ConWebBlog: The Weblog of ConWebWatch

your New Media watchdog

ConWebWatch: home | archive/search | about | primer | shop

Tuesday, December 23, 2014
WND Touts David Barton Lawsuit Win As It Plugs His Discredited Book
Topic: WorldNetDaily

John Aman has the four-month-old breaking news in a Dec. WorldNetDaily article:

David Barton critics beware: There’s now a price to pay if you want to defame the popular historian, author and speaker with false and outlandish charges.

Barton won a $1 million defamation judgment in August against two left-leaning candidates for the Texas State Board of Education. The pair, Rebecca Bell-Metereau and Judy Jennings, charged in a 2010 campaign video that Barton, a consultant to the Board, was “known for speaking at white-supremacist rallies.”

That highly charged claim stems from two 1991 speeches Barton gave to groups linked to the racist and anti-Semitic “Christian Identity” movement. Barton, recognized as a strong friend of Israel, acknowledges speaking to the groups but said in court filings he did not know in advance about the racist ideology of his hosts.

Aman goes on to quote Barton lamenting being called a liar and suggests that he'll sue to get his good name back:

A favored target of the secular left for decades, Barton considered a lawsuit 20 years ago “on some very easy to disprove lies.” However, as a public figure, he needed to do more than show that truth was on his side. He also had to demonstrate economic harm to prevail in court. And that, he said, meant hiring an economist for $100,000 to document financial damage.

“We dropped pursuing anything at that time,” Barton recalled, “but over the last 20 years, it has continued to grow and snowball and one unrebutted, uncontested lie – because nothing happened – became bigger and greater, so people added more as they repeated themselves.”

Examples abound. Blogger Fred Clark labels Barton an “outrageous liar” in a 2013 Patheos post. A Crooks and Liars blogpost from 2012 calls Barton a “Liar and a Rat Fink.” Unnamed Barton critics launched their own Facebook page, “David Barton and WallBuilders Are Liars,” and atheist Ed Brayton vented on Nov. 28, “David Barton is simply one of the most shameless liars in this country.”

All that has taken an economic toll.

Barton’s books have been met, he said, by a “cottage industry” of critics rehearsing old claims about his alleged lack of truthfulness and supposed racist and anti-Semitic connections.

“There were concerted efforts on Amazon book reviews and elsewhere to repeat those types of things, and that hurt sales,” Barton said.

Embedded in the article, and otherwise unremarked upon by Aman or Barton, is this promo:

Thomas Jefferson under attack! Learn truth in book spiked by publisher – “The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths Youve Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson” (Hardcover)

As we've detailed, there's a reason Barton's book was "spiked" by its publisher: the book contains numerous inaccuracies. Barton purchased 17,000 copies of his withdrawn book, and presumably it is out of that stash that WND is selling it. WND's online store page for Barton's book mentions nothing about the book being withdrawn, let alone explain why WND is selling a book its publisher thought was too inaccurate to be sold.

Perhaps WND might want to address the issues of Barton's veracity before further portraying him as a victim.


Posted by Terry K. at 1:02 AM EST
Updated: Wednesday, December 24, 2014 2:09 AM EST
Monday, December 22, 2014
The Jeffrey Rule: Can I Get Away With It?
Topic: CNSNews.com

Terry Jeffrey huffs in his Dec. 17 CNSNews.com column:

Call it The Obama Rule. When will our president do something he wants to do that the Constitution or morality prohibits? When he can get away with it.

President Barack Obama did not move forward with his unilateral action on immigration before the midterm elections, because he was worried he would pay too high a price. Additional congressional Democrats might have lost, and more Democrats would have blamed him for the losses.

He moved forward with his unconstitutional action after the elections because he calculated — correctly — that Republican congressional leaders would let him get away with it.

Jeffrey won't admit it, but "Can I get away with it?" is the guiding principle of the "news" organization he runs. Jeffrey himself peddles lies and portrays opinion as "news," his managing editor promotes irresponsible conspiracy theories, and his reporters can't be bothered to report both sides of a story, going so far as to report only bad news about unemployment numbers simply because a Democrat is president (that is, when they're not shilling for the oil industry or repeating the anti-psychiatry views of Scientology).

