Bozell's Hypocritical Apology Demand Topic: Media Research Center
Brent Bozell has a myopic NewsBusters post:
This morning, in the aftermath of the unspeakable Colorado massacre that claimed at least 12 innocent American lives and injured dozens more, ABC "news" investigative reporter Brian Ross appeared on ABC's Good Morning America and made the outrageous, irresponsible, and completely unfounded claim that the alleged gunman, 24-year-old Jim Holmes, is a member of the Tea Party. Apparently Ross has learned absolutely nothing from the media's disgraceful rush to judgment and dissemination of misinformation following the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in January 2011.
That's twice now that the "news" media have falsely implicated the Tea Party in murder.
[...]
In a moment that demanded clarity of thought and purpose, Ross rushed to slander those with whom he does not agree politically, exposing the depths and darkness of his political prejudices. Shame on Brian Ross, and shame on ABC News for not yet demanding he look directly into the camera and beg forgiveness for politicizing this terrible event. Ross' meek Twitter apology is a cynically insincere slap in the face to us all.
Unmentioned in Bozell's post: A rush to judgment by the biased right-wing media he loves.
in a post at Breitbart.com, editor Joel Pollak declared that the accused shooter, James Holmes, "registered as a Democrat on June 14, 2011. He registered from an address in La Plata County, Colorado, and his status is listed as 'inactive.'" Pollak laughably asserted that "There are certainly more facts in our documents than in ABC News' irresponsible speculations."
Pollak, meanwhile, attacked Ross and ABC for their error, and even admitted that ABC has issued a "straightforward apology." By contrast, Pollak issued only a correction and no apology.
It wasn't until a full five hours later that Pollak started to backtrack from his false accusation, finally concediing that "the suspect may, in fact, not have been registered to vote."
Where's Bozell's outrage over this? Why is it OK in his mind to smear Democrats but not conservatives? Shouldn't Joel Pollak issue the very same abject apology Bozell demands from Brian Ross?
If he won't treat Pollak the same as Ross, Bozell is nothing but a coward and a hypocrite. But we knew that already, didn't we?
Salon has an interesting profile of WorldNetDaily columnist and Obama conspiracy-monger Jack Cashill. The article's conclusion sums up Cashill quite well:
Seeing Obama lead the free world may infuriate Cashill, but that’s garden-variety political anger. Seeing Obama celebrated as an author — that’s personal, and intolerable. You can’t fake being a good writer, and yet Obama is doing it. Or maybe Obama really is a good writer, and that’s even worse. There he goes again, using words Jack Cashill has never heard, citing authors Jack Cashill has never read, failing to make errors Jack Cashill would have made, laughing off his undergraduate poems while Jack Cashill pores over them, deep into the night, begging them to betray their author once and for all. There he goes, forgetting all about a poem he wrote in high school while Jack Cashill recites his own prize-winning composition, proudly, to an audience of one.
Yes, Cashill really did claim that "I can still recite the poem that won a class contest when I was a freshman in high school."
NewsBusters Still Hates Context (For Obama) Topic: NewsBusters
NewsBusters has a passive-aggressive relationship with putting words in their proper context: It will demand that the words of conservatives be placed in context, but not only does it happily quote, say, President Obama out of context and declare any attempt to put them back in their true context as "making excuses."
We see that again in a July 19 post by Tom Blumer, in which he denounces the Associated Press for putting Obama's statement "If you've got a business, you didn't build that" -- which right-wingers like Blumer have made a point of taking out of context -- in its origial context of talking about the roads, bridges and other infrastructure that makes it possible for customers to get to those businesses:
Geez, Steve, what part of "you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen" didn't you understand?
Note well that Peoples didn't write: "Obama said that his intended point was ..." He asserted as an indisputable, established fact what Obama's "intended point" was. You don't know that, pal -- no matter how many other Obama speeches you quote.
Actually, it's quite clear from Obama's words what he intended to say, and indeed did say. But Blumer is too invested in dishonestly taking that statement out of context that he just can't help but parrot the right-wing talking point du jour:
Not "somebody else created the infrastructure (with your taxes) which made pursuing your dreams more possible." Not "somebody else educated your employees (with your taxes) which made leveraging your talents possible." And even if the President was right -- and of course, he's not -- the "progressive" tax system which already takes a disproportionate percentage of income from high earners squares the deal.
