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Tuesday, September 16, 2014
NewsBusters Misinformation Watch
Topic: NewsBusters

In the midst of a freakout over Salon suggesting that George Wallace was a Republican, P.J. Gladnick goes on a misinformation spree in a Sept. 12 NewsBusters post. In whining that a Salon article on Republican voter suppression "is chock full of blatant attempts to rewrite history," Gladnick engages in his own revisionism.

Gladnick complains that Salon references "the myth of the 'stolen' Florida 2000 election , citing a CNN report that "Bush's margin would have tripled if the 'undercounted' ballots had been checked as Gore wanted." In fact, a news consortium that reviewed all presidential ballots in the 2000 election in Florida found that "Gore might have eked out a victory if he had pursued in court a course like the one he publicly advocated when he called on the state to 'count all the votes.'"

Gladnick then has a fit over Salon's claimthat "the parties switched places over civil rights," citing a random guy at an obscure history bulletin board to claim that "With only one exception [Strom Thurmond], all of the Democrat segregationists remained Democrats when that [civil rights] era ended."

But that's miseading -- because the Southern shift from Democrat to Republican didn't happen immediately doesn't mean that there was never a shift. Jody Seaborn points out

The party shift was underway. It was multilayered and would take decades to complete, but Johnson was right. The South was a conservative stronghold in 1964. It remains so. What has changed over the past 50 years is the region that was once solidly Democratic, with only a handful of Republican representatives and senators scattered here and there, is now solidly Republican. And the passage of the Civil Rights Act is a big reason why.

Jamelle Bouie wrote at the American Prospect:

White Southerners jumped ship from Democratic presidential candidates in the 1960s, and this was followed by a similar shift on the congressional level, and eventually, the state legislative level. That the former two took time doesn’t discount the first.

Gladnick also complained that Salon cited an alleged voter fraud complaint in Georgia but "very conveniently did not mention that Kemp's investigation was initiated by complaints at the local county level by election officials of registration irregularities." But Gladnick conveniently didn't mention that the group conducting the voter registration drive at the heart of the complaint, by state law, must turn in all voter registration forms even if they are incomplete. The Washington Post also reported that the group "reached out to the secretary of state’s office proactively in June to ensure they complied with state law."

If Gladnick couldn't manufacture the kind of outrage he cobbled together for his post, would he still be a NewsBusters blogger?


Posted by Terry K. at 10:03 PM EDT
Bob Unruh One-Sided Reporting Watch
Topic: WorldNetDaily

We already know that WorldNetDaily "reporter" Bob Unruh can't be bothered to report any side of an argument that diverges from his employer's (and, presumably, his own) right-wing agenda. And he just can't seem to stop repeatedly proving it.

Unruh does it again in a Sept. 13 WND article in which he promotes only the view of anti-gay therapists, even quoting  from a dissent in a judicial decision upholding a state ban on anti-gay "repatative" therapy without quoting from the majority decision. Unruh goes on to baselessly assert that lawmakers in states that have banned anti-gay therapy are "pro-homosexual lawmakers" and that the anti-gay groups who favor such therapy are "licensed mental health professionals."

Such is the state of WND and Unruh's reporting. No wonder nobody believes WND.


Posted by Terry K. at 1:46 PM EDT
Monday, September 15, 2014
MRC's Graham, Sharyl Attkisson Pretend We Don't Know Where Obama Was During Benghazi
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Tim Graham devotes a Sept. 12 NewsBusters post to highlighting tweets by Sharyl Attkisson -- the former CBS correspondent turned conservative darling and right-wing website employee -- claiming that "we still have no idea what commander in chief did Sept. 11, 2012" during the attack on diplomatic facilities in Benghazi" and asserting that "the White House photos taken that night" have been "withheld" from the public. Graham followed up Attkisson's huffing by adding, "How can our "government watchdog" media not secure answers to the most basic questions about the government response to this attack on our consulate?"

Except, of course, those answers have been supplied. Even Fox News acknowledges that Obama was in the White House during the attack, and the White House Flickr account has a photo of Obama meeting with then-deputy national security Adviser Denis McDonough, National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, and then-chief of staff Jack Lew the night of Sept. 11, 2012.

