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Saturday, June 14, 2014
Clinton Derangement Syndrome, Newsmax Edition
Topic: Newsmax

Let's face it, Hillary. You've never excelled at anything except being an activist in college and standing by your man Bill.

You were a lousy senator from New York. You were a lousy secretary of state — and not just because of Benghazi.

You have no issue to run on, except that you're a woman. And the only thing you have going for you is that you're still married to Bill and everyone loves and adores him now that he is powerless.

Hillary, you don't even have the demeanor or the personality to be president. Did you see yourself in that Diane Sawyer interview?

Do you think anyone wants an in-your-face person like you to be president? Someone who acts arrogantly — "I'm Hillary Clinton and I want to do what I want to do and so I'm going to do it."

-- Michael Reagan, June 12 Newsmax column


Posted by Terry K. at 9:47 PM EDT
Friday, June 13, 2014
NEW ARTICLE: WorldNetDaily's 'Shack' Attack
Topic: WorldNetDaily
WND has spent years obsessing over a spiritual novel for failing to advance its fundamentalist Christian agenda. Read more >>

Posted by Terry K. at 7:37 PM EDT
Thursday, June 12, 2014
MRC Bashes Connection Between Cop-Killers And Right-Wingers, Ignores Cop-Killer's Fondness For MRC
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center is doing what it can to bash anyone who dares point out the fact that cop-killers Jerad and Amanda Miller had links to right-wing ideology:

  • A June 9 NewsBusters post by Jeffrey Meyer complains that Michael Eric Dyson tried to "connect the shooting in Las Vegas to conservative media and politicians."
  • a June 10 NewsBusters post by Laura Flint grumbled that MSNBC's Joy Reid said that the shootings proved the rise of “right-wing extremism.” Flint groused: "MSNBC is leaning forward so heavily on this meme that it’s falling over itself to paint blood on the hands of mainstream conservatives for the violence of mentally-disturbed extremists who have nothing to do with the conservative movement."
  • A June 10 MRC item by Kristine Marsh complained that a CNN writer cited the Southern Poverty Law Center -- which is somehow an accessory to terrorism because "when Floyd Lee Corkins tried to shoot up the conservative Family Research Council in 2012, he later admitted he targeted the conservative organization because the SPLC listed the FRC as a 'hate group' for it’s 'anti-gay' stance on marriage"-- in "blaming the right for the deadly cop shootings in Las Vegas."Marsh continued, "It’s pretty rich to talk down to conservative media for using hateful and negative language while on the network that employs Al 'White Interlopers' Sharpton, but again, nobody ever accused liberals of too much self-awareness."

Unmentioned by all of these MRC writers: Jerad Miller's Facebook page includes likes for MRC operations NewsBusters and CNSNews.com, as well as For America, the political operation run by MRC chief Brent Bozell.

That alone puts the lie to the MRC's claim that pointing out the Millers' link to right-wing media is inaccurate. Plus, it's utterly hypocritical given the MRC's past eagerness to link mass killers to liberal causes.


Posted by Terry K. at 3:03 PM EDT
Obama Derangement Syndrome Watch, Christopher Monckton Edition
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Christopher Monckton is a birther dead-ender, and birthers gonna birther. So Monckton spends his June 10 WorldNetDaily column blaming President Obama's decision to trade Gitmo detainees for Bowe Bergdahl on him not being a "natural-born citizen":

Why, then, did Mr. Obama take that bizarre decision? One reason stands out above all the rest. He is not a natural-born citizen of the United States. He is a citizen of Indonesia. He does not consider himself as owing any loyalty whatsoever to the United States Constitution, which debars him from holding the office he occupies. During his first election campaign, he spoke openly of the Constitution as an obstacle.

He was brought up as a Communist. He despises the liberty and democracy and prosperity that has made the United States powerful. He loathes capitalism. He execrates the West. He has on several occasions either identified himself as a Muslim or identified himself with Islamic causes. On the basis that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” he has shown himself relentlessly unwilling to stand up for America in the face of Islamic terror. And now he has shown himself willing to stand up for Islamic terror in the face of America.

