Topic: WorldNetDaily
WND writers take the sore-loser approach to Barack Obama's victory by claiming that those who voted for him are immature. But isn't such petulant whining a sign of a lack of maturity as well? Read more >>
Monday, December 1, 2008
New Article: WorldNetDaily's Sour (And Immature) Grapes
Topic: WorldNetDaily WND writers take the sore-loser approach to Barack Obama's victory by claiming that those who voted for him are immature. But isn't such petulant whining a sign of a lack of maturity as well? Read more >>
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:02 AM EST
Huston Falsely Accuses Columnist of Lying About Palin
Topic: NewsBusters A Nov. 30 NewsBusters post by Warner Todd Huston accuses syndicated columnist Froma Harrop of writing a column "filled with every lie about Governor [Sarah] Palin she could jam into one column." But the things Harrop wrote that Huston claims are lies ... aren't. Huston claims, "Harrop starts with the canard that Palin was the one that bought the $150,000 wardrobe during the campaign. This is an outright lie as not one single reputable report laid the spending on Palin herself." But at no point in the column did Harrop claim that Palin "bought the $150,000 wardrobe"; in fact, Harrop specifically writes that "Many Republicans were understandably irked by this use of their campaign contributions." Huston continues:
In fact, as we've noted, Eisenstadt was never credited with making the original Africa claim; rather, he made an appearance on MSNBC to take false credit for it. As the Associated Press has reported: "While Palin has denied that she mistook Africa for a country, the veracity of that report was not put in question by the revelation that Eisenstadt is a phony." Nevertheless, Huston ranted that "Froma Harrop committed journalistic malpractice of a gross nature with this lie-filled, uniformed rant ... she regurgitates lies here that have been thoroughly debunked weeks ago." He concluded: "Like those of the rest of her profession, Froma Harrop has a visceral hatred of Palin and a nearly pathological need to destroy her. Facts don't matter. Truth is unnecessary. Decorum and objectivity are disdained. They just want Palin destroyed and they will do anything to get that job done." Substitute "Froma Harrop" for "Warner Todd Huston" and "Palin" for "Froma Harrop and anyone who tells the truth about Palin" in that little rant and you'd be much closer to the truth.
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:11 AM EST
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Farah Still Lying About 'Civilian National Security Force'
Topic: WorldNetDaily Joseph Farah wrote in his Nov. 29 WorldNetDaily column:
But Farah made no attempt to find out what Obama meant -- or if he did, he didn't tell his readers in order to falsely smear Obama as wanting to create a "domestic Big Brother program." As we detailed when Farah first latched onto this false meme, Obama has explained what he meant by a "civilian national security force": a restructuring of the State Department as well as "teams that combine agricultural specialists and engineers and linguists and cultural specialists who are prepared to go into some of the most dangerous areas alongside our military." Is it too much to ask for Farah to stop lying about Obama? It appears so.
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:10 PM EST
CNS: HIV/AIDS Victims Are 'Immoral'
Topic: CNSNews.com A Nov. 26 CNSNews.com article by Pete Winn attacked "AIDS activist groups and representatives of various religious groups" for taking a "nonjudgmental" approach in wanting to deal with victims HIV and the AIDS virus in a "truthful" and "medically accurate way." In doing so, Winn described nearly all HIV and AIDS victims "immoral." According to the article, here are the questions Winn asked at "a telephone news conference in advance of World AIDS Day":
Winn didn't address why virtually all HIV/AIDS victims must be labeled as "immoral" or whether the manner in which they contracted the virus should play a role in the quality of the medical treatment they receive.
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:02 AM EST
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Bozell's 'War on Christmas' Double Standard
Topic: Media Research Center Brent Bozell's Nov. 26 column takes offense at Stephen Colbert's Christmas special, in which he and country singer Toby Keith take the whole "war on Christmas" thing a little too seriously:
But that's just the logical destination of a metaphor Bozell once endorsed. From Bozell's Dec. 22, 2005, column:
So, if "it's a war," as Bozell claims, why wouldn't it ultimately be a shooting war? And why shouldn't Colbert and Keith have a little fun pointing out the absurdity of it?
