Dear Gina Loudon:

Your June 4 WorldNeDaily column fretting that the new American Psychiatric Association’s new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual fretting that its new definitions mental disorders "ould be insidiously used by government to label certain Americans with mental disorders as a pretext for curbing rights of all kinds" might have a little more credibility if it didn't appear at a website that sells a book proclaiming all liberals to be mentally ill merely for holding liberal views.

And if, the same day your column appeared, WND hadn't also run a column by Walter Williams with the headline "Insane liberals in their own words."

And if hadn't prominently cited the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International -- a Scientology front group that has long bashed psychatry -- to back up your claims.

Sincerely,
ConWebWatch

Posted by Terry K. at 1:17 PM EDT

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CNSNews.com's obsession with portraying federal money spent on LGBT issues as wasteful continues in in a June 5 article by Elizabeth Harrington:

President Barack Obama's 2009 economic stimulus law financed a $431,363 grant in Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco-based congressional district to study the “psychological distress” of homosexual fathers. The study took three years to publish its results and created no jobs. 

The study concluded that homosexual men likely reduce their chances of contracting HIV after becoming fathers because they have less time for sex.

Harrington doesn't explain whether job creation was promised from this grant; if not, the fact that it "created no jobs" is irrelevant.

By our count, this is the seventh CNS article published since March portraying federal money spent on LGBT issues as wasteful.

Posted by Terry K. at 10:38 AM EDT

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Joseph Farah is a documented liar, so nothing he says can be trusted since it's usually so easily debunked. Farah's June 3 WorldNetDaily column provides yet another example. 

Farah spends most of the column freaking out over a Department of Defense instruction establishing policies and procedures for how the DoD can support local and state law enforcement agencies. It's a 42-page document, but Farah cherry-picks a tiny section to declare that the Pentagon "altered U.S. law to allow the U.S. military to quell domestic 'civil disturbances' without so much as presidential authorization."

It's telling that Farah did not provide a link to the full instruction -- which, again, is 42 pages long --  because that would have negated his full frothing mode. The document explains how such military actions are regulated by the Posse Comitatus Act, and nowhere does Farah explain how this new instruction goes any farther than any previous DoD orders, or even if there is a rollback.

Indeed, Kevin Govern of the Ave Maria School of Law (not exactly a liberal institution) explains that DoD Instruction 3025.21 replaces several older directives on military assistance to civilian law enforcement and civil disturbances and permits nothing that wasn't already permitted before:

These policy changes must be read in light of an evolution, rather than revolution, involving over a century of federal troop deployments and 200-plus years of legal precedent. The Insurrection Act of 1807 [PDF] was one of the first and most important US laws on this subject, and was followed some 71 years later by the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which further limited executive authority to conduct military law enforcement on US soil. Each of those laws has evolved over time — consistent with the times and the popular will expressed through Congress.

But Farah's frothing must not be interrupted by facts:

Did Americans notice what happened in the wake of the marathon bombings? Did they see how a city was shut down by a military-style occupation? Did they care how difficult it was to distinguish between U.S. soldiers and civilian police forces? Was there any difference?

And before that came Barack Obama’s campaign pledge to create a “civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded” as the U.S. military.

Apparently no one else in the national press found that promise newsworthy, because I was the first to call it to the attention of the public days later. Interestingly, the pledge had been stricken from transcripts of the speech handed out to media.

What ever happened to the “civilian national security force” initiative? No one in the press has dared to ask that question.

As we've repeatedly documented, Obama's reference to a "civilian national security force" refers to an expansion of the foreign service, which Obama himself explained in 2008.

The fact that Farah has chosen to perpetuate his lies about the "civilian national security force" demonstrates his capacity for soulless mendacity.

Farah's column is headlined "Slouching toward a military junta," but Farah slouched his way to the Land of Mendacity a long time ago.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:03 AM EDT

Updated: Thursday, June 6, 2013 1:11 AM EDT

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Alan Caruba writes in his June 4 Accuracy in Media column:

It’s what you do not know about what the government is up to that can get a lot of people killed. For example, on June 3^rd, President Obama will sign off on a UN treaty which, if ratified by the Senate, would override the Second Amendment and deprive Americans of the right to own guns.

