CNS' Jones Declares Obamacare To Be 'Failing' Topic: CNSNews.com
Chief Trump stenographer at CNSNews.com Susan Jones is stenographying again -- and going beyond established facts as well.
In a March 14 article mostly devoted to lengthy block-quotes of President Trump opining on how great the Republican health insurance plan was, Jones adds: "Trump was meeting at the White House with people who have suffered under the failing Obamacare law."
Except, well, it's not, according to people who have actually researched it and not just planted an unsubstantiated opinion in a "news" article.
NBC, for example, reports that while there are issues with the Affordable Care Act, they're not serious in and of themselves to create the "death spiral" conservatives claim is happening. NPR adds that "The law has its problems — but it is far from 'exploding,' using any reasonable definition of the word."
And Vox points out that even the Congressional Budget Office does not see the ACA as failing, and that the recent wave of premium hikes and insurers dropping out of state markets will likely fix itself if Trump does nothing.
So, no, Obamacare is not "failing." Jones is just doing more stenography.
WND Tries to Cash In on Nunes' Notoriety Topic: WorldNetDaily
WND anonymously and lovingly writes in a March 27 article:
You’ve seen Rep. Devin Nunes all over the news lately.
The California Republican who chairs the House Intelligence Committee has been on camera revealing that members of the intelligence community “incidentally” collected communications from Trump’s transition team.
That would have been while Barack Obama still was in the Oval Office, and the disclosure left Democrats scrambling to reclaim their narrative that Trump had no evidence to back his claim that Obama “wiretapped” Trump Tower.
You’ve also seen Nunes, badgered by a combative establishment media, defending his decision to tell President Trump about the surveillance.
You’ve also seen him repeatedly explaining that he has not seen any evidence of communication between Russia and Trump’s transition team.
But who is Devin Nunes, and what does he believe? What are the principles for which he has been fighting in Congress since 2003? What type of future does he want for America?
The answer, as it just so happens, is in a book published by WND in 2010 -- a book Nunes wrote himself (or at least caused to be written), "Restoring the Republic," which WND is more than happy to sell you for "the reduced price of $12.99."
But that's not the only link WND has with Nunes: He was a scheduled speaker at the WND-hosted "Taking America Back" conference in 2010. (It's unclear whether he actually did show up.)
In other words: Nunes is very much in league with the WND mindset, which may explain some of his current behavior in trying to cover for the Trump administration in its alleged contacts with the Russians.
Sorry, MRC, Whoopi's Right: Fox News Did Promote Birtherism Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Brad Wilmouth complained in a March 29 post:
On Monday's The View on ABC, as the group discussed Ted Koppel's recent interview with Sean Hannity in which he accused the conservative FNC host of being bad for the country, liberal co-hosts Whoopi Goldberg, Sunny Hostin, and Joy Behar all wrongly accused Fox News of promoting birtherism conspiracy theories against President Barack Obama. Right-leaning co-host and former FNC contributor Jedediah Bila was alone in defending her former employer as she shared the stage with four liberals.
Ironically, a Nexis search reveals many examples of FNC anchors over the years disputing the conspiracy theories that Obama was born in Kenya, as they repeatedly made known their belief that he was born in Hawaii and that those who claimed otherwise were misguided. In fact, the news network's most high-profile host, Bill O'Reilly, debated Trump on the subject in March 2011, and on a number of other occasions derided birtherism, using such words as "nonsense," "nutty," "dopey," "bogus," and "patently absurd."
In fact, Whoopi's right. Media Matters counted 52 segments in which Fox News promoted birther claims, and in most of them, Fox News hosts either espoused birther conspiracies or failed to challenge or correct false claims about Obama's birth. Fox News was also Donald Trump's preferred outlet for spouting his WorldNetDaily-enhanced birther conspiracies.
And if we remember correctly, Fox News puts only transcripts from its prime-time shows into Nexis, not Fox & Friends or its other daytime shows, so Wilmouth's research was woefully incomplete.
Even by MRC standards, this is a shoddy "research" job.
