MRC's Hadro Hypocritically Complains About Coverage Of Michael Reagan's Controversial Statement Topic: Media Research Center
Media Research Center news analyst Matt Hadro -- best known as the MRC's documentarian of how CNN repeatedly fails to denigrate gays -- sure hates it when controversial statements by conservatives are covered. He whines in an April 4 NewsBusters post:
CNN's Piers Morgan put Michael Reagan through the wringer on Wednesday over a small portion of his op-ed on churches and same-sex marriage. Morgan barely discussed the overall point of the article, focusing instead on "very controversial comments" near the end of the op-ed.
Within his call for churches to openly oppose same-sex marriage, Reagan had noted a "slippery slope" that would occur if same-sex marriage is legalized, possibly leading to legalization of "bestiality, and perhaps even murder." Morgan found this "at worst really very bigoted and offensive" and attacked Reagan for comparing gay marriage to bestiality and murder, even though Reagan was not comparing the two, but rather was arguing that legalization of one could lead to legalization of the other.
That seems like a distinction without a difference, a desperate attempt to defend an absurd slippery-slope argument. There is no logical progression from same-sex marriage to murder, and surely Hadro knows it.
Also, notice Hadro's complaint that Morgan focused only on the "very controversial" statement Reagan made. He whines about that again in another April 4 post that "CNN didn't show as much respect for Reagan's conservative son Michael who had penned an op-ed calling on churches to stand up for traditional marriage. Anchor Brooke Baldwin focused only on the most controversial part of his article."
But isn't focusing on controversial statements and ignoring their context pretty much the MRC's modus operandi? Yes, it is. Isn't it hypocritical for Hadro to complains about context supposedly being ignored? Yes, it is.
Just to name one example of focusing only on a controversial statement to the exclusion of everything else, the MRC loves to portray two sentences of a profile of Ted Kennedy that referenced Mary Jo Kopechne and stated that "Kennedy would have brought comfort to her in her old age" as being laudatory of Kennedy when the author himself said it was a criticism.
So, yeah, Hadro is complaining about what he and his employer do all the time.
A child of the ’80s, I grew up watching any and every action cartoon I could, from “He-Man” to “Transformers” to, of course, “G.I. Joe.”
And thanks to the public service announcements at the end of every “G.I. Joe” episode, I learned to test a door before opening it if my house is on fire, not to pet strange dogs and never to play around downed power lines.
As the Joes explained every episode, “Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.”
The makers of the original cartoons had hoped kids would walk away from “G.I. Joe” having learned something – and if we’re smart, we should learn something from the new Joe film in theaters, “G.I. Joe: Retaliation”: namely, that the quickest path to subjugation is to strip the good guys of their guns.
[...]
Part of the film’s plot is a plan by the villains to eliminate all the world’s nuclear weapons. While many folks would consider this a noble, rather than villainous, enterprise – in fact, total nuclear disarmament is a common goal among leftists – “G.I. Joe: Retaliation” reveals the villains of “Cobra” still have a weapon of mass destruction up their sleeve. When all the world’s governments are nuke-free, there will be no deterrent left to stop Cobra from demanding the world submit or die at the hands of their vastly superior weaponry.
The analogy, though missed by many in Hollywood, D.C. and the media, is abundantly clear to those of us in the real world: If you take guns away from the good guys, the bad guys will still have them. And without anyone armed enough to stop them, villains can force the masses to – again – submit or die.
Particularly in the U.S., where there are hundreds of thousands of guns in circulation and a border porous enough to allow many more in, restricting responsible American citizens (i.e., “the good guys”) to merely token gun ownership, while drug lords, burglars, rapists, mass murderers and terrorists (i.e., “the bad guys”) are freely armed to the teeth is not so very different from the dilemma the world faces in “Retaliation” when its nukes are gone and Cobra still has the ability to destroy nations.
Granted, we might all love a utopian world where there are no nukes, no wars, no guns. But until Christ returns and makes the impossible possible, the “bad guys” will have their guns, so the “good guys” need them too.
The writers of the 2nd Amendment knew this just as well as the average “Joe.” And now you know. And knowing is half the battle.
