WND Now Using Twitter To Race-Bait Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily has really cut back on the race-baiting since Google AdSense threatened to cut off ad revenue to WND because of all the rampant Colin Flaherty-fueled paranoia about "black mobs." (Flaherty also stopped writing for WND around this time.) But that doesn't mean WND can't race-bait in social media.
WND uses Twitter to promote its articles, and one tweet sent on Feb. 15 was so important that it had to be announced in ALL CAPS: "IF I HAD A SON -- NEARLY 1000 BLACK TEENS STORM THEATER IN ORLANDO TO GET IN FOR FREE."
Funny thing about the purloined Florida TV station article WND is promoting here:
1) it says "more than 200 juveniles" were involved in a disturbance at a local mall, of which only "about 100" rushed the theater -- not the "nearly 1000" the WND tweet claims. An earlier viersion of the article, which WND stole for its website, claims that "about 800 teens" were involved. Which, last we checked, requires a lot of stretching to be considered "nearly 1000."
2) The word "black" does not appear in the article, the original version that WND stole, or in the accompanying video report.
WND does not explain how it divined that every single student involved in the incident -- whether 100 or "nearly 1000" -- was black. They have have simply assumed that if there was a large crowd of teens causing mayhem, they must obviously be black.
Also, the "If I Had A Son" tagline does not appear on the stolen WND version of the article -- it simply uses "WND Crime." Apparently, this reference to President Obama's statement about Trayvon Martin is some sort of dog whistle to its more race-obsessed readers that this is another story about blacks behaving badly (despite, again, no evidence that this is indeed the case).
WND, it seems, has decided it can rest assured that no ad revenue will be threatened by Twitter calling out its race-baiting like Google did.
MRC Gives Fox News A Pass On Airing Terrorist Video Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center normally frowns on media outlets airing videos made by terrorists. MRC chief Brent Bozell (well, to be perfectly accurate, his deputy Tim Graham) has denounced al-Jazeera as "a video jukebox for Osama bin Laden and other Arab terrorist fanatics."
But when Fox News was the only major media outlet to air graphic footage from an ISIS video showing a Jordanian pilot being buried alive -- then posted the full, unedited video on the Fox News website -- Bozell and his MRC crew had nothing to say about it.
A search of the MRC and NewsBusters websites found no statements whatsoever on Fox News serving as the PR agent for terrorists as numerous media and terrorism analysts condemned it --hen Fox's in-house media critic, Howard Kurtz, said he disagreed with the corporate decision to air the video because "we are helping spread the fear that ISIS so badly wants to spread."
This is another example of the MRC refusing to apply its own standards against those with whom it ideologically agrees. We've detailed how the MRC wouldn't criticize "60 Minutes" reporter Lara Logan for bungling a story on the Benghazi attack because her distortions and falsehoods furthered the right-wing agenda to exploit Benghazi against President Obama.
Yes, Joseph Farah, You Are Linked To Violence Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joseph Farah rants in his Feb. 12 WorldNetDaily column:
You know, in all the years I have been listed among the SPLC’s list of “haters,” I have never once been linked – even by three degrees of separation – with any act of violence. To the best of my knowledge, no one who has ever befriended me on Facebook or held me up as an inspiration has ever committed a heinous act of terrorism or violence.
Farah, as we've come to expect from him, is lying -- he is linked to violence, and we don't even have to go to three degrees of separation to find it.
As we've documented, the manifesto of Anders Breivik, who slaughered dozens in Norway in 2009, cites WND six times, and it also cites anti-Muslim activists frequently highlighted by WND, including Pamela Geller (now a WND columnist) and Walid Shoebat. Breivik's screeds against Islam, multiculturalism and feminism closely parallel WND's own editorial content over the years.
Needless to say, WND never told its readers at the time about how Breivik expressed his admiration for WND, its friends and its editorial agenda. Don't expect Farah to acknowledge his link to this act of terrorism now.
