Meanwhile ...
Topic: WorldNetDaily
Wonkette saves us some work by explaining exactly what's wrong with Joseph Farah's Feb. 26 WorldNetDaily column positing that Americans were better off in 1776 than they do today. That, of course, involves not counting blacks or women as Americans.

CNS' Jeffrey Laments That Perpetrators of Domestic Violence Might Lose Rights, Is Silent On Their Victims
Topic: CNSNews.com

This is the only thing CNSNews.com editor Terry Jeffrey finds newsworthy about the Violence Against Women Act, as described in a Feb. 27 CNS article:

The House Republican leadership has scheduled a floor vote on Thursday on a Senate version of the Violence Against Women Act that, if enacted, would strip constitutional rights from Americans prosecuted by Indian tribes for alleged acts of domestic violence.

Jeffrey makes no mention of the rights of the spouses that were violated by those that would allegedly lose their "constitutional rights" for committing domestic violence on tribal land.

Funny how Jeffrey is putting the rights of the criminal before that of the victim.

Obama Derangement: WND's Ringer Claims 'Gulags, Gas Chambers and Firing Squads' Are Likely After Obama Takes Your Guns
Topic: WorldNetDaily

The fake smile is cute and all that, but his bitterness is clearly visible in his actions. And, in all fairness, it’s understandable. His father, who abandoned him shortly after he was born, was an alcoholic, philandering failure with delusions of grandeur. Not a situation anyone would wish on a small child.

But such was Obama’s early life, and, unfortunately, his unhappiness drove him to seek out other angry people – from Frank Marshall Davis to Jeremiah Wright, from Bernardine Dohrn to Michelle Robinson. Today, of course, he is literally surrounded by an army of like-minded Marxists.

[...]

What is annoying about all this is that millions of us knew the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about Obama before he ever took office. We knew he would never make the original of his birth certificate available to any independent authority. We knew he would use the Cloward-Piven strategy to collapse the economy and make virtually everyone dependent on the state. And we knew he would try to ban all guns in order to make citizens defenseless.

At the risk of drying out Chris Matthews’ pee-soaked trousers, I am compelled to speak the unspeakable: Barack Obama is not “the smartest guy in the room.” In fact, as those who knew him at the University of Chicago have made clear, he is not even a particularly intelligent individual. He is, however, exceedingly clever and cunning.

Which is why guns are now at the top of his agenda. He senses that the tea party is threatening to make a comeback, this time with many more rednecks in the mix. Rednecks are a government’s worst nightmare because they 1) own lots of guns, and 2) often live in hard to reach places – e.g., the Ozarks, the Appalachians and the Smokys. And they don’t much care for people who wear government badges.

Whenever government tries to exert absolute control over the citizenry, the use of force is a must. You cannot stop people from doing things they want to do, or make them do things they don’t want to do, without applying brute force. And that’s a dangerous tactic when there are several hundred million guns stashed away in private hands.

It would take an inestimable number of Waco-style attacks to root out every redneck in the U.S. That’s why Hitler, Stalin and every other brutal dictator has been smart enough to grab people’s guns early on. After that, gulags, gas chambers and firing squads are easily put into place.

Do I seriously believe that gulag prison camps are possible in the U.S.? Yes.

Do I seriously believe that gas chambers and mass executions are possible in the U.S.? Yes.

In fact, any kind of atrocities are possible, but only if government first accomplishes its No. 1 objective: confiscating your guns. Remember, when people fear the government, they get tyranny. But when the government fears the people, they get freedom. And government will continue to fear the people so long as the people have guns. In that vein, may God bless rednecks everywhere.

-- Robert Ringer, Feb. 27 WorldNetDaily column

MRC Won't Admit White House 'Threat' To Woodward Is Bogus
Topic: Media Research Center

The claim that the Obama White House threatened Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward as been discredited, but that hasn't stopped the Media Research Center from promoting the lie.

An MRC item by Scott Whitlock lamented that 'The Today show on Thursday allowed a scant 16 seconds, out of a possible four hours, to the claim by veteran journalist Bob Woodward that the Obama White House is trying to intimidate him and attack his coverage of the sequester cuts. The NBC program also avoided using the word 'threat.'"