Zahn also notes that "The film’s sexuality includes a shirtless man." We weren't aware that any shirtless male is, by definition, "sexual."
Another Day, Another Cliff Kincaid Anti-Gay Freakout Topic: Accuracy in Media
Time magazine's dual cover photos of homosexual couples kissing has sent Cliff Kincaid, Accuarcy in Media's resident homophobe, off on yet another anti-gay rant:
Offending the moral sensibilities of millions of Americans, Time Magazine is featuring cover stories showing two white homosexual couples kissing. The Right Scoop blog ran a “censored version of the offensive covers.”
John Aravosis, the homosexual activist who runs Americablog.com, said this is part of a propaganda campaign to normalize homosexuality. He said, “The kiss has been quite a powerful political weapon in the gay arsenal for a while now. And checking our archives, it’s rather amazing how important the ‘gay kiss’ has been to our political struggle over the years.”
The purpose is to desensitize people to homosexuality and increase acceptance of the lifestyle.
Wwe're not sure why Kincaid felt the need to inform us of the race of the cover couples. Then again, this is a guy who thinks white supremacist Jared Taylor is a suitable person to quote on racial issues.
There's more, if you want to read Kincaid descending into his usual conspiracy mode, complete with mentions of the "Gay Mafia" and whining that Fox News' Bill O'Reilly dismissed opponents of gay marriage as "Bible-thumpers."
WND Promotes Discredited Claim That Fast & Furious Was 'False Flag' Operation Topic: WorldNetDaily
Taylor Rose writes in an April 3 WorldNetDaily article:
The U.S. government running guns to Mexican cartels is “comparable to the United States funding al-Qaida to make someone in the United States look bad,” according to the author of a new best-seller.
Katie Pavlich is the author of “Fast and Furious: Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal and the Shameless Cover-Up,” news editor of Townhall.com and an expert on the Fast and Furious scandal.
In an interview with WND, she asserted that the Obama administration intentionally orchestrated a “false flag” against lawful gun dealers, the U.S. Border Patrol and Mexican citizens to give cause for more gun regulation.
“This is a situation where the government was creating a situation where they could blame law-abiding citizens, turn them into criminals and creat[e] this false problem that they could solve through gun regulation,” Pavlich said.
[...]
When asked by WND if the real agenda was to make American gun dealers look bad, Pavlich said, “absolutely.”
She said Obama, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Attorney General Eric Holder “were giving us this false 90 percent figure” that 90 percent of guns being illegally trafficked to Mexico were coming from Arizona and the Southwest border.
Pavlich asserts that the administration’s agenda is mirrored in a 1995 video of Holder that shows him advocating “brainwashing” children to think differently about guns.
Just one little problem: Pavlich's conspiracy theory has been utterly discredited. As Media Matters points out, Pavlich has cited no actual evidence to back up her claim, only circumstantial claims.
Further, no less than House Oversight Committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, who's in charge of the House investigation of the operation, noted in his June 2011 report on Fast and Furious that the goal of the operation was to "build a large, complex conspiracy case" against members of gun trafficking networks supplying Mexican drug cartels.
The fact that there's no evidence to back it up, however, isn't going to stand in Rose's way:
Pavlich is not the only commentator to assert that Fast and Furious was an attempt to curb the Second Amendment. NRA executive vice-president Wayne LaPierre said in 2011 that “Fast and Furious” was a “plot to undermine” the right to bear arms.
Former Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, in a 2011 interview with radio talk show host Alex Jones, said the government is criminally liable for Fast and Furious and described the operation as a “false flag.”
Rose apparently thinks LaPierre and Alex Jones are credible sources. Rose demonstrates no evidence of having bothered to examine the veracity of the conspiracy claim.
Newsmax's Hirsen Defends The Honor Of Charlton Heston Topic: Newsmax
Though James Hirsen portrays himself as a law professor and a "media analyst," his work for Newsmax puts his right-wing politics ahead of genuine, objective analysis.
