Graham Takes Refuge In Biased Report on Tiller Suspect Topic: NewsBusters
Tim Graham uses a May 31 NewsBusters post to promote the idea that Scott Roeder, suspect in the killing of abortion doctor George Tiller, had no ties to anti-abortion activists, grumbling that "it will be interesting to see how long it takes them to tell us, if it is indeed the case, that George Tiller's murderer was not affiliated with the prolife movement -- or if they will ever report it at all."
But the article Graham cites to back up his claim -- taken from the anti-abortion "news" site LifeNews.com, which has an interest in disassociating Roeder from the anti-abortion movement -- downplays evidence to the contrary. Graham quotes the article's assertion that "Roeder appears to have an affiliation with extremist political groups but not with the mainstream pro-life movement." But the article goes on to note that Roeder had posted messages "on the public forum at the Operation Rescue web site concerning Tiller," which it asserts are "Roeder's only ties to pro-life groups." Graham doesn't quote that part of the article.
Of course, neither Graham nor LifeNews can know that for sure at this point, since the investigation into Roeder has just begun. Nor can LifeNews know that, according to a section of the article that Graham also quoted, anti-abortion groups "genuinely condemned the Tiller shooting" -- that would be mind-reading, something we presume neither Graham nor article authorSteven Ertelt are capable of.
Nevertheless, Ertelt insists that Roeder "appears to have never been a member of any legitimate pro-life group that represents the majority of pro-life Americans." But making such pronouncements is Ertelt's job as LifeNews editor and CEO -- his website was formerly known as the Pro-Life Infonet and has a declared mission to "bring pro-life news to the pro-life community."
In other words, LifeNews is biased media outlet -- but it's a bias Graham likes, so there will be no MRC jihad against it.
Newsmax Kerik Rehabilitation Watch Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax's effort to rehabilitate Bernard Kerik continues with its publication of a May 31 column by Kerik asserting that the U.S. should not use "touchy feely politics or depend on the United Nations" in dealing with North Korea -- despite Kerik having no demonstrated expertise in world politics.
In a May 28 WorldNetDaily video, Mason says in purporting that he's "just searching for the truth" about Democrats and torture and that "I was never partisan about political issues," Mason expresses just the opposite in a spittle-filled rant:
And Pelosi is now dancing around like a thief who -- whose head can't get on straight. Her head is swimming, her -- all of her tortured looks are falling apart. Every part of her -- one of her creases that she erased 20 times ago are coming back to her, her nose is going into directions you've never seen before. His mouth -- her mouth is squandering, her face is sweating, she's pulling -- blech -- she's falling apart. You see how nasty she looks and how miserable and how furious, and how every kind of expression that you've seen on 300 people in a month in now in her face in a second. The face is falling apart. The torture is all over her face. Whatever we talk about torturing other people, she's the one who's being tortured more than any torturer could have been tortured.
If we tortured anybody in Guantanamo Bay the way she's torturing now and the way she's suffering and sweating and sorts -- smugly -- she looks like a deranged pig in heat who doesn't know which way to turn. Her temperature's flying out of control to such an extent that she can't see straight. She looks like she's gonna pass away from misery. She can't even finish a sentence without looking like she's drained and destroyed just from the questions.
Now this is torture. Why? Because she's a lowlife and a fraud and a liar, and she knows it and she was caught. And I wanna ask you a question: How come not one Democrat is suggesting that maybe she should be tried?
[...]
This is the ultimate hyprosisy of the world, that torturers -- Democrats should be tortured, they should be tortured, and they deserve to be tortured because anybody who wants innocent people to be tortured and sent to jail for whatever they did and can't accept the responsibility for themselves are lowlife, filthy, fraudulental, disgusting [unintelligible] and that's the only thing you can call them. If you disagree with me, let me know because you're probably just as low as them if you could disagree with this.
