CNS Gives Its Buddy Levin A Free Pass On His Falsehood Topic: CNSNews.com
Trump White House officials aren't the only people whose falsehoods and misleading claims CNSNews.com lets stand without challenge or fact-checking. Mark Levin -- whom CNS has promoted in 75 articles so far this year -- gets the non-treatment in an Aug. 10 blog post by Michael Morris:
On his nationally syndicated radio talk show Thursday, host Mark Levin said that if the Israeli government had their own Special Counsel, a Robert Mueller, they could’ve indicted then President Barack Obama and then Secretary of State John Kerry for election meddling.
“Now if the Israeli prosecutors had, or the Israeli government had, a Robert Mueller, I suppose they could’ve indicted Obama and John Kerry and a whole load of Obama officials for interfering with their election,” stated Mark Levin. “Would anybody have had a problem with that?”
Levin’s comments came in response to a report from The Washington Times detailing the Obama administrations meddling in the Israeli election.
In fact, as we documented when WorldNetDaily made the same charge, the Obama administration did not "interfere" in the 2015 Israeli presidential election. The State Department gave the Israeli group OneVoice $350,000 to promote peace efforts between Israel and Palestine; the intrastructure that money helped build was later used by the group during the election to criticize right-wing President Benjamin Netanyahu. Investigations found no wrongdoing -- no grant money was ever spent in the election, OneVoice complied with the the terms of the grant, and there was no limitation on post-grant uses of the resources. Nobody has ever proven that Obama gave the money to the group for the specific purpose of influencing the election, which is what Levin is alleging.
But, like the White House press office, Levin has a special relationship with CNS and its Media Resarch Center parent, so fact-checking his work is optional and likely discouraged.
Newsmax Columnist: Trump Endorsed A Black Candidate, So He Can't Be Racist Topic: Newsmax
John James, a West Point graduate, stormed to victory in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate [in Michigan] this week and will now face three-term incumbent Democrat Debbie Stabenow for the seat November 6. His stature in conservative circles has been rising for months and his victory was fueled by an endorsement by President Trump who said James is a future star in the Republican Party. In his race with businessman Sandy Pensler, James secured nearly 55 percent of the vote with well above 500,000 ballots cast for him.
Where is the racist GOP we have all been told so much about? I mean after all John James is an outspoken conservative, combat veteran, and notably he is black.
The left has been trumpeting a message for a very long time that the president is a racist and is a supporter of white nationalists. How could that be true with his enthusiastic support for John James? It is just as likely that if the president had thrown his support behind Pensler the outcome would have been different, but he didn’t. The president lined up to push James to victory in what otherwise appeared to be a toss-up.
This should sink the notion that Trump is a racist but of course it won’t and the left leaning national media outlets will simply ignore James' impressive victory.
During an obnoxious appearance on the Wednesday edition of HLN’s S.E. Cupp Unfiltered, CNN chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta opened up and showcased his true disdain for Trump supporters after they booed and heckled him at a rally the night before.
According to Acosta, when he was surrounded by those Trump supporters in Tampa Bay, Florida, “Honestly, it felt like we weren't in America anymore. I don't know how to put it any more plainly than that.”
Americans should not be treating their fellow Americans in this way. But unfortunately what we've seen and this has been building for some time since the campaign,” he whined. The hypocrisy was breathtaking for two main reasons. First, there had been many a CNN employee that had condemned Trump supporters as racist rubes. Don Lemon is one name who fits that title.
Second, Acosta followed up by seeming to insinuate that those Trump supporters were ready to attack him like animals. “[Trump] is whipping these crowds up into a frenzy to the point where they really want to come after us,” he proclaimed. “We have these bike rack-like barriers around the press cage, as we call it, to protect us essentially from people who might take things too far. It's unfortunate.”
As someone who used to work on large stage productions in college, those barriers are primarily put up to protect the equipment.
[...]
After being teed up by host S.E. Cupp, Acosta worried that one day, one of those Trump supporters would snap and try to hurt a journalist, or worse. “I think it's been dangerous for some time. I was worried during the campaign that a journalist was going to get hurt and it has been building,” he opined. “But when you refer to members of the press as the enemy of the people, you're essentially putting targets on our backs.”
The smears against those hard-working Trump supporters weren’t just coming from Acosta. Cupp decried the pro-Trump “mob” and how a mother at the rally put an anti-CNN button on her baby. “And not even children are safe with parents using their babies as props in Trump’s war against the media,” she spat. “The fever pitch of Trump’s rhetoric and the mob-like dispositions of his supporters at these rallies has become downright scary.”
