NewsBusters Falsely Suggests MSNBC Edited McCain Video Topic: NewsBusters
Jeeffrey Meyer huffily began a Feb. 27 NewsBusters post this way:
MSNBC’s propensity to selectively edit video to smear conservatives has reached a new low. Speaking on her self-titled show on February 21, host Rachel Maddow openly admitted to playing edited footage of Senator John McCain to smear the Arizona Republican.
But Meyer provided no evidence that MSNBC or Maddow were the ones who "selectively edit" the video in question, which involved McCain taking a question from a constituent whose son was killed last year in the Aurora, Colorado, movie theater massacre, which critics say was edited in such a way as to make McCain look insensitive.
Indeed, the clip Maddow aired is clearly identified as coming from Arizona TV station KTVK. That station is an independent station that carries no network affiliation.
KTVK pointed out that it posted the full video of McCain on its website "immediately after the story aired along with a written description of the encounter that characterized Senator McCain as 'sympathizing' with the victim's mother."
Meyer made no mention whatsoever of KTVK's role in the original edit or its posting of the full video. He's too busy venting his misplace fury at Maddow, huffily concluding: "The total disregard, and in this case, outright glee on by the liberal MSNBC hosts regarding their selective video editing practices shows just how corrupt the network has become."
Meyer also fails to mention that his employer is equally guilty, if not more so, of selectively editing comments in order to smear people, mostly President Obama.
Andrea Shea King's Michelle Obama Derangement Topic: WorldNetDaily
Andrea Shea King writes a weekly column for WorldNetDaily summing up the week in right-wing talk radio. But like Erik Rush, she's not letting WND have her prime insanity.
At her personal website, Radio Patriot, King wrote a Feb. 26 post that's a massive spewing forth of Obama derangement that's impressively insane even by the normal standards of Obama derangement:
Who is Michelle Obama? And why her obsession with straight haired wigs?
Michelle Larue Robinson Obama (Soetoro) is a self-loathing female who’s gonna make you pay and pay and pay because she grew up hating that she wasn’t you. Hating that she was born black, grew to be basketball player tall, had a bulky, un-proportioned, and overweight body, was born black, big-footed, ashy-skinned, kinky-haired, bug-eyed and bushy eyebrowed. Did I mention that she was born black, had a cro-magnon lower jaw, wide nose, and a chip on her even wider shoulders because she was born black and grew up learning that whitey was the enemy. That it was all whitey’s fault then, and would ever be.
[...]
Later, parlayed into the Chicago political scene through her father’s wardboss connections, Michelle Larue Robinson fell into a pot of glitter when her gal pal ValJar introduced her to a skinny, exotic foreigner who was being groomed by powerful people to go places — maybe even Chicago mayor!!! Michelle recognized a ticket to ride. She wanted children, a family, but needed a husband to get there. Conversely, the skinny cokehead needed her connections in the black community.No doubt she figured she could whip this lazy pot smoker into shape. So she went for it — marrying the bony-assed, lazy, foul-breath gayboy, who believed then and even more now that he’s Allah’s gift to the world. So, it was a marriage of “convenience” — each of them got a partner with a beard. She got her kids. He got Reggie Love. (Ask Mrs. Robinson what she thinks of son-in-law Barry…)
Into the marriage a few years, broke and disgusted, Michelle came this close to divorcing him, but events intervened and no doubt she’s thanked her lucky stars many times since that she stayed. Because now she’s in the “queenly” position of First Lady where she can shed that “ugly little negro girl” self image, spending gawdonlyknows how much money and time to rid herself of that self-loathing self-image.With a retinue of stylists, she’s transformed the ugly duckling into a svelte swan, with makeup experts, wigs, cosmetic surgery, gym workouts, capped teeth, and designer clothes that “toute le monde” has decreed “beautiful, trend setting, etc.” (No matter that the rest of us are reminded of a trannie performing at The Pickle Barrel in a blue light district. With bangs.)
But I think that deep inside, the hurts and anger and resentments still simmer. The adult Michelle knows that without the paint, the lashes, the wigs, the plucked, the shaved, the creamed, the thousand dollar frocks, she still feels ugly. It’s why she hates — hates America, hates us. Because down deep, she hates herself.
