In a May 9 WorldNetDaily article, Steve Peacock takes a victory lap over "An Obama administration plan to have U.S. military personnel oversee the construction of restrooms for a Kenyan girls’ school" being canceled. But it was not all sweetness and light, for Peacock huffily noted some criticism of his reporting:
The report simultaneously came under attack from leftist groups such as People For the American Way.
The group’s Right Wing Watch – a project “dedicated to monitoring and exposing the activities of the right-wing movement” – simplistically accused WND of opposing aid to children who lack access to basic needs like sanitation.
Strangely, Peacock doesn't actually respond to the criticsim, nor does he provide a link to his critic. That suggests he's a little sensitive about the criticism.
In fact, the tone of Peacock's original March 29 article is one of opposing U.S. spending on basic needs like sanitation because it's somehow a nefarous scheme by Obama to help his so-called home countrty. Right Wing Watch, meanwhile, was mocking Peacock's obsession with aid to Kenya under the Obama administration.
Peacock's obsession is amply demonstrated at the end of his article (not to mention a lack of creativity in headline-writing), which lists all the articles Peacock has written on the subject:
Obama moves to protect taxpayers … in Kenya! Obama studying spending more … in Kenya Obama finally fixing health care … in Kenya Obama funds Kenya project during shutdown Obama can’t stop spending — in Kenya! Obama drops hundreds of millions on (Kenyan) farmers Obama repackages Kenyan aid scheme Obama pushes $50 million more for Kenya Obama expands reading program – in Kenya! Obama pushing Kenyan ‘peace’ projects New Obama projects to boost Kenya power companies COVER-UP! Contracting system sanitized of Kenya documents White House rolls out Kenya propaganda plan Obama’s spending grows ‘exponentially’ – in Kenya!
At no point in any of these articles has Peacock proven that Obama has personally demanded each of these projects be carried out, or that such aid to Kenya is a change from past presidencies.
In other words, Peacock's just cherry-picking things to create some kind of Obama conspiracy theory. This is WND, after all, and conspiracy theories are part of its editorial policy.
MRC Still Doesn't Want To Talk About Lara Logan Topic: Media Research Center
We've previously documented how the Media Research Center promoted Lara Logan's "60 Minutes" story on Benghazi, only to go silent when it was discovered that Logan's main source was a liar. Despite "60 Minutes" being a big, fat mainstream media target, the MRC still doesn't want to talk about it.
Last week, a New York magazine article told the story behind Logan's Benghazi debacle and examines whether she will return to the show, from which she has been suspended since her story imploded.
The reaction at the MRC? Total silence. Again, even though "60 Minutes" is one of the MRC's prime targets.
Logan did get a mention at the MRC this week -- the first in five months. A May 8 NewsBusters post by Tom Johnson grumbling about a Salon piece highlighting Logan's conservative views. Johnson conceded only that Logan's Benghazi story "proved seriously flawed."
Then again, the MRC is too busy fundraising off Benghazi to do any honest media criticism about media coverage of it.
WND Tries To Move Some Old Clinton Impeachment Books Topic: WorldNetDaily
There has been a pile of books moldering away in WorldNetDaily's warehouse focused on the events surrounding President Clinton's impeachment, which it published some years back. Thanks to Monica Lewinsky, WND had the opportunity to move a few of them this week.
A May 7 article by Bob Unruh is framed around the impeachment memories of former congressman James Rogan, whose impeachment book WND published. In keeping with his reputation as a lazy reporter, Unruh simply copies-and-pastes excerpts from the book's promotional blurb into his article.
Another May 7 article by Joseph Farah is basically a promotional vehicle for Kathleen Willey's WND-published book. Needless to say, Farah avoids mentioning the fact that what Willey writes in her book tends to be at odds with established facts and reality in general, because facts get in the way of Farah's '90s fantasy.
AIM, MRC Fundraise Off Benghazi Topic: Media Research Center
So newly appointed Benghazi select committee chairman Trey Gowdy has been decrying the idea of Republicans fundraising off Benghazi (ironically, at the exact moment Republicans were fundraising off Benghazi). The ConWeb has not gotten the message.
Media Matters catches Accuracy in Media seeking to raise money to fund its "Citizens' Commission on Benghazi" kangaroo court. But AIM isn't the only one.