In fact, the  proposed United Nations Arms Trade Treaty does not override the Second Amendment; it specifically states that it "reaffirm[s] the sovereign right of any State to regulate and control conventional arms exclusively within its territory, pursuant to its own legal or constitutional systems." Further, the American Bar Association investigated the treaty and found that "the proposed [treaty] is consistent with the Second Amendment."

Apparently, that whole "accuracy in media" thing doesn't apply if you write for Accuracy in Media.

Posted by Terry K. at 6:36 PM EDT

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How does Larry Klayman continue to attract legal clients despite his history of shoddy lawyering? We have no idea, but Klayman has attracted another one.

An unbylined June 1 WorldNetDaily article uncritically and lovingly depicts Klayman 's newest escapade, suing Iran and its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is seeking $387 million in damages on behalf of relatives of an Iranian pro-democracy activist the regime allegedly tortured and killed.

The article quotes Nasrin Mohammadi, sister of the dead activist as saying:

“We were expecting Mr. Obama to help the Iranian people. … but he hasn’t,” she said. “Mr. Obama, are you with us or are you with the mullahs? Yes. Mr. Obama is with the mullahs…”

Funny, that sounds a lot like Klayman himself. Part of Klayman's Obama derangement is denigrating him as the "mullah-in-chief," and he thinks that putting it in quotes somehow makes it less libelous.

It appears that Klayman has been coaching his client to spew the same anti-Obama hatred he does. That doesn't seem like ethical behavior for a lawyer to engage in -- which makes him dishonest as well as incompetent.

All of which serves as a sign that Nasrin Mohammadi, if she actually wants to win this case, should find herself a different attorney.

Posted by Terry K. at 2:23 PM EDT

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The Media Research Center's multimillion-dollar "Tell the Truth!" campaign last year was mostly about keeping media outlets from reporting unflattering truths about conservatives. Part of that campaign involved attacking fact-checkers who rated claims by Republicans and conservatives to be false as having a liberal bias.

The MRC's Tim Graham does just that in a May 29 NewsBusters post:

The Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University has a new study noticing that the "fact-checking" site Politifact.com over the first four months of Obama's second term found Republicans were cited as dishonest three times as often as Democrats.

Even in the first three weeks in May, while the Obama scandals piled up -- from Benghazi to the IRS to the DOJ phone-records scandals --  Republicans are still being flagged as worse than Democrats, with 60 percent of the website's selective claims rated as false so far this month (May 1 – May 22), compared to 29 percent of their Democratic statements – a 2 to 1 margin.

As for the entire four months, CMPA found PolitiFact rated 32 percent of Republican claims as “false” or “pants on fire,” compared to 11 percent of Democratic claims – a 3 to 1 margin. Conversely, Politifact rated 22 percent of Democratic claims as “entirely true” compared to 11 percent  of Republican claims – a 2 to 1 margin.

Graham doesn't mention that the CMPA has a conservative tilt making its findings somewhat suspect -- the work of CMPA chief Robert Lichter forms part of the philosophical foundation for the MRC's work.

Graham also doesn't really dispute any of PolitiFact's findings, only that they exist. He does whine that "The pants-checkers at Politifact can even select vague philosophical statements as lies, such as Mitt Romney asserting redistribution" has "never been a characteristic of America." Apparently, subsidies for transcontinental railroads were 'redistribution' in the 1800s." But what else would you call the federal government giving millions of acres of land to railroad companies so they can sell it to finance the building of transcontinental railroads?

Graham then laughably claims: 

No one should assume that a fact-checking organization can only be assumed to be fair if it tries to employ a 50-50 partisan quota on who's mangling the facts. However, "independent" fact-checking groups run by "mainstream" media companies can easily be questioned about a liberal tilt.

But a partisan quote is exactly what Graham appears to be calling for. It's part of his employer's political agenda to disabuse people of the idea that Republicans lie more than Democrats, even when the facts back it up.