Newsmax Pushes More Anti-Vaxxer Fearmongering Topic: Newsmax
It's apparently not enough for Newsmax to have an anti-vaccine fearmongerer like Russell Blaylock on staff. Its Newsmax Health website is also rife with anti-vaxxer rhetoric as well.
A Feb. 10 Newsmax Health article by Sylvia Booth Hubbard features the claims of "holistic physician" David Brownstein attacking the MMR vaccine and defending Andrew Wakefield, whose research linking vaccines to autism has been discredited. Hubbard fails to mention that Brownstein is affiliated with Newsmax, which sells his "Natural Way to Health" newsletter.
Hubbard goes on to uncritically promote an overbroad claim by Brownstein that "The MMR vaccine is produced using a cell line that originated from aborted fetal lung cells." While it is true that two specific cell lines from which vaccines are derived have been cultured from cells taken from two abortions (in 1966 and 1962), to use this an excuse to oppose vaccination is dangerous, as physicist Jay Wile, a Christian, writes:
Anti-vaccination advocates play on a person's proper moral indignation about abortion, claiming that if a person gets vaccinated, he or she is supporting the abortion industry. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Whether or not you get vaccinated, the same number of abortions will be performed, as abortions are not necessary to make new vaccines. In addition, you are actually dishonoring the memories of those two precious babies if you refuse vaccination, because you are refusing the one good thing that has come from their murder. At the same time, you are putting your life and the lives of your loved ones in jeopardy by refusing one of the greatest protections that medicine has ever developed! How could anyone call himself pro-life if he dishonors the memory of those who have been murdered while risking the lives of those he loves?
Hubbard also suggests a government conspiracy to suppress the purported dangers of vaccines:
There are accusations that the CDC has deliberately suppressed evidence of a link between vaccines and autism. "The Centers for Disease Control altered a 2004 study, hiding data that supported Dr. Wakefield’s research," says Dr. Brownstein. "The report stated there was no link between vaccines and autism, but a CDC whistleblower and author of the paper came forward to announce that the paper was a fraud. He said the CDC hid data in the paper which showed a clear link between the early administration of the MMR vaccine and autism."
The whistleblower was CDC senior scientist William Thompson, who issued a statement through his attorney: "I regret that my coauthors and I omitted statistically significant information in our 2004 article published in the journal Pediatrics. The omitted data suggested that African American males who received the MMR vaccine before age 36 months were at increased risk for autism."
As the mythbusters at Snopes details, the data claiming African-American males have an increased risk of autism from the MMR vaccine is flawed. Hubbard omits the part of Thompson's statement where he states: "I want to be absolutely clear that I believe vaccines have saved and continue to save countless lives. I would never suggest that any parent avoid vaccinating children of any race. Vaccines prevent serious diseases, and the risks associated with their administration are vastly outweighed by their individual and societal benefits."
Instead of telling her readers that, Hubbard rants about "the consensus of the conventional medicine community" that supports vaccination.
Another Anti-Gay WND Columnist Thinks He Knows What's Best for Bruce Jenner Topic: WorldNetDaily
As we've detailed, anti-gay columnists at WorldNetDaily have decided they know what's better for Bruce Jenner than Jenner himself, and that means denigrating his apparent decision to become transgender. Carl Jackson -- best known for an unhinged rant accusing liberals of trying to "bring America down to size" by supporting soccer -- meddles as well in a Feb. 10 WND column headlined "My hope for the man Bruce Jenner," starting by citing a discredited psychiatrist:
Did you know that transgenderism is a mental disorder? Nothing more, nothing less. Dr. Paul McHugh, the former psychiatrist-in-chief for Johns Hopkins Hospital and its current distinguished service professor of psychiatry has stated that “transgenderism is a ‘mental disorder’ that merits treatment, that sex change is ‘biologically impossible,’ and that people who promote sexual reassignment surgery are collaborating with and promoting a mental disorder.”