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:34 PM EST
WND Promotes Blogger's Baseless Claims About Google
Topic: WorldNetDaily A Nov. 28 WorldNetDaily article by Chelsea Schilling uncritically promotes a claim by right-wing blogger Pamela Geller that the posts at her Atlas Shrugs blog are being censored by Google -- that is, they are not showing up in searches. Schilling does not make any apparent effort to contact Google officials for their side of the story; rather, she merely echoes Geller's claims that "her exclusive stories about Obama's birth certificate" are being "intentionally suppressed" by Google, and Geller's baseless claim that " the censorship could have something to do with Google CEO Eric Schmidt's relationship with the president-elect." Schilling cites a Geller post about "a board-certified forensic expert who declared Obama's online birth certificate a 'forgery' and an 'obvious fake.'" As she has before, Schilling fails to mention that her employer conducted its own investigation of the birth certificate and found it not only to be "authentic" but that "methods used by some of the bloggers to determine the document was fake involved forgeries, in that a few bloggers added text and images to the certificate scan that weren't originally there." Is Geller among those bloggers who added text and images to Obama's birth certificate? Don't count on Schilling for the answer. Schilling also fails to mention Geller's most notorious claim regarding Obama's parentage: that he is the illegitimate son of Malcolm X. Certainly that counts as an "exclusive story" worth noting, does it not? But no -- Schilling wants you to think Geller is a credible spokesperson for WND's side of the Obama-birth-certificate case. And if Schilling -- and, by extension, Joseph Farah and David Kupelian -- believe that, doesn't that further demonstrate the quicksand-based foundation and the factual and moral bankruptcy of WND's anti-Obama jihad over the birth certificate?
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:59 AM EST
Updated: Saturday, November 29, 2008 1:00 AM EST
Friday, November 28, 2008
WND Rehashes Bogus Matthew Shepard Revisionism
Topic: WorldNetDaily A Nov. 28 WorldNetDaily article complains that the Matthew Shepard case "has been used by 'gay' activists ever since as a reason to demand enhanced 'hate' crimes for anyone who perpetrates criminal activity against a homosexual. It goes on to repeat claims made in an Oct. 11 WND column by Coral Ridge Ministries' John Aman purporting to tell "the truth" about Shepard's death -- that Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson killed Shepard over drugs, not "homophobia," as they claimed in an ABC interview. As we noted at the time Aman's column appeared -- and as we previously reported when right-wingers like WND latched onto the ABC interview -- relying on the ever-shifting stories by convicted killers ignore the actual record of the case: McKinney and Henderson have a long record of lying about Shepard's murder, and that the hate-crime aspect of Shepard's death was corroborated during their trials. As a Wyoming police detective who worked on the Shepard case said: "Only three people know what really happened that night. ... One of them is dead and the other two are known liars and convicted felons -- murderers." The dubious ABC interview is referenced in an American Family Association of Pennsylvania press release, on which WND based its article. It similarly claims that "interviews with the two murderers revealed that Shepherd’s murder resulted from a botched robbery." As with Aman, there is no mention of the court record; as with the WND article, there is no mention of the fact that McKinney mounted a "gay panic" defense during his murder trial, which undercuts the robbery argument.
Posted by Terry K.
at 8:43 PM EST
Newsmax Touts Simcox and Minutemen, Silent on Their Controversies
Topic: Newsmax A Nov. 24 Newsmax article by Dave Eberhart promotes criticism of Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano's reported nomination to be homeland security secretary by Chris Simcox, president of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. But Eberhart fails to mention recent controversies surrounding Simcox. As we've noted, Simcox's Minuteman faction has split with another faction headed by Jim Gilchrist. Questions have been raised over where the money raised by the Minutemen has gone, and CNN has reported that the border fence the Minutemen are attempting to build in Arizona -- promised to be 14 feet high and topped with razor wire -- is instead a mere 5-foot-high barbed-wire cattle fence.The Simcox faction splintered further in 2007 when a group of state chapter officers were fired by Simcox after they demanded more financial accountability from him. Eberhart also quotes Brett Farley, executive director of the Minuteman PAC, but similarly fails to note controversies regarding that organization as well. Right Wing Watch reports that little of the Minuteman PAC's money makes it to candidates, with the vast majority tagged for "operating expenses," including ties with groups linked to gadfly Alan Keyes. Yet Eberhart treats Simcox and Farley as if they are heading legitimate organizations and uncritically passes along their opinions.
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:45 PM EST
Updated: Friday, November 28, 2008 12:46 PM EST
WND Birth Certificate Conspiracy Watch
Topic: WorldNetDaily We know that WorldNetDaily's writers apparently don't read their own website, as evidenced by their insistence that the birth certificate released by Barack Obama's campaign is forged, despite WND's own reporting to the contrary. It seems that WND's readers don't actually read it either. WND's Nov. 28 "Letter of the Week" is by one Jesse Smith, who begins by claiming, "It really is amazing how many people don't think Barack Obama could've forged his online Certification of Live Birth. Digital forgery is nothing new and has been around for years." Smith joins those WND employees in failing to acknowledge WND's report on the subject in August:
WND further reported that, as a result, a lawsuit filed against the Obama campaign by Philip J. Berg claiming that Obama is a non-citizen of the U.S. and thus ineligible to run for president "relies on discredited claims." Smith (not to mention the rest of WND) might want to give that report a look before further buying into their little conspiracy theory.
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:18 AM EST
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Feder Still Dishonestly Attacking NYT
Topic: Accuracy in Media We've detailed how Don Feder has offered shoddy and misleading evidence to forward Accuracy in Media's campaign to boycott the New York Times. That continues in a Nov. 24 column Feder wrote for WorldNetDaily. In portraying the Times' coverage of the presidential campaign as "biased, brutish and business as usual," Feder offers numerous misleading claims and unsupported or hypocritical assertions. Feder claims "the Times tried to soft-peddle Obama's ties to unrepentant terrorist William Ayers" adding:
In fact, the editorial in question was published on Oct. 8, not Oct. 17, and the remarks about "race-baiting and xenophobia" were not in reference to Ayers. The editorial also stated:
Of course, Feder made of AIM's relationship with another "unrepentant terrorist," G. Gordon Liddy. Indeed, Feder and Liddy served together as judges for the Media Research Center's annual awards in 1997. Feder also wrote:
Feder offers no evidence that Palin did, in fact, venture beyond Republican talking points during the debate or that she did not refuse to answer all the questions she was asked. Feder referred to the Times "coverage of Palin's daughter's unwed pregnancy" as "sleaze." In fact, the Times did not first report this; the McCain campaign announced it. Feder claimed that the Times "studiously ignored" alleged statements in support of Obama by terrorists and dictators, including Fidel Castro's statement that Obama is "the most progressive candidate to the U.S. presidency." As we noted the last time he did this, Feder took Castro's words out of context; Castro was giving Obama a compliment that was backhanded at best and that Castro also called the U.S. embargo against Cuba that Obama pledged to maintain "an act of genocide." As PolitiFact also noted, Castro did not actually endorse either Obama or John McCain. Feder also noted that "Ahmed Yousef (a top Hamas adviser) compared Obama to John F. Kennedy," which came from an interview Yousef did with WorldNetDaily's Aaron Klein and right-wing radio host John Batchelor. As we've detailed, there are numerous questions about the interview regarding the nature of Yousef's participation in it that Klein has yet to answer. Matching Feder's dishonesty in attacking the Times is AIM's promotion of Feder's column. A Nov. 25 AIM press release states:
But Feder did not mention the Times Company stock price in his column. And like the MRC, Feder and AIM ignore other more logical and plausible reasons for the decline, such as the paradigm shift from print to online and the growing commoditization of news.
Posted by Terry K.
at 11:15 AM EST
Updated: Thursday, November 27, 2008 11:20 AM EST
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Farah Can't Handle Criticism
Topic: WorldNetDaily As we found out, Joseph Farah is desperate to disparage and discredit any and all criticism of WorldNetDaily. Farah's latest target, as detailed in his Nov. 25 column: Kevin Hulten, a blogger for a weekly newspaper in Wisconsin. Writing about someone who forwarded a Nov. 11 WND article by Bob Unruh about how "members of a pro-homosexual, pro-anarchy organization" interrupted a church service in Michigan, Hulten stated: "The mere fact that you reference a 'story' from a site that purports to be 'A free press for a free people' and then in the next breath complains that no news outlets have covered the purported attack should tell you that upon deeper examination that even you know that the old WorldNetDaily is not an acceptable source of information." Of course, as we've repeatedly detailed, Hulten's basic premise is correct. But that didn't stop Farah from going off the handle. Farah called Hulten's paper (as he did with the Huffington Post, where our article on WND that incured Farah's wrath appeared) "insignificant," a "pathetic journalistic institution" and "that rag," and denigrated Hulten (as he did with us) by calling him a "simpleton" and someone "who pontificates on things he doesn't understand in between blogging about high school football games." He engaged in his usual manhood-measuring game (as he did with us), complaining that the paper's website "provides no place on its website where readers can evaluate the relative experience of its top management and staff." And he engages in his usual disingenuous defense of WND. Farah wrote that "WND based its Nov. 11 story, written by a 30-year veteran of the Associated Press, by the way, on five separate sources and has yet to be questioned by anyone with any knowledge of the report." In fact, Unruh's account of the church protest is based solely on one person, a right-wing blogger, Nick DeLeeuw. The other sources Unruh cites -- a press release from the church, and right-wing activsts Randy Thomasson, Gary Glenn, and the Catholic League's Bill Donohue (the church in question is not Catholic) -- are commenting on the incident, not corroborating DeLeeuw's acount. Further, as we've detailed, Unruh's work for WND has produced articles so deficient in journalistic balance and ethics that they would never pass muster at his old employer, the AP. Nowhere, however, did Farah respond to this statement by Hulten:
Further, contrary to Farah's claim that "I still care about truth – and fighting for it everywhere," WND has a long history of lying to and misleading its readers. We, by the way, are linked to in Farah's column as an example of the "medium-size venues" that have criticized WND. Though WND graciously published our response to Farah at WND, he has yet to comment further on it or actually substantively rebut any specific claim we've made about WND. Instead, Farah has apparently decided that all criticism of him and WND is not legitimate; he laments in this column that "it seems like everyone wants to take a shot at me and my news agency." Of course, Farah is not shy about passing judgment on other news organizations -- usually for daring to express an opinion about WND that is insufficiently praiseworthy. If you dish it out, shouldn't you be able to take it? Farah demonstrates that he can't.