Following a clip of former Fox News commentator Lt. Col. Ralph Peters ludicrously comparing Trump’s rhetoric to Soviet purges, Cupp suggested it “might not be quite that bad,yet.”
It’s generally understood that the elitists at CNN and their affiliates look down their noses at Trump supporters in the heartland, but this level of open discontent is not too uncommon. And yet they're still struggling to rack their brains with why people dislike them.
Fondacaro also huffed that "Acosta asserted that the reason those Trump supporters hated CNN was that they were essentially brainwashed by Fox News and other conservative media outlets." But since he and his employer are are among the chief instigators of anti-CNN hate, he had no further comment.
WND's Farah Asks A Question He Fails To Answer Topic: WorldNetDaily
All month long, WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah has been spouting conspiracy theories (which, of course, he has no direct evidence to support) about how the "Digital Cartel" of Google and Facebook are running WND out of business (and not, say, WND's history of publishing fake news) while also begging for money to keep WND alive. His Aug. 20 column starts off with yet another anti-Google screed:
How much does Google hate WND?
It’s hard to underestimate the vitriol.
I understand. I’ve been a long-time harsh critic. Before most of the world caught on to Google’s racket, some 11 years ago, I publicly called Google “evil,” primarily for its coziness with the tyrannical brutes in Beijing. (See video above.) A decade later, knowing that Google has a better working relationship with the totalitarians in China than they do with Republicans in the U.S., my own level of respect for the search giant has only plummeted.
Why?
Because it’s killing freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of religion – in the U.S.!
Even if Farah's rants about Google are true -- that it's suppressing WND content because of a double-secret policy of discriminating against right-wing content or retaliation for Farah's unhinged anti-Google rants -- he's making the anti-capitalist argument that Google shouldn't be able to run its business as it pleases. (He's already demanded that Google and Facebook be subject to effective net neutrality.) At the same time, he's suggesting that WND should suffer no consequences in the marketplace for its history of fake news and conspiracy-mongering -- that WND should continue to exist by some kind of divine right, not that it has earned that right. (We would argue that it hasn't.)
The meat, as it were, of Farah's column is based on its headline: "Guess how many hits WND gets from Google search." He takes a stab at answering his own question:
How many visitors do you suppose are referred by Google?
Take a wild guess.
Would you suspect the biggest most powerful search engine in the world might send over maybe 10 percent?
Guess again. Not even close.
Seven or eight years ago, it was not unusual for WND stories to be among the top breaking news stories in the main Google News display. In at least the last five years, I can’t recall ever seeing one WND story cited on its first page where daily, hourly, you will find the left-wing editorials of Huffington Post and Daily Beast topping the referrals, along with the New York Times, CNN and Washington Post.
You won’t see the Daily Caller or Breitbart up there, either.
In other words, it’s a systematic boycott of the independent media that is not sold out to the fake news left, the Democratic Party and the conspiracy mongers of global warming, Russian collusion and anti-Trump hysteria.
Note that Farah doesn't answer his own question -- he never actually says how much traffic Google sends WND, other than that it's somewhere less than "10 percent." Nor does Farah explain why WND deserves more traffic from Google, whose function is to serve up relevant links to its users. Does Farah think Obama birther freakouts, Seth Rich conspiracy theories, fawning pro-Trump stenography and warmed-over press releases are relevant to people seeking fair, balanced newsworthy content?
In his usual column-ending pitch for cash, Farah implies that WND somehow represents the best of America: "If the 'Speech Code Cartel' wins, America loses." We suspect America will continue to do just fine if WND doesn't survive.
CNS Still Spreading the 'Fungible' Falsehood About Federal Funding to Planned Parenthood Topic: CNSNews.com
We've documented how CNSNews.com has spent the past decade promoting the bogus claim that federal funding to Planned Parenthood is "fungible" and thus, somehow, pays for abortions despite the fact that the money is earmarked to specific women's health programs that have nothing to do with abortion. CNS is certainly not about to stop spreading the lie now.
An Aug. 1 CNS article by Max Augros cheering "the Trump administration’s plan to reapply a rule first introduced by the Reagan administration to ensure that federal Title X funds go solely to family planning offices that are separate from abortion providers" uncritically quoted anti-abortion groups and the Trump White House spreading the "fungible" falsehood:
In a press release, the [Susan B. Anthony] List stated that “the abortion industry has used Title X as a slush fund,” and thanked President Trump and Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar for “putting a stop to this abuse.”
[...]
The Protect Life Rule “would ensure compliance with the [Title X] program’s existing statutory prohibition on funding programs in which abortion is a method of family planning,” the White House said in a statement.