The Media Research Center is running ads on its website stating, "Demand the media tell the truth about Behghazi." It takes you to a page that regurgitates right-wing talking points:
We have a smoking gun in the Benghazi cover up scandal: emails tying the White House to Susan Rice's false talking points about the terrorist attack. Finally, there’s proof that this administration lied about the terrorist attack in order to protect the President during his reelection campaign.
This is earth-shattering news. But guess what? The media are for the most part covering up the smoking gun! That the so-called “news” media refuse to report a smoking gun in one of the biggest scandals in modern history is a major scandal in its own right!
Signing the website's petition to "demand that the media stop censoring the news about Benghazi" takes you toanother page that solicits donations that "will enable us to build a grass roots army that we can unleash on the liberal media to demand that they tell the truth."
But the MRC's campaign -- and the right-wing media's Benghazi obsession in general -- seems to demonstrate that this is much less about telling the truth than it is about raising money and motivating the base.
Clinton Derangement Syndrome, WND Edition Topic: WorldNetDaily
There is a deep chasm of comprehension between the power-mad and the power-indifferent. Neither one of us can understand the other. Hillary Clinton, for example, could never live the life I do. She would hate every quiet, simple, peaceful moment of it. Similarly, I could never live like her. I would hate every stressful, screaming, profanity-filled moment of it.
The difference is, as a powerful person she can boss me around through legislation. She can sic men with guns on me. She can take my money. She can take my farm. She can even take my life (what difference does it make?) without a qualm of conscience. That’s what government can do.
NEW ARTICLE: The Dick Morris Rehabilitation Project Topic: Newsmax
After the right-wing pundit flamed out spectacularly with his chronically wrong predictions on Fox News, Morris continues to have a home at Newsmax, where he remains as wrong as ever. Read more >>
WND Devotes Article to Body-Language Analysis Of Bill Clinton's Comments About UFOs Topic: WorldNetDaily
Yes, this is the actual content of a May 2 WorldNetDaily article by Jay Baggett:
Bill Clinton’s appearance earlier this month on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” – where he was asked about his interest in UFOs – has been subjected to body-language analysis by an investigator of paranormal claims, who says the former president exhibited signs of “significant apprehension, stress and guarded behavior.”
News of Clinton’s inquiries, after he became president, into what information the government held on UFOs and space aliens has been widely reported.
Following the first portion of Kimmel’s interview and prior to a commercial break, Kimmel announced he would be asking about UFOs upon return. While Clinton concluded he found no evidence they exist, he said, “if we were visited someday, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
That wasn’t enough for Ben Hansen, host of the TV show “Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files.” His program features interviews with people claiming they’ve had paranormal encounters in order to confirm or debunk their stories.
[...]
Clinton – who had been using both hands as he talked, sitting with both feet on the floor – immediately adopted what Hansen described as a defensive stance, indicative of intention to conceal, when first asked about UFOs. Clinton began gripping firmly both arms of his chair and crossed his legs. For most of the remainder of their conversation about UFOs, Clinton’s right hand stayed firmly anchored to the arm of the chair.
Asked if he had investigated UFOs as president, Clinton said he had “sort of” during his second term, but then appeared to backtrack on the chronology, changing the topic to Area 51, the federal government’s super-secret site in the Nevada desert. Clinton claimed Americans thought aliens were kept at Area 51 because workers there were required to wear special uniforms. But Hansen noted a leading Area 51 expert he consulted said Clinton’s claim was novel and had never been made before.
Given that WND has also promoted a conspiratorial Obama-hater who claimed to have a pseudo-scientific method that purported to uncover "secret" confessions in the president's words, it probably shouldn't be a surprise that it would devote an article to this.
MRC's Double Standard on Veterans Care Scandals Topic: Media Research Center
In a May 6 Media Research Center item, Scott Whitlock proclaims "the brewing controversy impacting American veterans and a shocking lack of access to hospital care" to be a "a Barack Obama scandal" -- despite the utter lack of evience of any personal involvement by the president -- further huffing that the media is somehow "censoring" this.
But the MRC sang a different tune about another scandal involving the care of veterans when it occurred under a Republican president. In a March 2007 MRC item, Brent Baker fretted over a report on substandard treatment at the Walter Reed Medical Center, which stated that "the White House is well aware of the PR nightmare that it faces. The last thing this administration can afford is another Katrina."
