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Thursday, February 6, 2014
CNS Keeps Conservative Child-Porn Arrest Buried
Topic: CNSNews.com

Michael Chapman writes in a Jan. 30 CNSNews.com article:

The state's attorney report on the horrific murders at  the Sandy Hook Elementary School by shooter Adam Lanza found no "conclusive motive" for his actions but did document unsettling facts about the 20-year-old killer, including computer files he kept on the rights of pedophiles, a movie about man/boy love, instant messages concerning "homosexual fantasies," numerous mass murder documents, and a computer game entitled "School Shooting."

This is the second article Chapman has written in the past week that address the issue of child pornography. By contrast, Chapman and CNS have yet to devote any original coverage to the case of Ryan Loskarn, the chief of staff to Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander, who was charged in December with possession of child pornography. Loskarn later committed suicide.

Perhaps Chapman should explain to his readers why child pornography accusations against a conservative aren't as newsworthy as when they are brought against, say, a gay man or the perpetrator of a massacre.


Posted by Terry K. at 4:02 PM EST
WND Promotes Reader's Claim That God Intervened in Super Bowl
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Yes, WorldNetDaily really did devote an entire article to a readers bizarre theory that God intervened in the Super Bowl to let the Denver Broncos get crushed by the Seattle Seahawks as punishment for the Broncos cutting Tim Tebow:

“God’s hand was all over this Super Bowl,” says David Campbell, a WND reader from Myrtle Beach, S.C., who explained his view of the divine intervention in a letter to the editor.

Get the behind-the-scenes DVD of about Tim Tebow’s life, ad well as the Tebow for President bumper sticker!

“The book of Daniel, chapter 4, verse 25, says that God rules in the affairs of men and gives the kingdom to whom He will. Luke, chapter 18, verse 7, says that God will avenge His elect when they have been unjustly injured.”

[...]

“Denver was the favorite, because of Manning. The Seattle quarterback? A kid named Russell Wilson. Christian, small guy, nothing really of note. No big records, no big wins, no big following. The New York Times labeled him forgotten, undersized and underestimated. Kind of like David against Goliath.”

He explained that in the days preceding the Super Bowl, there was a warning of another big snowstorm heading toward the new Metlife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.

“Looked like it was going to hit right about game time,” he wrote. “As the big day approached it was reported that there were 18,000 tickets still available. Who wanted to be stuck in a snowstorm in an open-air stadium?”

“Who knew that God would use the Seattle Seahawks and their Christian quarterback to chastise the Denver Broncos and their quarterback, Peyton Manning?” Campbell continued.

[...]

In an interview with WND, Campbell again stressed he feels the events of the game were directed by God.

“I do believe God directly intervened to avenge his servant, Tim Tebow, just as He does for the rest of His children when we are wronged undeservedly,” he said. “I believe it was against the Denver Broncos but only God knows if He meant it personally against any individual – probably John Elway – if the rumors of his hostility toward Tim and his ‘Tebowing prayer’ were true.”

Campbell says he just knew God would do something great for Tebow “because, like us, he is a child of the King.”

This being WND, where merely asserting something is proof itself as long as that assertion hews to WND's right-wing agenda, article author Joe Kovacs can't be bothered to consult any actual experts on Christianity to offer a view on the plausibility of the reader's theory.


Posted by Terry K. at 11:58 AM EST
NEW ARTICLE: The Catholic -- Er, Cybercast News Service
Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com makes its pro-Catholic bias so blatant, the word might as well be part of the name. Read more >>

Posted by Terry K. at 7:22 AM EST
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
WND's Rush: "Somebody Please Drag Harry Reid Behind A Truck'
Topic: WorldNetDaily

The last time we caught WorldNetDaily columnist Erik Rush tweeting hate, he was saying of Muslims, "Yes, they're evil. Let's kill them all."

In a Feb. 4 tweet, Rush requests: "Somebody please drag Harry Reid behind a truck."

Rush retroactively declared his kill-Muslims tweet to be "sarcasm." Will he do the same for his death threat to Reid?

More importantly, how will WND take this? How far is too for for a WND columnist to threaten someone?


Posted by Terry K. at 5:10 PM EST
CNS Columnist Misleads on CBO Obamacare Report
Topic: CNSNews.com

The Competitive Enterprise Institute's Hans Bader writes in a Feb. 4 CNSNews.com column:

The new healthcare law will slow economic growth over the next decade, costing the nation about 2.3 million jobs and contributing to a $1 trillion increase in projected deficits, the Congressional Budget Office said in a report released Tuesday.

