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Monday, February 11, 2013
WND Peddles Philanderer's Claim That John Brennan Is A Muslim
Topic: WorldNetDaily

There are so many reasons that nobody believes WorldNetDaily, and WND keeps serving up more of them.

A Feb. 10 WND article by Drew Zahn begins:

One of the FBI’s former top experts on Islam has announced that President Obama’s pick to head the Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan, converted to Islam years ago in Saudi Arabia.

And who is this so-called "expert"? None other than John Guandolo, whom you might remember as a serial philanderer and adulterer who jeopardized a federal investigation by having sex with a witness and trying to get her to donate money to a right-wing "anti-terrorism" organization.

WND makes no mention of Guandolo's disgraceful behavior -- which arguably discredits his accusations -- despite WND editor Joseph Farah's insistence that WND follows "highest editorial standards and practices by experienced journalists." (Of course, you already know Farah is lying about that.)

WND similarly failed to mention Guandolo's adulterous background in a 2011 article that also uncritically repeated a claim he made.


Posted by Terry K. at 7:23 PM EST
CNS Columnist Disappears Limbaugh From Fluke Backstory
Topic: CNSNews.com

Judie Brown writes of Sandra Fluke in a Feb. 10 CNSNews.com column:

Nobody knew who she was until February of 2012 when Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her colleagues on the House Steering Committee held a special hearing concerning the religious exemption on contraceptive coverage contained in the then-newly introduced Obama mandate.

The only person called to testify at this hearing was Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke. This was to be the first time we would hear her name, but it certainly was not to be the last.

Fluke became the instant darling of feminists and the liberal media. Her unapologetic attack on people of faith who object to the Obama birth control mandate made her immediately welcome.

First, Brown fails to explain why that one-person hearing took place: House Republicans had blocked Fluke from testifying at an earlier hearing on the contraceptive mandate.

Second, one very important person is missing from Brown's timeline: Rush Limbaugh.  It was his three-day tirade of misogyny and sleazy attacks against Fluke -- not her testimony -- that made her an "instant darling."

CNS writers have a habit of disappearing Limbaugh from the Sandra Fluke story.


Posted by Terry K. at 1:18 PM EST
Updated: Monday, February 11, 2013 1:19 PM EST
Lying Preacher Bradlee Dean Still As Anti-Gay As Ever
Topic: WorldNetDaily

If lying preacher Bradlee Dean was trying to moderate his views on gays in the wake of his failed defamation lawsuit against Rachel Maddow (in reality, he has a better case against his lawyer, Larry Klayman, for incompetent representation), it's not working.

If you'll recall, Dean had accused Maddow of falsely claiming he supported killing gays, ignoring Maddow's disclaimer in which she said, "Mr. Bradlee with two e's later clarified that he didn't really mean to sanction murder of gay people. He said, 'We have never and will never call for the execution of homosexuals.' Which is nice."

What's not as nice, however, is Dean's Feb. 8 WorldNetDaily column, which is one long rant against admitting gays into the Boy Scouts. First, he confuses homosexuality with pedophilia, which aren't the same thing.

Then, he uses inflammatory language to impugn gays -- claiming that "the radicals used totalitarian means in an attempt to bully the BSA into submission" and referencing "the radical homosexual lobby’s bully pulpit."He goes on to baselessly suggest that Canada has an "epidemic of child sex abuse" because gays were allowed into the Boy Scouts there, concluding, "It is time to wake up, America, and heed Canada’s warnings before it’s too late."

Does this not sound like a guy who really could support killing gays if he thought he could get away with it?

It's probably in Dean's best interests if Klayman hides this information from the judge to whom he appealed the dismissal of Dean's lawsuit. But you can't hide such things from a judge, can you?


Posted by Terry K. at 12:49 AM EST
Sunday, February 10, 2013
MRC Hides That Alleged Cop Killer Also Praised Conservatives
Topic: Media Research Center

Discussing the shooting spree by alleged cop killer Christopher Dorner in  his weekly appearance on Sean Hannity's Fox News show, Media Research Center chief Brent Bozell complained about what was explained in a Feb. 8 NewsBusters post as "the liberal media's deliberate papering over of the left-wing views that inspired him." similarly, another Feb. 8 NewsBusters post by Matt Vespa complained that NPR failed to note that "it's pretty clear from his manifesto that he has has liberal affinities, which some in the media seem to be hesitant to document in their reports." And a Feb. 8 MRC TimesWatch post by Clay Waters grouses that the New York Times hasn't reported that Dorner "praised liberal media personalities in his oddly chatty 'manifesto' posted on Facebook."