This isn't the only hateful rant that Mason has engaged in for WND. In a May 14 video falsely claiming that Obama "can't tolerate" a National Day of Prayer gathering at the White House, "which is a tradition that goes back all the way to 1952, in Truman's time" -- in fact, Obama followed presidential tradition in issuing a National Day of Prayer proclamation but not a public event at the White House which, as we've noted, had only occurred under George W. Bush -- Mason went on another tirade:
What is the matter with this man? You ever stop to wonder? Only under communism, only under Stalin, did you ever hear that religion should be silenced. Even in Germany, Hitler, as vicious, violent crazy maniac as he was, tolerated religion in his country. But Barack Obama somehow can't tolerate it.
Do you know he spoke at Georgetown University and at Notre Dame and he demanded that the wall behind him should have no symbols, no religious symbols of any kind? He can't tolerate the sight of it. It sounds unbelieveble. If I didn't tell you about it, you would think that somebody is making it up, it sounds like a fantasy. The president of the United States doesn't want any religious symbols on the walls behind him.
[...]
Do you know that there's J.C., it doesn't even say Jesus Christ, it just says J.C. in Georgetown University behind him on the wall. He even wanted that eliminated. Even his initials of Jesus Christ was too much for him to tolerate. Do you believe the president of the United States is doing this?
Now, you're probably saying to yourself, I'm always attacking Barack Obama, I'm probably making this up. I'm not making this up. Everything I just told you is true. This man does not hear -- can't tolerate the thought of the word of religion in his presence.
Mason is making it up, as he did his opening claim. As we've detailed, there's no evidence that the Obama administration specifically demanded that an "IHS" (not J.C.) symbol be covered, only that university signage and symbols be covered during Obama's visit.
Not only is Mason making stuff up, he's not funny -- the biggest sin anyone calling themselves a comedian can commit.
Blumer Ignores the Evidence, Advances Right-Wing Chrysler Conspiracy Topic: NewsBusters
As we've detailed, NewsBusters' Tom Blumer has a long history of botching simple concepts and getting basic facts wrong. So, naturally, he could be expected to weigh in on the latest right-wing non-conspiracy, that the Obama administration is targeting Republican-owned Chrysler dealers for closure.
Blumer does just that in a May 30 post, and the results are about what you'd expect. Blumer explored a tangent of the conspiracy, that minority-owned Chrysler dealers were disproportionately spared from closure. He even quotes a blogger, Sean Parnell at the Center for Competitve Politics, who had calculated that the percentage of minority-owned Chrysler dealers was almost exactly the same before and after the round of closings.
But Blumer has decided that because more minority-owned dealers are allegedly located in less-than-optimal urban locations, more minority dealerships should have closed:
Parnell and his "trusty calculator" are missing an obvious point: The "enemies list" may or may not exist, but the issue of its existence is separate from the issue of minority vs. non-minority dealer survival.
There's a much bigger problem with Parnell's argument. As noted in a May 15 Wall Street Journal article by Alex P. Kellogg, when the number of dealer closures was known but not the identities of all dealers axed, minority-owned dealers publicly feared a three or more times greater depletion in their ranks:
[...]
My trusty calculator tells me that the feared closure rate was 82% (140 divided by 170; NADAM's dealer count appears to be from early 2008), while the actual closure rate was 25% (38 divided by 154).
[...]
All other factors being equal, given NADAM's [sic: NAMAD, or the National Association of Minority Automobile Dealers] expressed fears and the general comparative dealer profile it provided the Journal, the minority-owned dealer termination rate should have been higher -- probably much higher than the 25% overall average. In fact, it's clear that NADAM expected that outcome, even if you heavily discount their worry that over 80% of minority-owned Chrysler dealers would be told to go away as overblown hyperbole.
But it would appear that all other factors were far from equal, and that influences other than bottom-line business considerations were prominent.
In other words, the fact there's no evidence of a conspiracy is evidence of a conspiracy.
One thing to consider when examining coverage of the killing of abortion doctor George Tiller: According to the WorldNetDaily archive, 92 WND articles contain the phrase "Tiller the killer," including several in which the phrase appeared in the headline.
It even pops up in the May 31 WND article on Tiller's death, in the list of headlines of previous articles on Tiller.
