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Sunday, April 3, 2016
CNS Unemployment Numbers Distortion Watch
Topic: CNSNews.com

As has been the pattern at CNSNews.com for the past few months, Susan Jones' lead story on March's umployment leads with the labor force participation rate. She fails as usual to mention the relevant fact that the labor force number -- since it includes students and retirees who aren't looking for jobs -- is a unreliable number for discussing unemployment.

Instead of recruiting Michael Chapman to write another article about how the black unemployment rate is double that of whites (which it has always been since statistics began to be kept, and which is referenced in Jones' article), Terry Jeffrey weighs in with an article on new data show "The United States lost 29,000 manufacturing jobs in March while gaining jobs in retail trade, food services and drinking establishments." Jeffrey's implication that this is somehow President Obama's fault is undermined by a chart accompanying his article that shows not only retail jobs eclipsed manufacturing jobs around 2003 -- under a Republican president -- but that manufacturing jobs were at their lowest levels since the 1940s in 2009, and that employment in the manufacturing sector has mostly been on the increase since then.


Posted by Terry K. at 9:34 PM EDT
Speaking of Stupidity in Higher Education...
Topic: Media Research Center

So the Media Research Center is promoting its MRCTV with ads like this:

Of course, it's not like getting college students to say dumb things on camera is difficult, or anything to be proud of as a career.

But when we think of "stupidity in higher education," we think of MRCTV's Dan Joseph pretending to be "transgender" by going to a college campus, dressing in gym shorts and a tank top speaking with a lisp (because, you know, transgender) and demanding to use the women's locker room because "I have the man parts but, you know, inside I feel more like a woman."

Maybe Joseph needs to go back to college (assuming he ever went in the first place) so he can learn what being transgender actually means. He won't, of course, because the MRC is paying him to mock transgenders, not tell the truth.


Posted by Terry K. at 5:42 PM EDT
Saturday, April 2, 2016
Obama Derangement Syndrome Watch, Supersize WorldNetDaily Edition
Topic: WorldNetDaily

This week, a United States president was humiliated on the world’s stage by an aging, insulting Communist dictator.

Our feckless U.S. president appeared unfazed by the message he portrayed of American incompetence and historic irrelevance.

In fact, the president appeared pleased with himself and seemed to revel in his infallible cleverness.

-- Michele Bachmann, March 22 WorldNetDailiy column

This week, our illustrious president, Barack Hussein Obama, visited the communist island nation of Cuba. This of course gave rise to much contention, as the visit sort of symbolizes the success of the pernicious Obama agenda.

Since he’s an America-hating, socialist swine, Obama eagerly entertained criticism of America from Cuban President Raul Castro on the issues of race relations and economic inequality. In a sense, it is amusing that the tin-horn dictator of this Third World latrine would have the temerity to criticize America on those points, since race relations and economic inequality in Cuba are handled with the same heavy hand as other concerns.

-- Erik Rush, March 23 WND column

It is now even more apparent that Obama, being in his last year of an arrogant, belligerent, divisive and highly destructive presidency, believes that he can do whatever he wants, regardless of appearances. He is consciously disparaging the United States as his final payback for what he views as hundreds of years of continuing racial discrimination toward African-Americans and, more recently, his fellow Muslims.

-- Larry Klayman, March 25 WND column

Within the ivory towers of America’s Ivy League colleges, where theories are equated with real-life experience, leftists like Obama are taught that dictators like the Castro brothers are a byproduct of America’s dominance around the world; therefore, they’re worthy of praise in a morbid sort of way, despite oppressing their citizens for decades. 

-- Carl Jackson, March 25 WND column

At the same time, like so many around the world, we have felt profound contempt toward ISIS and are even more resolute than ever that the U.S. government needs to do everything within its power to eradicate Islamic jihadists from the planet.

Unfortunately, with the present regime in our White House, it’s never going to happen, for it was instrumental in creating ISIS, continuing to downplay its threat, and even aiding and abetting its growth. I’ll prove it.

[...]

Is Obama enabling the diminishing influence of Christianity and Easter itself in the U.S.?

Do you see why we need a strong, conservative, commonsense leader?

