WND's Farah Blames 'The Dark Angel' -- Not Himself -- For His Book Tribulations
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah knows who to blame for difficulties in writing and publishing his new Bible-related book, and it is most definitely not Joseph Farah. He writes in his Oct. 18 column:

I’ve seen some dark places in the course of my life, the kinds of challenges that leave little doubt about the existence of an evil adversary.

Thankfully, those experiences have not characterized my life.

In fact, I have never seen anything quite like the last two years – since I began writing my newest book, “The Gospel in Every Book of the Old Testament,” which officially begins shipping today from the WND Superstore and soon Amazon and bookstores throughout America.

There were days when I doubted it would ever happen.

There were days when I cried like a baby because nothing that was supposed to happen did.

I can’t even blame Google and Facebook for this. I can only blame the Dark Angel.

The good news is it’s finished.

The most important, substantive and meaningful project I have ever been involved in over my lifetime is completed – except for the promotional work.

I can’t wait for those of you interested in it to see it.

First, we would argue that Farah spending eight years trying to delegitimize a duly elected president by repeatedly insisting he was not born in the United States and deliberately censoring all the evidence discrediting that claim -- not to mention refusing to even admit that Barack Obama was president of the United States -- demonstrates that he is a man who is, in fact, operating from a very dark place that characterizes his life.

Second: Farah seems to have taken our advice to do a modest launch of his book commesurate with WND's current resources. You might recall that earlier this year Farah was begging for $200,000 -- later upped to $400,000 without explanation -- to do a massive first printing of 100,000 copies of his book, citing interest from the Billy Graham Library and the Museum of the Bible. Farah even set up a way to make tax-deductible contributions to support the book through a murky deal with a ministry called Gospel for All Nations.

Farah and WND never told us how successful that campaign was -- they simply stopped soliciting for it, which tells us it was decidedly less than successful and that it raised nowhere near the money being sought. The support for a massive first printing appears never to have been there in the first place; at this writing, Farah's book is ranked No. 10,138 at Amazon, and even when the category is ridiculously narrowly defined -- in this case, three catetories relating to Old Testament Bible studies -- it ranks no higher than 20th.

As far as Farah blaming "the Dark Angel" for his tribulations, he once again overlooks himself. It seems Farah took his eye off the ball, focusing on writing his book as WND's finances imploded, forcing him to do a hasty begging campaign at the start of the year and another one this summer. And, as usual, there's no acknowledgment of how WND's editorial policies of conspiracy-mongering and fake news played a major role in destroying his company.

P.S. We couldn't help but notice the self-aggrandizing bio of Farah on the Amazon page for the book: "Joseph Farah is the author, co-author or collaborator on more than a dozen books that have sold millions of copies." The vast majority of those "millions of copies" are due to one book: "See, I Told You So," which he ghost-wrote for Rush Limbaugh. Books under his own name have never sold anywhere near as well.

Is The MRC Giving Gavin McInnes A Pass Because He Works for Mark Levin?
Topic: Media Research Center

CRTV host Gavin McInnes is the founder of the Proud Boys, a misogynist, violence-prone group (no matter what Jesse Lee Peterson says). He's so notorious that the Southern Poverty Law Center and the National Review agree on his odious allure. McInnes is a piece of work, as you might imagine; he spouts racist rhetoric even as he insists he can't be a white supremacist because he's married to a woman of color. And Facebook and Instagram just shut down pages affiliated with McInnes and the Proud Boys because of their racist images and incitements to violence.

All of this, one would think, might get the notice of the Media Research Center. It's overly sensitive to right-wingers facing issues with social media networks -- remember, it had a sad over the alt-right Twitter clone Gab getting removed from some app stores. (It just had another sad over Gab being taken offline after it was revealed that the man who shot up a Pittsburgh synagogue, killing 11, spouted his anti-Semitic hate on Gab.)

But we found only five references to McInnes on NewsBusters, the MRC's main content outlet. Two are columns by Michelle Malkin, who like McInnes is a CRTV employee. The third is a 2015 piece by Tim Graham quoting a McInnes tweet about drawing Mohammed.