During a more sensible time in American history, a few years ago, we use to call it “gender dysphoria” or “gender identity disorder” – and for good reason. Professional psychiatrists like Dr. McHugh, who are trained in mental disorders, regularly diagnosed patients who suffered from a “disorder of assumption.” Gender identity disorder is comparable to the eating disorder anorexia, where people become dangerously thin, and Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID), where a sufferer is perfectly healthy but does not accept a limb or limbs of his own and seeks to amputate them, sometimes on his own, or even become paraplegic. All of these mental disorders lie in the person’s “assumption” that they are different than the physical reality of their bodies.
Sadly, politicians, diversity counselors, leftist physicians, elitists and ignorant activists in states like California, New Jersey and Massachusetts, who presume to know more about psychological disorders than trained psychiatrists and psychologists, have climbed on their high horse and invoked laws banning mental health professionals, despite parental permission, from working to restore natural gender feelings to what is described by Dr. McHugh as a transgender minor.
Slate details how McHugh "has a storied history of using his credentialed respectability to peddle the worst, most discredited, myths about gay and transgender people." We've noted how other commentators have pointed out how an anti-transgender op-ed in the Wall Street Journal was based on selective reading of literature on the subject, a fit of either laziness or incompetence that makes him a lot less "distingushed" that Jackson thinks he isl
Does Jackson have any more unsolicited advice for Jenner? He certainly does:
It’s equally troubling to me that doctors who swear to “first do no harm” under their Hippocratic Oath would endeavor to perpetuate a mental disorder like transgenderism where the suicide rate is 20 times higher than the rate amongst non-transgender people. Transgender sufferers like Bruce Jenner will never achieve their goal of becoming a member of the opposite sex. According to Dr. McHugh, at best they’ll become “feminized men or masculinized women.” If Bruce Jenner chooses to undergo sexual reassignment surgery, it is unlikely that he’ll ever experience a sexual orgasm again; conveniently, he’ll never have a menstrual cycle or menopause like real women; and smegma-mucus from his makeshift vagina will have to be flushed out routinely due to its shallow walls. Disgusting, yes, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.
If that weren’t enough, according to Dr. McHugh, “for those who had sexual reassignment surgery, most said they were ‘satisfied’ with the operation, but their subsequent psycho-social adjustments were no better than those who didn’t have the surgery.” This is the reason Johns Hopkins Hospital, the very place that pioneered sexual reassignment surgery, has stopped performing these surgeries. They no longer saw a need to amputate “normal organs.” If proponents of the transgender movement were really compassionate and caring, they wouldn’t seek to subject mentally ill patients to a life filled with turmoil and mutilation!
God doesn’t make mistakes, and he certainly didn’t with Bruce Jenner. I don’t know how long Mr. Jenner has struggled with his mental illness, but I know with advanced technology, counseling and medicine, the tools exist for him to conquer his disorder. I wish his family, friends and community were informed and courageous enough to convey that to him, and insist that he remains the patriarch of the family. They don’t need another matriarch. They’ve got Kris.
God may not make mistakes, but don't expect Jackson to admit he made a mistake by parroting the views of a biased, discredited doctor.
CNS Misrepresents DC Anti-Discrimination Law Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com, like other ConWeb outlets, does not feel compelled to accurately or fairly report on something that contradicts its right-wing agenda.
In a Feb. 11 CNS article, Rudy Takala asserts as fact in the first paragraph that a new District of Columbia law "forci[es] Christian organizations to employ people who advocate abortion." It's not until the second paragraph that this view of the law is merely the opinion of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, not necessarily fact.
In actuality, the law -- the Reproductive Health Non-Discrimination Act of 2014 -- states that employers "shall not discriminate against an individual with respect to compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment because of or on the basis of the individual's or a dependent's reproductive health decision making, including a decision to use or access a particular drug, device or medical service, because of or on the basis of an employer's personal beliefs about such services."
Takala did not quote the language of the law in his article, nor did he explain the USCCB's reasoning behind how it concluded the law forces Christian employers "to employ people who advocate abortion."