-- Chuck Norris, March 27 WND column

Does any of that mayhem have anything to do with this country or with our security? Does Obama – or anyone in his administration – care about the ongoing experience of Europe in dealing with the massive refugee problems, the crime, the inundation of its societies and the effect on the people, and the imminent and very real threat that among the migration of people are those who are, indeed, terrorists?

Judging by his non-reaction, any logical person would conclude Obama doesn’t care and doesn’t think it’s a problem, especially for Americans.

[...]

However, if anyone has any question as to why Donald Trump has the support he does, this is the reason.

Barack Obama has created Donald Trump’s support.

Donald Trump is saying what average Americans want to hear: Protect our country, our future and our heritage, and the bottom line is immigration. Stop it and fix it.

-- Barbara Simpson, March 27 WND column

Barack Obama reaffirmed his determination to remain at war with the country he leads until Jan. 20, 2017, by admitting 100,000 predominantly Sunni Muslims from the Middle East whom he calls “refugees.”

[...]

It’s past time Congress, the press, the Republican Party and every 2016 presidential contender recognize what we are up against – not just a committed and brutal foe who seeks our destruction, but an appeaser in the White House either oblivious to the threat he is increasing or secretly accommodating it.

Far-fetched?

Remember who Obama is. He is a subscriber to the Marxist Cloward-Piven strategy of orchestrated chaos at home. He’s practiced it with his economic policies. He’s practiced it with his health-care policies. Why does anyone not believe he would practice it with national security policies?

He’s doing it in plain sight.

-- Joseph Farah, March 28 WND column

Finally, I suspect that Barack Obama is such a sissy boy when it comes to armed conflict that he won’t even watch war movies or John Wayne Westerns.

-- Burt Prelutsky, March 28 WND column

One of the most noteworthy examples of this phenomenon has been our scurvy knave of a low-born, treasonous scoundrel president, Barack Hussein Obama, as he attempts to characterize Muslim populations as benign and assimilable. Specifically, I refer to Obama’s recent rhetoric in light of the massive uptick in terror attacks by Muslims over the last several years. He’s found it necessary to admonish Americans not to hold animosity nor suspicion toward “America’s Mooslims” as a result of their worldwide terror attacks, their ongoing invasion of Europe and the tinderbox they have made of the Middle East and parts of Africa. Presumably, this is toward strengthening his argument for allowing untold numbers of Muslim “refugees” into the United States.

It bordered on hysterical (as in outrageously humorous) a couple of days ago when Obama reminded us once again of the “many contributions” Muslims have made to the rich history of our country. I defy anybody to name one significant contribution Muslims have made to this nation – with the qualifier that it is a positive contribution.

-- Erik Rush, March 30 WND column


Posted by Terry K. at 10:16 AM EDT
Friday, April 1, 2016
No, Tom Blumer, Brussels Bombing Suspect Is Not A 'Journalist'
Topic: NewsBusters

Tom Blumer, the spectacularly clueless NewsBusters blogger, is weirdly obsessed with the Associated Press, to the point that he's actually mad when the AP reports the truth.

Blumer goes off on the AP again in a March 28 post:

Media outlets around the world are reporting that Faycal Cheffou has been arrested for his alleged involvement with last week's terrorist attacks in Belgium.

Media outlets around the world are reporting that Faycal Cheffou was a journalist — except for the Associated Press.

There are two entries at the AP's "Big Story" site which contain references to Cheffou. A search at the AP's main national site, where stories originally posted often disappear after they are "updated" for future developments, returned no stories on Cheffou.

[...]

Why won't AP describe Faycal Cheffou as others have? Because he didn't have a union card? Someone will have to ask them.

AP's position on this is far more than an academic matter. Its writeups clearly drive the presentation of the news on the Big 3 networks' morning shows, and virtually ensures that Cheffou, if he is mentioned at all, will not be tagged as a journalist. If he really was, and there seems to be little reason to believe that he wasn't, that's a pertinent fact viewing audiences should know, and won't.

Missing from Blumer's article: any evidence that Cheffou is, in fact, a journalist. And there appears to be a good reason the AP didn't report this information: because it doesn't appear to be true.

Blumer does mention a video Cheffou posted on YouTube two years ago as apparent backup for his "journalist" claim. But as the UK Independent reports, that video is the only apparent proof of Cheffou being a "journalist," and nobody is calling him that except Cheffou himself.