Graham tries to fudge things by claiming that Attkisson was talking about what "Obama was doing in real time" that night, but she does not make that distinction in the tweets Graham reprints.

We know Graham has an interest in playing dumb about Benghazi because of his anti-Obama agenda, but what's Attkisson's excuse? Maybe she's just a bad reporter -- which the Media Research Center, where Graham serves as director of media analysis, used to believe she was until she made her own anti-Obama leanings clear.


Posted by Terry K. at 9:15 PM EDT
WND's Zahn Really, Really Wants You To See 'The Identical'
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily's resident movie guy, Drew Zahn -- best known for panning films that fail to comport with his right-wing Christian worldview -- has found a film that aligns with his worldview, and he's berating his fellow Christians for not seeing.

In a Sept. 1 article, Zahn touts an "exclusive preview" of the film "The Identical," declaring that "In 1967, Israel was miraculously saved from warring Arab nations on all sides, and this weekend in Hollywood’s only widely released debut movie, well-known actor Ray Liotta will proclaim that Israel’s fate has 'everything' to do with Christians in America." Which is an odd thing to focus on given that the actual film's plot has to do with twins separated at birth, one of whom becomes a rock star and the other is a preacher's son who is also lured by rock n' roll.

But when the film tanked at the box office on its opening weekend -- it came in 12th in revenue despite being the widest-opening new film that weekend -- Zahn used his Sept. 7 review of the flim  to berate his fellow right-wing Christians for not going to see it:

The moviemakers spent tens of millions marketing this film – a budget most Christian movies could only dream about – through churches, Christian radio and other key outlets. The movie stars big Hollywood names like Ashley Judd, Seth Green and Ray Liotta. It features a stunning soundtrack put together by Motown legends. It also delivers a profoundly Christian message in the context of a story that you don’t have to be a pew-sitter to love.

In other words, it’s just the kind of film that could take Christ outside the church walls. All it needs to succeed and to see more films like it made, to see the candle become a blaze in our culture, is for Christians to go see it. That’s it.

And yet, theater receipts now reveal, “The Identical” has become one of the biggest box office busts of 2014. Despite being the only widely released new film of the week, despite showing in nearly 2,000 theaters (or roughly 10 times the number of locations of a typical, independent Christian film), “The Identical” couldn’t even crack the Top 10 movies of the week.

The church simply stayed home and left its brothers and sisters in the arts out to dry … again.

[...]

Audiences of all faiths could enjoy “The Identical,” learn from it and have the opportunity to see how Christ, specifically, brings strength and purpose to life.

They could, anyway, if only someone would go and actually see it. And more such opportunities could also be made, more candles shining in the darkness, if only the bushel-dwellers would take seriously their opportunity to make a real impact on the culture around them.

Hollywood, right now, is practically handing the megaphone over to the church, but the church must come out of its doors and take the opportunity. There are filmmakers who are stepping up the challenge; but in order to make this work, the ticket buyers need to step up, too.

Zahn went to bat again for "The Identical" in a Sept. 12 article by touting the filmmakers' last desperate gambit to promote the film: streaming the first 15 minutes of the film online. Zahn groused:

Many Christian ticket buyers, it seems, mistakenly concluded “The Identical” – which stars big Hollywood names like Ashley Judd and Ray Liotta and includes 23 original songs created by Motown music legends – was “just an Elvis movie” and didn’t give the production the same boost at the box office they gave other faith films like “Son of God” and “God’s Not Dead.”

Without support from Christian moviegoers and saddled with negative reviews from secular critics, “The Identical” – despite appearing in nearly 2,000 theaters nationwide – flopped at the box office.

Zahn also complained that "while popular movie-critic sites like RottenTomatoes.com panned 'The Identical,' many Christian reviewers found reasons to praise it."

Zahn's willingness to be an unpaid (as far as we know) hype man for "The Identical" didn't help: The film took in a mere $390,000 over the weekend, a plunge of 75 percent from its opening weekend.


Posted by Terry K. at 1:16 PM EDT
Sunday, September 14, 2014
WND Tries To Invent A Reason Obama Says ISIL Instead Of ISIS
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily wants a reason President Obama uses ISIL instead of ISIS to refer to the Islamic State extremist group currently running roughshod in Iraq and Syria. But the truth is too boring, so it will promote the craziest theories instead.