That kind of agenda results in things like Hirsen's April 1 Newsmax column, in which he rails against Jim Carrey for making a satirical anti-gun video and -- even worse -- made fun of Charlton Heston. Hirsen actively rooted for Carrey's career to be hurt because of the video:
Interestingly, Carrey’s Funny or Die performance is emblematic of the latter. However, what may be even worse for the actor is what could potentially flow career-wise from the ill-conceived and terribly malicious video.
Carrey unfortunately aimed his bully-comedy sights on a legendary figure, who to this day is respected, admired, and missed by countless numbers of Americans; an individual who, incidentally, just days after the video made its ugly debut, graced TV sets across the nation with his onscreen appearance as Moses in the Easter season film favorite, “The Ten Commandments.”
Carrey made humorless matters even worse when he promoted the Funny or Die piece by characterizing those who happen to differ with the current liberal gun control proposals as “heartless [expletive] unwilling to bend for the safety of our kids.”
[...]
It was predictable that Carrey would alienate a segment of his fans, and perhaps he is not all that bothered by the negative fallout. But apparently, he is not yet finished. He has additionally decided to go after the number one cable news network in America, the Fox News Channel.
Evidently displeased with Fox’s coverage of his video, Carrey released a statement claiming that his reputation has been harmed.
“Since I released my Cold Dead Hand video on Funny or Die this week, I have watched Fux News rant, rave, bare its fangs and viciously slander me because of my stand against large magazines and assault rifles. I would take them to task legally if I felt they were worth my time or that anyone with a brain in their head could actually fall for such irresponsible buffoonery,” Carrey’s statement indicated.
[...]
In addition to obtaining some important instruction on the Constitution and the origin of our rights, Carrey may be about to learn a hard lesson on the power of the free market.
Hirsen fails to tell his readers what Fox News' "coverage" of the Carrey video consisted of. Much of it was not "fair and balanced" and consisted of right-wing opinionators like Greg Gutfeld hurling insults at Carrey for expressing his views. Carrey called the coverage "slander," which Hirsen also fails to mention.
Hirsen remained mum on another pertinent fact: He's a Charlton Heston fanboy. In 1999, Hirsen celebrated Heston's appointment as president of the National Rifle Association, calling him "one of the best spokespersons imaginable to lobby lawmakers." In 2003, Hirsen rushed to Heston's defense after he suffered the "indignity" of George Clooney making a joke about Heston's Alzheimer's disease. Hirsen sneered that Clooney "is not content to merely sit around and hurl tired, hackneyed anti-war phrases at the president, like he did while on the Charlie Rose show."
Hirsen slobbered all over Heston in a 2008 eulogy, declaring him "one of the greatest movie stars who ever lived" and lionized his "caring about the country and having the strength of character to actually put thoughts, words, and feelings into motion." Proclaiming Heston "an American archetype," Hirsen concluded: "Go rest high upon the mountain, Chuck."
But Hirsen, despite claiming to be a law professor, is prone to such ethical failures. He has long touted the work of Mel Gibson and defended the star from criticism over his anti-Semitic rantings while failing to disclose not only that he's a close friend of Gibson but also that he heads a foundation that purchased land where Gibson's father could operate a church for the dissident ultraconservative Catholic sect to which he belongs.
When Gibson got in trouble again over recordings of phone calls with his estranged girlfriend, Hirsen took more than two weeks to weigh in on it, then tried to whitewash things before finally admitting that "Mel Gibson is a business associate and friend."
If WorldNetDaily has regularly beclowned itself by publishing smears and lies -- and it has -- any journalistic standards WND pretends to have go out the window entirely when it comes to writing headlines.
An April 3 WND article that steals a Fox News story on the firing of Rutgers basketball coach Mike Rice carries the headline "Rutgers fires coach over 'gay' slurs." This falsely claims that the slurs were the only thing Rice did that got him fired.
In fact, he did much more, according to the Fox News article WND has stolen:
The New Jersey school's athletic department announced Rice's termination on its Twitter page, a day after ESPN aired video in which Rice shoves players, hurls basketballs at them and uses profane language and gay slurs.
Apparently, WND wants to pretend Rice is a victim of political correctness when, in reality, he engaged in a whole host of abusive behavior.