Blumer notes an AFP article that "refers to Cheffou working, presumably as a news person, at a radio station back in 2008." But Blumer is merely speculating; the article does not state what he did at the radio station and, like the Independent, notes that the source of Cheffou being a "journalist" is Cheffou himself.

So it seems that the AP is being quite prudent in not labeling Cheffou as something for which there is no proof. Blumer might want to take a lesson from that.


Posted by Terry K. at 2:21 PM EDT
WND Goes All In Defending Trump Campaign Manager, Bashing Reporter He Allegedly Assaulted
Topic: WorldNetDaily

When the story first emerged of the alleged altercation between Donald Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and reporter Michelle Fields, WorldNetDaily seemed at first to rush to Trump's side in an article by Cheryl Chumley that presented the side of Breitbart News, Fields' then-employer, in throwing its reporter under the bus. WND's reporting got more balanced, however, as videos supporting Fields' accusation that Lewandowski forcefully grabbed her.

But since the arrest of Lewandowski on a charged of battery over the incident, WND has totally gone in for Trump and Lewandowski, and against Fields.

Jerome Corsi declared that the Florida prosecutor who brought the charges "supports Hillary Clinton’s campaign for president." By contrast, Corsi and WND had no problem with Katherine Harris, the Bush supporter who just happened to be Florida secretary of state in charge of elections when the 2000 presidential election went all wacky in Florida -- to the point that the first book published under the WND Books imprint was a memoir by Harris.

Chumley played the distraction card with an article asserting that "when it comes to roughhousing reporters, Democrats, including one tied to President Obama’s years-ago CIA pick, seem to take the cake."

Another Corsi article takes stenography from the Trump campaign by repeating "his campaign’s initial suggestion that Fields had a history of such allegations against public figures."

Obama Derangement Syndrome victim Wayne Allyn Root, meanwhile, contributed a column in which he asserts that "The whole thing looks like a conspiracy to stop Trump’s campaign, while ruining the reputation of a good man" and slags Fields as a publicity-seeker who may be secretly paid by George Soros while playing the lame "I'm just asking the question" card:

Fields has a new book coming out. Did her attempt to turn a minor touch into an international incident have anything to do with boosting sales of her new book? Was she trying to claim her “15 minutes of fame”?

Could Fields have been paid to set up Trump and cry foul? Could George Soros or MoveOn.org have made her an offer she couldn’t refuse? Could the Clinton Foundation have promised her a lucrative job? Could a lobbyist have offered her a bribe? After all, K Street stands to lose billions in government business if Trump is elected.

These are all questions that need to be asked.

[...]

Is there solid proof that the bruise on her arm was legitimate? Could it have been created with makeup after the fact? Could she have purposely bruised her arm after the fact to create a false picture?

Was this entire incident an exaggeration from a desperate attention seeker? A political set-up? Or just an attempt to sell books?

One thing it was not is pretty clear: It was not assault.

That attitude is joined by WND columnist andTrump fangirl (and apartheid fangirl) Ilana Mercer, who slags Fields further:

Look: Michelle Fields and her enablers are no conservatives. These women and their male helpers inhabit a solipsistic, narcissistic, decidedly progressive universe.

In “A Nation of Victims,” Mr. Sykes had described a lamentable process whereby America’s formative institutions had morphed from transmitting timeless values, to being propelled by a therapeutic ethos, a “social contract with The Self.”

A contract with The Self – or the selfie – better describes the new breed of badly bred, unprofessional, Michelle Fields millennials.

The woman’s claims-making is that of someone who sees herself as the center of a small universe, feminized and sissified by her ilk.

Mercer goes on to huff that "Mr. Lewandowski is being criminalized and his employer maligned for an infraction invisible to the naked eye" by "Ms. Fields and her coven of pseudo-conservatives," concluding: "The assault on Ms. Fields was as real as the ectoplasm said to spill from a medium’s mouth during séance (which is to say, as truthful as what comes out of Megyn Kelly’s mouth)."

That line of thought appears to be the official WND line.


