NewsBusters Takes Cue from Palin, Throws Levi Johnston Under the Bus Topic: NewsBusters
Earlier this year, NewsBusters thought well enough of Levi Johnston to grace him with his very own category tag. Mark Finkelstein even ran to his defense in January, bashing MSNBC's David Shuster for labeling Johnston and Bristol Palin "unwed parents."
Not anymore.
Now that Bristol's mom, Sarah Palin, is trying to cut Johnston out of the family -- even to the point of apparently denying him unsupervised visitation of his own newborn son by Bristol -- NewsBusters appears to be doing the same thing.
Warner Todd Huston (of course) lobbed the biggest salvo so far:
Do you care that punk Levi Johnston is bawling to the press that Governor Palin is supposedly a controlling Grandmother? Especially in light of the fact that this kid is an uneducated, immature, unserious lout?
[...]
This time we have punk Johnston whining that Grandma Palin is a bit cross with him and closely watches him when he is with the baby. All I can say is, can you blame her? I wouldn't think much of a grandmother that let's a jobless, high school dropout have unsupervised visits with a child he casually fathered without regard for his girlfriend's future or family. Would you?
Matthew Balan complained that in one interview, Johnston was asked "some obligatory sappy questions, such as what his son Tripp meant to him, and if his 'heart was broken' over the way things turned out."
The last time we heard of Lee Bellinger, it was 1992 and he was buying New Dimensions magazine from Roy Masters and hiring Joseph Farah as its editor. He's resurfaced as a promoter of guides to help people survive the coming social chaos in America.
In an April 8 email sent to the Newsmax mailing list, Bellinger has declared himself "Publisher of Independent Living" -- described as a "monthly financial, health, and taxation intelligence advisory" -- and he has "some disturbing developments" to share with us:
Bellinger goes on to assert that "many Washington insiders (including officials directly involved in homeland security) are personally making emergency preparations for social chaos. In addition, outgoing Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson told Sen. James Inhofe and Rep. Brad Sherman that so much financial mayhem lies ahead U.S. troops may have to impose martial law to deal with social unrest." he continues:
Not to be politically-incorrect, but the simple truth is millions of Americans who've never known anything but prosperity and easy-money have a militant expectation that society "owes" them something. And with so many families on the margins of survival already, the speed of the downward unemployment spiral is downright ominous (and unprecedented).
Worse, there are few signs the taxpayer dependents of today have any of the self-reliance skills that saw the hardy Great Depression generation through the tough times.
In fact, there is mounting evidence tens of millions of low-income government dependents and many others infected with a sense of entitlement are prone to crime and violence -- especially when it dawns on the masses there are not enough jobs and government promises of "relief" are as empty as the U.S. Treasury is bankrupt.
Peppered throughout the report are subheads such as:
When the Police Abandon Law-Abiding Neighborhoods to Mobs
Government Deliberately Keeps Public in the Dark About Multiple Threats to Public Order
Outgoing Vice President Dick Cheney’s Chilling Prediction
Two Categories of People: The Prepared vs. the Clueless
Bellinger, needless to say, has the remedy: the "Social Chaos Survival Guide," which covers the following subjects, according to the email's subheads:
10 Key Warning Signs of Impending Chaos
No Silver coins for Barter? Here's 25 Easily-Acquired Items You Can Hoard NOW
Eight Simple Rules that Let You Buck the System Without Attracting Attention
100 Steps to Greater Self-Reliance While Staying in the Mainstream of Society
10 Simple But Key Steps to Total News Independence
10 Steps You Must Take NOW to Avoid Detention Under Martial Law
Bellinger even provides a bullet list of even more subjects from his book, including:
Protecting your assets against the probability of social chaos. 24 essential steps you should take IMMEDIATELY to properly hedge your bets for a worst-case scenario.
TO FLEE OR NOT TO FLEE -- The pros and cons of hunkering down or evacuating an area that is under biological terror attack.
Inside tips on how emergency planners compile lists of "trouble-makers" to be scheduled for detention in the event civil liberties are ever suspended.
10 facts about emergency property confiscation directives that you MUST know.
Secret government plans to issue "scrip" that will make your "cash-stash" worthless overnight. Know the warning signs to avoid getting ripped off by Uncle Sam.
