Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily simply does not want to discuss Ted Cruz's eligibility to be president, even though by its own standards he's less eligible than Barack Obama. Read more >>
Wednesday, April 8, 2015
NEW ARTICLE: Yes to Obama Birthers, No to Ted Cruz Birthers
Topic: WorldNetDaily WorldNetDaily simply does not want to discuss Ted Cruz's eligibility to be president, even though by its own standards he's less eligible than Barack Obama. Read more >>
Posted by Terry K.
at 10:02 AM EDT
Tuesday, April 7, 2015
CNS' Hunter Is Still Obsessed With LGBT-Related Federal Spending
Topic: CNSNews.com CNSNews.com deputy managing editor Melanie Hunter is not done cherry-picking LGBT-related items in the federal budget she considers a waste of money. Hunter dropped a pair of articles on April 2: $133,920 Federal Study Examines LGBT Families $199,080 NIH Grant for ‘Peer Advocates’ for Rural LGBT People As usual, Hunter does not explain why she considers the expenditures a waste of money, something she has made clear by her singling them out. Of the 15 articles Hunter has written since Jan. 1 on specific examples of federal spending, 12 of them focus on LGBT issues.
Posted by Terry K.
at 5:18 PM EDT
Irony: WND Columnist Laments 'Misinformation'
Topic: WorldNetDaily Michael Brown laments in an April 1 WorldNetDaily column:
Brown was talking about purported misinformation about right-wing causes, but he may has well have been talking about the publisher of his column. We have copiously documented how WND is perhaps the greatest misinformer on the Internet. WND editor Joseph Farah is an inveterate liar -- he's unduly proud of that fact -- and his cavalier attitude toward the truth has been embraced by his employees, who promote misinformation and falsehoods while making no effort to fact-check. Brown should clean up the misinformation in his own house before complaining about the state of others.
Posted by Terry K.
at 11:57 AM EDT
Monday, April 6, 2015
Newsmax Still Suggesting Kerik Really Wasn't Guilty
Topic: Newsmax Former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik has a new book out about his incarceration on corruption charges and his new crusade for prison reform -- and Newsmax, the chief component of the crusade to rehabilitate Kerik's reputation, still wants to promote the idea he really wasn't guilty of what he did. An April 1 Newsmax article by David Patten uncritically promotes Kerik's book -- he proclaims it "like a late-night alarm jangling down an abandoned street ... a warning to be heeded" -- and adds a little editorial comment about the nature of the charges that landed Kerik in prison:
Patten didn't explain who these "defenders" were, let alone that the chief defender is his employer. In an interview with Kerik the previous day, Patten similarly asserted that Kerik "was battered by a flurry of allegations and probes that some saw as politically motivated." But he apparently never questioned Kerik about it in his interview -- perhaps because it would have clashed with the fact that Kerik put his "prison ID and inmate number right there on the cover of your book," as Patten also noted. Kerik served his time and is owning his offenses. Why is Newsmax still trying to cover for him?
Posted by Terry K.
at 9:47 PM EDT
NewsBusters Writer Graduates To Obama Conspiracy Theories
Topic: NewsBusters Last week, NewsBusters' P.J. Gladnick peddled conspiracy theories about Harry Reid. Now, in an April 5 post, he's latched onto old conspiracy theories about President Obama:
Of course, it's been well documented that Obama attended Columbia, and that Columbia considers him a graduate -- after all, he couldn't havegotten into Harvard Law School if he hadn't graduated from Columbia. But as with many conspiracy theorists, such evidence isn't good enough. In a Twitter exchange we had with Gladnick, he demanded information about "Classes? Grades? Profs?" When we asked Gladnick if he was a birther -- since, after all, believing the conspiracy theory that Obama didn't actually attend Columbia is not that far from believing he wasn't born in the U.S., he freaked out and refused to answer the question (while also refusing to deny that he was) and hurled personal insults at us. NewsBusters and its parent, the Media Research Center, used to consider themselves above such conspiracy-mongering. Not anymore, apparently. And, thus, the creeping WorldNetDaily-ization of the MRC continues.