In Obama's warped world, you didn't close the sale; "somebody else" did. You didn't screen, vet, hire, and motivate employes; "somebody else" did. You didn't organize and manage your work flow, vendor, and customer relationships; "somebody else" did. On a more personal level, you didn't orchestrate the complex elements (incuding government red tape) of building of your new home; "somebody else" did.
No amount of "context" can paper over the fact that in Obama's world successful people don't have a right to claim credit for their success. The government and the collective deserve all of it, and how dare you think otherwise? There's no room for, or even acknowledgment of, "individual initiative" in the president's "you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen" remark.
No amount of ranting can paper over the fact that Blumer doesn't care about context or even facts. He has right-wing marching orders, and he must deny reality to carry them out.
While we were posting our compendium of race-baiting by WorldNetDaily and Colin Flaherty, they were tag-teaming for yet another racial tirade.
Flaherty once again operates from the premise that only blacks are violent:
Ready to play the Knockout Game?
The St. Louis version is the most popular, so let’s start there: Begin with a bunch of black people. Anywhere from five to 50.
Find a white person, but an Asian will do. Alone is important. Older is better. Weak and defenseless even more so.
Without warning, punch that person in the face as hard as you can. You win if you score a Knockout.
If not, keep punching until your arms and legs get too tired to continue. Or the person dies.
You can play anywhere, but “vibrant and culturally mixed” South Grand District is probably best. That is where the victims are: Asians, “gay” people, artists, yuppies – people who won’t fight back.
By contrast, the St. Louis Riverfront Times points out that the "knockout game" is not exclusively a black thing, as Flaherty would have you believe:
But Knockout King does not appear to be bounded by race. Jason, from St. Louis County, says two white friends were part of his punch-out crew. One Dutchtown woman, agreeing to speak on the condition that her name not be published, says police caught her son, who is white, playing Knockout King two years ago, when he was sixteen. He and some friends had been hiding between buildings on Gravois Avenue, and he popped out to club a bicyclist who'd come rolling along.
"It's not a black thing, it's a kid thing," the woman says. "It's teenage kids trying to be cool. My son's as white as can be. He doesn't have a black bone in his body."
As with other recent Flaherty articles, WND appended a defensive "editor's note" insisting that "WND considers it racist not to report racial abuse solely because of the skin color of the perpetrators or victims." Of course, the only way to consider this "racial abuse" is to pretend that only blacks commit violent crimes -- which, as we just demonstrated, is an utterly false premise.
Flaherty is ignoring evidence that people of other races commit the very crime he purports to be outraged about -- which amply demonstrates this is all about race-baiting, not about the truth.
MRC's Graham Smears Huma Abedin Topic: NewsBusters
Tim Graham feels the need to go Muslim-bashing in a July 19 NewsBusters post by smearing Huma Abedin, aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
While most other conservatives are rushing to defend Abedin from specious allegations made by right-wing Rep. Michele Bachmann, Graham has thrown in his lot with Bachmann's Islamophobia, baseless attacking Abedin as "an ardent Sharia-imposing Muslim Brotherhood activist."
What evidence does Graham offer that she is any of those things? None. None whatsoever.
But that's pretty much the level of "research" we've come to expect from the MRC these days, isn't it?
Zullo, Farah Whine That Birther Posse's Motives Are Being Questioned Topic: WorldNetDaily
The birthers are getting desperate. WorldNetDaily and its proxy in Joe Arpaio's cold case posse, Mike Zullo, have become increasingly annoyed that their motives are being questioned and whining -- falsely -- that their so-called evidence is being ignored.
First up is Zullo, in a July 17 WND article by Art Moore, in which he whines that at that day's dud of a press conference, he was asked about the book on the investigation he co-wrote with WND's Jerome Corsi. Zullo declared that "I’ve made nothing out of that book" -- yet Moore quoted him as saying that he "received a check [for] $700 and another for $630." That apparently doesn't count as making money because "All of that money, he said, went directly to his church." Being the obsequious WND drone he is, Moore not only doesn't challenge Zullo on his blatant lie, doesn't ask the logical question of why the posse, a nonprofit group, shouldn't keep that money. Of course, if he did perform that act of journalism, Moore would also have to ask that very same question of Corsi, his fellow WND employee, and you know that ain't gonna happen.