Of course, there was no "threat" -- as the emails between Woodward and White House adviser Gene Sperling demonstrated, Sperling merely advised that Woodward would "regret staking out" his claim that the White House was "moving the goalposts" in demanding that any sequester deal include increased revenue. They're not, by the way; the White House proposal to avert sequestration has always included revenue enhancement.

Mark Finkelstein, meanwhile, was annoyed that MSNBC's Joe Scarborough revealed that the Bush White House had threatened him, and guests Mark Halperin and Andrea Mitchell revealed similar stories of being threatened by Republican White Houses. Finkelstein also lamented that co-host Willie Geist "downplayed the seriousness of the White House threat to Woodward."

Finkelstein complained in a separate NewsBusters post that "Morning Joe" co-host Mika Brzezinski used "her most sarcastic scared-little-child voice" to mock Woodward's complaining about the alleged threat, huffing, "Be warned journalists who might consider taking on President Obama. Mika might mock your manhood!" Apparently, Finkelstein missed his NewsBusters colleague Tom Blumer mocking the manhood of Washington Post's Ezra Klein, calling him a "guppy" merely for expressing an opinion he didn't like.

Even though the idea of a White House "threat" to Woodward had long since been discredited, Whitlock followed up his earlier post by insisting without evidence that an "implied threat" had been made. Whitlock also defends Politico's softball interview with Woodward and Politico's reporting on it, expressing annoyance that a Washington Post blogger dismissed it as "fan fiction."

Whitloc k concluded: 'The Washington Post mocking Politico for lauding the greatness of the Washington Post's Woodward? Truly, these are confusing times for the liberal media." As it is for the MRC, which is defending Politico -- which Whitlock previously bashed for having "spun" for Obama -- for its kid-glove treatment of Woodward, whom MRC chief Brent Bozell has previously bashed as a "sacred cow."

WND's John Rocker Is Still Playing The Victim Over Being Accurately Quoted
Topic: WorldNetDaily

It's entirely possible that one reason John Rocker is a WorldNetDaily columnist is to promote the idea that he's not really as racist as his reputation suggests. If so, he's failing miserably.

Rocker's Feb. 25 WND column goes straight into Alex Jones-style paranoia by citing Alex Jones' paranoia:

The United States government is apparently readying itself for a massive war against Middle America.

 As reported on Alex Jones’ Infowars.com, targets with images of gun-wielding children, grandparents and pregnant mothers have been purchased by law enforcement agencies.

According to Infowars, the company Law Enforcement Targets Inc. has over $ 5.5 million dollars worth of contracts with the federal government.



Over $2 million of those contracts are with the Department of Homeland Security. 

The article also points out that the DHS has purchased billions of rounds of ammunition.



The DHS supposedly has on hand about five bullets for each man, woman and child living in the United States.

Dark times my friends, very dark times.

If Waco and Ruby Ridge tell us anything, it’s that the federal government has a history of killing non-traditional combatants like young mothers and innocent kids.



The choice seems to be clear. Adjust, or we’re prepared to eliminate you.



The government seems to have a clear understanding that to achieve the diverse America they have plotted out, most Americans need to be forcibly brainwashed.



And Rocker is still pissed that he was quoted accurately musing about how horrible it is living in New York and "having to take the [Number] 7 train to the ballpark, looking like you’re [riding through] Beirut next to some kid with purple hair next to some queer with AIDS right next to some dude who just got out of jail for the fourth time right next to some 20-year-old mom with four kids." He plays the victim for all it's worth:

After a number of statements that dared to question the merits of multicultural America were published in what amounted to a Sports Illustrated hit piece, the liberal media went into overdrive.



It seemed as if the entire polyglot city of New York (formerly of America) was ready to hang me in the center of Times Square.



Questions about how Major League Baseball could cope with such a vile and dangerous fellow among their ranks were raised.



Grand Inquisitor Bud Selig, Overlord of the Diamond, decided I needed to attend mandatory sensitivity training sessions to atone for my sins.