“The new proposed rule would not cut funds from the Title X program,” reads the statement. “Instead, it would ensure that taxpayers do not indirectly fund abortions. Contrary to recent media reports, HHS’s proposal does not include the so-called ‘gag rule’ on counseling about abortion that was part of the Reagan Administration’s Title X rule.”
[...]
“The American people have repeatedly and clearly voiced their opposition to taxpayer funding of abortion, but for years, their will – expressed in the statute itself – has been ignored,” the SBA List said in a joint comment with theLife Issues Institute.
“We wholly support the Protect Life Rule, which draws a bright line between abortion and family planning in the Title X program,” the press release stated.
And for good measure, Augros furthered the falsehood by stating that Planned Parenthood's "latest annual report (2016-17) shows that it received $543.7 million in federal government reimbursements and grants, and performed 321,384 abortions that year" -- as if juxtaposing those numbers prove that the money directly pays for those abortions.
The next day, in an article complaining that Planned Parenthood has received Title X funding, managing editor Michael W. Chapman stated the falsehood more directly: "However, money is fungible and grants for one purpose can free-up funds for another purpose. As House Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) has said, 'Today, hundreds of abortion clinics are co-located at Title X family planning facilities. For example, 266 of Planned Parenthood’s abortion clinics are subsidized by U.S. taxpayers in the Title X program to the tune of about $56 million each year.'"
Just because a Republican congressman said it doesn't mean it's true. Chapman offered no evidence to back up the claim, nor did Smith in the Catholic News Agency commentary to which Chapman linked.
WND Promotes A Fawning Huckabee TV Interview, Calls It An 'Exclusive' Topic: WorldNetDaily
Because of its diminished state as a result of its money woes, WorldNetDaily publishes a lot less original content generated by its own writers; there's now a greater proportion of rewritten press releases and barely disguised promotions masquerading as "news." A sad example of the latter is an anonymously written Aug. 18 article presented as a "WND Exclusive":
WASHINGTON – Sarah Sanders got grilled tonight – but not by Jim Acosta of CNN.
It was her adoring father Mike Huckabee in a long-format interview on his TBN show.
After an big welcome from the studio audience, Huckabee remarked, “Well, obviously you’re not in the Red Hen Restaurant in West Virginia, right now.”
If you missed the first segment, here it is.
But, just so you know, she’s not finished…
There’s more tonight on “Huckabee.”
That's the entirety of the article.
Did Huckabee or TBN pay WND for this fawning promo about a fawning interview? WND certainly needs the money, and it certainly reads like a paid ad.
In other words, this article is lazy at best and unethical at worst. And it doesn't exactly help make the case that WND deserves to live.
NEW ARTICLE: Tom Blumer Gets NewsBusted Topic: NewsBusters
The blogger was fired from the Media Research Center-operated NewsBusters after white nationalist links were discovered in his posts. But what about the MRC editors who let those links go through in the first place? Read more >>
Newsmax's Ruddy Finds A Trump Action He Disagrees With Topic: Newsmax
Apparently, even Newsmax chief Christopher Ruddy -- who's been using his friendship with President Trump to raise his own profile and that of the news operation he runs, as well as serving as a Trump apologist -- has his limits on Trump sycophancy.
Ruddy declared in his July 29 column that "I strongly disagreed with the White House's decision this past week to remove a CNN reporter from the press pool covering the president," even though "the president is justified to be angry with the press. The billions of earned media in negative attacks on candidate Trump never ended upon his assumption of the presidency."
Still, Ruddy does offer some defense of Trump, as well as some surprising praise for President Obama:
As Jefferson predicted, President Trump has benefited by this overly aggressive media.
Informed citizens see through it and are making a "public judgement."
Trump's approval ratings are up and rising in the wake of these incessant media attacks. His strong record speaks for itself.
But it is never easy to turn the other cheek, especially when questioned about personal matters relating to close friends facing prosecution.
The president is much more empathetic than is acknowledged. His emotions and reactions can be raw.
The banning of the CNN reporter, however temporary, is not a wise move. In fact, it is potentially a dangerous step.
Early in the Obama administration, President Obama sought to permanently ban Fox News from the White House press room. The press corps, including CNN, banded together to oppose this authoritarian urge. [Obama, I believe was a patriot, and over time became less hostile to Fox and the press in general. He ended up being an exemplary role model as president, though I strongly disagreed with many of his policies.]
The CNN ban may seem small to some. Still, the press was right to sharply criticize the move by the Trump White House.
Most of Ruddy's right-wing media comrades -- or even most other people at Newsmax -- would never concede the idea that Obama was a patriot.