Lauretta Brown does the same thing in her Feb. 11 CNS article, baselessly asserting as fact that the law "would force religious and pro-life organizations to employ people who advocate abortion. While Brown does quote some of thewording in the law, she presents the USCCB's interpretation as the only valid one.
That, of course, is simply not true, CNS has so far ignored the opinion of Catholics for Choice, which testifed that polling shows "91 pecent of US Catholic voters believe that a company should not be allowed to fire a pregnant, unmarried employee because of the owners' religious beliefs," adding that "one cannot use one's conscience to trample onthe rights of others."
CNS' mission statement states that it "endeavors to fairly present all legitimate sides of a story." Apparently, if one side of that story conflicts with right-wing ideology or Catholic doctrine, it must not be "legitimate" and, therefore, unworthy of coverage.
WND Clings To Another Discredited Birther Conspiracy Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's birther obsession is slipping from desperate to truly pathetic.
A Feb. 11 unbylined WND article resorts to a birther conspiracy theory to attack Savannah Guthrie as a possible successor to Brian Williams on the "NBC Nightly News":
On April 27, 2011, White House correspondent Savannah Guthrie claimed to have seen Barack Obama’s long-form birth certificate and “touched and felt the raised seal.”
The segment on “NBC Nightly News” was titled “Obama birth certificate – signed, sealed, delivered.”
Guthrie’s claims that the PDF document posted on the White House website is backed up by two certified paper copies delivered to the White House contradicts the digital forensic findings of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s “Cold Case Posse” investigators in Maricopa County, Arizona.
Alan Jones, writing on his 1776 Channel site Wednesday, noted Arpaio’s appointed lead investigator on the birth-certificate case, Mike Zullo, has been promising the release of “universe-shattering” information regarding the document.
The release of additional findings, Jones wrote, likely would pose for NBC News a “credibility crisis far more severe than the Brian Williams fiasco.”
Jones on Wednesday interviewed Zullo, who noted Reed Hayes, a document examiner who has served as expert witness for Seattle law firm Perkins Coie – the firm that flew an attorney to Honolulu to personally deliver two paper copies of the birth certificate to the White House – has concluded in a signed affidavit that the document posted on the White House website is “entirely fabricated.”
“We have no evidence of a raised seal being displayed on that document that Savannah Guthrie supposedly felt,” Zullo said. “We don’t know what she felt. No evidence that we can determine shows alterations to that paper body indicating a raised seal. Their work flow is a scan of the document. Upon examination, there is no evidence of raised seal.”
WND doesn't tell you, of course, that Zullo's investigation is a discredited joke. He obviously didn't look very hard for the seal, because it's right there, as this enhanced image of a photo of the certificate taken by Guthrie demonstrates:
And as we've previously noted, Zullo has never publicly released Hayes' analysis; he's actually expert in handwriting analysis, not digital documents.
The fact that WND is still pushing birther conspiracies and hiding the fact they've been discredited is really all you need to know about why nobody believes WND.
MRC Disappears Sharyl Attkisson From Criticism Of CBS' Anti-Vaccine Coverage Topic: Media Research Center
Joseph Rossell huffs in a Feb. 11 Media Research Center item:
CBS “Evening News” attempted to show that there is no link between vaccines and autism on Feb. 10, but seemed confused that anti-vaccination views got “traction at all.”
CBS News National Correspondent Jim Axelrod did a good job of showing how a “discredited” study by Dr. Andrew Wakefield scared parents away from the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine, but he failed to acknowledge that his own network played a part in that fearmongering.
He failed to criticize CBS’s role in publicizing the false claims of a link between autism and MMR vaccinations, even as he aired earlier “60 Minutes” footage of parents who blamed their son’s autism on the shot. Axelrod also ignored the fact that the three broadcast news networks combined helped sustain anti-vaccination views by airing 171 stories that mentioned vaccines and autism over 15 years.
Rossell doesn't mention that one of the chief promulgators of anti-vaxxer sympathy at CBS was Sharyl Attkisson, now a right-wing darling for her factually challenged anti-Obama reporting.