[...]
Far too many of our black brothers and sisters haven’t figured out that she’s using them and their pride in the nation’s first “Black” president. She sends them computerized “personal” emails, love letters on behalf of Barack, to invite them — for a donation of “just three dollars” — to gamble that they’ll be the ones chosen to dine with one of their own — the first cool, hip, smooth, (shhhh…half white) black president.
So the lotto dollars pour in… lucre from the hopefuls that will guarantee she can continue in the life of a regal, at their expense — and ours.
This from a community she scorns. After all, they remind her of what she works hard to disguise and forget — the little girl with brown skin and kinky hair. And that’s why she goes for the straight-haired wigs. They make her look more… well, less black.That is Michelle Larue Robinson Obama. This is a dangerous woman, motivated by hate and resentment.And though I understand what motivates her, for the first time in my adult life, I am not proud of our First Lady. Or her husband either.
Why does King not think this is worthy of the website that thinks Obama is the Antichrist? Inquiring minds want to know.
In a Feb. 26 NewsBusters post, Jeffrey Meyer takes it to longtime Heathering target Joe Scarborough to declare that the MSNBC can't possibly be a real conservative because his adherence to right-wing talking points isn't sufficiently slavish.
Responding to Scarborough's complaint that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie won't be invited to right-wing prom CPAC, Meyer huffed that "Scarborough completely ignored the fact that Christie has done his level best to alienate himself from conservatives."
Meyer saves his largest bit of Heathering for last:
If Scarborough were a true conservative, wouldn't he be doing more to bash President Obama's reckless spending and challenge the president to rise to the occasion to make the sequester work?
After all, Obama makes Bush look like a piker by comparison on the spending front. No, Scarborough is comfortable with the path of least resistance, playing nice with his liberal bosses at MSNBC as the network's pet "conservative."
Since when is conservatism defined by refusal to stray from talking points? We don't know, but that appears to be what Meyer and his cohorts have decided.
WND Dials Back False Claim About Veterans And Guns, Doesn't Tell Readers (And Still Got It Wrong) Topic: WorldNetDaily
A Feb. 22 WorldNetDaily article by Bob Unruh began (as reposted at The Waking Giant):
The Obama administration has launched into a campaign that threatens the Second Amendment rights of American military veterans, sending out letters that say their competency to handle their own affairs is being reviewed, and if determined by government bureaucrats to be unable to handle their affairs, they would be barred from having any weapons.
Just one problem: It's not true that the Obama administration is engaging in a sweeping campaign to disarm veterans. What Unruh is overheatedly referring to is a standard practice by the Department of Veterans Affairs -- in place since the mid-1990s -- to inform veterans deemed too incompetent to handle their affairs that they are prohibited from owning firearms.
Further, the letter cited in the WND article is taken almost directly from the VA handbook’s sample Notice of a Proposed Rating of Incompetency.
Because Unruh has no evidence that the Obama administration has changed longstanding procedures for determining the incompetency of a veteran, the lead paragraph of his article was changed to something slightly more representative of reality:
In an apparent threat to Second Amendment rights, some American military veterans have received a letter from the Veterans Administration warning that their competency to handle their own affairs is under review, and if determined by government bureaucrats to be “incompetent,” they would be barred from possessing weapons.
It's still inaccurate, because Unruh offers no evidence that VA incompetency procedures have changed in any way to make it more of a "threat to Second Amendment rights" than it may have been before. Nevertheless, WND failed to tell its readers about this significant change -- a longstanding dishonest practice at WND.
MRC Whines That Michelle Obama's Oscars Cameo Was 'Propaganda,' 'Intrusive' Topic: Media Research Center
Following in the footsteps of other right-wingers, the Media Research Center has declared that Michelle Obama's cameo appearance at the Academy Awards to present the award for best picture was horrible.