CNS Promotes Jordan's Speaker Bid, Censors Abuse-Related Allegations Against Him Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com managing editor Michael W. Chapman wrote a ridiculously fawning Aug. 10 piece touting how "A new poll by the grassroots organization Tea Party Patriots shows that 98.4% of its supporters would like to see conservative Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) as the next Speaker of the House of Representatives, should the Republicans hold onto Congress after the mid-term elections in November." After copiously quoting sycophantic quotes about Jordan from the Tea Party Caucus, Chapman then made his own appeal, noting that "Some of the Republicans who say they support Jordan for Speaker include Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Mark Meadows (N.C.), Rep. Matt Gaetz (Fla.), Rep. Dave Brat (Va.), Rep. Andy Biggs (Ariz.), former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. The conservative group FreedomWorks has also announced its support for Jordan." Chapman also promoted Jordan's platform: "In a July 26 letter to Republican members of the House, Jordan said the GOP members should push for 'actually repealing Obamacare,' reforming welfare across-the-board, building a real wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, making the 2017 tax cuts permanent, ending taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood, and 'enacting meaningful, immediate spending cuts to ensure that we never see $1 trillion deficits.'"
Chapman declared in his final paragraph: "Jim Jordan, 54, is in his sixth term in Congress. He is married to Polly Jordan." Never mind that Jordan's first name and length of service in Congresshad already been established earlier in the article; apparently Chapman simply copied-and-pasted that from elsewhere and didn't bother to edit it.
What Chapman didn't report: the fact that several former athletes at Ohio State University, where Jordan served as a wrestling coach, have accused Jordan of knowing about sexual abuse of athletes by a team doctor but doing nothing about it -- despite those accusations being around for a good month before Chapman's article appeared.
In fact, CNS has never published a story -- "news," blog or otherwise -- regarding the allegations against Jordan. It has, however, publishednumerousarticles featuring Jordan, mainly in his role as member of a Republican-dominated House committee looking into links between Russia and President Trump -- including a separate July 27 article on Jordan announcing he planned to seek the House speaker position. The only thing that even alludes to it is an Aug. 17 post (again, well past a month after the accusations first became public) that is only a headline, a video and a link to a post at sister website NewsBusters complaining about a Democratic ad likening Jordan to Joe Paterno, who also allegedly turned a blind eye to abuse allegations.
In other words, CNS is very much attuned to Jordan's importance in the current political scene. Which means that the only possible reason CNS has failed to report on the abuse allegations regarding Jordan is that it is deliberately censoring them from its readers.
WND's Farah Gets Desperate As Another Money Deadline Approraches Topic: WorldNetDaily
For most of this month, WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah has been railing against the "digital cartel" of Google and Facebook that he claims is running out WND out of business. (He has spent zero time explaining why WND's shoddy, fake news-laden editorial practices are in no small part to blame for that.) In the process, he's turned even more conspiracy-obsessed than usual.
WND has seized upon a "confidential, 49-page memo for defeating Trump by working with the major social-media platforms to eliminate 'right wing propaganda and fake news'" to blame for WND's woes. Art Moore, one of the few remaining WND employees, declard that "The recent wave of censorship of conservative voices on the internet by tech giants Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Apple mirrors a plan concocted by a coalition of George Soros-funded, progressive groups to take back power in Washington from President Trump’s administration."
Of course, Moore never makes any explicit, credible connection between the memo and the current practices of Google and Facebook to fight fake news. The only "George Soros-funded, progressive group" he names as behind this memo is Media Matters; president Angelo Carusone has claimed that his organization received only one donation from Soros, in 2010, while others claim other donations exist. (Disclosure: We used to work for Media Matters.)
Never, even in my fertile imagination, would I have guessed that we would find a smoking-gun 49-page memo revealing how George Soros operatives, including David Brock, were there at the genesis, the planning stages, with their hands on the ignition key, of the most concerted, well-funded, diabolical attack on free speech in the history of America.
But there it is.
Millions saw it on the DrudgeReport – including, no doubt, President Trump, Vice President Pence and Republican congressional leaders. But most Americans still know nothing of its existence – because it was not reported among the Big Media. They don’t want you to know about it. They would be embarrassed if America found out how they have been used and manipulated – from their focus on “Russian collusion” to other wild conspiracy theories targeting their No. 1 villain, President Trump.
It was nothing short of a plan to turn Google, Facebook and other social media into hyper-partisan Democratic Party activists, promoters, cheerleaders, and off-the-books donors in an effort to turn the country into a one-party state.
[...]
The timing of this insidious plot is key. When did it begin? Right after Trump was inaugurated. That’s when the attacks on the independent, alternative media – WND, Breitbart, et al. – began. We’ve been feeling the squeeze ever since – through politically skewed algorithms and speech codes.