That's one of the very few direct mentions of the Walter Reed scandal you'll find at the MRC, demonstrating that it's no stranger to the censorship it accuses others of conducting.
Mychal Massie And the Gullible Americans Topic: WorldNetDaily
Mychal Massie writes in his May 5 WorldNetDaily column: "People are gullible, and, the greater the desire to be viewed as knowledgeable, the greater the ease with which they buy into lies."
There's no greater illustration of that than Massie himself. Massie's penchant for using obscure words certainly marks him as someone who wants to be seen as knowledgeable, and he tells depraved lies at an astonishing pace. His column further tests the gullibility of his readers:
I remember vividly the lies in the late 1970s and early 1980s which claimed that, due to global cooling, by 1990 we would witness environmental catastrophes of “biblical proportions.” We were told people were going to die, crops would fail to grow and food shortages would be rampant. Time magazine and other so-called respected publications ran major features that supported the lies. Suffice it to say, catastrophes never happened.
Actually, there was never a scientific consensus on global cooling in the 1970s. Overhyping in the media aside, of 71 peer reviewed studies on climate change from 1965 to 1979, only seven articles predicted global cooling, while well over half predicted global warming.
And it wouldn't be a Massie column if he didn't spew some Obama derangement:
And perhaps the greatest fabricated story in the annals of history is that of Barack Obama. But people are still near manic in idolizing a person about whom less is factually known than is known about the Old Testament priest Melchizedek. And to compound that, these same people still bow before his every word even though he has been proven to be a pernicious subverter of truth, time after time.
That's right -- the depraved liar is warning that someone else is a liar. Massie is clearly hoping that his readers are gullible enough to ignore history.
AIM's Kincaid Touts Its Kangaroo Court, Suggests Germany's Merkel Is A Secret Commie Topic: Accuracy in Media
Cliff Kincaid takes a victory lap in a May 5 Accuracy in Media column:
The announcement that the House will vote on a special congressional committee to investigate Benghazi is long overdue. Accuracy in Media’s two special conferences on Benghazi helped mobilize the public and the press to demand this outcome.
Well, actually, not so much. AIM's "Citizen's Commission on Benghazi" is nothing more than a kangaroo court stacked with Obama-haters and birthers, none of whom have any interest in objective analysis and all of whom have every motivation to smear the president.
Kincaid goes on to tout one of the conclusions AIM's kangaroo court came to:
At AIM’s second conference on Benghazi, held at the National Press Club on April 22, retired Admiral James “Ace” Lyons stated openly what many have been talking about privately—that the transformation of U.S. policy from opposing to supporting al Qaeda can only be understood in terms of Muslim Brotherhood “penetration into every national security agency of this government,” and “their carte blanche entry into the [Obama] White House.”
So will these agents of influence be named and exposed by the Benghazi special committee? That is why the public has to continue to be mobilized to apply pressure.
This leads to a defense of Joseph McCarthy dubious Red Scare tactics.
But Kincaid isn't done with the infiltration theme. He wrote a second May 5 column promoting the idea that German Chancellor Angela Merkel is some kind of secret Soviet agent (and, of course, brings Obama into it):
In the current context, with Putin continuing to destabilize Ukraine, the other notable case of alleged penetration is Germany. As we noted in a previous column, a book by Günther Lachmann and Ralf Georg Reuth published last year looks at the hidden communist past of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who spent 35 years of her life in East Germany, and concealed her work as an ideologue for a communist youth group.
The book grows increasingly relevant as we watch the Germans maneuver to avoid punishing Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. In the face of Russian aggression, Merkel says “…we want to continue having a reasonable partnership with Russia.”
“Germany is one of our strongest allies, and Angela is one of my closest partners,” said Obama. But since Russia is Germany’s partner, what does that say about Obama? The pieces of the puzzle are falling into place in front of our eyes.
The German book, The First Life of Angela M., only goes so far. It does not make the direct charge that Merkel is a Russian agent. That is a taboo topic, in the same way that an analysis of Obama’s grooming by Frank Marshall Davis is considered a form of “McCarthyism” directed against a civil rights activist. At least that is the rationale being offered by the media in the U.S. to avoid facing facts.
Remember, this kind of conspiracy talk is coming from the same organization that thinks its Benghazi kangaroo court is meaningful.