[...]

But the intellectual and military history of the West in general and of the United States in particular means nothing to Mr. Obama. For, even if he were born in the United States, even if the Hawaiian “birth certificate” on the White House website/crime scene were not a transparent forgery, even if he had renounced his Indonesian citizenship and had obtained U.S. citizenship, even if he had not claimed a university grant on the basis that he was a foreigner, even if his draft card were not a forgery, he hates America and all that she stands for.

Even if the birther conspiracy theories Monckton spewed were not discredited, Monckton would continue to spew them anyway.


Posted by Terry K. at 12:19 PM EDT
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
CNS' Hollingsworth Serves As Right-Wing Stenographer Yet Again
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNSNews.com's Barbara Hollingsworth has a disturbing tradition of simply serving as a stenographer of right-wing talking points, making no effort to seek out an alternative view. She does this again in a May 29 CNS article in which she regurgitates "eight pervasive 'myths' about the Affordable Care Act," as claimed by the right-wing National Center for Policy Analysis.

Hollingsworth simply takes the NCPA's word for their claims and makes no apparent effort to seek out any response.

The sad thing is, Hollingsworth is a senior editor at CNS. You'd think someone claiming a title of senior editor would be capable of doing more than copying right-wing talking points. That's apparently not how that works at CNS.


Posted by Terry K. at 9:07 PM EDT
WND Hates The Police Almost As Much As Vegas Cop-Killers Did
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily didn't show up on Las Vegas cop-killer Jerad Miller's Facebook like list (though a couple of WND's friends did), but it might as well have. After all, both WND and Miller share a disdain for the police.

WND's archive is strewn with recent headlines like these:

Those headlines were partially in service of promoting the new WND-published book "Police State USA," in which Washington Times reporter Cheryl Chumley fearmongers about "the militarization of the police," complete with melodramatic description of the erosion of citizens' rights:

In five years, we will really start to wonder what happened to America. In 10 years, our kids won't know the America of our youth. And in 25 years, we won't recognize America at all.

The Constitution will be a relic, tossed on the same trash heap as the Bible. The notion of God-given rights will be replaced by government control, and privacy rights will have crumbled along with Fourth Amendment guarantees that protect us from warrantless searches of home, possessions and self.

“Police State USA” chronicles how America has arrived at the point of being a de facto police state, and explains what led to an out-of-control government that increasingly ignores the Constitution and exploits 9/11 security fears to justify spying on its citizens. Stunning new surveillance technology now makes it easier to keep tabs on people. The acquisition by police departments of major battlefield equipment emboldens officials to strong-arm those they should be protecting. The failure of the news media to report government violations of citizens’ rights sets the stage for this slippery slope.

That attitude doesn't seem too far removed from that of Jerad Miller and his wife, Amanda, who murdered two police officers and another man in Las Vegas on Sunday before killing themselves. TPM reports that a sheriff's deputy said of the Millers: believe they equate government and law enforcement with fascism and those that support with Nazis. ... They believe that law enforcement is the oppressor and they are associated with the Nazi movement."

While there doesn't appear to be any direct link between the Millers and WND, they clearly swam in the same far-right cesspool. And the Millers were all too eager to act out hatred of police that WND merely hinted at.


Posted by Terry K. at 10:01 AM EDT
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Newsmax Gears Up To Boost GOP Florida Governor's Re-Election
Topic: Newsmax

Back in 2010, Newsmax got heavily involved in the Florida governor's race -- it tried to anoint Bill McCollum as the Republican nominee by trashing his primary opponent Rick Scott, but when Scott defeated him in the primary, Newsmax quickly flip-flopped, supported Scott despite its previous trashing of him, and helped him to victory (complete with $100,000 donation).

The Florida governor's race is coming around again, and Newsmax is firing up the campaign to help Scott win re-election.