Why? Because Jeffrey and Co. can get away with it. Indeed, the Media Research Center is not paying them to report the truth; they are being paid to advance a political agenda, and if they must lie or mislead in the process, well, so be it.

That may work for an ideologically driven organization, but CNS purports to be a "news" outlet that claims to "fairly present all legitimate sides of a story."

If Jeffrey were an honest journalist, he'd replace the word "news" in CNS's name with "propaganda." That would be a more accurate description of CNS' operations under Jeffrey.


Posted by Terry K. at 11:15 AM EST
Obama Derangement Syndrome Watch, Supersize WorldNetDaily Edition
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Democrats are the masters of deceptive persuasion, meaning that they will take our attention off of something they have really screwed up and put it on something that’s not quite as bad. And chief among those masters is he who resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington, D.C.

[...]

There’s no better tail-wagging Washington weasel than the current president himself. Or do you think strokes of deflective luck just keep coming the president’s way as his administration fumbles and tumbles in its cesspool of ineptness?

So, you think that the Democrats just happened to release a report shredding the CIA and Bush administration (again) on the same day as Gruber’s garbage testimony?

And I’m sure it was a coincidence in December 2009, at the very moment when Obamacare’s passing seemed to be in jeopardy in the Senate, that Obama ordered the mission for the U.S. to attack an “alleged” al-Qaida camp in Yemen that “allegedly” caused the death of civilians, women and children.

And I’m sure it was just a coincidence a few years into Obama’s presidency, when he was being hit hard from Main Street to Wall Street about the skyrocketing prices of oil and failure of his economic stimuli and policies, that he unilaterally decided it was a good time to start dropping bombs on Libya.

-- Chuck Norris, Dec. 14 WorldNetDaily column

So what is the purpose behind the release of this “torture” misinformation?

1) It helps Obama and his minions,who are hell-bent on removing respectable authority in this country. Notice this comes on the heels of the recent Ferguson, New York City and other anti-police protests that have been carefully orchestrated by Occupy Wall Street, the NAACP, Communist Party USA, New Black Panther Party and other subversive groups.

Think about the breakdown of our military (open homosexuality, women in combat, tough-as-nails generals being let go, the Secret Service scandals and now this unjust attack on the CIA’s credibility). It all serves to break down authority and set us up for an outcome we will not be able to stop.

2) It gives Obama an issue to campaign on for the rest of his term, trashing Bush-Cheney and the Republican brand instead of taking responsibility for the mess he’s made of our country. Yet Feinstein and others liberals supported these “torture” policies, gave the CIA the go-ahead and are now crying foul!

-- Jesse Lee Peterson, Dec. 14 WND column

“2016: The End of an Era” is an ambitious, epic treatment of the presidency of Barack Obama. All Barack ever really wanted was paternal redemption. He dreamed as a young boy of conquering the pro-colonialist America from the inside. He gave it all he had and he was schooled and sculpted by the worst enemies of the country he would rule. He only ever nodded to those operatives who told him they knew the answers to how to entirely “re-organize” the country and he did everything they said, obediently. In a dark circle of conspiracy, Valerie Jarrett and Van Jones point the way, but Obama’s scheme to unravel all tradition and morality is exposed and shredded by an uprising and a re-enlightenment among those he had hoped were merely mindless useful idiots. The joker, Gruber, emerges and proves that even the best webs of destruction can unravel at the most inopportune time. Regrettably, while “The End of an Era” is intriguing, it falls short of any lasting impression when the pagan, communist plot is exposed for exactly what it is: ineffective and failed.

-- Gina Loudon, Dec. 14 WND column

Racism is “deeply rooted in our society,” and nowhere is there greater evidence of this truth than beginning with Obama and his administration.

Let’s start with his wife. You don’t marry someone with whom you have nothing in common. Michelle Obama’s record of bigotry and racial animus is prolific even if one only takes into account her time at Princeton and Harvard. Then consider that Obama not only spent 20 years under Jeremiah Wright’s tutelage, but he called Wright and Michelle his “mentors and two people of greatest influence in his life.” (See “Michelle Obama’s inner demons,” WND.com, April 6, 2008)

Racism exudes from the very pores of the Obamas, and he comprised his inner-most circle with people just as racially bigoted as himself. I reference Valerie Jarrett and Eric Holder for starters.

