Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's insistence that whites in South Africa are being subject to a "genocide" is so fictional, a WND columnist used bogus quotes from an anti-genocide activist to try and further it. Read more >>
Tuesday, August 29, 2017
NEW ARTICLE: Once More Into The Heart of Whiteness
Topic: WorldNetDaily WorldNetDaily's insistence that whites in South Africa are being subject to a "genocide" is so fictional, a WND columnist used bogus quotes from an anti-genocide activist to try and further it. Read more >>
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:55 AM EDT
Monday, August 28, 2017
MRC Researcher Plays Trump Protector
Topic: Media Research Center The Media Research Center shows they're all about protecting President Trump and not so much about "media research" in an Aug. 22 post by Nicholas Fondacaro, who's trying way too hard. Fondacaro is very concerned that an Instagram post by Louise Linton, wife of Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, bragging about her designer duds while traveling on a government plane would be used to make Trump look bad.Fondacaro complained that CNN's Jake Tapper "tried to link someone else’s Instagram controversy to the President" and was claiming that Linton's comments were "somehow Trump’s responsibility because of his 2016 campaign messaging.Finally, Fondacaro huffed:
We suspect Fondacaro would not be so eager to distance Linton from Trump if the president was a Democrat.
Posted by Terry K.
at 10:58 PM EDT
Updated: Tuesday, August 29, 2017 12:56 AM EDT
WND's Medical Misinformer Now Misinforms to Defend Trump
Topic: WorldNetDaily WorldNetDaily's chief medical misinformer, Jane Orient of the far-right-fringe Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, knows how to misinform about non-medical things too. In her Aug. 24 WND column, Orient goes far afield from her claimed area of expertise to play defense for President Trump and to blame the media and other various enemies real and imagined for not letting Trump talk about infrastructure during the White House's Infrastructre Week, and not Trump himself for feeling the need to rant about confederate statues instead of staying on topic:
Orient then decided she knew best about what black people need:
Many of Orient's assertions are BS. Obamacare reduced racial disparities in health coverage and a repeal would increase them; Margaret Sanger was not a "rabid racist"; and overuse of DDT created malaria-carrying mosquitoes that couldn't be killed by the chemical. Orient touts how Trump "is serious about draining the swamp." He may or may not be relying on more accurate information than Orient is.
Posted by Terry K.
at 3:04 AM EDT
Sunday, August 27, 2017
Harvey Ends CNS' Years Of Writing About How Long It's Been Since A 'Major Hurricane'
Topic: CNSNews.com Over the past couple years, CNSNews.com has loved to tout how long it's been since a "major hurricane" has made landfall in the U.S. -- making sure to define "major hurricane" as narrowly as possible -- as an (failed) argument agains global warming. Hurricane Harvey, however, has forced CNS to change its arguments -- though not its conclusion, since that's right-wing dogma, since climate denialism is right-wing dogma that can't be disputed. On Aug. 24, reporter Susan Jones bid a fond farewell to that longtime template: "Thursday, August 24, 2017 marks a record 142 straight months since the last major hurricane made landfall in the continental United States. But that record major-hurricane drought may be coming to an end." She continued CNS' arbitrary designation of "major hurricane" as one being category 3 or higher. The next day, as Harvey bore down on Texas, Jones seemingly contradicted CNS' previous talking point by pointing out how hurricanes hit Texas seemingly all the time: "A total of 63 hurricanes have made landfall in Texas since record-keeping began in 1851, according to data posted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Harvey would be number 64." She also included a list of hurricanes that hit Texas, highlighting how many years it was between hurricanes. That was followed a couple hours later by another Jones article, in which she flip-flopped again by downplaying how many "major hurricanes" there have been:
A note at the end of Jones' article demonstrated just how narrowly she was defining things: "The 274 direct-landfall number excludes hurricanes that did not make landfall in the continental U.S. but may have produced hurricane-force winds on land from locations offshore; and it excludes four storms that made landfall in Mexico, producing hurricane-force winds in Texas." Finally, when Harvey made landfall, Jones wrote a rare weekend article with a final body count, as it were: "Hurricane Harvey roared ashore near Corpus Christie as Category 4 storm late Friday night, breaking a record 4,323-day (142-month, 12-year) major hurricane drought." And, of course, morecaveats about how narrowly she's defining things:
Jones concluded her article with a little Trump stenography, this time transcribing Trump's Harvey-related tweets.