Posted by Terry K. at 12:35 AM EDT
Thursday, March 31, 2016
MRC's Tabloid Hypocrisy Continues
Topic: Media Research Center

Is the Media Research Center still being hypocritical about the credibility of tabloids regarding the sex lives of presidential candidates? You bet it is.

The MRC continues to be aghast that the National Enquirer's report on alleged affairs by Ted Cruz though it demanded in 2008 that the media pick up tabloid reports of a John Edwards affair. Scott Whitlock huffs that "there’s a complete lack of solid sourcing in the sleazy National Enquirer allegations against Ted Cruz," and Curtis Houck complains that late-night hosts are "promoting the smear as legitimate."

And as expected, Tim Graham and Brent Bozell devote an entire column to whining about it, harrumphing that "The National Enquirer's name in journalism is synonymous with factually unsupported drivel of the lowest kind. It is a sacred truth that no responsible journalist would reference the kind of garbage found in this tabloid" and further complaining about "the awful National Enquirer."

Funny, Bozell (and, thus, Graham since he was Bozell's ghostwriter at the time) didn't have that problem in 2008. In his column on the Edwards scandal, he hurled no epithets at the Enquirer for pedding "garbage" and "drivel," instead touting how "for months ... the National Enquirer has been trickling out the goods they collected on John Edwards having an affair and possibly a love child with campaign aide Rielle Hunter, staking out Edwards in a California hotel - and how he hid in the bathroom to avoid them." He went on to  praise the Enquirer for having "dug out the Edwards affair."

And the MRC was desperate to promote the Edwards scandal at the stage that it was "factually unsupported drivel." As early as October 2007, it was demanding that "MSM" coverage of the Enquirer's reports on Edwards because "the mere allegation would be worthy of a media frenzy based upon its recent behavior."

However, the MRC is so dedicated to keeping up the double standard that MRC video guy and world's lamest fake transsexual Dan Joseph went out and "asked Americans" -- read: played man-on-the-street in front of the White House -- about the Cruz-Enquirer story, which he introduced this way:

Last week, America's most-famous tabloid newspaper, “National Enquirer,” printed a story alleging that Republican presidential candidate Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has had extramarital affairs with multiple women throughout the course of his political career. Many of Cruz's detractors immediately took the story as fact and used it in an effort to derail his campaign. 

Apparently, “National Enquirer” is now considered, by some, to be a legitimate source of political news and information.

MRCTV went to the White House and asked Americans what they thought of this shining beacon of journalistic integrity. 

Joseph didn't tell the "Americans" he ambushed that his employer considers the Enquirer a "shining beacon of journalistic integrity" -- when they go after Democrats, anyway. But he does ask one person, apparently without irony, "Do you think it's a good thing that we're starting to have political discussions about stories that were broken in a tabloid like this?"


Posted by Terry K. at 5:59 PM EDT
What WND Columnist Brent Smith Doesn't Get About Deportation
Topic: WorldNetDaily

When Brent Smith joined WorldNetDaily's weekly commentary lineup at thte start of 2016, it touted how he considers himself "just an average Joe," adding, "I’m proud of the fact that I’m neither a journalist nor an academic, but a completely self-educated common-sense thinker, a la Limbaugh, Hannity and Beck." Well, that explains a lot.

Smith writes in his March 28 column defending the idea of deporting all 11 million allegedly undocumented immigrants in the U.S. and bashing an article in "the lefty website The Nation" for criticizing it:

Throughout the entire rather lengthy and supposedly “well-researched” article, there is not a single mention of America’s No. 1 success story regarding deportation – that of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Maybe Tanya’s search engine didn’t go back to the year 1954, or I suppose it is possible that she has a search filter that won’t allow her to access micro-aggressive words like “wetback.”

In fact it was Eisenhower, who in 1954 began a deportation program called “Operation Wetback,” which successfully deported virtually all 3 million illegal Mexicans living in the United States. And by the way, he did it without 21st century technology and massive numbers of agents. In fact, “Operation Wetback” employed only a little over 1,000 men.

I wrote about it a couple of years ago.

Well, he got it wrong. As NPR details, only about 1 million allegedly undocumented Mexican immigrants were deported under "Operation Wetback," not the 3 million Smith claims. Further, several dozen immigrants reportedly died en route back to Mexico under the primitive conditions Eisenhower's troops shipped them.