Bellinger is also offering "THREE GREAT BONUS REPORTS" with purchase:
Free Bonus Report #1: Smart Hoarding 101: Do It Right and Save Big Money By Stocking Up on Food, Water, and Yes, Fuel.
Free Bonus Report #2: Life-Saving Basics: Make Your Own Antibiotic Alternatives At Home.
Free Bonus Report #3: 20 Key Insights Smart Investors Use for Successful Crisis Investing and Financial Self-Defense.
After all the hard sell, we find out how you get all this wonderful, informative stuff: by purchasing an $99 two-year subscription to his Independent Living newsletter.
Well, now we know how Bellinger plans to do his own independent living. How successful is his empire (which also includes another right-leaning newsletter, American Sentinel)? It apparently owns a 40-foot yacht.
WND's Washington Smears Obama's Family Topic: WorldNetDaily
Beware of anyone who thinks Michael Savage is "pure genius and inspiration." Thus, beware of Ellis Washington.
Not content with smearingPresidentObama, Washington is invoking "conservative intellectual and radio host, Dr. Michael Savage" to smear Obama's family as well. In his April 11 WorldNetDaily column, Washington approvingly cites Savage's claim that Obama has a "problem with women" and has an Oedipal complex that proves he has "resentment toward women that he has never been able to get beyond." Washington then spews:
"Honor thy father and thy mother" are such utterly sublime words for the ages. How can one truly honor his father and mother if, as in Obama's case, they repeatedly abandoned the manchild and left him to the care of others? The mother, named "Stanley" by Obama's maternal grandfather, had to grapple with the rejection and psychic trauma of not being loved as a little girl because her father, Stanley Durham Sr., so desperately coveted having a boy child.
Obama's mother, a tragic modern Cassandra-figure (Stanley) transmuted into the omnipresent Michelle, the strong mother-figure who would never leave him. Next was the Rev. Jeremiah Wright who married them, a racist, hatemonger minister – not a father to honor. As a matter of fact, throughout Obama's entire 47 years there were dishonorable mother and father figures who, though they indelibly shaped the manchild, could not receive his honor, including Karl Marx, Saul Alinsky, Woodrow Wilson, FDR, LBJ, Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dorhn, Louis Farrakhan, Father Pfleger, professor Laurence Tribe, professor Charles Ogeltree, Rahm Emmanuel and the communist Frank Marshall Davis, just to name a few.
How can you honor your father and your mother when there is little to honor? When throughout your life there has been only a dishonorable mother and mother figures, a dishonorable father and father figures? In the meantime, America is descending into the paroxysm of economic depression, diabolical neo-Marxism and toward the Orwellian nightmare of a one-world government under his authority. What is driving Obama to this madness? Savage says, "The absence of a father has led to a pattern of idealized control that Obama has not only imposed on himself, but now wants to impose on the United States of America."
There are words for the kind of obsessive hatred exhibited by Washington and Savage, but "pure genius and inspiration" are not among them.
An April 10 Newsmax article by Rick Pedraza falsely asserted that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi "told a crowd of illegal aliens and advocates for immigration reform that federal or local law enforcement of existing immigration laws is 'un-American.'"
As we pointed out when Newsmax columnist made the same false claim, Pelosi Pelosi called immigration raids that separate undocumented parents from their documented children -- not all immigration laws -- "un-American."
Pedraza also asserts that "Despite surveys showing that 75 percent of U.S. citizens are against providing amnesty, President Barack Obama and the Democratic-controlled House will push a system to make 12 million illegal aliens residing in the United States legal" without offering any evidence that the proposed Obama plan is, in fact, amnesty.
The New York Times reports on Marc Morano's newest gig, running the anti-global warming Climate Depot website for the right-leaning Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (heavily funded by ExxonMobil and Richard Mellon Scaife).
The Times erroneously calls CNSNews.com, where Morano worked prior to getting into anti-global warming activism full-time, "Cyber News Service" (that would be "Cybercast," actually) and fails to identify it as a division of the right-wing Media Research Center.
We've detailed how Morano peddled false and misleading claims about global warming at CNS and as an aide to Sen. James Inhofe.
UPDATE: The Wonk Room notes Morano's penchant for overly creative formatting in the press releases he sends out.
It's clear Barack Obama has never considered himself an American, though, ironically, he managed to get himself elected president of the United States.
