CNSNews.com has joined the Media Research Center's vendetta against Brian Williams with these articles designed to mock his Iraq War falsehood:

Brian Williams In 2004 On Broadcast Journalism: ‘Integrity ... This Is All We Have’

Brian Williams: 'On Air, We Represent NBC--the Name, the Company, the Owners'

Brian Williams: ‘My Biggest Worry Is That a Fact Will Get By Me’

No CNS articles so far, however, on themost visible critic demanding Williams resign for his falsehood, MRC (and CNS) chief Brent Bozell, lying for 15 years about writing the column that appears under his name.

Posted by Terry K. at 4:49 PM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

From an unbylined Feb. 8 WorldNetDaily article:

How politically extreme is the Southern Poverty Law Center, a well-funded legal hate group known for its guilt-by-association tactics and whipping up hysteria over the ever-present threat of a second coming of the Ku Klux Klan?

The latest target to be placed on the group’s “extremist watch list” will give you a clue.

He’s a highly acclaimed brain surgeon, potential presidential candidate and, according to polls, one of America’s most admired celebrities.

That’s right. Dr. Ben Carson.

The reason? He’s against same-sex marriage.

From the SPLC website: “Ben Carson rapidly ascended as a far-right political star after publicly scolding President Obama, whom he sat a few feet away from, at a National Prayer Breakfast in February 2013. Carson’s reproach of Obama for his health care and tax policies went viral, unleashing a flood of adulation from right-wing media and hate groups.”

SPLC unfairly labels him “anti-gay.”

Ah, so much to respond to:

1) It's rather hiliarious that WND -- the king of likening Obama to Hitler and other Nazis (not to mention the Antichrist) and fearmongering about vaccines -- would attempt to criticize the SPLC for using "guilt-by-association tactics" and "whipping up hysteria."

2) WND doesn't bother to link to the SPLC article on Carson, so you know it's trying to hide something. And when you actually look at the SPLC's profile of Carson, the first thing you'll notice is that at no point is Carson described as being on an "extremist watch list." WND appears to have lifted the phrase from a post at the right-wing blog Legal Insurrection, which Talking Points Memo states "appeared to have been the first to notice" Carson's SPLC profile.

3) The next thing you'll notice in the SPLC profile is that Carson isn't being criticized for merely being  "against same-sex marriage" as WND claims. He's being criticized for portraying homosexuality as equivalent to bestiality and pedophilia.

4) The term "anti-gay" appears nowhere in the SPLC profile, despite WND putting it in quotes. The SPLC describes his "ideology" as "anti-LGBT," and it points out that Carson has spoken to "anti-LGBT" groups.

5) At no point does WND demonstrate what is "unfair" about highlighting Carson's anti-gay rhetoric. Instead, it simply quotes what Carson said, then blamed the SPLC for Floyd Lee Corkins' attempted shooting spree at the Family Research Council because Corkins "admitted that he used SPLC’s hate map to identify FRC as a target."

By that same logic, we should credit WND for helping to inspire Anders Breivik's massacre of dozens in Norway since his manifesto cites WND six times.

In a (similarly unbylined) follow-up article, WND falsely claims the SPLC called Carson a "hater" and repeated the inaccurate "extremist watch list" phrase. The article claims to quote Carson responding to the SPLC designation, but it's unclear where the quotes came from -- WND does not identify their source, and  none of the quoted matter specifically references the SPLC.

Interestingly, a Breitbart article carries the same alleged quotes from Carson but also doesn't identify their source. Did WND steal Breitbart's story like it did Legal Insurrection's? If so, that would explain why the WND writer did not want to put his or her name on this work.

Actually, it appears Carson made his statements to the Daily Mail, which neither WND nor Breitbart credit. (Fun fact: The Daily Mail's U.S. political desk is helmed by David Martosko, the former managing editor for the Daily Caller, where he was best known for defending reporting that was clearly false.)