But Smith would probably dismiss NPR as a "lefty" site that can't believed. So let's look at a site whose neutrality is unimpeachable, FactCheck.org:

The "Handbook of Texas," sponsored by the Texas State Historical Association, says in its entry on "Operation Wetback" that the number forced to leave is "probably less than 1.3 million":

Handbook of Texas: The INS claimed as many as 1,300,000, though the number officially apprehended did not come anywhere near this total. The INS estimate rested on the claim that most aliens, fearing apprehension by the government, had voluntarily repatriated themselves before and during the operation. … Many commentators have considered these figure[s] to be exaggerated.

We also contacted the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum in Abilene, Kansas. Director Karl Weissenbach told us his staff had researched the library’s holdings to determine the veracity of the 13 million claim and could find nothing to support it. Indeed, the staff turned up a report to Cabinet dated Jan. 26, 1955, that suggests a much lower total:

Report to the Cabinet, Jan. 26, 1955: [A] year ago the Border Patrol was faced with the disheartening task of apprenhending and expelling some 3,000 ‘wetbacks’ each day, apprehensions now are running slightly less than 300 daily.

[...]

Mexican nationals were shipped back using trucks, buses, planes and ships. According to the Texas State Historical Society, the use of ships was discontinued after some drownings caused a public outcry in Mexico.

In that piece from "a couple of years ago," Smith expanded on it more than he did at WND, claiming that "700,000 self deported," which in addition to being untrue seems to contradict his WND claim that Ike's troops did all the deporting. Smith adds at WND:

Eisenhower understood full well the dynamic effect of deportation. The first step is to let the country know you are serious. The next step is to demonstrate your resolve with direct deportations. When illegals catch wind that the authorities are not just “talking the talk” but “walking the walk,” they begin to self-deport, which is what happened under Ike. He had to deport only a fraction of those who fled our country. The overwhelming majority left on the own.

Which still isn't true. But remember, WND editor Joseph Farah is weirdly proud of the fact that his columnists promote misinformation.


Posted by Terry K. at 8:44 AM EDT
Updated: Thursday, March 31, 2016 8:46 AM EDT
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
AIM Joins WND In Trying To Revive Vince Foster Conspiracy Theories
Topic: Accuracy in Media

WorldNetDaily isn't the only ConWeb outlet trying to revive fake Clinton scandals to try and take down Hillary Clinton.

A March 25 Accuracy in Media column by Hugh Turley prattles on about the "cover-up" of the "murder" of Vince Foster and tries to play concern troll:

As Hillary Clinton moves closer to securing the Democratic Party nomination for president, her critics and supporters might wonder why she has no apparent interest in the ongoing cover-up of the murder of her close friend and confidant. The day after Foster died, Hillary had lunch at her mother’s home in Arkansas with James Rutherford III, a friend and associate of Foster and the Clintons and dean of the Clinton School in Arkansas, and he told the FBI, “Hillary Clinton was in complete shock and disbelief at the thought of Foster committing suicide.” And she wasn’t alone. What changed her mind?

Needless to say, Turley -- credited only as having "co-authored the final 20 pages of Ken Starr's Report on Vince Foster's death" --  makes no mention of the numerous investigations that found Foster's death to be a suicide. Instead he suggests a more timely, if murky, conspiracy theory: that Brett Kavanaugh, an investigator for Starr, somehow fixed things for the Clintons by making sure any official intimation of murder disappeared from the Starr report on Foster, and that Hillary Clinton, if elected president, will elevate him to the Supreme Court as thanks, or something.

You can't make this stuff up, folks. And as long as there are Clinton-obsessed right-wingers around to gin up conspracy theories, you never have to.


Posted by Terry K. at 2:56 PM EDT
WND Repeats Never-Proven Accusations of Censorship By Clintons
Topic: WorldNetDaily

The death of Vince Foster isn't the only so-called Clinton scandal WorldNetDailiy will be trying to revive in its partisan attempt to stop Hillary Clinton from getting elected president -- now it's reviving a debate over a 10-year-old miniseries. A March 20 WND article by Bob Unruh begins:

Hillary Clinton’s presidential aspirations may be threatened by a possible indictment over her email server, the loss of American lives in Benghazi and other scandals. But the Clintons still wield enough power to suppress a movie that reflects poorly on her husband’s administration 10 years after the only time it was allowed to be seen.