An unbylined Sept. 11 WND article does just that, advancing unfounded speculation that Obama uses ISIL because he's “tipping his hat” to the group (Fox News' Harris Faulkner), because use of ISIL means Israel doesn't exist (Allen West). There is no evidence that anyone at WND ever bothered to ask anyone who's actually knowledgable about the issue about Obama's use of ISIL terminology.

WND could have checked with the Washington Post, however. Two days before WND's article appeared, the Post reported:

Many politicians and media organizations that have chosen ISIL rather than ISIS have said they went with the former as a paean to grammar. When you translate the Arabic name for the group of insurgents (Al-Dawla Al-Islamiya fi al-Iraq wa al-Sham) into English, many argue that using "the Levant" (a.k.a. ISIL) to describe the region is most accurate[.]

[...]

In the Capitol on Tuesday morning, House Democrats decided after a long debate that they too would call the extremist group ISIL -- partly because ISIS was a name that first belonged to a goddess, and then to thousands of women who took said goddess's name, before a terrorist group claimed it. As Max Fisher at Vox reported last week, many women named Isis have been aggravated by the acronym favored by most people discussing the Islamic State. 

But actual reporting is too much for WND. It would rather engage is baseless, Obama-smearing speculation.


Posted by Terry K. at 9:21 PM EDT
Saturday, September 13, 2014
Obama Derangement Syndrome Watch, Supersize WorldNetDaily Edition
Topic: WorldNetDaily

It is high time that those in government who have any desire whatsoever to preserve this nation as an ongoing concern take stock of the abundance of evidence which proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the individual representing himself as Barack Hussein Obama is responsible for the resurgence of Islamic militancy in the Middle East, and ISIS in particular.

As uncomfortable for them as it may be, they must come to grips with the fact that Obama is a well-placed saboteur representing malignant interests, enemies both foreign and domestic, that have been strategizing the downfall of the United States for decades.

-- Erik Rush, Sept. 3 WorldNetDaily column

Hillary Clinton would like to become the first woman president. Should she succeed, it likely would be a bit anticlimactic. We’ve already had a girly-man president. More correctly, we’ve had a valley girly-man president – an uppity little pampered princess who can’t, or won’t, be bothered with things in which he has no interest, like terrorism or foreign policy.

For six years now we’ve looked for an Obama doctrine. Finally we have one. Last April aboard Air Force One, he summed it up for reporters: “Don’t do stupid s–t!” How very presidential! The only thing missing from that statement was “totally” and “whatever!”

--  Jane Chastain, Sept. 3 WND column

I take issue with those who are willing to take Barack Obama at his word when he says that he and his cohorts “don’t have a strategy for dealing with ISIS.” Readers who take the time to go through the articles from which the above quoted passages are taken will understand why. I think the Obama faction has been implementing a strategy that involves “dealing with ISIS” for some time. These days the word “strategy” is used to refer to a general plan for achieving a goal. But at its root it refers to a general’s plan for war.

Once we remember this root meaning we realize that, in order to understand what strategy is at work, we must first answer the critical question: Who is the enemy? In light of their declared hostility toward the United States, and the grisly murders they have perpetrated on account of it, we naturally assume that, when someone purporting to be the president of the United States speaks of a strategy for dealing with ISIS we are right to assume that they are the enemy. But the statements and actions of Obama and his cohorts suggest the likelihood that, in the strategy he is pursuing, the enemy is not ISIS, but the life and liberty of the people of the United States.

-- Alan Keyes, Sept. 4 WND column

It goes without saying that when people say that Obama throws like a girl, they’re not talking about 13-year-old Mo’ne Davis. Not only did she pitch a shutout in the Little League World Series, but showed real class when, embarrassed that so much attention was being focused on her, pointed out that baseball is a team sport and that she doesn’t play all nine positions and bat in all nine slots in the lineup. Too bad the guy in the White House who took the lion’s share of the credit for executing Osama bin Laden lacks her maturity and graciousness.