Moore also quotes Zullo as saying, "Obviously, the information we are bringing forth is becoming very difficult for them to refute." In fact, we cited refutations of Zullo's "information" that were first published before Zullo announced them -- one of them by an organization founded by WND editor Joseph Farah.
The issue is not that Zullo's evidence is "difficult for them to refute," it's that it's difficult for Zullo to admit that it has, in fact, been refuted.
Speaking of Farah, he whined about the same thing in his July 17 column:
After watching the press reaction and “questions” following Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s breathtaking news conference yesterday, I have to tell you I’m embarrassed to call myself a newsman.
If someone asks me what I do for a living, maybe I’ll identify myself as an Internet entrepreneur.
Or maybe I’ll say I’m a “writer.”
Or maybe a publisher or businessman.
I never thought it would come to this. Being a newsman was all I ever wanted to be as far back as I can remember. It’s really all I’ve ever done through adulthood. It’s all I really know and love.
But I don’t ever want to be associated with that pack of jackals from Phoenix who jumped all over Arpaio and his investigator, Mike Zullo, for courageously presenting overwhelming evidence – I would even use the term “proof” – that Barack Obama’s birth certificate is fraudulent and that the state of Hawaii is not only a willing accomplice in this scandal but perpetrating an even bigger one as a virtual factory for phony documents giving noncitizens instant citizenship with a stroke of the pen.
Farah is lying, of course. Farah has freely admitted he's "an activist, a crusader" and no longer a journalist. It's unclear why he would be "embarrassed" to be called a "newsman" when he has completely abandoned journalism.
Farah concludes with a bit of false self-aggrandization:
I may not want to associate myself with the media anymore out of sheer humiliation. But I promise you one thing: I’m not going to stop being a real journalist. I’m not going to stop doing what I’ve been doing for 35 years. I’m not going to stop supporting intrepid, independent renegades like the WND team who make me believe there’s still hope for redeeming the media.
If Farah was a "real journalist," he would have disclosed by now the full extent -- including financial -- of WND's ties with Arpaio and the posse. He also have reported how his entire birther crusade has been discredited, but people like John Woodman remain persona non grata at WND.
It seems that the "real journalists" are the ones questioning the motivations and evidence of Zullo and Farah, not the ones who uncritically regurgitate their discredited research, which is what Zullo and Farah want.
We recently caught former Media Research Center director of communications Seton Motley -- who refused to accept responsibility for his inflammatory and justplaindumb attacks while at the MRC -- making numerous misleading claims about General Motors' sales. Motley strikes again in a July 16 NewsBusters post peddling even more false claims about GM.
Motley declared that "The Press is at every turn covering up - rather than covering - the serial failures of President Obama's signature vehicle," the Chevy Volt. As Media Matters points out, the Volt was in development well before Obama became president.
Media Matters also debunks several other false and misleading claims Motley makes -- for instance, his assertion that the "Volt fire problem remains unsolved." In fact, regulators concluded an inquiry into the Volt after finding it was just as safe as conventional cars, that the three fires associated with Volts had occurred after extreme crash tests, and GM voluntarily offered to make the cars even safer by reinforcing the battery pack.
Why is the MRC allowing Motley to blog at NewsBusters when he cares much more for hurling mean-spirited invective and false attacks than about the truth? Or did we just answer our own question?
NEW ARTICLE: WorldNetDaily's Long, Hot Summer of Race-Baiting Topic: WorldNetDaily
WND is eagerly and repeatedly portraying blacks as mob-prone thugs -- then tries to defend it by claiming nobody else has the guts to report it. Read more >>
Newsmax's Ruddy Hanging Out in Africa With Bill Clinton Topic: Newsmax
How times change.
Newsmax started life in 1997 under the editorship of Christopher Ruddy and the funding of Richard Mellon Scaife with the express purpose of attacking the Clinton presidency and cheerleading for his impeachment. But Ruddy and Scaife began changing their tune about President Clinton a few years back, with Ruddy even admitting that "Clinton wasn’t such a bad president."
That detente has now moved to a whole new level: Ruddy has accompanied Clinton on a trip to Africa, and is blogging about it at the Clinton Foundation's website.
No, really. A July 18 Newsmax article explains it:
Newsmax's CEO Christopher Ruddy has joined former President Bill Clinton on his current mission to Africa.
Last week, President Clinton and his delegation arrived in Johannesburg, South Africa, as part of a 10-day, five-nation tour across the African continent.
The Clinton Foundation sponsors programs that support sustainable development, education, and healthcare working with individuals, private business, and local government.
"President Clinton and his foundation have made a huge difference in their private-public programs," Ruddy said. "These programs have helped millions, have been extremely cost-effective and help build bridges between the United States and emerging countries."
Ruddy's Clinton Foundation blog post is the kind of fluffy promotion that is the last thing you'd expect from Ruddy on the subject of Clinton:
The Clinton Foundation demonstrates that public-private partnerships and strategic engagement of private citizens, community members, and local governments can achieve great results in health care. And as I saw firsthand today in Mozambique, this work is innovative in its scope and in its purpose – which is to ensure governments can own and maintain their own health care systems without further reliance on aid. I applaud the Clinton Foundation for bringing together groups and individuals from all sides of the political spectrum to build a world that’s more equal, more sustainable, and that benefits us all.
Mychal Massie uses his July 16 WorldNetDaily column as an opportunity to work his thesaurus with impunity.
In addition to referencing old favorites like Erebus and Barmecide, Massie throws in another highfalutin word: "hebephrenic." This references "a form of schizophrenia characterized by foolish mannerisms and senseless laughter along with delusions and regressive behavior." Needless to say, that word was directed at President Obama.
Also needless to say, Massie's column is yet another spewing of Obama derangement. He again repeats the discredited lie that Michelle Obama "spent $50,000 on exotic underwear in one store on a New York shopping trip with the Queen of Qatar," as well as the discredited lie that she "fraudulently represent[ed] your children as senior staff to either avoid paying for them or to give them salaries." He adds the discredited lie that President Obama targeted auto dealers for closure in the bankruptcies of General Motors and Chrysler because they donated to conservatives.
Between the lies and the thesaurus-diving, Massie still manages to work in a fit of the whacked-out brand of Obama derangement only Massie can do:
Everything you have said and done has told us a story – and it is a story with which we massively disagree. Yours is one continuing story of how to disparage America to foreign despots and how to reduce the White House to Cabrini Green on a hot weekend summer night. Your story is one that tells us you and your wife had no idea of the protocol and espirit de corps of the office you hold – and the dress and public behavior of your wife punctuates it.
Now we have another reminder of a story that has haunted you since you assumed office as you have the audacity to raise the specter of Romney’s legal standing. Do you think we have forgotten the stories surrounding your eligibility, your relationships with known Chicago mobsters, your relationships with unrepentant domestic terrorists and that you are the only leader in history to hide his past?
As I said, Barry, you have told a story – many of them, as a matter of fact. And they’ve all been nightmarish for those of us who have always loved America and who have not spent our lives cringing in shame of this nation as your wife told us she did.
There is one story you haven’t told that I know the majority of Americans would love to hear you tell, and that is the story of your affinity for Islam. That, you mendacious megalomaniac, is a story We the People would like to hear you tell the truth about.
If Massie didn't fill his column with discredited lies, would he still be allowed to write for WND, which has similar factual standards when it comes to Obama?
CNS' Jeffrey Cherry-Picks Numbers to Bash Stimulus Topic: CNSNews.com
Terry Jeffrey keeps his personal grudge against President Obama going via his anti-Obama propanganda mill -- masquerading as the "news" operation CNSNews.com -- in full effect with a July 16 article attacking White House press secretary Jay Carney for saying that the stimulus bill “widely recognized to have broken the back of the recession.”
Note Jeffrey's selective use of statistics to try to undermine Carney's claim:
In January 2009, the month before Obama signed his stimulus, the national unemployment rate was 7.8 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It has not dropped below 8 percent in any month since then. In February 2009, it hit 8.3 percent. In June 2012, it was 8.2 percent.