There are those who argue Obama has exacerbated racial problems in the United States. I disagree. I say Obama has created problems where none existed, and with the deftness of an evil alchemist, he fomented a zeitgeist of unbridled black antipathy toward whites.

-- Mychal Massie, Dec. 15 WND column

Yet, after every heinous act carried out by Muslims, we are assured that such Muslims do not represent Islam, that they are aberrations with respect to Islamic doctrine and that the majority of Muslims are peaceful. President Obama is, of course, one of the most vociferous purveyors of this meme; he has used it time and again.

This is part of the psychopolitics that has been inflicted upon Americans for decades; Muslims, closet Islamists like Obama and dhimmi supporters of Islam have been able to get away with this, despite the fact that the most atrocious crimes against humanity we see carried out by Muslims on a daily basis are codified in the Quran. We’re intolerant, racist, Islamophobic if we fail to accept their contradictory line of reasoning.

-- Erik Rush, Dec. 17 WND column

It’s not bad enough that Barack Obama is getting away with his unconstitutional executive action providing a sweeping amnesty to millions of illegal aliens in the U.S., as well as sending a signal to millions more to come get in on the action.

No.

In an announcement heralded only at WND last week, his State Department told us we need to roll out the red carpet for 9,000 Sunni Muslim “refugees” of the Syrian civil war who have been hand-picked by the United Nations to resettle in the U.S.

Do you believe this?

It’s true.

As millions of Christians are being slaughtered by Sunni Muslims, exiled and sent into refugee status throughout the Middle East, the U.N. is handpicking Sunnis from Syria to live in America.

-- Joseph Farah, Dec. 18 WND column

Speaking of those without consciences, I am hearing rumors that Obama, who refuses to sanction Iran, is considering leveling them against Israel. It is a classic case of déjà vu. If your memory is still functioning, you’ll recall that the last time Israel had the gall to actually erect buildings within its own borders, Obama threw a major hissy fit.

Back then, I wrote that the next time Obama visited Bethesda for his annual checkup, the doctors should perform a brain scan because there was surely something terribly wrong with an American president who was more concerned with Jews building apartment houses in Israel than with Muslims building nuclear bombs in Iran.

-- Burt Prelutsky, Dec. 18 WND column

Since I’m looking back over the past decade and a half, I will state what I think amounts to the most momentous story of our age, a story that begins with, as best I can judge, the near-certainty that Barack Obama’s online birth certificate and Selective Service registration card are forgeries. That this has been a non-issue in most conservative and Republican circles for the past six years is the biggest single and essential enabler of the war Obama and his administration are visiting upon our nation and our Constitution.

-- Diana West, Dec. 18 WND column

This past year has been one of cascading crises – from Obamacare, to the invasion of the U.S. across our southern border, to the ascendency of ISIS, Iran and Putin’s Russia, to illegal executive amnesty – each and every catastrophe either caused or greatly exacerbated by Barack Obama.

But I have to tell you, such chaos was predicted way back in January by Whistleblower, WND’s acclaimed monthly print magazine.

In an amazingly prophetic New Year’s issue headlined “THE YEAR OF MANUFACTURED CRISES,” Whistleblower foresaw in advance how 2014 would play out.

-- Joseph Farah, Dec. 19 WND column

Of course, that is what Obama, a closet communist and pro-Muslim “dictator” in his own right, wants. Nothing better than to have his communist brothers, ones like the Castro brothers who also support terrorist regimes like the Islamic Republic of Iran, now breath easily and feel “freer” to continue their socialist revolution. After all, while somewhat constrained by Republicans and some now in his own Democratic Party, Obama only wishes he could move our nation even further to the left, Cuban-style. The Castro brothers and Obama have a not too latent kinship, and this outrageous deal proves it.

-- Larry Klayman, Dec. 19 WND column


Posted by Terry K. at 1:15 AM EST
Sunday, December 21, 2014
For The MRC's Graham, Ted Cruz Is He Who Must Not Be Criticized
Topic: Media Research Center

As we saw with his attempt to whitewash Scott Walker's "Molotov" gaffe, Media Research Center director of media analysis Tim Graham is not afraid to play defense for conservatives he deems sufficiently conservative. That extends to trashing anyone who dares criticize his sainted conservatives.