Fortunately, that too passed, and despite the emotional trauma it wreaked upon my family and me, and the unwarranted reputation I will forever bear, it was merely one of the first shots in what looks to be a very long war. A war the liberal media has no intention of losing with their main weapon of choice coming in the form of vitriol and castigating commentary aimed at any individual who dares stray from their self-derived brand of “correct thought.” I was one of the first victims of such a warfare tactic, but certainly have not and will not be the last. Just as the British hanged traitors in the town square as a stern warning, so too does our liberal media seek to put on a pedestal of disgrace those who dare choose to express thoughts that taste different from their brand of Kool-Aid.


Nobody likes a whiner, John -- with the possible exception of WND, which likes to hire them as columnists.

NewsBusters Still Upset That People On CNN Don't Hate Gays
Topic: NewsBusters

Matt Hadro is the Media Research Center's chief umbrage-taker that people on CNN don't hate gays enough. So you know that Hadro's Feb. 27 NewsBusters post on a CNN guest saying that "we need a Jackie Robinson" pro athlete to admit he's gay was not written because he approves of the idea.

Hadro complained that one CNN guest, BuzzFeed sports editor Jack Moore, "was ripping NFL scouts who reportedly questioned a prospect about his sexuality," and that "Two others on the CNN panel shared Moore's frustration. How's that for intellectual diversity, CNN?"

Does anyone besides Hadro really want the "intellectual diversity" that says it's OK for the NFL to discriminate against someone because their sexual orientation? That may be the kind of thing that Hadro can get behind given the MRC's anti-gay agenda, but he offers no argument in favor of such discrimination.

WND's Corsi Touts Dubious Reporter And His Dubious Nobel Nomination
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Jerome Corsi has a dearth of birther stuff -- his obsession helped make his employer, WorldNetDaily, the laughingstock it is -- so he's trying to branch out into new conspiracies, which also includes whitewashing the fringe views of right-wingers.

In a Feb. 24 WND article, Corsi touts Ken Timmerman -- whose questionable attacks against Chuck Hagel Corsi uncritically repeats -- as a "former Nobel Peace Prize nominee." Corsi adds: "Timmerman began in the Foundation for Democracy in Iran in 1995 as part of his ongoing support for freedom in the Islamic country and in 2006 was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Sweden’s former Deputy Prime Minister Per Ahlmark for playing a major role in exposing Iran’s plans to develop nuclear weapons."

Who is Per Ahlmark? He's a pro-Israel right-winger who has been approvingly quoted by Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid, so that makes him immediately suspect.

It's also unclear what standing Ahlmark had to legitimately submit such a Nobel Peace Prize nomination. Here are the people who can nominate a Peace Prize candidate:

•  Members of national assemblies and governments of states

•  Members of international courts

•  University rectors; professors of social sciences, history, philosophy, law and theology; directors of peace research institutes and foreign policy institutes

•  Persons who have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize

•  Board members of organizations that have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize

•  Active and former members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee; (proposals by members of the Committee to be submitted no later than at the first meeting of the Committee after February 1)

•  Former advisers to the Norwegian Nobel Committee

According to his Wikipedia bio, Ahlmark has not been in government since 1978, he was never a university professor, and he appears not to have head a "peace research institute" or been associated with the Nobel Committee.

Further, Timmerman's veracity is dubious at best. We've detailed how he served as a mouthpiece for former Rep. Curt Weldon's conspiracy theories about national security, failing to fact-check his claims as he was regurgitating them. Timmerman also promoted the bogus claim that the closings of certain GM and Chrysler dealers while the manufacturers were in bankruptcy were motivated by how much money the dealers gave to Republicans. On top of that, Timmerman promoted birtherism, essentially declaring that the Obama campaign's failure to respond to a birther lawsuit means that everything outlined in the lawsuit is true.

That last item, of course, may be the big reason Corsi likes Timmerman so much.

NewsBusters Falsely Suggests MSNBC Edited McCain Video
Topic: NewsBusters

Jeeffrey Meyer huffily began a Feb. 27 NewsBusters post this way:

MSNBC’s propensity to selectively edit video to smear conservatives has reached a new low.  Speaking on her self-titled show on February 21, host Rachel Maddow openly admitted to playing edited footage of Senator John McCain to smear the Arizona Republican.

