CNS' Jeffrey Already Smearing John Kerry In New Job Topic: CNSNews.com
John Kerry hasn't been in his new job as secretary of state for a full week yet, but CNSNews.com editor in chief Terry Jeffrey is already trying to smear him.
A Feb. 11 CNS article by Jeffrey carries the headline "Kerry Took More Security on Trip to Arlington, Va., Than State Dept. Posted in Benghazi."
And yes, that's exactly what the article is about:
Secretary of State John Kerry took a larger detail of security agents on a trip to Arlington, Va., last week, when he went to visit—of all places—the headquarters of the department’s security bureau, than the State Department deployed to its compound in Benghazi, Libya, in the days leading up to the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attacks.
Apparently, nobody told Jeffrey that Kerry had no involvement whatsoever with any of the events surrounding the Benghazi attacks. But then, when do sleazy smears have anything to do with facts?
WND Mysteriously Deletes Smear Piece On Sandy Hook Dad Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily was very proud of its story on Neil Heslin, father of one of the children killed in the Sandy Hook school massacre. Here's how it was promoted in an email:
Charles C. Johnson's story attacked Heslin -- who came out in favor of bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines after the massacre and was the subject of a debate over whether he had been heckled at a hearing -- as someone who has "repeatedly endangered citizen lives by driving drunk and without a license." Here's what it looked like on the WND website, where it was proclaimed as a "WND Exclusive":
But Johnson's story has since been removed from WND's website -- the link to the story now redirects to a search page. The story, however, is still available through Google cache, and a tweet promoting the article remains on WND's Twitter account.
Why did WND remove Johnson's story? We don't know -- no explanation has been published on the website, and a message to WND requesting one has so far gone unanswered.
Johnson is a writer who has contributed to numerous right-wing websites like the Daily Caller, Breitbart and PJ Media.
The fact that WND would publish such a smear job on a father whose young son was killed in a massacre, and then delete it without explanation or apology, is yet another reason why nobody believes WND.
As most readers know by now, Noel Sheppard isn't the sharpest tool in the NewsBusters shed, willing to ignore facts, reality and ethnic slurs in the service of bashing those who aren't as conservative as he is.
In a Feb. 11 post, Sheppard highlights Fox News CEO Roger Ailes' grousing that President obama "likes to divide people into groups," followed by media critic Howard Kurtz's response, "What in Obama’s record casts him as a racially divisive leader?"
Sheppard retorted: "Really, Howie? You think race relations are better in America today than they were before Obama took office?" Sheppard then cited a poll stating that fewer people believe race relations will get better under Obama than they did in 2008.
But Sheppard is presuming that Obama is solely to blame for that number dropping -- something for which he presents no evidence whatsoever. In fact, as Media Matters details, two clear culprits in dividing people have been ... Ailes and Fox News, from Ailes' campaign work for Richard Nixon to Fox's hiring of Glenn Beck, who called Obama a "racist."
WND's Zahn Turns Movie Review Into Liberal-Bashing Rant Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's Drew Zahn has a peculiar approach to reviewing movies, which includes regaling us with his far-right ideology, from likening President Obama to an evil fairytale queen to hating a Disney film for teaching children to think for themselves to pretending his love for "Red Dawn" isn't political.
Sometimes, the review is barely there, buried under Zahn's ideology. Here's how Zahn begins his Feb. 10 review of the film "Identity Thief":
Women are unequal, so we’ll have a “sexual revolution” … People in the inner city are disproportionately poor, so we’ll ensure their “welfare” …
Not every religion is welcome in our schools, so we’ll kick God out altogether …
We have millions without access to health care, so we’ll create a government safety net and mandate everyone has insurance …
And now that we’ve enacted all these liberal “reforms” …
… women are no longer honored by men, their sexuality demeaned from sacred to casual, and 50 million of their children are dead to abortion.
… generations of inner city children grow up without fathers, and whole communities have lost the will to work, looking to government to provide for them.
… rampant immorality, crime, drugs, teen pregnancy and general adolescent stupidity reign in our schools, as academic standards tumble to the sewers.
… insurance rates are through the roof, businesses are being buried in health-care costs, doctors are leaving the profession in droves and insurance plans and employers are dropping people, so millions who had good private insurance may soon have to rely on an inferior government plan. And I haven’t even talked about rationing and the very real “death panels” yet.
Gee, how are those reforms working out for ya?
The same way liberal reforms almost always work out. They address a real problem … and make it worse.
The same thing happens in Hollywood. Perfectly good stories, intriguing ideas and talented actors are put together on a well-intentioned project … then a triple dose of liberalism turns the whole movie to dung.
It's not until the 12th paragraph that Zahn gives his readers any indication this is supposed to be a movie review. He ends the review by blaming the movie's alleged lack of quality on liberals:
All the good intentions are there.
But then the liberal agenda gets its hooks into it – and another funny movie, another good story, another great performance are all destroyed by a phenomenon all-too common in Hollywood, the ruinous effects of a liberal agenda.
Zahn could have said that it's a bad movie. Instead, he turns his "review" into agitprop. He most likely didn't learn that from Siskel & Ebert.
NewsBusters Announces Pope's Resignation With Misleading Claims Topic: NewsBusters
Here's how NewsBusters, in a Feb. 11 post credited only to "NB Staff," announced the resignation of Pope Benedict
Pope Benedict, the man liberal reporters slammed as "God's Rottweiler," is resigning. A spokesman for the Vatican did not have any more information and did not reveal a possible reason for the 85-year-old's resignation. Fox News reports "The last pope to resign was Pope Gregory XII, who stepped down in 1415 in a deal to end the Great Western Schism among competing papal claimants."
The pope may have based his decision on watching all the press reports insisting Pope John Paul II resign due to his failing health from Parkinson's disease. The college of cardinals will elect a new leader for the world's Catholics in mid-March.
Actually, conservative-leaning publications like U.S. News & World Report and the News Corp.-owned Sky News have called the pope "God's Rottweiler." further, the conservative-leaning Canadian paper National Post called it one of the "nicknames that Ratzinger’s fans considered badges of honour."
As far as NewsBusters blaming "press reports" on the pope's health for the resignation, Reuters reports that the pope faced no outside pressure to resign.
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.
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.
Lying Preacher Bradlee Dean Still As Anti-Gay As Ever Topic: WorldNetDaily
If lyingpreacher 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?
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).
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 WNDpromoted 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 lyingpreacher 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.
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."
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.
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 >>
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.
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."
WorldNetDaily's Drew Zahn has a peculiar approach to reviewing movies, which includes regaling us with his far-right ideology, from likening President Obama to an 
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.