The Google-Facebook-YoutTube-Twitter-Amazon-Apple cabal is trying to ensure we never have a free and fair election again in America. The “Russian-collusion” hoax is meant to take your eye off the real collusion by un-American, anti-free speech radical political activists.
Of course, Farah has been making stuff up -- in the form of thecopiousamountoffakenews WND has published in the past couple years alone -- and that is one big reason why WND is in its current, ongoing fix.
Farah continued his conspiratorial ranting in his Aug. 23 column: "You think it ends with Alex Jones being muzzled? Forget about it! This insidious cabal is already coming after WND, Dennis Prager, Breitbart.com and individual voices you’ve heard about like Diamond and Silk, for crying out loud. We have Democrat members of Congress trying to ban the sale of certain books at Amazon.com. Where does this insanity stop?"
When Farah admits to the error of his ways and WND stops publishing fake news, maybe?
Farah, however, sounded a little desperate in his plea for to raise $100,000 this month in that column: "We’re hunkered down and many are working without pay. I’ve subsidized WND with all the money I have and there is no more left. We thank you for getting us nearly 50 percent of the way to our total so far – but it’s not what we had hoped for with just a few days remaining. Please pray for us and shower us with your most generous donations to keep us alive and fighting for truth."
Farah was even more desperate, and a little jealous, the next day:
Traffic is down, revenues have plummeted 75 percent since January 2017. We’re hanging on by a thread.
Almost daily since August 1, I have brought you these reports and pleas for help in the form of prayer and financial sustenance. I’m so grateful to those who have answered the call. Yet it’s unlikely we will reach our goal of $100,000 this month. It alarms me that Peter Strzok, the disgraced FBI agent so instrumental in the Deep State attacks on President Trump, set a GoFundMe goal of $150,000 after being fired less than two weeks ago, and has raised more than $450,000 in that time, with a revised goal of $500,000.
Has this country gone insane?
No, not really, Joe. Strzok is getting funding because he is being correctly seen as the victim of a political attack led by the president of the United States that cost him his job and career because Trump needs a scapegoat to distract from his own behavior. WND is not getting support -- Farah conveniently omits that it has already taken in more than $200,000 in donations in a fund drive earlier this year -- because Farah and Co. cling to conspiracy theories instead of fixing what's wrong with their editorial product. Also, remember that Farah also apparently lowballed numbers in the last drive in an apparent effort to create some urgency for people to donate, so things might not actually be as dire as he's portraying.
Ultimately, Farah's problem that for all his begging and conspiracy-mongering, he has yet to offer a compelling reason why WND deserves to live. If he can't -- and as long as he takes refuge in conspiracy theories and refuses to take responsibility for all the fake news WND has published -- then it doesn't.
MRC Loves It When Media Conform To Its Pro-Trump Agenda Topic: Media Research Center
We already know the Media Research Center attacks any media outlet that lacks a sufficiently pro-Trump bias. Butit also hands out gold stars on occasion to news stories told in a way that supports the MRC's pro-Trump agenda.
In a July 27 post, Julia Seymour was delighted that some outlets properly, in her view -- credited Trump for a high GDP increase last quarter:
CNBC’s Squawk on the Street and Bloomberg.com viewed the latest U.S. GDP report as good news for the Trump administration.
The 4.1 percent second-quarter GDP estimate announced July 27, was the best quarterly pace in almost four years. Bloomberg.com called it a “Win for Trump” that same day.
Squawk on the Streetco-anchor Sara Eisen said, “Though, look, he is right to take a victory lap here because there are places in this GDP report he can point to to show that his policy is working.”
Seymour was disappointed, however, that it "remained a question for CNBC" that the economy would achieve the 3 percent annual growth Trump has predicted.
In an Aug. 9 post, Nicholas Fondacaro ranted that NBC covered the story of Melania Trump's parents becoming citizens, having "speculated that they received special treatment in the process and possibly used chain migration, a program the President opposes, even though the process still exists and still legal."Fondacaro pretended he could divine the purported emotions and agenda of the reporter and anchor involved, calling anchor Lester Hold "seemingly offended" by the story and insisting that the reporter"gloated" while reporting it and is "often resentful."
Fondacaro then described another network's coverage to show how NBC should have behaved:
In sharp contrast,CBS Evening News was congratulatory to the First Lady’s parents. “Melania Trump's parents became U.S. citizen today! Viktor and Amalija Knavs, natives of Slovenia took the oath at a ceremony in New York City. They had been living in the U.S permanent residents,” reported anchor Jeff Glor.