The other two, though, are pieces by Corinne Weaver -- who also wrote the above-referenced pieces about Gab -- on Sept. 25 and Oct. 4, both of which complain that an antifa-adjacent group "doxxed" McInnes by posting his phone number on Twitter. The earlier post described McInnes as "the founder of Vice Media and host of a show on the Conservative Review," while the second didn't describe him at all. Weaver didn't mention McInnes' link to Proud Boys violence, or that the group mocked McInnes in the "doxxing" by asking people to "tell him you love white genocide."

A piece on MRCTV on the "doxxing" of McInnes did include the mocking message, but writer Nick Kangadis benignly described McInnes only as a "fiery Conservative Review commentator and host" and excluded his links to the violent Proud Boys and rushing to his defense: "McInnes may say some controversial things at times, but at least he tells it like it is. His brand of political analysis might not be for everyone, but that’s not an excuse to essentially dox him and open him up for more constant harassment." Kangadis didn't explain how advocating violence is "telling it like it is."

Why is the MRC giving the obviously offensive McInnes the kid-glove treatement? Perhaps because of who employs him. CRTV is part of Conservative Review, which was founded by right-wing radio host Mark Levin, who also serves as its editor-in-chief. Yes, the same Mark Levin who's a friend of the MRC and chief Brent Bozell, whose "news" division CNSNews.com published more than 100 articles about him in the first nine months of 2018 alone.

So, no, the MRC isn't going to criticize McInnes and and make Bozell's buddy sad. 

P.S. McInnes isn't the only dubious right-winger employed at Levin's CRTV; it recently hired Eric Bolling, the former Fox News host who left the channel last year following allegations that he sexually harassed Fox News colleagues. And, no, the MRC has never mentioned those allegations.

WND Fearmongers About Migrant Caravan
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Like a good, loyal pro-Trump apparatchik (as well as a longtime immigrant-hater), WorldNetDaily is doing what it can to fearmonger about the migrant caravan coming up Central America to seek asylum in the U.S.

On Oct. 18, WND uncritically repeated claims by the right-wing, pro-Trump legal group Judicial Watch that "Some 100 ISIS terrorists have been caught in Guatemala, where a caravan of thousands of migrants is headed to the United States" and that a terrorist “could have easily slipped in considering the minors, coined Unaccompanied Alien Children, were not properly vetted and some turned out to be violent gangbangers who went on to commit heinous crimes in their adopted land of opportunity.”

In fact, the Guatemalan newspaper that originally reported the claim about the ISIS arrests did not specify a time frame in which those arrests took place , and no evidence was provided to support the implication that ISIS terrorists were, in fact, part of the caravan.

Art Moore offered more uncritical stenography in an Oct. 23 article stating that "The Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday it can confirm that gang members and males from the Middle East and Asia are in the caravan headed for the United States that began in Honduras." Moore cited only a tweet from a DHS official and offered no evidence to prove the claim. Meanwhile, an actual news outlet is embedded with the caravan and has not seen any Middle Easterners, and it reported taht another DHS official said the other official's tweet referencing Middle Easterners did not refer to the caravan specifically.

Despite Judicial Watch's dubious grasp of the facts, WND fearmongered again on Oct. 26 by uncritically repeating the group's unsutstantiated claim that "A number of human smugglers operating inside the caravan moving from Central America through Mexico toward the United States’ southern border have been arrested, and seven unaccompanied minor children have been rescued." Judicial Watch vaguely cited "exclusive information and photos from Guatemalan authorities" but WND mentioned no physical substantiation of the claims.

WND gave up on fact-checking completely for pure speculation in an anonymously written Oct. 29 article headlined "Worst fears about migrant caravan ... likely true," in which even more dubious sources like Infowars and Gateway Pundit are cited to fearmonger further about the caravan.

Treating speculation as fact isn't going to help WND find the road to solvency.

CNS Runs With Bogus Attack on Pelosi
Topic: CNSNews.com

Craig Bannister solemnly intones in an Oct. 18 CNSNews.com blog post:

“So be it,” House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) declared regarding the possibility of her political opponents suffering “collateral damage.”