Which explains the Heathering job Graham unleased on conservative Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin in a Dec. 15 NewsBusters post for committing the offense of criticizing right-wing darling Ted Cruz. Graham's headline sneered that Rubin is a "So-Called WashPost 'Conservative' Blogger," and it just went from there:

The most dishonest advertising in The Washington Post isn’t selling soap or shoes or automobiles. It doesn’t come phonier than this: “Jennifer Rubin writes the Right Turn blog for The Post, offering reported opinion from a conservative perspective.”

Rubin spent 2012 insisting that every conservative presidential contender was unelectable except Mitt Romney, who was neither conservative nor electable, as it turned out. Rubin’s still at it, as in her latest screed from Sunday, headlined “Senate passes spending, GOP still despises Ted Cruz: The cromnibus passes despite Ted Cruz's ego trip.”

Which part of the GOP? The wing of the party that endorsed Barack Obama in 2008? Notice how Rubin sounds very much like your standard-issue liberal Post reporter, suggesting the "far right" is going to ruin the Republican Party. Just like she saw sweet victory in Romney, she was wrong in thinking Ted Cruz's Obamacare filibuster would kill GOP hopes in 2014:

[...]

An actual conservative blogger would point out that it’s a little odd for Republicans to take over the Senate and add seats to the House as they opposed amnesty and Obamacare, and then betrayed both campaign stands in the first spending bill after the electon. Jen Rubin’s blog should be called “Establishment Turn,” spinning the news from a “liberal  Republican perspective.”

And that's not even the only defense of Cruz Graham mounted this past week. Graham and Brent Bozell's Dec. 17 column expressed dismay that anyone would dare criticize Cruz for traying to derail a Senate appropriations bill:

Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Elizabeth Warren are polar opposites, a Tea Party conservative and an Occupy Wall Street socialist. Then there are the similarities: Both were elected in 2012, both have Harvard on their resume and both are mentioned as presidential material. But the media's read of the two demonstrates an unquestionable slant.

Both senators have shaken up the Senate over heavy spending and regulation. When Warren does it, she's promoted as a profile in courage, standing up for fairness. When Cruz does it, he's a selfish brat causing meltdowns.

[...]

All this provides a precise GPS location for our liberal media. To them, Ted Cruz is a dangerous extremist, but Warren is their heroine — compassionate, professorial and politically and economically correct. Anyone who expects objectivity from the press is badly out of touch.

Graham and Bozell carefully omit the actual offenses that were caused: Warren merely gave a speech and didn't try to derail the bill-making process. Cruz, meanwhile, along with Sen. Mike Lee, did delay a vote on a massive appropriations bill, a delay Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took advantage of by advancing dozens of Obama appointees that Senate Republicans had delayed for months. Even solid conservatives like Charles Krauthammer were apoplectic at the move.

But as far as Graham is concerned, Cruz can do no wrong, and woe to anyone who dares criticize him. How does playing defense for a politican qualify under the "education" mission the MRC is supposed to have under its nonprofit tax status?


Posted by Terry K. at 10:19 PM EST
Updated: Sunday, December 21, 2014 11:24 PM EST
WND And The Sin of Disinformation
Topic: WorldNetDaily

From a Dec. 15 WorldNetDaily article:

Pope Francis is charging the “media” with the sin of disinformation, saying that giving people “half” the facts leaves them unable to make accurate judgments.

A report on Monday from writer Thomas Williams said the pope was speaking to the managers and staffers at Catholic television station TV 2000 inside Vatican City.

He named the “sins of the media” and explained, “Of these three sins – disinformation, slander and defamation – slander seems to be the most insidious. But in communication, the most insidious is disinformation.”

He said “disinformation” is providing “half of the facts, and this leads to not being able to make an accurate judgment on reality.”

WND could have taken this opportunity to confess and repent for its own sins of disinformation.  WND employs reporters like Bob Unruh who do nothing but report only half the facts, and Chelsea Schilling, who has a bad habit of reporting total falsehoods. Heck, even WND editor Joseph Farah seems rather proud of the fact that his website publishes misinformation and is himself a documented liar.

Instead, WND turns the article into a sales pitch for a WND-published book by a Soviet defector that was apparently selling so poorly that WND currently is trying to unload it for $4.95.