As we've documented, the MRC criticized Attkisson's anti-vaxxer reporting at the time but has been virtually silent about it since she became a conservative cause celebre.
By ignoring Attkisson, Rossell avoids having to confront the uncomfortable question of why Attkisson couldn't be trusted then but is unimpeachable now.
In a followup to last week’s WND column by Matt Barber, I would like to point out that there has to be an orchestrated effort to make certain that the five prisoners swapped for army deserter Bowe Bergdahl are not called terrorists. Why? In the immortal words of Hillary Clinton, “What difference does it make” if we call them terrorists or armed insurgents? The difference is that we don’t negotiate with terrorists, but I suppose we can negotiate with armed insurgents, even though the Taliban is registered on two government lists as terrorists. It seems pretty clear to me that you need to call it as you see it.
So why is this administration turning itself inside out over something so transparent? Why are they so hesitant to use the word? Could it be that, as Matt Barber brought up in his piece, they are afraid of being accused of treason?
It’s not that President Obama can’t utter the phrase “Islamist terror,” it is that he won’t do so, because at this juncture, Obama has become the chief facilitator of Islamist terror on a global scale.
[...]
This has gone far beyond dishonesty, disloyalty, or even self-aggrandizing corruption. Hanging offenses have been committed by people in high places; the list of such offenses increases daily, as does the number of those who add themselves to the list of the culpable, or dig themselves in deeper with each diversion they craft and lie they utter.
Why was Barack Hussein Obama calling for a “New World Order” in Europe before becoming America’s president, claiming that there was “no other way”?
Why is he now meeting with designated Muslim terror groups in the White House? Why is he allied with America’s sworn enemies by appointing them to key positions in governmental positions? Why is he aiding and abetting America’s enemies? Why is he trying to disarm the American people through means of terror? Why is he releasing thousands of illegal felons on the streets of America? Why has he transgressed the U.S. Constitution, lied to the American people, wasted taxpayer money and been involved in cronyism in 900 documented incidents?
Not since Santa Claus was in short pants has anyone been as generous as Obama when it comes to bestowing gifts. But unlike Santa, Obama insists on rewarding those who have been naughty and turning into Scrooge when it comes to those who are nice.
Although all it would take to bring about immigration reform is for Obama to build a 21st century fence along our southern border, he keeps it as porous as possible because he wants the nation flooded with future Democrats.
The president made a fundamental error in his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast: He tried to maintain the liberal absurdity that all religions, all beliefs, all theologies, are equally valid. He wants to maintain the myth that all religions are fundamentally the same and only superficially different, whereas the fact is most religions are fundamentally different and only superficially the same.
There is a temptation to refute everything Obama says because of his track record of failed policies, deliberate deception and the confusion he seems to sow every time he opens his mouth.
Thoughtful Christians, however, should recognize the most effective lies, like those told in the Garden of Eden, are often mixed with some truth.
That’s what makes Obama such a profoundly dangerous demagogue.
Those of us who saw this coming back in 2008 and 2009 were excoriated, ridiculed and marginalized for speaking the truth about Obama’s past. In 2007, I wrote a commentary for Israel National News titled, “Obama, the Muslim Thing, And Why It Matters.” Before Obama’s election, anyone who used his middle name, Hussein, was labeled a racist-anti-Muslim-Islamophobic-bigot. And yet the first call he made to a foreign “leader” after he was inaugurated was to terror leader Mahmoud Abbas. The first interview he gave was with al Arabiya television. His first world tour was an apology tour to the Muslim world, culminating in a speech from the leading Islamic university in Cairo, Al Azhar. He invited the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist group to his speech in Cairo, despite the fact that it had been banned for decades. Then President Mubarak and his cabinet, America’s 30-year ally in that troubled region, could not attend Obama’s speech because of the terror presence.
It’s why I wrote my 2010 book, “The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America.”
And now, five years later, with the global jihad roiling the world thanks to Obama’s support and sanction, he deigns to tell us what our religion is.