Michael Ackley writes in his May 4 WorldNetDaily column:
A final word about Miriam Carey: Why is WND the only news organization strongly campaigning for justice for this beautiful, young African-American mother? Other media have done stories, but there are the old questions: Where is the outrage? Where are the demands from civil rights organizations? Where is the human-rights commission investigation?
But as we've noted, there's no evidence WND is interested in "justice" over Carey, who was killed after attempting to drive onto the White House grounds then leading police on a high-speed chase through downtown Washington. WND cares only about using any and all means necessary -- including Carey's death -- as a cudgel against President Obama.
For WND, Carey is a political tool, not a cause driven by compassion. Too bad Ackley is too much of a WND loyalist to see it.
MRC Doesn't Ask Where Crowdfunding Filmmaker Got Money for Billboard Topic: Media Research Center
Phelim McAleer is apparently wasting his crowdfunding money designated to make a movie, blowing it on a billboard instead. And the Media Research Center couldn't be happier.
The MRC's Katie Yoder hasserved as one of the right-wing media cheerleaders for McAleer's crowdfunding campaign to make a film about rogue abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell. A May 1 item by Yoder keeps up the cheerleading, touting how McAleer "erected a billboard slamming Kickstarter – a half mile away from Kickstarter’s headquarters in Brooklyn, New York," attacking the company for putting restrictions on McAleer's crowdfunding efforts. (McAleer's campaign moved to another site.) Yoder goes on to proclaim that "the Gosnell movie’s Indiegogo campaign boasts more than $1.6 million raised with 16,500 funders – 76 percent of the $2.1 million goal."
One thing Yoder doesn't ask, however: Where did McAleer get the presumed thousands of dollars to erect a spiteful billboard? Did he take that money out of his crowdfunding pot, even though McAleer's little vendetta billboard has nothing to do with movie production? If so, did McAleer obtain permission from his donors to spend money on something other than movie production?
Yoder clearly doesn't want to know the answer. She's McAleer's PR agent, after all.
WND's Farah Goes Godwin, Makes An Obama-Hitler Comparison Topic: WorldNetDaily
WND's standard illustration for slandering Obama as Hitler or some other dictator.
Having brought in Anita Dittman as WorldNetDaily's new resident Godwinist -- dropping slanderous comparisons of President Obama to Hitler -- has apparently inspired WND editor Joseph Farah to drop his own Godwinism in his May 5 column:
No U.S. president since Israel was reborn in 1948 has been less of a friend to Israel or the Jewish people than Barack Obama. He seeks to redraw the nation’s borders in a way that would leave Israel unable to defend itself. He has sought to freeze building by Jews in and around Israel’s capital. He seeks a so-called peace agreement that would involve ethnic cleansing of Jews in a future Palestinian state. Obama is not operating in the spirit of Oscar Schindler. On the contrary, he is operating in the spirit of those who appeased Adolf Hitler in the 1930s. He is operating in the spirit of those who looked the other way as 6 million Jews were exterminated. He is operating in the spirit of those who had an opportunity to save Jews from death in the Holocaust but did nothing.
In short, Obama’s list of humanitarian priorities is not like Schindler’s.
Meanwhile, WND has repackaged Dittman's earlier Obama-is-Hitler comparison as a cynical promotion for Dittman's WND-published book, "Trapped in Hitler's Hell." One wonders if the book's title is an explanation for Dittman's Big Lie technique.
Newsmax Lets Dick Morris Make A Prediction Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax's Dick Morris rehabilitation campaign continues apace by giving him an April 30 column in which he explains how Rick Perry can make a presidential run in 2016:
Acceptable to Latinos based on his Texas record. Draws strong Tea Party support without being defined by it. A Southerner, he is clearly ready to play on the national stage. A big state governor whose record on jobs has only gotten better. He can’t be dismissed.
Will his debate brainlock disqualify him? Not if he doesn’t repeat it. Clinton recovered from a disastrous 1988 Convention speech. He’s probably had enough time to recover from his dismissal of Social Security as a "Ponzi scheme" in his book.
But Rick Perry has to develop a truly national perspective to win. He can’t forever be repeating "in the state of Texas" before each line. He needs to know more about issues other than energy. In 2012, he showed the same lack of depth and laziness in issue preparation as Sarah Palin did in 2008, but he wasn’t caught as easily because he’s a man.
[...]
