Why Is MRC's Graham Putting 'Reverend' In Scare Quotes for Sharpton?
Topic: NewsBusters

Tim Graham does a curious thing in his Feb. 14 NewsBusters post attacking Al Sharpton: When referring to Sharpton, he puts "Reverend" in scare quotes. Those scare quotes, though, create the impression that Graham believes Sharpton isn't a real reverend -- even though he's an ordained minister -- because he believes evolution exists:

“Reverend” Al Sharpton isn’t too big on the Bible, certainly not on the tale that God created the world and everything in it. MSNBC tweeted out Sharpton’s Thursday night segment where he wished his viewers and guests “Happy Darwin Day” three times, and mocked Gov. Scott Walker for skipping an evolution question in a London interview.

A snarky commenter on MSNBC.com noted that Sharpton was pushing Darwin, whose book The Origin of Species was also titled The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. Uh-oh, Rev.

As explained on Wikipedia, Darwin's use of "race" is a synonym for "varieties," not the modern connotation of human races; the first use of the word in the book refers to "the several races, for instance, of the cabbage" and proceeds to a discussion of "the hereditary varieties or races of our domestic animals and plants." Graham might want to vet the random "snarky commenters" from whom he gets his inspiration a little more closely.

Nevertheless, Graham then goes on to claim, "Apparently, in other books, Darwin expressed the thought the 'Negro' was inferior, and 'the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world.' That might be worth a segment." Interestingly, the link Graham provides as evidence of this -- from a blog by John S. Wilkins focused on evolution -- points out that Darwin's clinging to the racial stereotypes pervasive in his era actually contradict his theory of evolution:

Why does Darwin do this? In the early days of a theory or new view, it is hard to puzzle out all the ramifications of the idea, and to isolate it from superficially similar ideas already in the air. Darwin’s notion of evolution does not require progress, or inferior versus superior races, but he’s being led down that path by the culture around him, and the fact, after all, that he is a member of a privileged class (historically fairly recently so) of an imperial society, with a history of devaluing those who were not in control. It turns out, Darwin is human after all.

Anyway, the implication remains that Graham appears to believe Sharpton isn't a real reverend because he acknowledges evolution. So we asked him via Twitter:

Graham's first response: "He's a RINO. Reverend In Name Only. Starts with refusing for decades to acknowledge his sin in the Brawley hoax."

Fair enough; it's a legitimate criticism. Then he added: "And it's funny he's channeling the Darwinists and science against Christian conservatives, like he's Ricky Gervais."

That seems to confirm that, in Graham's view, evolution is incompatible with being a "real" Christian, and definitely not compatible with being a Christian minister.

Then we asked Graham if the MRC would start putting scare quotes around "Dr." when referring to anti-abortion activist Alveda King -- after all, unlike Sharpton's title, King didn't earn hers; the doctorate is honorary. Graham didn't respond.

Matt Barber Lies About The SPLC
Topic: WorldNetDaily

In the midst of a rant against thte Southern Poverty Law Center in his Feb. 13 WorldNetDaily column, Matt Barber complains about how the SPLC portrays him:

The “social justice” organization’s most recent hit on me came this past Monday in the form of a “Hatewatch” report. While the SPLC’s lies about me are legion, a shining example can be found in this particular report’s claim that I have said, “HIV is a punishment from God for homosexuality.” I have never said this, nor even remotely suggested it. Neither do I believe it. It’s a lie.

If you look at the SPLC  article to which Barber is referring, it does not claim that statement attributed to Barber as a direct quote and is presented as a paraphrase:

Matt Barber, the editor of the virulently anti-LGBT Barbwire.com, is a frequent host of the Liberty Counsel’s Faith and Freedom Radio. Barber has Tweeted that “Fake ‘gay marriage’ is fake ‘consummated’ through squalid and feculent abuse of the reproductive and digestive systems.” He has called same-sex parenting a form of child abuse, and [s]aid that HIV is a punishment from God for homosexuality, stating that “it is never good, healthy, normal or natural.” He also expressed support for Russia’s draconian anti-LGBT laws, saying that he would like to see laws that “stop homosexual activist propaganda from corrupting children in our nation and we need to see that right here in the United States.”

The link the SPLC uses to support that statement is a Right Wing Watch post quoting from a September WND column by Barber:

Scripture admonishes, “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Unnatural behaviors beget natural consequences. It is hateful to promote a sin-centered lifestyle to children, to anyone for that matter, which leads to disease, death and, unless repented of, eternal separation from God.

It bears repeating: “[H]alf of all gay and bisexual men will be HIV-positive by age 50.”

The wages of sin is death.

Yet in today’s upside-down world it is we who are disingenuously accused of “hate” – those of us who remain compassionate and bold enough to warn our fellow fallen human beings of the spiritual, emotional and, yes, even the physical death that comes as a natural consequence of unnatural behaviors. A toxic cloud of political correctness distorts reality, choking off any honest appraisal of these self-destructive sexual behaviors. We truly live in a dark age that calls evil good and good evil.

Homosexual conduct is always sin. It always has been. It always will be. It is never good, healthy, normal or natural.

The wages of sin is death.

Summarizing Barber's statements to "HIV is a punishment from God for homosexuality" is perfectly accurate. Barber does not explain why it isn't.

In other words, Barber is a liar. But he's not done lying:

In the same report, the SPLC attacked my good friend and former colleague Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel – a legitimate civil rights organization by contrast – absurdly asserting that as the judicial imposition of same-sex “marriage” becomes a widespread reality, Staver has said, “everyone will decide to be gay and society will ‘cease to exist.’”

I kid you not. They actually wrote that and attributed it to Staver. Read it for yourself. Again, this particular whopper is so stupid that it strains credulity to imagine how they thought it would fly.

Apology? I won’t hold my breath.

The SPLC cites a Right Wing Watch transcript of a radio interview in which Staver stated: "If you ultimately promoted same-sex marriage and everyone started to go towards same-sex marriage, what would happen to society? It would just simply cease to exist."

So, yes, Staver is pretty much saying what the SPLC claims he is. And Barber is a liar.

Will Barber apologize for his lies? We won't hold our collective breath.

Even A Mere $33,000 Spent On LGBT Issues Is A Waste, According To CNS' Hunter
Topic: CNSNews.com

No amount of federal spending on LGBT issues, it seems, is too small for CNSNews.com deputy managing editor Melanie Hunter to portray as a waste.

Hunter adds to her pile of obsession over LGBT-related federal spending -- she has written no federal spending articles on any other subject -- with a Feb. 13 article:

The National Institutes of Health has awarded $33,037 in taxpayer funds to the University of South Florida to study factors that can increase vaccination among gay men for the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) to prevent them from developing anal cancer.

Yep, even a mere $33,000 is considered to be a waste by Hunter if it goes toward LGBT-related issues.

Hunter has yet to explain her obession on this subject.

WND's Corsi Thinks Illegal Immigrants Are Bring Smallpox Into U.S.
Topic: WorldNetDaily

In a Feb. 13 video posted on WorldNetDaily's Facebook feed, Jerome Corsi lists diseases purportedly making a resurgence in the U.S. as a result of "open borders" and illegal immigration.

Corsi lists measles, of course, because he apparently didn't get the memo that the measles vaccination rate in Latin America is equivalent to that of the U.S. But then Corsi starts bloviating that "various diseases that have been eradicated from the United States, including smallpox and other diseases coming from Latin America, Mexico, South America through illegal immigration."

Wait, smallpox? The disease that was eradicated worldwide in 1980 and exists today only in two highly secure laboratories for research purposes? That smallpox? Apparently so.

Thank you, Mr. Corsi, for reminding us that you're a major reason why nobody believes WND.

MRC Puts Univision Host Jorge Ramos In Its Crosshairs
Topic: Media Research Center

Jorge Bonilla -- the current face, near as we can tell, of the Media Research Center's MRC Latino operation -- starts his Jan. 30 NewsBusters post rather boldly:

The central premise of a recent New York Times article is simple enough: If only Republicans were to submit to Univision (and, by extension, anchor Jorge Ramos) on immigration, then they may receive more favorable coverage that does not depict them to the network’s Hispanic viewership as hateful, racist, anti-immigrant monsters, and then they may have a chance to garner more of the Hispanic vote, with the blessing of the community’s self-appointed gatekeeper.

Bonilla, however, couldn't be bothered to actually quote from the Times article he's attacking, so apparently he wants us to take his word for it.

Thus, unambitious NewsBusters readers will miss the part of the Times article pointing that Ramos, in addition to being critical of Republicans' anti-immigration stance, has called out President Obama for "breaking his 2008 campaign promise — made directly to Mr. Ramos — that he would propose an overhaul of the nation’s immigration system in his first year in office, and for deporting two million people since."

Bonilla quickly ratchets up the rhetoric, accusing the Times (and, by extension, Ramos) of figuratively (or maybe literally) wanting to kill interview subjects:

The first thing that comes to mind with the Times’ take on the subject is a sense of (with apologies to Yogi Berra) déja vu all over again. What we are witnessing here is the return of the nasty plata o plomo tactics (literally "silver or lead" - the Spanish phrase that means you either cooperate by giving a bribe, or you get a bullet) previously deployed during Univision’s 2011 war on Senator Marco Rubio.

Apparently, holding Republicans accountable on immigration is much worse than, say, suggesting that those doing so are engaging in violence, figuratively or otherwise.

In case it isn't clear, Bonilla and the MRC have Ramos in their (figurative) crosshairs for the sin of not spouting conservative rhetoric on immigration. Indeed, five of Bonilla's last seven NewsBusters posts are focused on Ramos.

Bonilla takes another shot at Ramos in a Feb. 16 post, sneering that Ramos "is fond of reading his own press" and that conservative attacks on him are "legitimate." Then Bonilla -- who accused Ramos of "plata o plomo tactics" -- complained that Ramos "had the audacity to complain that conservatives want to SILENCE him as a result of his biased coverage."

Bonilla then complains that "No journalist that encourages activism, abandons neutrality, and routinely spits out partisan talking points should expect to go unchallenged." If Bonilla is really serious about challenging biased journalists, he doesn't even have to leave the MRC headquarters to do so -- he can read the bias at CNSNews.com.

WND's Klein Whiffs On Blaming Measles, Other Diseases On Illegal Immigrants
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily keeps trying -- and keeps failing -- to blame the measles outbreak on illegal immigrants.

The latest scapegoat stab comes from Aaron Klein in a Feb. 12 WND article. First, he concedes there really isn't a link:

Is there more to the measles outbreak than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have acknowledged?

A close look at the history of measles outbreaks in the U.S. over the last 15 years evidences two significant themes – the vast majority of all cases were imported from outside the country, and many of the disease clusters were located in California, a state known for its large concentration of illegal aliens.

Still, while diseases such as enterovirus are rampant in the countries where most illegal aliens originate, there does not appear to be strong evidence that current or past measles outbreak originated with illegal aliens.

Still, he endeavors to insist there's a link just the same:

The fact-checking websites note that most illegal immigrants stem from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico. According to the World Health Organization, the measles vaccination rates among those countries for the past four years have been equivalent to, and in some cases exceed, the rate in the United States.

Still, the CDC reported the current outbreak has spread to Mexico.

PolitiFact points out the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s protocol calls for it to provide “vaccinations to all children who do not have documentation of previous valid doses of vaccine.”

However, PolitiFact misses the fact that the Refugee Resettlement, a program of the Department of Health and Human Services, mostly deals with legal immigrants who obtain the status of refugee and who are seeking safe haven within the U.S.

[...]

Unaccounted for, however, are illegals who are not caught, do not enter detention centers or who are released by border agents within 72 hours of their capture.

Thirteen-year Border Patrol veteran Chris Cabrera is vice president of the Local 3307 chapter of the National Border Patrol Council, the exclusive representative of approximately 17,000 agents and support personnel assigned to the U.S. Border Patrol.

He recently said in a radio interview the Border Patrol is being overwhelmed by illegals, with many slipping through the cracks possibly carrying disease.

In short, Klein can't identify any actual facts to back him up and must resort to speculation and some rather lazy guilt-by-association. He does it again later in the article:

While medical literature backs up the argument that Latin America is currently safely immunized against measles, a WND review of the history of outbreaks in the U.S. since the 1980s shows two major themes: Almost all of the outbreaks came from overseas, and California saw some of the largest concentrations of the disease.

Again, no actual proof. Klein eventually gives up and switches to another disease entirely he can more easily blame on illegal immigrants, enterovirus, even though has nothing to offer but, yes, "speculation the polio-like enterovirus, which mostly targets children, could have been carried into the U.S. by illegal-alien minors from Central America."

Needless to say, Klein is wrong here as well. The Centers for Disease Control have found no evidence of a link between illegal immigrants and enterovirus outbreaks in the U.S. -- which Klein concedes a few paragraphs later after he reports all the baseless speculation.

But an increasingly desperate Klein has to find something to blame on illegal immigrants. Finally he settles on chikungunya, a mosquito-borne tropical disease that he speculates is being spread through mosquitoes that "could just as easily have been transported into the U.S. in baggage, clothing, food, or liquids carried by illegal aliens crossing the border." But once more, he can only rely on speculation, not actual proof.

In sum, Klein has an article with a whole lot of speculation designed to rile up the anti-immigrant readers of WND without any solid facts to back them up. And he buries the fact that he can't back up his speculation. 

In other words, just another reason why nobody believes WND.

CNS Doesn't Want Any Gayness In Statuary Hall
Topic: CNSNews.com

See if you can guess Lauretta Brown's main concern from the headline and opening paragraph of her Feb. 12 CNSNews.com article:

Gay Lawmaker Wants to Replace Statuary Hall Figure of Missionary Headed for Sainthood With Lesbian Astronaut

An openly gay State Senator in California has introduced legislation to replace a statue of Catholic missionary Father Junipero Serra in National Statuary Hall with a statue of Sally Ride, the first female U.S. astronaut and a lesbian.

The move by State Senator Ricardo Lara comes just weeks after Pope Francis announced plans to elevate Serra to sainthood.

Yep, it seems Brown (and, by extension, her CNS overseers Terry Jeffrey and Michael Chapman) doesn't want any gayness in Statuary Hall -- especially if means removing the statue of a Catholic.

Brown then goes on to defend the honor of Serra by quoting a Catholic monsignor who has written a biography of him:

But Monsignor Francis J. Weber, an author and historian of the 18th century missionary, has rejected the characterization of Serra as “controversial.”

“You see all of these accusations against Serra, but not one of them can be validated by a responsible historian,” Weber told the Catholic News Agency.

Weber described Serra as a hero to the Native Americans. “California today is what he started it out to be,” he said, “Things have progressed a lot in 200 years, but he set the foundation.”

“The Native Americans, I think, are being utilized by these people who have a rather warped view of what evangelization is all about,” he said. “I’m convinced that the questions about Junipero Serra are really not about Serra himself, who simply epitomized Catholic evangelization. I’m convinced that this is an attack on all of Catholic evangelization throughout the world.”

That seems like a strangely specific defense. Meanwhile, the Associated Press notes that Serra "supported flogging converts who tried to escape the mission," and that in Serra's wake, the Native American population in California dropped by one-third and fragmented tribes lost touch with their traditional languages, beliefs and way of life.

So, yes, Serra is controversial -- as is Brown's idea of journalism, where all gays must be labeled prominently as such, seemingly to engender homophobic comments on the article from CNS readers.

WND Now Using Twitter To Race-Bait
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily has really cut back on the race-baiting since Google AdSense threatened to cut off ad revenue to WND because of all the rampant Colin Flaherty-fueled paranoia about "black mobs." (Flaherty also stopped writing for WND around this time.) But that doesn't mean WND can't race-bait in social media.

WND uses Twitter to promote its articles, and one tweet sent on Feb. 15 was so important that it had to be announced in ALL CAPS: "IF I HAD A SON -- NEARLY 1000 BLACK TEENS STORM THEATER IN ORLANDO TO GET IN FOR FREE."

Funny thing about the purloined Florida TV station article WND is promoting here:

1) it says "more than 200 juveniles" were involved in a disturbance at a local mall, of which only "about 100" rushed the theater -- not the "nearly 1000" the WND tweet claims. An earlier viersion of the article, which WND stole for its website, claims that "about 800 teens" were involved. Which, last we checked, requires a lot of stretching to be considered "nearly 1000."

2) The word "black" does not appear in the article, the original version that WND stole, or in the accompanying video report.

WND does not explain how it divined that every single student involved in the incident -- whether 100 or "nearly 1000" -- was black. They have have simply assumed that if there was a large crowd of teens causing mayhem, they must obviously be black.

Also, the "If I Had A Son" tagline does not appear on the stolen WND version of the article -- it simply uses "WND Crime." Apparently, this reference to President Obama's statement about Trayvon Martin is some sort of dog whistle to its more race-obsessed readers that this is another story about blacks behaving badly (despite, again, no evidence that this is indeed the case).

WND, it seems, has decided it can rest assured that no ad revenue will be threatened by Twitter calling out its race-baiting like Google did.

MRC Gives Fox News A Pass On Airing Terrorist Video
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center normally frowns on media outlets airing videos made by terrorists. MRC chief Brent Bozell (well, to be perfectly accurate, his deputy Tim Graham) has denounced al-Jazeera as "a video jukebox for Osama bin Laden and other Arab terrorist fanatics."

But when Fox News was the only major media outlet to air graphic footage from an ISIS video showing a Jordanian pilot being buried alive -- then posted the full, unedited video on the Fox News website --  Bozell and his MRC crew had nothing to say about it.

A search of the MRC and NewsBusters websites found no statements whatsoever on Fox News serving as the PR agent for terrorists as numerous media and terrorism analysts condemned it --hen Fox's in-house media critic, Howard Kurtz, said he disagreed with the corporate decision to air the video because "we are helping spread the fear that ISIS so badly wants to spread."

This is another example of the MRC refusing to apply its own standards against those with whom it ideologically agrees. We've detailed how the MRC wouldn't criticize "60 Minutes" reporter Lara Logan for bungling a story on the Benghazi attack because her distortions and falsehoods furthered the right-wing agenda to exploit Benghazi against President Obama.

Yes, Joseph Farah, You Are Linked To Violence
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Joseph Farah rants in his Feb. 12 WorldNetDaily column:

You know, in all the years I have been listed among the SPLC’s list of “haters,” I have never once been linked – even by three degrees of separation – with any act of violence. To the best of my knowledge, no one who has ever befriended me on Facebook or held me up as an inspiration has ever committed a heinous act of terrorism or violence.

Farah, as we've come to expect from him, is lying -- he is linked to violence, and we don't even have to go to three degrees of separation to find it.

As we've documented, the manifesto of Anders Breivik, who slaughered dozens in Norway in 2009, cites WND six times, and it also cites anti-Muslim activists frequently highlighted by WND, including Pamela Geller (now a WND columnist) and Walid Shoebat. Breivik's screeds against Islam, multiculturalism and feminism closely parallel WND's own editorial content over the years.

Needless to say, WND never told its readers at the time about how Breivik expressed his admiration for WND, its friends and its editorial agenda. Don't expect Farah to acknowledge his link to this act of terrorism now.

Newsmax Pushes More Anti-Vaxxer Fearmongering
Topic: Newsmax

It's apparently not enough for Newsmax to have an anti-vaccine fearmongerer like Russell Blaylock on staff. Its Newsmax Health website is also rife with anti-vaxxer rhetoric as well.

A Feb. 10 Newsmax Health article by Sylvia Booth Hubbard features the claims of "holistic physician" David Brownstein attacking the MMR vaccine and defending Andrew Wakefield, whose research linking vaccines to autism has been discredited. Hubbard fails to mention that Brownstein is affiliated with Newsmax, which sells his "Natural Way to Health" newsletter.

Hubbard goes on to uncritically promote an overbroad claim by Brownstein that "The MMR vaccine is produced using a cell line that originated from aborted fetal lung cells." While it is true that two specific cell lines from which vaccines are derived have been cultured from cells taken from two abortions (in 1966 and 1962), to use this an excuse to oppose vaccination is dangerous, as physicist Jay Wile, a Christian, writes:

Anti-vaccination advocates play on a person's proper moral indignation about abortion, claiming that if a person gets vaccinated, he or she is supporting the abortion industry. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Whether or not you get vaccinated, the same number of abortions will be performed, as abortions are not necessary to make new vaccines. In addition, you are actually dishonoring the memories of those two precious babies if you refuse vaccination, because you are refusing the one good thing that has come from their murder. At the same time, you are putting your life and the lives of your loved ones in jeopardy by refusing one of the greatest protections that medicine has ever developed! How could anyone call himself pro-life if he dishonors the memory of those who have been murdered while risking the lives of those he loves?

Hubbard also suggests a government conspiracy to suppress the purported dangers of vaccines:

There are accusations that the CDC has deliberately suppressed evidence of a link between vaccines and autism. "The Centers for Disease Control altered a 2004 study, hiding data that supported Dr. Wakefield’s research," says Dr. Brownstein. "The report stated there was no link between vaccines and autism, but a CDC whistleblower and author of the paper came forward to announce that the paper was a fraud. He said the CDC hid data in the paper which showed a clear link between the early administration of the MMR vaccine and autism."

The whistleblower was CDC senior scientist William Thompson, who issued a statement through his attorney: "I regret that my coauthors and I omitted statistically significant information in our 2004 article published in the journal Pediatrics. The omitted data suggested that African American males who received the MMR vaccine before age 36 months were at increased risk for autism."

As the mythbusters at Snopes details, the data claiming African-American males have an increased risk of autism from the MMR vaccine is flawed. Hubbard omits the part of Thompson's statement where he states: "I want to be absolutely clear that I believe vaccines have saved and continue  to save countless lives. I would never suggest that any parent avoid vaccinating children of any race. Vaccines prevent serious diseases, and the risks associated with their administration are vastly outweighed by their individual and societal benefits."

Instead of telling her readers that, Hubbard rants about "the consensus of the conventional medicine community" that supports vaccination.

Another Anti-Gay WND Columnist Thinks He Knows What's Best for Bruce Jenner
Topic: WorldNetDaily

As we've detailed, anti-gay columnists at WorldNetDaily have decided they know what's better for Bruce Jenner than Jenner himself, and that means denigrating his apparent decision to become transgender. Carl Jackson -- best known for an unhinged rant accusing liberals of trying to "bring America down to size" by supporting soccer -- meddles as well in a Feb. 10 WND column headlined "My hope for the man Bruce Jenner," starting by citing a discredited psychiatrist:

Did you know that transgenderism is a mental disorder? Nothing more, nothing less. Dr. Paul McHugh, the former psychiatrist-in-chief for Johns Hopkins Hospital and its current distinguished service professor of psychiatry has stated that “transgenderism is a ‘mental disorder’ that merits treatment, that sex change is ‘biologically impossible,’ and that people who promote sexual reassignment surgery are collaborating with and promoting a mental disorder.”

During a more sensible time in American history, a few years ago, we use to call it “gender dysphoria” or “gender identity disorder” – and for good reason. Professional psychiatrists like Dr. McHugh, who are trained in mental disorders, regularly diagnosed patients who suffered from a “disorder of assumption.” Gender identity disorder is comparable to the eating disorder anorexia, where people become dangerously thin, and Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID), where a sufferer is perfectly healthy but does not accept a limb or limbs of his own and seeks to amputate them, sometimes on his own, or even become paraplegic. All of these mental disorders lie in the person’s “assumption” that they are different than the physical reality of their bodies.

Sadly, politicians, diversity counselors, leftist physicians, elitists and ignorant activists in states like California, New Jersey and Massachusetts, who presume to know more about psychological disorders than trained psychiatrists and psychologists, have climbed on their high horse and invoked laws banning mental health professionals, despite parental permission, from working to restore natural gender feelings to what is described by Dr. McHugh as a transgender minor.

Slate details how McHugh "has a storied history of using his credentialed respectability to peddle the worst, most discredited, myths about gay and transgender people." We've noted how other commentators have pointed out how an anti-transgender op-ed in the Wall Street Journal was based on selective reading of literature on the subject, a fit of either laziness or incompetence that makes him a lot less "distingushed" that Jackson thinks he isl

Does Jackson have any more unsolicited advice for Jenner? He certainly does:

It’s equally troubling to me that doctors who swear to “first do no harm” under their Hippocratic Oath would endeavor to perpetuate a mental disorder like transgenderism where the suicide rate is 20 times higher than the rate amongst non-transgender people. Transgender sufferers like Bruce Jenner will never achieve their goal of becoming a member of the opposite sex. According to Dr. McHugh, at best they’ll become “feminized men or masculinized women.” If Bruce Jenner chooses to undergo sexual reassignment surgery, it is unlikely that he’ll ever experience a sexual orgasm again; conveniently, he’ll never have a menstrual cycle or menopause like real women; and smegma-mucus from his makeshift vagina will have to be flushed out routinely due to its shallow walls. Disgusting, yes, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

If that weren’t enough, according to Dr. McHugh, “for those who had sexual reassignment surgery, most said they were ‘satisfied’ with the operation, but their subsequent psycho-social adjustments were no better than those who didn’t have the surgery.” This is the reason Johns Hopkins Hospital, the very place that pioneered sexual reassignment surgery, has stopped performing these surgeries. They no longer saw a need to amputate “normal organs.” If proponents of the transgender movement were really compassionate and caring, they wouldn’t seek to subject mentally ill patients to a life filled with turmoil and mutilation!

God doesn’t make mistakes, and he certainly didn’t with Bruce Jenner. I don’t know how long Mr. Jenner has struggled with his mental illness, but I know with advanced technology, counseling and medicine, the tools exist for him to conquer his disorder. I wish his family, friends and community were informed and courageous enough to convey that to him, and insist that he remains the patriarch of the family. They don’t need another matriarch. They’ve got Kris.

God may not make mistakes, but don't expect Jackson to admit he made a mistake by parroting the views of a biased, discredited doctor.

CNS Misrepresents DC Anti-Discrimination Law
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNSNews.com, like other ConWeb outlets, does not feel compelled to accurately or fairly report on something that contradicts its right-wing agenda.

In a Feb. 11 CNS article, Rudy Takala asserts as fact in the first paragraph that a new District of Columbia law "forci[es] Christian organizations to employ people who advocate abortion." It's not until the second paragraph that this view of the law is merely the opinion of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, not necessarily fact.

In actuality, the law -- the Reproductive Health Non-Discrimination Act of 2014 -- states that employers "shall not discriminate against an individual with respect to compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment because of or on the basis of the individual's or a dependent's reproductive health decision making, including a decision to use or access a particular drug, device or medical service, because of or on the basis of an employer's personal beliefs about such services."

Takala did not quote the language of the law in his article, nor did he explain the USCCB's reasoning behind how it concluded the law forces Christian employers "to employ people who advocate abortion."

Lauretta Brown does the same thing in her Feb. 11 CNS article, baselessly asserting as fact that  the law "would force religious and pro-life organizations to employ people who advocate abortion. While Brown does quote some of thewording in the law, she presents the USCCB's interpretation as the only valid one.