-- Burt Prelutsky, Sept. 4 WND column

The time for political correctness is over. It is time to call it like it is. The nation hangs in the balance, and making excuses for the destructive conduct of President Barack Hussein Obama and his American Muslim constituency no longer cuts it. His acts are not the result of someone who is ill-prepared and disconnected from the office of the president. He and his racist, anti-white, socialist, anti-Semitic and anti-Christian minions – from Attorney General Eric Holder, to Secretary of State John Kerry, to closet Muslim Director of the Central Intelligence Agency John Brennan – know exactly what they are doing. To complement the race war Obama and Holder have stoked at home, Obama and Brennan are bent on furthering an Islamic caliphate in the Middle East and around the globe. These are evil men, bent on taking the United States and its allies down. For Obama’s part, he not only identifies with his Muslim roots, he acts on them. Brennan is simply the white stooge who, among others, helps Obama carry out the plan.

-- Larry Klayman, Sept. 5 WND column

Whosoever feels comforted that Obama finally has the right notion about ISIS is too far gone to deal with. Let’s hope all those guilty of such poor thinking will forget to vote. They make me sorry I don’t have any more bridges to sell. Jack Benny taking a whole bunch of time to decide whether he’d rather hand over his pocket money or get shot is funny. The president of the United States ducking, stalling, equivocating and trying on a selection of other positions before settling on “Destroy ISIS” is not funny. If Obama’s latest statement on ISIS were a rope bridge, I wouldn’t trust it to sustain the weight of my pet ant walking across.

-- Barry Farber, Sept. 9 WND column

For years we’ve been aware that Obama and his colleagues (or co-conspirators, if you prefer) have studied, long-admired and (most importantly) emulated political leaders who have committed the worst atrocities and crimes against humanity in recorded history. These tyrants had no compunction with regard to deceiving, pauperizing, oppressing, or killing off tens of millions of their own citizens in order to actualize their political objectives.

Are we really going to employ such a deep and deliberate intellectual indolence that it will take several million casualties among us to confirm what is evident?

Like the pro wrestler, Barack Hussein Obama is simply going through the motions, executing choreography – that which he believes is expected of him as an American president. Largely, this amounts to little more than rhetoric and, at the moment, halfhearted military swipes against ISIS in Iraq. And like the wrestler, whose objective is to entertain and get paid rather than to win, Obama’s true objectives are also veiled.

-- Erik Rush, Sept. 10 WND column

Most young athletes must play on JV teams before they make the varsity. Most people must pay their dues through a process of preparation before they are elevated to positions of real achievement and responsibility in life. Obama is something of an exception to this rule.

He never ran a business.

He never held an executive position in government before being elevated to the presidency.

He never served in the military.

He had no foreign policy experience, save for four years as a U.S. senator.

He was simply a politician in the right place at the right time facing the wrong competition.

-- Joseph Farah, Sept. 10 WND column

No doubt many voters will blindly go to the polls in November with a case of collective amnesia. In an Obama-like stupor they will return their Democratic senators to Washington who then will roll over and play dead when he finally makes good on his promise to the amnesty advocates.

Beware of Obamanesia!

-- Jane Chastain, Sept. 10 WND column

Clearly, we have a commander in chief who is every bit as delusional as John Hinckley, who not only believed that actress Jodie Foster would be smitten with him if he could somehow manage to assassinate Ronald Reagan, but never even considered just sending her flowers and a box of candy.

-- Burt Prelutsky, Sept. 11 WND column

Gullible Americans did not seem to compute that King Hussein’s commitment to take care of them was preposterous. Consider: “The FBI’s most recent national threat assessment for domestic terrorism” did not even mention the threat of Islamist terror. Like his predecessor, this president and his malevolent minions consider the signal danger to the homeland (i.e. to their reign) to emanate from local yokels: “anti-government militia groups,” “white supremacy extremists,” “sovereign citizen nationalists” and, naturally, “Puerto Rican nationalists.” And, while He has thrown a bone to the ISIS-obsessed boneheads at home, the homeland’s southern border remains, by His decree, open to all.

-- Ilana Mercer, Sept. 11 WND column

Obama has promoted the view that illegal entrants into the U.S. are only looking for jobs and economic opportunity, not the chance to kill us in our schoolyards and malls.