Manwhile, an April 4 WND article, which rewrites an NPR story (but fails to link to the story it lifted from) carries the headline "Toss a rope! These lifeguards can't SWIM."
But even WND's truncated pilfering of the NPR story states, "Recruits who pass a swim test can apply to become lifeguards." So, yes, they can swim, and WND is lying.
Would a real news organization that published as m any outright false things as WND has be allowed to remain in business? Unlikely. Yet WND continues.
MRC's Whitlock Not Terribly Bothered By GOP Rep's Ethnic Slur Topic: Media Research Center
Alaska Republican Rep. Don Young invoked an ethnic slur by calling Hispanics "wetbacks," but Media Research Center senior news analyst Scott Whitlock has engaged in a campaign of whitewashing and distraction to paper over that inconvenient fact.
In a March 29 MRC item, Whitlock put "slur" in scare quotes in the headline, tepidly claiming that Young merely "referred to Hispanic migrant workers as 'wetbacks.'" Whitlock then played its usual distraction game, bringing up that while a senator, Joe Biden "smeared Indian Americans as mostly working at the convenience store 7-11."
Whitlock seems not to understand the difference between invoking a dumb stereotype and hurling an ethnic slur.
Whitlock followed up in an April 1 item, calling Young's use of the word merely a "gaffe" he "blurted," putting "racial" in scare quotes in the headline.
Whitlock went on to complain that an ABC said of Young's slur, "Hard to spin that one, for sure." But Whitlock is spinning it as hard as they can.
NEW ARTICLE: The Anonymity Sluts At WorldNetDaily Topic: WorldNetDaily
WND will give it up (anonymity, that is) to just about anybody -- as long as they're forwarding WND's far-right anti-Obama agenda. Read more >>
Frank Gaffney Falsely Smears Muslim Leader As An Extremist Topic: Newsmax
Frank Gaffney writes in a March 28 Newsmax column attacking Labor secretary nominee Thomas Perez:
One other, particularly worrisome aspect of Perez’s record that should not be implicitly, let alone explicitly, endorsed by the Senate is his enthusiastic embrace of Islamists and their causes. In October 2011, he did so literally with such enthusiasm that he leapt onto a stage at George Washington University in order to hug the leader of the largest Muslim Brotherhood front in the United States: Mohamed Magid, president of the Islamic Society of North America.
In fact, Magid is no radical. As Media Matters documents:
Magid served on the Department of Justice's Countering Violent Extremism Working Group, a task force formed in 2010 by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to "work with state and local law enforcement as well as relevant community groups to develop and provide to me recommendations regarding how the Department can better support community-based efforts to combat violent extremism domestically -- focusing in particular on the issues of training, information sharing, and the adoption of community-oriented law enforcement approaches to this issue."
Magid served on the Department of Justice's Countering Violent Extremism Working Group, a task force formed in 2010 by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to "work with state and local law enforcement as well as relevant community groups to develop and provide to me recommendations regarding how the Department can better support community-based efforts to combat violent extremism domestically -- focusing in particular on the issues of training, information sharing, and the adoption of community-oriented law enforcement approaches to this issue."
Magid has also been an outspoken critic of domestic violence within the Muslim community, and he has also endorsed Project Sakinah, an group that attempts to "achieve lasting change in the attitudes and behaviors of Muslims around the issue of violence within families."
This is who Gaffney wants you to think is some kind of radical jihadist. In reality, Gaffney is engaging in baseless anti-Muslim fearmongering.
Mychal Massie's Obsession With 'White Liberal Illuminati' Continues Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's Mychal Massie has been weirdlyobsessed with the "white liberal illuminati" and their purported racism over the past few weeks, an obsession he continues in his April 1 column:
To white liberals, blacks are a means to an end. They want to feel good about themselves. Helping po-po blacks is a form of religion to them. It assuages their “white guilt” and offers a means of repentance for the sins of their fathers and their personal secret feelings of superiority.
But their way of assuaging themselves of said sins is to embrace definitions of racism that are expansive to the point of their viewing verbiage such as “black clouds,” “black or dark moods” and often any other reference that uses the word “black” as a negative as evidence of racism and in some instances hate speech.