“The Path to 9/11” was written by Cyrus Nowrasteh, who confirmed to WND this week that the Clintons ordered the five-hour documdrama to be quashed after it drew a stunning 28 million viewers when it was aired by ABC amid controversy.

Actually, Nowrasteh doesn't confirm anything, and he most definitely offers no proof to support what Unruh's article claims -- that the Clintons are "fiercely suppressing" a home video release of the 10-year-old ABC miniseries to this very day.

Unruh also lets Nowrasteh claim that his portrayal in the film of Clinton administration failures to capture or kill Osama bin Laden before 9/11 are "100 percent factually correct." It's not: As we documented at the time (along with others), it was quite inaccurate, making Clinton administration officials look as bad as possible. While Unruh touts that Nowrasteh "derived many of its scenes from the 9/11 Commission Report," one scene originally contradicted what the 9/11 Commission stated.

WND's pushing of such a fact-free claim tells us that the barrel of Hillary outrage it will be similarly flogging as the election draws near will be similarly devoid of substance.


Posted by Terry K. at 12:27 AM EDT
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
NEW ARTICLE -- NewsBusted: The Gwinn File
Topic: NewsBusters
NewsBusters blogger Dylan Gwinn not only writes about sports, he pushes homophobia and gets things spectacularly wrong. Read more >>

Posted by Terry K. at 4:07 PM EDT
Be Careful What You Wish For, Bradlee Dean
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Bradlee Dean writes in his March 24 WorldNetDaily column:

Just down the street in Williamsburg were the head and arm restraint stocks, which were located right outside of the local courthouse. A historian and re-enactment actor was outside educating the people who had questions.

One question asked was: “What is the head and arm restraint stocks for?” The actor said that before and after the revolution, the local magistrates would administrate Ecclesiastical Law (Romans 13).

She went on to tell us that crime was not tolerated in the least bit by the colonies because they understood the price paid to establish their freedoms (John 15:13). The stocks were used for those who would lie or commit the act of perjury (lie under oath, Revelation 21:8).

The criminal would be punished by being thrown in jail for up to six months (1 John 3:4). A fine would have to be paid, and this all took place after their head and hands were placed in the stocks as a means of public punishment.

First, they would bind them, take the criminal’s ear and nail it with a long nail to the stock for one hour. After that hour was up, they would then go to the other side and nail the other ear to the stock for one hour.

When removing the nails, they would often slit the ear completely off, marking the offender so other colonies, as well as other cities or states, would understand that the person was not to be trusted. Thus, they fulfilled the true definition of “Earmark.”

She ended with saying that it was to teach the person to repent before God so he would not end up in hell (Matthew 3:2; Leviticus 19:17).

Can you imagine the “earmarks” we would see today in the American church, government or in businesses if these laws were still enforced? How they loved their freedoms by demonstrating zero tolerance for crime (Deuteronomy 23:14).

Dean seems to be longing for such severe punishment for lying, but given his lengthy record of perjurious falsehoods, he'd better be praying for mercy if he were ever subjected to such a system.


Posted by Terry K. at 12:16 AM EDT
Monday, March 28, 2016
MRC Transgender Freakout Watch
Topic: Media Research Center

The mere idea of transgenders, for some reason, is a berzerk button at the Media Research Center, particular for MRC official Tim Graham. And Graham does his freakout thing once again in a March 25 NewsBustsers post:

The PBS NewsHour is nothing if not sensitive to the “LGBT community.” A Thursday night segment drew the online headline “How North Carolina signed a bill dubbed the most anti-LGBT law in the U.S.” Or, as the gay-left site Towleroad gushed over it, “PBS News Hour Takes Apart North Carolina’s Anti-LGBT Law: WATCH”.

The PBS anchor on this story was John Yang, an openly gay journalist who gave advice about being “Out on the Air” at last year’s convention of the activist National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association.  The guests were Time Warner Cable reporter Loretta Boniti and Dominic Holden, “national LGBT reporter for BuzzFeed news.”

Those opposed to say, letting men who “identify” as female use the ladies restroom, were barely noticed.