That, of course, is simply not true, CNS has so far ignored the opinion of Catholics for Choice, which testifed that polling shows "91 pecent of US Catholic voters believe that a company should not be allowed to fire a pregnant, unmarried employee because of the owners' religious beliefs," adding that "one cannot use one's conscience to trample onthe rights of others."

CNS' mission statement states that it "endeavors to fairly present all legitimate sides of a story." Apparently, if one side of that story conflicts with right-wing ideology or Catholic doctrine, it must not be "legitimate" and, therefore, unworthy of coverage.

WND Clings To Another Discredited Birther Conspiracy
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily's birther obsession is slipping from desperate to truly pathetic.

A Feb. 11 unbylined WND article resorts to a birther conspiracy theory to attack Savannah Guthrie as a possible successor to Brian Williams on the "NBC Nightly News":

On April 27, 2011, White House correspondent Savannah Guthrie claimed to have seen Barack Obama’s long-form birth certificate and “touched and felt the raised seal.”

The segment on “NBC Nightly News” was titled “Obama birth certificate – signed, sealed, delivered.”

Guthrie’s claims that the PDF document posted on the White House website is backed up by two certified paper copies delivered to the White House contradicts the digital forensic findings of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s “Cold Case Posse” investigators in Maricopa County, Arizona.

Alan Jones, writing on his 1776 Channel site Wednesday, noted Arpaio’s appointed lead investigator on the birth-certificate case, Mike Zullo, has been promising the release of “universe-shattering” information regarding the document.

The release of additional findings, Jones wrote, likely would pose for NBC News a “credibility crisis far more severe than the Brian Williams fiasco.”

Jones on Wednesday interviewed Zullo, who noted Reed Hayes, a document examiner who has served as expert witness for Seattle law firm Perkins Coie – the firm that flew an attorney to Honolulu to personally deliver two paper copies of the birth certificate to the White House – has concluded in a signed affidavit that the document posted on the White House website is “entirely fabricated.”

“We have no evidence of a raised seal being displayed on that document that Savannah Guthrie supposedly felt,” Zullo said. “We don’t know what she felt. No evidence that we can determine shows alterations to that paper body indicating a raised seal. Their work flow is a scan of the document. Upon examination, there is no evidence of raised seal.”

WND doesn't tell you, of course, that Zullo's investigation is a discredited joke. He obviously didn't look very hard for the seal, because it's right there, as this enhanced image of a photo of the certificate taken by Guthrie demonstrates:

 

And as we've previously noted, Zullo has never publicly released Hayes' analysis; he's actually expert in handwriting analysis, not digital documents.

The fact that WND is still pushing birther conspiracies and hiding the fact they've been discredited is really all you need to know about why nobody believes WND.

MRC Disappears Sharyl Attkisson From Criticism Of CBS' Anti-Vaccine Coverage
Topic: Media Research Center

Joseph Rossell huffs in a Feb. 11 Media Research Center item:

CBS “Evening News” attempted to show that there is no link between vaccines and autism on Feb. 10, but seemed confused that anti-vaccination views got “traction at all.”

CBS News National Correspondent Jim Axelrod did a good job of showing how a “discredited” study by Dr. Andrew Wakefield scared parents away from the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine, but he failed to acknowledge that his own network played a part in that fearmongering.

He failed to criticize CBS’s role in publicizing the false claims of a link between autism and MMR vaccinations, even as he aired earlier “60 Minutes” footage of parents who blamed their son’s autism on the shot. Axelrod also ignored the fact that the three broadcast news networks combined helped sustain anti-vaccination views by airing 171 stories that mentioned vaccines and autism over 15 years.

Rossell doesn't mention that one of the chief promulgators of anti-vaxxer sympathy at CBS was Sharyl Attkisson, now a right-wing darling for her factually challenged anti-Obama reporting.

As we've documented, the MRC criticized Attkisson's anti-vaxxer reporting at the time but has been virtually silent about it since she became a conservative cause celebre.

By ignoring Attkisson, Rossell avoids having to confront the uncomfortable question of why Attkisson couldn't be trusted then but is unimpeachable now.