You will never hear a white liberal speak well of a black person who believes in meritocracy and who repudiates the idea that whites are guilty of anything more than working for a living like everyone else.
White liberals have with forethought and malice publicly savaged the most erudite and accomplished persons of color in the United States today precisely because they do not ascribe to self-segregation and victimology.
Of course, Massie has never been afraid to play the race card, once declaring that any criticism of Condoleezza Rice was the same thing as what Bull Connor and Orval Faubus did.
In reality, Massie's problem is that he is unable to handle criticism. His response to ConWebWatch's criticism of him was the petty action of blocking us from following him on Twitter (not that we can't figure out other ways of tracking his Buttzilla-laden tweets).
As if to further demonstrate his pettiness, Massie writes: "I recall a recent incident in which a white liberal condescendingly told me I had used a word he didn’t know – as if I should feel bad for his ignorance." As we've documented, Massie makes a habit of using big, obscure words, apparently in his own attempt at condescension. We wouldn't be surprised if the real story is that the guy merely called Massie out on lording his ten-dollar words over people.
And because Massie's sputtering hatred of everything Obama remains solidly in pathology territory, he concludes his column with this:
I am prepared to argue that the only reason white liberals bow before Obama is because he is half-Kenyan with a Muslim name who harbors the deepest of resentment for traditional America. I would further argue that the only reason they embrace his wife is because she behaves in a way that is commensurate with their low opinions of blacks.
CNS' Bannister Ludicrously Claims Michelle Obama Turned Easter Egg Roll Into 'Fat Camp' Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com director of communications Craig Bannister -- the man who inspired Rush Limbaugh's three-day tirade of misogyny against Sandra Fluke -- is at it again, declaring in a March 28 CNS blog post that the annual White House Easter Egg Roll was being turned into a "fat camp":
This year's White House Easter Egg Roll has been turned into a "fat camp" to inflict exercise and the First Lady's "Let's Move!" healthy meal plans on kids who want just want to celebrate the season on the South Lawn.
An e-mail from the "Let's Move!" campaign says the Easter Egg Roll has been turned into a "Let's Move! Social":
[...]
The First Lady's "followers" will be there to preach to kids about their eating habits:
"We are inviting Let's Move! followers on Twitter and Facebook and their children, ages 5 - 13, to join the fun on the South Lawn and of course to share their experience with their followers!"
There will even be a physical activity regime, something called "sports courts," and cooking demonstrations to "educate families," the White House Easter Egg Roll web page says:
The e-mail announcing the morphing of the egg hunt into a fitness camp comes after the White House promised the event would go on as scheduled - after it took heat for suggesting it might be cancelled due to the nation's budget woes.
And, you thought the White House Easter Egg Roll was all about rolling eggs at the White House...or Easter.
Bannister provides no evidence that any of the "Let's Move!" activities would replace any traditional egg-rolling events, and he fails to mention that previous first ladies have incorporated their policy initiatives into the Easter egg roll.
But Bannister isn't concerned with the truth; he's concerned with clicks. And his Obama-hating link-bait succeeded, getting repeated at Fox Nation.
Fraudster Monckton Accuses Others of Fraud Topic: WorldNetDaily
Christopher Monckton -- WorldNetDaily has started calling him "Lord Monckton" despite the fact that he has never been a member of the British House of Lords -- rants in a March 26 WND column:
This week a lifetime achievement award for services to water conservation was given to Peter Gleick, who has openly confessed that he used wire fraud to steal and then publish confidential documents belonging to the Heartland Institute of Chicago. His excuse? Well, he disagreed with its opposition to the climate hysteria that he so fervently and profitably espouses.
Gleick admitted that he had created a bogus email address in the name of a member of Heartland’s board. He had persuaded Heartland to log the new address into its server. He had posed as that board member to obtain confidential documents. He had added a fabricated document that he had not received from Heartland. He had then widely circulated the stolen and fabricated material, causing considerable damage to Heartland but little, it seems, to his own reputation.