A June 8 Newsmax article by Elliot Jager touted how "A campaign commercial by Republican Gov. Rick Scott asserting that former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist — a Republican turned independent turned Democrat — allowed college tuition to increase up to 15 percent every year has been determined to be 'mostly true' according to the Miami Herald."

Newsmax doesn't like Crist any more than it didn't used to like Scott. In the 2012 Republican presidential primary in Florida (where Newsmax is headquartered), Newsmax was a huge booster of Newt Gingrich, trying to portray chief rival Mitt Romney as having a "'Charlie Crist' problem."


Posted by Terry K. at 9:15 PM EDT
WND's Buddies Get Some Love From Vegas Cop-Killer
Topic: WorldNetDaily

The Media Research Center isn't the only part of the ConWeb that got some love -- well, a like, anyway -- from cop-killer Jerad Miller's Facebook account. A couple of WorldNetDaily's friends can be found there too.

One is the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, the far-right medical group that opposes mandatory vaccinations -- a stance that is undoubtedly contributing to the return of formerly conquered diseases like measles -- and has dabbled in Clinton conspiracy theories. WND has been a reliable promoter of AAPS' conspiracies, at one point even having a top AAPS official, Lee Hieb, write a column.

Another entry on Miller's Facebook likes page is the Facebook page of perpetual Oregon candidate Art Robinson, a close friend of WND managing editor David Kupelian. Kupelian and WND have long boosted Robinson's losing campaigns by glossing over issues that hurt his candidacy -- like building a homeschool curriculum around a series of decidedly racist 19th-century adventure novels or unsubstantiated claims of political retribution against Robinson's children. WND has also uncritically promoted Robinson's anti-global warming petition by avoiding the fact that many, if not most, signatories to the petition have degrees bearing no relevance to climate science.

This is the crowd WND runs with -- as well as the crowd a cop-killer runs with.


Posted by Terry K. at 11:59 AM EDT
Monday, June 9, 2014
NewsBusters Silent About GOP Operative Booking Bergdahl's Critics on TV
Topic: NewsBusters

Jackie Seal writes in a June 6 NewsBusters post:

Last night on FNC’s The Kelly File, host Megyn Kelly sat down in an exclusive interview with six soldiers who served with Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl.

When Kelly asked them about accusations floating around that they’re just engaging in “swiftboating” and “playing politics” by speaking out, the men voiced their frustration. One soldier told her, “I don’t know how he [Bergdahl] felt about us, but we would all die for him and he left.”

It was a remarkable reaction from the men Bergdahl left behind. It was clear earlier in the discussion that their frustration with Bergdahl isn’t necessarily one of anger at him, but of concern for why he felt the need to leave them all behind, something thse men pointed out is not what a soldier of “honor and distinction” would do.

Bergdahl’s platoon leader made the point that speaking out about Bergdahl leaving has nothing to do with politics, but everything to do with wanting to know the truth behind why he left.

But Seal leaves out one important fact: Those platoon members are working through a Republican operative to get on TV.

Richard Grenell and his public relations firm have been coordinating interviews for the soldiers, including the ones who appeared on Kelly's show. Buzzfeed reports that Grenell has "played a key role in publicizing critics of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl."

That seems to be a fact worth noting. But apparently, Seal and NewsBusters didn't think so because it interfered with the right-wing media's narrative that Bergdahl is a deserter, never mind that Bergdahl has not had a chance to tell his side of the story.


Posted by Terry K. at 9:56 PM EDT
Bad Timing: WND Dismisses Domestic Terror As 'Theoretical' While Domestic Terror Hits Las Vegas
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Greg Corombos writes in a June 8 WorldNetDaily article:

The Justice Department is resurrecting a program designed to thwart domestic threats to the United States, and Attorney General Eric Holder says those threats include individuals the government deems anti-government or racially prejudiced.

The Domestic Terrorism Executive Committee was created in the wake of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing but was scrapped soon after the 2001 terrorist attacks as intelligence and law enforcement officials shifted their focus to threats from outside the country. The committee will be comprised of figures from the FBI, the National Security Division of the Justice Department and the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee.