Meanwhile, the CMPA "study" Graham is using to back up his attack really isn't much of a study at all -- it's a quick shot seemingly crafted to advance the CMPA's conservative agenda. As a CMPA spokesperson told Poynter, the press release announcing the study “is the study and announcement combined.” Poynter also quotes a researcher who points out that such press-release studies are “frowned upon in academic circles.”

PolitiFact editor Bill Adair also responded at Poynter to the CMPA "study," saying that "The authors of this press release seem to have counted up a small number of our Truth-O-Meter ratings over a few months, and then drew their own conclusions."

Of course, at the MRC, such things that challenge its cherished view of the world are merely inconvenient facts. Jeffrey Meyer followed up in a May 30 NewsBusters post by bashing "the liberally-skewed PolitiFact website" for pointing out the numerous falsehoods spouted by Michele Bachmann during her congressional career. Like Graham, Meyer doesn't challenge PolitiFact's findings, he only complains that they exist.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:42 PM EDT

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Bradlee Dean's lying is so endemic, he can't even accuse someone else of being a liar without lying himself.

Dean's May 25 WorldNetDaily column begins with a quote, "ADHD is a prime example of a fictitious disease," followed by an attack on a medical researcher:

These were the words of Leon Eisenberg, the “scientific father of ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder),” in his last interview before his death.

Leon Eisenberg made a luxurious living off of his “fictitious disease,” thanks to pharmaceutical sales. Coincidentally, he received the “Ruane Prize for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Research. He has been a leader in child psychiatry for more than 40 years through his work in pharmacological trials, research, teaching, and social policy and for his theories of autism and social medicine,” according to Psychiatric News.

Yes, it was even admitted that they are his THEORIES. The medical industry is using the guise of helping children to depersonalize and disconnect our children from a healthy, normal upbringing. Parents are placing their children on these drugs and subjecting them to what the world has to offer, when in fact all these children are looking for is their parents in hopes of being the blessing that God intended them to be.

But Dean is taking Eisenberg's words out of context -- as Snopes details, he was actually agreeing somewhat with Dean in that he thinks ADHD is overdiagnosed and that doctors will simply "prescribe a pill for it" instead of working to determine the root case of behavioral problems.

Dean is also guilty of what Eisenberg accuses doctors of doing. In highlighting alleged "alarming studies linking antidepressants to mass murder," Dean isn't looking deeper for root causes. As we've documented, WND managing editor David Kupelian's favorite example of this -- blaming Andrea Yates killing her children on the antidepressants she was taking -- overlooks the fact that she and her husband were in thrall to a fundamentalist Christian preacher who preached austerity (the Yates family lived in a bus the preacher had sold them) and taught that it was better to kill oneself than to mislead a child in the way of Jesus.

Meanwhile, we're still waiting for Dean to publicly apologize and repent for the raft of lies he has told in the past.

Posted by Terry K. at 10:08 AM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, June 5, 2013 10:11 AM EDT

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Gregory Gwyn-Williams Jr. uses a May 30 CNSNews.com blog post to promote the National Rifle Association giving a lifetime membership to Josh Welch, an 8-year-old boy who was suspended from school for shaping a gun out of a Pop-Tart.

Gwyn-Williams, however, makes sure not to mention that Welch has no idea what the NRA is. From the Baltimore Sun article Gwyn-Williams links to:

Josh said he didn't know what the NRA was or what it meant to have a membership, but chimed in when his parents were asked whether anyone else in his family belonged to the NRA.

"Nope, only me," he said.

The Sun also notes that "Josh also received an autographed photo of himself with David Keene, the immediate past president of the NRA and the keynote speaker at the fundraiser" -- which probably means even less to Josh than the NRA membership.

The event might have been more meaningful if the NRA hadn't imposed its agenda on a clueless 8-year-old. But such logic apparently means nothing to Gwyn-Williams.

Posted by Terry K. at 2:47 PM EDT

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Pamela Geller writes in her June 2 WorldNetDaily column:

Muslims who cited the Quran to explain and justify their ritual slaughter have beheaded a young British soldier in broad daylight on a London street. “Moderate Muslim” groups have issued their usual vague and tepid condemnations, with their usual finger pointing and blaming of anything and everything except Islam’s violent teachings. Their leftist media propagandists have fallen into line. But what are the “moderate Muslims” really doing to stop jihad terror?