Further, neither article shows any effort on WND's part to contact the SPLC for an explantion of its Carson profile -- that would be too much like journalism, apparently. TPM, meanwhile, did what WND couldn't be bothered to do:

SPLC spokesman Mark Potok told TPM on Monday that including Carson in the organization's "extremist files" isn't tantamount to following the potential presidential contender around in fear that he is plotting to blow up a federal building.

"Our criticism of him was based in large part on his very extreme rhetoric about the evils of gay people," Potok told TPM by phone. "He says that any criticism he makes is always kind and never meant to destroy the person, but then he says that gay marriage will lead to the destruction of America much in the same way the Roman Empire collapsed."

Stealing the work of others, the inability to get basic facts correct and refusal to exhibit any sort of fairness demonstrate why nobody believes WND.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:24 PM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

The Obama years will be forever known as the Dark Ages of US history, a time of political, cultural and economic deterioration. We have yet to see if they will lead to the fall of the American republic.

In the Obama years, the lie became not only a campaign strategy or a means to enact damaging policies, but an institution of government; the Presidency itself, a lie of monstrous proportions guarded by the complicit and the willingly ignorant.

In the Obama years, the Congress finally clearly demonstrated that although we have elections, there is no longer a government representing its citizens, but an entity serving itself, operating outside of Constitutional constraints and unaccountable to the American people for the benefit of the few at the expense of the many.

[...]

Unless we undertake a thorough exposition of who Obama really is, what is his background and true agenda, what forces made his unprecedented rise to power possible and who has conspired to hide the truth, an American Renaissance will not be forthcoming.

We are in a new Dark Age. In such situations, the record of history is unequivocal; either we produce a Renaissance, that is, a rebirth of the fundamental principles upon which America was founded or our republic dies.

-- Lawrence Sellin, Feb. 2 Accuracy in Media column

Posted by Terry K. at 10:07 PM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

When the employment news is as good as it was in January, even CNSNews.com can't figure out a way to make it look bad.

Thus, Ali Meyer was forced to play it pretty much straight in her Feb. 6 CNS article:

The labor force participation rate increased from 62.7 percent to 62.9 percent in January as the number of people not in the labor force declined from 92,898,000 in December to 92,544,000 in January, and the unemployment rate ticked up from 5.6 percent to 5.7 percent.

However, Meyer does show her bias in one way: she refused to note that 257,000 jobs were created in January. Instead, she complained that "The number of unemployed and employed both increased in January," failing to explain to her readers what significance, if any, those numbers have.

Posted by Terry K. at 8:22 PM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

With the news that Bruce Jenner may be going transgender, WorldNetDaily's resident homophobes have decided they know what's best for him and sent unsolicited advice his way.

A Feb. 5 WND article quotes a couple of its resident anti-gay activists to offer the armchair-psychiatric diagnosis that Jenner needs help that becoming transgender won't solve:

Michael Brown, author of “A Queer Thing Happened to America: And What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been,” is calling the media’s behavior exploitation at best and sinister at worst.

“I don’t know how much genuine compassion or courage is being shown here,” he said. “Real courage would be for us to work together to help this man without mutilating him.”

[...]

But [WND managing editor] David Kupelian, author of “The Marketing of Evil,” expressed concerns similar to Brown’s.

“It’s very sad that legendary Olympian Bruce Jenner is trying to turn himself into a woman,” he said, “The desire to become the opposite gender, which usually involves the amputation of healthy body parts, is a psychological-spiritual problem that cries out for understanding and enlightened counseling, not surgical mutilation.”

Kupelian said “transgender ‘transitioning,’ which is the latest madness infecting the American mind, is in fact so abnormal and unnatural that a staggeringly tragic 41 percent of all transgender individuals living in the United States have attempted to commit suicide, according to a 2010 study.”

Brown, who addresses in his books issues such as how Christians should respond to homosexuals who say they love the Lord and experience God’s power, said: “It’s absolutely tragic. It’s nothing to celebrate. God made him a man and he was a married man with children. Whatever his deep seated issues are, let’s try to help him from the inside out, not be mutilating him.”