Posted by Terry K.
at 10:51 PM EDT
MRC Gives Right-Wing Catholic Activist A Platform to Misdirect
Topic: Media Research Center The Media Research Center regularly gives Catholic League leader Bill Donohue a platform to lie and mislead about untoward sexual matters regarding Catholic priests. It does so again in an Aug. 18 post in which Donohue desperately tries to distract from a Boston Globe story about children fathered by priests. After trying to reframe the issue by claiming it's really only "as little as one percent or less of priests having fathered a child," Donohue really lets the spin fly:
Donohue conveniently fails to mention that most of the religions he cites, unlike Catholicism, permit their priests to marry and do not make them take a vow of celibacy. And Donohue's attempt to grouse about "secular culture" is simply an attempt to put up a smokescreen to hide the fact that Catholic priests are not supposed to be fathering children. Meanwhile, the MRC once again failed to disclose an important confict of interest: MRC chief Brent Bozell is on the board of advisers for Donohue's Catholic League. Which just makes Donohue's rant even more dishonest.
Posted by Terry K.
at 7:01 PM EDT
Saturday, August 26, 2017
WND Columnist: Taking Down Confederate Statues Like Whitewashing Holocaust (?)
Topic: WorldNetDaily Ted Baehr begins his Aug. 23 WorldNetDaily column by Ted Baehr begins by bizarrely claiming that the Dachau concentration camp had been "cleaned up, sanitized and almost turned into a park. There was none of the terrible remnants of the genocide that occurred. They had scrubbed and whitewashed the history of Dachau." Actually, no -- the folks running the Dachau memorial site make sure you know it was a concentration camp. Baehr then even more bizarrely presents his flawed Dachau claim as an analogy for the debate over removal of Confederate monuments:
Hoo boy. First, Baehr doesn't seem to realize that his Dachau-Confederacy analogy makes the Confederacy look even worse than he probably intended. Second, and more importantly, Baehr doesn't understand that those Confederate monuments were not built to serve as a reminder of "the brutality and horrors of slavery" -- they were built to celebrate the Confederacy and to further the idea of white supremacy and black subjugation. The people who erected many of these monuments wanted to repeat the mistake of the Confederacy. As for Baehr's claim that "if you remove all the Confederate monuments and statues in the United States, people will no longer be able to talk about the history of the Confederacy during the Civil War," he will be pleased to learn about the existence of things called books and TV shows where the Civil War is discussed in depth. Removal of Confederate statues doesn't affect the existence of other media. If the Confederacy really was as evil as Baehr says it is, shouldn't he be in favor of removing statues that were erected for the express purpose of celebrating that evil? Looks like we have a frontrunner for next year's LoBaido Award for dumbest ConWeb commentary.
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:04 AM EDT
Friday, August 25, 2017
MRC Defending 'Patriot Prayer' Rally, Hides Its Alt-Right Roots
Topic: Media Research Center In an Aug. 18 CNSNews.com post, Craig Bannister was eager to serve as stenographer for "Patriot Prayer" organizer Joey Gibson when he appeared on Fox News (of course) to defend an upcoming rally in San Francisco from allegations of white supremacist ties:
Similarly, Corinne Weaver rushes to Patriot Prayer's defense in an Aug. 25 MRC NewsBusters post attacking counter-protester Terrence Ryan for calling the rally "alt-right" in an article on the website Bustle:
Well, Bannister and Weaver are definitely guilty of trying to whitewash the fact that Patriot Prayer does indeed have alt-right origins. David Neiwert explains at the Southern Poverty Law Center that a previous Patriot Prayer rally featured members of the white-nationalist Identify Evropa group, and the right-wing "III Percenter" militia provides security at all of Gibson's events. The SPLC adds that a typical Gibson "prayer" event "clearly appears more an attempt to troll the left than a sincere effort at dialogue." In other words, there are legitimate concerns about the intent of Gibson's rally. Too bad the MRC doesn't feel like telling its readers the whole truth, instead gullibly taking Gibson at his word when he claims there's no alt-right ties. UPDATE: Matthew Balan insisted that NPR "improperly" labeled Patriot Prayer as "alt-right"; his only defense is that "the controversial liberal Southern Poverty Law Center "does not list Patriot Prayer as such, nor is [founder Joey] Gibson considered an extremist," acccording to a Wednesday report from The Mercury News." Oh, suddenly the MRC considers the SPLC to be authoritative when it's in the MRC's interest to do so? Balan didn't mention that the SPLC considers Gibson to be a troll.