In an onstage interview with New York Times columnist Paul Krugman on Sunday, Rep. Pelosi took aim at “others who don’t share our view”:

“We owe the American people to be there for them, for their financial security, respecting the dignity and worth of every person in our country, and if there is some collateral damage for some others who do not share our view, well, so be it, but it shouldn’t be our original purpose.”

“We have to have total clarity about what we do, when it comes to everything,” Pelosi said, citing causes like abortion rights, gay marriage, immigration and gun control.

Bannister conveniently omits the context of Pelosi's conversation with Krugman -- probably because he wouldn't have a blog post otherwise.

As Wonkette explains, Pelosi and Krugman were discussing climate change and its connection to job creation and prosperity, and Pelosi's reference to "collateral damage" refers to those groups who would suffer as a result of efforts to try to stop global warming, i.e., oil companies.

Bannister also included a video of Pelosi's remarks, which Wonkette identified as deceptively edited because it, like Bannister's post, removes the context.

But reporting Pelosi's remarks accurately and fully in context was apparently too much work for Bannister, who took the lazy way out and decided to smear her instead.

CNS has yet to fix Bannister's misquoting of a reporter to justify President Trump's insult of her, so don't expect it to rush to fix this.

WND's Jesse Lee Peterson Thinks Thuggish Proud Boys Are Just A 'Fraternity'
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Jesse Lee Peterson's Oct. 21 WorldNetDaily column is his usual right-wing screed of bashing liberals, "out of control" women, those who point out racism, black leaders he doesn't like and the Southern Poverty Law Center. Then he gets to this part:

The SPLC recently labeled Proud Boys as a “hate group.” Proud Boys are a fraternity headed by talk show host Gavin McInnes, founded to promote pride in Western Civilization. Proud Boys typically show up to protect Trump supporters and free speech advocates at rallies. The media call the Proud Boys “violent” for getting into fights with Antifa’s “masked protestors.” The left don’t care that Antifa vandalizes property and attack people at events – including law enforcement and anyone with a camera.

Needless to say, Peterson didn't link to the SPLC page on the Proud Boys, which explains why it considers them a hate group:

Their disavowals of bigotry are belied by their actions: rank-and-file Proud Boys and leaders regularly spout white nationalist memes and maintain affiliations with known extremists. They are known for anti-Muslim and misogynistic rhetoric. Proud Boys have appeared alongside other hate groups at extremist gatherings like the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville. Indeed, former Proud Boys member Jason Kessler helped to organize the event, which brought together Klansmen, antisemites, Southern racists, and militias. Kessler was only “expelled” from the group after the violence and near-universal condemnation of the Charlottesville rally-goers.

[...]

McInnes himself has ties to the racist right and has contributed to hate sites like VDare.com and American Renaissance, both of which publish the work of white supremacists and so-called “race realists.” He even used Taki’s Magazine — a far-right publication whose contributors include Richard Spencer and Jared Taylor — to announce the founding of the Proud Boys. 

Further, the day Peterson's column appeared, three Proud Boys were arrested for brawling the week before with anti-fascist groups protesting a speech by McInnes.

Some "fraternity" you got there, Jesse.

NEW ARTICLE: Hating Anita Hill Through Brett Kavanaugh
Topic: Media Research Center
Christine Blasey Ford's sexual misconduct accusations against Brett Kavanaugh allows the Media Research Center to revel yet again in how much it hates Anita Hill for raising questions about conservative icon Clarence Thomas. Read more >>

WND Demonized Refugee Agency That Synagogue Shooter Targeted
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Once again, we're seeing that right-wing rhetoric promoted by WorldNetDaily has found an echo in the perpetrator of a mass killing.

Robert Bowers' main target in the Pittsburgh synogogue shooting, in which he killed 11 people, was HIAS, formerly known as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, which has an affiliate in Pittsburgh. Before the massacre, he tweeted that ""HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can't sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I'm going in."

As it so happens, WND has spent the past few years trying to demonize the agency for bringing in refugees.

In 2014, immigrant-hating, Muslim-hating reporter Leo Hohmann complained that HIAS said it was "unacceptable and un-American" for what he called "unaccompanied alien children" to navigate the U.S. legal system without a court-appointed lawyer, and that it "provide[d] a form letter on its website for supporters to send to members of Congress" that was "continuously pushing for more money to pay for higher levels of resettlement work." Another 2014 article by Hohmann listed HIAS among agencies that "often do the bidding of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees" and "push for more foreign refugees to be resettled in America, which results in more federal grants flowing into their coffers."