Professional gay-basher Matt Barber used his Feb. 6 WND column to declare that God has given him the "authority" to lecture Jenner:

First, the elephant in the room: As you ultimately know in your heart-of-hearts, this extreme path you have chosen to take at this late stage in your life is not the answer to the question, “Who is Bruce Jenner?” You must certainly be aware, if only deep down, that to “transition from male to female” is a hopeless and hapless impossibility, biologically, emotionally, spiritually and in every other way imaginable. If you have been convinced otherwise, you labor under grave deception.

There is a reason that after “sex reassignment” surgery, so-called “transgender” people commit suicide at a rate 20 times higher than normal, and, despite rationalizations to the contrary, imaginary “transphobia” is not that reason. If you follow through with this, Bruce, you will be making, second only to denying Christ, the biggest mistake of your life.

Here, in reality, is what you propose to do. You are about to irreversibly mutilate your body and scar your soul. By all accounts, you have already begun doing so. Cosmetically destroying your genitalia, adding artificial breasts and superficially altering your features to make you appear (you really won’t) as a woman, will no more make you a woman than putting fake antlers on a puppy can make it an antelope.

It will only make you the object of pity and ridicule.

You were, are and will always be the man who is Bruce Jenner – the man God created you to be. My fervent prayer is that you might also become the man He intends you to be – the Bruce Jenner who was created, not primarily to win gold medals, but to worship, magnify and glorify the Son of God. As Saint Augustine reflected, “Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.”

[...]

You’re 65 years old. You have, what, 10, 15, maybe 20 years left? Don’t do it. Don’t destroy yourself. Don’t let this unfortunate and bizarre footnote to your life become that which defines it.

Christ is calling you, Bruce Jenner. You are not “a woman trapped in a man’s body.” You are a child of God awaiting adoption.

Please seek counsel from a biblically faithful pastor or priest. I am likewise delighted to meet with you anytime and anywhere to share with you the good news of the Gospel, which maps out the exclusive path to joy, rest and eternal salvation. My email is jmattbarber@comcast.net, if you’d ever like to talk.

Either way, I am praying for you. Many who read this are praying for you.

Needless to say, Barber does not know Jenner and, thus, cannot possibly know the struggles that led Jenner to this apparent decision. Barber only wants to impose his rigid, hateful homophobic lifestyle on the country (and Barber's denigration of gays and transgenders is motived by hate, though he denies it by insisting that his hatred is motivated by "love").

Posted by Terry K. at 11:15 AM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

Media Research Center chief Brent Bozell just can't stop piling up the hypocrisy regarding NBC news anchor Brian Williams.

On the Feb. 6 edition of Sean Hannity's Fox News show, Bozell asserted that Williams was "lying about everything" and that "the honorable thing for him to do is to resign."

As we've documented, Bozell spent more than 15 years perpetuating the lie that he actually wrote his twice-weekly syndicated column, until the lie was exposed last year. And unlike Williams, Bozell has yet to even discuss his lies publicly -- despite having a weekly guest shot on Fox News -- let alone apologize for his deception or doing the honorable thing of resigning from the MRC.

How ironic that the man calling out an alleged liar is a liar himself.

Bozell's fellow guest, former military pilot Amber Smith, claimed Williams had told a "10-year lie." How would she feel if she knew she appeared on "Hannity" with a man who told a 15-year lie?

Posted by Terry K. at 8:56 PM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

An unbylined Feb. 7 WorldNetDaily article states:

WASHINGTON – While those opposing mandatory vaccination for measles are widely portrayed as ignorant and even dangerous by some officials, pundits and even news media accounts, Centers for Disease Control records reveal a startling truth – while no one has died of measles in the U.S. in the last 12 years, 108 have died as a result of the adverse effects of the vaccine in that same time period.

The death statistics are recorded by Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS, which captures only a small percentage of the actual number of deaths and other adverse reactions to the vaccine. In addition, 96 of the 108 deaths in that 12-year time period were a result of the MMR vaccine, now the preferred shot for measles immunization.

Beyond the fact that one key reason there have been no deaths from measles in the past 12 years in the U.S. is because there is a measles vaccine, WND repeats a falsehood about vaccine deaths.