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:59 PM EST
Newsmax Promotes Obama-Hater's Skewed Poll
Topic: Newsmax A Nov. 25 Newsmax article is a repeat of a press release on "an exclusive post-election poll conducted by ATI-News and Zogby International" claiming that "A majority of American voters say they would have been less likely to vote for President-elect Barack Obama if they had known he supported controversial legislation that would eliminate workers’ right to a secret ballot in union elections." But that poll is based on a misleading question. According to the press release, the question asked by pollsters was whether they had known "about Barack Obama’s support for a congressional bill to outlaw workers' rights to a secret ballot in union elections." But that's a false portrayal of the Employee Free Choice Act, which the press release called "misleadingly dubbed." In fact, the law would not "outlaw workers' rights to a secret ballot in union elections." According to the House Education and Labor Committee:
Since the poll question is based on a false premise, the poll is meaningless -- and Zogby's poll partner has no credibility. What is ATI News, the organization that paid for the Zogby poll? Its website shows it to be merely an aggregator of other news websites; it generates no original reporting. It is operated by Brad O'Leary, who wrote the WorldNetDaily-published anti-Obama book "The Audacity of Deceit" earlier this fall. As we've noted, the book -- which is a bit of speculative scaremongering about "what can be surmised from his record about Obama's domestic policy prescriptions as president" -- contains numerous misleading or false claims about Obama. As a promotion for his book during the presidential campaign, O'Leary enlisted Zogby to do a series of polls purporting to show that Obama is out of the mainstream, using similarly skewed questions. So, it appears that not only is the bankroller of the poll discredited, Zogby is as well for accepting O'Leary's money to regurgitate his skewed, inaccurate questions and give O'Leary false legitimacy.
Posted by Terry K.
at 11:28 AM EST
Shapiro Falsely Claims Autoworkers Make $75 an Hour
Topic: CNSNews.com In his Nov. 26 syndicated column, published by CNSNews.com and WorldNetDaily, Ben Shapiro falsely asserted, "The average UAW worker makes $75 per hour in salary and benefits, as compared to $42-$48 per hour for workers in Japanese plants in the United States." In fact, that figure includes not only future retirement benefits for current workers, but also benefits paid to current retirees; actual hourly pay and benefits. Further, in the contract the UAW negotiated with General Motors in 2007, new hires make as little as $14 an hour.
Posted by Terry K.
at 10:56 AM EST
WND's Favorite (Alleged Ex-)Nazi Obama Smearer Strikes Again
Topic: WorldNetDaily A Nov. 22 WorldNetDaily article promotes how Hilmar von Campe's WND-published rantings likening Obama to Nazis "has drawn angry reactions from both the American political left and the political right." But the article merely promotes the controversy, and it doesn't treat the criticism as legitimate, stating that, as a former Hitler Youth, "von Campe believes he carries a sober responsibility to warn Americans how quickly free society can be destroyed through socialist ideology." Nor does WND address the false and misleading claims von Campe has made about Obama, a tactic he presumably picked up in his Hitler Youth days. With such a display of shameless dishonesty by WND, you know what's next. That's right -- another von Campe smear job. In a Nov. 25 WND column, von Campe purported to detail "The real objectives of Barack Obama," which involves more likening to you-know-who:
As he has before, von Campe repeats the "civilian national security force" falsehood. And Obama never said that "America is no more a Christian nation"; he said:
Telling lies and pulling quotes out of context? Looks like von Campe is using a version of the very Nazi-esque Big Lie technique.
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:50 AM EST
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Is CNS Blaming Bill Clinton for Bank Problems?
Topic: CNSNews.com A Nov. 25 CNSNews.com article by Matthew Hadro claims that "Four major banks, including one that collapsed, two that received federal bailout money and one that filed for bankruptcy this past September, paid former President Clinton $2.1 million for 13 speeches he delivered on their behalf between 2004-2007." This follows a Nov. 21 article by Matt Cover headlined, "Bailed-Out Citigroup Paid Bill Clinton $700,000 -- For Words, Just Words." Is CNS blaming Clinton for the banks' financial problems because they paid him to speak? It appears so. Another Nov. 25 article by Cover noted that "Robert Rubin, a key economic advisor to President-elect Barack Obama who served as Treasury secretary in the Clinton Administration, has been one of the highest paid executives at the now twice bailed-out financial giant Citigroup." But no original CNS article notes that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who is administering the financial bailout of entities like Citigroup, is a former CEO of Goldman Sachs, which has received billions in bailout money -- and made $38 million in his final year as CEO before joining the Bush administration.
Posted by Terry K.
at 6:49 PM EST
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