A May 2015 article by Hohmann detailed how HIAS issued a "field manual" on overcoming resistance to refugees in some commiunities, which Hohmann later described as "a strategy to deride and intimidate any politician or activist who opposes the refuge industry’s agenda to change the demographics of a town." Hohmann claimed the report was underwritten by "a wealthy New York family foundation," and complained that HIAS "is one of nine government contractors who do the resettlement work in more than 190 cities and towns across the U.S. These contractors subcontract with more than 350 smaller agencies and church groups to get the refugees settled into subsidized housing, get their children enrolled in school and families signed up for Medicaid."

Hohmann wrote that "Hebrew Immigrant Aid cited fear of terrorism as one of the primary concerns that residents have with Muslim refugees settling in their communities" and that "the report blames the backlash not on any failure of the government to properly vet refugees but on “anti-Muslim views” held by native-born Americans," then argued the anti-Muslim fear was wholly justified: "Since the report was written in February 2013, scores more Somali refugees have been arrested for providing material support for overseas Islamic terror groups such as al-Shabab. Still others have left the country to fight for ISIS and al-Shabab."

Hohmann also claimed of the "playbook" that "Among the recommendations given by HIAS was to monitor and research the backgrounds of 'resisters' and turn them in to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a far-left 'watchdog' that has in recent years taken to branding mainline Christian organizations such as the Family Research Council as 'hate groups.'"

In July 2015, Hohmann wrote of an incident in which anti-refugee activists were exposed as intolerant, then quoted anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant activist Ann Corcoran ranting, "This kind of trashing of the First Amendment rights of average American citizens who speak out or even question the refugee program is right out of the playbook of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society’s document."

In September 2015, Hohmann claimed that HIAS "started out as a rescue mission for persecuted Jews but now relocates mostly Muslims to the U.S."

In 2016, Hohmann groused that a flood of Honduran refugees weren't actually fleeing violence, citing HIAS as among "religious groups [who] have also done their part to push the “migrants as refugees” narrative" and "have answered the call of the Obama administration, offering shelter, legal aid, advocacy and lobbying, and other mostly government-funded aid to the migrants."

Hohmann wrote in 2017 that HIAS was among "well-heeled resettlement agencies" who "certainly will file lawsuits against any Trump plan that drastically reduces or eliminates the number of refugees flowing into U.S. cities." Hohmann also accused HIAS of "secretly placing refugees into U.S. cities," later asserting that the group is "57 percent funded by taxpayers." One of Hohmann's final articles for WND was a January 2018 piece listing HIAS among resettlement agencies that allegedly "serve as virtual headhunters for these global conglomerates in search of cheap labor for their hotels and factories.

Hohmann wasn't the only WND writer fearmongering about HIAS. An August 2015 column by anti-Muslim activist Pamela Geller ranted that "The Democrats have made refugee resettlement a lucrative business for agencies like" HIAS, adding that it's "ironic how most of these agencies represent religions that are being persecuted and slaughtered by these very Muslim communities.

In its initial report on the Pittsburgh shooting, an anonymous WND writer noted Bowers' tweet attacking HIAS -- but it didn't note the years WND has spent demonizing the group.

Meanwhile, Hohmann -- who's now a freelancer -- hasn't written on his own site in nearly a month, so we don't know how he feels about Bowers' massacre and the role hatred for HIAS played in it.

MRC Takes A Gratuitous Shot At Soros In Its War Against Google
Topic: Media Research Center

A leaked Google report showing its struggles to balance free speech protections and fights against harmful and hateful speech got a lot of play in the usual right-wing circles when Breitbart published the report earlier this month. The Media Rsearch Center's Corrinne Weaver described the report as a justification on how "in order to prevent certain political events, tech companies would have to start censoring web content," and MRC chief Brent Bozell ranted that the report "confirms our worst fear. Contrary to Google's public statements and what they have said to us in private discussions, Google is in the censorship business and apparently the lying business as well. "

The MRC even got to engage in a bit of gratuitous Soros-bashing in relation to the report. An Oct. 12 MRC item by Weaver groused:

Google wants to cite only the best experts in their fields in order to justify its position. Who better than liberal billionaire George Soros?