In his statement announcing the return of the committee, Holder said he remains concerned about the specter of attacks prompted by Islamic extremists, but he said this committee will be tasked with identifying other threats.

“We must also concern ourselves with the continued danger we face from individuals within our own borders who may be motivated by a variety of other causes from anti-government animus to racial prejudice,” Holder said.

Around the time that WND was posting this article, however, Jerad and Amanda Miller were murdering two cops inside a pizza restaurant, following by shooting another man to death inside a Walmart, where they both eventually took their own lives.

Yet Corombos quotes Horace Cooper, co-chairman of the black-conservative group Project 21, as dismissing domestic terrorism as a "theoretical problem" and the resurrected task force as "more about a political agenda than it is in protecting Americans."

Perhaps Cooper and WND should ask the Millers' victims how "theoretical" domestic violence is.


Posted by Terry K. at 6:09 PM EDT
Las Vegas Cop-Killer Loved the MRC
Topic: Media Research Center

Jerad Miller has been identified, along with his wife, Amanda, as the perpetrators in the Las Vegas incident in which three people, including two police officers, were shot to death before he and his wife committed suicide. Turns out he was a big fan of Brent Bozell's Media Rsearch Center empire.

Among the 107 entries on what appears to be Miller's Facebook "likes" page are the MRC's NewsBusters and CNSNews.com, as well as Bozell's quasi-super PAC operation For America.

Why point this out? Because turnabout is fair play. The MRC  has regularly highlighted the supposed liberal links to other shooters, including Floyd Corkins, who has been described has having been inspired by the Southern Poverty Law Center; the MRC complained that "media isn’t interested in holding the SPLC accountable for its rhetoric." The MRC has also highlighted how "Chris Dorner, an ex-cop on a vengeful rampage against police officers in Los Angeles, praised liberal media personalities in his oddly chatty 'manifesto' posted on Facebook. " (Dorner's manifesto also contained praise for conservatives, which the MRC conveniently failed to mention.)

Will the MRC tell us what of its rhetoric may have inspired Miller? Will the MRC even admit that Miller was a fan? Don't count on it -- as of this writing, no MRC outlet has devoted any original coverage to the shootings.


Posted by Terry K. at 2:58 PM EDT
Obama Derangement Syndrome Watch, Supersize WorldNetDaily Edition
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Though the Bergdahl issue has ostensibly provided President Obama with the opportunity to claim that his administration supports veterans, in the current political climate, he is probably more than happy to have Congress excoriating him over the legality of the arrangement, the irresponsibility of negotiating with terrorists and so forth. Compared to what could come to light if the truth is ultimately revealed with regard to Benghazi (to offer but one example), the potential fallout from this prisoner swap is hardly a worry.

I believe that when all is said and done, the Bergdahl-Taliban deal will have served its purpose in distracting Americans from the Benghazi select committee hearings and the Veteran’s Administration scandal. To a lesser extent, it will also distract us from the NSA and IRS scandals, the administration’s illegal support for Islamist rebels in Syria, the Fast and Furious scandal, Bureau of Land Management excesses (and the revelation of high-level political corruption attendant to that), the administration’s collusion with the Muslim Brotherhood at home and abroad and their complicity in the Arab Spring, which has cost tens of thousands of lives, their support for al-Qaida in Libya, Obama’s insinuation of Muslim Brotherhood operatives into the Department of Homeland Security, dismantling of terror training protocols in the FBI and Pentagon, backing Nazis in Ukraine, as well as the mountain of fiat federal regulation calculated to cripple America economically.

-- Erik Rush, June 4 WorldNetDaily column

Obama obviously doesn’t share the ordinary American’s concern about jihadists, as he has bent over backward to close the prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, tried to sanitize the term “terrorism” from our vernacular and often pretended we are not in a war with Islamic jihadi.