The Matthew Shepard Revisionism Never Ends Topic: WorldNetDaily
When Stephen Jimenez's book "The Book of Matt" came out in 2013, wenotedhow right-wingers embraced its revisionist narrative of attacking Matthew Shepard as a drug dealer who may have had his murder coming to him, pushed an unsubstantiated claim that Shepard and one of his killers may have had sexual relations, ignored the fact that Jimenez is a friend of the defense attorney of Shepard's other killer, and buried the fact that police commander in Laramie, Wyo., at the time of Shepard's death called the book "full of lies" and "conspiracy theory BS" -- all things that make Jimenez's book less than credible.
But Shepard revisionism never ends, as we saw just last month. ANd now professional gay-basher Linda Harvey takes a crack at it in her March 21 WND column, using Jimenez's discreditedbook as evidence:
Journalist Stephen Jimenez, himself a homosexual, wrote “The Book of Matt” in 2013 after years of research, concluding that McKinney’s attack most likely arose from rage over an unsuccessful drug deal.
McKinney, Jimenez believes, planned to steal methamphetamine from Shepard, luring Shepard away from the bar that fateful night to force Shepard to hand over whatever quantity he possessed. McKinney craved another “high” but also needed the drug sales to pay off pressing debts.
“The Book of Matt” contends that both Shepard and McKinney were dealing drugs, probably working for Denver-based drug rings.
Also revealed in Jimenez’s interviews is the likelihood that McKinney and Shepard knew each other socially, possibly even sexually. Both were reportedly present in a limousine during a group sex encounter, according to Doc O’Connor, the driver.
[...]
“The Book of Matt” is dismissed by the left, but their criticism flags in the face of Jimenez’s painstaking research and courage to tell some inconvenient truths.
Shepard struggled with alcohol and drugs himself, but was reportedly also dealing. Friends reported he, too, was heavily in debt, and although an affectionately remembered friend, was hardly the meek homosexual student portrayed as the victim of redneck “homophobia.”
Shepard’s and McKinney’s drug involvement was left unexamined during the murder trials. But details on this and their sexual histories began to emerge through research for an ABC “20/20” documentary.
[...]
“The myth of Matthew Shepard has been destroyed, ironically by a homosexual reporter,” said Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth. “Tragically, Shepard himself reportedly sexually abused boys when he was a teenager. Of course, don’t expect the media and the ‘LGBTQ’ lobby, who used his death for political gain, to correct the record.”
Harvey then despicably attacks Shepard's parents for becooming activists in the wake of their son's murder:
What qualifies Matthew’s parents to present “hate-crimes” training and lectures to Kentucky law students? They also spoke to 500 public school students in Lexington, Kentucky, in 2015. Apparently, they coordinate with the U.S. Department of Justice on hate-crimes “training.”
Their time would be more logically spent uncovering child sex abusers and demanding prosecution for perpetrators along with stronger enforcement of drug laws.
Harvey even attacks the play inspired by Shepard's murder, "The Laramie Project," as "truth-challenged," even though absolute factual accuracy is a standard to which the vast majority of "inspired by a true story" works of art ever meet.
In short, haters are gonna hate. And Harvey is nothing if not a gay-hater.
NEW ARTICLE: CNS' Fossil-Fueled Bias, Part 2 Topic: CNSNews.com
The Media Research Center gets a lot of money from oil interests, so its "news" division CNSNews.com is appropriately eager (or perhaps contractually obligated) to parrot the industry's agenda. Read more >>
WND Uses Rockefeller's Death to Rehash 'New World Order' Conspiracies Topic: WorldNetDaily
When David Rockefeller died last week, WorldNetDaily was mostly interested in ... his connection to the New World Order and other secret-society conspiracy theories. An anonymously written March 20 WND article goes into loving detail:
Amid a resurgence of nationalism in the Western world, the man widely regarded as the father of globalism and the “New World Order” — and by some critics as “the ruler of the world” — has died.
[...]
Rockefeller was the only member of the advisory board of the mysterious annual gathering of global elites known as the Bilderberg group.