That's a misleading, if not outright false, description of that the CBO report says. In fact, the CBO stated that the decrease comes on the supply side, not the demand side, because Obamacare subsidies mean that some workers will choose not to work a job they normally would have just to keep health insurance:

The estimated reduction stems almost entirely from a net decline in the amount of labor that workers choose to supply, rather than from a net drop in businesses' demand for labor, so it will appear almost entirely as a reduction in labor force participation and in hours worked relative to what would have occurred otherwise rather than as an increase in unemployment (that is, more workers seeking but not finding jobs) or underemployment (such as part-time workers who would prefer to work more hours per week).

Further, while the CBO did increase projected deficits by $1 trillion over the next decade, it did not specifically single out Obamacare as a reason. To the contrary: the CBO is still projecting the Affordable Care Act will reduce the deficit.


Posted by Terry K. at 11:47 AM EST
Updated: Wednesday, February 5, 2014 11:48 AM EST
WND's Massie Rails Against Black History Month
Topic: WorldNetDaily

One again invoking his privilege as a black conservative to say things that would get him branded as a racist otherwise, Mychal Massie devotes his Feb. 3 WorldNetDaily column to attacking black History Month:

Feb. 1 began the 28 day “ceremony to injustice” that is nothing more than an aversion to modernity that encourages people to mire themselves in the past juxtaposed to embracing the present and the future. That is the essence of Black History Month. Black History Month is used by the nefarious and the corrupt to divide, to evoke blame and guilt, and often for personal gain.

Public school children will be immersed in a 28-day vat of a factually flawed and at times fictional history of how bad the blacks had it in America, and they will hear that whites are privileged and their ancestors had slaves, blah-blah-blah.

The one thing you won’t hear during Black History Month is what blacks are able to get away with today, which, if taken in context, shows the tolerance of America that they won’t be talking about in classrooms during Black History Month.

You also won't hear Massie bragging about how he can get away with saying certain things because he is a black conservative -- i.e., denouncing Black History Month. He continues:

They won’t be talking about the fact that blacks aren’t shot on sight in areas where “Knockout” is taking place. For those unfamiliar, the Knockout game is what black thugs play where they suddenly and unexpectedly punch unsuspecting white persons in the face for sport.

And Massie won't be talking about the fact that non-blacks take part (and if you ask Colin Flaherty, dogs and Australian aborigines can be part of "black mobs" too).

And no Massie rant would be complete without a fit of Obama derangement:

And while I’m on that subject, Obama not only was elected and then re-elected, but he was elected and re-elected with people fully aware that he is a pathological liar whose goal is to “fundamentally transform America” into a socialist state. The blatant violations of the Constitution and congressional authority would have led to the impeachment of any other president heretofore. Bill Clinton was impeached for less, and President Nixon was forced to resign his presidency for demonstrably less than what Obama is guilty of thus far in office.

Massie goes on to rant, "I’m tired of the lies" -- but somehow he never tires of telling them.


Posted by Terry K. at 9:02 AM EST
Updated: Wednesday, February 5, 2014 9:03 AM EST
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
We Write Letters
Topic: Media Research Center

We sent the following to the Media Research Center earlier today:

To Whom It May Concern:

I see that the MRC has demanded apologies from MSNBC for allegedly insulting and offending conservatives. Yet the MRC routinely routinely insults people -- for example, Brent Bozell calling President Obama a "skinny ghetto crackhead."

The most recent example is Matt Philbin, managing editor of the MRC's Culture & Media Institute. He has a history of saying sexually charged and misogynistic things about Sandra Fluke, and with Fluke's recent announcement that she will run for Congress, Philbin has unleashed his misogyny once again. IN a series of tweets, he has forward so-called Fluke campaign slogans such as "A Diaphram [sic] in every ...," "When that call comes at 3:am, She really will be awake," "Pillow Talk Express!" and "It's Moaning in America." He followed those up with a tweet saying, "You should see her on the stump! And on the chair, and in the hay loft, and back behind the dumpsters and ..."

Does the MRC consider such offensive comments to be acceptable behavior for its employees? If so, doesn't that undercut your demand for apologies from MSNBC?

Despite Philbin being on record saying offensive things in the past, he has remained an MRC employee, which suggests that such misogynistic behavior is, in fact, tolerated if not encouraged at the MRC. I would like to know if that is still the MRC's policy.

Sincerely,

Terry Krepel
Editor, ConWebWatch

We'll let you know if the MRC responds.