Posted by Terry K.
at 3:38 PM EDT
Muslim Derangement Syndrome Watch, Mychal Massie Edition
Topic: WorldNetDaily
-- Mychal Massie, March 31 WND column
Posted by Terry K.
at 10:30 AM EDT
Sunday, April 5, 2015
Charles Barkley and NewsBusters: The End of the Affair
Topic: NewsBusters After less than two months, NewsBusters has ended its brief infatuation with Charles Barkley. In a Feb. 20 post, Melissa Mullins praised Barkley for saying that he admired Jordan’s King Abdullah II for being "heroic" by personally going after those who had kidnapped and killed a Jordanian pilot and that his reaction to Hillary Clinton was to think about voting Republican. That one-sided lovefest, alas, has come to a screeching halt. An April 3 post by Scott Whitlock lashes out at Barkley for having "sneered" that those who support "religious freedom" laws in Indiana are "religious nuts" who "hide behind the Bible." This was a "hateful attack" by Barkley,Whitlock assured us. Whitlock didn't mention that NewsBusters had praised Barkley's opinions just a few weeks earlier; instead, he complained that "In 2008, CNN brought on Barkley to rail against 'fake Christians.'" Whatever will Barkley do now that NewsBusters doesn't like him anymore? He'll probably figure out something.
Posted by Terry K.
at 10:01 PM EDT
WND Publishes Matthew Vadum's Shoddily Written Attack On Federal Grants
Topic: WorldNetDaily Matthew Vadum has always been a terrible researcher who can't get his facts right (and thinks we're inciting civil unrest by pointing out his sloppy work). No wonder WorldNetDaily is so eager to publish his work. Vadum's March 29 WND article is a masterpiece of sloppy reporting, starting with this ominous opening:
It takes numerous paragraphs and even more numerous extraneous partisan attacks to lay it out, but the gist of Vadum's article is this: The Social Innovation Fund, which is administered by the taxpayer-supported Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), gave a $7.5 million grant to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation for a certain educational program that is "designed to increase the number of third graders who read proficiently in 11 high need school districts in San Mateo County, California." Had Vadum stopped there, he would have been on safe ground. Instead he goes conspiratorial, accusing the Silicon Valley Community Foundation of being a "left-wing" nonprofit that is "already awash in private funds" due to its links with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Vadum claims the foundation "doesn’t represent the political proclivities of most Americans" because it has given some money to "left-wing" groups like the Center for Responsible Lending (a nonpartisan group that educates Americans about predatory lending practices) and the National Immigration Forum (which apparently violates Vadum's right-wing sensibilities by not hating immigrants). Vadum suggests that the federal grant money is going to these purportedly "left-wing" causes:
In fact, such federal grants are typically watched closely to make sure the money is spent on the program it is intended, and the foundation must also verify that. If Vadum's smear tactic sounds familiar, it is. Back in 2004, WND did the same thing to Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of then-Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, by claiming that her donations to the Tides Foundation (which Vadum also accuses the Silicon Valley Community Foundation of funding) went to various and sundry radical causes, even though her donations were specifically earmarked for specific, non-radical purposes. When WND was finally forced to report the truth about Heinz Kerry and Tides, it then declared the truth was irrelevant to its anti-Kerry political crusade. Vadum is doing the same thing here -- claiming that Obama is personally sending federal money to fund various "left-wing" groups while ignoring the specific programs for which that money is used. Vadum's entire WND series does this. In a follow-up article, Vadum suggests that AARP received a CNCS grant because it was "one of Obamacare's chief cheerleaders" and "has an unabashedly left-wing political agenda" -- largely overlooking the fact that the grant given to AARP was for increasing financial stability in older women, which has nothing to do with Obamacare. Another Vadum article attacks another CNCS funding recipient, the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation. Because Vadum is such a bad writer, it's suggested early on that the Clark Foundation is "named for President Obama's Marxist law-school mentor, known for his promotion of the radical 'critical race theory.'" But as Vadum later writes, the foundation is named after the "daughter of 19th century perfumer David Hall McConnell, founder of cosmetic giant Avon," and that his real issue is that "Clark Foundation has given grants to the Dorchester, Massachusetts-based organization BELL," named in honor of Derrick A. Bell Jr., Harvard Law’s first black tenured professor. Vadum notes that the CNCS money he's attacking goes toward "improving the educational skills and workforce readiness of economically disadvantaged young people as well as helping them to avoid high-risk behavior," but he doesn't explain why he apparently thinks that's an unworthy cause -- or bother to prove that any of it ever went to BELL. Finally, Vadum complains that "The Obama administration has given $16.8 million since 2010 to its allies at a left-wing nonprofit known as the Local Initiatives Support Corp. LISC, in turn, has provided grants to many radical groups, including a Chicago-based nonprofit founded by the late Marxist activist Saul Alinsky." Needless to say, at no point does Vadum prove that any federal money went to that Alinsky-founded group (nor did he mention that Alinsky died more than 40 years ago). In short, Vadum is doing what he always does -- cranking out factually deficient, innuendo-laced right-wing screeds that are designed to keep up the hate factor on the right. Strangely, such shoddy work has kept him employed as the "senior editor" at the Capital Research Center -- and, not so strangely, a byline at WND.
Posted by Terry K.
at 5:39 PM EDT
Updated: Sunday, April 5, 2015 9:02 PM EDT
Saturday, April 4, 2015
CNS Unemployment Numbers Distortion Watch
Topic: CNSNews.com Ali Meyer does CNS' dirty work again in distorting the monthly unemployment numbers, ignoring any good news to once again cherry-pick the bad news: Record 56,131,000 Women Not in Labor Force; Women's Labor Force Participation Matches 27-Year Low Record 12,202,000 Black Americans Not in Labor Force Meyer couldn't find room in any of the three articles she wrote to mention that 126,000 jobs were created in March -- even though the number is considered a disappointment and, thus, ripe for CNS' bad-news-only approach to unemployment under the Obama administration.
Posted by Terry K.
at 11:37 PM EDT
Gay Derangement Syndrome Watch, Supersize WorldNetDaily Edition
Topic: WorldNetDaily
-- Christopher Monckton, March 29 WorldNetDaily column
-- Erik Rush, April 1 WND column
-- Joseph Farah, April 1 WND column
-- Alan Keyes, April 2 WND column
-- Ilana Mercer, April 2 WND column
-- Star Parker, April 3 WND column
Posted by Terry K.
at 9:37 AM EDT
Friday, April 3, 2015
CNS Readers Call DC Delegate A 'Whore' For Being Pro-Choice
Topic: CNSNews.com As we've observed, it seems that CNSNews.com publishes articles on certain subjects for the express purpose of letting its readers vent their anger and hatred. So it appears in an April 2 CNS article by Lauretta Brown featuring a statement by District of Columbia congressional delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton that "Nothing is more under attack than reproductive choice in America today.Among the comments on the article are these:
As of this writing, the comments have remained posted for 19 hours, which means that either CNS' comment-monitoring is lax or nonexistent or that CNS considers such a vile, degrading insult to be acceptable discourse in its comment threads. Perhaps someone at CNS would like to explain.
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:08 PM EDT
Even WND's Corsi Won't Question Cruz's Eligibility To Be President
Topic: WorldNetDaily WorldNetDaily is so averse to applying to Ted Cruz the same presidential "eligibility" standards it imposed on Barack Obama, even WND's chief birther won't touch the issue. Corsi -- who promoted the issue so much at WND that he wormed his way onto Sheriff Joe Arpaio's incompetent "cold case posse" investigating Obama's eligibility, thus ensuring its investigation would be biased and the outcome predetermined -- has been utterly silent on the issue so far. He has said nothing about Cruz's eligibilty on his Twitter account (which he has blocked ConWebWatch from following, though there are plenty of ways around that) since Cruz announced his president run on March 23. Corsi wrote about Cruz in a March 31 WND article -- but it had nothing to do with eligibility. The apparently more pressing issue was the links Cruz's wife has to the Council on Foreign Relations, a "globalist" group hated by right-wingers like Corsi. Much of Corsi's article was dedicated to letting a Cruz spokesman spin away the link, stating that Heidi Cruz was merely a "term member" who worked on a single CFR report and that her contribution to it was "narrowly focused on economic issues." Corsi also quotes the spokesman saying that Cruz has called CFR “a pernicious nest of snakes” that is “working to undermine our sovereignty.” Corsi also self-servingly refers to the "2007 bestselling book “The Late Great USA: The Coming Merger with Mexico and Canada,” while not mentioning that he wrote that book or explaining on what universe that book was "bestselling." It seems WND has declared a total blackout on reporting on the question of Cruz's eligibility -- and WND's chief birther is playing along.
Posted by Terry K.
at 11:39 AM EDT
Thursday, April 2, 2015
NewsBusters Promotes Harry Reid Conspiracy Theory
Topic: NewsBusters We've noted NewsBusters' step toward WorldNetDaily territory by freaking out over yoga. Now it's picking up WND's penchant for conspiracy theories. In a March 30 post, P.J. Gladnick suggests there's more to Harry Reid's injury than has been reported, and that the media is somehow covering it up:
Gladnick avoids mentioning the gist of Hinderaker's conspiracy theory -- that Reid was beaten up by mobsters -- but he wants an "MSM reporter" to delve into it. Of course, Gladnick and Hinderaker ignore the fact that there's absolutely no evidence to back up the conspiracy theory, as Bloomberg's David Weigel details, quoting the top political reporter in Nevada who would presumably know a thing or two about Reid:
In other words, Gladnick is engaging in what could be called Harry Reid Derangement Syndrome.
Posted by Terry K.
at 8:27 PM EDT
NEW ARTICLE: Jesse Lee Peterson's Obama Derangement
Topic: WorldNetDaily As with many WND columnists, Peterson has acquired the disease of spouting bizarre and hateful things about the president. Read more >>
Posted by Terry K.
at 6:30 PM EDT
Wednesday, April 1, 2015
AIM's Kincaid Can't Take Criticism
Topic: Accuracy in Media Remember last week, when Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid declared the Huffington Post to be a "gay porn outlet" by cherry-picking a few erotically themed items? Well,Kincaid doesn't like the criticism he's been getting about it. Kincaid used a March 31 AIM article to lash back and downplay what he actually did:
Actually, Kincaid should be taking that fact that even his fellow conservatives criticized him as a sign he went too far. As the Daily Caller pointed out, the articles Kincaid cited to declare HuffPo to be a "gay porn outlet" weren't terribly gay or porn-y, and they didn't include nudity, which one might consider a prerequisite to be called pornography. And while the "Male Full-Frontal Nudity Supercut" does include the promised nudity, male frontal nudity by itself does not constitute pornography, and all of the clips are from major-studio or independent releases, not "gay porn" -- and very few, if any, of the clips involve sexual situations or positions. Also, Kincaid's claim that the video was "exactly as I described it—a form of gay porn" is dishonest in another way: He simply quoted anti-gay activist Peter LaBarbera freaking out about it. So it's not that the Daily Caller is "reluctant to expose the shameless promotion of homosexuality in the media" -- it's accurately pointing out that the content Kincaid cited isn't particularly gay. By engaging in such kneejerk, dishonest gay-bashing, Kincaid simply makes himself look like an idiot -- and discredits his employer. P.S. We pointed out some of this in a comment on Kincaid's article, but the comment was later deleted and we were banned from posting there. Apparently, AIM really doesn't want accuracy in media after all -- and is as intolerant of criticism as Kincaid is.
Posted by Terry K.
at 10:35 PM EDT
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