If you are not now hearing the warning wail of the sirens of tyranny, you should be. Obama's dystopian, socialist, tyrannical agenda has only just begun, using the current "economic crisis" as both rationalization and rationale for an increase in government control over our private lives that has been unequaled since FDR's day.
[...]
If we refuse to fight this battle for the Internet, we allow private and public entities to turn us into thought-criminals by robbing us of our civil rights. I have no desire to live in Orwell's dystopia as interpreted by Barack Hussein Obama.
WND's Cowardice on Obama Birth Certificate Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's Joseph Farah once claimed that "The only news agency in the world, that I know of, that has investigated this matter of Obama's eligibility ... is WND."
That's not exactly true -- but he won't tell the truth about the ones who did, when he deigns to mention them at all.
As we've detailed, WND originally proclaimed the birth certificate released by Barack Obama's campaign to be "authentic." Yet when others remind Farah of his website's previous reporting, which conflicts with the conspiracy-mongering he's peddling now, he lies and obfuscates about it.
While WND promotes supporters of the birth certificate conspiracy -- an April 8 article by Bob Unruh even cites Barry Farber's conspiracy buy-in at rival website Newsmax -- it studiously avoids mention of articles that demolish the conspiracy.
Chief among them is a Dec. 4, 2008, article by David Wiegel at Slate, who describes birthers like Farah and WND as attempting "to overturn presidential results by any means necessary." Wiegel shoots down two significant claims, that the certificate released by Obama's campaign is a forgery and that Obama's grandmother confirmed that Obama was born in Kenya -- both of which were advanced at WND.
Yet WND has never even mentioned Wiegel's article, let alone respond to it.
Why won't WND tell its readers about these developements? What is WND afraid of?The truth, perhaps? That it will be found to have been pursuing a vendetta for months on false pretenses?
Until Farah mans up and starts telling his readers the full truth and admit the parts that have been debunked, WND will continue to be seen for exactly what it is: a vicious, lying, Obama-hating joke of a "news" organization.
UPDATE: Nor has WND responded to criticism of the birther conspriacy by their right-wing fellow travelers at FrontPageMag, which asserted on April 1: "Barack Obama was born in Hawai'i, August 4, 1961 at Kapiolani Medical Center in Honolulu. Obama’s birth certificate posted online is exactly the same birth certificate everybody in Hawaii gets from the State Department of Health. It is not forged," adding that "A World Net Daily story claiming Hawai'i’s Republican Governor Linda Lingle ‘sealed’ the birth certificate is totally false." FrontPageMag also serves up its own substitute conspiracy, claiming that Obama is "creating an opposition which seems to be standing by the side of the road impotently pointing to a piece of paper."
WND's fellow right-wingers are bailing on the conspiracy. Why won't WND acknowledge it?
Corsi Peddles Another Economic Lie Topic: WorldNetDaily
Jerome Corsi reminds us once again why nobody should trust his economic advice (or at least not pay $99 a year to hear it). From an April 8 WorldNetDaily promo for the latest "Jerome Corsi's Red Alert" newsletter:
At the G20 meeting in London, President Obama agreed to create of an international board with authority to intervene in U.S. corporations by dictating executive compensation and approving or disapproving business management decisions, Jerome Corsi's Red Alert reports.
Political consultant Dick Morris said that by agreeing to create the Financial Stability Board, Obama is a "willing accomplice" to a decision that effectively repealed the U.S. Declaration of Independence and abrogated the sovereignty of the United States.
The final communiqués coming out of the G20 meeting in London April 2 included a document entitled "Declaration on Strengthening the Financial System."
"By agreeing to the stipulations in this document, President Obama gave the blessing of the United States to the G20 decision to elevate the Financial Stability Forum into the Financial Stability Board," Corsi wrote. "The United States has only one vote in the newly constituted Financial Stability Board, a group that will be largely controlled by European central bankers."
The new global regulator now has the authority to examine all U.S. banks, brokerage firms and corporations – including non-financial companies such as the Big Three automakers – to examine operations and determine risk.
Actually, no. The Financial Stability Board referenced in the G-20 communiqué does not contain cross-border authority and thus does not in any way limit or eliminate U.S. sovereignty. Further, an April 3 New York Times article -- a real news organization as opposed to WND -- reported, "While the leaders agreed to create a new Financial Stability Board to monitor the financial system for signs of risks, they stopped well short of giving regulators cross-border authority, something France has long advocated."