All of these MRC writers are leaving something out as well: Dorner's manifesto also praised some conservatives.

For instance, Horner wrote of radio host Bill Handel, who has expressed anti-Muslim and anti-health care reform sympathies on his radio show: "Bill Handel, your effin awesome. For years I enjoyed your show."

Horner similarly praised notoriously anti-immigrant (and anti-gay, and who got suspended from their show for calling Whitney Houston a "crack ho") Los Angeles radio hosts John and Ken: John and Ken from KFI, never mute your facts and personal opinions. You are one of the few media personalities who speak the truth, even when the truth is not popular. I will miss listening to your discussions."

Horner also had words of encouragement for conservative poster boy Tim Tebow: 

Tebow, I really wanted to see you take charge of an offense again and the game. You are not a good QB by todays standards, but you are a great football player who knows how to lead a team and WIN. You will be "Tebowing" when you reach your next team. I have faith in you. Get out of that circus they call the Jets and away from the reality TV star, Rex Ryan, and Mark Rapist Sanchez.

Gee, wonder why the MRC doesn't want us to know about this? Perhaps because fully quoting from the manifesto shows Horner to be all over the place politically and can't be pinned down to a single ideology (and is probably crazy).


Posted by Terry K. at 10:21 PM EST
WND Tries To Spin Away Rachel Maddow's Criticism Of It
Topic: WorldNetDaily

In 2011, WorldNetDaily editor declared, "I don’t pay too much attention to MSNBC and Rachel Maddow. About the only time I watch this kind of programming is when it focuses on me." It's in that spirit of selective obliviousness -- and Farah's notoriously thin skin -- that a Feb. 5 WND article by Bob Unruh is dedicated to spinning away Maddow's criticism of WND:

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow says it’s really hard for the left wing of the U.S. government to operate because the other half – the conservatives – are not willing to adopt the “evidence” she suggests is irrefutable.

And she can’t stop herself from taking public swipes at WND for its reporting on some of the issues liberals have had difficulty advancing.

Immediately thereafter, Unruh quotes Maddow mentioning the false story about "the Muslim Obama jihad on child Reagan’s home" without acknowledging that WND promoted that false story.

The bulk of Unruh's article  is dedicated to rebutting claims by Maddow and fellow MSNBC host Chris Hayes on the issue of global warming -- an issue about what Maddow did not specifically criticize.

Unruh wrote that Maddow and Hayes "did not discuss the evidence from emails leaked from the University of East Anglia, the premiere global warming advocacy center," going on to reference how WND columnist Christopher Monckton is "regarded as an expert on the issue." But in doing so, Unruh ends up justifying Maddow's criticism of WND:

  • Monckton is not a scientist, has made numerous misleading and incorrect claims about climate change and once falsely claimed to be a Nobel laureate, making him a very dubious "expert."
  • The stolen emails do not offer evidence of any sort of conspiracy to perpetuate the false notion of climate change, as Unruh and Monckton suggest.

Unruh quotes Monckton citing one stolen email stating, "The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment, and it is a travesty that we can’t." But that's taken out of context; as Wired points out, the article accompanying the email states that global warming is continuing, despite random temperature variations that would seem to suggest otherwise, and the scientist in question has responded by saying that the email was noting that "we don’t have an observing system adequate to track it, but there are all other kinds of signs aside from global mean temperatures — including melting of Arctic sea ice and rising sea levels and a lot of other indicators — that global warming is continuing."

Unruh also repeats a claim that "a recent report in the Daily Mail of London said the purported 'consensus' on global warming is disintegrating after new data indicate the planet has not warmed in 15 years." In fact, the Daily Mail distorted the data by picking an arbitrary starting point that obscures the overall warming trend as demonstrated over a longer period of time.

