report" item:
The mainstream media initially gave little or no coverage to presidential candidate Barack Obama's failure to produce a birth certificate, then lambasted those who questioned his eligibility for the White House.
But the press is already bringing up the question of Cruz's eligibility for president — which suggests that Democratic sympathizers are worried about his possible run for the White House in 2016.
Obama was born in Hawaii to an American mother and a Kenyan father, although some questioned his Hawaiian birth. Cruz was born in Canada to an American mother and a Cuban father who were working in the petroleum industry, and he lived in Canada for four years before his family moved to Texas.
Newsmax overlooks the fact that not only did Obama produce a birth certificate before the election, he produced another one afterwards.
Newsmax also names nobody in "the press" or the "mainstream media" who is, in fact, making this an issue -- it quotes only legal experts and campaign spokespeople.
The next question is: will WND pick this up? We shall see.
WND Fake-Name Reporter Pushes Yet Another Anonymous Claim Topic: WorldNetDaily
The pseudonymous "Reza Kahlili" keeps piling up the anonymity gambits in his latest WorldNetDaily article:
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is convening an emergency meeting Monday of his cabinet and others from the Supreme National Security Council over WND’s revelation of the Islamic regime’s secret nuclear facility.
The exclusive WND report on Jan. 7 said the secret facility is in Khondab near the city of Arak in central Iran.
According to a source in the Revolutionary Guards intelligence unit with access to Iran’s nuclear program, Iran is scrambling to find out who leaked the information.
Needless to say, "Kahlili" offers no actual proof of any of this. As we've detailed, his claimed source for this is the same one who reportedly said that Iran has has "genetically altered" smallpox, which can't possibly be true because naturally occuring smallpox was eradicated in 1977 and the only place the disease exists is in two highly secure laboratories in the U.S. and Russia.
But then, following journalistic standards is not exactly high on WND's priority list -- fear and smear is, which is why it has hired someone hiding behind a fake name and unverifiable anonymous sources to be a "reporter."
Noel Sheppard: Stop With The Nixon Jokes! Topic: NewsBusters
Leave it to Noel Sheppard to defend the honor of Richard Nixon, which he does in a Jan. 9 NewsBusters post complaining that NBC's Brian Williams said that fellow NBCer Al Roker's unfortunate post-stomach-stapling incident of incontence in the White House "hasn't happened in the West Wing since Nixon discovered the tapes."
This leads to a lengthy rant from Sheppard:
Yet why did Williams feel the need to go so far back in history to something that likely most of the audience would be too young to understand?
Certainly there have been other things that have happened in more recent American history that have similarly shocked and disturbed a president.
For example, Williams might have said, “That kind of thing that happened to Al hasn't happened in the West Wing since Carter heard about hostages being taken at our embassy in Iran.”
Or how about, “That kind of thing that happened to Al hasn't happened in the West Wing since the Drudge Report broke the news about Clinton and Monica Lewinsky?”
Or “That kind of thing that happened to Al hasn't happened in the West Wing since Clinton heard he was being impeached?”
On the other hand, if he really wanted to express how rare such an occurrence is, Williams might have said, “That kind of thing that happened to Al hasn't happened in the West Wing since the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.” At least this wouldn’t have involved a political scandal.
No, the butt of this distasteful joke about a president having an embarrassing accident in the White House of course had to be a Republican.
Color me very unsurprised.
And color us unsurprised that Sheppard is exactly the kind of partisan hack would defend a notoriously corrupt politician simply because he's a Republican.
WND's Corsi Launches Bogus Attacks on John Brennan Topic: WorldNetDaily
Jerome Corsi writes in a Jan. 9 WorldNetDaily article:
While concern has mounted that former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel’s nomination to be secretary of defense should be blocked because of past expressed hostility for Israel, little attention has been given to CIA-nominee John Brennan’s view of Islam.
In a speech delivered Aug. 9, 2009, to the Center for Strategic and International Studies that is archived on the White House website, Brennan said using “a legitimate term, ‘jihad’ – meaning to purify oneself or to wage a holy struggle for a moral goal” – to describe terrorists “risks reinforcing the idea that the United States is somehow at war with Islam itself.”
In fact, terrorism and religious experts agree that Brennan is correct in not referring to terrorists as "jihadists" because jihad has a legitimate non-violent context in Islam and, as Brennan pointed out, it would reinforce the idea that the U.S. is fighting against Islam and not terrorists.