How many suckers have Corsi and WND conned into paying $99 a year for this fact-free garbage?
P.S. Morris himself repeated this same garbage in his April 7 Newsmax column.
Richard Bartholomew tells us all about another one of the impeccably credentialed folks buying into the Obama birth certificate conspiracy.
An April 7 WND article by Bob Unruh promoted claims by "Lyle Rapacki, a former police officer who has worked in the field of psychological disorders for years," who asserted that "the issue of Barack Obama's eligibility to be president could become a 'flashpoint' in the United States," resulting in "civil unrest, or worse, being unleashed in the streets of our nation." As Bartholomew details, "Rapacki is best-known as an exponent of 'Satanic panic' conspiracy theories. ... In particular, he is alleged to have lied about a girl having been sacrificed by a coven of Satanists in Halloween 1988 when in fact he knew she was still alive."
Sheppard Still Opposes Accountability for Beck Topic: NewsBusters
Noel Sheppard still doesn't think his newfriend Glenn Beck should be held accountable for his words.
In an April 9 NewsBusters post, Sheppard twists criticism of Beck for spreading anti-Obama hysteria that may have played a role in at least one mass shooting into a "War Against Conservative Opinion," insisting that "this new WACO strategy is about – getting rid of all the voices in America that don’t agree with the direction the far-left and the President they got elected are taking this nation."
Sheppard makes no mention about the details of the smoking gun evidence regarding Beck's link to cop-killer Richard Poplawski -- he posted a link at a discussion website for the neo-Nazi group Stormfront of a YouTube video featuring talk show host Glenn Beck talking about FEMA camps with Congressman Ron Paul, and Beck has hyperbolically asserted that gun rights are under fire as friends of Poplawski claimed that the man feared "the Obama gun ban that's on the way."
Instead, Sheppard puts his best spin on it:
So what's the tragic logic on display here?
Brace yourselves: folks like Beck and other conservative talkers are inciting the lunatic fringe in the nation by having the nerve to suggest an anti-gun rights Democrat president along with an anti-gun rights Democrat Congress are going to enact anti-gun rights legislation.
What chutzpah!!!
At no point does Sheppard offer any evidence that Obama is "anti-gun rights" or that there is an "anti-gun rights" legislation pending in Congress.
But such silly things like facts and supporting evidence would have gotten in the way of Sheppard's rant:
Sensing their dream of all radio stations resembling Air America was fading away, the Left concocted a new scare tactic: conservative talkers are a security risk because they are inciting violence. People like Beck aren’t just opposing the new President’s ideas; they’re making America a more dangerous place for law-abiding citizens to walk the streets.
[...]
Enter Poplawski stage right whose rampage the very next day by a man apparently clinging to his guns if not his religion perfectly fit the bill.
And the war was on.
As a result, for the foreseeable future, a conservative talker will likely be blamed for every criminal act that can be somehow connected to anything uttered by a right-leaning media member until such individual is fired.
Of course, Sheppard's employer is fond of linking media portrayals to influencing real-life when it suits them -- Brent Bozell, for instance, bashed pro wrestling by claiming that 12-year-old Florida boy was imitating wrestling moves he had seen on TV when he killed a 6-year-old girl (at least, until WWE sued him for libel and forced him to apologize and retract his claims and pay WWE $3.5 million). And Beck himself has blamed video games for "training our kids to be killers" and "our sons to treat women like whores."
So criticizing people for words and behavior that others might emulate is standard for conservatives. Why does Sheppard think Beck should be exempt? Apparently, inflammatory rhetoric without consequences is OK if you're a Republican.
UPDATE: County Fair's Jamison Foser reminds us of the story behind Sheppard's new favorite acronym: "But far-right extremists have a rather more ... excited view of what happened at Waco. They view it as a battle in a war between an oppressive federal government bent on taking away its citizens liberty, religious freedoms, and guns, and the freedom-loving patriots who must protect their families from enslavement by the government." Oh, and Timothy McVeigh, too.
CNS Hides Partisan Nature of Pollster Topic: CNSNews.com
An April 9 CNSNews.com article by Penny Starr on a press conference by supporters of a "conscience clause" that allows health-care workers to refuse to take part in such procedures as prescribing birth control:
The results of a nationwide poll by The Polling Company/Woman Trend of 800 adults, 18 or older, and 2,865 members of faith-based health care professional organizations also was unveiled at the press conference.
The poll found that 87 percent of the adults said they think health care professionals should not be forced to participate in procedures and practices that they morally oppose – a number that represents people across the political spectrum.
Starr fails to note that The Polling Company is operated by a Republican activist, Kellyanne Conway; thus her polling on this issue is suspect since it can be surmised that the questioning was tailored to provide the kinds of responses that "conscience clause" supports want.
Conway has also demonstrated a hostility toward President Obama, who is considering altering or reversing the "conscience clause." In March 2008, Conway said that then-presidential candidates Obama and Hillary Clinton "arguing about whether she should let him sit on the back of the bus of her presidential ticket." Conway also predicted in 2007 that Obama would lose because nobody had heard of him before 9/11. Being a good, loyal Republican, Conway even rushed to Rudy Giuliani's defense over his personal history of divorces and estrangement from his children.
Starr devoted only a single sentence out of her 23-paragraph article to critics of the conscience clause, writing that they "charge the regulation will impose sweeping changes that will limit access to medical care, especially reproductive health care, for millions of Americans." Starr offers no further detail about the criticism, yet allows a supporter to assert that "the opposite is true."
In a few days President Barack Obama, a professed Christian, will officiate at a pagan ceremony outside the White House and initiate young children into its un-Christian symbols.
This ceremony, the annual Easter Egg Roll on the White House lawn, has its roots in the idolatrous pagan religion of ancient Mesopotamia, the land that was Babylon and is now war-torn Iraq.
[...]
Christians, where in the Bible does Jesus endorse colored eggs, bunnies, bonnets, Easter baskets, lilies or other things rooted in pagan Babylonian nature religion?
What would the Judeo-Christian God say about President Obama's pagan Easter Egg Roll on the White House lawn?
Aaron Klein Guilt-By-Association Watch Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's Aaron Klein just can't stop making desperate guilt-by-assocation attacks on Barack Obama.
In an April 5 WND article, Klein once again publishes the musings of "one of the founders of the Weathermen terrorist organization," Mark Rudd, as an attempt to paint Obama as a radical, even though Klein has never presented evidence that Obama has ever been in the same room as Rudd or even knows the man's name.
With thisdesperateneed to smear Obama, and unable to provide any link between Obama and Rudd that is not circumstantial and tenuous, Klein demonstrates himself to be a sad, bile-filled excuse for a "reporter" -- and, thus, the perfect WND employee.
WND Promotes Another Meaningless Poll Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily descends further into joke status with its second story in as many days touting a meaningless, inaccurate poll.
An April 7 article by Chelsea Schilling reported on an "unscientific" MSNBC poll in which a plurality of respondents give President Obama "a grade of "F" for his performance in office." AT no point does Schilling feel the need to tell her readers the truth about "unscientific" polls: that they mean nothing because they are easily gamed to provide fraudulent responses that distort public opinion. Of course, distoring public opinion is Schilling's purpose here.
Schilling's colleague Drew Zahn reported on a similar meaningless poll the day before.
Savage Joins WND As Columnist Topic: WorldNetDaily
Apparently, WorldNetDaily has decided that it wasn't hateful enough: Michael Savage is now a regular columnist.
It's not a surprise -- WND already hosts Savage's website , it published two of Savage's books, and WND chief Joseph Farah is a longtime Savage apologist.
In the WND article announcing Savage's column (which it publicly admits for the first time it hosts Savage's website, though we first reported it months ago), Farah say, ""It is a great honor and privilege to offer Michael Savage's insights into the news at WND. ... He has an immense following because he is witty, entertaining and fearless."
There is a rising tide of pink fascism in this country, and it comes as a result of the election of Barack Hussein Obama. Obama has signaled that during his reign it will be acceptable to impose gay marriage on the people of the United States. He's being very cleverly used as a tool of the gay puppet masters. He is personally masculine, has a beautiful family and was used by the gay mafia to convince real American families that they should support him.
We are, however, at a loss to explain how such a statement meets the standard of being "witty, entertaining and fearless." Perhaps Farah can enlighten us on that.