Not only was CBS welcoming to the Knavses but they completely separated them from their story on Trump’s immigration policy. They kicked off the broadcast by reporting on a federal judge who blocked the administration from deporting asylum seekers who were already in the judicial process. The news brief on Melania’s parents was the second-to-last story they covered that evening.
So that's what the MRC wants -- uncritical praise of Trump. Remember that the next time it offers what it claims to be "media research."
CNS Columnist Freaks Out Over Gay Content in 'Anne of Green Gables' Remake Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com columnist Eric Metaxas has an anti-gay freakout over the idea of gay characters in "Anne With an E," Netflix's revisionist take on "Anne of Green Gables," in his Aug. 7 column:
It’s been filmed a number of times over the years. And given the non-stop campaign to normalize the LGBT lifestyle, it should come as no surprise that the most recent version introduces several homosexual characters.
The Netflix series, titled “Anne with an E,” just began its second season. The episodes are charming—until you get to episode three, in which Anne, her friend Diana Berry, and a boy named Cole attend a gathering at the home of Diana’s great-Aunt Josephine. It turns out the party is a “queer soiree,” featuring men dressed as women, and wearing heavy makeup, and women dressed as men. They are there to honor the memory of Josephine’s departed “partner,” Gertrude.
Looking around her, Anne exclaims to Diana, “Isn’t this the most amazing group of people!” Well, I can’t help thinking that if a sheltered young girl like Anne actually encountered cross-dressing men and women in 1908, she would be shocked and probably frightened—not delighted.
[...]
Diana—who is nonplussed by her discovery of her aunt’s relationship with Gertrude, tells Anne their love affair was “unnatural.”
But the boy Cole—a character who is invented for the TV series—soon straightens her out. “If your aunt lived her life feeling … that she was broken, defective, or unnatural, and one day she met someone that made her realize that wasn’t true … shouldn’t we be happy for her?”
Cole later confesses to Aunt Josephine that he thinks he is “like you and Gertrude.” Josephine tells him, “You have a life of such joy before you.”
And in case you missed the gay-is-good point of the episode, the writers have Anne asking another character: “How can there be anything wrong with a life if it’s spent with a person you love?”
To answer Anne’s question: Plenty. People have suffered greatly through inappropriate “love”: For instance, a child whose father decided to love someone other than his wife, or a child who is loved, in an erotic way, by an adult.
It’s unlikely that Anne would ever have heard a sermon about homosexuality in her day and age. If she had, she would have known what scripture teaches about homosexual relationships: that they run counter to God’s plan for human flourishing.
Note how quickly Metaxas likens being gay to pedophilia. What he doesn't note, of course, that the seeds for this interpretation of Aunt Josephine appear in the original story, according to series creator Moira Walley-Beckett: "Upon reading [the novel] again as an adult, I was wondering about Aunt Jo. ... In the book, she’s a spinster and she’s just a bit of a curmudgeon, and that’s kind of it. So I’m like, ‘Well, she coming to the Barrys for a month and she’s grieving,’ that’s why I decided to justify why she’s there: Who is she grieving?"
Another WND-Linked Author Turns Anti-Semitic Topic: WorldNetDaily
Earlier this year, WorldNetDaily ever-so-slowly backed away from Paul Nehlen -- a candidate it heavily hyped and whose book WND published -- after he heavily embraced anti-Semitism and white nationalism (though WND has yet to make a public statement about the status of its relationship with him). Now another WND-linked author has gone down a similar path.
Walid Shoebat was a rock star at WND in the early 2000s. As we documented, WND loved the right-wing-friendly story he told about being a Palestinian terrorist who became a "Christian Zionist" (never mind the scant evidence that his terrorist past ever actually happened) -- not only did WND editor Joseph Farah write a fawning profile of him and touting his new self-proclaimed mission "to go to Americans and churches and anywhere I can go and explain God’s plan for the state of Israel, and how God intended Israel to be a light unto the nations, and how all of our hatred toward Israel is really evil." Shoebat was also the star attraction in the 2008 WND-published anthology "Why We Left Islam," one of the few contributors who was given a full bio.
Well, Shoebat appears to have soured on the whole "Christian Zionist" thing to the point where he's gone full-blown anti-Semitic. Israel National News reports:
Walid Shoebat’s foundation has a website, Shoebat.com that would expose persecution of Christians and Jews in the War on Terror. I hadn’t looked at the site in a while but when I went there I was greeted by a headline that read, “Judaism is Satanic”. It also featured a strange trailer from either the Arab miniseries A Horseman Without A Horse which is based on the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion and was used to foment pogroms since the 19th century on Jews or else from Mel Gibson’s Passion of Christ which is just as bad.