Republicans don’t like to take chances. They want their candidates to have served their apprenticeship as losers. The Republican voters are agoraphobic, fearful of new situations and people. It takes them a while to get used to new candidates and those who have run once and learned their lessons have great appeal. So keep your eye on Perry.
Given Morris' track record on predictions, we can probably assume that Perry now has no chance whatsoever to become president.
WND's Cashill Rhapsodizes Over James O'Keefe Topic: WorldNetDaily
Jack Cashill devoted his April 30 WorldNetDaily column to rebutting the idea that Donald Sterling was the victim of being "James O’Keefe’d":
As Esquire writer Charles Pierce and others have commented in the wake of Clippers owner Donald Sterling’s sudden notoriety, Sterling’s lady friend V. Stiviano “appears to have James O’Keefe’d him.”
Pierce is referring to the work of imaginative young journalist James O’Keefe. Not yet 30, O’Keefe has pioneered the art of quietly recording the damning words of a range of duplicitous individuals – from ACORN workers to NPR executives to union honchos to campaign officials – and exposing those words to the light.
Pierce, however, does not quite get the verb “O’Keefe.” O’Keefe goes after corrupt and/or hypocritical organizations that have prospered through taxpayer largesse, and he always tries to work within the law, however ambiguous that law sometimes is.
[...]
The media do not share O’Keefe’s hierarchy of values. On CNN, after O’Keefe released the first video of ACORN office workers abetting his apocryphal scheme, the Washington Post’s Keith Richburg expressed his outrage – about O’Keefe.
“It sounds to me like that’s just entrapment,” Richburg said of O’Keefe’s sting. “You know, let’s go around various offices until we can finally trick somebody.”
On that same CNN show, Salon’s Joe Conason added, “It’s not journalism unless they report everything that happened. It’s propaganda.”
In fact, in just about every ACORN office O’Keefe visited the workers obliged his teenage-prostitution schemes. To prove they did, O’Keefe made a practice of posting the videos unedited to show that the damning quotes were not taken out of context.
Cashill is severely overstating O'Keefe's "values." In fact, before O'Keefe released his unedited videos, he released a heavily edited video designed to play up his most salacious accusations. And when O'Keefe got around to releasing his unedited videos, they usually showed that he was taking people out of context. Indeed, O'Keefe agreed to pay $100,000 to a former ACORN employee for falsely portraying him in a video and for illegally taping him.
Cashill goes on to declare that O'Keefe "has not once been sued for libel or defamation." Actually, the above cited case aside, he has been sued for defamation -- by one of his own former employees.
And Cashill was too busy rhapsodizing over O'Keefe's "hierarchy of values" that he mention a botched sting in which O'Keefe "hoped to get CNN Investigative Correspondent Abbie Boudreau onto a boat filled with sexually explicit props and then record the session."
Those are apparently the kind of "values" Cashill can get behind.
In a May 9 WorldNetDaily article, Steve Peacock takes a victory lap over "An Obama administration plan to have U.S. military personnel oversee the construction of restrooms for a Kenyan girls’ school" being canceled. But it was not all sweetness and light, for Peacock huffily noted some criticism of his reporting:
We've previously 
There has been a pile of books moldering away in WorldNetDaily's warehouse focused on the events surrounding President Clinton's impeachment, which it published some years back. Thanks to Monica Lewinsky, WND had the opportunity to move a few of them this week.
So newly appointed Benghazi select committee chairman Trey Gowdy has been decrying the idea of Republicans fundraising off Benghazi (ironically, at 
There is a deep chasm of comprehension between the power-mad and the power-indifferent. Neither one of us can understand the other. Hillary Clinton, for example, could never live the life I do. She would hate every quiet, simple, peaceful moment of it. Similarly, I could never live like her. I would hate every stressful, screaming, profanity-filled moment of it.
Yes, this is the actual content of a May 2 WorldNetDaily 
In a May 6 Media Research Center 
Mychal Massie writes in his May 5 WorldNetDaily 
Cliff Kincaid takes a victory lap in a May 5 Accuracy in Media 
Michael Ackley writes in his May 4 WorldNetDaily 
Phelim McAleer is apparently wasting his crowdfunding money designated to make a movie, blowing it on a billboard instead. And the Media Research Center couldn't be happier.
Newsmax's Dick Morris r
Jack Cashill devoted his April 30 WorldNetDaily 