VAERS does not claim that the claimed adverse reactions to vaccines it documents  are directly attributable to the vaccine. VAERS explicitly states on its website:

When evaluating data from VAERS, it is important to note that for any reported event, no cause-and-effect relationship has been established. Reports of all possible associations between vaccines and adverse events (possible side effects) are filed in VAERS. Therefore, VAERS collects data on any adverse event following vaccination, be it coincidental or truly caused by a vaccine. The report of an adverse event to VAERS is not documentation that a vaccine caused the event.

[...]

A report to VAERS generally does not prove that the identified vaccine(s) caused the adverse event described.  It only confirms that the reported event occurred sometime after vaccine was given. No proof that the event was caused by the vaccine is required in order for VAERS to accept the report. VAERS accepts all reports without judging whether the event was caused by the vaccine.

WND also quotes Dr. Lee Hieb -- the fringe-linked doctor and author of a new WND-published book fearmongering about Obamacare -- making a similar claim.

For Hieb and WND to claim that VAERS proves that vaccines kill is, thus, a lie.

The WND article also includes this graphic:

Note that the arrow pointing to the measles vaccine being introduced in 1963 is pointing to somwhere in the late 1970s. WND has since updated the graphic with the arrow correctly pointing to 1963.

Also, the source for WND's information, Health Sentinel, is a blog is filled with vaccine skepticism -- one article asks if vaccines are "a waste of time."

Posted by Terry K. at 12:44 PM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

We've detailed the questionable medical advice of Newsmax-promoted doctor Russell Blaylock, not the least of which is fearmongering about vaccines.

With the current concern about non-vaccinated Americans contributing to a measles outbreak, Newsmax TV gave Blaylock a platform to peddle more fear about vaccines, as described in a Feb. 3 Newsmax article by Bill Hoffmann:

Childhood vaccinations for viruses like measles and chicken pox should not be mandatory and, in fact, may cause serious health problems, says board certified neurosurgeon Dr. Russell Blaylock, editor of The Blaylock Wellness Report.

"Absolutely not. It takes away one of the fundamental rights of people, individuals and families and certainly parents — and that is the protection of their children," Blaylock said Tuesday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.

"You should not have the right to force my child to receive a vaccine when I think that that could cause severe damage to my child.

"There's compelling scientific evidence that vaccines are not as safe as they're being proposed. In fact, there [can be] significant, serious problems, including death, seizures, encephalitis and severe brain damage. This is well documented in medical literature."

[...]

"If you could demonstrate that vaccines never caused serious neurological damage or caused serious health issues, then fine, that's one thing.

"But they can't demonstrate that and what we're seeing is a dramatic increase in autoimmune diseases since they've added so many vaccines to the vaccine schedule. Those include increases in neurological damage and impairment in learning, memory and speech.

"So we're seeing a dramatic increase in all of these disorders as the number of vaccines increased," he said.

Hoffmann didn't mention that Blaylock has defended Andrew Wakefield, the British doctor who penned the notorious, now-retracted study linking vaccines and autism.

In an article on the website of Dr. Joseph Mercola -- a anti-vaxxer and peddler of health supplements who has been sanctioned by the FDA for overstating their effectiveness -- Blaylock claimed that criticism of Wakefield is "unjustifed" and that he was "singled out" because of "bias in academia and government regulatory agencies."

One plus for Newsmax, though: Hoffmann disclosed Newsmax's business relationship with Blaylock in his article.

Posted by Terry K. at 10:48 PM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

What if our elected leadership had decided America no longer deserved to be leader of the free world, should have its military and its programs reduced to ineffectual status, our vibrant economy bankrupted, and that our republic should be “fundamentally transformed” into a virtual socialist, if not outright communist, society?

What if the elected president and his attorney general, both sworn to defend the Constitution and the security of the United States, decided – even made public statements – that they would not defend the laws concerning our borders and a mass invasion by illegal aliens, including near certain terrorists with plans for future 9/11 style attacks in our own cities?

-- Pat Boone, Feb. 2 WorldNetDaily column

Mr. President, I’m Harry Truman.