Heartland complained to the State’s Attorney General in Illinois, who, after months of prevarication, absolutely refused to prosecute the self-confessed identity forger, wire fraudster and thief.
In the United States, which is no longer a free country, the Supreme Court has long stamped out the necessary right of the individual to bring a private prosecution when the public authorities – sometimes for improper reasons – refuse to do so.
This is pretty rich criticism coming from Monckton, who himself committed fraud a few months ago by impersonating a delegate from Burma at a global warming conference in Qatar, then using the fraudulently obtained seat to peddle his climate denier spiel until getting kicked out.
We wonder: Does Monckton think the so-called "Climategate" emails should be similarly ignored because they were fraudulently obtained? Don't count on it.
MRC's Graham Wonders If MSNBC's Finney Is Dark Enough To Be Black Topic: Media Research Center
Yes, the Media Research Center's Tim Graham really did tweet his pondering of whether "the average viewer" of MSNBC would be able to tell that newly minted MSNBC host Karen Finney is African-American and his suggestion that John Boehner may be darker:
And then he tweeted a photo of Finney so we can judge for ourselves:
WND Columnist Perpetuates Falsehood Fox News Is Balanced Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily columnist Michael Ackley usually begins his column with a disclaimer: "Michael Ackley’s columns may include satire and parody based on current, events, and thus mix fact with fiction. He assumes informed readers will be able to tell the difference."
Well, this paragraph from his March 31 column must be one of those satire and parody things:
Fox News is not perfect: No news organization is. But I have some expertise in media and can say that among the broadcast and cable news outfits, it is the most balanced. For example, when the broadcast networks filter presidential pronouncements – with bulletins interspersing features on healthful snacks – Fox News shows the entire speech.
Just in case Ackley is not kidding, it's worth pointing out that Fox News has engaged in highly biased coverage of President Obama and his speeches. For instance, in the runup to the presidential election, Fox lavished more than three times as much airtime on Mitt Romney's speeches than Obama's. On the final day of campaigning before the election, Fox gave Romney 59 minutes of airtime, while giving just eight minutes to Obama.
Similarly, while Fox aired the entire 23 minutes of Romney's speech to the NAACP, it aired only a minute and a half of the speech Vice President Joe Biden gave to the organization.
If Ackley really thinks Fox News is balanced, one has to wonder about his self-proclaimed "expertise in media."
NewsBusters' Sheppard Promotes Truther Alex Jones' Smear of MSNBC Topic: NewsBusters
NewsBusters typically dismisses alleged 9/11 truthers like Rosie O'Donnell and Toure as immediately discredited because of those views. NewsBusters has even bashed the trutherism of Alex Jones, complaining in 2011 that MSNBC was allowing Jones to promote himself and his website without mention that he "promotes fringe theories blaming the U.S. government for 9/11 and distributes a documentary about 'the chemtrail/geo-engineering' coverup."
So it was a bit of a surprise when NewsBusters associate editor Noel Sheppard devoted a March 31 post to Jones' ranting that MSNBC is "like the Ku Klux Klan channel, but it’s from a liberal perspective. Just race, everything race." Sheppard made no mention of Jones' trutherism or crazy conspiracy theories. (Nor does he mention that his fellow NewsBusters had criticized MSNBC for promoting Jones, which suggests more than a bit of ingratitude on Jones' part.)
Apparently feeling some heat for promoting Jones, Sheppard later added this to his post:
Update: Readers are advised that this post is not an endorsement of any of Jones's crazy conspiracy theories. Instead, it was intended to demonstrate that even he sees MSNBC as a travesty.
So it's a good thing that Alex Jones concurs with the MRC on this issue? Really?
Sheppard's disclaimer rings more than a little hollow -- this is, after all, the same guy who made an appearance on 9/11 truther Jesse Ventura's cable TV show, helpfully named "Conspiracy Theory," skulking around and ranting that global warming is all about “power and money and control of the population."
For a guy who claims to disavow crazy conspiracy theories, Sheppard sure spends a lot of time promoting people who spout them.
In fact, he did much more, according to the Fox News article WND has stolen:
