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Wednesday, February 22, 2017
WND Publishes Another Piece of Fake News
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily's oddly defensive war over "fake news" is continuing -- the latest is a Feb. 19 article by Chelsea Schilling attacking fact-checking organizations for either calling out WND or failing to be a right-wing group.

One name not on WND's list: ConWebWatch. That's because we back up our work ... and Joseph Farah and Co. know that we can cite chapter and verse of the fake news WND has published.

And -- oh, hey, look, another chapter!

On Feb. 13, WND copied-and-pasted an article from the right-wing Gatestone Institute (which pushes the idea of "civilization jihad" embraced by Muslim-hating WND reporter Leo Hohmann) claiming that "German authorities are investigating reports that dozens of Arab men sexually assaulted female patrons at bars and restaurants in downtown Frankfurt on New Year’s Eve 2016" in which "mobs of migrants harassed women in a 'rape game.'"

Just one problem: It didn't happen.

The Washington Post reports that German police found that the allegations were fabricated and possibly driven by anti-immigrant sentiment, and those making the allegations may now face charges.

This story was debunked pretty quickly -- a solid week ago -- yet WND's article remains live and uncorrected as of this writing, and we could find no separate WND article admitting the accusations were bogus. Even the Gatestone Institute article that WND copied-and-pasted has been completely scrubbed of any reference to the alleged incident and is now a lengthy screed about "Germany's Migrant Rape Crisis."

Again, WND's completely discredited article is still live and uncorrected. In case WND does exhibit a trace of journalistic integrity, here's a copy of it:

UPDATE: WND columnist Caleb Stephen picked up on the bogus story as well in his Feb. 15 column, asserting that "On New Year’s Eve last year, dozens of Muslim men sexually assaulted female patrons at bars and restaurants in downtown Frankfurt, Germany. His column also remains uncorrected.

 


Posted by Terry K. at 12:11 AM EST
Updated: Wednesday, February 22, 2017 8:49 AM EST
Tuesday, February 21, 2017
Newsmax's Ruddy Chillin' With Trump -- And Michael Savage
Topic: Newsmax

Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy has long been a buddy of Donald Trump -- close enough to the president that they hang out together at Mar-a-Lago. Over the weekend, we got treated to how thte lovefest is continuing, courtesy of right-wing radio host Michael Savage:

Ruddy's on the left; Savage is second from right.

Savage is the paranoid conspiracy theorist who laughably claimed, among many other things, that President Obama was engaging in "genocide" against white people.

If Ruddy is trying to create more credibility for his website, being pictured with Savage is not the way to do it. Nor is spending so much time hanging with Trump at Mar-a-Lago.


Posted by Terry K. at 7:49 PM EST
WND Can't Quite Quit Milo Yiannopoulos
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos has been a favorite at WorldNetDaily for his ability to piss off liberals. In July, for instance, then-WND writer Jerome Corsi devoted a lengthy article to Yiannopoulos in the wake of his permanant ban from Twitter, dutifully transcribing his thoughts on the election, "his antipathy for Clinton, the reasons he supports Trump and his vision for the future as Millennials emerge to reshape politics over the next few decades."

Corsi gave Yiannopoulos ample space to promote himself, declaring that "Milo made clear to WND he had given considerable thought to constructing his political persona," claiming that he "preferred to emulate what he understood was Madonna’s approach to her career" -- "Madonna is not the best at anything, but she is above average with everything" -- rather than "the star who is the best at what they do, better than anybody else on the planet. And they tend to be very damaged people, like Amy Winehouse, or whatever. They crash and burn very early. They have transcendent gifts, but with their genius goes the madness." Corsi added that "Milo made clear he is preparing for a long and successful career."

Well, not so much. After video surfaced of Yiannopoulos defending pedophilia -- causing the revoking of invitation to speak at conservative confab CPAC and the cancellation of his book deal -- he's looking more and more like a damaged person who has crashed and burned.

WND, however, tried to soft-pedal this news as much as possible. A Feb. 20 article by Cheryl Chumley on the Yiannopoulos video -- apparently back at WND as a freelancer -- was headlined "Media paint Milo as defender of pedophilia" (which got demoted to the subhead after her story was updated to reflect events). But the Yiannopoulos story was not driven by "the media" -- the video was first touted on the Twitter account called the Reagan Batallion in reaction to his CPAC invite, not "the media" outside the conservative bubble. Even Chumley herself doesn't blame "the media" in her article -- the only non-conservative media figure she cites is CNN's Jake Tapper --  instead citing a "social-media backlash" against Yiannopoulos.

But Chumley did couch her words, claiming the video showed Yiannopoulos "supposedly defending pedophilia" and reprinted his "full Facebook rebuttal to all the fury." She also embedded the "videos critics say show Milo Yiannopoulos 'defending pedophilia'" (note the scare quotes around "defending pedophilia," like WND insists on putting around "gay").

WND would not have treated as well a liberal accused of the same offense.


Posted by Terry K. at 3:47 PM EST
CNS Revels In Trump's Anti-Media Tirades
Topic: CNSNews.com

President Trump's Feb. 16 press conference lasted for more than an hour, but all CNSNews.com was interested in reportoing on was Trump's incessant bashing of the media for not being fawning enough of him.

The first two articles CNS published after the presser touted Trump's media bashing:

The next morning, chief Trump stenographer Susan Jones promoted Trump's after-presser tweets, in which he bashed the media some more:
"Trump, Blasted for Rollicking News Conference, Tweets on Friday, 'Fake Media Not Happy'."

The CNS writer who most fully reveled in Trump's media hate, though, is blogger Craig Bannister. One blog post highlighted Trump's attack on CNN in which he told reporter Jim Acosta to "ask Jeff Zucker [head of CNN] how he got his job." "Was this a message meant for Acosta only, or was Trump throwing it out there, hoping someone would pick up on it and investigate?" Bannister asked, suggesting that "There’s something shady in the circumstances of Zucker’s hiring."

Another Bannister post celebrated how "Trump accused the media of publishing 'fake news' 17 times – about once every four minutes. But, he also blamed the media’s fake news on their 'hatred' of him on eight different occasions." The headline hammered Bannister's approval home: "Trump: 'Hatred,' 'Hatred,' 'Hatred,' “Hatred,' 'Hatred,' 'Hatred,' 'Hatred,' 'Hatred'."

When Trump further attacked the media the next day, Bannister screamed it in all caps: "Trump: NYT, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN Are 'ENEMY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE!'" Bannister went on to assert that the news outlets Trump bashed are "purveyors of fake," apparently forgetting CNS' own shameful history of purveying fake news.


Posted by Terry K. at 12:52 AM EST
Updated: Tuesday, February 21, 2017 12:53 AM EST
Monday, February 20, 2017
NEW ARTICLE: WND's Bashful Birthers, Part 1
Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily had to spend months downplaying its anti-Obama birther agenda -- the organization's signature issue of the past eight years -- in order to avoid hurting Donald Trump's election chances. Read more >>

Posted by Terry K. at 10:13 PM EST
Obama Derangement Syndrome Lives On At the MRC
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center loves to fret whenever people in "the media" say mean things about Melania Trump. But even though the Obama presidency is over, Obama derangement hasn't subsided at the MRC -- and that includes continuing to spew hatred at Michelle Obama.

Thus, we have the spectacle of MRC Culture managing editor Matt Philbin demonstrating that Obama Derangement Syndrome dies hard in a Feb. 9 post:

Just when you thought you’d escaped the world’s most overexposed and sycophantically fawned-over woman, here she comes again. All will love her sculpted arms, and despair.

Yes, Michelle Obama, former fat-shamer in chief, she of the wasted vegetables and inedible school lunches, just won’t leave kids alone. She’s going to be on Masterchef, Jr.  hosted by culinary psychopath Gordon Ramsay and joined by the likes of Martha Stewart.

You gotta feel for the kids. If Masterchef Jr. is anything like other kid cooking competition shows, they’re already disturbingly maladjusted. Ramsey screams at people for a living, Martha Stewart ran a commercial empire like Vlad Putin runs a country, and Michelle O. has made food disapproval chic.

But the real victims here are the American people. After eight years of being told ad nauseam how much we should love Michelle “For the first time in my adult life, I’m proud of my country” Obama, we’ve earned a rest.

Sure, it may be downright mean of us, but this is the woman who determined the federal government needs to be involved in grammar school menu-planning. She made a rap album to nag fat kids. There’s a movie about her first date with Barack. And when’s the last time you checked out at the supermarket without her watching you from the magazine rack? (“You sure you want to buy that frozen pizza, Porky?”) She has been, as the kids say, way up in our grill for far too long.

But, just like Michelle, our betters in the media know what’s good for us. We’re going to get a steady diet of sighing, swooning stories and smug, perky appearances until we another Democrat FLOTUS comes along for all to worship. 

Until then, we presume Philbin is demanding that we worship Melania.

This is what passes for "media criticism" at the MRC these days.


Posted by Terry K. at 12:33 PM EST
Larry Klayman's CNN Fail
Topic: WorldNetDaily

The bulk of Larry Klayman's Feb. 17 WorldNetDaily column is his letter to the Federal Communications Commission demanding that it "fine, discipline and revoke any and all licenses from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for CNN, or any other legal and appropriate remedial action."

In his letter -- which he claims he is writing on behalf of "the Leftist Media Strike Force project of Freedom Watch" -- Klayman rants that "CNN has become part of an attempted coup d’etat" by airing criticism of President Trump thiat purpotedly will result in Trump's assassination:

Like crying “fire” in a crowded theater and as genuine incitement to imminent violence, CNN’s incitement for some unhinged activist or activists to save the country and the world by killing an elected official portrayed as worse than Hitler had and has the real potential to convince radicalized activists to kill the President-Elect and now President Trump. CNN in particular has spent months demonizing Donald Trump, that is convincing its audience that President Trump is an evil and dangerous man who is a threat to the country. He thus should be assassinated, along with his Vice President and the Republican Speaker of the House, who is second in the line of succession.

Thus, the result of this campaign of incitement for months has produced hysterical, inflamed citizens who are primed and sensitized to play a perceived heroic role by assassinating the President.

Klayman provides no actual examples of CNN's purported incitement. Nor does he square his accusations with his own demonization of President Obama over the past eight years as "an evil and dangerous man who is a threat to the country" which, presumably, carried the same potential incitement of coup and assassination he now ascribes to CNN.

However, as proof of what a terrible lawyer he is, Klayman has overlooked one critical thing: the FCC has effectively no enforcement power over the content of CNN or any other cable channel. FCC regulations regarding cable TV are basically limited to mandating fairness in providing use of cable programming facilities for political candidates and disclosure of paid programming -- none of which apply to CNN.

The FCC has more power to control the content on over-the-air radio and TV, though much less than it used to because conservatives like Klayman fought to overturn the Fairness Doctrine. 

Since CNN operates on cable TV only -- which runs on privately owned systems and not on the public airwaves -- it does not require an FCC license to operate and the FCC cannot regulate its programming.

In short: Klayman is demanding that the FCC do something it cannot possibly do, which exposes what he's actually trying to do: get the dgovernment to censor a media outlet for saying something he doesn't like.

You're not going to see Klayman petition the FCC, or whatever federal agency he imagines to supervise such things, to demand that his publisher, WND, be punished for all the potentially assassination-inspiring anti-Obama hate -- worse than Hitler? Check. Evil and dangerous man? Check -- it has published over the years.


Posted by Terry K. at 1:12 AM EST
Sunday, February 19, 2017
Creeping WND-ization of The MRC Watch, CNS Edition
Topic: CNSNews.com

Twice in December, we caught CNSNews.com apparently stealing story ideas from WorldNetDaily. The creeping WND-ization of CNS and its Media Research Center parent is continuing apace.

In a Feb. 8 article, Leo Hohmann wrote about how "A recently retired U.S. State Department veteran has published a whistleblower letter in the Chicago Tribune fingering the refugee resettlement program as fraught with 'fraud' and “abuses.'" Hohmann made no apparent effort to verify that the letter writer, Mary Doetsch, was who she said she was or that anything she wrote was true; instead, he crows that Doetsch's letter "affirms two-and-a-half years of reporting by WND, which has reported that the 'vetting' of refugees from broken countries such as Somalia, Syria and Sudan often consists largely of a personal interview with the refugee."

The next day, CNS' Andrew Eicher wrote about the same letter. Like Hohmann, Eicher also apparently failed to make an effort to verify Doetsch's identity or claims.

Of course, the possibility exists that CNS stole its idea from Fox News, where Doetsch's letter was reported on the same day Eicher's article came out.

Still, CNS is getting beat to the punch by WND. We don't mean that as a complement.


Posted by Terry K. at 9:16 PM EST
WND's Hohmann Still Upset That Media Don't Presume All Muslims To Be Terrorists
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Muslim-hater Leo Hohmann used a Feb. 7 WorldNetDaily article to not only endorse President Trump's bogus claim that the media underreports incidents of terrorism, he spins it to better fit his Islmaophobic presumption that a person with a Muslim name who commits a crime should be presumed a terrorist before any police investigation of the crime has taken place:

But as many terrorism experts told WND, it’s not the amount of coverage given to a specific event that counts but rather the type of coverage.

A classic example of that can be found by comparing and contrasting the coverage that two news agencies – WND and the BBC – gave to a brutal machete attack at the Nazareth Mediterranean Restaurant one year ago in February 2016 that left four patrons wounded, one critically.

In the BBC story, there is no mention of the words Islam, jihad, Muslim, refugee or immigrant. Every one of those words applied to the attacker, Mohamed Barry, who was a Muslim immigrant from the West African country of Guinea, as pointed out in the WND story.

“Trump is absolutely correct. The point is not that they ignore the stories, but they deliberately conceal and/or misrepresent the aspects of them that make it clear that they’re Islamic jihad attacks,” said Robert Spencer, editor of Jihad Watch.

First, we would point out that Spencer is not a "terrorism expert" -- like most of the "terrorism experts" Hohmann and WND love to quote, they're actually anti-Muslim activists.

In fact, Islamic extremism has not been officially established as a motive in Barry's attack. While Barry had been on a watchlist for expressing extreme views, officials didn't use the words "terrorism" or "terrorist" following the attack.

Hohmann adds:

One notorious example of this is the Orlando massacre, Spencer said.

“Mainstream news outlets claimed that he was a conflicted gay man lashing out at other gays,” he said. “This was outright disinformation: The FBI later announced that there was no evidence that he was gay, no gay apps on his phone, etc. Few outlets published his actual remarks, making it clear that he was killing for ISIS and Islam. The coverage of terrorist incidents in general in the establishment media deliberately misleads the public.”

Spencer is spreading disinformation of his own when he calls media reports raising questions about Orlando shooter Omar Mateen's sexuality "disinformation." The media simply reported what people were talking about.  While investigators did say shortly after the shooting they found no substantiation that Mateen was secretly gay, the investigation was continuing, and even Mateen's ex-wife raised questions about his sexuality.

Hohmann went on to quote is WND buddy in Muslim-hating, Philip Haney, issuing a strange attack on the BBC's credibility:

“Let’s say that in terms of scope of coverage the BBC is actually correct that they were ahead of the others,” Haney told WND. “Even with the broader scope of coverage the BBC, as deficient as it is, it’s still better than the American journalistic coverage. During my time on the inside with DHS, it seemed like the Daily Mail, another British news outlet, would always come out with information within minutes if not hours, well ahead of American media, so why do we have to look into foreign media sources to find pieces of the story that you won’t find here?”

That would be the same Daily Mail that Wikipedia just banned from citations for being too unreliable. But then, facts aren't WND's main concern when reporting on Muslims; spreading hatred of them is.

Hohmann concluded his article with the Trump White House's list of terrorist attacks it falsely claimed were underreported; weirdly, Hohmann has edited the list to remove the targets and names of attackers that were on the original list. Hohmann provided no explanation for the omissions.


Posted by Terry K. at 4:56 PM EST
Updated: Sunday, February 19, 2017 4:59 PM EST
Saturday, February 18, 2017
MRC Writer Forgets His Employer Is No Better Than The 'Mainstream Media' He Bashes
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center's Curtis Houck writes in a Feb. 8 post:

In another hilarious case of irony, The 11th Hour host and serial liar Brian Williams teed up guest Charlie Sykes on Tuesday to lambaste conservative media (like the one you’re reading) for being why no one trusts mainstream media in the age of Trump and alternative facts.

Sykes and Williams offered no arguments or examples of how the establishment media have torpedoed their own credibility with false stories and a decidedly liberal slant. Instead, it was an exclusive attack on conservatives for supposedly enabling President Trump to offer misstatements without consequences.

[...]

Sykes cited “the Breitbarts of the world, the Drudges of the world, the Rush Limbaugh of the world” because each would give Trump “air cover” whenever he’s criticized for controversial statements or lies.

Overall, the former conservative host stated that his “concern is not just that's [Trump’s] lying” but “[i]t's an attack on the concept of the truth itself — of credibility and my main concern is that you'll have millions of voters at some point who will basically say, ‘what is truth?’”

Houck doesn't disclose that he's the employee of an organization whose entire mission it is to foment distrust of the "mainstream media" -- something for which it spends millions of dollars a year doing -- or that the MRC helped lead the right-wing attack on the concept of the truth itself by attacking any fact-checker who pointed out Trump's voluminous lies.

Instead, Houck insists that conservatives are just "simply pointing out the faults of the mainstream media" -- again ignoring the massive money machine behind him. And why isn't Houck concerned about Trump's lies? Is it because he's getting paid not to be?

Rather than take Sykes seriously as a former conservative who's grown disenchanted with how the conservative movement abandoned its principles to follow Trump, Houck sneers that he has "joined an echo-chamber in which Manhattan elites sit around reading The New York Times and The New Yorker while watching The Daily Show." As if dismissing all critics of conservatives as part of an East Coast liberal elite isn't echo-chamber thinking.

Houck went into full double-standard mode, complaining that "The media has done plenty to undermine their cause. Aside from their boy who cried wolf fears about past Republican candidates, their false stories, slanted analyses, and failed predictions stand out." He doesn't admit that the right-wing media does the exact same thing. And he has to go back decades to find examples of bad mainstream-media behavior:

Whether it’s ABC deceptively editing Ari Fleischer, 20/20 skewering Food Lion, Dateline: NBC rigging a pick-up truck with explosives, or spreading hysteria that the Russians hacked a Vermont power grid, the voluminous examples span over decades. 

Houck forgets that we can play that same game with his employer, who has engaged in deceptive editing and creation and promotion of fake news. There's also the undeniable fact that his boss, Brent Bozell, spent well over a decade issuing a syndicated column under his name that was, in fact, written by his underling Tim Graham.

In short, the MRC is no better behaved than the "liberal media" it has a multimillion-dollar budget to attack. It would do well to follow the same standard it imposes on others.

And Houck would do well to understand that he -- and the MRC -- would have more credibility if they based their media criticisms in journalism rather than politics. 


Posted by Terry K. at 9:59 AM EST
WND Author Denounces People Not Employed By WND Calling The President A Nazi
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily admits it in a Feb. 6 article: According to author Scott Greer, likening the president to a Nazi is a way for critics to "dehumanize their ideological opponents, adding: "If you say that they’re Nazis, you don’t just say, 'I disagree with their point of view,' you turn them into these menacing dangers, these total monsters that don’t deserve free speech; they don’t deserve the rights to protection from the law. ... You can punch them, you need to assault them, you need to riot when they speak."

Greer went on to say that merely saying you don't a person's ideology is "boring." Using dehumanizing labels, however, "spices it up; it’s like, ‘This person is a Nazi.’ It’s almost kind of a marketing tactic to say this person has a horrific ideology rather than just saying, ‘Oh well, he’s a conservative who just believes in immigration restriction.’ Yawn. They’re not going to pay attention to that. They just have to put it in these more hysterical terms.”

Greer adds of critics who hurl the Nazi smear: "They use this argument, and there’s a lot of moral legitimacy – they get moral legitimacy by just claiming he’s threatening their physical security, and, unfortunately, this is how they’re going to justify riots and further violence."

Is Greer talking about WND's history of slandering President Obama throughout his presidency by portraying him as a Nazi? Of course not; alas, his outrage is reserved only for those who hurl it at President Trump.

Greer is a WND-published writer, after all -- he won't bite the hand the feeds, and he's got a book to plug. It's called "No Campus for White Men."

With a title like that, you'd expect Greer -- an editor at the right-wing Daily Caller -- to be a tad sensitive about discussions of white nationalism, and you'd be right. He's upset that "they claim" Trump aides Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller, senior White House adviser for policy, "are closely associated with white nationalists."

Greer doesn't deny the charge; he merely complains that throwing the label around is "menacing" to conservatives. Instead, Greer complains that the admissions process for colleges "is often filled with affirmative action for non-whites."

Greer also defends "conservative provocateur" Milo Yiannopoulos, who "felt the sting of left-wing hysteria" from protests at University of California-Berkeley. The article states that Greer "pointed out it becomes easier for the left to justify the suppression of speech when they vilify and dehumanize those with whom they disagree.

Curiously, the article didn't mention that Yiannopoulos wrote the foreword to Greer's book.

Wasn't WND trying to get away from all the white-nationalist stuff it dabbled in a while back, with its jettisoning of writers like Colin Flaherty and Ilana Mercer? Its publication and promotion of Greer's book seems to suggest otherwise.


Posted by Terry K. at 1:19 AM EST
Friday, February 17, 2017
CNS Blogger Inaccurately Lashes Out at Planned Parenthood
Topic: Media Research Center

Craig Bannister devoted a Feb. 13 CNSNews.com blog post to bashing singer Katy Perry for wearing a Planned Parenthood lapel pin during her appearance at the Grammy Awards. In his brief three-paragraph post, Bannister somehow managed to call Planned Parenthood an "abortion provider" twice and an "abortion mill" once.

In fact, a relatively small percentage of Planned Parenthood's services involve abortion -- somewhere between 12 and 37 percent, depending on how the numbers are being counted.

Bannister is not just being misleading, he's pushing an inaccurate right-wing agenda by labeling Planned Parenthood as only as an abortion provider -- and, pejoratively, as an "abortion mill."


Posted by Terry K. at 2:01 PM EST
MRC Intern Complains Trump Not Getting Credit For Improving Economy Though His 'Rhetoric'
Topic: Media Research Center

Media Research Center intern James Powers complains in a Feb. 8 post:

CNN Money tried to have it both ways on “Trumponomics,” blaming bad currency news on the new president the same day it refused to credit him for any positive impact on the jobs report.

On Feb. 3, CNN Money blamed President Donald Trump’s rhetoric for a weaker dollar, but ignored the possibility his rhetoric positively impacted jobs in January. Maybe, that’s why Trump and others have dubbed CNN “fake news.” Both stories were labeled “Trumponomics.”