President Dawah. The more jihad rages, the more Obama proselytizes for Islam. Muslim countries like Jordan are taking a much harder line than the U.S. It’s outrageous.
The question isn’t whether Obama is or isn’t a Muslim. The question is, if he were a Muslim, what would he be doing differently? In a word, nothing.
If Obama is not stopped, ISIS, al-Qaida, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood will have their way, and America will be forced to bow to Islam (as Obama bowed to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia). Then, the only choice left for us will be to submit or die.
That is a choice unacceptable to any real self-respecting American.
OK, Barack. That did it. I’m offended, and I know you don’t care.
You pushed your luck with that speech at the National Prayer Breakfast last week. Your words made it abundantly clear to me where you stand on Islam and reveal your antagonism toward Christianity.
Despite the fact you were elected twice to the presidency of this country, your words finally did it for me – and, I suspect, millions of others across the country.
[...]
Barack Obama, I have seen your classlessness and insults over the years. Finally, I will say it: You have offended me, and there’s no way for you to correct that. I will be ashamed of you as the president, but I will not be ashamed of my country.
Barack Obama stepped in it so deeply this time, he has no way out of the quagmire. Obama pushed his luck in his unending quest to diminish this country and denigrate Christianity.
It’s too bad there weren’t any people at the prayer breakfast with the courage to stand up during Obama’s speech and turn their back on him. Better yet, they should have walked out.
But no, Christians are not allowed to be offended when their beliefs are dragged into the gutter of insults.
Those who wish to play God do not wish to acknowledge God. Hence, Mr. Obama’s telling silence. During his first election campaign, he made some pretense at being a Christian. Now he is more and more openly Muslim. He treats Christianity either with sneering indifference or with outright contempt.
Mr. Obama’s anti-Christian stance is something his Republican opponents should openly condemn. They need to start making serious inroads into the black and Hispanic vote. Many blacks are Protestant; most Hispanics are Catholic. At present, they vote “Democrat” without thinking further than the next food stamp or benefit check.
CNS Finds More Federal Spending On LGBT Issues It Considers A Waste Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com has long obsessed over federal spending on LGBT-related issues, eager to portray them as a waste of money (while failing to perform any similar analysis of other categories of federal spending). CNS deputy managing editor Melanie Hunter has beenthe leader in this highly biased campaign for CNS of late, and she's at it again in a Feb. 6 article:
The National Institutes of Health has awarded a $435,369 taxpayer-funded grant to the University of Illinois at Chicago to study cessation techniques for LGBT smokers.
“Our long-term goals are to increase smoking cessation in Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) smokers and to understand the processes related to cessation and relapse in this underserved population,” the grant stated.
The purpose of the study “is to develop and evaluate the benefits of culturally targeted smoking cessation intervention” for LGBT smokers.
Hunter obviously thinks this is a waste of money -- otherwise, she wouldn't have written this article.And as is usual for LGBT-related articles ath CNS, its comment section is littered with examples of vicious and vile anti-gay hatred that CNS' comment monitors apparently do nothing to counteract. It's almost as if CNS publishes such articles for express purpose of fostering homophobia.
All six of the articles Hunter has written about government spending in the past three months have focused on LGBT issues. Additionally, she wrote two more disdainful LGBT-related articles published on Jan. 30:
Hunter is simply acting out the anti-gay agenda of her employer, the Media Research Center.
UPDATE: Hunter has penned another article attacking LGBT-related spending, this time highlighting how "The National Institutes of Health has awarded $42,676 in taxpayer funds to the University of Pennsylvania to teach yoga to drug-abusing convicts with HIV to help them once they are released from prison."
WND's Farah Boards The Vaccine-Lie Bandwagon Topic: WorldNetDaily
The fact that it simply isn't true that the measles vaccine has killed dozens of people will not keep WorldNetDaily from repeating. And now WND editor Joseph Farah is parroting it.
When was the last death from measles in the U.S.? Anyone know.