Posted by Terry K. at 1:34 PM EST
Saturday, December 20, 2014
CNS-Mark Levin Lovefest Watch
Topic: CNSNews.com

The lovefest between CNSNews.com and right-wng radio host Mark Levin continues apace.

A Dec. 4 article by Ali Meyer actually treated as "news" Levin's answer to a question she asked about so-called "amnesty." Resident fanboy Michael Morris chimed in with a Dec. 16 blog post transcribing one Levin rant, and followed up the same day with a post quoting a guest on Levin's show.

Needless to say, none of these items mentioned the fact that CNS' parent, the Media Research Center, is in a business relationship with Levin. The latest manifestation of that relationship is a promotional ad in which Levin is quoted as saying, "I read CNSNews every day and so should you."

It seems that Levin's enough of an egomaniac to tell people to read a website that writes flattering things about him -- and which is paying him to say nice things about it right back.

UPDATE: Oops, we missed a few. More sycophancy from Michael Morris, and Ali Meyer effectively transcribing a Levin speech.


Posted by Terry K. at 11:24 PM EST
Updated: Sunday, December 21, 2014 11:41 PM EST
WND's Rush Falsely Claims Obama Released ISIS Leader
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Erik Rush's Obama derangement is so strong, he doesn't really care about facts. Rush writes in his Dec.17 WorldNetDaily column:

To date, Obama has authorized the importation of tens of thousands of “refugees” from Islamic nations into this country. I would reiterate that the Australian chocolate-shop hostage taker, Man Haron Monis, was admitted to Australia under refugee status. In addition to the multitudes that we know of who have arrived from Syria, Somalia, Libya and other nations, charter pilots speaking under condition of anonymity have testified concerning planeloads of individuals from these nations bypassing Customs at major U.S. airports and being quietly bussed off to parts unknown.

Does no one find it odd that the world has had no peace as regards Islamic terrorism since Barack Obama came to town? Shortly after taking office, Obama sent operatives to Egypt (including former weather Underground associate Bill Ayers). Within 18 months, the Arab Spring swept Muslim nations, giving rise to the Muslim Brotherhood ascendency in Egypt and destabilizing other Muslim nations in the region. Then came Obama’s Libyan adventure. That nation is now essentially a vast training camp for al-Qaida and other terrorist groups; through it, weapons have flowed to Nigeria’s Boko Haram. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the virulent and barbaric ISIS group, was released by Obama in 2009.

Actually, as PolitiFact details, the Department of Defense states that the man now known as Baghdadi was released in 2004. The evidence that Baghdadi was still in custody in 2009 appears to be the recollection of an Army colonel who said Baghdadi’s "face is very familiar." PolitiFact adds:

Even if the colonel is right, Baghdadi was not set free; he was handed over to the Iraqis who released him some time later. But more important, the legal contract between the United States and Iraq that guaranteed that the United States would give up custody of virtually every detainee was signed during the Bush administration. It would have required an extraordinary effort to have held on to Baghdadi and there is no evidence that he was on anyone’s radar screen, assuming that he was in custody at all in 2009.

The U.S.-Iraq agreement drove the release of thousands of detainees in 2009, but Obama had nothing to do with that.

This is what happens when people like Rush let their hate trump the truth -- they look foolish for repeating falsehoods.


Posted by Terry K. at 1:08 PM EST
Friday, December 19, 2014
Newsmax's Ruddy Laments 'Persecution' Of Christie As His Website Champions Persecution of Hillary
Topic: Newsmax

Christopher Ruddy complains in a Dec. 17 Newsmax column:

The ongoing probes of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and his associates over the so-called Bridge-gate matter boil down to another example of political prosecutions that border on political persecutions.

The case involving the George Washington Bridge occurred in January, nearly a year ago, and should be open and shut by now.

Christie was recently cleared in a report by a New Jersey legislative committee of any prior knowledge of the plan to impede traffic onto the bridge by closing access lanes.

No one thinks or believes he ordered the closing of any bridge lanes. So why the worry?

It is clear that some of his aides may have acted out of political considerations in their decision to close the lanes. If that is the case, their actions were stupid, but not criminal.

[...]

Yet in a strange way, the Left's attempt to persecute Christie could actually help his GOP standing because it is so obviously motivated by their worry he actually might be the GOP nominee.