Corsi also complains that Brennan said that "U.S. foreign policy should encourage greater assimilation of the Hezbollah terrorist organization into the Lebanese government." But he failed to report that the goal of doing so is to encourage the group's moderates and move the organization further away from committing terrorist acts.
But Corsi isn't done trying to falsely delegitimize Brennan. In a Jan. 8 article, he goes through various contortions of guilt by association to link Brennan to "what many suspect was an effort to sanitize Obama’s passport records." Corsi names none of the "many" who "suspect" this.
According to Corsi, Brennan in 2008 was the head of a company with a government contract with the State Department, and one of its employees was reprimanded for breaching the privacy of the passport records of Obama and John McCain. Corsi goes on to state that "a well-placed but unnamed source" told "investigated reporter" Ken Timmerman "that the real point of the passport breach incidents was to cauterize the Obama file, removing from it any information that could prove damaging to his eligibility to be president." This then turns into a tale of a drug dealer who supposedly had "information related to the State Department employees who had breached Obama’s passport records" but who turned up mysteriously dead.
Corsi, by the way, has no proof any of this is connected -- he's just trying to keep his increasingly discredited anti-Obama conspiracy theories alive.
From there, Corsi jumps to suggesting conspiracy theories about Obama's 1981 visit to Pakistan, which he allegedly disclosed "Two weeks after the report that Obama’s passport records had been breached." Corsi hyperventilates: Did Obama use an Indonesian passport to travel to Indonesia and Pakistan in 1981, and was he concerned the breach of his passport records might end up disclosing such information, if true?
Of course, Corsi doesn't bother to mention that it was not just possible but fairly easy to travel to Pakistan in 1981 on a U.S. passport.
Such shoddy, biased reporting by Corsi is just one of the many reasons why nobody believes WND.
CNS Quietly Makes Another False Article Disappear Topic: CNSNews.com
Penny Starr wrote in a Jan. 14 CNSNews.com article:
A Department of Justice (DOJ) report on "Homicide Trends in the United States, 1980-2008," indicates that Americans under 18 are more than 3.5 times more likely to be murdered by poisoning than by a gun shot.
Americans under 18 are also 3.4 times more likely to be murdered by arson than by a gun.
The data show that of all Americans under 18 who were murdered between 1980 and 2008, 28.6 percent were poisoned, 27.9 percent were killed by arson, and 8.1 percent were killed with a gun.
The data also show that between 1980 and 2008, 17.9 percent of the murders of Americans under 18 were in multiple homicides.
But Starr misread the chart in the DOJ report. Here's the relevant information:
The second column of numbers denotes victims under 18. While Starr apparently read the numbers vertically, they're supposed to be read horizontally. The chart does not say that 28.6 percent of murdered children were killed with poison, it says that 28.6 percent of the people murdered by poison were children.
CNS made Starr's article quietly disappear without explanation or apology, making this the second article in the past 24 hours CNS has had to remove for false or questionable claims. Starr's article, meanwhile, is still in Google cache, and a screenshot of the erroneous article is below.
WND Can't Stop Hiding Truth About Esquire Lawsuit Dismissal Topic: WorldNetDaily
Lest we give WorldNetDaily too much credit for commiting a rare act of actual journalism, it's important to remember that the vast majority of the original "news" WND publishes is biased, misleading or incomplete (or even completely false).
A (sadly) much more typical example of WND's journalism is a Jan. 11 article about the latest filing by failed lawyer Larry Klayman in WND's defamation lawsuit against Esquire magazine for a parody article claiming that WND had decided to recall and pulp Jerome Corsi's birther book.
As they have repeatedly done, WND and Klayman rail against Esquire and the judge that dismissed the lawsuit while not only refusing to tell the full story or quote from any legal brief filed by the defendants, they also fail to tell their readers the reason the lawsuit was dismissed.
And it's a pretty damning reason: WND editor Joseph Farah admitted at the time the Esquire blog post was published that he knew it was a parody. As the ruling states, Farah "immediately recognized" that the Esquire article was satire -- telling the Daily Caller that the post was “a very poorly executed parody” -- until it became "inconvenient" for him to do so. The judge added: "Political satire can be, and often is, uncomfortable to its targets, but that does not render it any less satiric or any less an expression on a topic of public concern."
That truth remains inconvenient for Farah, Klayman and WND. And that sort of thing is why nobody believes WND.