In the Google presentation, “The Good Censor,” leaked to Breitbart, the search media company cited 27 so-called “experts” for different aspects of digital freedom and online censorship. Among those experts were George Soros, a ProPublica article, New York Times editorial board member Sarah Jeong, former New Republic editor Franklin Foer, and Slate writer April Glaser. (ProPublica is one of many news entities funded by Soros. His Open Society Foundation gave at least $737,411 to the non-profit journalism group.)

Google quoted Soros in the section about transparency regarding global positions, writing: “US-based IT monopolies are already tempted to compromise themselves in order to gain entrance to these vast and fast growing markets. The dictatorial leaders in these countries may be only too happy to collaborate with them since they want to improve their methods of control over their own populations and expand their power and influence in the United States and the rest of the world.”

Weaver found nothing wrong with Soros' statement -- she's just mad that Soros was quoted, period.

The MRC has been at war with Soros for years, even employing anti-Semitic imagery to promote it.

Masculinity-Obsessed WND Columnist Laments That Schwarzenegger Is Giving Up 'Girly Man' Insults
Topic: WorldNetDaily

One of the leaders in WorldNetDaily's embrace of the type of manliness supposedly embodied by Donald Trump is self-proclaimed "human paleopsychology" specialist Kent Bailey, who loves manliness and in general Trump's manliness in particular (despite not particularly looking like a he-man himself). Bailey mines this particular vein again in his Oct. 15 column, in which he laments that Arnold Schwarzenegger has expressed regret for his history of "girly man" insults, while also imparting his particular view of womanhood in the process:

Arnold’s surrender here is much more than a humorous blip in the war between the sexes; it is a warning signal of the degree to which the feminization of the country has progressed in the last decade. If Schwarzenegger can go down so completely in so short a time, then what about the country as a whole? Will masculinity soon be a thing of the past?

[...]

A girly man is uncertain about and possibly repulsed by his masculinity and its rigorous standards and implicit responsibilities. He does not like conflict, demands to be tough and moral interdictions that interfere with his self-indulgent lifestyle. He is a follower and not a leader, and is a poor candidate for soldier, father, high political office, or patriot of the year. He is the essence of “snowflake,” almost surely a Democrat and, for the most part, harmless.

Ideally, with the aid of church, community and proper education, your surly, party- and peer-obsessed girly girl will begin the perilous trek toward womanhood. Once, fully a woman, she achieves her greatest fulfillment in a loving marriage of adoring and adorable children and a loving, protective and adoring husband. If she is the smart one in the family, the primary wage earner, or a person of great accomplishment, that is the icing but not the cake. Now is the age of the frustrated and perpetually angry woman, which is due – I theorize – not to sexism, patriarchic oppression, or the proverbial glass ceiling but a failed transition from girldom to womanhood.51

Ideally, the female of the species makes the transition first from girl-to-woman, and then to the ultimate stage of lady. In the column Genteel ladies vs. Stone Age venuses,” I argued that the developmental stage of “lady” is achieved by few but desired by many. A lady is a person of distinction who goes beyond simple personal happiness and is a cultural pearl of great price. She is a person of poise, civility, generosity and has a refined sense of social presence. I mentioned the duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton, as exemplary, and, certainly, Melania Trump is a stellar example of the refined lady. My latest heroic lady is Nikki Haley who has done a fabulous job as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. – and she can knock heads with the best of them!

Traditionists, conservatives, Christians and Republicans seem to have many ladies among them, but the wild and wooly lefties of the Democratic Party are currently mired in raucous, raging and politically inarticulate girly girls who range from 10 to 90 in chronological age. The perky and socially attractive Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez represents the left’s kinder version of emotion-dominated and simplistic socialism, whereas the raging, screaming and attacking viragos that dominate Democratic “protests” and in-your-face bullying and anarchy define the dark side. It is shameful that the Democrats seduce these young and often maladjusted girly girls to do their dirty work and thereby jeopardize their hopes of womanhood and even ladyhood. Who would want to date, hire, or marry one of these raging, man-hating creatures?