Jeffrey Meyer grumbled in a Feb. 26 NewsBusters post that "the Washington Post’s Sally Quinn admitted that Michelle Obama’s Oscar appearance was, in Bill O’Reilly’s words, 'Hollywood Left boosterism,' but gushed that it was a 'brilliant idea.'"
The headline for Meyer's post, however, read: "WashPo’s Sally Quinn Admits Michelle Obama’s Oscar Appearance Was Propaganda; But Thinks It Was Brilliant." Since when does "Hollywood Left boosterism" equal "propaganda"? Meyer doesn't explain, perhaps because it's something axiomatic among right-wingers or something.
Meanwhile, Clay Waters grumbles in a Feb. 26 TmesWatch post that Obama's appearance was "intrusive" and "politicized" and whined that a New York Times didn't read his mind and complain about the appearance like he wanted:
The question isn't whether the first family can lower themselves to the level of popular culture; that was settled the night then-candidate Bill Clinton played saxophone on the Arsenio Hall show in 1992. It's the question of the vastly different ways Hollywood treats those political figures, depending on their party.
[...]
Steinhauer continued missing the point by insisting the question of Michelle Obama's appearance was one of "propriety," as opposed to a question of blunt and intrusive liberal political boosterism.
But Waters never identifies what, exactly, was "political" about her appearance.
Will WND Report on Dov Hikind's Blackface Stunt? Topic: WorldNetDaily
We've detailed how New York state assemblyman Dov Hikind is part of Aaron Klein's mighty Wurlitzer -- one of the WorldNetDaily reporter's go-to-guys when he feels thet need to bash liberals on the subject of Israel. Klein and Hikind are both admirers of far-right Israeli extremist Meir Kahane, so it's no surprise the two would have a symbiotic relationship.
But we somehow suspect that Klein and WND won't be reporting Hikind's latest offense:
Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind says he's sorry if he offended anyone with the blackface makeup he wore for his Purim party this weekend -- but insists his costume choice wasn't meant to be anything but "innocent" fun.
"In hindsight, I should have picked something else. It never crossed my mind for a split second that I was doing something wrong. It was as innocent as something can be," said Hikind, who drew heavy condemnation for wearing an Afro-style wig and having a makeup artist darken his skin for his basketball-player getup.
"People in the community were dressed up as Arabs. What was that about?" asked Hikind, an Orthodox Jew who's known for his impassioned critiques of anything he thinks smacks of the slightest anti-Semitism, according to our Reuven Blau, who was on scene for the presser outside the longtime lawmaker's home.
"My wife was dressed as the devil. And she's not a devil. It was to look different on Purim without deep intentions. I just wanted to look different and unrecognizable," Hikind said.
"I understand people's sensitivities. Nobody meant anything. It was not meant to offend you or hurt you in any fashion. I'm sorry people were offended. It was not meant that way."
Expect WND to sweep this unflattering story about a cherished source way, way under the rug -- just as Klein and WND refused to report on the sex scandal of Israeli President Moshe Katsav, presumably because Katsav was a member of the right-wing Likud Party.
CNS Fails To Identify Conservative Black Leaders As Conservative Topic: CNSNews.com
A Feb. 22 CNSNews.com article by Penny Starr touted how "a group of black leaders" claimed at a National Press Club gathering that "gun control dates back to laws before and after the Civil War that prohibited or restricted African Americans from owning firearms" and "spoke out in defense of the Second Amendment."
But the despite the presence of prominent black conservatives such as Star Parker and Ken Hutcherson, Starr did not identify them or any other speaker at the event. Starr identified one speaker, Stacy Swimp, as "president and CFO of the Frederick Douglass Society," but failed to identify the group's ideology as conservative.
In a follow-up article on an interview with Parker at the event, Starr again failed to identify Parker as conservative. Starr also stated that the event was "billed as a Black History Month press conference" but failed to explain that it was a gathering of conservatives.
Given that their conservatism was the one main trait the participants in the event had in common, it's strange that Starr would want to hide such a relevant piece of information from her readers, especially when her MRC overlords have a fit every time the "liberal media" fails to identify a misbehaving Democratic politician as a Democrat.