Staff writer Matt Egan argued that Trump’s talk was causing the dollar’s recent downturn. However, CNN reporter Matt Gillespie’s story about the January jobs report ignored that Trump’s rhetoric on job creation, lower taxes, and stimulus could have helped boost the better than expected job numbers.

Gillespie said that the U.S. added 227,000 jobs which was well above expectations of 157,000. On Feb. 3, American Enterprise Institute’s Director of Research for Domestic Policy Kevin Hassett appeared on CNBC’s Squawk Box and touted Trump’s effect on the jobs numbers.

“We got a friendly business climate. People want to come back and start operating their businesses here, and you're starting to see that in the data,” Hassett said.

But Gillespie’s article excluded the theory that Trump’s economic rhetoric had helped job creation. That perspective was nowhere in his article. 

Actually, it seems Powers is the one trying to have it both ways. CNN Money's Egan gave concrete examples of how Trump's rhetoric is driving down the dollar's value and that devaluing the dollar is a key part of Trump's economic policy:

So what's going on? One factor is that Trump and his team have talked the U.S. dollar down. Clearly, they realize a super-strong greenback makes it harder to deliver on promises to boost American exports and create manufacturing jobs. The Trump team has been accusing several countries of manipulating their currencies.

For instance, the U.S. dollar tumbled on Tuesday after a Trump adviser accused Germany of using a "grossly undervalued" euro to hurt the American economy.

Germany "continues to exploit other countries in the EU as well as the U.S. with an 'implicit Deutsche Mark' that is grossly undervalued," Peter Navarro, who heads Trump's National Trade Council, told the Financial Times.

Trump himself weighed in on the same day. During a meeting with pharma CEOs, Trump said other countries' strategy of devaluing their currencies have caused drug companies to ship jobs overseas.
And just before taking office, Trump told The Wall Street Journal that U.S. companies can't compete with China because "our currency is too strong."

"It's killing us," Trump said.

By contrast, Powers cited only generalities and a conservative-leaning think tank that has a vested interest in making Trump look good to back up his claim that Trump's rhetoric helped job numbers. He cited no actual example of any business owner choosing to hire anyone specifically because Trump was elected.

Further, it seems Powers is so biased that he will not give former President Obama any credit at all for the positive employment numbers even though he was president through two-thirds of January (and the previous eight years).  He mentions Obama nowhere in his post.

Powers also complains that CNN's story on the weaker dollar "employed a picture of Trump with a negative red background and downsloping arrows." Given that the story substantiated its claim that Trump wants a weaker dollar, that seems appropriate.


Posted by Terry K. at 11:42 AM EST
WND's Jihad: Trump Critics Must Be Destroyed!
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily loves to rant about the various forms of jihad by Muslims against the U.S. -- for instance, WND reporter Leo Hohmann has invented the term "resettlement jihad" to attack Muslim refugees -- which means that WND is projecting. It clearly admires the destruction of enemies that it imagines "jihad" to be, because it's now wishing bad things to happen to anyone who dares to criticize Donald Trump.

In his Feb. 8 column, WND editor Joseph Farah wants to destroy the career of any federal employee who criticizes Trump, thus placing loyalty to a politician over the good of the country:

I’m so glad that Rex Tillerson is on the job as the new secretary of state because there are 900 officials in his department who are asking to be fired.

Those would be the 900 who signed an internal dissent memo protesting President Trump’s travel moratorium on seven countries characterized by two things – terrorism and lawlessness.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer saw it just like I did, saying, they need to “get with the program or they can go.”

But maybe they need a little push.

[...]

Let the enemies within identify themselves so they can be removed from power and influence.

And let’s get the new team in place so we can give Trump’s ideas a chance to be tested.

Go nuclear on confirmations.

Make every appointment count.

Hire only the most loyal foot soldiers[.]

And don’t worry about breaking a few eggs along the way.

A good place to start the housecleaning is with the State Department’s 900 self-identified dissenters.