-- Alan Keyes, Sept. 11 WND column


Posted by Terry K. at 9:14 PM EDT
Friday, September 12, 2014
CNS Doesn't Disclose Bozell's Link to Catholic League
Topic: CNSNews.com

A Sept. 11 CNSNews.com article by Michael Chapman reports on how "Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, said he will not march in the 2015 St. Patrick’s Day Parade in New York City." The article is almost exclusive filled with quotes from Donohue; Chapman apparently couldn't be bothered to contact any parade organizers for their response to Donohue.

Another thing Chapman couldn't be bothered to do: Disclose that his boss, Media Research Center chief Brent Bozell, is on the Catholic League's board of advisers. The MRC loves to hide Bozell's connections to right-wing Catholic groups.

Remember, Chapman is CNS' managing editor. The fact that such a high-ranking official would write an article that is completely one-sided and lacks fundamental disclosure tells you all you need to know about journalism standards -- or the lack thereof -- at CNS.


Posted by Terry K. at 7:42 PM EDT
WND's Klein Backtracks On ISIS Training Claim, Won't Admit He Was Wrong
Topic: WorldNetDaily

In June, WorldNetDaily's Aaron Klein made the inflammatory claim (citing his usual untraceable anonymous sources) that "dozens of ISIS members" were trained by "U.S. instructors working at a secret base in Jordan" -- something that the on-the-record evidence he cited did not back up.

Interestingly, after we highlighted Klein's dubious claim, WND altered Klein's article, adding a editor's note stating that "this story has been corrected to clarify that the fighters trained in Jordan became members of the ISIS after their training." But, again, none of the on-the-record evidence Klein cited backs this up.

That means Klein's article is still wrong, since he can't prove anything on the record and offers nothing but anonymous "informed Jordanian officials" who may have their own agenda.

Fast forward to a Sept. 11 WND article by Klein, in which he quotes a "senior Jordanian security official" -- anonymous, of course -- claiming that "The Kingdom of Jordan is deeply concerned about the Obama administration’s renewed plan to train 'moderate' rebels in Syria, believing the Syrian rebels are mostly extremists who espouse radical al-Qaida-like ideology." Klein then rehashes some of his earlier reporting -- but only some of it:

In February 2012, WND was first to report the U.S., Turkey and Jordan were running a training base for the Syrian rebels in the Jordanian town of Safawi in the country’s northern desert region.

The report has since been corroborated by numerous other media accounts.

Last March, the German weekly Der Spiegel reported Americans were training Syrian rebels in Jordan.

Quoting what it said were training participants and organizers, Der Spiegel reported it was not clear whether the Americans worked for private firms or were with the U.S. Army, but the magazine said some organizers wore uniforms.

The training in Jordan reportedly focused on use of anti-tank weaponry.

The German magazine reported some 200 men received the training over the previous three months amid U.S. plans to train a total of 1,200 members of the Free Syrian Army in two camps in the south and the east of Jordan.

Britain’s Guardian newspaper also reported last March that U.S. trainers were aiding Syrian rebels in Jordan along with British and French instructors.

Reuters reported a spokesman for the U.S. Defense Department declined immediate comment on the German magazine’s report. The French foreign ministry and Britain’s foreign and defense ministries also would not comment to Reuters.

There's no mention of his earlier report that U.S. officials were training ISIS militants, or even his altered claim that people trained by the U.S. later joined ISIS.

Klein's silence is a concession that he never could back up his earlier claim. Yet rather than issuing a full correction and retraction, he apparently just wants to  pretend that he never made such a claim in the first place, despite the fact that his erroneous article remains live on the WND website.

Klein has always been a sloppy reporter who puts his right-wing ideology ahead of the facts. Remember some of his other blunders -- he falsely linked an Islamic charity group to terrorists, and he falsely suggested that Fox News paid a ransom to free two kidnapped journalists.

This is why WND's desperate efforts to portray Klein as a credible writer -- such has falsely denying he's a birther -- are doomed to failure. The fact that Klein remains a prominent WND employee despite his lengthy history of blunders speaks for itself.


Posted by Terry K. at 10:42 AM EDT
Thursday, September 11, 2014
NEW ARTICLE: The MRC's Sharyl Attkisson Dissonance
Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center loves the former CBS correspondent's anti-Obama reporting, but it's trying to forget that it criticized her for promoting anti-vaccine conspiracy theories. Read more >>

Posted by Terry K. at 6:28 PM EDT
Meanwhile ...
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Dr. Conspiracy uncovers a video WorldNetDaily's Jerome Corsi made in January advising people to pull their money out of stocks because the stock bubble was about to burst. Corsi advised moving money to bonds and money market accounts -- neither of which made as much money as the Dow Jones Industrial average did in the past eight months.

