NewsBusters Pushes Bogus Wedding Chapel Discrimination Story Topic: NewsBusters
Ken Shepherd uses an Oct. 23 NewsBusters post to take exception to a CNN op-ed pointing out the fact that wedding chapels are for-profit businesses and are not necessarily religious operations:
Of course it's common sense that, in the strictest religious sense, wedding chapels are not, well, actual chapels. After all, they do exist as moneymaking ventures, albeit moneymaking ventures catering to a religious audience, kind of like religious bookstores or sellers of religious art. That said, it is supremely dangerous for government to be in the position to decide questions that are essentially theological and ecclesial in nature.
Moving on to the specific manufactured controversy at hand, a wedding chapel in Idaho that falsely claims it's being forced to marry same-sex partners, Shepherd writes:
"We strive to make your wedding experience memorable and personal for you" with "ordained ministers [who] will marry you using a traditional, religious ceremony," the Hitching Post notes in an FAQ section response to the question, "What is the difference between marrying at the Hitching Post vs. the Courthouse?"
Because the Hitching Post promises a traditional, religious ceremony in the Christian tradition that is officiated "by our Licensed or Ordained Hitching Post ministers," it is most certainly understood by potential clients that the proprietors would accordingly wish to reserve the right to not do business with those who demand a wedding experience that contradicts the fundamental understanding of the Christian faith of the Hitching Post's owner/operators.
Traditionally, even ministers at non-profit churches receive a gratuity for officiating a wedding, and often houses of worship lease out fellowship halls, kitchens, and even sanctuaries for couples getting married, including couples who are NOT members of the church in question. This might strike some as fundamentally commercial activity, not religious in nature, and ergo worthy of anti-discrimination protection and public accommodation regulations.
But as we pointed out, the Hitching Post is not a church, used to regularly conduct secular wedding ceremonies (that presumably did not necessarily conform to "the Christian faith of the Hitching Post's owner/operators"), and was not an exclusively religious wedding chapel until hooking up with a right-wing legal group and scrubbing its website of references to the civil ceremonies it used to perform. Further, no legal action has been taken against the wedding chapel, and if it is now operating as a legitimate religious corporation, they are exempt from being forced to perform same-sex marriages.
Shepherd even quotes from the wedding chapel's website claiming its ministers will "will marry you using a traditional, religious ceremony," ignoring the fact that as recently as two weeks ago, that very same page stated that its ministers "will marry you using a traditional or civil ceremony." That sudden conversion would seem to undermine the chapel's case that it's a strictly religious operation.
WND's Farah Chooses The Bible Over Science Topic: WorldNetDaily
One thing we know for sure: Science can never prove the age of the Earth. Because science requires a methodology of observation and empirical testing that could never be done on an event that occurred thousands of years ago, millions of years ago or billions of years ago. God can, however, prove the age of the Earth because He was there. And someday, when He returns to judge His creation, He might just do that.
Until then, we have the detailed historical record He left us with in written form – the Bible.
I know what some of you are thinking: “Farah, what about the dinosaurs that were tens of millions of years old? How do you explain that?” Quite simply, I don’t believe it. Throughout man’s history, in every culture, we have stories, pictures and sculptures depicting dragons and leviathans and sea serpents. Are we to believe these were all concocted in man’s imagination? Even the Bible references such observations. If behemoths like the one described in chapter 40 of the Book of Job somehow threatened the Bible account of history, I don’t think it would be there.
But here’s the bottom line: Is it crazier for me to believe the world is around 6,000 years old than it is to accept as scientific fact that it is actually millions or billions of years old?
Where’s the proof? Either way.
I like what the Apostle Paul had to say in Romans 1:20-25: “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.”
Amen, indeed.
[...]
Have you ever considered the fact that there is no reliable history of man before 6,000 years ago?
Why would that be?
I know there are ancient myths that suggest man is older than 6,000 years. But there is no reliable human history.
What could explain that?
The Bible explains it. Man can’t. He can only speculate, imagine, fantasize and proselytize.
I do not believe it was empty rhetoric when Dr. Ben Carson told Fox News host Chris Wallace that “there might not actually be elections in 2016. …” Carson did not specifically mention a pandemic of disease as the reason for same, stating instead the possibility of economic disaster and ISIS. I say, what could be more economically devastating than a disease pandemic and martial law to prevent a run on banks and to allow government-controlled media blackouts?