In 1947, he joined the board of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace along with Alger Hiss, John Foster Dulles and Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 1949, he became a director of the globalist policy think-tank Council on Foreign Relations. Later, he became head of the nominating committee for future membership in CFR before rising to the chairmanship. In 1964, he helped found the non-profit International Executive Service Corps to promote private enterprise in developing nations.
In 1965, Rockefeller helped form the Council of the Americas to promote economic integration in the Western Hemisphere.
Because Japan was barred from the Bilderberg meetings, Rockefeller helped found the Trilateral Commission in 1973.
In 1992, he proposed a “Western Hemisphere free trade area” that later became the Free Trade Area of the Americas.
In an interview in 2007 with Benjamin Fulford, Rockefeller was confronted with the widespread belief that his ultimate aim was to help form a world government.
“I don’t recall that I have said — and I don’t think that I really feel — that we need a world government,” Rockefeller said. “We need governments of the world that work together and collaborate. But, I can’t imagine that there would be any likelihood — or even that it would be desirable — to have a single government elected by the people of the world.”
He noted that some had accused him of being the “ruler of the world.”
“I have to say that I think for the large part, I would have to decide to describe them as crack pots,” he said. “It makes no sense whatsoever, and isn’t true, and won’t be true, and to raise it as a serious issue seems to me to be irresponsible.”
WND has longhad an obsession with these purportedly world-controlling secret societies -- it sells a book and video about them called "Brotherhood of Darkness" and a second video called "Hope of the Wicked" -- even though it's closely affiliated with another secretive group, the Council for National Policy.
AIM's Kincaid Puts His Trust In A 9/11 Truther Topic: Accuracy in Media
It makes sense that the far-right-fringe Cliff Kincaid would come to the defense of a fellow fringer (and 9/11 truther), "Judge" Andrew Napolitano, over his never-substantiated claim that former President Obama contracted with British intelligence to spy on Donald Trump's campaign.
As we note in our special report, “A Watergate-style Threat to the Democratic Process,” it is well-known that the British NSA, known as GCHQ or Government Communications Headquarters, collaborates with the NSA. In fact, a declassified document on the NSA’s own website confirms NSA/GCHQ “collaboration” dating back decades. Fox News senior judicial analyst and commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano said his sources confirm there was such an arrangement in the matter of the “wiretapping” of Trump and/or his associates.
Fox News immediately threw Napolitano under the bus. “Fox News cannot confirm Judge Napolitano’s commentary,” Fox News anchor Shepard Smith said on-air. “Fox News knows of no evidence of any kind that the now-President of the United States was surveilled at any time, any way.”
The phrase, “knows of no evidence,” does not suggest any independent investigation of his information.
Kincaid cites as backup for Napolitano's claim "former CIA operative Larry Johnson," who's best known for teasing a nonexistent Michelle Obama "whitey tape."
In his March 25 column -- following Napolitano's suspension from Fox News over the unproven claim -- Kincaid dismisses the Trump dossier of alleged bad behavior (not proven but also not disproven) as having been "concocted by a former British intelligence agent," which somehow proves Napolitano right. Kincaid then laughably portrays Napolitano as "the modern-day John Peter Zenger," asserts that his never-substantiated claims "looks increasingly relevant every day that passes" and that the whole situation "has been a major black mark for Fox News."
Kincaid also insists that "the Newseum should consider embracing the cause of freeing Judge Napolitano," even though Napolitano is already presumably free to leave Fox News at any time and go elsewhere to ply his substasnce-free conspiratorial wares.
WND Cheers Reversal of Obama-Era Guidelines -- But Doesn't Say What They Did Topic: WorldNetDaily
Bob Unruh was iin full-dudgeon mode in a March 15 WND article:
Under the cover of the 2016 presidential election noise, Barack Obama’s administration tried to sneak in additional rules on teacher education that the American Council on Education called “costly, complex and burdensome.”
The American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education had recommended they not be adopted, because there was no evidence they worked, it was an overreach for the federal government and they essentially would “punish” those involved.
But the Obama education managers approved them anyway.
