CNS Pushes Misleading Claim That Obama's Budget Was 'Defeated Unanimously' Topic: CNSNews.com
Fred Lucas writes in a Dec. 3 CNSNews.com article that "The White House stressed that the offer made to congressional Republicans last week is similar to the proposals that President Barack Obama made in his fiscal year 2013 plan – a proposal that was defeated unanimously in the Democratic-controlled Senate and the Republican-controlled House last year." Lucas added that "The Democratic Senate voted 0-99 against Obama’s $3.6 trillion budget proposal."
But that's a misleading claim. As Media Matters points out, the version of the Obama budget voted on by the Senate was not introduced by a Democrat -- it was a brief summary of the budget introduced by a Republican, Sen. Jeff Sessions, that included Obama's numbers but none of his specific policy proposals. Senate Republicans then forced a vote on it as a stunt, knowing that it was not a real budget.
It did, however, provide a bogus talking point for right-wing reporters like Fred Lucas.
UPDATE: CNS repeats the dishonest claim in a Dec. 5 article by Elizabeth Harrington.
The WND Birther Blackout Continues Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily, it seems, hasn't given up birtherism -- or hiding the facts about birther conspiracy theories from its audience.
A Dec. 1 WND article by Bob Unruh uncritically repeats the case of failed lawyer Larry Klayman, representing Michael Voeltz's challenge to Obama's "eligibility" in Florida. As we've previously noted, the case was previously dismissed because, since Florida did not conduct a Democratic presidential primary, Klayman had no legal basis on which to sue. Now that Obama has won an election, that legal basis has been established.
Unfortunately for Voeltz, his lawyer is offering no new legal argument. Unruh quotes Klayman as saying, "The judge equated being a ‘citizen’ with a ‘natural born citizen’ and cited no authority to conclude the two terms are the same. He quotes other state’s cases, where judges reached that conclusion, but that’s not precedent for him. What other courts said in lower cases means nothing to him." No evidence is offered in the article that the judge is forbidden from citing the outcomes of birther lawsuits in other states.
The apparent core of the case is rehashing the idea that Obama is not a "natural born citizen" for purposes of being president because his father was not an American citizen. Unruh quotes Klayman's complaint as saying, "Law of Nations defines the term of art ‘natural born citizen’ as one born in the country [to] parents who are that country’s citizens."
But de Vattel's "The Law of Nations" is not a legally binding document, and as we've noted, no direct equivalent to "natural born citizen" appears in Vattel's original French, and the phrase shows up only in English translations of the book issued after the Constitution was written.
Unruh also notes that the complaint "cited the evidence produced by Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s special investigative unit, which has asserted that the birth documentation from Hawaii that Obama claimed was “proof positive” of his Hawaiian birth is not real." But, of course, Unruh fails to mention how the Arpaio cold case posse's "investigation" has beendiscredited.
MRC Blames 'Gay Mafia' For Criticism of Gay Conversion Therapy Topic: Media Research Center
Paul Wilson rants in a Nov. 30 article at the Media Research Center's Culture and Media Institute, under the headline "Gay Mafia Objects to Reparative Therapy Proponent on Dr. Oz Show":
How slanted is media coverage for the gay agenda? Enough that one show’s decision to include a proponent of reparative therapy in a segment on the subject of reparative therapy provoked backlash from the gay community.
The subject of Wilson's post was that "gay activists" were criticizing Dr. Oz for including a proponent of "reparative therapy" -- the so-called therapy to try and turn gays straight that's a favorite orright-wing activists like Wilson -- during a discussion of the subject on his TV show.
Wilson then complained that Oz "sided with the gay community on the issue of reparative therapy." Well, no -- as Wilson quotes him saying, Oz sided with the "established medical consensus" that it doesn't work and has the potential to do harm. Wilson concludes by whining:
The only acceptable opinions on gay issues appear to be those of the gay community – as GLAAD director Herndon Graddick wrote: “The issue is not one that can be discussed as though both sides are equally valid.” Most of the media has fallen into lockstep with this view that the only acceptable side is the gay side. Those like Dr. Oz who dare to include contrary views are attacked for allowing any view contrary to the gay agenda.
So sound medical practice is part of the "gay agenda" and enforced by the "gay mafia"? At no point does Wilson concede that reparative therapy is destructive, and he even uncritically presents the self-description of the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) as "a professional, scientific organization that offers hope to those who struggle with unwanted homosexuality." In fact, NARTH has been widely criticized for peddling discredited anti-gay "junk science."