Unruh then wrote that "Maddow launched into another rant about WND’s reporting about of several issues involving Obama," but he makes no effort to rebut anything she said. That's because he can't -- among the things Maddow highlights is WND's discredited claim that Obama's wedding ring contains Arabic characters stating, "There is no god except Allah" and Jerome Corsi's peddling of unsupported claims that Obama is secretly gay.

Unruh concludes by stating that Maddow's "outspokenness occasionally has landed trouble at her doorstep. A lawsuit, now on appeal, alleges that she defamed a Christian minister by maliciously asserting he advocated the execution of homosexuals." That, of course, would be lying preacher Bradlee Dean. Unruh does not mention that Dean's lawyer, Larry Klayman, has done work for WND, making this yet another conflict of interest that WND has failed to disclose as basic journalistic ethics demand.


Posted by Terry K. at 10:39 AM EST
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Newsmax's Doug Wead Shifts His Paul-Fawning From Ron to Rand
Topic: Newsmax

Newsmax columnist Doug Wead spent a good chunk of the 2012 presidential election process being a cheerleader for Ron Paul. Now that Paul has retired from Congress, it's no surprise that Wead has turned his attention to Paul's son, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul.

And that's exactly what Wead does in his Feb. 7 column praising Rand Paul's speech at the Heritage Foundation, where he "outlin[ed] before the stuffy G.K. Chesterton conservatives in the audience a new foreign policy for the Republican Party, one that offers a better fit for new realities."

Wead went on to proclaim himself (and PUal) a member of the "liberty movement," whatever that means, and  concludes with a fawning flourish: "We can only hope that our nation will come out of its stupor and find the wisdom in Rand Paul’s clarion call."


Posted by Terry K. at 9:37 PM EST
Ted Nugent Moves Downmarket To WND
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily may have launched Bill O'Reilly into newspaper syndication many eons ago, but WND is now turning into a spot for pundits on their way down that want the freedom to be as insanely hateful as they wanna be.

Case in point: Ted Nugent.

WND announced in a Feb. 6 article that Nugent had become "an exclusive WND columnist" with a column called "The Ted Offensive." (Because 40-year-old Vietnam War allusions are always cutting edge and popular with the kids.) But Nugent previously wrote for the Washington Times, which as an actual print product is arguably slightly more prestigeous. Then again, the Times is the money-losing plaything of a self-proclaimed billionaire messiah, while WND is merely a birther-obsessed for-profit falsehood-promoting anti-Obama super PAC.

Needless to say, WND was too busy praising Nugent as a "outspoken rock showman, humanitarian and TV host" that they couldn't find room for some of Nugent's more unsavory opinions.

Speaking of unsavory opinions, Nugent gave a Feb. 7 interview to WND radio in which he declared that President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder are "promoting" racism and that the Obama administration has a "racist agenda." 

Nugent is WND's boy now, and since nobody believes WND, there's no reason to believe him either.


Posted by Terry K. at 1:21 AM EST
Friday, February 8, 2013
NEW ARTICLE -- Out There, Exhibit 57: The Jefferson Freakouts
Topic: The ConWeb
The ConWeb just can't deal with the idea that Thomas Jefferson may have fathered a child with one of his slaves. Plus: WorldNetDaily's Ellis Washington embraces a discredited book about Jefferson. Read more >>

Posted by Terry K. at 2:15 PM EST
Erik Rush's Anti-Gay Tirade
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Erik Rush unleashes a massive anti-gay rant in his Feb. 5 WorldNetDaily column:

Private organizations that ostensibly have the right to discriminate all they like have been placed under tremendous pressure in recent years by a militant homosexual lobby that wishes to normalize the popular perception of homosexual behavior. I am convinced that many of its “true believers” aren’t even aware they are merely pawns of the radical left, but given the latter’s tenacious modus operandi, otherwise intelligent, conscientious people have nonetheless subscribed to the prevailing propaganda proffered by an agenda-driven press and the homosexual lobby.

Then, there’s the ongoing discussion and legislation relative to homosexual “marriage.” Like black Klansmen and male sorority sisters, “gay marriage” simply doesn’t exist. Oh, we have monogamous homosexual couples playing house, and certain states issuing marriage licenses to them, but there’s no marriage there. This is because marriage is not a civil union; it’s an ordained one.