Hence, the Democrats want to keep pushing Bridge-gate as far as they can and for as long as they can. Perhaps they have finally gone a bridge too far and should finally “shut up,” as the New Jersey governor might put it.

Ruddy might have a point if Newsmax wasn't pushing another political persecution elsewhere on its pages the very same day. From a Dec. 17 unbylined Newsmax article:

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could be called to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in the next Congress, said the incoming committee chairman, Rep. Jason Chaffetz.

According to The Hill, the committee intends to investigate the issue of embassy security in the coming congressional session, and the Utah Republican said that Clinton's record in managing it as secretary of state will be examined.

He said Clinton, "changed the way we do embassy security and how we build the infrastructure there and she created a mess. It's a disaster!" The Hill reported.

Asked if Clinton could be called before the committee as a witness, Chaffetz said, "I'm not going to rule that out."

The article did not mention the fact that, as ABC News reported, "Multiple independent, bipartisan and GOP-led inquiries have faulted the State Department for inadequate security in Benghazi, leading to four demotions," or that the State Department has implemented recommendations regarding embassy security made by an independent review board. 

the fact that Chaffetz seems intent on dragging Clinton before yet another congressional committee even though she left the secretary of state post nearly a year ago suggest that he's acting on behalf of Republicans fearful that she may be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2016 and simply wants to keep pushing anything Benghazi-related as far as he can.

Ruddy doesn't explain why he apparently has no problem with cheerleading a political persecution of Hillary Clinton.


Posted by Terry K. at 6:59 PM EST
WND Plays With Numbers To Pretend Anti-Boehner Campaign Is Successful
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Joseph Farah's money-making operation to remove John Boehner from the House speaker position is going ridiculously well, if you believe WorldNetDaily's propaganda:

A pile of letters as tall as an 11-story building has been prepared for delivery to GOP House members when they convene in January, urging them to remove Speaker John Boehner from leadership, just as a retiring congresswoman is calling on her former colleagues to “draw the line” with President Obama.

Only three days after the launch of the “Don’t be Yellow: Dump Boehner Now Campaign,” more than 350,000 letters have been ordered.

At about two inches per 500-page ream, that’s a pile almost 117 feet tall – all to get the attention of GOP members who have it within their power to pick new leadership for the House and Senate for the next two years.

But, as on previous Farah for-profit activism efforts, a closer look at the numbers shows it isn't nearly as successful or impactful as WND wants you to believe.

WND's playing up of the total number of letters obscures the actual amount of people taking part. Divide  350,000 letters by the 246 Republican House members who will receive them, and you get approximately 1,422 people who have paid WND $29.95 for the privilege of sending those letters.

Add up those numbers, and WND  has seen more than $42,000 in gross revenue from this operation. It will not cost WND anywhere near that much to print and send those letters, resulting in a healthy profit for WND.

WND is sending those letters in bulk to the House Republicans, which saves money. A typical box of paper holds 10 reams, or 10,000 pages. At this point, House Republicans will receive only about three reams worth of letters -- less than half a box.

WND's manipulation of numbers lets Farah pretend he's a political player, and let someone else pay for his activism in the process.


Posted by Terry K. at 11:00 AM EST
Updated: Friday, December 19, 2014 11:09 AM EST
Thursday, December 18, 2014
CNS Still Thinks Spending Federal Money On Gays Is A Waste
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNSNews.com used to have a "Waste Watch" section that seemed disproportionately focused on federal spending on LGBT issues. "Waste Watch" is gone, but CNS still thinks spending money on gays is a waste.

And CNS' Melanie Hunter is on it with a pair of articles over the past week:

Both articles ended with Huinter noting that she attempted to ask the respective project leaders for the grants how they were "an effective use of taxpayer funds" -- which clearly indicates that she doesn't think it is, though she never explains why.

Apparently, in CNS' right-wing world, any federal spending on gays is axiomatically a waste.


Posted by Terry K. at 8:48 PM EST
WND Promotes Anti-Gay Billboard, Won't Tell Readers It's Bogus (And The Model Is Gay)
Topic: WorldNetDaily

A Dec. 15 WorldNetDaily article by Jack Minor promotes the "nobody is born gay" billboard paid for by the group Parents and Friends of ex-Gays (PFOX). Minor does a fine job of pushing the group's (and WND's) anti-gay agenda, declaring that "The proposition that sexual orientation is changeable destroys the reason for that minority and protected status, as it becomes nothing more than a lifestyle choice then."