So Arnold, I am really disappointed in you, and your image with real men is shattered forever. Your sudden and full surrender to the girly girl wing of the left reveals that you are one of them! Like a French girl buying lipstick as the Nazis marched into Paris, you are now a collaborateur in the regressive culture wars roiling the nation.

Funny how Bailey's ideal of masculinity and feminity appears to be wholly dependent upon the political philosophy of the person. It's as if there's an element of quackery to his ""human paleopsychology."

CNS Portrays Trump Tax Cuts As Budget-Buster As Partisan Debate Rather Than Actual Fact
Topic: CNSNews.com

Last week, we detailed how CNSNews.com editor in chief Terry Jeffrey fretted about the rising federal budget deficit and debt while failing to mention the fact that a Republican-promoted, Trump-signed tax cut played a big role in increasing the deficit this year.

This was followed by an Oct. 17 article by Susan Jones that was only slightly less dishonest in approaching the subject. Jones uncritically let Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell spread the blame for the deficits, even though it's his party that's currently in control of the White House and Congress:

The total national debt increased by more than a trillion dollars in Fiscal 2018, reaching $21.5 trillion at the end of September; and the FY '18 budget deficit was almost $779 billion.

Although the situation is "very disturbing," it cannot be blamed on Republicans alone, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told Bloomberg News on Tuesday:

It's driven by the three big entitlement programs that are very popular – Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid. That's 70 percent of what we spend every year. The subject we were just discussing, the funding of the government, is about 30 percent of what we spend.

There's been a bipartisan reluctance to tackle entitlement changes because of the popularity of those programs. Hopefully, at some point here, we'll get serious about this. We haven't been yet.

McConnell said the opportunity for entitlement reform existed during the Obama years, when for six of those years, Republicans controlled either one or both chambers of Congress.

"I talked to President Obama about it a number of times," McConnell said. "It would have been the perfect time to do it. Think of Reagan and Tip O'Neill coming together in the early 80s to raise the age for Social Security. It took it out of the political arena and made it possible for it to be successful... unfortunately, it was not achieved."

Democrats blame the Republican tax cuts for ballooning the FY 2018 deficit, and they consistently resist any attempt to trim entitlements.

In fact, there are three main drivers of the current deficit: The Trump tax cut, military spending and entitlement spending.

Also, note how Jones framed the idea that the Trump tax cuts blew a hole in the deficit as a partisan debate by complain that it's what Democrats say rather than an undisputed fact. Well played, Susan.

WND's Farah Calls Migrant Caravan 'Storm Troopers'
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Over the past few months, WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah's column has consisted almost entirely of either begging for money from readers to keep WND alive (and ranting about the internet "cartel" purportedly conspiring to put him out of business) or promoting his new book about the Bible. He hasn't even written about Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination despite originally opposing it because Kavanaugh was a part of Kenneth Starr's investigation that he deemed insufficiently vengeful against the Clintons.

Farah dipped a toe back into column-length political screeds in his Oct. 25 piece complaining that Democrats are bullying President Trump and playing the "fascism card." And as usual, he's spreading lies. Like this claim:

Already we’ve had real, potentially lethal violent attacks from actual Democratic campaign operatives – one designed to wipe out a group of Republicans believing they could still hold baseball games with their “colleagues.” One, Steve Scalise, the majority whip, was nearly lost. Another senator, Rand Paul, is still dealing with a vicious physical attack.

The man who shot Scalise, James Hodgkinson, was not an "actual Democratic campaign operative" -- actual Democrats where he lived had never heard of him -- nor was Rene Boucher, the man who attacked Paul over a yard-waste dispute, not politics.

Farah concluded his column with this rant:

Americans are being bullied into keeping their mouths shut. Most of us don’t like unpleasantness like this. They avoid cities for lots of reasons – they’re controlled by Dems, which means they are not controlled. We’re all losing our liberty.

Now the Honduran storm troopers are here. What else can we call them?

Meanwhile, we have Dems ready to drop ICE if they are able to take power.

This is insanity.

We’re losing our country.