I continue to find this amusing, despite the clear and present danger it represents to our culture. Here we have the opponents of this farcical instrument of societal destruction actually engaging in the debate over whether or not to “allow” something that simply doesn’t exist.

In the case of the Boy Scouts of America, they have simply bought into – or very nearly bought into – the aforementioned pro-homosexual propaganda. Here, we have the fact that homosexuals do not account for the percentages that activists tout; in reality, 1 to 3 percent of the overall population is probably fairly accurate. The entertainment media and the press would have us believe that it is closer to 10 percent, and if you watch television, you’re likely to surmise that every third person you set eyes on is homosexual.

There’s much more, of course: The widespread myth that homosexuality is normal rather than aberrant, that it is hard-wired into individuals rather than being a persuasion or choice, that it is not harmful to society, and that it is not harmful to children. One particularly dangerous fallacy advanced by homosexual activists is that pedophiles (such as those who have been charged with molesting Boy Scouts over the years) are not homosexuals.

These submissions against better judgment are analogous to capitulating to a developmentally disabled child who wants to play with matches simply because they have been persistent in their requests to do so. Obviously, the child does not know better; as the developmentally sound individual present, it is that person’s responsibility to refuse his or her requests, not defer to them.

Actually, pedophiles aren't homosexuals -- pedophiles tend not to have an adult sexual orientation. And only 4.4 percent of characters on TV are gay or lesbian, not "every third person" as Rush claims.

Also: Is Rush really likening gays to a "developmentally disabled child"? Sure looks that way.


Posted by Terry K. at 2:41 AM EST
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Newsmax Fawns Over Dick Morris' CNN Appearance
Topic: Newsmax

After lovingly teasing Dick Morris' first TV appearance on CNN following his dismissal from Fox News -- which obscured the fact that Morris has an abysmal record of punditry -- a Feb. 6 article by Todd Beamon on the CNN appearance keeps up the fawning.

Beamon led off by calling Morris a "Leading political analyst and best-selling author" and noted that he "defended his record of political predictions":

He also noted his long track record of electoral successes as a campaign strategist electing two U.S. presidents and 14 heads of state around the world, including Bill Clinton's surprise comeback re-election in 1996.

During his tenure at Fox, Morris recalled that he accurately predicted the election of George W. Bush in 2000, his re-election in 2004, the GOP's loss of both Houses in 2006, Obama's win in 2008, and the Republican landslide of more than 60 House seats in 2010.

Needless to say, Beamon won't tell you the lies Morris told during the interview -- one of which Beamon uncritically repeated. As Slate's David Weigel details, Morris did not guide Clinton's 1996 re-election because he was ousted from the campaign two months before the election because of his infamous toe-sucking prostitution scandal.

While Beamon couldn't be bothered to do any basic fact-checking, he did make sure to inform us that Morris is "popular" and "appear[ed] relaxed in a sports jacket and an open-collared Oxford shirt."


Posted by Terry K. at 9:30 PM EST
Napolitano At WND: Obama Can Legally Kill Beck, O'Reilly
Topic: WorldNetDaily

While there are legitimate questions about President Obama's use of drones to kill terrorists, Andrew Napolitano goes all conspiratorial in a Feb. 6 interview with WorldNetDaily:

The judge said it’s very easy to read the administration’s legal defense for the drone program and see how it could be used to target any American.

“The language in this 16-page document could easily apply to Americans in America,” said Napolitano. “So the president could decide that Bill O’Reilly or Glenn Beck or Judge Napolitano are just too troublesome, too meddlesome, too much of an obstacle to the accomplishment of his purposes, and it’s time to take them out.

Napolitano spouts a lot of conspiracy theories. He's also a 9/11 truther.


Posted by Terry K. at 6:09 PM EST
Crossroads Spokesman Is Correct: Brent Bozell Is A Hater
Topic: Media Research Center

The battle between Karl Rove's American Crossroads group -- which has created an operation to promote electable Republican candidates over right-wing extremists -- and self-proclaimed "real" conservatives has ramped up considerably.