My questions are still on the table. Why is Obama providing safe harbor for those he has to know are infected disease carriers? And why is Congress letting him?
WND columnist Erik Rush gives insight into the Ebola crisis. In his recent column, Rush expertly breaks down the scientific complexities surrounding Ebola and drives home the point that protective gear isn’t enough to protect American military personnel and aid workers from contracting the deadly disease. Rush refers to such activity as “criminal.”
Under the guise of helping humanity, Obama trades protecting our military for protecting Ebola victims, throwing our military to almost certain death. I agree with Rush; this is criminal.
Common sense dictates that since scientists and regulators working for the federal government quite literally wrote the book on Level 4 biocontainment protocols, they know how dangerous Ebola truly is. Thus, their refusal to prudently address the threat leads to one of two conclusions:
1. They have determined that political expedience trumps public health concerns, or
2. They want Ebola to spread in the United States.
Given how manifestly diabolical I know this president and his administration to be, I don’t doubt that the latter is a possibility. It certainly would fall within the scope of concerns some analysts have expressed pertaining to various escalating crises in America being orchestrated by the White House in order to ultimately “legitimize” a declaration of martial law in America.
As if we did not have enough to worry about with Ebola, Sharyl Attkisson reported last week that the surge in enterovirus cases may well be related to the infusion of young illegal immigrants throughout the United States.
Although the correlation between the dispersal of these youths and the spread of this deadly disease is not fully established, what is established is that President Barack “Typhoid Barry” Obama made this all happen.
When it comes to anything Muslim, our fraudulently elected president – himself one-half Muslim by birth and totally Muslim by mentality and deed – has a tin ear at best.
These words sound harsh, and by uttering them I have received a fair number of hate emails from our leftist friends, who would run interference for Obama at all costs. But I am not a racist, and neither are you! It is time that we all stood up and exposed the president for what he is: a reverse racist whose actions, not just with regard to Ebola but across the board, are skewed toward feathering the nest of “his” people, and calculated to harm the rest of us if not destroy the entire country.
Does anyone doubt that former Alabama Gov. George Wallace was a racist, after he banned blacks from attending the state’s university in the 1960s? So too can anyone refute that Obama’s not even temporarily banning West Africans from entering the United States is also as least de facto racism, as this high risk caper puts whites and others at risk at the expense of not even temporarily “inconveniencing” his fellow Africans. Wallace and Obama are both despicable and both to be condemned to the trash heap of history for their actions.
How many American lives is the president willing to sacrifice before admitting he doesn’t have a clue how to fight Ebola and has no intention of placing the protection of American lives at the top of his agenda?
Maybe the place to start is for the president to learn the name of the disease. In an Oct. 2 news conference, he pronounced it, “Ebolee.” You can experience that embarrassing moment for yourself here.
Reuters had a photo showing Obama in one of his staged meetings, this time with his Cabinet agencies, “depicting” him/them coordinating his Ebola response. The truth is that Obama has no Ebola response, unless we are to consider playing golf tantamount to same.
Of course women feel “unsafe.” All of the promises out of Obama’s mouth were just empty. He told us what we wanted to hear, and now we are finding out that he was all “razzle dazzle” with no substance. Everything has been a lie, and now we are realizing that if someone threatens us, he will hide behind our skirts!
Women can now see that Obama has made their lives more difficult with less opportunity and more fears for the present and the future. This is not a sexist comment, but women want to feel secure. They want to know that they can go to bed at night and feel that there is someone in control who is looking out for them. The general feeling among women right now is that no one is in control, and worse, no one knows what they are doing.
The Jews who had emerged from cattle cars, alarmed because they’d just been ordered to remove their clothes, were also reassured by the Gestapo. They’d had a long, hard trip, they were told, and were only being stripped down for a “common shower.” Of course, the “shower” was a gas chamber, and the rest is history.
This is a hell of a psycho-dynamic Obama is using, in my humble opinion. Telling a population that has every reason to be alarmed not to be alarmed and to trust him and his minions when everything they’ve said to date has been a lie (or at least inaccurate, to those who aren’t fully awake yet) is not only audacious, but it smacks of the subtle manipulation one might encounter from a seasoned domestic abuser or crack interrogator.