[...]

Notice how PBS uses all the usual leftist lingo. Their progressive groups are merely “legal rights groups” fighting for what Yang called an “anti-discrimination law” that “expanded protections for LGBTQ people, including letting transgender people choose which bathroom to use.”

[...]

Yang kept the PC lingo going asking if this is the new frontier for “LGBTQ rights.” The PC crowd may faint: He left out “Intersex” and “Asexual”! Why can't PBS go all the way to LGBTQIA?

Graham goes on to deny the discredited right-wing myth that sexual predators will exploit transgender non-discrimination laws to sneak into women's restrooms ... by citing alleged examples from an anti-abortion website and one he claims is "feminist-activist" but actually smears transgenders as "Transjacktivists." And actually, the anti-abortion website's example (involving a convicted sex offender who pretended to be transgender sexually assaulting women) is irrelevant to the issue at hand since it involved a homeless shelter, not a public restroom, and the incidents took place before a transgender accommodation law was passed. The anti-abortion website's article is strategically vague about the timing of the incident vis-a-vis the accommodation law.

Presumably, the kind of person Graham would like to voice the right wing's anti-transgender agenda on NPR and elsewhere is MRC intern Daniel Garza, who goes on the kind of anti-LGBT tirade that shows him to be prime MRC employment material in a March 28 post:

A time-tested, common-sense civic and cultural norm is currently under direct assault. Specifically, the inherent right to gender privacy, that fittingly separates men and women when it comes to access to public restrooms, has become the latest battlefield of the left.

Not surprisingly, Fusion, the hyper-left sister network of Univision, has gone off the deep end in support of this latest manifestation of the LGBTQRSTUVXYZ (so many letters it’s impossible to keep up so we might as well just list them all) agenda that it’s become a borderline obsession.

In recent days, Fusion has given favorable attention to subjects including but not limited to: a queer-friendly sex-ed guide, a celebration of a trans woman resisting police, San Francisco banning city employees from going to North Carolina and an article about a supermarket’s gender-neutral restrooms.

Most prominently though, has been Fusion’s constant push for acceptance of Trans people being able to decide what restroom they want to use.

Those who are trying to stand in the way of this latest offensive point out there is much at stake in the outcome of this battle. Not only is the right to privacy and decency for women and girls being threatened, but also a basic right to feel ostensibly safe in public areas, since the potential for more sexual assaults and sexual harassment would no doubt increase.

[...]

Where is such madness taking us, and where do we draw the line? For even more convoluted complexity you only need to take a look at nonbinary.org. Genders there include “faegender”, which is "When an individual’s gender changes with the seasons, equinoxes, and moon phases." As well as “kronosgender” described as “where you are a different gender at certain times of the day” and of course, “condigender”, where you basically only feel like a boy or girl under specific circumstances.

On second thought, maybe you better just hold it next time you need to use a public restroom.

In addition to Garza's entire rant being hateful and silly -- anyone who spouts "LGBTQRSTUVXYZ" as a way to mock those who do not conform to right-wing gender norms is simply interested in having a serious conversation on the subject -- Garza's description of  Fusion as "hyper-left" is just as meaningless; after all, the MRC thinks simply donating money to Democrats makes you "ultra-liberal," so its ideological scale is highly defective.


Posted by Terry K. at 7:56 PM EDT
WND Repeats Fringe Right-Wing Group's Anti-LGBT Attack
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Cheryl Chumley dutifully transcribes in her March 23 WorldNetDaily article:

The American College of Pediatricians has issued a statement entitled “Gender ideology harms children,” pressing educators and lawmakers alike to resist embracing the agenda that’s been advanced by the LGBT movement – that encouraging gender transitions among children is acceptable medical practice.

The organization said the trend toward gender transitioning is tantamount to “child abuse.”

It wrote: “The [ACP] urges educators and legislators to reject all policies that condition children to accept as normal a life of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex. Facts – not ideology – determine reality.”

The group then ran down a list of facts that have been confused or overlooked in the policy discussions on transgender issues.

As CNSNews.com's Penny Starr also failed to do in her article on the group's claims, Chumley fails to mention that the American College of Pediatricians is a fringe right-wing group with a couple hundred members at most and should not be confused with the much larger, more legitimate American Academy of Pediatrics.