NEW ARTICLE: WorldNetDaily's Very Lively Gay-Bashing Topic: WorldNetDaily
Not only does WND pretend that anti-gay activist Scott Lively's book linking gays to Nazis hasn't been discredited, it has served as his apologist over allegations that he's linked to Uganda's proposed "kill the gays" law. Read more >>
MRC Thinks 'Left-Winger' Reporter In TV Show Is A 'True to Life Depiction' Topic: Media Research Center
Media Research Center vice president for research and publications begins a Feb. 24 NewsBusters post this way:
HBO’s Sunday night dramady, Enlightened, is delivering something very rare: A true to life depiction of a journalist – specifically identified as a reporter for the Los Angeles Times – as a very obvious left-winger, one who cavorts with and reads books by far-left authors and goes to the newspaper newsroom wearing a “John Kerry for President” shirt.
Well, not so much -- the depiction is more of a caricature of what right-wingers like Baker think a journalist is rather than a "true to life depiction."
Unlike the vast majority of MRC employees, I have actually worked in journalism.The vast majority of the journalists I worked with are not conversant on the works of Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn, and they certainly wouldn't be caught dead wearing a T-shirt from any political campaign, liberal or otherwise, in the newsroom lest they be accused of having a bias.
The fact that Baker and the rest of his MRC cohorts really believe that the journalist character on "Enlightened" is "true to life" demonstrates just how out-of-touch the MRC is with how journalism works -- which makes their "media research" highly suspicious, since they seem to believe that their wishful thinking is reality.
There are bookies in London who will take your bets on who will be the next pope. As long as they’re such sports, will they make book on this: Is there anything President Obama can do or say that will pierce his magic shield and turn American mass media reverence into rage?
Obama is the most incredible player American politics has ever met. He insults Israel, and gets almost 80 percent of the Jewish vote twice! He insults the U.K., returning a bust of Churchill to the British Embassy, and pays not one political penny in penalty. Solyndra wastes billions in taxpayer dollars plus the drowning of green dreams in wide-awake red ink, and like screen slapstick, the more pies he takes squarely in the face the more they like him.
[...]
Media is supposed to rectify, not ratify, our Obamas.
Those icy particles falling everywhere now are not snowflakes.
I actually watched Obama’s entire State of the Union address. I would like to think I was merely doing my duty as a citizen and as a political observer, but I’m beginning to worry that there is simply a streak of masochism that runs through me. After all, that’s an hour of my life I’ll never get back, and God knows I’m not getting any younger. If anything, just listening to and looking at His Arrogance has aged me considerably over the past five years.
With far-left crazies calling for an Obama dictatorship, it doesn’t take much of an imagination to picture the presidential pretender declaring a state of emergency and “postponing” the 2016 election. Nevertheless, I still believe there’s a 50-50 chance that won’t happen.
But even if the 2016 election is not quashed, I believe the odds of Der Fuhrbama’s running for a third term are probably in the area of 80 percent. What’s that you say? The 22nd Amendment limits a president to two terms? Oh, yeah, I forgot. After all, BHO would never dream of violating the Constitution, right?
Similarly, if your state government is implementing a Health Care Exchange (as stipulated in Obamacare), it is implicitly colluding with the Obama administration in the neutralization of your constitutional liberties. In addition to having been passed with marginal legality and being an unconstitutional law, there are countless provisions therein that promise to immeasurably erode our liberties.
While we may have limited influence on the would-be dictator in the White House and Congress, we have the names and numbers of those in our own states, counties and cities who are aligning with America’s universal enemies.
For Americans who believe in this nation, who believe in the ideals of liberty on which it is based and who believe they have the right to speak their minds, to raise their children as they wish, to keep what they earn, to defend themselves … for these Americans, there have been no more difficult years. As bad as the first term of Barack Hussein Obama has been, as he sought and succeeded in “fundamentally transforming” a free but beleaguered nation into a pauper and pariah on the world stage, the next four years promise to be worse. They promise to be worse because Obama no longer has any restraint on his behavior. His fellow travelers in the Democratic Party and among the GOP’s RINO contingent are similarly unfettered.