As Election Day approaches, I thought it might be helpful in this respect to follow Christ’s example by inviting my readers to think about Obama’s actions in the context of some intriguing observations by the first and most meticulous modern cartographer of unrighteous thinking. In light of Machiavelli’s observations, Obama’s plans for exploiting the Ebola crisis appear to combine the virtues of colonization – already at work in his efforts to increase and legitimize illegal immigration into the United States – with the deadly aim of utter destruction Machiavelli recommends as the only sure way of suppressing the liberty of people who are accustomed to living in freedom.
The Obama faction’s plan to import Ebola-infected persons into the United States maintains the outward appearance of and unarmed invasion while in fact introducing into the country what amounts to specialized “armies of one,” each of them carrying a biological weapon of mass destruction. If and when the resulting infections get out of hand (which seems to be happening despite repeated, apparently erroneous, possibly deceitful, assurances of effective containment) what will be made of the resulting health crisis? When, by way of this sly biological warfare, “Obamacare” morphs into “Ebolacare” what will become of the (always suspect) commitment of Obama’s ostensible opponents in the GOP’s elitist faction leadership to roll back the government takeover of the health sector?
CNS' Starr Gives Platform To Homophobic Minister Topic: CNSNews.com
Penny Starr writes in an Oct. 24 CNSNews.com article:
Rev. David Welch, one of five pastors who were subpoenaed by the City of Houston to turn over all sermons and other documents and communications related to homosexuality and gender identity, said Wednesday that the move represents a much broader agenda of the city’s lesbian mayor and other gay rights activists.
“This is the result of our allowing these critical institutions to fall into the hands of those who are of an opposite world view who are intentionally and systematically deconstructing God’s created order,” said Welch, executive director of the Texas Pastor Council.
“The ungodly abuse of power and, frankly, just evil abuse of that … steals the freedom and ultimately the moral framework of the culture and ultimately attacks the minds and hearts of our children,” Welch said during a conference call set up by the Family Research Council to encourage pastors across the country to take part in the “I Stand Sunday” rally on Nov. 2 in Houston in support of the Texas clergy, who are fighting the subpoena and an ordinance passed by the city to allow transgender individuals to use any public restroom.
As we've documented, Welch -- a former WorldNetDaily columnist -- is a rabid homophobe who portrayed the elecion of Houston Mayor Annise Parker, a lesbian, as a moral failing of the citizenry, criticized pastor Joel Osteen for offering up a prayer at Parker's inauguration, and has likened the existence of gays to a controlled demolition of church buildings. After complaining that one pastor "made no formal endorsement of either side" on an anti-discrimination ordinance, Welch added: "It sounds like his gender identity may be up for question. If that sounds harsh, so be it."
Yet Starr apparently thinks Welch is a reasonable person to interview.
Incidentially, Starr quotes nobody in her article who supports Houston's non-discrimination ordinance, a seeming violation of CNS' mission statement that it "fairly present all legitimate sides of a story."
It seems that with each passing month, this senseless tyranny advances. The latest is that two Christian ministers in Idaho, Donald and Evelyn Knapp, have allegedly been ordered to perform same-sex wedding ceremonies at their chapel or face fines or jail sentences.
This nightmare began Oct. 7, when the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals invalidated Idaho’s marriage laws and legalized same-sex marriage in that state, which allowed Idaho county clerks to begin issuing same-sex marriage licenses a week later. On Oct. 17, the Knapps declined a request to perform a same-sex wedding ceremony.
According to a lawsuit filed by the Knapps, the city of Coeur d’Alene is “unconstitutionally coercing” them to perform these weddings at their Hitching Post Wedding Chapel in violation of their religious beliefs, their ordination vows and their consciences. City Ordinance Section 9.56 bars sexual orientation discrimination in public accommodations, which forces the Knapps to choose between betraying their religious convictions and following them and facing up to 180 days in jail and up to $1,000 in fines. According to their complaint, they arguably commit a separate and distinct misdemeanor each day they refuse to perform such ceremonies, with the potential criminal penalties piling up cumulatively.
Let's count Limbaugh's falsehoods and misdirections, as detailed by Media Matters:
The city of Coeur d’Alene has taken no legal action against the Knapps, nor has it threatened any.
Limbaugh glosses over the fact that the Knapps' wedding chapel is a for-profit enterprise, not a church.Indeed, the Knapps have performed secular wedding ceremonies in the past.
The Knapps hastily rebranded themselves as an explicitly religious corporation with help from the Alliance Defending Freedom, which filed the lawsuit for the Knapps, prior to the ADF filing the lawsuit.
If the Knapps are truly now operating as a legitimate religious corporation, they are exempt from being forced to perform same-sex marriages.