Wilson, meanwhile, is willing to disregard sound medical practice in order to peddle his anti-gay agenda.
Rick Santorum Joins WND At Perhaps The Wrong Time Topic: WorldNetDaily
Apparently, only one failed 2012 Republican presidential candidate can write for WorldNetDaily At a time.
Herman Cain has fallen off WND's list of columnists (without any explanation, per WND style -- he moved over to Newsmax), replaced by Rick Santorum. A Dec. 2 WND article touts Santorum as an "exclusive columnist," which is not quite the coup it's made out to be given that the list of WND "exclusive columnists" also includes the likes of Ellis Washington and Jack Cashill. The rest of the article appears to be boilerplate bio -- WND editor Joseph Farah can't even be bothered to drop a blurb.
Speaking of boilerplate, Santorum's actual column is pretty standard-issue fearmongering about the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
As it turned out, Santorum joined WND on the same day that WND published (but buried) a column by Vox Day floating the idea of a white separatist movement in the U.S. Who thinks Santorum is proud of this?
Noel Sheppard Ignores Facts About Domestic Violence In Bashing Costas Topic: NewsBusters
Noel Sheppard used a Dec. 2 NewsBusters post to denounce Bob Costas' reading of a sports columnist's criticism of the "gun culture" in the wake of the murder suicide involving Kansas City Chiefs player Jovan Belcher and his girlfriend. Sheppard took particular exception to the statement that "If Jovan Belcher didn’t possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today," huffing, "Yes, because men never killed each other or themselves before the creation of the gun."
Sheppard later added an update:
According to the American Association of Suicidology, roughly 50 percent of 2010's suicides were by firearm. The other roughly 50 percent were by such things as hanging and poisoning.
With this in mind, believing that "If Jovan Belcher didn’t possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today" is preposterous.
Sheppard tries to distract from the issue at hand by focusing only on suicides. In fact, research shows that guns greatly increase the probability that women who are victims of domestic violence will be killed by their abuser, and the vast majority of murder-suicides are committed with guns.
So there's nothing at all preposterous about the idea that both Belcher and his girlfriend might still be alive had a gun not been involved in their dispute -- except, perhaps, inside Noel Sheppard's head.
WND's Vox Day Pushes Idea of White Secessionist Movement Topic: WorldNetDaily
Vox Day uses his Dec. 2 WorldNetDaily column to pontificate on separatist movements in Spain and Scotland, then use the insipiration to float the idea of a separatist movement in the U.S. for "white Americans who still hold to traditional values" and who don't like "the tens of millions of post-1965 immigrants from various non-European nations around the world, or their urban enablers":
There can be little doubt that Cameron’s opinion of UKIP is but a pale shadow of the U.S. bifactional ruling party’s hatred and contempt for white Americans who still hold to traditional values, believe in their constitutional liberties and derive their sense of identity from historical America. They mock the secessionist petitioners in Texas and other states, celebrate the infestation of even the smallest American heartland towns by African, Asian and Aztec cultures, and engage in ruthless doublethink as they worship at the altar of a false and entirely nonexistent equality.
And yet, they are afraid and they threaten every American who dares to think the unthinkable and speak the unspeakable. Why? Because they know time, history and socionomics are not on their side.
Is the secession of several American states truly unthinkable? Is the breakup of the United States of America really outside the boundaries of historically reasonable possibility?
Some would point to the amount of time that has passed since the Civil War, when the question was last considered. It has been 147 years since Americans attempted to exert their right to self-determination and leave the United States. However, it has been 305 years since the Scottish Parliament passed the Union with England Act in 1707, and even if Scotland does not vote to break up the Union in the referendum tentatively scheduled for 2014, the fact that the Scottish people are seriously considering an exit from a Union that is twice as old as the forcible one imposed by Abraham Lincoln should suffice to prove that the age of the U.S. does not render a potential breakup theoretically or practically impossible.
This is especially true given that the English people and the Scottish people have far more in common than Americans do with the tens of millions of post-1965 immigrants from various non-European nations around the world, or their urban enablers. The fact that the future citizens of Aztlán are presently content to continue collecting tribute in the form of state and federal largesse does not mean that they will refrain from exerting the political muscle that their growing demographic weight provides them once the contracting economy brings the gravy train to an end.