Corsi has presented himself as something of a financial guru though he was more on the marketing side of things, and he has been involved with failed investments in the past.


Posted by Terry K. at 3:30 PM EDT
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
MRC Complains About Coverage Of Speech Obama Hadn't Given Yet
Topic: Media Research Center

A Sept. 10 Media Research Center item by Curtis Houck carries the headline "ABC, NBC Ignore Lack of Specifics in Previewing Obama’s ISIS Speech." Houck goes on to write:

On Tuesday night, ABC’s World News Tonight with David Muir and NBC Nightly News omitted from their coverage any mention that President Obama’s upcoming speech to the country on Wednesday night will not include some crucial details on how he plans to go about defeating the Islamic terrorist group ISIS.

Think about that for a second. The MRC is criticizing coverage of a speech that, at the time Houck's item was posted, hadn't been given yet.

The hook for Houck's item was a claim by CBS' Major Garrett that the speech "appears short on specifics." Still, that's pretty thin gruel, and it shows just how desperate the MRC is to invent any excuse to attack Obama.


Posted by Terry K. at 9:41 PM EDT
WND Adds A Conspiracy-Monger (And Ben Carson)
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Only at WorldNetDaily would a top conspiracy-monger be a prize "get." Thus, WND touts in a Sept. 7 article its latest addition:

Late at night, on roughly 600 radio stations across North America, the strange, the suspect and the unexplained come alive, stories the mainstream media refuse to cover, on George Noory’s wildly popular “Coast to Coast AM” radio program.

Noory captivates over three million listeners nightly with his discussions of paranormal phenomena, time travel, alien abductions, conspiracies and all things curious and unexplained. He is driven, he has said, by the desire to solve the great mysteries of our time.

“I’ve wanted to cover stories that the mainstream media never touch – the unusual, the paranormal,” the broadcaster says, “I learned that broadcast was the best business for exploring these issues, and I’ve been doing it for 33 years.”

And now, through Gaiam TV, Noory explores the unknown in “Beyond Belief,” a television program where Noory hosts some of the world’s leading experts on the world’s most mysterious subjects.

Better yet, through an exclusive partnership with WND, visitors to the WND Diversions page can watch excerpts of these interviews, getting a glimpse into a world other news outlets are too afraid to touch.

The meat of Noory's radio and TV shows are the paranormal and conspiracy theories, and the inaugural segment combines them both:

In the debut episode of “Beyond Belief” on WND, join Noory as he interviews exopolitical activist Stephen Bassett.

Bassett has made it his life’s work to break the “truth embargo” about the presence of extraterrestrial intelligence on earth. He is working to force governments to disclose the truth he says they have been hiding from us all.

That's right --  WND has now dedicated part of its website to speculating about UFOs. Yet this is not that much of a surprise: WND has touted how "Noory has featured key WND personalities on “Coast to Coast,” including Jerome Corsi, Michael Maloof and David Kupelian." Corsi in particular is a favorite Noory guest -- they both love conspiracies, after all.

WND has also floated the idea of Noory running for president. So, yeah, these two deserve each other.

In a related development, WND has also added Dr. Ben Carson, the conservative darling who's being floated as presidential material -- as a columnist as well. This isn't an exclusive deal -- his column is syndicated, though WND won't tell you that.

How does Carson feel about his column appearing alongside UFO speculations, birther conspiracies and the rantings of WND's very own real-life Uncle Ruckus, Mychal Massie? We'd love to find out.


Posted by Terry K. at 6:06 PM EDT
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
CNS-Mark Levin Logrolling Watch
Topic: CNSNews.com

A few weeks back, we detailed how the Media Research Center promotes the pearls of wisdom that drip from Mark Levin's mouth -- and shield him from criticism of the more offensive things that spew from it -- without disclosing that the MRC pays Levin to promote it on his radio show.

The MRC continues to show no interest in doing that basic bit of disclosure -- not even its ostensible news division CNSNews.com, which by pretending to be a journalistic organization is actually obligated to disclose such conflicts of interest.