Posted by Terry K.
at 3:16 PM EDT
Updated: Saturday, August 26, 2017 1:12 AM EDT
WND Complains People Are Calling Trump What WND Called Obama
Topic: WorldNetDaily Alicia Powe devotes an Aug. 10 WorldNetDaily article to complaining that people are calling President Trump names regarding his heated rhetoric against North Korea. The headline on Powe's article: "Trump 'unhinged,' 'reckless,' 'bombastic,' psychopath." Funny thing, though: Those are all insults WND has hurled at President Obama. "Unhinged"
"Reckless"
"Bombastaic"
"Psychopath"
In other words, Powe is just projecting -- complaining that others are calling Trump the exact same things WND has called Obama.
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:19 AM EDT
Thursday, August 24, 2017
MRC's Bozell Hypocritically Complains About Media Giving Platform to Radicals
Topic: Media Research Center When NBC's Chuck Todd had Mark Bray, "a prominent voice in the radical left-wing Antifa movement," on his MSNBC show, Media Research Center chief Brent Bozell was in high dudgeon:
When Todd had Bray on his "Meet The Press " a few days later, Bozell cranked theh dudgeon even higher:
And in his and Tim Graham's (which is to say, Tim Graham's) Aug. 23 column, Bozell rants that "Todd & Co. are ushering antifa's extreme into polite society." Needless to say, Bozell is being an utter hypocrite, because his operation gives an uncritical platform to radicals as well. As we've documented, Michael W. Chapman, managing editor of the MRC's "news" division, CNSNews.com, routinelygives legitimacy to radical, virulently anti-gay activists who believe homosexuals are literally the spawn of Satan. Chapman is an employee of Bozell, which means Bozell is ultimately responsible for this extreme rhetoric. Bozell (and Graham) close out their column by huffing: "One arm of the far left believes violence is necessary. NBC thinks it's worth discussing." Meanwhile, one arm of the right wing believe gays are literal evil just for existing. Bozell's MRC thinks it's worth discussing.
Posted by Terry K.
at 10:15 PM EDT
Post-Charlottesville, WND Brings Back Its Favorite Race-Baiter
Topic: WorldNetDaily For most media organizations, a week after a notorious racial incident in which a protester was run down and killed by a white supremacist would not be the best time to give a platform to a notorious race-baiter obsessed with "black mob violence" and conspiracy theories. but that's what WorldNetDaily's Liam Clancy does in an Aug. 20 article:
You might remember Flaherty as the guy who is so obsessed with "black mob violence" that he put white people and dogs into his "black mobs." It was only until Google threatened to pull ad revenue over all the race-baiting that WND finally saw the light and backed off (enlightened self-interest and all that). WND published Flaherty's race-baiting tome "White Girl Bleed A Lot" but apparently wouldn't do so for his follow-up, unsubtly titled "Don't Make the Black Kids Angry." Yes, the perfect guy for WND to bring back. Gotta make sure those racially charged flames stay fanned, after all.
Posted by Terry K.
at 3:07 PM EDT
CNS Reporter Contradicts Herself to Promote Trump
Topic: CNSNews.com CNSNews.com's Melanie Arter does her dutiful Trump stenography in an Aug. 16 article:
But Arter's next two paragraphs directly contradict the first two:
Arter never addresses this contradiction. Why? Perhaps because she would have to admit that Trump is lying. This is a pattern at CNS; Arter's fellow reporter Susan Jones similarly buried the fact that Trump's Twitter rants about Amazon not paying taxes are factually incorrect. Speaking of which: An Aug. 16 CNS article by Jones returned to the issue with a glancing reference to a Trump Amazon-bashing tweet: "In his first tweet this morning, Trump wrote: 'Amazon is doing great damage to tax paying retailers. Towns, cities and states throughout the U.S. are being hurt - many jobs being lost!'" This time, however, Jones completely censored the fact that Trump is wrong and that Amazon does, in fact, collect and pay state sales taxes. CNS is becoming even less the "news" site it claims to be and even more of a Trump protection organization.