But Meyer provided no evidence that MSNBC or Maddow were the ones who "selectively edit" the video in question, which involved McCain taking a question from a constituent whose son was killed last year in the Aurora, Colorado, movie theater massacre, which critics say was edited in such a way as to make McCain look insensitive.

Indeed, the clip Maddow aired is clearly identified as coming from Arizona TV station KTVK. That station is an independent station that carries no network affiliation.

KTVK pointed out that it posted the full video of McCain on its website "immediately after the story aired along with a written description of the encounter that characterized Senator McCain as 'sympathizing' with the victim's mother."

Meyer made no mention whatsoever of KTVK's role in the original edit or its posting of the full video. He's too busy venting his misplace fury at Maddow, huffily concluding: "The total disregard, and in this case, outright glee on by the liberal MSNBC hosts regarding their selective video editing practices shows just how corrupt the network has become."

Meyer also fails to mention that his employer is equally guilty, if not more so, of selectively editing comments in order to smear people, mostly President Obama.

Andrea Shea King's Michelle Obama Derangement
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Andrea Shea King writes a weekly column for WorldNetDaily summing up the week in right-wing talk radio. But like Erik Rush, she's not letting WND have her prime insanity.

At her personal website, Radio Patriot, King wrote a Feb. 26 post that's a massive spewing forth of Obama derangement that's impressively insane even by the normal standards of Obama derangement:

Who is Michelle Obama? And why her obsession with straight haired wigs?

Michelle Larue Robinson Obama (Soetoro) is a self-loathing female who’s gonna make you pay and pay and pay because she grew up hating that she wasn’t you. Hating that she was born black, grew to be basketball player tall, had a bulky, un-proportioned, and overweight body, was born black, big-footed, ashy-skinned, kinky-haired, bug-eyed and bushy eyebrowed. Did I mention that she was born black, had a cro-magnon lower jaw, wide nose, and a chip on her even wider shoulders because she was born black and grew up learning that whitey was the enemy. That it was all whitey’s fault then, and would ever be.

[...]

Later, parlayed into the Chicago political scene through her father’s wardboss connections, Michelle Larue Robinson fell into a pot of glitter when her gal pal ValJar introduced her to a skinny, exotic foreigner who was being groomed by powerful people to go places — maybe even Chicago mayor!!! Michelle recognized a ticket to ride. She wanted children, a family, but needed a husband to get there. Conversely, the skinny cokehead needed her connections in the black community.No doubt she figured she could whip this lazy pot smoker into shape. So she went for it — marrying the bony-assed, lazy, foul-breath gayboy, who believed then and even more now that he’s Allah’s gift to the world. So, it was a marriage of “convenience” — each of them got a partner with a beard. She got her kids. He got Reggie Love. (Ask Mrs. Robinson what she thinks of son-in-law Barry…)

Into the marriage a few years, broke and disgusted, Michelle came this close to divorcing him, but events intervened and no doubt she’s thanked her lucky stars many times since that she stayed. Because now she’s in the “queenly” position of First Lady where she can shed that “ugly little negro girl” self image, spending gawdonlyknows how much money and time to rid herself of that self-loathing self-image.With a retinue of stylists, she’s transformed the ugly duckling into a svelte swan, with makeup experts, wigs, cosmetic surgery, gym workouts, capped teeth, and designer clothes that “toute le monde” has decreed “beautiful, trend setting, etc.” (No matter that the rest of us are reminded of a trannie performing at The Pickle Barrel in a blue light district. With bangs.)

But I think that deep inside, the hurts and anger and resentments still simmer. The adult Michelle knows that without the paint, the lashes, the wigs, the plucked, the shaved, the creamed, the thousand dollar frocks, she still feels ugly. It’s why she hates — hates America, hates us. Because down deep, she hates herself. 

[...]