A Sept. 4 CNS blog post by Michael Morris transcribes Levin's claim that any American who fights with ISIS automatically relinquishes their U.S. citizenship. Morris followed up with a Sept. 9 blog post in which he plays stenographer to a Levin rant about the IRS.

Neither of Morris' posts mention the fact that the MRC and Levin have a business relationship. Some things never change.


Posted by Terry K. at 8:28 PM EDT
WND's Farah Still Can't Take Criticism Well, Lies To Defend Himself
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Joseph Farah has a notoriously thin skin when it comes to criticism of himself and WorldNetDaily, and it was on full display yet again in his Sept. 4 WND column.

Farah was lashing out at John Avlon's profile of WND in a excerpt from his updated book "Wingnuts" published at Salon. As usual, Farah belittled his critic, noting the low Amazon ranking of Avlon's book and mocking the "deranged" headline on the excerpt, adding, "Remind me to give you a lesson in headline-writing someday." Of course, writers rarely get to write the final headlines for their articles; that's what editors are for -- even at an organization like WND.

But in his ranting quest to correct the alleged "errors" in Avlon's piece, Farah spreads his own lies.

He rants: "Yes, I did serve as the editor-in-chief of the Sacramento Union, and I did persuade Rush Limbaugh to write a daily column for the paper. But, as I told you in the perfunctory interview you conducted with me (Were you listening, John?), circulation did not decrease, it increased dramatically as the paper served as an alternative voice to the McClatchy flagship Sacramento Bee." In fact, as we pointed out when Farah tried to push the same lie in a rant against us, the Oct. 17, 1991, Los Angeles Times article on Farah's resignation from the Union (accessed via Nexis) reported: "The paper, which reported a circulation of 72,000 before [Farah's] appointment as editor in July, 1990, reported a circulation of 52,000 last week." We challenged Farah to back up his claim that circulation increased under his stewardship; to date, he has provided none.

Farah went on to rant:

You claim I investigated “a conspiracy theory that longtime Clinton aide Vince Foster had not committed suicide but had been murdered with the White House’s knowledge – a theory determined to be false by three official reports.” Complete bunk. I have never said or written anything remotely along these lines. If you are referring to the work of Christopher Ruddy, now the owner of Newsmax.com, a direct competitor of WND, yes, my organization did sponsor his investigation into the strange death of Vincent Foster, but neither he nor I nor anyone else associated with me ever suggested he was murdered – with or without the White House’s knowledge. And the fact that three official law-enforcement probes were necessary to address the questions raised by the reporting is a testament to the seriousness of those questions – many of which have never been answered.

But if you reject the idea that Foster committed suicide -- which Farah most certainly does -- the only other logical explanation is murder. Pretending otherwise by refusing to say the word "murder" as it relates to Foster doesn't make it any less true.

Farah writes:

You claim WND has repeatedly published a thoroughly discredited drifter’s claim that “he took cocaine in 1999 with the then Illinois legislator [Obama] and participated in homosexual acts” with him. Yes we did report that claim – once – under the headline labeling it a “sleaze charge” and only after Larry Sinclair filed a high-profile civil rights lawsuit against Barack Obama’s inner circle. (I guess your standards of journalism would not permit the reporting of such a lawsuit.)

Farah is lying here too. As we documented, WND published three articles -- not one -- highlighting Sinclair's lawsuit at the time it was filed, and Farah wrote a column defending publication of Sinclair's claims. Farah boasted that Sinclair's claims "has been reported in only one news venue – WND." None of these articles gave any indication that WND bothered to investigate the veracity of Sinclair's charges.

By contrast, WND did not publish anything about the press conference in which Sinclair proved himself beyond a doubt to be the "thoroughly discredited drifter" that Farah apparently now concedes he is. Instead, Jerome Corsi took up Sinclair's cause, publishing numerous WND articles uncritically rehashing Sinclair's claims.