We missed this originally because, curiously, WND failed to post a link to it on its commentary page, even though Day has been a WND columnist for years, but Right Wing Watch caught it. Perhaps WND has realized that Day hasissues and it would be better sometimes to hide him in WND's equivalent of the attic.
Bozell Throws Tantrum, Threatens To Stop Raising Money for GOP Topic: Media Research Center
Media Research Center chief Brent Bozell issued a threat to the Republican National Committee last week, vowing in a letter to RNC chairman Reince Priebus that he won't raise any more money for Republicans if they allow taxes to be raised during the current "fiscal cliff" negotiations:
Reince, it pains me to say this, but if the Republican Party breaks its word to the American people and goes along with President Obama with tax increases, it will have betrayed conservatives for the final time. I will make it my mission to ensure that every conservative donor to the Republican Party that I have worked with for the last three decades— and there are many and they have given tens of millions to Republican causes—gives not one penny more to the Republican Party or any Member of Congress that votes for tax increases. The GOP will not deserve their support.
Of course, it's a little untoward -- if not illegal -- for Bozell, as the head of a 501(c)3 nonprofit like the MRC that's supposed to not take partisan stands, to make a very partisan stand on fundraising, so technically he's speaking as the head of his superPAC-ish 501(c)4 group, For America.
Bozell's "news" outlet CNSNews.com, of course, promoted Bozell's tantrum in a Nov. 29 article by CNS managing editor Michael Chapman , who bizarrely quotes Bozell talking to him during a "telephone interview." Huh? Don't they work down the hall from each other at the MRC's Virginia headquarters?
And despite CNS' mission statement to be a news source that puts "a higher premium on balance than spin and seek news that’s ignored or under-reported as a result of media bias by omission," Chapman includes no criticism of Bozell's threat.
Farah Suggests Obama Wants To 'Foment Armed Rebellion' Topic: WorldNetDaily
In a Nov. 29 WorldNetDaily column fearmongering about the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty, which he falsely claims "requires member states unable to disarm their populaces to be placed under the jurisdiction of the U.N. Office of Disarmament Affairs," Joseph Farah goes on a wild conspiracy ride in which he argues that President Obama "wants to foment armed rebellion" in order to "provide him cover to take sweeping and repressive actions that effectively subvert the Constitution":
For instance, while I personally recommend all law-abiding Americans purchase guns and learn how to use them for their own safety, the security of their communities and the liberty of the nation, I don’t believe for a minute that’s why Obama is stimulating firearm sales.
Neither do I think he believes he can ban guns or confiscate them from Americans who already own them – even with the help of the U.N.
I have always believed Obama’s real goal – the objective he has in common with all true leftists and socialists – is to create chaos. As a former leftist, I understand the paradigm. It’s classic Cloward-Pivens strategy. Obama seeks “to heighten the contradictions of capitalism,” as they say. He does a lot of crazy things to further that objective – to prove, if you will, that America is incapable of self-government, that smart people like him and Michelle are needed to guide our every move.
How else does one explain “Fast and Furious,” an operation conceived and announced in his White House to buy guns in the U.S. and sell them to Mexican drug cartels so they could be used to kill innocent Mexican and U.S. citizens and even law-enforcement personnel?
That was so clearly an operation designed with one thing in mind – to provide cover for the banning of gun sales. If Obama could conceive of such an illegal and stealthy plot, why wouldn’t he also stealthily take actions to increase the number of guns in the hands of Americans to make the case that there are just too many guns in the hands of Americans?
Maybe he wants to create civil strife. Maybe he wants to foment armed rebellion. Maybe he realizes that would provide him cover to take sweeping and repressive actions that effectively subvert the Constitution.
I don’t know.
All I know is that it’s a good time to buy firearms and ammunition. It’s one of the best investments you can make in personal security and liberty – at least while it lasts.
Ronald Kessler feels the need to defend Grover Norquist and his quest to cut gtovernment in his Nov. 27 Newsmax column:
Rather than focus on how to reduce government spending, Democrats and many in the media are busy demonizing Grover Norquist and his pledge politicians agree to sign promising never to raise taxes.
In their effort to portray the president of Americans for Tax Reform as sprouting horns, Norquist’s critics rarely mention what is behind his crusade. While Norquist believes we are paying too much in taxes, it’s not because he has an ideological aversion to supporting legitimate government functions. Rather, he believes that in too many cases, we are paying for waste.