Far too many of our black brothers and sisters haven’t figured out that she’s using them and their pride in the nation’s first “Black” president.  She sends them computerized “personal” emails, love letters on behalf of Barack, to invite them — for a donation of “just three dollars” — to gamble that they’ll be the ones chosen to dine with one of their own — the first cool, hip, smooth, (shhhh…half white) black president.

So the lotto dollars pour in… lucre from the hopefuls that will guarantee she can continue in the life of a regal, at their expense — and ours.

This from a community she scorns.  After all, they remind her of what she works hard to disguise and forget — the little girl with brown skin and kinky hair. And that’s why she goes for the straight-haired wigs. They make her look more… well, less black.That is Michelle Larue Robinson Obama. This is a dangerous woman, motivated by hate and resentment.And though I understand what motivates her, for the first time in my adult life, I am not proud of our First Lady. Or her husband either.

Why does King not think this is worthy of the website that thinks Obama is the Antichrist? Inquiring minds want to know.

(h/t ccm)

NewsBusters Heathering Watch
Topic: NewsBusters

In a Feb. 26 NewsBusters post, Jeffrey Meyer takes it to longtime Heathering target Joe Scarborough to declare that the MSNBC can't possibly be a real conservative because his adherence to right-wing talking points isn't sufficiently slavish.

Responding to Scarborough's complaint that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie won't be invited to right-wing prom CPAC, Meyer huffed that "Scarborough completely ignored the fact that Christie has done his level best to alienate himself from conservatives."

Meyer saves his largest bit of Heathering for last:

If Scarborough were a true conservative, wouldn't he be doing more to bash President Obama's reckless spending and challenge the president to rise to the occasion to make the sequester work?

After all, Obama makes Bush look like a piker by comparison on the spending front. No, Scarborough is comfortable with the path of least resistance, playing nice with his liberal bosses at MSNBC as the network's pet "conservative."

Since when is conservatism defined by refusal to stray from talking points? We don't know, but that appears to be what Meyer and his cohorts have decided.

WND Dials Back False Claim About Veterans And Guns, Doesn't Tell Readers (And Still Got It Wrong)
Topic: WorldNetDaily

A Feb. 22 WorldNetDaily article by Bob Unruh began (as reposted at The Waking Giant):

The Obama administration has launched into a campaign that threatens the Second Amendment rights of American military veterans, sending out letters that say their competency to handle their own affairs is being reviewed, and if determined by government bureaucrats to be unable to handle their affairs, they would be barred from having any weapons.

Just one problem: It's not true that the Obama administration is engaging in a sweeping campaign to disarm veterans. What Unruh is overheatedly referring to is a standard practice by the Department of Veterans Affairs -- in place since the mid-1990s -- to inform veterans deemed too incompetent to handle their affairs that they are prohibited from owning firearms.

Further, the letter cited in the WND article is taken almost directly from the VA handbook’s sample Notice of a Proposed Rating of Incompetency.

Because Unruh has no evidence that  the Obama administration has changed longstanding procedures for determining the incompetency of a veteran, the lead paragraph of his article was changed to something slightly more representative of reality:

In an apparent threat to Second Amendment rights, some American military veterans have received a letter from the Veterans Administration warning that their competency to handle their own affairs is under review, and if determined by government bureaucrats to be “incompetent,” they would be barred from possessing weapons.

It's still inaccurate, because Unruh offers no evidence that VA incompetency procedures have changed in any way to make it more of a "threat to Second Amendment rights" than it may have been before. Nevertheless, WND failed to tell its readers about this significant change -- a longstanding dishonest practice at WND.

MRC Whines That Michelle Obama's Oscars Cameo Was 'Propaganda,' 'Intrusive'
Topic: Media Research Center

Following in the footsteps of other right-wingers, the Media Research Center has declared that Michelle Obama's cameo appearance at the Academy Awards to present the award for best picture was horrible.

Jeffrey Meyer grumbled in a Feb. 26 NewsBusters post that "the Washington Post’s Sally Quinn admitted that Michelle Obama’s Oscar appearance was, in Bill O’Reilly’s words, 'Hollywood Left boosterism,' but gushed that it was a 'brilliant idea.'"