WND also repeats Operation Rescue's claim that it's "disturbed" by the killing of Tiller, failing to note that the Operation Rescue website carries a picture of Tiller with the caption, "America's Doctor of Death."
Farah Channels Tancredo, Call La Raza Racist Topic: WorldNetDaily
We've detailed how WorldNetDaily has been a faithful supporter of Tom Tancredo, even publishing a book by him and urging him to run for president. WND editor Joseph Farah has sycophantically written about him: "He's a maverick. He marches to the beat of his own drummer. He's not afraid to criticize members of his own party – including his president. And that's what I love about him."
So it's no surprise that Farah would wholeheartedly embrace Tancredo's smear of La Raza as the "Latino KKK." Indeed, Farah expands on it in his May 30 column:
It bills itself as a "civil rights" organization. It would be more appropriate to say it disguises itself as such. It camouflages itself as such. It hides its real purpose and true intents as such – with the willing and skillful assistance of many of my media colleagues.
In reality, La Raza is a racist hate group – a band of "Hispanic supremacists," if you will, though it is seldom characterized that way.
It is no more a civil rights group than the Ku Klux Klan is a group promoting the civil rights of white people. It is no more a civil rights group than the neo-Nazi scum who marched a generation ago at Skokie, Ill., with the legal protection of the American Civil Liberties Union, another misnamed organization. It is no more a civil rights group than the Aryan skinheads who victimize Jews and others they detest in trying to lift themselves up from the gutter.
La Raza is part of the movement in this country to destroy it from within by dividing and "reconquering."
Its members and leadership are linked directly to those who believe the Southwestern U.S. was unjustly seized from Mexico in the 19th century. It should, they believe, by any means necessary, be reconstituted either as part of that thoroughly corrupt, socialist regime fled by tens of millions of refugees or as an independent, autonomous, Spanish-speaking socialist state – like the mythical land of Aztlan.
The only real differences between La Raza and the neo-Nazis and the KKK are its wealth, power and level of sophistication.
In fact, as we've noted, contrary to the claims of Farah and WND, La Raza has explicitly rejected the idea of "reconquista."
Farah also marches in lockstep with his right-wing fellow travelers by taking Sonia Sotomayor's words out of context in asserting that she said that "Latina women judges are better than white men judges." Farah shows no evidence of having read the entirety of Sotomayor's 2001 speech in which she made that remark, because if he had, he would know that Sotomayor was specifically referring to the importance of diversity in adjudicating race and sex discrimination cases.
Farah similarly regurgitates right-wing talking points by takes Sotomayor's statement that the federal court of appeals "is where policy is made" out of context to claim that Sotomayor "has no respect for the rule of law and the constitutional limits on the judiciary branch of government. In short, she believes it is perfectly appropriate for judges to make policy, legislate from the bench, create new law where none has previously existed." It appears that Farah hasn't read that speech either; in fact, Sotoamyor was explaining the difference between district courts and appeals courts, and even the Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States acknowledges that federal appellate courts do in fact have a "policy making" role.
More Trouble In Orly Taitz's World (That WND Won't Tell You About) Topic: WorldNetDaily
Blogger Patrick McKinnion has been doing the thankless job of keeping track of happenings in the universe of Obama birth certificate obsessives. One of those events is the intra-birther lawsuit of Philip Berg v. Orly Taitz. Since WorldNetDaily won't tell you about the goings-on in Taitz-land these days, we are forced to rely on McKinnion.
There were some filings in the lawsuit due earlier this week. We'll let McKinnion take it from here:
Dr. Orly was due 26 May. Remember the orders were to file electronically? Instead, she FedExed her response. (Tracking number 869611986189) Sent on Saturday the 23rd, the start of a three day weekend.
And she sent it DIRECTLY to Philip Berg's offices. NOT to the court.
Let me restate this. She sent it to the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, rather than the court. She sent it hard copy via FedEx, rather than filed electronically as the court requires. And it arrived on 27 May, the day AFTER it was due.
And her "response" was simply an 18 page rehash of her claims against Lisa Liberi. BAD move in a libel case.