Kessler quickly moves on to denigrating government workers:
As noted in my story The Real Problem With Government Spending, those of us who have dealt with the federal government for decades have an impression that in most agencies, half the workers could be cut without impairing output or services.
Lacking a profit motive, workers in the government by and large have a different work ethic from those in private industry. When they could make one call, federal workers take a meeting. When they could find an answer on the Internet, they form a study committee. Instead of appointing one supervisor, they appoint five.
To be sure, there are exceptions. FBI agents, CIA officers, and the military work incredible hours and risk their lives to protect us. But even within those agencies, there are unnecessary levels of supervisors and support staff who could perform their work in half the time.
Only when you are self-employed do you fully realize how much more efficient you become when your output directly correlates with how much money you make. But instead of looking for ways to save money, government agencies actually look for ways to spend more near the end of the fiscal year so Congress won’t reduce their outlays in the next budget year.
Then it's back to defending Norquist with warm and fuzzy anecdotes about his family, slobbering over his wife, and revealing that he's so close to Norquist that he can't be objective about him:
Nor does Norquist fit the caricature of the right-wing nut the media and Democrats have conjured up. Married to Samah Norquist, a Muslim Palestinian born in Kuwait, Norquist stands up to those who portray all Muslims as terrorists.
Every year during the Islamic month of Ramadan, Norquist co-hosts Iftar, when Muslims break their fast. The inter-denominational event is held at the Alexandria home of Rafat (Ray) Mahmood, a Pakistani ambassador at large. The other co-host is Michael Chertoff, the former secretary of Homeland Security. Chertoff is Jewish; his father is an orthodox rabbi.
At the last Iftar, I was honored to be asked by Norquist to talk about my Newsmax story quoting former FBI Director William Webster denouncing as “morally wrong” those who portray all Muslims as threats, thus undercutting the war on terror.
Besides being gorgeous, Samah is, according to Norquist, “very good on taxes.”
Does Ann Romney know that Kessler is cheating on her with Norquist's wife?
My spirits were temporarily lifted when, last week, the Washington, D.C.-based Daily Caller website reported “more than 675,000 digital signatures appeared on 69 separate secession petitions covering all 50 states, according to … requests lodged with the White House’s ‘We the People’ online petition system” (“White House ‘secede’ petitions reach 675,000 signatures, 50-state participation,” David Martosko, dailycaller.com, Nov. 14).
Moreover, in various parts of the country, citizens infuriated for various reasons by the re-election of Barack Obama took their American flags from their porches or roofs and turned them upside down – a traditionally emphatic sign of “distress” (“Upside Down Flag Protests Over Election Sparking Controversy,” John Shumway, pittsburgh.cbslocal.com, Nov. 8).
Many readers have kindly written to say they have sent the Zullo, Monckton and Delzell affidavits about the forged Obama birth certificate to their elected representatives with a request that they should object to Mr Obama’s election on the ground that he has cast doubt upon his own constitutional eligibility by endorsing a forged “birth certificate” and posting it at the White House website. So far, not one member of Congress has agreed even to ask questions about the mounting evidence of forgery and fraud, let alone to object in writing. You have elected 535 inveterate invertebrates.
It is a mystery to me, and one that will never be solved to my satisfaction, how it is that the majority of Americans can see what is happening in Greece and still continue to vote for left-wing ideologues like Barack Obama, who subscribe to the belief that the money the government prints is every bit as good as the money people earn. The closest I have come to generating a theory is that most people fail to see what is happening in Greece because they’re too busy watching really dumb shows on TV, and couldn’t find Greece on a map even if you printed “Athens” in really big letters.
Obama has had four years “leading us down the primrose path” to socialism. Since the GOP still has control of the House, why is it so ready to cave – two months before the next inauguration?
You don’t think it has anything to do with immigration, do you?
You don’t think the estimates that 70 percent of Hispanics voted for Obama has the GOP shaking in their boots, do you?
You don’t think that they are ready to throw the baby out with the bathwater, do you?
Barack Obama is not our problem as such – albeit, he is a malignant parasite who openly schemes to suck the lifeblood from America in favor of government dependency and a socialist State.
We are the problem if we continue to support the party and party hierarchy who have made this possible. Republicans have made this possible by abandoning the core principles upon which America was founded. They have abandoned truth for a lie, and our children will pay for it.