When I scrolled down on the website I was besieged with all manner of mendacious lecturing by Walid’s son, Theodore, describing the Talmud and Judaism as Satanic devices, also spewing out attacks on gays. The messages were the same as those on militant Islamist websites or those of Neo-Nazis, yet declared to be true representations of Christian doctrine and “telling it like it is” about the Jews who “killed God.” Some readers even carried on further: The Jews in Israel aren’t real Jews; The Talmud teaches ideas from the Devil; The Church revealed the devil worship of the Jews and on and on. Readers can see all this by visiting the website. I recommend viewing it on the Internet Archive here in case it has been removed by the time you read this article, but it was up at this writing.
At first, I thought maybe the site was hacked or that Walid wasn’t aware of what his son, Theodore was doing; the attacks on Judaism and Jews, the attacks on gays, his militant and almost persecutorial representations of Christianity that were Taliban-like behavior. But Walid told me everything was right, or so he said, and followed his 27 year-old son’s ideas. Now, the Shoebats say the Jews, not the Romans, killed Christ, and how Judaism is a Satanic cult. Walid and son described me as a “money grubbing Jew.”
Walid asked me if I wanted to do an interview with his son. But when his son called me he began insulting me with obscenity-laced accusations and nonsense.. The Palestinian militant came out, it seems, in both Walid and his son. This wasn’t a misunderstanding of Judaism, this was every bit as anti-Semitic as Hamas.
WND hasn't written much about Shoebat in recent years. The last time appears to be 2015, when WND soured on him itself after he attacked Farah's favorite messianic rabbi and meal ticket, Jonathan Cahn, by claiming his Shemitah theory linking stock market crashes to biblically defined cycles was somehow supportive of Adolf Hitler. The article, by Leo Hohmann, is pretty much a reversal of WND's earlier praise for Shoebat, dismissiing the origin story it one touted by stating that Shoebat was "claiming to be a former Palestinian terrorist turned Christian" who wrote an "angry rant."
Hohmann didn't report how Shoebat was a onetime WND star featured in a book it published, but it did quote Farah lamenting Shoebat's attack: "I have always considered Walid a good friend. Normally good friends call one another when they have a problem with the other. That’s what Matthew 18 is all about. Instead, he seems to be lashing out in anger and rage at both friends and at people like Jonathan and Mark Biltz whose only offense is bringing people to the Lord and to repentance and to the Bible. You expect anger and rage from people hostile to the Gospel, but not from friends who profess to be believers." Farah gave no indication that he or anyone else at WND reached out to Shoebat for this article.
Meanwhile, "Why We Left Islam" is still for sale at the WND online store at this writing, albeit heavily discounted to $2.99.
MRC Does Damage-Control Work For Makers of Right-Wing Roe v. Wade Film Topic: Media Research Center
Last month, Newsmax's James Hirsen tried to do damage control over reports of production problems on a right-wing film purporting to tell the "untold story "of the Roe v. Wade court case that legalized abortion across the U.S. Now the damage-control baton has passed to the Media Research Center.
In an Aug. 10 post, the MRC's Gabriel Hays attacked the "fake news" that the "liberal media" has been spreading about the in-porudiction film. But Hays never identifies anything that's "fake" about the reporting, just repeats director Nick Loeb's assertions that everything is fine. Most outlets that reported on the film's problems got a dismissive label by Hays: the Daily Beast is "lefty," Jezebel is "radical feminist," and apparently even the Hollywood Reporter is "liberal" by implication. By contrast, he quoted from a Washington Times article about the film but never labeled it as conservative.
Hays portrayed Loeb and his associates involved in the film's production as depicting "what's really going on," as if they don't have a vested interest in spinning things to their benefit:
In terms of what’s really going on with “Roe V. Wade,” the director and several other members of the team stated that it is running smoothly and that the bad press covering the production is just that. In terms of the reports of graphic abortion imagery present in the film, Loeb seemed surprised that anyone claimed to have that kind of information, asking “How do you know what’s in a film until it’s done?”
The Hollywood Reporter’s claims that the movie presented the typical, debunked anti-abortion talking points. She stated that “The filmmakers based the story on 40 research books on the subject and used ‘two sources for every fact we stated.’”
[...]
Those who are actually working on this controversial film see this as a concentrated attack by the fake news media to cripple their work. Mr. Loeb stated, “The ‘fake news’ is incredible. They’re falling all over themselves to lie and spin the truth.”