As is usual for WND, Minor can't be bothered to talk to any critic of the billboard (he stole a quote from a critic from someone else's news story). He does, however, make sure to talk to a former PFOX official who asserts that "There is zero evidence that a person is born a homosexual."

Minor failed to do something else as well: acknowledge the fact that the billboard itself portrays a false image.

The billboard purports to depict identical twins, one who is gay and one who isn't. In fact, the images are stock photos of the same person, a model who -- wait for it -- is gay.

The model, Kyle Roux, denounced the use of his image in an anti-gay campaign: "It just seems there’s no place in today’s world for an organization that is promoting this as a deviant or distasteful lifestyle because I’ve lived my life openly gay and happy."

News of PFOX's bogus billboard broke two days before Minor's article was published, but Minor makes no mention of it even though his article is about said billboard. Such hiding of inconvenient facts is just another reason why nobody believes WND.


Posted by Terry K. at 2:57 PM EST
MRC's Graham Declares Walker 'Molotov' Gaffe To Be 'Tiny'
Topic: Media Research Center

When it was revealed that Republican Wisconsin Go. Scott Walker had wished "Molotov" instead of "mazel tov" to a Jewish constituent, the Media Research Center's Tim Graham knew he had to spring into damage-control mode to tamp the controversy.

Thus, Graham wrote a Dec. 14 NewsBusters post whining that " the liberal media will reliably leap on any tiny gaffe that liberals can locate." Graham also quoted a writer for the right-wing Watchdog.org (whose ideology Graham failed to identify) saying basically the same thing.

By contrast, the MRC worked hard to get another tiny gaffe some media traction.

During the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama said at one point that he had visited 57 states. Since then, the gaffe has been referenced dozens of times at NewsBusters alone, many of those complaining that the "liberal media" didn't report it, which obviously means the media was protecting Obama.

It seems that Graham has a double standard on gaffes. After all, it's unlikely that any MRC outlet would have reported on Walker's gaffe for any other reason than to dismiss it.


Posted by Terry K. at 10:35 AM EST
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
WND's Kinsolving Makes Dumb Argument About Ban On Gays Donating Blood
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Les Kinsolving keeps up his rampant homophobia, and also demonstrates once again he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, in his Dec. 15 WorldNetDaily column:

A Health and Human Services advisory panel has recommended that the current policy on Men-Who-Have-Sex-With-Men – which bans men as blood donors if they have had sex with a man since 1977 – be changed.

This panel recommends that this be changed to 12 months after the last sexual encounter. That simply raises what is a life-and-death question: Since when has AIDS been found to last only 12 months?

Actually, the point of the 12-month deferral period is to allow sufficient time for HIV to develop in a possibly infected person.

Can Kinsolving really be that ignorant? Apparently so.


Posted by Terry K. at 9:37 PM EST
CNS Adds Right-Wing Bias To Another AP Headline
Topic: CNSNews.com

When the Associated Press sent out its Dec. 15 article on Dr. Vivek Murthy's Senate confirmation as surgeon general, it carried the headline "Senate approves Obama pick for surgeon general."

But that headline wasn't partisan enough for CNSNews.com, which changed the headline to read "Senate Approves Young Gun-Control Activist As Surgeon General."

CNS has a long, disturbing habit of adding right-wing bias to otherwise fair and balanced AP articles.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:47 PM EST
NEW ARTICLE: Bob Unruh's Parade of Lies and Misinformation
Topic: WorldNetDaily
By WND editor Joseph Farah's own standards, he must fire his news editor for his plethora of dishonest reporting. But Unruh remains on the job. Read more >>

Posted by Terry K. at 10:08 AM EST

Newer | Latest | Older

Bookmark and Share

Get the WorldNetDaily Lies sticker!

Find more neat stuff at the ConWebWatch store!

Buy through this Amazon link and support ConWebWatch!

Support This Site

« December 2014 »
S M T W T F S
1 2 3 4 5 6
7 8 9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28 29 30 31

Bloggers' Rights at EFF
Support Bloggers' Rights!

News Media Blog Network

Add to Google