Result? Berg filed a request for default on the Sankey Firm and on Dr. Orly.
And, well, I'll let PACER answer for me......
05/27/2009 27 Request for Default Judgment Entry, Request for Entry of Default; Declaration of Philip J. Berg, Esquire in support thereof; Certificate of Service and Proposed Entry of Default Order GO EXCEL GLOBAL, LISA LIBERI, PHILIP J. BERG, THE LAW OFFICES OF PHILIP J. BERG, EVELYN ADAMS, LISA M. OSTELLA against ORLY TAITZ, DEFEND OUR FREEDOMS FOUNDATIONS, INC.. (BERG, PHILIP) Modified on 5/28/2009 (nd). (Entered: 05/27/2009) 05/27/2009 28 Request for Default Judgment Entry, Request for Entry of Default, Declaration of Philip J. Berg, Esquire in Support thereof; Certificate of Service; and Proposed Entry of Default Order LISA LIBERI against THE SANKEY FIRM. (BERG, PHILIP) Modified on 5/28/2009 (nd, ). (Entered: 05/27/2009)
05/27/2009 DEFAULT BY ORLY TAITZ, DEFEND OUR FREEDOMS FOUNDATIONS, INC., THE SANKEY FIRM FOR FAILURE TO APPEAR, PLEAD OR OTHERWISE DEFEND. (gn, ) (Entered: 05/28/2009)
Dr. Orly (and the Sankey Firm) now have an entry of default instead of a response. Which means that the clerk or the court can rule against them by default and that Berg wins, again though default. Dr Orly and a represenative from the Sankey Firm would have to show in court and argue why they should not have a default judgement leveled against them. Neal Sankey actually could argue that he filed for himself and one of his aka's, so he has a chance.
But Dr. Orly?? She didn't file the required response with the court, didn't file it electronically, and didn't conform to the rules of the court in her response.
It's still a bit early to judge, but Dr. Orly has taken the lead for the title of Worst Birther Lawyer Ever. And Berg may have just broken his losing streak, though against Dr. Orly that's like a cockroach winning against a weevil. Or Tweedledum winning against Tweedledumber. Yosef Taitz might want to start to make sure the family assets are made safe against his wife's stupidity and sheer insanity.
Ouch. No wonder WorldNetDaily seems to have decided that Andy Martin is a more trustworthy obsessive than Taitz.
WND Repeats Bogus Attack on La Raza Topic: WorldNetDaily
In a May 27 WorldNetDaily article breaking the supposedly shocking news that Sonia Sotomayor is a member of La Raza (it caused Tom Tancredo's head to explode, anyway), Joe Kovacs wrote the following:
As WND previously reported, La Raza was condemned in 2006 by former U.S. Rep. Charles Norwood, R-Ga., as a radical "pro-illegal immigration lobbying organization that supports racist groups calling for the secession of the western United States as a Hispanic-only homeland."
Norwood urged La Raza to renounce its support of the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan – which sees "the Race" as part of an ethnic group that one day will reclaim Aztlan, the mythical birthplace of the Aztecs. In Chicano folklore, Aztlan includes California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and parts of Colorado and Texas.
Unruh repeats the claim in a May 29 article -- which approvingly cites Tancredo's smear that La Raza is the "Latino KKK" -- and it's copied in a May 29 NewsBusters post by John Stephenson.
Another misconception about NCLR is the allegation that we support a “Reconquista,” or the right of Mexico to reclaim land in the southwestern United States. NCLR has not made and does not make any such claim; indeed, such a claim is so far outside of the mainstream of the Latino community that we find it incredible that our critics raise it as an issue. NCLR has never supported and does not endorse the notion of a “Reconquista” or “Aztlán.”
Another day, another lie from WorldNetDaily. That's not shocking at all. Guilt-by-association smear fail.
WND Quietly Makes False Obama Attack (Mostly) Disappear Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily has published so many lies about Barack Obama that it makes no effort whatsoever to correct that it's a shock when it actually tries to disassociate itself from a false claim it forwards.