In other words, Limbaugh is simply regurgitating the ADF's talking points without bothering to do any actual research. Still, Limbaugh rants about "the left’s militancy."
CNS Bashes Obama For Doing Too Much -- And Too Little -- About Ebola Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com editor in chief Terry Jeffrey used his Oct. 22 column to mock President Obama for allegedly overreacting to a suspected case of Ebola:
So here we have the opening scene in this drama of Obama Era health care: An American vomits in a parking lot. Pentagon police close in. Someone alleges this American indicated she had visited West Africa. The parking lot is sealed. Traffic stopped. A Hazmat team arrives. A bus the American had boarded before vomiting is quarantined in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol with a contingent of Marines on board. An ambulance brings the American to one of the nation’s finest hospitals—and she is turned away.
After all, she had vomited near the Pentagon.
[...]
The American who had vomited near the Pentagon did not have Ebola, after all. She did not even need to be tested for it.
But before the government and its health-care system discovered that she did not need to be tested for Ebola, she did need to be approached by a HazMat team, turned away by one of the nation’s top hospitals, and perceived as a reasonable cause for U.S. Marines to be quarantined on Capitol Hill.
[...]
In the Washington suburbs last week, we did not see the government dealing with an isolated case of Ebola. We saw it dealing with an American who did not have Ebola.
If that makes you want to vomit, steer clear of the Pentagon.
Jefrey's mockery might make more sense if the website he runs hadn't played up the Pentagon incident.
Two days earlier, CNS published an article by Brittany Hughes headlined "Obama Repeats: You Can’t Get Ebola on a Bus—Day After Bus Quarantined in D.C.,"in which Obama was mocked for allegedly downplaying the risk of Ebola:
On Saturday--one day after a bus that had departed from the Pentagon was quarantined on Capitol Hill in an Ebola false alarm--President Barack Obama issued a video message to Americans telling them that "you cannot get it [Ebola] from just riding on a plane or a bus."
“Ebola is actually a difficult disease to catch. It's not transmitted through the air like the flu," Obama said in his weekly video message. "You cannot get it from just riding on a plane or a bus."
But on Friday, a bus was quarantined on Virginia Avenue, SE, in the Capitol Hill area of Washington, D.C.--in what turned out to be an Ebola false alarm.
Jeffrey can't have it both ways by simultaneously bashing Obama for overreacting and underreacting to Ebola. But since the goal of his logical contradictions is to bash Obama, he will pretend he can anyway.
NEW ARTICLE: Editorial Reruns For A Political Rerun Topic: WorldNetDaily
As long as Art Robinson keeps running for Congress in Oregon, WorldNetDaily's David Kupelian will keep recycling his deceptive, truth-avoiding endorsements of the candidate. Read more >>
CNS Pushes Zombie Lie Of 'Failed' Stimulus Topic: CNSNews.com
Craig Bannister writes in an Oct. 20 CNSNews.com blog post:
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest is selling the idea that Rob Klain will make a good Ebola Czar - even without any Ebola expertise - because of his work on the $830 billion failed Stimulus.
[...]
But, at more than $200,000 spent per job created/saved - $2 million per job in some cases - the $830 billion Stimulus was anything but a success.
Bannister's insistence that the stimulus "failed" is at odds with reality. PolitiFact states that such simplistic per-job calculations -- Bannister's backup for his claim of "more than $200,000 spent per job created/saved" is a 2011 CNS article simply dividing the amount spent on the stimulus by the number of jobs created -- are misleading because the stimulus money went toward a range of projects and programs including tax breaks, not just for salaries.
Futher, the Associated Press points out that Bannister's simplistic calculation ignores the value of the work produced -- "Any cost-per-job figure pays not just for the worker, but for material, supplies and that worker's output - a portion of a road paved, patients treated in a health clinic, goods shipped from a factory floor, railroad tracks laid" -- and also counts only jobs created to date, not those created over the life of the stimulus-funded contract.
Bannister's repeating of a discredited right-wing myth proves that promoting zombie lies isn't just the purpose of WorldNetDaily.
Will WND's Farah Fire His Lie-Peddling Reporter? Topic: WorldNetDaily
In what's becoming a trend at WorldNetDaily, Garth Kant devotes an Oct. 20 WND article to doing his best to clean up after Rep. Michele Bachmann after Politico pointed out her suggestion that she urged the U.S. to declare war on Islam:
From the text of her speech, it appears Bachmann is clearly calling for war on the Islamic State.