Even if a faux conservative in the mold of George W. Bush is offered up by the GOP in 2016 (former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush springs to mind for some unfathomable reason), this will be as potentially harmful as was George W. himself. This is likely to happen, too; after four more years of the communist usurper, voters are going to be very desperate.
Yes, Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate, lost the election. That is inarguably a bummer, especially since the winner is Barack Obama, whose second term could actually sink the republic.
Deferring to our illegitimate President Barack Hussein Obama, Netanyahu and company have gone along with ineffective and worthless economic sanctions against Iran and held back on eliminating Iran’s nuclear program and other terrorist activities by force. Now, Iran is more powerful and potentially immune from Israeli attack, unless Israel decides to use tactical nuclear weapons to destroy the Islamic state’s atomic and other military facilities. Were this tragic reality simply a rerun of an old Laurel and Hardy movie, one could simply say “a fine mess you’ve gotten us into, Mr. Obama.”
Indeed, Obamacare renders all constitutional limits on federal powers completely meaningless. “And there’s the rub,” as Shakespeare would say. Obamacare demonstrates to all America the tyrannical, fascist power President Obama and the Democratic Socialist Party is willing to wield like a cudgel to smash the God-given, unalienable rights of the people. By the Supreme Court unconstitutionally acquiescing to Obamacare, all Americans are shackled “under the despotism of an oligarchy,” as Jefferson wrote in an 1820 letter to William Jarvis.
In a Nov. 26 NewsBusters post criticizing coverage of President Obama buying books in support of Small Business Saturday, Matt Vespa reports that "according to Penny Starr at CNSNews.com, this administration proposed 6,125 new regulations, an average of 68 per day, in the last 90 days from November 9."
In fact, as we detailed, many of those "regulations" Starr cited aren't regulations at all -- they are requests for comment on proposed regulations or meeting notices. Starr's article was nothing more than lazily reported agitprop -- all she did is copy a counter on a federal website and didn't bother to separate actual regulations from proposals and meeting notices -- designed to get a link on Drudge.
Vespa goes on to write that Obama "proposed an additional 6,125 [regulations] on the backs of businesses, especially coal." Vespa offers no evidence whatsoever to back up this claim, and Starr's article made no mention of coal.
WND Gives TRN Short Shrift In Laura Ingraham's Departure Topic: WorldNetDaily
A Nov. 28 WorldNetDaily article touts radio host Laura Ingraham's departure from her syndicator, Talk Radio Network. TRN, meanwhile, gets short shrift from WND:
There has been no comment available from TRN concerning Ingraham.
Ingraham is the second major personality to move away from TRN recently.
As WND reported, Michael Savage left the airwaves briefly after a long court battle with TRN. He returned to the air with a new syndicator and new time slot.
As we've detailed, WND has had a long symbiotic relationship with TRN -- which it apparently decided to abandon in order to take Savage's side in his TRN dispute. WND gave Savage a platorm to bash TRN without giving TRN an opportunity to respond.
In addition to giving TRN short shrift here -- not even delving into why TRN has lost two of its top hosts over the past couple months -- WND fails to explore other details of the Ingraham-TRN relationship. Talkers magazine notes that "comes as no surprise to industry observers who have long known of the not-so-secret friction that has existed for years between Ingraham and TRN’s top management."
And Radio Ink states that "Dial Global is under contract with TRN for Ingraham's show, which has more than 300 affiliates. In August, TRN filed an anti-trust lawsuit against Dial Global." That lawsuit involves TRN's claim that Dial Global's acquisition of radio ad rep firms. Interestingly, one of TRN's own hosts, Phil Hendrie, objects to the lawsuit.
In short, there's lots of things going on under the surface that WND has shown no interest in exploring, apparently either out of deference to whatever friends at TRN it may still have or because of the fallout over WND siding with Savage.
A real news organization would not be daunted by such a challenge, but we all know WND is not a real news organization.
NewsBusters' Sheppard Upset At Leno for Making A Fox News Joke Topic: NewsBusters
NewsBusters' Noel Sheppard has a love-hate relationship with Jay Leno, which generally pivots on who Leno is telling jokes about on a given night. The pendulum has swung toward hate yet again in a Nov. 30 NewsBusters post complaining that Leno asked Newt Gingrich if his prediction that Mitt Romney would win the election was based on whether he was "just watching Fox News." Sheppard indignantly replied:
Although Leno and his audience obviously thought this was a hoot, folks like Peggy Noonan - who regularly appears on NBC - and ABC's George Will also predicted Romney was going to win.