On May 24, WND published the following article:
Revealed: 'The Obama birth certificate protection act'? Bill would prohibit compelling executive branch from releasing documents
WASHINGTON – A bill approved by the House of Representatives and referred to the Senate would prohibit federal employees of the executive branch from being compelled to release any document unless a court makes a specified determination by a preponderance of evidence – legislation at least one group suspects is designed to protect Barack Obama's elusive birth certificate from release.
The legislation, HR 985, resides in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Sovereignty Alliance has issued a "red alert" about the bill it calls "stealth legislation ... to protect Obama from providing his birth certificate."
"It wouldn't surprise me a bit if this were one of the intended consequences of this legislation," said Joseph Farah, editor and chief executive officer of WND, who last week initiated a national billboard campaign to bring attention to the issue of Obama's missing birth certificate and what it might say about his claim to be a "natural born citizen," a status necessary to serving in the White House.
"In any case, this bill puts the lie to this administration and this Congress being the most ethical and transparent in American history," Farah said. "They're very open when it comes to the secrets of previous administrations, but when it comes to their own work, it is shrouded in secrecy. Even the president's birth certificate and student records are well-guarded state secrets."
Why did it disappear? Presumably because it's totally false. Here's what HR 985 actually does:
Prohibits a federal entity (an entity or employee of the judicial or executive branch or an administrative agency of the federal government), in any matter arising under federal law, from compelling a covered person to testify or produce any document unless a court makes specified determinations by a preponderance of the evidence, including determinations: (1) relating to exhaustion of alternative sources, (2) that the testimony or document sought is critical; (3) that disclosure of the information source's identity is necessary; and (4) that the public interest in compelling disclosure of the information or document involved outweighs the public interest in gathering or disseminating news or information. Allows a court, in making the last of those determinations, to consider the extent of any harm to national security.
Defines "covered person" as a person who regularly gathers, photographs, records, writes, edits, reports, or publishes information concerning matters of public interest for dissemination to the public for a substantial portion of the person's livelihood or substantial financial gain, including a supervisor, employer, parent, subsidiary, or affiliate of such a person. Excludes from that definition foreign powers and their agents and certain terrorist organizations and individuals.
In other words, the bill does the opposite of what WND claims it does. Rather than "prohibit[ing] federal employees of the executive branch from being compelled to release any document," it prohibits federal officials from demanding documents from journalists except under certain circumstances.
Even though WND editor Farah himself is quoted in the article, at no point has WND acknowledged to its readers that it published a false article or issued a correction for it, even though numerous people were suckered into believing it.
Right-wing writer Sher Zieve, for example, posted an article based on the WND report before realizing that "my (and others') interpretation of HR 985 may not be as accurate as first thought," adding: "I don't often make this type of mistake and I plan to have a slice of humble pie."
WND manages to commit a bad-journalism twofer: not only did it publish a false story, it refused to formally retract it and tell its readers that the story is false. It's just one of the many, many reasons that WND is a journalistic failure.
Meanwhile... Topic: WorldNetDaily Richard Bartholomew notes that WorldNetDaily's mocking of Muslim conspiracy theories runs counter to WND's own heavy promotion of conspiracy theories, such as "the convergence of multinational corproations, foundations and political and social instruments to assemble a one-world government and the 'New World Order.'"
WND Embraces Anti-Semite Again Topic: WorldNetDaily
We've previouslynoted how WorldNetDaily has embraced the claims of Andy Martin's promotion of the Obama birth certificate conspiracy -- Jerome Corsi is apparently following in Martin's footsteps -- despite Martin's longhistory of anti-Semitism and questionable behavior.
WND does so again in a May 28 article, in which Bob Unruh promotes the lawsuit-happy Martin's latest legal action to order the release of Obama's long-form birth certificate from Hawaiian officials. Unruh describes Martin only as a "Chicago activist" and a "self-described Internet 'writer/columnist/investigative journalist,'" omitting anything that might cast doubt on his credilibity (just as WND has done in hiding unpleasantfacts about fellow birth certificate obsessive Orly Taitz from its readers).