Democrat. President of the United States. Like you.

I imagine you’ve heard of me, but you weren’t much into American history when you were in high school. You said “I smoked a lot of pot. A lot.” I’m guessin’ you were just coastin’ through, partyin’, havin’ what they called a “high time.”

I read your book, “Dreams From My Father,” very interesting. Wondered why it wasn’t “Dreams of My Father” since you said you never got to know him well.

But apparently those dreams fit in well with what your stepdad taught you when you were growin’ up in Indonesia. They both taught you that America was some kind of evil colonialist oppressor, didn’t they? And you grew up a Muslim, in Indonesia, right?

[...]

I’m writing this to give you some advice. From what I’ve seen from up here, you don’t like advice very much. You seem to think you can just make your own decisions, and everything’ll work out the way you want it to. But I’ve got a great worldview from where I’m sitting – and I’m tellin’ you you’ve got one choice now. Just one.

[...]

What would I do, right now? I’d send some kind of warning to the people in Northern Iraq to get 50 miles away from the ISIS caves and headquarters … and drop devastation on them as I did on Hiroshima.

And while the mushroom cloud was dissipating, I’d tell Yemen: “You’re next, al-Qaida or Taliban or whatever you call yourselves. You’ve got two days to clear out and scatter for whatever holes you came from. We never wanted to use these terrible weapons, but you’ve left us no choice. Just one episode on American soil like you’ve videotaped over there, and you vermin will cease to exist!”

And then I’d tell Tehran: “We’re through messing with you mullahs and ayatollahs. Discontinue any plan to make a bomb like the one we’ve just used – or we’ll use it on you! If you want a taste of what ISIS just got, try us. We’ve kept our arsenal for just this purpose – not to make war, but to promote peace … through strength.

-- Pat Boone, Feb. 6 WND column

Posted by Terry K. at 12:46 PM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

We've highlighted how Media Research Center chief Brent Bozell has no moral authority or credibility to demand that NBC's Brian Williams be fired over a falsehood -- after all, Bozell still has a job despite lying for 15 years about the authorship of his syndicated column.

Now, Bozell is in vendetta mode. A letter he sent to the MRC's mailing list starts:

I need you to take immediate action to help us bring down one of the most partisan left-wing propagandists on television. 

NBC’s Brian Williams shamelessly LIED about being inside a helicopter that was shot down in Iraq.

The fact that Bozell begins with his plan to "bring down one of the most partisan left-wing propagandists on television" before he gets to Williams' falsehood tells you that he doesn't actually care about the lie itself. He does care that he can exploit the lie as a cudgel to achieve a his goal of personally destroying Williams.

Demonstrating this further, Bozell goes on to rant in his letter:

Brian Williams’s influence extends far beyond NBC Nightly News viewers. He is beloved by the liberal entertainment media and routinely makes the rounds on Comedy Central and the late night talk show circuit.

This makes him all the more powerful.

Brian Williams is one of the biggest Obama cheerleaders on television. This is a man who infamously BOWED to Obama. He is a left-wing partisan who is committed to advancing the Left’s agenda.

And now he’s been exposed as a LIAR. He has no credibility and MUST be ousted.

Oh, and Bozell wants you to send money to his multimillion-dollar organization to accomplish this:

NBC News is feeling the heat. But we MUST maintain momentum to force NBC to pull the trigger on Brian Williams.

 There is one major roadblock to our effort…we did not plan for this campaign and so we did not budget for it.

Right now, we do not have the funds to continue bombarding NBC.

In order for us to sustain our efforts, we need to raise money.

Your generous donation will make the difference between Brian Williams continuing to anchor NBC Nightly News or losing his job.

Needless to say, Bozell does not explain to his readers why a shameless liar has any moral authority to lead this crusade.

As we said previously, if Bozell ever had the guts to apply the standards he's forcing on Williams to himself, he would resign from the MRC immediately and profusely apologize for misleading his readers for more than 15 years.

But Bozell is not a man of integrity; he is a man who has a vendetta to carry out.