Hays doesn't bother to note any evidence Loeb has supplied to prove his claim that everybody but him is spreading "fake news" about the production, let alone consider the possibility that Loeb himself is the one spreading "fake news" in order to counter a mounting PR disaster.
Farah Tries Emotion To Sell This Year's WND Holy Land Tour Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily has a bit of a checkered record regarding its recent annual tours to the Holy Land -- it repeatedly pushed back deadlines for the 2016 tour to get enough people to show up (and then Joseph Farah and Jonathan Cahn staged a publicity stunt at the Temple Mount), and last year WND all but promised meetings between tour-goers and Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. ambassador to Israel David Friedman (neither of which ultimately happened, as far as we know).
This year, Farah is going for the shamelessly emotional appeal. One column he wrote promoting the tour, first published Aug. 13, starts with a brief explanation of how he moved from thinking "as a teenager during the 1967 Six-Day War, I found myself scouring the news reports for hope that the Arab powers would put an end to this “neo-colonial” intrusion into a region that rightfully belonged to the Arabs" (if the birth date on his Wikipedia page is correct, he would have been 13 at that time, making him unually precocious, if not Zelig-like, about poliltics) to going to "Jesus directing my life."
Farah then ramped up the shamelessness while segueing into a hard sell:
Is God tugging at your heart to visit His land? If so, I want to tell you about two opportunities to come with me and my wife, Elizabeth, to Israel to answer that calling in obedience. I promise you it will change your life, strengthen your faith, inspire you and provide you with an unforgettable spiritual experience of a lifetime.
Option No. 1: The first opportunity is coming up this November, and you will need to act fast. It’s your chance to get to Israel in this biblically historic 70th anniversary year of 2018.
Here’s just some of what you will get to experience under the direction of the most unlikely of tour leaders, plus the assistance of the greatest Israeli guides and the logistical support of the best tour company in the Jewish state:
[...]
The theme of this tour in “restoration,” and that’s what those on the tour will experience personally while seeing the undeniable evidence of the Kingdom restoration already taking place in Israel today.
You will never be quite the same after this trip. It’s a refreshing of the spirit. It’s a connection with your Savior that will never be broken.
And that’s option No. 1, but you better act fast to secure the best airline fares available. If this sounds like the trip for you, visit the WND Israel Tour website now and call Coral Tours at 866-267-2511 today. Time is of the essence. Don’t put it off for another day.
After describing the second tour WND is also offering, Farah added "In fact, why choose? Why not do both?"
Strange how Farah has the money to go on all these Holy Land tours when the website he runs is circling the drain (again).
Trump White House officials aren't the only people whose falsehoods and misleading claims CNSNews.com lets stand without challenge or fact-checking. Mark Levin -- whom CNS has promoted in 75 articles so far this year -- gets the non-treatment in an Aug. 10 blog post by Michael Morris:
John James, a West Point graduate, stormed to victory in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate [in Michigan] this week and will now face three-term incumbent Democrat Debbie Stabenow for the seat November 6. His stature in conservative circles has been rising for months and his victory was fueled by an endorsement by President Trump who said James is a future star in the Republican Party. In his race with businessman Sandy Pensler, James secured nearly 55 percent of the vote with well above 500,000 ballots cast for him.
The two main agenda items for the Media Research Center over the past year are 
All month long, WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah has been 
We've 
Because of its diminished state as a result of its money woes, WorldNetDaily publishes a lot less original content generated by its own writers; there's now a greater proportion of rewritten press releases and barely disguised promotions masquerading as "news." A sad example of the latter is an anonymously written Aug. 18 
Apparently, even Newsmax chief Christopher Ruddy -- who's been using his friendship with President Trump to raise his own profile and that of the news operation he runs, as well as serving as a 
CNSNews.com managing editor Michael W. Chapman wrote a ridiculously fawning Aug. 10 
For most of this month, WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah has been railing against the "digital cartel" of Google and Facebook that he claims is running out WND out of business. (He has spent zero time explaining why WND's shoddy, fake news-laden editorial practices are in no small part to blame for that.) In the process, he's turned even more conspiracy-obsessed than usual.
We already know the Media Research Center attacks any media outlet that lacks a sufficiently pro-Trump bias. Butit also hands out gold stars on occasion to news stories told in a way that supports the MRC's pro-Trump agenda.
CNSNews.com columnist Eric Metaxas has an anti-gay freakout over the idea of gay characters in "Anne With an E," Netflix's revisionist take on "Anne of Green Gables," in his Aug. 7 
Earlier this year, WorldNetDaily 
Last month, Newsmax's James Hirsen 
WorldNetDaily has a bit of a checkered record regarding its recent annual tours to the Holy Land -- it repeatedly 