Where once the Democrats avoided stating explicitly what they wish for you and for this nation, knowing that their oppressive schemes and unsupportable economics would send voters running in the other direction, they now feel that anything they wish may be rammed down the throats of the American people. This is due, in part, to the fact that Romney was right: Half of the American people vote for a living as opposed to working for a living. They are no more interested in electing a Republican than they are in using something other than an EBT card to pay for their junk food. When a president as bad as Obama, as arrogant as Obama, as brittle as Obama, as defensive as Obama, as exhaustingly obnoxious as Obama, can repeatedly lie to, insult and lord his power over the American people, yet still gain re-election easily, there simply aren’t enough people interested in voting for liberty over security. The tipping point has been reached.
There has been great concern about how Tyrant Barack Hussein Obama has been out there attempting to win the hearts and minds of our young through his twisted and un-American ideologies.
Synonyms for a tyrant are oppressor, dictator, bully, despot, persecutor.
It goes without saying that illegitimately elected American President Barack Hussein Obama is the most anti-Israel president in U.S. history. I need not repeat in depth in this column how the “Mullah in Chief” has undercut the Jewish state at every turn – from backing radical Islamist revolutionary movements like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and elsewhere throughout the Middle East, to illegally releasing national security information that discloses sources and methods for fighting a war against Iran should one break out over this neo-Nazi regime’s acquisition of nuclear weapons.
Newsmax's Ruddy Defends Florida Gov. On Medicaid, Ignores His Medicaid Fraud Topic: Newsmax
In a Feb. 22 column, Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy praised Florida Gov. Rick Scott for agreeing to expand Medicaid in the state through the provisions of the Affordable Care Act, declaring it "a reasonable action for a conservative governor of the nation’s fourth most populous state." Ruddy went on to state that "Scott joins a number of conservative governors who have opposed Obamacare but believe it would be a disservice to taxpayers not to accept federal funding."
Ruddy went on to bolster Scott's alleged bona fides on the issue:
Scott, former head of the huge Columbia/HCA hospital chain, was an outspoken critic of Obamacare even before he ran for governor.
In 2009, he founded Conservatives for Patients’ Rights to oppose Obamacare, and backed it with millions of dollars of his own money.
Then in April 2010, a month after Obama signed the healthcare bill into law, Scott announced his candidacy for governor, and he later told Newsmax that Obamacare would be “devastating for everybody.”
Ruddy failed to mention a significant thing Scott did while head of Columbia/HCA: oversaw "the largest ripoff of taxpayers in the history of Medicare and Medicaid."
Who called it that? Newsmax. When Scott was running for the Republican nomination for Florida governor in 2010, a Newsmax article highlighted that the Miami Herald has reported that Scott resigned from Columbia/HCA in 1997 amid an FBI probe that ultimately led to the company paying a record $1.7 billion in criminal and civil fines for Medicare fraud. The company pleaded guilty to 14 felonies, most committed during Scott's tenure.
But then, that was when Newsmax supported Scott's Republican opponent, Bill McCollum. After Scott won the Republican primary, Newsmax pulled an about-face and endorsed Scott for the general election against a Democratic opponent, flushing all that talk about his corruption down the memory hole.
WND's Farah: Criticism Of My Billboard Campaign Means Liberals Hate God Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joseph Farah headlined his Feb. 20 WorldNetDaily column, "Why do liberals hate God?" The key piece of evidence is that one liberal blog criticized his new campaign to post billboards containing the Ten Commandments across the country.
Yeah, that's pretty much it. Farah's main response is to write: "By posting the Ten Commandments on billboards across the country, I’m hardly imposing my will or God’s will on anyone. I’m simply pricking the public’s conscience."
So why all the spewing?
Because people don’t like to be reminded of their sin.
I don’t like it any more than anyone else. But if we want to experience everlasting life with God, it’s necessary to confront our own sins and repent of them.
I share the Commandments in love with everyone – even liberals who hate God.
Of course, Farah is not only imposing his will through his billboards, he's hiding his involvement by promoting the website thetencommandments.com onthe billboards instead of WND -- even though the website redirects to WND.