Posted by Terry K. at 7:01 PM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

WorldNetDaily has decided to double down on blaming its favorite "others" -- immigrants and President Obama -- for the current measles outbreak in the U.S.

A Feb. 4 article by Bob Unruh rehashes far-right radio host (and WND buddy) Michael Savage's smear that  Obama is committing "medical genocide" through his "reckless policy of bringing in unscreened, unvaccinated masses from south of the border," specifically citing the measles outbreak. Unruh also quoted right-wing darling Ben Carson blaming "undocumented people, who perhaps have diseases that we had under control."

WND then called on Elizabeth Lee Vliet -- a far-right fearmongerer who's linked with the fringe medical group Association of American Physicians and Surgeons -- to pile on the blame (and to make sure anti-vaxxers like herself do not get blamed) in a Feb. 5 column:

The focus of the Obama administration and media in the measles outbreak in the U.S. has been on American parents not vaccinating their children.

This overlooks a key issue other physicians and I warned about in May and June 2014: Illegal immigrants coming across the U.S. southern borders in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and California were bringing with them many invisible travelers. These unwanted guests include viruses, bacteria and fungal diseases the U.S. had eradicated or controlled decades ago. Measles was one of the diseases mentioned then, since it is widespread in parts of the world from which the illegal immigration surge is coming – in particular, Central America.

Fast forward to 2015, and suddenly we have the widespread outbreak of measles that was predicted. But the blame is being placed on “bad parents” who don’t want to vaccinate their children for fear of side effects of the vaccines.

Because the U.S. declared that it had eradicated measles in 2000, parents were right to wonder why they should take an unnecessary risk. They are not the cause of this current outbreak. Being unvaccinated does not give you measles. Lawlessness on our borders is the culprit that re-introduced the measles virus to our territory. The same government that broke our immigration laws is now blaming U.S. parents for the predictable consequences of its policy. The U.S. government both facilitated and encouraged the flood of illegal border crossers and assisted their rapid dispersal to cities across the U.S.

There's just one problem with WND's blaming illegal immigrants from Central America for the measles outbreak: Those central American countries have a measles vaccination rate that is as high, if not higher, than the U.S.

According to statistics from the World Bank, the measles vaccination rate in the U.S. between 2010 and 2013 has hovered around 92 percent. But the vaccination rate in Mexico was 98 percent in 2011 and 99 percent in 2012. In Guatemala, the rate was 93 percent n 2010 and 2012. And in Honduras, the rate was 98 percent in 2010 and 95 percent in 2011. (Rates in all three countries slipped below 90 percent in 2013.)

Further, as the Washington Post detailed, according to the World Health Organization no Central American country had more confirmed measles cases than the U.S. did in 2014.

Even though the facts aren't on her side, Vliet continued to whine: "Now the government that fails to follow its own laws is saying it will mandate that all parents vaccinate their children to protect against the disease it allowed to enter the U.S."

Of course, Vliet will never admit that vaccinating as many people as possible keeps diseases like measles from spreading.

Posted by Terry K. at 11:55 AM EST

Updated: Friday, February 6, 2015 12:01 PM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

Dr. Lee Hieb does not feel particularly tethered to facts, as her history of writing for WorldNetDaily demonstrates. Hieb -- who is a past president of fringe-right, conspiracy-obsessed Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, goes full anti-vaxxer in a Feb. 4 WND column, in which she likens vaccination to euthanasia and the Tuskegee experiments:

1. The voices shrieking to forcibly vaccinate people are the same voices shrieking to support a woman’s right to choose abortion under Roe v. Wade. If a woman’s body is sacrosanct, if she has the right to choose to deliver a child or not, if she has total authority over her body, how can she not have the right to accept or refuse a vaccination?

2. Medical ethics are clear: No one should be forced to undergo a medical treatment without informed consent and without their agreement to the treatment. We condemn the forced sterilization of the ’20s and ’30s, the Tuskegee medical experiments infecting black inmates and the Nazi medicine that included involuntary “Euthanasia,” experimentation and sterilization. How can we force vaccination without consent? Vaccination is a medical treatment with risks including death. It is totally antithetical to all ethics in medicine to mandate that risk to others.