The kneejerk reaction from Muslim spokespeople and the “leaders” of various Muslim organizations after that bloody beheading in London and the copycat stabbing of a French soldier by a Muslim who is still at large in Paris, as well as the bloody bombing of women, children and families on a bright shiny Monday in Boston, has not been to start real work on reforming Islam. Instead, it has been a secondary attack on the kuffar. We are admonished and schooled on a mythical narrative of anti-Muslim backlash and “Islamophobia.” “Moderate Muslims” hold no protests against the jihad here or abroad.

As Little Green Footballs' Charles Johnson pointed out when she made a similar claimat Breitbart.com, "all of the major British Muslim organizations immediately spoke out against this murder, with no 'deflection of responsibility' or 'attacks on the kuffar.'"

Since Geller is too caught up in her anti-Muslim jihad to handle the truth, she attacked Johnson for correcting the record, stating in one tweet, "Cash that check, Chuckie!" Johnson responded to these attacks by Geller and her anti-Muslim compadre Robert Spencer:

I’m being paid with the peace of mind that comes from knowing I did the right thing by renouncing him and his divisive, hateful agenda, and knowing that I’m continuing to do the right thing by exposing him and Geller when they lie, smear, promote fascist groups and ideas, and encourage the ugliest forms of xenophobia.

WND won't tell you any of this, of course. Instead, it lets Geller peddle the fiction that the anti-Muslim thugs of the English Defence League -- with whom Geller has aligned her various "Stop Islamization" groups -- are really holding "freedom rallies."

Posted by Terry K. at 12:30 PM EDT

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It's probably difficult to top his claim that some actresses are too pretty to accurately portray Hillary Clinton in a biopic, but Noel Sheppard gives it a try by portraying commentator Eleanor Clift as coming from a long line of morons.

In a June 2 NewsBusters post, Sheppard claims that Clift's statement that “When my ancestors came in they were probably at the low end of the feeder of this also” might "explain a lot to conservatives" because "Maybe this explains some of Clift's really inane comments over the years."

In addition to being a sleazy, mean-spirited insult, Sheppard completely misunderstand the point Clift was trying to make. She was rebutting Pat Buchanan's claim that the U.S. is "moving towards Third World standards" because it's allegedly admitting too many low-skilled immigrants.

Apparently, Sheppard was too busy getting off on insulting another female liberal to understand that.

Posted by Terry K. at 10:48 AM EDT

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A June 2 WorldNetDaily article by Chelsea Schilling is basically a love letter from WND to Matt Drudge, touting how Drudge's "prophetic words" that the Internet would take over the news business "haunt once-flourishing segments of the news industry," as demonstrated by his "mega-hit website."

Since this is a love letter, Schilling has edited out anything that might make either of them look bad. Like, for instance, how much WND depends on Drudge to drive traffic to its website.

ThinkProgress reported that in a one-year period in 2011 and 2012, Drudge linked to WND and their fellow conspiracy theorists at Alex Jones' Infowars 184 times, driving more than 30 million page views to the two sites. And Drudge was highlighting WND's more paranoid (and discredited) claims about President Obama's "eligibility."

Schilling also isn't going to tell you about Drudge's rumored sexuality -- namely, that he is, in the words of Gawker, "is commonly understood to be gay."

Those things are much more interesting than what amounts to free advertising for Drudge. But Schilling and WND don't think you need to know about that.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:55 AM EDT

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Newsmax columnist James Walsh loves to devise trips to grocery stores or wherever and invent people who speak articulately about the same things Walsh just happens to write about: bashing immigrants and President Obama.

The latter was only display in Walsh's May 31 column:

On a sunny Saturday morning, locals and tourists were lined up in a Southwest Florida supermarket checkout line, when a regular customer proclaimed for all to hear: “The IRS screws us, Obama and Hillary sleep through the killings in Benghazi, and our Border Patrol Agent’s death is said to be the imagination of right-wing nuts living in the past. I may be a Democrat, but how long will it take for Americans to speak up?”
 