Now, the rules are on their way out.
William Estrada of the world’s premiere homeschooling organization, the Home School Legal Defense Association, explained that bipartisan majorities in both the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate have used the Congressional Review Act to reject “a massive Obama-era attempt to control how teachers are educated.”
President Trump already has indicated he will sign the repeal.
As per WND style, Unruh quotes only critics of the bill. There's one thing oddly missing from Unruh's article, though: a clear description of exactly what these regulations did, beyond a complaint frrom the HSLDA that Obama "created a de facto federal standard for teacher preparation" (though not explaining why that's apparently a bad thing).
The teacher preparation regulations proposed to rate teacher training programs based, in part, on how well students taught by the programs’ graduates performed on tests as well as other measures of effectiveness. Programs that didn’t perform well could lose eligibility for federal TEACH grants, which support would-be teachers who commit to specializing in high-need subjects or working in low-income neighborhoods.
WND and the HSLDA didn't supply a reason for opposing the standards beyond general opposition to federal regulations, especially from a Democratic administration.
That's the state of highly biased reporting at WND these days.
MRC Suggests Nunes Has Goods on Obama Spying on Trump ... Then Admits It Doesn't Topic: Media Research Center
Under the headline "Nets Demand Evidence 123 Times, Scold Nunes for Giving It," the Media Research Center's Mike Ciandella tried to live up to the headline in his March 23 post, but ... doesn't:
When President Trump made his claim that President Obama “wiretapped” Trump Tower during the presidential campaign, the media demanded evidence. Since Trump’s initial tweet on March 4, the evening news shows of ABC, CBS and NBC have called on the White House to provide more evidence a grand total of 123 times.
But when House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes briefed the President, and the press, revealing that Trump associates’ names hadn’t been redacted from intelligence reports, the networks changed their tone.
According to Nunes, the Trump associates hadn’t been the target of surveillance. However, their conversations were picked up in the process, and then their identities weren’t masked as is usually the protocol with American citizens.
Nunes’s revelation didn’t prove the President’s wiretapping claims, but it did change the network news’s tone on releasing evidence. Before Nunes, the evening news shows were full of examples of demands for evidence to be made public.
So even Ciandella admits Nunes did not offer evidence to support Trump's claim. But he's trying to change the subject -- and regurgitate the Trump White House's talking points -- by claiming it's really all about how the names of the Trump people who talked with monitored people leaked out.
Ciandella also glosses over thereal reason for the change in tone on the story. He's trying to portray it as because Nunes is also trying to make it about leaked names (and, though also trying to align with the Trump agenda), but as Ciandella also sorta concedes, the networks are actually focusing on how Nunes is briefing Trump onclaimed findings in the Russian contact investigation before even the members of his own committee, which is highly unusual behavior.
Of course, if Trump and Nunes were Democrats, Ciandella and the rest of the MRC would be clamoring for those names and wailing about collusion.
WND's Brown Denies Mocking Transgenders, Then Calls Jenner 'A Man In A Dress' Topic: WorldNetDaily
Last month we caught WorldNetDaily columnist Michael Brown trying to pretend he's not really bashing transgenders. He does it again in his Feb. 27 column:
This being said, I do not minimize for a moment the very real struggle of precious little children who grapple deeply with their gender identity, nor do I deny that many children (and adults) report that their lives are more stable and fulfilled when they identify as the opposite of their biological sex.
I do not minimize the traumas through which Bruce Jenner (or others like him) has lived, nor do I claim to be able to relate to those traumas personally.
And I do not make a spiritual judgment about someone who struggles with his or her gender identity, as if this somehow made them into the vilest of sinners. Why should that be the case?
Again, my goal is not to belittle or disparage, and as loudly and clearly as I can, I proclaim God’s love for all of you who identify as transgender, reminding each one that Jesus died for you just as He died for me and that God has a good and godly purpose for each of your lives.
You are not defective any more than I am defective, and every human being on the planet is broken in some way and in need of a Great Physician.