Chumley, like Starr, also fails to include the view of the legitimate medical establishment of the fringe group's anti-LGBT views, despite her boss Joseph Farah's self-proclaimed insistence that "WND reporters and editors are always encouraged and required to seek out multiple sources and contrary viewpoints in news articles." Instead, Chumley quotes her other boss, David Kupelian, trying to boost the fringe medical organization's credibility by claiming that "It’s great when an organization of medical professionals dares to defy political correctness and boldly stands up for truth and common sense" and ranting that "most of the medical associations in the U.S. have been infiltrated and taken over by the hard left."

Once again, WND's bid to add "real" reporters like Chumley and Douglas Ernst does not appear to be doing anything to help WND's subterranean levels of credibility.


Posted by Terry K. at 12:33 AM EDT
Sunday, March 27, 2016
MRC Denounces Media Coverage of Cruz 'Tabloid Smear' -- But Demanded Media Coverage of Tabloid Story on Edwards
Topic: Media Research Center

In a March 25 NewsBusters item, Media Research Center research director Rich Noyes complained: "Despite the complete lack of any evidence, and only unequivocal denials from women named in the story, a story based on what even the National Enquirer itself labeled only as 'rumors' against GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz found its way onto both the ABC and NBC evening newscasts on Friday." Noyes followed up the next day with more complaints about coverage of thte story, for which he again pointed out "there is still no on-the-record source or any other supporting evidence."

That's a big change from 2008, when the MRC demanded coverage of another tabloid story when it was similarly unsubstantiated.

As we noted at the time, the MRC's Tim Graham huffed that the media was ignoring the story of John Edwards having an affair (at a time when only the Enquirer had advanced it, the current state of the Cruz story), complaining that the media more quickly jumped on the Larry Craig airport restroom toe-tapping scandal -- which, unlike the Edwards story, involved an actual guilty plea in court to an actual criminal charge. Other NewsBusters bloggers complained that one news outlet banned its bloggers from repeating the story, and another whined about the "MSM wall of silence."

And even when the Edwards story was proven to be true after all, MRC chief Brent Bozell still ranted that the story didn't get the play of Republican scandals.

So this is the MRC's chance to  prove it doesn't have a double standard: It should promote the Cruz affair story as much as it demanded the so-called MSM promote the John Edwards affair story. Alas, at this writing the story is nowhere to be found on the front page of MRC's "news" outlet, CNSNews.com.

So, it appears the MRC is satisfied with hypocritical ranting instead of honesty.


Posted by Terry K. at 10:26 PM EDT
Saturday, March 26, 2016
A Right-Wing Conspiracy Theory So Nice, Cruz Says It (And MRC Quotes Him Saying It) Twice
Topic: Media Research Center

Republican presidential candidate and Senator Ted Cruz (Tex.) sat for an interview with CBS’s John Dickerson Friday afternoon in National Harbor, Maryland that aired on Face the Nation. Cruz lambasted the media for “hav[ing] a coronation” of Donald Trump as the GOP nominee so he could be viciously defeated by Hillary Clinton in November.

While discussing the possibility of a brokered Republican National Convention, Cruz pointed to how he’s remained close to Trump in the delegate count but at the same time, “the media wants to just have a coronation” of Trump “because the media knows Donald can't win the general, that Hillary would wallop him.”

-- Curtis Houck, March 6 MRC NewsBusters post

During his Super Tuesday election speech, Ted Cruz called out the media as Donald Trump surrogates, hitting them for the disparity in coverage given to Trump. Talking to supporters, Cruz denounced, “The mainstream media, the network suits who make the decisions, want Donald Trump as the Republican nominee.”

He added, “That's why they've given him hundreds of millions in free advertising because they are partisan Democrats ready for Hillary and they know that Donald may be the one person on the face of the Earth that Hillary Clinton can beat in the general election.” 

-- Scott Whitlock, March 15 MRC NewsBusters post

The idea that the "liberal media" is deliberately colluding to make Trump the Republican nominee so he'll be beaten by Hillary in November is a conspiracy promulgated by the Media Research Center.


Posted by Terry K. at 10:31 AM EDT

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