Posted by Terry K. at 10:23 PM EST
WND Is Happy Iran Agrees With Them On Something
Topic: WorldNetDaily

We've detailed how WorldNetDaily cares only about Miriam Carey, the woman who was shot and killed outside the Capitol after fleeing from police last October, because it's one more thing an increasingly desperate Joseph Farah can try to use as a cudgel against President Obama.

WND is taking this skirmish to a bizarre extent by touting how an enemy of the United States agrees with them on the alleged violation of Carey's rights. Garth Kant writes in a Feb. 2 WND article:

While most Americans still would not recognize the name Miriam Carey, the unarmed black mother gunned down by police in the streets of the nation’s capital after apparently making a wrong turn near the White House, the case is getting international attention.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has cited the incident, now the subject of a $75 million lawsuit by Carey’s family, as an example of human-rights abuses taking place in the United States.

The report by the Basij paramilitary organization says the United States is “one of the main violators of human rights” in the world, something with which many Americans would not agree.

However, the Iranian media are doing something the Western media are not: Calling attention to a potentially serious human-rights violation, right on the doorstep of the U.S. Capitol.

This is followed by an absurdly long rehashing of events and citing of fringe figures that agree with WND that Carey's rights were violated.

But WND -- and by extension, those that agree with them, like John Whitehead and Nat Hentoff -- have discredited themselves by touting how Iran agrees with this latest attempt to create a new Vince Foster. Logic dictates that we should oppose whatever an enemy of the United States says, but it seems WND hates Obama more than it loves America.


Posted by Terry K. at 7:31 PM EST
MRC's Philbin Hurls Sleaze And Misogyny At Sandra Fluke Again
Topic: Media Research Center

Back in 2012, Media Research Center managing editor Matt Philbin endorsed Rush Limbaugh's tirade of misogyny against Sandra Fluke by joining in the insults, calling her a "'horizontal laborer," a "'Lincoln Tunnel Hitcher" and a "of dubious reputation" who wants to " sleep around w/impunity."

Now that Fluke has announced a run for Congress, it's time for Philbin's misogyny to resurface.

Philbin has used his Twitter account to create and repeat sleazy insults of Fluke under the hashtag #A Diaphram [sic] in every ...," "When that call comes at 3:am, She really will be awake," "Pillow Talk Express!" and "It's Moaning in America."

Another Philbin tweet adds: "You should see her on the stump! And on the chair, and in the hay loft, and back behind the dumpsters and ..."

The MRC demands that MSNBC apologize for offending the sensibilities of conservatives, yet it employs as a high-level employee someone like Philbin with such open hatred of women? Talk about a double standard.

Until the MRC deals with Philbin's misogyny, it has no moral standing to criticize anyone else's offensive remarks.


Posted by Terry K. at 11:55 AM EST
Updated: Tuesday, February 4, 2014 12:29 PM EST
WND Columnist Perpetuates Homeschooling Myths
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Jerry Newcombe writes in his Jan. 28 WorldNetDaily column:

There is another German family, the Romeikes, that came to America for religious asylum. In their native country, they, too, ran afoul of the government for trying to protect their children from some of the anti-Christian influences in the German public schools – the same kind of influences often found in American public schools for that matter.

Who knows better than the parents what is in the children’s best interest? Hasn’t God given the parents the responsibility of their children, even if they delegate that teaching to others? Is it not still in the place of the parents, “in loco parentis”?

The Obama administration seems bent on helping illegal immigrants, but they’re actively working to oust the Romeike family (which has abided by all the immigration laws) from the U.S., as this case winds itself through the courts.

In fact, as we've pointed out, the Romeikes also rejected private and religious schools in Germany, claming that they were "just as bad or even worse" than public schools. The Romeikes could have also chosen to work toward creating a school in Germany that more closely aligns with their claimed "Christian faith," but they apparently chose not to.

Newcombe adds:

Who made homeschooling illegal in Germany? “Der Fuhrer” in 1938. But the law is still on the books and is still being enforced.

In fact, William Shirer, author of “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich,” points out, “The German schools, from first grade through the universities, were quickly Nazified.”

Hitler declared on Nov. 6, 1933: “When an opponent declares, ‘I will not come over to your side.’ I calmly say, ‘Your child belongs to us already. … What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community.’”

Hitler later declared, on May 1, 1937: “This new Reich will give its youth to no one, but will itself take youth and give to youth its own education and its own upbringing.”

In fact, compulory schooling has been a tradition in Germany for a good 200 years.

Newcombe then tries a laughable CYA addendum:

Please note: I am not saying that those who oppose homeschooling, including the judge in Germany or officials here in America, are Nazis or akin to Hitler. But we need to see the statist context in which this anti-homeschooling law was passed in the first place.