Farah was not done huffing:

You write: “But the real growth industry for WorldNetDaily in 2009 was the enthusiastic advocacy of Birther claims that Obama was not born in the United States and is therefore ineligible to be president.” Let me straighten you out again. I know this must be complicated for you. It’s called journalism. WND has never made the assertion that Obama was not born in the U.S. What we did, through countless investigative reports, was demonstrate that Obama had steadfastly refused to release his birth certificate as his opponent in the 2008 election did when his “natural born citizen” status was questioned – by Democrats, the New York Times, USA Today and many other mainstream news outlets. This after Obama had for years claimed to be from Kenya – when it was advantageous for him to do so. By the way, the only law-enforcement investigation to examine the document Obama was ultimately forced to release through our investigative efforts deemed it to be a bad forgery.

Farah doesn't mention that WND has studiously avoided reporting anything that contradicts  its birther conspiracies, nor has it acknowledged that a former member of that "only law-enforcement investigation to examine the document Obama was ultimately forced to release through our investigative efforts" -- that is, the "Cold Case Posse" probe run by Mike Zullo and authorized by Joe Arpaio -- has exposed the utter sham that investigation was, admitting that "The Hawaii Verification of Birth, certifies that Obama was born in Hawaii and he is therefore a US citizen."

Perhaps Farah can take a break from sending us cease-and-desist letters on the down-low and respond to the facts I've laid out here. That is, if he has the guts.


Posted by Terry K. at 1:11 PM EDT
Monday, September 8, 2014
WND Columnist: Ice Bucket Challenge Is Satanic
Topic: WorldNetDaily

I also thought about why people would pour water over their heads. Sometimes the participants drench themselves, but typically someone else is designated to this task. Now I realize that being immersed in ice-cold water is quite a challenge to take, and it would definitely attract attention; I get it. However, I couldn’t put my finger on why this didn’t feel right to me – then I saw this video on Facebook. In the video, Evangelist Anita Fuentes breaks down an assortment of cryptic and cultic messages hidden in the IBC. It’s worth watching to decide for yourself if evil influences and symbolism are embedded within the IBC, or if Fuentes – as well as myself – is looking for ghosts behind every bush and a conspiracy behind every popular fad.

In particular, Fuentes’ video depicts the world-renowned cultic queen of talk, Oprah Winfrey, taking the IBC. Winfrey precedes her dousing with the words, “In the name of ALS and the Ice Bucket Challenge. …”[emphasis mine] Interesting choice of words.

Winfrey’s proclamation hit a nerve with me because Christians, myself included, routinely pray and make decrees “in the name of Jesus.” We specify whom we worship when we invoke prayer in Jesus’ name. However, because Oprah mistakenly believes the One True God is jealous of her, and the well-known fact that she denounces Jesus as the only way to God and basically considers herself to be a god, I found this statement to be very cultic in nature.

She has influence over millions, but what does she really believe? Get Josh McDowell’s expose ” God: A Dialogue on Truth and Oprah’s Spirituality”

Fuentes also addresses the matter of pouring water over ones head and how that act directly correlates with water baptism and syncs the IBC with the sacred Christian deed of cleansing and purification, albeit, in a sacrilegious manner. She also delves into deep issues of rituals stemming from dark, cultic practices that encompass the IBC and which symbolically place America and Americans in a satanic ritual – with or without their knowledge.

Satanic ritual? Yes. Rituals abound in “Christian” America. Whenever spectators watch singers like Beyonce, JayZ, Rihanna, Lady Gaga and especially Nicki Minaj, they are indoctrinated and involved with blatantly satanic rituals that stem from the deep abyss of the occult. Some of these very same artists have taken the ALS IBC. Gaga doesn’t utter a word as she baptizes herself, arrayed in a sexy black leotard, sporting black lips, perched in an ornate black chair. Gaga doesn’t use a bucket; she instead uses a large silver bowl associated with pagan worship. Do you think she would take the IBC if it didn’t meet her pagan criteria? Not a chance.

The ALS IBC is ritualistic in nature. People are chosen to undergo a form of water baptism with cultic god Oprah leading the charge “in the name of ALS.” The Bible is clear: “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). Oprah is a god to millions of Americans, and those who follow her doctrine and antics have tossed Jesus off the throne of their hearts – perhaps not intentionally … or perhaps so. Yet by following her seemingly innocent IBC decree, knowingly or not, they have cast Jesus off symbolically.

-- Selena Owens, Sept. 2 WorldNetDaily column


Posted by Terry K. at 6:37 PM EDT

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