During a radio show appearance, Crossroads spokesman Jonathan Collegio called Media Research  Center chief Brent Bozell, who has led opposition to the Crossroads project, a "hater" for opposing it, adding that Bozell has "a long, sordid history, like, hating Karl Rove, too. So he has, like, a weird personal axe to grind."

In response, several right-wing leaders have issued a letter proclaiming Bozell to be "a beloved and critically important player in American history" and demanding that Collegio be fired.

But Collegio is right -- Bozell is a hater who has personal axes to grind.

Check out Bozell's mean-spirited farewell to the Clinton administration in which he spewed numerous insults. Or his vicious verbal attack on a liberal analyst for daring to disagree with him in a TV appearance. Or the numerous other examples of hateful and unhinged rhetoric he has spewed, including calling President Obama a "skinny ghetto crackhead."

Collegio is correct to question whether someone who acts like a foul-mouthed bully is a legitimate conservative leader. Will Bozell's defenders admit his legacy of hate, or will they continue to whitewash it?


Posted by Terry K. at 1:30 PM EST
WND Still Hiding Farah's No-Show For Breakfast He Denied He Was Disinvited From
Topic: WorldNetDaily

As we've detailed, WorldNetDaily made a huge deal out of denying that editor Joseph Farah being disinvited from an inauguration day prayer breakfast after apparently getting the breakfast's organizer to repudiate her previous public statements about it -- the same breakfast to which Farah was a no-show anyway.

Weirdly, WND is still promoting this breakfast, and hiding Farah's no-show.

A Feb. 5 WND article rehashes what speaker (and Farah buddy) Jonathan Cahn said at the breakfast, once again ignoring the WND-generated controversy over Farah's invitation. The only mention of Farah in the unbylined article is that he was producer of a video accompaniment to Cahn's prophecy book "The Harbinger."


Posted by Terry K. at 11:29 AM EST
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
CNS' Strategically Vague Obama-Gays-Boy Scouts Headline
Topic: CNSNews.com

President Obama said in a Super Bowl interview on the subject of gays being allowed into the Boy Scouts:

My attitude is that gays and lesbians should have access and opportunity the same way everybody else does in every institution and walk of life, and the Scouts are a great institution that are promoting young people and exposing them to opportunities and leadership that will serve people for the rest of their lives, and I think that nobody should be barred from that.

Here's how CNS synthesized that into a headline for a Feb. 4 article by Susan Jones: "Obama: Boy Scouts Should Expose Homosexuals to Opportunities."

The typical right-wing CNS reader will automatically fill out the rest of that strategically vague sentence with "... to have sex with little boys." And that presumably was the intent, what with the anti-gay agenda of CNS' parent organization, the Media Research Center.

Posted by Terry K. at 3:21 PM EST
Updated: Wednesday, February 6, 2013 3:22 PM EST
WND's Farber Warns Against 'Homogrifying' Boy Scouts
Topic: WorldNetDaily

America, have you gone mad? Don’t you remember being a 12-to-15-year-old boy? And weren’t you girls “awakening” at about the same age? Don’t you realize that homogrifying the Scouts would hijack the very mission of scouting and turn the organization into a beehive of erotic exploration? I don’t fear gay boys hitting on straights as much as I fear straights asking, “What’s this ‘gay’ stuff all about? Is there anything in it for us?” I also fear for the safety of young gays who, innocently or opportunistically, give a wrong smile or say the wrong thing to the wrong straight. In our Southern culture, you weren’t a “man” until you’d “slugged a queer” who approached you. I failed the test. I always just rejected the advance and got out of there.

The battle to diminish youth sex was lost – surrendered – with the schoolhouse condom giveaways. To a young teenager, that was the grown-up world telling you, “We know you’re going to do it, and we want to help you do it right.” And what message would the welcoming of gays into the Boy Scouts send? “Gay-play must be OK, or the grown-ups wouldn’t allow us to be camping, swimming, showering, sleeping, horsing around and walking through the woods together!” Admitting gays openly into the Boy Scouts is rather like insisting cigarettes be lit as close as you can get to the nozzle while the gasoline is being pumped.

From condemnation to condone-nation in one parade! The Nazis didn’t have it that easy in Norway.

-- Barry Farber, Feb. 5 WorldNetDaily column


Posted by Terry K. at 12:56 PM EST

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