Newcombe is being disingenuous. If he wasn't trying to at least implicitly liken any critic of homeschooling to Nazis, there would be no need to bring up that erroneous claim. Why else would he and his WND colleagues do it so much?


Posted by Terry K. at 9:08 AM EST
Monday, February 3, 2014
MRC, Home Of Man Who Called Obama A 'Skinny Ghetto Crackhead,' Thinks MSNBC Should Apologize For Offending Conservatives
Topic: Media Research Center

So the Media Research Center's Rich Noyes devoted an entire "Media Reality Check" to things MSNBC should be apologizing for, in addition to last week's tweet about a Super Bowl ad. Noyes declared that "The Media Research Center has compiled a long list of instances in which the network’s anchors have committed character assassination disguised as journalism, unjustly smearing conservatives, Republicans and the Tea Party as racists."

Meanwhile, no apologies have been forthcoming from the MRC regarding:

  • Brent Bozell calling Obama a "skinny ghetto crackhead."
  • Matt Philbin calling Sandra Fluke a "horizontal laborer" who wants to "sleep around with impunity."
  • Philbin smearing a critic of his offensive tweets (specifically, us) as a "faggot" and telling us to "fuck off."
  • Noel Sheppard claiming that "sober people don't need birth control."
  • Tim Graham attacking ABC's Martha Raddatz as a "woman who won't take husband's surname" and suggesting that Raddatz will "have a hard time deciding which debate questions to ask" while moderating a presidential debate because she has "marrie[d] three times."

Noyes should take his employer's own never-apologized-for offenses into consideration before attacking others.


Posted by Terry K. at 10:07 PM EST
Meanwhile ...
Topic: WorldNetDaily
Richard Bartholomew details how WorldNetDaily is putting a bargain-basement price of Carl Gallups' WND-published book promoting the dubious idea that a rabbi once predicted that the death of Ariel Sharon would be somehow mystically linked to the return of Jesus.

Posted by Terry K. at 8:15 PM EST
CNS Repeats Global Warming Denier's Distortions
Topic: CNSNews.com

Barbara Hollingsworth proclaims in a Jan. 28 CNSNews.com article:

Dr. Don Easterbrook – a climate scientist and glacier expert from Washington State who correctly predicted back in 2000 that the Earth was entering a cooling phase – says to expect colder temperatures for at least the next two decades.

Easterbrook’s predictions were “right on the money” seven years before Al Gore and the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for warning that the Earth was facing catastrophic warming caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide, which Gore called a “planetary emergency.”

“When we check their projections against what actually happened in that time interval, they’re not even close. They’re off by a full degree in one decade, which is huge. That’s more than the entire amount of warming we’ve had in the past century. So their models have failed just miserably, nowhere near close. And maybe it’s luck, who knows, but mine have been right on the button,” Easterbrook told CNSNews.com.

“For the next 20 years, I predict global cooling of about 3/10ths of a degree Fahrenheit, as opposed to the one-degree warming predicted by the IPCC,” said Easterbrook, professor emeritus of geology at Western Washington University and  author of 150 scientific journal articles and 10 books, including “Evidence Based Climate Science,” which was published in 2011.

There's lots that Hollingsworth has gotten wrong here, starting with her declaration that Easterbrook is right about global cooling.

Skeptical Science serves up this chart showing Easterbrook's predictions of cooling (the green and blue lines) vs. actual temperatures (the jagged black line):

 

The red line is an IPCC prediction, which brings us to another thing Hollingsworth got wrong: uncritically repeating Easterbrook's claim that the IPCC predicted "one-degree warming." As Skeptical Science points out, the IPCC served up numerous analyses of temperature predictions, and Easterbrook cherry-picked one:
  • He chose a figure which represented model simulations of temperature responses only to greenhouse gas changes, which neglects for example the temperature response to the cooling effects of aerosols.
  • He chose a single model run with an anomalous temperature spike in 2011.
  • He only presented the data from 2000 to 2011, which concealed the fact that the temperature spike in 2011 was a short-term anomaly.
  • He exaggerated his distorted IPCC temperature rise by a factor of two.

Thus Easterbrook's claim that the IPCC TAR projected a 1°C global surface warming from 2000 to 2010 was not even remotely accurate.

As per usual, Hollingsworth couldn't be bothered to seek out any alternative views. Indeed, Hollingsworth even shared one fawning question she asked Easterbrook: “How does it feel to have been right?”