As such, this belief was hardly exclusive to one television network.
As for the ideological extremes of Fox and MSNBC, I'd be glad to sit down with Leno and explain the vast differences between these two news organizations.
His people should call my people.
When you're as far right as Sheppard is, everything that doesn't have the conservative bias that Fox does automatically has a "liberal bias," and an actually liberal-leaning network like MSNBC might has well be broadcasting from the Soviet Union.
That, we suspect, would be the gist of Sheppard's explanation of the "vast differences" between the two, on the off-chance Leno takes him up on his offer.
WND Movie Reviewer Pretends His Love of 'Red Dawn' Isn't Political Topic: WorldNetDaily
Drew Zahn begins his Nov. 25 WorldNetDaily review of the remake of the film "Red Dawn" with a defense of its plot from "obviously liberal critics":
Out of curiosity, I took a look at how film critics from other newspapers and publications reviewed the new “Red Dawn,” a remake of the 1984 cult classic about teenagers taking up guns and defending America from communist invaders.
You’d think from the critics’ condescending sneers that the remake is utter garbage.
“Preposterous,” said one critic of the remake’s premise that North Korea could invade the U.S. today. “Outdated,” said another, suggesting the plot line be relegated to the ancient Cold War and the once-upon-a-time Red Scare.
The only thing that’s “preposterous,” however, is the speed at which these obviously liberal critics leaped to dismiss the movie. I honestly, without hyperbole, wonder if some of them even watched it.
For starters, the movie explains that North Korea doesn’t invade without “help,” and that they used a cyber attack on the American financial system and an electromagnetic pulse weapon, or EMP, against the U.S. infrastructure. Furthermore, North Korea only invades the Pacific Northwest, while other enemies attack elsewhere. It’s not really that implausible.
Besides, the original film cast Cuba as the invading force – not the Soviet Union, as is commonly reported – so don’t talk to me about “preposterous.”
And as for “outdated,” the Red Scare is far from over, as many Americans outside the leftist worldview recognize. It’s just that the threat of communism in the U.S. now comes from our own public universities, instead of Moscow.
So politically biased bashing aside, let’s look at the film a little more honestly, shall we?
It appears Zahn wants us to believe that his "Red Dawn" review isn't driven by political bias and is more "honest" than what those liberals say. But from his communist fearmongering to warnings of EMP attacks, he's regurgitating what he reads at his employer's website, which nobody can plausibly say lacks political bias.
He's such a screaming fanboy of this film -- he even defends the dialogue, which "sounds like Cold War drivel at patriotic platitudes to a leftist, but it’s downright inspirational to the rest of us – those of us who don’t think of George Washington simply as an imperialistic slave-owner or Ronald Reagan as a rich-loving, trickle-down oligarch" -- he ends his review with: "Allow me to join the chorus of cheers: 'Wolverines!!!!!'"
Of course, Zahn's reviews have always stemmed from a distinctly right-wing viewpoint: he hated the Disney film "Tangled" because it taught children to think for themselves, one film "review" was largely an attack on Darwinism, and he turned another review into an anti-Obama rant (and used his review of a Transformers" film to opine that Obama is a Decepticon).
CNS Falsely Suggests Illegal Immigrants Are To Blame For High Unemployment Topic: CNSNews.com
A Nov. 29 CNSNews.com article by editor in chief Terry Jeffrey carries the headline "Calif., Ariz. Border Towns Have Nation’s Highest Unemployment: Over 28%." The article is accompanied by, and promoted on CNS' front page with, this image of a truck that got stuck trying to drive over a border fence:
At no point in his article does Jeffreyblame immigrants for the high unemployment rate in these "border towns," which he notes are "are contiguous to one another and to the Mexican border" -- indeed, he doesn't mention immigrants at all. The only relation the photo has to anything Jeffrey wrote is that the incident occured near one of the towns he mentions.
Perhaps Jeffrey used the image to imply that illegal immigrants are to blame for the high unemployment in these areas. But that doesn't appear to be true -- according to the Arizona Department of Commerce, the main reason is Yuma's agricultural workforce. It varies throughout the year, changing with the picking season. When they are off they file unemployment claims, therefore the unemployment rate goes up.
So, basically, Jeffrey is falsely smearing immigrants with a misleading photo. That's hardly ethical behavior for the editor of a "news" organization.