The headline for Meyer's post, however, read: "WashPo’s Sally Quinn Admits Michelle Obama’s Oscar Appearance Was Propaganda; But Thinks It Was Brilliant." Since when does "Hollywood Left boosterism" equal "propaganda"? Meyer doesn't explain, perhaps because it's something axiomatic among right-wingers or something.

Meanwhile, Clay Waters grumbles in a Feb. 26 TmesWatch post that Obama's appearance was "intrusive" and "politicized" and whined that a New York Times didn't read his mind and complain about the appearance like he wanted:

The question isn't whether the first family can lower themselves to the level of popular culture; that was settled the night then-candidate Bill Clinton played saxophone on the Arsenio Hall show in 1992. It's the question of the vastly different ways Hollywood treats those political figures, depending on their party.

[...]

Steinhauer continued missing the point by insisting the question of Michelle Obama's appearance was one of "propriety," as opposed to a question of blunt and intrusive liberal political boosterism.

But Waters never identifies what, exactly, was "political" about her appearance.

Will WND Report on Dov Hikind's Blackface Stunt?
Topic: WorldNetDaily

We've detailed how New York state assemblyman Dov Hikind is part of Aaron Klein's mighty Wurlitzer -- one of the WorldNetDaily reporter's go-to-guys when he feels thet need to bash liberals on the subject of Israel. Klein and Hikind are both admirers of far-right Israeli extremist Meir Kahane, so it's no surprise the two would have a symbiotic relationship.

But we somehow suspect that Klein and WND won't be reporting Hikind's latest offense:

Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind says he's sorry if he offended anyone with the blackface makeup he wore for his Purim party this weekend -- but insists his costume choice wasn't meant to be anything but "innocent" fun.

"In hindsight, I should have picked something else. It never crossed my mind for a split second that I was doing something wrong. It was as innocent as something can be," said Hikind, who drew heavy condemnation for wearing an Afro-style wig and having a makeup artist darken his skin for his basketball-player getup.

"People in the community were dressed up as Arabs. What was that about?" asked Hikind, an Orthodox Jew who's known for his impassioned critiques of anything he thinks smacks of the slightest anti-Semitism, according to our Reuven Blau, who was on scene for the presser outside the longtime lawmaker's home.

"My wife was dressed as the devil. And she's not a devil. It was to look different on Purim without deep intentions. I just wanted to look different and unrecognizable," Hikind said.

"I understand people's sensitivities. Nobody meant anything. It was not meant to offend you or hurt you in any fashion. I'm sorry people were offended. It was not meant that way."

Expect WND to sweep this unflattering story about a cherished source way, way under the rug -- just as Klein and WND refused to report on the sex scandal of Israeli President Moshe Katsav, presumably because Katsav was a member of the right-wing Likud Party.

CNS Fails To Identify Conservative Black Leaders As Conservative
Topic: CNSNews.com

A Feb. 22 CNSNews.com article by Penny Starr touted how "a group of black leaders" claimed at a National Press Club gathering that "gun control dates back to laws before and after the Civil War that prohibited or restricted African Americans from owning firearms" and "spoke out in defense of the Second Amendment."

But the despite the presence of prominent black conservatives such as Star Parker and Ken Hutcherson, Starr did not identify them or any other speaker at the event. Starr identified one speaker, Stacy Swimp, as "president and CFO of the Frederick Douglass Society," but failed to identify the group's ideology as conservative.

In a follow-up article on an interview with Parker at the event, Starr again failed to identify Parker as conservative. Starr also stated that the event was "billed as a Black History Month press conference" but failed to explain that it was a gathering of conservatives.

Given that their conservatism was the one main trait the participants in the event had in common, it's strange that Starr would want to hide such a relevant piece of information from her readers, especially when her MRC overlords have a fit every time the "liberal media" fails to identify a misbehaving Democratic politician as a Democrat.

NEW ARTICLE: WorldNetDaily's Very Lively Gay-Bashing
Topic: WorldNetDaily
Not only does WND pretend that anti-gay activist Scott Lively's book linking gays to Nazis hasn't been discredited, it has served as his apologist over allegations that he's linked to Uganda's proposed "kill the gays" law. Read more >>