Obama has made clear that he believes that radical Muslims have legitimate grievances against the United States – or, at the very least, that if we sweet-talk them, they will be less inclined to annihilate us.

-- David Limbaugh, June 5 WND column

Does Obama identify with Bowe Bergdahl? Is Bergdahl his kind of guy? Is he much different, for instance, from the man Obama chose to be secretary of state – John Kerry? Remember, Kerry served in Vietnam. When he returned, he became a vicious critic of the U.S. military. Some of the messages Bergdahl wrote about his fellow soldiers sound uncannily like the claims Kerry made about U.S. soldiers in Vietnam.

Or is there something else – a motivation even darker?

Is there evidence suggesting Obama actually sympathizes, at some level, with the jihadist enemy? Could we, at least, safely conclude that he is more willing to negotiate with the Taliban than he is with Republicans in Congress? That’s the stark and seemingly undeniable conclusion of one member of Congress – Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina. Think about that! We have a president whose enemies are not mass murderers who enslave people, subjugate women and convert by the sword. His real enemies are those who disagree with him and oppose his policies at home.

-- Joseph Farah, June 5 WND column

Obama’s latest case of historical revisionism – trading five terrorists from the Gitmo Hilton for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, whom some of his fellow soldiers describe not as a hero, but as a deserter – raises an interesting question. Does treason even exist anymore?

-- Craige McMillan, June 6 WND column

With apologies to Drudge and WikiLeaks, I am releasing the following transcript of President Obama’s farewell press conference, held on June 6, 2016, the day after the U.S. Senate voted 65-35 to convict him of five of the seven Articles of Impeachment adopted in the House on April 1, 2016. The transcript was obtained from a high-level source in the White House basement.

-- Tom Tancredo, June 6 WND column

For Richard Nixon, it was a cover-up surrounding illegal wiretapping. For Bill Clinton, it was lying under oath about sex with an intern. Obama thinks he’s untouchable. He believes he’s above the law.

Evidently, he’s right.

What will it take for our spineless U.S. Congress to impeach this tyrant? This is way beyond partisan politics. This is about justice. This is about the safety of the American people. Barack Hussein Obama is America’s biggest threat to national security. He is “an enemy within.”

It’s official. America is no longer a constitutional republic. Under this “progressive” nut, we’ve become a banana republic.

-- Matt Barber, June 6 WND column

What’s clear now is that Obama wasn’t motivated by compassion for a POW, as his small band of Kool-Aid drinkers would have you believe. Bergdahl was hanging out with the Taliban because he chose to do so. It’s what he wanted to do.

So what was his motivation?

Was Bergdahl an excuse to do what Obama had long pledged to do – free all the Gitmo psycho-killers?

I’m going to suggest Obama has a long history of siding with the Muslim Brotherhood, of which the Taliban is a part.

-- Joseph Farah, June 6 WND column

Obama is committed to his socialist redistribution of wealth agenda, and he is fulfilling his promise to fundamentally transform America!

Obama has been successfully dividing Americans like no other president in history.

Through his outrageous deeds and lies, Obama has revealed our lack of character and courage.

-- Jesse Lee Peterson, June 8 WND column

Obama has been a Taliban supporter for some time now – despite the slaughter, the insider attacks, the destruction of schools, the attacks on girls, etc. No hashtags for those girls. He strong-armed Afghan President Karzai into partnering with them. He insisted that NATO recognize the Taliban. Karzai has said that the Obama administration actually told him that the Taliban, which provided al-Qaida its base of support for Sept. 11, was not an enemy of the U.S.

-- Pamela Geller, June 8 WND column


Posted by Terry K. at 10:41 AM EDT
Sunday, June 8, 2014
Newsmax's New Scandal: Obama Chews Gum!
Topic: Newsmax

Newsmax has apparently found the latest Obama scandal, as detailed in a June 6 article:

Social media users tore into Barack Obama on Friday after the US president was seen chewing gum during solemn ceremonies to mark the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings.