She does cajole President Obama to recognize how a “radical ideology” that comes from Islam motivates jihadis such as the Islamic State, also called ISIS.
But she never calls for a war on Islam.
[...]
While she does say, “It is about Islam,” she clearly appears to be referring to such statements by Obama as his declaration in his speech to the nation on Sept. 10, that the Islamic State terrorists “are not Islamic,” and for refusing to take radical ideology into account when formulating a response to the threat.
From the context of her speech, Bachmann’s call for war appears to be clearly directed at the Islamic State terrorists, in saying “[T]he Islamic State has declared war on the United States of America. You kill their leader, you kill their council, you kill their army until they wave the white flag of surrender. That’s how you win a war.”
And in saying, “You declare war on it, you don’t dance around it,” the congresswoman appears to be referring to what she and many critics believe to be the president’s tepid response to the great gains the jihadist army has made in Syria and Iraq. Many critics have likened it to the unsuccessful approach of incremental escalation used in Vietnam.
Then, Kant quotes his boss opining on the situation:
WND Editor and CEO Joseph Farah said, “The Politico reporters should be fired immediately for so blatantly misrepresenting Michele Bachmann’s comments – especially given the threats from ISIS.”
If that's the standard that must be followed, then Farah must immediately fire one of his WND reporters, Bob Unruh, for his own blatant misrepresentation of the words of another.
As we've documented, Unruh claimed in at least two WND articles that Houston Mayor Annise Parker said that the city's new non-discrimination ordinance is "all about me" -- a quote Parker is not on record as ever making. Unruh simply made it up.
While Unruh dropped the quotes in later articles, he's still falsely misrepresenting her remarks, portraying them as narcissism instead of the admission it really is that the ordinance directly affects her.
This is Farah's test: Will he apply the standard he wants Politico to follow to his own reporter? We shall see.
A lot of right-wingers didn't like Jon Stewart's attempt to get Bill O'Reilly to admit that white privilege exists. One of them is NewsBusters' Jack Coleman, who ranted in an Oct. 16 post:
How about that, Stewart got it right. When he claims white privilege still exists, Stewart is correct -- and he doesn't have to look far for evidence. His own cable show, the one that has made him immensely wealthy and influential, provides it. And since liberals see power, wealth, influence, etc., as zero-sum equations, each must have come to Stewart at the expense of other people. Surely some were people of color.
[...]
[Mediaite's Joe] Concha linked to a Reuters story from August on lack of diversity among Stewart's guests -- and the numbers "start to look very grim indeed." Sixty-eight percent were white and the few African-American guests were all entertainers. "Out of 45 guests, just three were women of color," according to Reuters, referring to one of the least covered fronts in the war on women.
Since Stewart is so passionate about the corrosive "residue" of white privilege -- wherever it exists -- he surely won't allow it to persist at a workplace where he's been instrumental in perpetuating it.
Coleman apparently thinks this is some kind of gotcha zinger. But he apparently missed the end of the show on which the Stewart-O'Reilly argument took place, where Stewart said: "Don't think I don't realize that I'm not the ideal advocate for the convesation I was having with Bill O'Reilly."
Coleman also somehow overlooked O'Reilly's own zinger in the extended interview, telling Stewart that "in your case, there is white privilege. The fact that you're here sitting there -- he doesn't even shave."
Coleman also failed with his account of this exchange:
"If there's white privilege then there has to be Asian privilege," O'Reilly countered, citing higher incomes among Asian Americans.
Stewart -- Depends on where they're from.
O'Reilly -- They're from Asia, they're Asian Americans. (Zing! That one must have stung).
Actually, it does depend on which Asians you're talking about. The Chinese experience in America is undeniably different than, say, the Japanese experience or the Vietnamese experience or the Thai experience.
Maybe Coleman needs to have his zinger detector recalibrated.
If You Want To Live, Ignore WND (And The AAPS) Topic: WorldNetDaily
Dr. Richard Amerling writes in an Oct. 18 WorldNetDaily column, hilariously headlined, "If you want to live, ignore the CDC":
I almost feel sorry for Tom Frieden, director of the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). So many of his pronouncements have been eviscerated by events within hours or days. He has become a punchline and should resign for the good of the country.
Unfortunately, the Ebola crisis is no joke. Two Dallas nurses (who are special people in my book) have now become infected after taking care of an Ebola-infected patient who illegally flew to the U.S. when he knew he had been heavily exposed to the deadly virus.
To maintain, as does Dr. Frieden, that stopping travel to the U.S. from the few countries where Ebola is running rampant would somehow harm us is illogical to the point of absurdity. And it is now clear to every other sentient being that Ebola is far more contagious, and deadly, than AIDS, to which Dr. Frieden compared Ebola.
[...]
Michelle Malkin describes how the CDC has been diverted from its original role into one of political “transformation.” Rather than fight disease, the CDC now pushes for mandatory motorcycle helmet laws, and studies playground accidents, video games and violence, and “social norming” in schools! No wonder it can’t handle Ebola.
This perversion of an organization is par for the Obama golf course. It resembles the transformation of NASA into a Muslim outreach group, or sending our military men and women to fight Ebola in Liberia. This latter is an outrageous abuse of our already beaten-down military. There should be generals resigning over this suicide mission.
NBC’s Chuck Todd, who on Friday declared that he was “stubbornly neutral”, predictably peddled liberal talking points on Ebola by blaming the National Rifle Association for the country not having a Surgeon General.
Speaking to Senators Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Bob Casey (D-PA) on Sunday, the Meet the Press moderator insisted that “this seems to be politics. The NRA said they were going to score the vote, and suddenly everybody’s frozen. That seems a little petty in hindsight, does it not?”
[...]
As the discussion continued, the topic of Surgeon General came up with Todd promoting the liberal argument that “this seems to be politics. The NRA said they were going to score the vote, and suddenly everybody’s frozen. That seems a little petty in hindsight, does it not?”
Todd continued to attack the NRA and wondered “should the NRA have a say? I mean, they can have an opinion. But should the NRA have that much influence over a Surgeon General nominee? He's not going to make gun policy.”
Meyer didn't contradict anything Todd said -- indeed, Todd is correct that the NRA has pressured senators into stalling a vote on Vivek Murthy, the surgeon general nominee, because he has stated that guns are a public health problem (never mind that it's true, and that he couldn't directly influence gun policy if he was confirmed).
Apparently, the NRA is such a sacred cow at the MRC that daring to criticize it is a demonstration of "liberal media bias."
WND Now Baselessly Blaming Undocumented Immigrants For Enterovirus Topic: WorldNetDaily
Not content with fearmongering about Ebola, WorldNetDaily is branching out to fearmonger about enterovirus -- specifically, trying to blame undocumented immigrants for spreading it.
Aaron Klein writes in an Oct. 13 WND article that enterovirus "could have been carried into the U.S. by illegal-alien minors from Central America." But he offers no evidence to back it up, only speculation from factually challenged right-wingers like Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage.
Klein noted 12 states where "laboratory-confirmed cases of EV-D68 were reported," but he didn't mention that one state not on that list was Texas, where many of those "illegal-alien minors from Central America" entered the country. That would seem to shoot a large hole in his conspiracy theory.
It's not until the very end of his article that he grudgingly admits the Centers for Disease Control reports there is no demonstrated link between the unaccompanied minors and the enterovirus outbreak.
A day later, WND's Jerome Corsi took his own shot at fearmongering, claiming that despite the CDC's statement, the enterovirus outbreak is "widely suspected to have a direct connection to the Obama administration policy of placing across the U.S. tens of thousands of minors who have been allowed to enter without a health screening."
The first source Corsi cites in support of his conspiracy theory is Jane Orient of the fringe Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, who is prone to spreading fear about Ebola.
Corsi also wrote:
The link between EV D-68 and Latin American children was established in a peer-reviewed medical article published in Virology Journal on Oct. 11, 2013, titled “Human rhinoviruses and enteroviruses in influenza-like illness in Latin America.” It was co-authored by a team of virologists headed by Josefina Garcia, U.S. Naval Medical Unit 6 in Lima, Peru, who worked with the Fogarty International Center at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.
In the 2013 study, Garcia and her medical associates collected 3,375 nose and throat swab samples from subjects under 8 years old, with a median age of 3 years. They found that human enteroviruses (HEV), including EV-D68, was discovered in 3 percent of the samples while the related human rhinoviruses (HRV) was found in 16 percent of the samples.
The study concluded: “In Latin America as in other regions, HRVs and HEVs account for a substantial proportion of viruses identified in young people with ILI (Influenza-like Illness), a finding that provides additional support for the development of pharmaceuticals and vaccines targeting these pathogens.”