The headline of this column? "Caitlyn Jenner is just a man in a dress." And the very first line of this column (italics his): "I do not write these words lightly, and there is not an ounce of mockery or, God forbid, hatred in my heart when I say that Caitlyn Jenner is a man wearing a dress."
Brown is in serious denial that there's a profound disconnect between the cocmpassion he claims to feel for transgenders and his snide dismissal of them by insisting they're nothing more than a man in a dress.
Brown's column also embeds his "new video commentary, including some telling clips with Jenner." He again dismisses Jenner as "a man in a dress taking hormones," then cheers that President Trump "rescinded a ridiculous order, guidelines from the federal government" that Title IX also covers gender identity, which he claims meant would allow "a 17-year-old boy who identifies as a girl to play on the girls' sports team and to share the girls' locker rooms and shower stall and bathrooms." That language is a scare tactic WND and other anti-LGBT activists have used for years.
Brown then asserts that children with gender identity issues -- which he calls "some kind of handicap -- mental, emotional" -- "need to be told boys are boys and girls." He also likens being transgender to thinking you're Chinese or 7 feet tall.
The graphic shown along with Brown during his video lecture reads, "Caution: Transanity."
Is that the language of a guy who claims he's not trying to belittle or disparage transgenders, or not making a spiritual judgment about them, or not mocking them, or not minimizing their struggles? Yeah, we don't think so either.
MRC's Graham & Bozell Mislead About ACLU, 'SNL' Topic: Media Research Center
The March 24 column by Tim Graham and Brent Bozell carries the provocative headline "'Saturday Night Live' Supports 9/11 Killers." It begins:
In the stunned aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, America healed in part by tuning in to "Saturday Night Live," just a few miles from the wreckage of the twin towers of the World Trade Center. We all felt like New Yorkers and Pentagon employees after radical Islamic terrorists killed more than 3,000 Americans by hijacking four airplanes.
Now, many years later, the American Civil Liberties Union is demonstrating its bizarre definition of "civil liberties" by complaining that the 9/11 terrorists are not having their civil rights respected. One article on the website was headlined "Will the 9/11 Defendants Ever Get a Fair Trial?" Most Americans wonder why anyone responsible for 9/11 is still breathing.
But guess who supports that radical take? Stars of "Saturday Night Live."
The ACLU is now promoting a Facebook Live telethon on March 31 called "Stand for Rights," starring former "Saturday Night Live" stars Tina Fey and Amy Poehler and frequent "SNL" players like Alec Baldwin and Tom Hanks.
Now, the quicker-thinking among us will probably remember that "the 9/11 terrorists" all died in the attacks, which means they ACLU is probably talking about someone else. Graham and Bozell deliberately don't help by stating nothing from the ACLU column beyond its headline, which raises suspicions about deception even more.
Indeed, the ACLU column does talk about someone else: the people being held at Guantanamo Bay. The article points out that those remaining at Gitmo still haven't gone to trial after 15-plus years of confinement, and that the government is trying to withhold evidence of CIA "black sites" where torture is alleged to have taken place.
But because lazy right-wing rants about supposedly out-of-touch liberals are so much easier than a nuanced examination of what's happening in Gitmo, it's a lazy rant we get from Graham and Bozell:
You somehow "help people" and "stand for rights" by spitting on the graves of the 9/11 dead and championing the rights of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? The left doesn't care about the lost civil rights of people murdered by terrorists, only the civil rights of terrorist suspects. The prison for terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay is somehow more historically heinous than the 9/11 attacks ever were.
Liberals are so arrogant they think conservatives are the oppressors and torturers, even as they support the rights of terrorists and abortionists who sell the body parts of dead babies. The ACLU has created a People Power project to fight President Trump's administration's "anti-civil rights agenda" of "deportation raids, the Muslim ban, Planned Parenthood defunding and other civil rights priorities." It's very selective about which rights are essential, including a so-called right to import yourself into America, especially if you're Muslim.
Of course, Graham and Bozell are no less selective, all too willing to go along with the idea that Muslims aren't allowed to live in America and that abortionists are murderers.