3. Science is never “concluded.” Mr. Obama and other ideologues may think the truth is finalized (“The science is indisputable”), but the reality is our understanding of disease and treatment are constantly being updated. Just like Newton’s mechanical paradigm of the universe was supplanted by Einsteinian physics, and physicists today modify that view, medical “truth” is not the truth for long. In an attempt to quantify change in medicine, years ago a cardiology journal discussed “The Half-life of Truth.” cardiologists looked back in their journal at 20-year-old articles to see how much of what was believed then was still believed to be true. The answer? 50 percent. So in cardiology, at least – and in all of medicine to greater or lesser degree – only half of what we believe now will still be true in 20 or so years. The last word on vaccination is not in. It hasn’t even begun to be written.

4. If you believe absolutely in the benefit and protective value of vaccination, why does it matter what others do? Or don’t do? If you believe you need vaccination to be healthy and protected, then by all means vaccinate your child and yourself. Why should you even be concerned what your neighbor chooses to do for his child – if vaccination works? The idea of herd immunity is still based on the idea that in individual cases vaccines actually are protective.

Yes, Hieb is such an anti-vaxxer she doesn't believe in the concept of herd immunity and that only "dictators and totalitarians" would promote its benefits:

So the next question is: Does vaccination work? Does it really protect you against disease? The answer is variable. Smallpox vaccine seems to be nearly universally protective against the very fatal disease of smallpox, and use of vaccine led to the eradication of the disease in the wild. But the dirty little secret in recent outbreaks of mumps, measles and pertussis is – they are occurring in vaccinated people in highly vaccinated populations!

[...]

The argument that I must vaccinate my children for the good of the community is not only scientifically questionable, it is an unethical precept. It is the argument all dictators and totalitarians have used. “Comrade, you must work tirelessly for the good of the collective. You must give up your money and property for the good of the collective, and now … you must allow us to inject your children with what we deem is good for the collective.” If American’s don’t stand up against this, then we are lost. Because we have lost ownership of ourselves. Our bodies are no longer solely ours – we and our children are able to be commandeered for the “greater good.”

Hieb is apparently unaware that for herd immunity to work, a sufficient number of a population must be immunized, and that threshold is higher for highly communicable diseases.

Hieb goes on to quote "Dr. Harold Buttram, M.D., FAACP" to further fearmonger about vaccines. Buttram has promoted the highly dubious concept (at AAPS, natch) that symptoms of shaken baby syndrome are actually caused by vaccines. As one blogger notes, "The myth that SBS is really “vaccine injury” is actually so detestable that even some of the most rabid antivaccine activists out there generally won’t touch it with the proverbial ten-foot cattle prod."

But Hieb thinks Buttram is credible enough to cite in her column. That says a lot about the credibilty of Hieb and her WND-published book fearmongering about Obamacare.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:27 PM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

The Media Research Center was quick to pounce on NBC anchor Brian Williams' apology for falsely claiming he was under enemy fire in an incident during the Iraq War. MRC chief Brent Bozell tweeted, "Brian Williams has to go. NBC's credibility is completely shot."

That's right -- the guy who lied twice a week for more than 15 years by presenting his syndicated column as being his creation when, in fact, it was written by his deputy Tim Graham ... is bashing Williams for telling a falsehood. If Williams' credibility is "completely shot" by telling a falsehood, why isn't Bozell's?

If Bozell wants to set an example Williams should follow and prove that his words have meaning instead of being empty partisan attacks, he should abjectly apologize for deceiving the public for years -- Bozell has yet to speak publicly about his years-long deception -- and resign as MRC president. But he doesn't have the guts to live up to his own rhetoric.

Meanwhile, the Washington Examiner's Paul Bedard uncritically promoted Bozell's tweet without mentioning Bozell's record of lying.

UPDATE: The MRC has sent out an email campaigning for Williams to be fired:

Posted by Terry K. at 11:13 AM EST

Updated: Thursday, February 5, 2015 2:13 PM EST

Share This Post

Permalink