Unruh also leaves out one highly relevant fact regarding any legal action by Martin: a 1985 injunction against him from, among other things, "filing new lawsuits, actions, proceedings, or matters in federal fora" without first obtaining permission from the issuing court. While Martin appears to have filed his latest action in a state-level court rather than a federal one (to which the injunction appears to be limited), the fact that he is considered to be such a source of nuisance lawsuits that an entire court system has placed restrictions on his filings is a warning sign that Martin should not be taken seriously.
Or, at least it would be for anyone who doesn't work for WorldNetDaily.
Your WND Hate Crime Lie of the Day Topic: WorldNetDaily
A May 28 WorldNetDaily article once again repeats the false claim that the hate-crimes bill before Congress "would establish the first special legal protections for pedophiles and those with an array of other sexual proclivities." As we've detailed, WND has repeatedly told this lie to its readers.
Surprisingly, even though the article prominently references the mother of Matthew Shepard, it describes Shepard only as "a murdered homosexual" and refrains from repeating bogus claims from Shepard's killers the they killed him in a robbery attempt, not because he was gay.
Kessler Takes Sotomayor Out of Context Topic: Newsmax
In a May 28 Newsmax column, Ronald Kessler takes Sonia Sotomayor's statement that "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life" out of context, baselessly asserting that the statement "underscores" a "skewed view" endorsed by President Obama that "empathy should work in one direction — in favor of minorities and the poor."
In fact, Sotomayor was talking specifically about race and sex discrimination cases when she made that statement -- a fact Kessler refused to tell his readers.
CNS Spins for Liberty U. on Democrat Club Crackdown Topic: CNSNews.com
A May 28 CNSNews.com article by Adam Brickley gives ample space for Liberty University to spin its crackdown on a College Democrats club on campus, bashing the "liberal media" for reporting that the school "banned" the club when it merely "revoked offical recognition and school funding."
It's not until the 21st paragraph, however, that Brickley gets around to reporting the point of view of an actual member of the College Democrats:
[Jan Michael] Dervish said the lack of university certification creates a problem for the club.
“If we did continue as an unrecognized club on campus, we would not be able to post flyers, have information tables, or make announcements on the internal Web site,” Dervish said. “This would be a rather huge handicap, if we wanted to hold an event to try and recruit members, we would not be able to advertise it on campus.”
Brickley does not explain why the university's forbidding the club to recruit new members or even to publicize events is not the functional equivalent of a ban. After all, it does little good to have the ability to, in the words of Liberty president Jerry Falwell Jr., "still meet on campus" if you're not allowed to tell anyone that there's a meeting.
Indeed, it seems that Liberty is treating its College Democrats much like communist China treats churches that lack official government sanction.
NewsBusters Hops Aboard the Conspiracy Bandwagon Topic: NewsBusters
The group of ConWebbers embracing the unproven GOP Chrysler dealer conspiracy continues to grow.
The Media Research Center endorses it with a May 28 NewsBusters post by Mike Sargent, who rants about how the media won't address right-wing blogosphere claims that "many of the Chrysler dealers that have been chosen for closing have made a habit of donating money to Republicans. The blogosphere, asserts Sargent, "has, once again, proven itself a worthy investigator."
Sargent comes close to stumbling over the truth at one point, noting that "One might assume that, since they are small-business owners, they are overwhelmingly supportive of the GOP." But he quickly adds: "But assumption is not the job of a vigilant press." Of course, Sargent is assuming all of this is true and avoiding an investigation of his own, which would reveal that, yes, car dealers are indeed overwhelmingly supportive of the GOP, thus it is not surprising that a large number of Chrysler dealers would be as well.
But hey, why report facts when you're getting paid to smear Obama and the "liberal media"?
Most hilariously, though, Sargent concludes by likening this partisan witch hunt to Watergate: "The Times is already accused of letting the Watergate scoop slide to the Washington Post. One would hope that they will not repeat their mistake."
One thing to consider when examining coverage of the killing of abortion doctor George Tiller: According to the WorldNetDaily 
WND does so again in a May 28 