Dr. Lee Hieb, an expert in the field, says 2005. But the vaccine that prevents measles infection has taken the lives of 86 in that time, she reports – 68 of them 3-years-old or younger. Almost 2,000 were permanently disabled by the vaccine.
And Bill Press wants government to mandate forcible vaccines for all children, despite the obvious fact that the shot is far more dangerous than the illness.
As we've documented, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, which tracks claims of adverse events to vaccines and which Hieb cites as the source of her claim, clearly and explictly states that it does not verify whether a cause-and-effect relationship exists between vaccines and the reported adverse effects, and that "No proof that the event was caused by the vaccine is required in order for VAERS to accept the report." Hieb ignored this disclaimer, making her claim false -- and making Farah a liar yet again for repeating something he should know is a falsehood.
In a delicious irony, Farah's column appeared at WND the same day it published the latest from syndicated columnist Thomas Sowell, who points out that "false claims, based on other false claims, led many parents to stop getting their children vaccinated against measles."
Sowell also noted that "crusading movements are seldom stopped by facts." As a man who pretends to be a journalist but embraceslies, Farah provides a clear example that even Sowell could not have anticipated.
NEW ARTICLE: Lies And The Lying Liars Who Attack Others About Their Lies Topic: Media Research Center
Perhaps Media Research Center chief Brent Bozell -- who lied for years about writing his own column -- is not the person who should be calling for NBC anchor Brian Williams' resignation over a falsehood. Read more >>
No CNS articles so far, however, on themost visible critic demanding Williams resign for his falsehood, MRC (and CNS) chief Brent Bozell, lying for 15 years about writing the column that appears under his name.
How politically extreme is the Southern Poverty Law Center, a well-funded legal hate group known for its guilt-by-association tactics and whipping up hysteria over the ever-present threat of a second coming of the Ku Klux Klan?
The latest target to be placed on the group’s “extremist watch list” will give you a clue.
He’s a highly acclaimed brain surgeon, potential presidential candidate and, according to polls, one of America’s most admired celebrities.
That’s right. Dr. Ben Carson.
The reason? He’s against same-sex marriage.
From the SPLC website: “Ben Carson rapidly ascended as a far-right political star after publicly scolding President Obama, whom he sat a few feet away from, at a National Prayer Breakfast in February 2013. Carson’s reproach of Obama for his health care and tax policies went viral, unleashing a flood of adulation from right-wing media and hate groups.”
SPLC unfairly labels him “anti-gay.”
Ah, so much to respond to:
1) It's rather hiliarious that WND -- the king of likeningObama to Hitler and other Nazis (not to mention the Antichrist) and fearmongering about vaccines -- would attempt to criticize the SPLC for using "guilt-by-association tactics" and "whipping up hysteria."
2) WND doesn't bother to link to the SPLC article on Carson, so you know it's trying to hide something. And when you actually look at the SPLC's profile of Carson, the first thing you'll notice is that at no point is Carson described as being on an "extremist watch list." WND appears to have lifted the phrase from a post at the right-wing blog Legal Insurrection, which Talking Points Memo states "appeared to have been the first to notice" Carson's SPLC profile.
3) The next thing you'll notice in the SPLC profile is that Carson isn't being criticized for merely being "against same-sex marriage" as WND claims. He's being criticized for portraying homosexuality as equivalent to bestiality and pedophilia.
4) The term "anti-gay" appears nowhere in the SPLC profile, despite WND putting it in quotes. The SPLC describes his "ideology" as "anti-LGBT," and it points out that Carson has spoken to "anti-LGBT" groups.
5) At no point does WND demonstrate what is "unfair" about highlighting Carson's anti-gay rhetoric. Instead, it simply quotes what Carson said, then blamed the SPLC for Floyd Lee Corkins' attempted shooting spree at the Family Research Council because Corkins "admitted that he used SPLC’s hate map to identify FRC as a target."
By that same logic, we should credit WND for helping to inspire Anders Breivik's massacre of dozens in Norway since his manifesto cites WND six times.