Never mind that they are deliberatly misleading about what exactly "SNL" supports in regard to the ACLU. The ACLU talks about justice for the Gitmo defendants, which includes a open trial instead of a military tribunal behind closed doors. Graham and Bozell don't explain why it's "spitting on the graves of the 9/11 dead" to make the justice the Gitmo folks face an open process so that everyone can see what they are accused of having done.
Graham and Bozell close by huffing that "The entertainment industry will never stop being egregiously out of touch with the American heartland," ignoring how out of touch they themselves are with American ideals of freedom and justice.
WND Book 'Reviewer' Hypes WND Titles (And Has A Raging Case of Obama Derangement) Topic: WorldNetDaily
Developing biased right-wing-Christian conspiracy theories about a Christian bookstore chain going out of business isn't the only thing WorldNetDaily columnist Jim Fletcher has been up to lately. He's also back to his old tricks of serving as hype man for books published by the company that also publishes his column.
Fletcher's March 8 column focused on Carl Gallups' WND-published book "When The Lion Roars," gushing over it as "a thrilling look at a triumphant Messiah. The message of the book really resonates, precisely at a time when the world is in such chaos," as well as "an indispensable guide for navigating the crazy globe spinning out of control" and "proof some writers don’t exhaust their talent with their first couple of books."
On March 10, Fletcher took on WND reporter Leo Hohmann's anti-Muslim book "Stealth Invasion" -- and by "took on," we mean that Fletcher totally slobbered over it. As if he was being paid to do so, Fletcher totally buys into Hohmann's hateful Muslim-bashing rhetoric:
Weak-kneed Washington establishment-types caved to Obama, and now that President Donald Trump is attempting to put the brakes on such immigration through what he calls “extreme vetting,” he is being attacked on all sides, from clueless college students to seasoned political operatives and media hacks.
All this makes a new book by Leo Hohmann especially timely. “Stealth Invasion: Muslim Conquest Through Immigration and Resettlement Jihad” will make the hair stand up on the back of your neck.
And that’s a good thing.
Too many Americans either want to stick their heads in the sand, or wring their hands over their perception that we must “welcome the stranger” no matter the cost. In actual fact, the demons of ISIS are already making their way here and will exist in sleeper cells until they determine the time is right to unleash jihad on Americans. Hohmann outlines this and much more in “Stealth Invasion.”
[...]
I think we know what was going on within the Obama administration. Let’s use common sense. Perhaps Trump can turn things around, but the fact is, we already have a jihadist presence on our soil, and it entered under stealth.
[...]
Wake up before it’s too late! “Stealth Invasion” will help show you the way.
This is one of the most important books you’ll read this year.
Needless to say, in neither column does he disclose that the books he "reviewed" were published by WND.
Fletcher also demonstrated he still has a raging case of Obama Derangement Syndrome in his March 3 column, in which he bitterly complains about Barack Obama's $60 million book deal. "Reports are that Barack and Michelle Obama will continue to use their taxpayer-funded lifestyle to enrich themselves," Fletcher huffed, apparently missing the part where the contract was between Obama and the book publisher and the complete lack of government involvement. And the derangement continued:
Obama has been a hardcore totalitarian ideologue his entire adult life. Michelle Obama is every bit the true believer her husband is.
[...]
The lavish vacations and endless other perks make the Obamas among the most shameless power couples in history, and that’s saying a whole lot.
Look, we all understand that for one to ascend to the highest office in the land requires a healthy ego. The current one has that in spades. It’s just the way it is. But what separates these leaders is the way they treat people. The Democrat Party mouths the right words in their perpetual “fight for the people,” but it’s a scam. In reality, the Dems have built a modern slave enterprise, dooming millions to lives of squalor, while the elites tax and spend and laugh all the way to the bank.
Or to their publishers.
[...]
Like all leftists, Penguin and their celebrity authors really do intend to change the world, and they’re being successful. Along those lines, the publishing giant has also announced one million copies of the Obamas’ books will be donated to First Book, a non-profit that “provides educational materials” to children in need.