But as Snopes points out, that the study did not specifically address a higher prevalence of the illnesses in Latin America, and that many readers of that study have mistakenly conflated the location of the study's participants with a predeliction for contracting and transmitting the virus.
The determined insistence on putting fear before facts is just another reason nobody believes WND.
In an Oct. 13 NewsBusters post, MRC analyst Matthew Balan huffed that an Associated Press reporter quoted the "cultural leftist activist" Human Rights Campaign praising what it called a "seismic shift" in the Catholic Church's attitude toward gays during a meeting at the Vatican last week. No, really -- Balan really did complain that the AP "directly lifted the 'seismic shift' term from a press release of the Human Rights Campaign."
Apparently, anyone the MRC deems to be "cultural leftist activists" are not permitted to comment about the Catholic Church.
Balan was so angry about this, in fact, that he ranted the next day that other media outlets were taking their language directly from the HRC:
On Tuesday, the Big Three networks' morning newscasts carried water for the left-wing Human Rights Campaign by adopting their "seismic shift" label about the midterm report from the Catholic bishops' Extraordinary Synod on the Family. On Good Morning America, ABC's Amy Robach trumpeted that "the Catholic Church appears to be making a seismic shift towards gays and divorcees." Norah O'Donnell also used the "seismic" term on CBS This Morning.
NBC's Tamron Hall pointed out on Today that "gay rights groups are hailing what they call a 'seismic shift' by the Catholic Church towards gays," but like her counterparts on ABC and CBS, she didn't disclose that the phrase directly came from the homosexual organization's Monday press release on the synod document [MP3 audio available here; video below].
O'Donnell used the "seismic" label in a teaser for fill-in anchor Jane Pauley's news brief on the Vatican report: "It's being called a seismic move by the Vatican – how the Catholic Church could change its attitude toward gays and the issue of divorce." Pauley herself didn't use the term during the summary:
[...]
During her news brief on Good Morning America, Robach further underlined the Human Rights Campaign's "seismic shift" language by touting the supposed "major shift" in the Church document:
[...]
The previous evening, anchor Brian Williams echoed the Human Rights Campaign's spin on NBC Nightly News, but didn't directly use the "seismic" descriptor:
And here's where we run into the correlation-equals-causation fallacy. At no point does Balan prove that the networks were taking their language directly from the HRC. "Seismic shift" is arguably a cliche, and the interim report being cited could certainly be described as that, even if the meeting's final results ended up being much less so.
Again, Matthew: Correlation does not necessarily equal causation. It's basic logic.
WND's Unruh Evolves His Lie about Houston Mayor Topic: WorldNetDaily
In addition to feeding false hysteria about a request for documents in a lawsuit filed on behalf of Houston pastors over an anti-discrimination law, WorldNetDaily's Bob Unruh has perpetuated a lie about Houston Mayor Annise Parker (whom he always makes sure we know is a lesbian). Over the past week, however, he has moderated his attack on Parker to make it slightly less of a lie, though still false.
As we've documented, Unruh has asserted that Parker claims the non-discrimination ordinance is "all about me," with those words in quotes. But Parker has never been quoted saying "all about me." From the Houston Business Journal:
"This is personal. It is not academic. It is my life that is being discussed," said Parker, the first openly gay mayor of a U.S. city. "It applies to the range of protected groups ... but the debate is about me. It is about two gay men at this table. It is very intensely personal."
In other words, it's not the narcissistic statement Unruh's fraudulent misquote of Parker suggests it is, but an admission of how the non-discrimination ordinance directly affects her.
Unruh repeated the false "all about me" quote in his Oct. 13 article, but two days later he adjusted it slightly, stating that "Parker, a lesbian, has admitted the anti-discrimination ordinance is 'all about' her and her lifestyle." The quote is still wrong -- she never said "all about."
On Oct. 16, Unruh dropped the fraudulent quotes altogether, claiming that Parker "has said the issue is all about her own lifestyle choice." But that's a lie too -- Unruh offers no evidence that Parker has ever referred to homosexuality as a "lifestyle choice."
Unruh reverted to his previous lie in an Oct. 18 article, claiming Parker "admitted" the ordinance "was all about her."
Perhaps instead of making up quotes and falsely paraphrasing Parker, Unruh could try something journalistic and, you know, quote what she actually said. But then, Unruh isn't really a journalist, is he?