Wait, what? The migrant caravan arching through Central America attempting to reach the United States to seek asylum are "storm troopers"? Where did that come from?

Farah's intemperate rant looks even worse when you consider that two days later, a man killed 11 people at a synagogue in Pittsburgh in no small part because he was angry that Jews were allegedly aiding immigrant refugees in the caravan, whom he called "invaders."

Maybe Farah should just stick to begging for money and plugging his book.

MRC Writer Criticizes NY Times Obit Of Conservative, Doesn't Disclose Man Gave Money to MRC
Topic: NewsBusters

Clay Waters complains in an Oct. 15 NewsBusters post:

Monday’s New York Times obituary by Robert McFadden for American beer pioneer William Coors (of the brewing company that carries his name) violated the usual tasteful norms for an obit, starting with the headline and the text box: “William Coors, Ultraconservative Leader Of Brewery Based in Colorado, Dies at 102.” The text box: “A chairman’s speeches were often labeled racist, sexist and homophobic.”

Waters also complained that "McFadden stubbornly kept the focus on liberal outrage, not the Ivy League chemical engineer who had an inventive and successful career building the company." Curiously, Waters did not dispute the accuracy of those claims -- perhaps because the obit lays out in detail the evidence to support them.

Waters failed on another count: He didn't disclose that the Media Research Center, which publishes the blog on which his post appeared, has reportedly received funding from the Castle Rock Foundation, which was backed by Coors money.

Seems like an important conflict of interest to report, yet Waters failed to do so.

MRC Latino Keeps Insisting That Anti-Gay Conversion Therapy Works
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center has long defended the discredited, potentially harmful practice of gay conversion therapy -- and lately, it's been the MRC's Latino division pushing it. Let's go back and review an item we overlooked at the time.

An Aug. 14 MRC Latino piece by Morela Scull complained that viewers of a CNN en Espanol segment on conversion therapy "were subjected to only one point of view on the issue" of England banning the practice, asserting that a ban on conversion therapy "limits the freedom of speech and worse yet, the option of offering its citizens a therapy that many believe – and confirm – works." Scull wrote:

According to an expert on the issue of homosexuality, Quentin L. Van Meter, MD, the ban is in fact an assault on freedom of speech and regrettable for homosexuals who can benefit from the therapy, particularly those who voluntarily want to undergo conversion therapy, because their condition will be ignored, and their ailments shifted aside, attributed to “social stigmatization”.

Van Meter is so anti-gay that he canceled his membership in the respected American Academy of Pediatrics because it advocated against stigmatization of LGBT youth. He has since become involved with the decidedly less respected American College of Pediatricians -- a right-wing group of anti-gay physicians -- where he signed a position statement attacking transgenderism as "gender ideology" and "an objective psychological problem exists that lies in the mind not the body and it should be treated as such."

Nevertheless, Scull goes on to write:

Van Meter contends that the issue has escaped the realm of science and has become a political affair orchestrated by powerful lobby groups to silence doctors and scientists who sustain that voluntary conversion therapy can help address deeper underlying issues (often related to adverse childhood events) such as depression and anxiety that many homosexuals face and which can be worked through by using therapy. Dr. Van Meter pointed out critical studies regarding homosexuality such as those carried out by Dr Lawrence S. Meyer and Dr. Paul R Mc Hugh or Dr. Kenneth J. Zucker, PhD.

We've previously highlighted how McHugh is an anti-gay researcher whose work has been discredited. Scull linked to a paper co-authored by McHugh and Mayer in a Christian-oriented journal, which critics note is highly biased toward confirming their anti-gay beliefs; for instance, they reference only one of six studies in the peer-reviewed literature of the past 16 years that employ proper probability-sampling methods, which happens to be the one with the lowest estimate of genetic influence on sexual orientation. The link Scull supplied for Zucker is about treatment for children with gender identity issues, not homosexualilty; Zucker deviates from the greater psychiatric community in advocating conversion therapy in failing to differentiate between gender identity and sexual orientation.