As far as being reminded of his own sin goes, let us once again note that WND, under his leadership, has become a sewer of anti-Obama hate and lies over the past five years.
We haven't heard Farah repent to God or his readers (who need to hear it more than God does) for the dishonesty of his website -- apparently, he's too busy begging for cash to put up more Ten Commandments billboards.
NewsBusters Whines That Woody Guthrie Isn't Described As A Dirty Commie Topic: NewsBusters
The headline on a Feb. 22 NewsBusters post by Mark Finkelstein screams, "Mika Giggles Like Schoolgirl Over Sex In Woody Guthrie Book—Ignores His Communist Ties."
What do the two have to do with each other? Nothing. But Finkelstein really, really wants us to know that Guthrie was a dirty commie:
Woody Guthrie was an American original who wrote some enduring music and did a lot to publicize the plight of the people of the Dust Bowl. There's just one little inconvenient truth about Guthrie: he ran in Communist circles. Though it's reported that he never officially joined the party, he's quoted as saying that the "the best thing that I did in 1936 was to sign up with the Communist Party." He also wrote 174 columns for the Communist Party's Daily Worker newspaper.
But nary a mention was made of Woody's Communist connections on Morning Joe today. Instead, Mika Brzezinski giggled like a schoolgirl over the numerous, explicit sex scenes contained in a recently-discovered novel that Guthrie wrote, House of Earth.
Brzezinski is talking about a novel Guthrie wrote, in which Guthrie's alleged communism has no direct link, if there is any link at all. Finkelstein fails to explain any relevance Guthrie's political views have in discussing a work of fiction. It appears that Finkelstein just wants to red-bait.
Finkelstein fails to mention that much of Guthrie's communist activity occurred in the 1930s, when capitalism wasn't exactly doing well. And as others have pointed out, the Communists wouldn't let Woody be an official Communist, even if he'd really wanted to join, because he was too much of a free spirit.
But facts become inconvenient when Finkelstein is red-baiting, and he complains once again that the dicussion of Guthrie's book was "sanitized to remove Communist references."
Michael Thompson writes in a Feb. 18 WorldNetDaily article:
Hollywood legend Bruce Willis’ latest entry in the “Die Hard” franchise took No. 1 in the box office over the weekend, bucking a trend of flops by his “Expendables” co-stars Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone.
Both Stallone and Schwarzenegger’s recent box office woes came after they labeled the Second Amendment “expendable.”
In contrast to Stallone and Schwarzenegger, Willis, starring in “It’s a Good Day to Die Hard,” had come out in defense of the right to bear arms as Democrats in Washington propose unprecedented restrictions on guns.
But Thompson provides no evidence that the actors' statements on gun control had any bearing whatsoever on the performance of their films.
This is what's known as the correlation-equals-causation fallacy -- claiming that because two events happened concurrently, it means that one directly caused the other. Since Thompson has not demonstrated that one caused the other, he should not have argued that it did.
MRC Unhappy That Coerced Sonograms Are Described As Coercion Topic: Media Research Center
In a Feb. 19 MRC Culture & Media Institute item, Kristine Marsh takes offense at a Huffington Post article about a gay couple viewing the sonogram of the child a surrogate mother is carrying. Why?
It’s strange for HuffPo to celebrate sonograms in this instance, but be so vehemently against them in cases of abortion.
In 2011, the site repeatedly expressed outrage over the proposed pre-abortion mandatory sonogram laws in Texas, and similar measures in four other states, calling such measures “invasive” and “coercion.” HuffPo writer Anu Kumar staunchly opposed any kind of law, like sonograms, that would give more information to the woman who was going to have an abortion.
That's right -- Marsh is complaining that a coerced sonogram is being correctly described as coercion.
Marsh goes on to insult women further:
Without seeing that obviously human and moving being inside her, a pregnant mother is kept from seeing what the pro-abortion side is hiding. Namely, that their logic is laughable and the idea that one person has the right to decide whether or not someone else gets to live is a travesty.
Does Marsh think women are so stupid that they must be forced to look at a sonogram to know that they're carrying a fetus? Apparently so.
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