In a (similarly unbylined) follow-up article, WND falsely claims the SPLC called Carson a "hater" and repeated the inaccurate "extremist watch list" phrase. The article claims to quote Carson responding to the SPLC designation, but it's unclear where the quotes came from -- WND does not identify their source, and none of the quoted matter specifically references the SPLC.
Interestingly, a Breitbart article carries the same alleged quotes from Carson but also doesn't identify their source. Did WND steal Breitbart's story like it did Legal Insurrection's? If so, that would explain why the WND writer did not want to put his or her name on this work.
Actually, it appears Carson made his statements to the Daily Mail, which neither WND nor Breitbart credit. (Fun fact: The Daily Mail's U.S. political desk is helmed by David Martosko, the former managing editor for the Daily Caller, where he was best known for defending reporting that was clearly false.)
Further, neither article shows any effort on WND's part to contact the SPLC for an explantion of its Carson profile -- that would be too much like journalism, apparently. TPM, meanwhile, did what WND couldn't be bothered to do:
SPLC spokesman Mark Potok told TPM on Monday that including Carson in the organization's "extremist files" isn't tantamount to following the potential presidential contender around in fear that he is plotting to blow up a federal building.
"Our criticism of him was based in large part on his very extreme rhetoric about the evils of gay people," Potok told TPM by phone. "He says that any criticism he makes is always kind and never meant to destroy the person, but then he says that gay marriage will lead to the destruction of America much in the same way the Roman Empire collapsed."
Stealing the work of others, the inability to get basic facts correct and refusal to exhibit any sort of fairness demonstrate why nobody believes WND.
Obama Derangement Syndrome Watch, Accuracy in Media Edition Topic: Accuracy in Media
The Obama years will be forever known as the Dark Ages of US history, a time of political, cultural and economic deterioration. We have yet to see if they will lead to the fall of the American republic.
In the Obama years, the lie became not only a campaign strategy or a means to enact damaging policies, but an institution of government; the Presidency itself, a lie of monstrous proportions guarded by the complicit and the willingly ignorant.
In the Obama years, the Congress finally clearly demonstrated that although we have elections, there is no longer a government representing its citizens, but an entity serving itself, operating outside of Constitutional constraints and unaccountable to the American people for the benefit of the few at the expense of the many.
[...]
Unless we undertake a thorough exposition of who Obama really is, what is his background and true agenda, what forces made his unprecedented rise to power possible and who has conspired to hide the truth, an American Renaissance will not be forthcoming.
We are in a new Dark Age. In such situations, the record of history is unequivocal; either we produce a Renaissance, that is, a rebirth of the fundamental principles upon which America was founded or our republic dies.
-- Lawrence Sellin, Feb. 2 Accuracy in Media column
The Media Research Center normally frowns on media outlets airing videos made by terrorists. MRC chief Brent Bozell (well, to be 
Joseph Farah rants in his Feb. 12 WorldNetDaily 
It's apparently not enough for Newsmax to have an anti-vaccine fearmongerer like 
As we've 
CNSNews.com, like other ConWeb outlets, does not feel compelled to accurately or fairly report on something that contradicts its right-wing agenda.
WorldNetDaily's birther obsession is slipping from desperate to truly pathetic.
Joseph Rossell huffs in a Feb. 11 Media Research Center 
In a followup to last week’s WND column by Matt Barber, I would like to point out that there has to be an orchestrated effort to make certain that the five prisoners swapped for army deserter Bowe Bergdahl are not called terrorists. Why? In the immortal words of Hillary Clinton, “What difference does it make” if we call them terrorists or armed insurgents? The difference is that we don’t negotiate with terrorists, but I suppose we can negotiate with armed insurgents, even though the Taliban is registered on two government lists as terrorists. It seems pretty clear to me that you need to call it as you see it.
CNSNews.com has 
From an unbylined Feb. 8 WorldNetDaily 
The Obama years will be forever known as the Dark Ages of US history, a time of political, cultural and economic deterioration. We have yet to see if they will lead to the fall of the American republic.