Tourists in the checkout line seemed stunned, but year-round residents took the comment as a cue to voice their thoughts.

[...]

A town leader noted, “Obamacare, which the majority of Americans is against, is a fraud. Democrats have no problem with Benghazi and the killing of four Americans. Where was President Obama? — campaigning. The attorney general lies about a newsman’s phone records, and IRS officials take the Fifth. Is this Obama’s transparency? Mr. President, the entitlement takers — not the workers — voted for you. The takers just want money and you give it to them — they are the greedy ones.”
 
Stunned silence was followed by applause in the checkout line.

[...]

A Marine veteran declared, “It’s my turn at this impromptu town hall.” Looking around, he continued, “Benghazi is a disgrace. You don’t leave a buddy hanging out there. You go for him — regardless of the odds.”

He continued, “Veterans want to know: Who ordered the stand down? We believe it was a political decision and to hell with the front-line guys — they were just stupid American mercenaries. As Chris Matthews brags, he was in the Peace Corps, inferring that smart people go in the Peace Corps, while dumb-ass peasants fight for America rather than blaming it.

"We ask, ‘Mr. President, where were you on September 11, 2012, at 7 p.m.? Madame secretary of state, where were you at 7 p.m. on September 11, 2012?’”
 
With exasperation, the Marine concluded, “Obama’s people are not veterans, in fact, many of them hate the military. The Muslim Fort Hood shooter is still getting his pay, while his victims, the ones that lived, get no benefits. Obama says it was ‘workplace violence’ and not terrorism. Enough said!”

Funny how they all just happen to parrot Walsh's views.

Posted by Terry K. at 3:30 PM EDT

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Ilana Mercer writes in her May 30 WorldNetDaily column:

While pitting a favored voting bloc against the rest of us, Obama told militant Latinos: “We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us.”

First, Obama made the statement during an interview on the Spanish-language network Univision, which is nobody's idea of "militant Latinos."

Second, Mercer took the comment way out of context -- Obama meant it as an encouragement for Latinos to vote, and he was not speaking for himself:

Well, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna see how well we do in this election and I think a lot of it is gonna depend on whether we still have some support not only from Democrats, but also Republicans, but they're gonna be paying attention to this election. And if Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, we're gonna punish our enemies and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us, if they don't see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it's gonna be harder and that's why I think it's so important that people focus on voting on November 2.

Obama later apologized for using the term "enemies," saying that "I probably should have used the word 'opponents.'"

Posted by Terry K. at 1:55 PM EDT

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Does CNSNews.com writer think that forbidding governments from providing factual sexual health information to teenagers will somehow keep them from having sex? Apparently so -- she devoted two articles last week to attacking such efforts.

In a May 28 article, Starr railed against a smartphone app provided by New York City "that teens can download to their smart phones to get information on “sexual health,” including where they can get birth control and abortions. Starr doesn't challenge the accuracy of claims made by the app, only that the information is available. She went on to complain that "Inquiries to the department from CNSNews.com about sources of funding for the website and the app, including whether any federal funds were used, were not answered," but she offers no explanation for why providing factual information is not a legitimate government function.

Starr continued her attacks on government-provided sexual health information in a May 31 article:

A government website designed for girls ages 10 to 16 offers health advice and information on a wide range of topics, including homosexuality, anal sex and “mutual masturbation.”

The Health and Human Services’ girlshealth.gov includes tips on fitness and nutrition and an “environmental health” section where girls can read about leading a “green” lifestyle.

But the site also includes a glossary that explains anal sex and “mutual masturbation” and includes information about birth control and how to access everything from condoms to “emergency contraceptives.”

Again, Starr does not challenge the accuracy of any of the information, only that it is available. Again, she adds that "Requests from CNSNews.com to the HHS on how the website is funded and who is responsible for its content were not answered."

At no point in either of these article does Starr explain why a government serving as a distributor of factual information on an issue of public health is a bad thing.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:54 PM EDT

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