It's not a feeling Hollingsworth is apparently familiar with. But fortunately for her, her higher-ups at CNS don't appear to be judging her journalism on its accuracy, only on how faithfully she advances her employer's right-wing agenda.


Posted by Terry K. at 3:46 PM EST
WND Ignores Evidence That Stockman Is Lying About Being Libeled
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily's Garth Kant is clearly Steve Stockman's favorite reporter. He knows Kant won't write anything negative about him, so he plies Kant with scoops, like his run for Senate.

So, Kant uses a Jan. 31 WND article to promote Stockman's filing of a libel lawsuit against a PAC supporting his Republican opponent, incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, that was "provided exclusively to WND." It reads like a Stockman press release, and Kant doesn't bother to obtain any response from the Cornyn camp. He writes:

According to Stockman, the Cornyn PAC operating under the name “Texans for a Conservative Majority” claims Stockman had been “jailed more than once,” was “charged with a felony” and “violated federal ethics laws.”

Stockman says all of those are false statements.

“The Cornyn supporters have committed libel per se against me, falsely and maliciously accusing me of a felony. Of course, I have never been charged with or committed any such act, and these anonymous Cornyn supporters know it,” said Stockman.

He added, “As a sitting member of the United States Congress, I find it unconscionable that another member’s supporters would make such reckless, malicious and false allegations.”

Since Kant is in stenographer mode, he won't tell you that the basic facts of those allegations are actually true.

A 1996 Texas Monthly profile of Stockman points out that "Stockman spent more than one weekend in jail for traffic violations, and once, after a girlfriend hid Valium in his underwear before he was incarcerated, he was charged with possession of a controlled substance, a felony that was later dropped." The Cornyn PAC's depiction may be devoid of context, but Stockman did, in fact, spend time in jail and was charged with a felony.

The claim that Stockman "violated federal ethics laws" is a logical conclusion, but it's not inaccurate. The Houston Chronicle reported that Stockman "has failed repeatedly to disclose business affiliations that stretch from Texas to the British Virgin Islands on his Congressional financial disclosure forms" and "Stockman, since his bankruptcy in 2002, created a number of businesses, some of which remain active but were not reported on Stockman’s financial disclosure form as required by federal law."

Kant doesn't supply a copy of Stockman's libel suit, nor does he detail Stockman's evidence that the claims are false -- he merely regurgitates Stockman's assertions that they are. But that's the kind of thing that happens when you're the PR flack for a politician: He won't tell you that the politician is lying.


Posted by Terry K. at 8:05 AM EST
Sunday, February 2, 2014
D'Souza's Crime Not A 'Big Deal' To MRC's Bozell
Topic: Media Research Center

Brent Bozell used to care about the rule of law. For instance, in 1999 he praised "the House managers' principled advocacy of the rule of law" in the impeachment vote on President Clinton. In 2009, he asserted that "The Obama Administration acted in complete disregard of the rule of law" in the auto bailout.

But when it comes to crimes committed by conservatives, well, the rule of law doesn't matter so much. He is quoted opining on the arrest of Dinesh D'Souza for campaign finance violations in a Jan. 31 WorldNetDaily article:

“Let’s assume Dinesh D’Souza is guilty, and I mean 100 percent guilty. What is he guilty of? Circumventing FEC dictates by directing [$15,000] to a Senate candidate of his choice. Big deal,” Bozell told WND.

“First, in a multi-million Senate campaign, this is a fraction of a fraction. It ‘buys’ a can of soda pop, and that’s about it.["]

That's right -- because a conservative broke the law, it's no big deal to Bozell.

Bozell goes on to equivocate D'Souza's offense with much worse ones allegedly committed by Presidents Clinton and Obama:

["]Second, and more importantly, compare this ‘crime’ with Bill Clinton, who raised millions of dollars from questionable at best, and illegal at worst sources, including felons and Chinese Communist generals. Compare it to Barack Obama, who raised millions upon millions from who-knows-who-or-where to this day. Nothing ever came of their fundraising abuses, abuses one thousandfold larger than anything attributed to D’Souza. And yet he was arrested and forced to post a $500,000 bond.

“It is astonishing. Given all the other abuses of power swirling around this administration, so many of them finding their origins in the ‘Justice’ Department, do I see deliberate persecution against conservatives? I am not conspiratorial by nature, but I will say unequivocally, you better believe it.”

The fact that Bozell must equivocate away D'Souza's crime is a sign that he will not criticize another conservative for committing offense. Rush Limbaugh already knows about that right-wing benefit.


Posted by Terry K. at 10:20 PM EST

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