In need of what – instruction in Marxism? I’m being serious. The book deal is yet another way Obama engages in community organizing, or rather, community enslavement. It’s an interesting network he’s built. Penguin will also give a “significant” number of books to the Obama Foundation. For those of us watching the corruption of the Clinton Foundation … well, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
The one saving grace is there are still many millions of Americans who hold to traditional American values, and who rose up in November and sent a message to Barack Obama:
Your legacy isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.
Fletcher really needs to seek some professional help for his Obama derangement.
MRC Doesn't Back Up Claim That Judge Is 'Liberal' Topic: Media Research Center
We've noted how the Media Research Center loves hurling labels at suspected liberals without regard to accuracy. We see that again in a March 17 MRC post headlined "ABC Touts Liberal Judge Shooting Down Trump’s Revised Travel Ban."
So what's the evidence that the judge is a "liberal'? Fondacaro provides none.
Are we supposed to assume the judge is "liberal" simply because he ruled against an order by a Republican president? Apparently so, according to Fondacaro's logic.
Fondacaro also claims that the judge's order was "championed by the liberal media" -- but he onl evidence he provides of that is an ABC report that, in fact, is a straightforward accounting of the judge's order.
Fondacaro went on to rant that "the constitutionality of Trump’s executive order is not in question, according to Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz," and that "The question of the constitutionality of the executive order was missing from" the ABC report.
Fondacaro further complained that "There was no mention that the countries selected in the order were observed by the Obama White House for needing additional screening because proper checks are lacking. All of which are very important facts to understanding the entire situation."But as Foreign Policy magazine explains, the immigration restrictions Obama had imposed on there countries was much more narrowly targeted and didn't ban nearly all immigration, as Trump's original order tried to do.
WND Promises Netanyahu Meeting With This Year's Holy Land Tour Topic: WorldNetDaily
Even though last year's WorldNetDaily-led tour of the Holy Land was close enough to being adebacle that WND was begging for sign-ups three months after the original deadline, WND is doing it again -- with an elevated political profile.
In February, WND started promoting this year's tour with the usual stops, and it's also dangling the idea that tour-goers will get "briefings from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and new U.S. Ambassador David Friedman among others," adding "You will hear from top Israeli leaders, military brass, see with your own eyes why the Jewish state is so strategically positioned in the hotbed of the Middle East."
But, alas, these visits hasn't actually been worked out yet. As the article later admits:
While Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu cannot promise he will be able to address the group in November, all indications are positive that he will make every effort to address the group.
As for David Friedman, President Donald Trump’s designee as the new U.S. ambassador to Israel, WND is closely working with him on a date for meeting the group, even as he winds his way through the hurdles of the confirmation process and his anticipated move this year to the new U.S. Embassy Jerusalem.
“I’m optimistic,” says Farah, “After all, who can turn down Chuck Norris?”
Well, true -- who can turn down Chuck Norris? Except Norris doesn't appear to be actually going on the tour. The article cites a WND column by Norris in which he says, "Bibi and U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman have been invited to speak to the tour group, and I hope they do. Check out the educational and inspiring itinerary here."
And, indeed, the WND website for the tour, while it does state that Netanyahu and Friedman had been "invited" to speak to tour-goers, does not list any such political briefings on the itinerary.
Of course, WND is not averse to creating news events on tour. On last year's visit, there was a publicity stunt by Farah and his celebrity rabbi buddy Jonathan Cahn in trying to get their tour party kicked out of the Temple Mount by provoking a fight with the Muslim Waqf administrators who manage the site.
What LGBT Stuff Is The MRC Freaking Out About Now? Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center loves to freak out over transgenders -- as well as other LGBT-related things -- and it's having another of its continual fits of doing so.
A March 14 post by Jay Maxson won't identify Texas high school wrestler Mack Beggs as transgender but, rather, as "a girl in Texas who struggles with gender identity," and he laments that "Beggs never got any psychological attention for her gender confusion." He concluded by asserting: "According to Dr. Paul McHugh, the former psychiatrist-in-chief for Johns Hopkins Hospital, transgenderism is a 'mental disorder' that can be treated, sex change is 'biologically impossible' and the people promoting sexual reassignment surgery are promoting a mental disorder."