In January 2009, there were 12,049,000 unemployed people in the country, meaning there were that many people age 16 and older who wanted a job, had actively sought one in the previous four weeks, but had not been able to find one. In June 2012, there were 12,749,000 unemployed people—or 700,000 more than there were the month before Obama signed the stimulus.
The percentage of the American population actually holding jobs and the percentage of the population participating in the labor force (those either holding a job or actively looking for one) have both declined since January 2009. In that month, 60.6 percent of Americans 16 or older were working. In June 2012, 58.6 percent of Americans 16 or older were working. In January 2009, 65.7 percent of Americans 16 or older either held a job or were looking for one—and thus were participating in the labor force. By June 2012, that had dropped to 63.8 percent.
In January 2009, 142,187,000 Americans had jobs. In June 2012, 142,415,000 Americans had jobs—an increase of just 228,000 in the number of employed Americans.
But January 2009 was not the bottom of the recession -- October 2009 was. According to the same BLS statistics Jeffrey is using, the number of people who had jobs hit a low of 138,401,000 in October 2009. The number of unemployed peaked that same month with 15,421,000 without jobs, as did the unemployment rate, at 10.0 percent.
Jeffrey is making a dishonest comparision. Who's surprised?
Arpaio's (And WND's) Birther Presser Is Mostly Old News Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily once again demonstrated its suspiciously close relationship with Joe Arpaio and his birther posse by posting an article on the posse's press conference as said presser was just beginning -- just as it did for Arpaio's March 1 press conference. Needless to say, WND does not explain what it did to gain the access that gave it such inside information.
We haven't watched the video of the conference yet, but if the WND article is any indication, very little of note occured, and even less in the way of anything new.
The big finding, apparently, as stated by WND:
Arpaio told WND he intends to move the investigation and the new information to a higher authority within the federal government because of what he calls an imminent threat to national security and U.S. immigration laws. The threat is posed by a flaw in Hawaii’s law discovered by his investigators that allows a foreigner to obtain a Hawaii birth certificate.
[...]
Under Hawaii Revised Statute 338-17.8, a person only has to be an established resident of Hawaii, not necessarily a U.S. citizen, and pay taxes there for one year to be able to register an out-of-state or foreign-born person with an official Hawaii birth certificate.
[...]
Arpaio and his investigators said they have deep concerns that the Hawaii Revised Statute is a loophole that makes it possible for foreign born children to illegally establish U.S. citizenship.
The signficance of this was shot down three years ago, when Orly Taitz was ranting about it. And guess who shot it down? None other than the rabid birthers and Obama-haters at the Joseph Farah-founded Western Journalism Center:
In discussing the Certification of Live Birth that the Obama campaign claims was posted on the web, Orly Taitz also asserts that “Hawaii has statute 338 that allows foreign-born children of Hawaiian residents to get Hawaiian birth certificates.” What she is referring to here is the 1982 amendment of the vital records law. Under Act 182 H.B. NO. 3016-82, state policies and procedures could accommodate even “children born out of State” (this is the actual language of Act 182) with an original birth certificate on record. But though Act 182 does provide children born out of state with a birth certificate it does not provide them with birth certificates that say that these children were born in Hawaii or at a specific location in Hawaii. Consequently these birth certificates cannot engender Certifications of Live Birth which state that the subject was born in Honolulu, as the purported Obama Certification of Live Birth does. So if the Obama Certification of Live Birth was not forged, it could not have been engendered by an Act 182-authorized birth certificate for “children born out of state”. And if it was forged, the false information on it was not based on anything that could be on an Act-182 authorized birth certificate. So Orly Taitz’ assertion that “Hawaii has statute 338 that allows foreign-born children of Hawaiian residents to get Hawaiian birth certificates” is irrelevant.
Just like Taitz, WND and the posse apparently offered no evidence that Hawaii's law allows birth certificates to state that someone who wasn't born in Hawaii was born there.
Mike Zullo and his posse also raise a false flag over the birth certificate's coding system:
The codes seen on the document issued by the White House are not consistent with the information entered into the various fields, indicating the document has been altered or amended.
In the coding system, the number 9 indicates the information is not stated, meaning there should not be any information in the box in which the number is written.