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:43 AM EDT
Wednesday, August 23, 2017
WND Puts Discredited Author on Its Homeschool Reading List
Topic: WorldNetDaily Liam Clancy writes in an Aug. 12 "news" article that, like so much of WND's content, is actually just an ad targeted to homeschoolers:
And what's the first book Clancy lists, after a "mini United States Constitution"?
Except, of course, it does none of that. Clancy doesn't mention that the book's original publisher pulled the book from the marketplace after historians and others found numerous errors. Not only did WND continue to sell Barton's book despite it having been withdrawn everywhere else, it published its own version of the book, which made few changes to the challenged content but added a section attacking the book's critics. To this day, WND is still trying to defend Barton and his book. Clancy continues shilling:
Smearing teachers as criminals, as Newman and Blumenfeld effectively do here, is hardly the way to make that argument and should disqualify Newman's book from serious consideration. But this is WND, after all.
Posted by Terry K.
at 4:04 PM EDT
'Far Left' Hurlers At MRC Complain About Purportedly Indiscriminate Use of 'Far Right'
Topic: Media Research Center The Media Research Center's Scott Whitlock grumbles in an Aug. 15 post (boldface his):
First, Whitlock doesn't explain why he's defending the honor of the "far right" by trying to disassociate it from neo-Nazis. Despite his complaining, Whitlock offers no evidence that "racist thugs" are not on the far right. Second, Whitlock seems to have forgotten that he works for an organization that uses the term "far left" even more indiscriminately than he's accusing the Times of using "far right." The MRC was quick to label violent Antifa protesters as "far left," which by Whitlock's standards equates them with, among others, Stephen Colbert and sports blog Deadspin. The MRC is clearly never going to apologize for equating violent protesters with people and publications who merely said something it didn't like. Therefore, it has no moral standing to complain when it thinks others are doing the same (though we still don't understand why Whitlock is so desperate to claim that white supremacists are not "far riight").
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:34 AM EDT
Tuesday, August 22, 2017
Anti-Muslim Propagandists at WND Warn of 'Islamist Propaganda'
Topic: WorldNetDaily Leo Hohmann warns in an Aug. 18 WorldNetDaily article, headlined "Islamist propaganda coming soon to local newspaper near you":
Of course, Hohmann -- a virulent Muslim-hater -- is engaging in propaganda himself by writing this article. While he criticizes ProPublica for not following up on CAIR's claims, Hohmann doesn't follow up either. WND has published Hohmann's false propaganda claiming that a measles outbreak in a Somali-American community was caused by a Quranic dictate against immunization (in fact, WND's anti-vaxxer fellow travelers have heavily lobbied the community). And it was just a couple of weeks ago that WND published another piece of anti-Muslim propaganda -- an uncritical report on a bogus study by the anti-Muslim Gatestone Institute falsely linking old churches being torn down in France to the construction of new mosques there. It's truly hilarious to see the propagandists at WND accusing others of engaging in propaganda. You want it to stop, WND? You first.
Posted by Terry K.
at 11:16 PM EDT
Monday, August 21, 2017
MRC's Gainor Admits Conservative Media Will Put Truth Over Reason to Back Trump
Topic: Media Research Center The Media Research Center's Aly Nielsen sums up an appearance by MRC VP and right-wing apparachik Dan Gainor on Fox Business:
Gainor seems to be inadvertently admitting what we knew all along: the conservative media -- which includes all the MRC's various outlets, including "news" division CNSNews.com -- is putting loyalty to Trump over truth and reason. While Gainor seems to couch this in reflexive media-bashing in complaining about a hostile "left" media, he's also admitting that his conservative media will always give Trump the benefit of the doubt, and if Trump does something that appalls the rest of the nation, CNS and their ilk will contort themselves to excuse it. Gainor demonstrates this further in his interview, as Nielsen writes: Bannon, The Chief White House strategist, is leaving his position two days after talking to a liberal journalist at Soros-funded American Prospect.
Note that Nielsen and Gainor don't blame Bannon for doing the interview; they blame a "liberal journalist" at a "Soros-funded" publication for running it. Talk about attacking the messenger. Ah, but holding Bannon accountable for his own actions would have meant he alienated the MRC and the conservative media , and Gainor already said that will never happen. Gotta keep that Mercer money rolling in, after all.
Posted by Terry K.
at 10:17 AM EDT
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