The same day, WND columnist Erik Rush devoted his column to ranting againsdt his definition of "progressives," finally huffing that "progressives must be ruthlessly crushed, regardless of party affiliation."

The next day, Farah advanced another idea for trying to ruin a Trump critic's life. Citing Trump's "willingness to take the fight to the opposition," he argued that Trump should revoke George Soros' U.S. citizenship, claiming without evidence that Soros' dual citizenship is "fraudulent" and adding: "If the new credo is going to be America First, we should really consider kicking this guy right out of the country. It should be as high a priority as keeping terrorists out."

In a Feb. 10 "news" article, Bob Unruh approvingly quoted right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh saying of the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals judges who rejected the Trump administration's immigration ban: "You know, I long for the days of Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln; just arrest the judges and put them in jail when they violate your constitutional authority."

Gina Loudon, in her Feb. 12 WND column, made the case that, as the headline screamed, "NORDSTROM MUST PAY" for making the business decision to drop Ivanka Trump's clothing line:

The large majority of productive, hard-working Americans are conservative. These are the people who have money to spend at places like Nordstrom. Money is power, and conservatives must wield that power wisely.

Make these companies earn your money by either staying out of politics, or, even better, making pro-American business decisions.

[...]

Every patriotic American should use their pocketbooks to counter the attacks of the left. Send a message to the left that their attempts to hurt candidates and their families will not work and will be punished.

Loudonseemed to endorse the idea ofnoblesse oblige regarding the Trumps, continuing her embarrassing Trump-fluffing:

Kings have always set the fashion.

In America, our presidents provide the closest approximation to the royal standard. Their wives have often created a fashion craze without even trying. Consider the Jackie Kennedy simple silver clutch, the Nancy Reagan pill box hat or Barbara Bush pearls. Now consider that the current president has a fashion model wife and a clothing designer daughter. Imagine how fashion will improve during this administration! In the Trumps, not only, do we have a new “royal” family, we have a first family who literally brought their own fashion line.

Come to think of it, using the power of the state to destroy one's political opponents (Loudon technically isn't endorsing that, but she's no doubt happy Trump is using his presidential bully pulpit to attack Nordstrom) is much worse than jihad -- and far worse than a Muslim refugee moving to the U.S.


Posted by Terry K. at 12:32 AM EST
Thursday, February 16, 2017
MRC Hypocritically Complains A Conservative Is Suggested To Be Drunk
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center's Nicholas Fondacaro huffed in a Feb. 9 post:

Things got very twisted on MSNBC’s The Last Word Monday night, as two giggly journalists smeared Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for invoking Rule 19 against his colleague from Massachusetts Elizabeth Warren. CBS's Nancy Giles described McConnell as on a power trip, “I mean, it's like I think they are drunk with power. It's not ‘like,’ they are. They’ve got the House and they’ve got the Senate.”

The Daily Beast’s Erin Gloria Ryan took it a step farther and joked that Senate Republicans really were drunk Tuesday night. “They're acting kind of drunk. This is a drunk thing to do,” she said excitedly playing off Giles.

Fondacaro might have a point if his MRC co-workers didn't also like portraying people they don't agree with as being drunk.

His boss, Tim Graham, did this last October to conservative John Ziegler for pointing out the inconvenient truth that the MRC "fundraises off of bad media coverage and wouldn’t exist if the problem ever really got solved." Graham repeatedly made "Breathalyzer" references, meaning that he thought Ziegler was drunk.

And on Feb. 14, P.J. Gladnick did it to conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks for saying of the current Trump White House chaos: "I don’t think we’re at a Bonhoeffer moment or a [St.] Benedict moment. I think we’re approaching a Ford moment." Gladnick sneered in response that "it seems that David Brooks has entered his Benedictine liqueur moment. Much too much of it," adding: "A 'Ford moment?' This makes me think Brooks is back in his Benedictine liqueur moment."

If the MRC didn't have double standards, would it have any standards at all?


Posted by Terry K. at 4:22 PM EST

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