People took to Twitter to denounce Obama's "shameful" and "vulgar" chewing, with one user attacking him as a "lout."

Yep, the entire article is all about how random people on Twitter disapprove of Obama chewing gum. It's not until the very last paragraph that it's noted that Obama "has faced an on-off battle to quit smoking and often chews a nicotine-based gum to drive away the craving."

You'd think that piece of information would be more important. But it appears Obama-bashing was the agenda for this article.


Posted by Terry K. at 10:31 PM EDT
Bradlee Dean Promises Facts, Tells More Lies Instead
Topic: WorldNetDaily

In his June 5 WorldNetDaily column, Bradlee Dean promises to "lay out the facts (yes, I said facts), not opinions, not half lies or distortions" about his defamation lawsuit against MSNBC's Rachel Maddow. But since Dean is a lying preacher, you know that's not going to happen.

Indeed, just a few words after saying he would tell "facts ... not opinions, not half lies or distortions," he tells a total lie by calling MSNBC a "communist network." The fact that MSNBC accepts advertising and is owned by a large for-profit corporation easily debunks Dean's false claim.

Dean goes on to rehash his complaints about Maddow accurately if incompletely quoting his anti-gay remarks and complains that Maddow left context out. But that supposed context contains another Dean lie, that Obama "said we are no longer a Christian nation, we’re a Muslim nation." As FactCheck.org documents, Obama's statement in full reads: "Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation – at least, not just. We are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, and a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers."

In other words, Dean took Obama's words out of context -- he's doing to Obama what he's accusing Maddow of doing to him. Does he think Obama should sue him for defamation?

Dean goes on to rant:

However, seven months after filing a lawsuit, our attorney wanted to withdraw the case from the Superior Court of the District of Columbia and file it in federal court.

The move to another court was a “tactical, strategic decision.” Our attorney then informed Judge Zeldon that he wanted to voluntarily dismiss the case from her court since it had been filed in federal court. Zeldon ruled that she would dismiss the case without prejudice if I would pay Maddow’s attorneys for the work they did in her court, which she assessed to be worth $24,625.23.

Pay the ones defending MSNBC and Rachel Maddow? The ones who put a hit piece out on my family, my ministry and me? I was not about to hand over $24,625.23 to the attorneys defending those who put a hit out on me, prompting persecution, death threats and an array of attacks from every angle against my ministry.

But Dean is not telling all the facts. First, he fails to identify his attorney, who is failed lawyer Larry Klayman. Second he doesn't explain the real reason Klayman tried to move venues -- as we noted, it was to deny Maddow an anti-SLAPP defense, which she could have in the D.C. court but not in a federal court.

Dean's framing this as a “tactical, strategic decision” obscures the fact that Klayman is such an incompetent lawyer he didn't research venues before filing Dean's lawsuit. Thus, the judge ordering Dean and Klayman to pay Maddow's lawyers for seven months work of work that would be moot in a different venue is entirely justified.

If Dean really was interested in telling all the facts instead of an orgy of self-aggrandizement,  he would have mentioned Maddow's defense -- that she accurately represented what Dean said and that her words are protected by the First Amendment.

Dean rants that "my comments were clearly taken out of context and twisted" -- even though that is something Dean does all the time to others. If Dean was actually concerned about the truth, he would correct and repent for all the lies he has told about Obama and others through the years.


Posted by Terry K. at 4:40 PM EDT
CNS Unemployment Numbers Distortion Watch
Topic: CNSNews.com

The U.S. economy added 217,000 jobs in May, pusing the number of jobs in the country past its pre-recession peak -- but you'll never read about that at CNSNews.com.

Following its anti-Obama agenda, CNS once again ignored good news about jobs to cherry-pick stats that make Obama look bad, as demonstrated in two articles by Ali Meyer:

The fact that Meyer could find only two statistics to cherry-pick shows that there is little bad news about the economy for her to report. That just goes to show once again that good news for America is bad news for CNS.


Posted by Terry K. at 2:07 PM EDT

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