However, the number 9 can be seen written in pencil next to the fields for “Usual Occupation,” “Kind of Business or Industry” and “Race of Father” on Obama’s document. Each of those fields are filled with information.
“This proves the document has been tampered with and information has been placed on it,” Zullo said.
In fact, according to Dr. Conspiracy, Zullo is citing a coding system established in 1968, which would not apply to a birth certificate from 1961. The coding system at that time defined the number 9 as "other nonwhite." Given that the number was found in the box for the race of Obama's father, this may explain why his race is listed as "African" -- it may be nothing more than a 50-year-old misguided notion that a black man from Africa was not a "Negro."
Despite claiming to offer "indisputable proof" that Obama's birth certificate is a forgery, none of the evidence appears to rise to that level. Just like last time, it's "indisputable" only if you ignore the evidence that debunks it, which WND, Zullo and their posse have a history of doing.
In other words, this is more discredited crap. Just the way WND (and Arpaio, and Zullo) likes it.
UPDATE: An Arizona TV station interviews birther debunker John Woodman -- whose existence WND and Corsi have yet to acknowledge -- who concurs on the coding issue.
AIM Repeats Obama-Churchill Bust Myth Topic: Accuracy in Media
Cliff Kincaid and Rusty Weiss write in a July 17 Accuracy in Media article promoting Paul Kengor's conspiracy-mongering, Obama-bashing book " The Communist. Frank Marshall Davis: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mentor":
Paul Kengor says that, in writing his book on Davis, “the most difficult issue always was knowing precisely where and when Davis influenced Obama on specific thoughts and issues, especially in light of what Obama has pursued as president.” But Kengor comes to some interesting conclusions.
“For example,” he tells AIM, “Davis despised Winston Churchill, and one of the first things Obama did as President was return the White House bust of Churchill back to the British. Did Obama’s rejection of Churchill start with Davis? Possibly. Also, Obama has been pro-Russia at the expense of Eastern European allies like the Poles and the Czechs. Well, so was Davis. Was that, too, Davis’s influence? Possibly.”
As we've repeatedlypointedout, the idea that Obama was so offended by the Churchill bust that he demanded it be removed from the Oval Office is a myth. The British Embassy has confirmed that the bust was "uniquely lent" to Bush, and was scheduled to be returned at the end of Bush's term.
Sowell Signs On to WND's Race-Baiting Topic: WorldNetDaily
Conservative columnist Thomas Sowell has a history of falseclaims, deceptivefearmongering and dishonest arguments. So it's probably no surprise that he would buy into the race-baiting being peddled by Colin Flaherty and WorldNetDaily.
Sowell's July 17 column -- published by WND, of course -- is one long endorsement of Flaherty's self-published book "White Girl Bleed A Lot":
Reading Colin Flaherty’s book made painfully clear to me that the magnitude of this problem is even greater than I had discovered from my own research. He documents both the race riots and the media and political evasions in dozens of cities across America.
Flaherty’s previous writings have won him praise and awards, but this book has been met largely with silence or abuse. However much ignoring the ugly realities his book reveal may serve the interests of the media or politicians, a cover-up is a huge disservice to everyone else – whether black, white or whatever.
Sowell appears to swallow Flaherty's premise whole without questioning why a white writer like Flaherty would be working so closely with a white-dominated "news" outlet like WND to paint all blacks as violent thugs.
CNS Still Shilling for Oil Industry Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com keeps up its longtime shilling for the oil industry with a July 16 article by Kendra Alleyne warning of "a new blend of gasoline comprising 15 percent ethanol, approved by the Environmental Protection Agency last month and now available in Kansas." Alleyne cited the Kansas Petroleum Council as sounding the warning.
Alleyne didn't mention that the Kansas Petroleum Council is an affiliate of the American Petroleum Institute, which has long attacked the gasoline-ethanol blend known as E15. Alleyne also failed to mention that, as Autoblog noted, E15 is available exactly one gas station in Kansas, so it's hardly a widespread threat.
In an unusual move for a CNS reporter, Alleyne does at least acknowledge the other side of the story -- that the Department of Energy issued a statement that its research on E15 "did not uncover unusual wear that would be expected to impact performance."