We've previously pointed out that McHugh's bigoted views are seen as out of the medical mainstream and ignores the current state of research on transgender issues.
On March 15, Karen Townsend ranted that the TV show "The Fosters" "continues to shove teen abortion and LGBT sex education on America, this time pushing the issues even further when it comes to parental knowledge -- or lack thereof." She added, "Parents are legally entitled to know about their children’s education."
Alex Nitzberg hopped over from Accuracy in Media to the MRC and debuted with a pair of anti-gay attacks on articles published at NBC News' LGBT portal, NBC Out. On March 13, Nitzberg complained of an article noting the vulernability of transgender students: "On that topic, what about the vulnerability and innocence of other students? All students should be protected from abuse, including those who identify as transgender, but their protection does not necessitate the normalization or accommodation of their lifestyle choice."
On March 17, Nitzberg ranted about another NBC Out article on transgender bathroom use:
The most “gender-appropriate” facility for biological boys, regardless of their self-declared gender-identity, is the men’s facility—and for biological girls, the women’s facility represents the most “gender-appropriate” option. The fact that this issue has degenerated into a societal debate illustrates the cultural chasm that has developed as the radical left and the media work to aggressively advance the revolution to redefine gender.
[...]
Liberals and the media inaccurately portray the LGBT agenda as a “civil rights” issue. But LGBT identities are behaviors, not immutable, inborn physical characteristics like skin color. In practice, LGBT “non-discrimination laws” would likely penalize social conservatives who fail to comply with the LGBT lobby’s radical demands for societal transformation.
Sarah Stites, meanwhile, huffed that singer Kary Perry was given an award by the Human Rights Campaign, where she "spent ten minutes criticizing her Christian upbringing while championing 'sexual fluidity.' And, predictably, the feminist media loved it." But curiously, Stites omitted the part where Perry said that as a teenager she "prayed the gay away at my Jesus camps" during her "unconscious adolescence," which utterly failed until she met people outside her "bubble."
Stites returned to serve up another freakout over a transgender couple on the wedding-dress show "Say Yes to the Dress." grumbling about "liberal media, fashion and Hollywood’s focused attempt to mainstream transgender and gender fluid content."
And Stites wasn't done, for even people who want no gender at all offend her as well:
Clothing. Makeup. Emojis. And now legal status?
The genderless movement is firing ahead, fast and furious, while those who cleave to traditional views are considered anachronistic at best, and bigoted at worst.
In June 2016, Oregon Judge Amy Hehn granted legal gender “non-binary” status to Portland resident Jamie Shupe. But this month, Hehn went a step further, granting video game designer “Patch” the right to be genderless.
She concluded that post by asking, "Is there anything that will faze the left?" The better question: Is there any instance of non-heteronormative behavior that Stites and the rest of the MRC won't throw a fit about?
Chief Trump stenographer at CNSNews.com Susan Jones is stenographying again -- and going beyond established facts as well.
WND anonymously and lovingly writes in a March 27 
The Media Research Center's Brad Wilmouth complained in a March 29 
When Stephen Jimenez's book "The Book of Matt" came out in 2013, 
When David Rockefeller died last week, WorldNetDaily was mostly interested in ... his connection to the New World Order and other secret-society conspiracy theories. An anonymously written March 20 WND 
It makes sense that the far-right-fringe Cliff Kincaid would come to the defense of a fellow fringer (and 
Bob Unruh was iin full-dudgeon mode in a March 15 WND 
Under the headline "Nets Demand Evidence 123 Times, Scold Nunes for Giving It," the Media Research Center's Mike Ciandella tried to live up to the headline in his March 23 
Last month we 
The March 24 
Developing 
We've 
Even though last year's WorldNetDaily-led tour of the Holy Land was close enough to being adebacle that WND was begging for sign-ups 
The Media Research Center loves to freak out over transgenders -- as well as other LGBT-related things -- and it's having another of its continual fits of doing so.