Scull also complained that the CNN en Espanol commentator "also used the tired scare tactic of claiming that the methodology for receiving conversion therapy includes raping girls so that through sexual intercourse they can be 'corrected', a sensationalist remark that Dr. Van Meter explains may have existed a century ago; today it is based on psychotherapy." In fact, corrective rape occurs throughout the world even today, and she provides no evidence of a scientifically valid, replicable psychotheraputic approach to conversion therapy that does no harm to the client.

Scull concluded by whining that banning conversion therapy is "a ban that, in essence, threatens freedom of speech, a right that all media owe their existence to." That same freedom of speech also exposes how unnecessary, ineffective and potentially harmful such therapy actually is.

WND -- Which Pushed Hillary Impeachment Before She Could Be Elected -- Fears Kavanaugh Impeachment
Topic: WorldNetDaily

An Oct. 7 WorldNetDaily article complained that "Democrats and the Washington Post teamed up" to plot the impeachment of newly installed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, huffing that "The headline on the story in the Jeff Bezos’ paper said it all: 'With Kavanaugh confirmed, impeachment could follow. Here’s how.'" The article added that "Of course, impeachment proceedings would be contingent on Democrats regaining control of the House, where impeachment charges must begin."

Two days later, another WND article tried to shoot down the idea:

Democrats who vowed to impeach Brett Kavanaugh even before he was sworn in as associate justice of the Supreme Court will have to contend with the Constitution, points out Harvard Law School Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz.

Kavanaugh could not be impeached on the grounds of the accusation by Christine Blasey Ford of sexual assault 36 years ago, because it pertains to alleged actions as a private citizen, Dershowitz explained in an interview with Fox News.

Further, he said, the Constitution would not “permit using the laws of perjury, which are very tough.”

Dershowitz also believes Democrats would pay a high political price.

WND has previously expressed similar concerns about impeachment talk against President Trump. But as we've noted, WND was promoting the idea of impeaching Hillary Clinton in May 2015, a year and a half before the 2016 election, and just a couple days before the November 2016 election, WND was touting how "If Hillary Clinton wins the election Tuesday, a prominent Republican member of the House Judiciary Committee says there will be an immediate move to impeach her before she can even be sworn into office Jan. 20."

So, yeah, WND is once again being just a tad hypocritical on impeachment talk.

MRC T-Shirt Proves Misinterpreting Its Trump Coverage 'Study' Is The Goal
Topic: Media Research Center

We've repeatedly highlighted how the Media Research Center's tally of the "liberal media's" purportedly "negative" coverage of President Trump is utterly bogus:

• It focuses only on a tiny sliver of news -- the evening newscasts on the three networks -- and completely ignores the cable news networks including Fox News.
• It pretends there was never any neutral coverage of Trump; in fact, neutral coverage is explicitly rejected even though that's arguable the bulk of news coverage, dishonestly counting "only explicitly evaluative statements."
• It fails to take into account the stories themselves and whether negative coverage is deserved or admit that negative coverage is the most accurate way to cover a given story.
• It never fails to provide the raw data or the actual statements it evaluated so its work could be evaluated by others.

Needless to say, the MRC's latest tally of "negative" coverage is pretty much the same. Rich Noyes writes in an Oct. 9 post:

In four weeks, Americans go to the polls for the midterm elections that the news media are casting as a referendum on the Trump presidency. Over the summer, the broadcast networks have continued to pound Donald Trump and his team with the most hostile coverage of a President in TV news history — 92 percent negative, vs. just eight percent positive.

And the MRC was tickled to death that Trump retweeted the MRC's results, to the point that MRC "news" division CNSNews.com devoted an article to it.

Also needless to say, Noyes once again can't be bothered to make the full data public, and he clings to his absurdly narrow definition of "coverage" that is almost certainly constructed to make such results preordained and designed to be misinterpreted and extrapolated as an indictment of the entire "liberal media."

That last point is not a bug, it's a feature -- and the MRC is effectively admitting it. In an Oct. 18 email, the MRC's political activity arm, MRC Action, touted how "MRC Grassroots Army" members can by a T-shirt to "make a festive statement during elections week" falsely extrapolating the coverage study results. It states: "Liberal Media Coverage of Trump in 2018: 91% Negative."

If the MRC didn't intend for its studies to be misinterpreted, it wouldn't be selling T-shirts that misinterpret them.