WND's Washington: Holder A 'Terrorist-Sympathizer' Topic: WorldNetDaily
In his March 13 column, Ellis Washington delves into the case of Department of Justice lawyers who allegedly at one point provided legal services to terrorism detainees the way he delves into pretty much everything else -- hurling smears and getting stuff wrong.
Washington smears Attorney General Eric Holder has a "terrorist-sympathizer." He also tries to reframe the issue all the way over into thought-crime territory, insisting: "The central question regarding the al-Qaida 7 is not whether it is permissible or even expedient for DOJ lawyers to represent the obviously guilty, because under our system of laws, criminals are entitled to counsel, but why did they do it?"
Washington then cites Ken Starr's statement that "You do not impute the causes of the client to the lawyer who is called upon to make sure that that client's rights are being protected," then irrelevantly adds: "Really, Dean Starr? Where is that idea found in the Constitution?"
Washington also asserts that "Giving constitutional rights to avowed Muslim terrorists is merely a means to Obama's diabolical ends to purposely destabilize American society, thus setting the pretext to eventually create a one-party oligarchy." Aside from Washington's anti-constitution portrayal of the detainees as being exempt from the presumption of innocence and his insertion of yet another Obama smear, constitutional rights aren't the only rights at issue, and those lawyers have received some court victories.
As Media Matters notes, two of the lawyers represented six Bosnian-Algerian detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, and a court found that the Bush administration had violated Guantánamo detainees' constitutional right to present habeas corpus petitions to civilian courts. Another lawyer represented a detainee in a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court, which found that the Bush administration had violated the Geneva Conventions in its handling of detainees.
Washington also rants against the 1963 Gideon case, in which the Supreme Court found that the government is required to pay for lawyers for defendants who cannot afford one:
For too long society has given self-aggrandizing lawyers and the American Bar Association the moral high ground to represent irredeemable characters of the vilest ilk in the name of the Constitution, but these new traditions, like the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of an attorney, did not include the right for "We the People" to provide an attorney for these unrepentant terrorists at taxpayers expense until 1963.
Gideon v. Wainwright (1963) is a landmark case in United States Supreme Court history. In this case, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that state courts are required under the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution to provide counsel in criminal cases for defendants who are unable to afford their own attorneys. Allowing a defendant an attorney and paying for a defendant to have an attorney are two very different philosophies of jurisprudence.
Sounds like Washington really does want to eliminate the presumption of innocence.
CNS Still Promoting False Abortion Claim Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com is continuing to promote the counterfactual claim that the Senate health care bill will include federal funding for abortions. A March 11 article by Penny Starr is the latest to promote it, uncritically repeating a claim by Senate Republicans that the bill doesn't prohibit "federal (taxpayer) funds from being used to pay for abortions," going on to baselessly assert that the Senate bill "specifically allows for taxpayer-funding of certain health plans that cover abortion."
So the final verdict is that the Senate health care reform bill does not pay for or promote abortion, and it will arguably reduce abortions as well as providing good, affordable health care to millions of women and children who now go without -- and suffer for it.
"The bottom line is that health care reform is pro-life," [health care expert Timothy Stoltzfus] Jost said. "We're going to save an awful lot of lives with this bill ... I identify as a Christian, strongly, and I identify as someone who believes in the sacredness of life. I just think this is a pro-life bill. I'm really discouraged that people not only don't want it but also are spreading erroneous information about it. Because I don't think that's something that Christians should do."
Whether Jost's view, and the true story of the Senate bill's approach to abortion and health coverage, can shift the debate before the looming deadline for congressional action is one aspect of this argument that can't be decided by consulting a text. Those who have laid down a marker against the Senate bill have a lot invested in seeing it fail, or having it changed, if only to save face given all they have invested in portraying the bill as "pro-abortion."
Will CNS correct the record and tell its readers the Senate bill doesn't fund abortion? Don't count on it -- it has an agenda to push, and the truth does not supercede that.
Alan Keyes Trumped in Gay-Hate Topic: WorldNetDaily
It's hard to out-crazy Alan Keyes, but that happened on the subject of gays.
Keyes' March 12 WorldNetDaily column offers a relatively predictable right-wing take on it, complaining that "The normalization of homosexuality constitutes the cutting edge of this anti-Christian revisioning of right and wrong."
Meh. For the real crazy, skip down to David A. Noebel's take on gays in the military, starting by asserting that "It turns out that nearly all the major security risks (those who betrayed the United States to the Soviet Union, Communist China, etc.) also had homosexual connections. It seems that spies and homosexuality went together like Mary and her little lamb."
Noebel goes on to decry " the homosexual practice of colonization, in which "homosexuals would settle into a position and then use their position to hire fellow homosexuals into the same department or even move them into a higher position until the department was completely colonized." He also applies the term "flaming homosexual" to both Kevin Jennings and John Maynard Keynes.
Then Noebel really cranks up the crazy:
Now it's 2010, and President Obama, a man steeped in radical left-wing politics and a kind of Students-for-a-Democratic-Society-Commander-in-Chief, wants to allow "open" homosexuals in the United States military. Open homosexuality would have to include the GLBTQ gamut – gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer. Lambda Legal and the ACLU will insist on it. And Sen. Lieberman already proposed on March 8 a bill "legalizing bisexual behavior in the U.S. Military."
Allowing "gays in the military," therefore, is misleading. Once gays are openly recruited and accepted in the military, their "cousins" will follow suit (lesbian, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, intersexual, queer, etc.). Such a scenario would even make Julius Caesar, who was bisexual, blush. Among soldiers, he was known as "every woman's husband and every man's wife" (Taylor Caldwell, "A Pillar of Iron," p. 697).
The United Sates is currently involved in two wars. Is the president out to destroy our military? Can any thinking American wish to see an "open" cross-dressing homosexual Army general trying to gain the trust of his troops (or for that matter, the nation)? Have we as a nation fallen so far that we need to apologize to Sodom?
If the military becomes colonized as the State and Defense Departments were once colonized, homosexuals will indeed end up being generals and admirals. Just imagine a quota system in place that required 10 percent of officers be homosexual (similar to the demand that 10 percent of teachers and counselors in schools be gay to reflect the gay population – although the truth is that less than 2 percent of the population is gay).
Noebel closes by quoting Eurpides. Who does he think he is, Ellis Washington? Nah -- he's still not crazyenough.
WND's Porter Prays to Take Over the Media Topic: WorldNetDaily
Right Wing Watch reports on WorldNetDaily columnist Janet Porter's appearamce at the Generals International's "Convergence 2010: A Cry to Awaken A Nation" conference, where she prayed to God to take power and influence in the media of this country and of this globe from the unrighteous and give it to righteous people" like, presumably, herself:
Then, on Alan Colmes' radio show, Porter defended her prayer (though not before threatening to sue Right Wing Watch for posting it), as well as the rest of her extremist views, such as that America is cursed for having elected Barack Obama and anyone who voted for Obama is going to hell.
I've expressed my belief in the possibility that, given President Obama's political background and the number of power-mad freaks in Washington in general, his intention is to coordinate a societal breakdown (probably precipitated by an economic implosion) so horrendous that unprecedented government intervention on a civil level will be "unavoidable."
It occurs to me that this would have to happen relatively quickly, since there is no guarantee the president will be re-elected; indeed, this appears more unlikely with each passing day. Anything, it appears, that Obama might do to hasten complete economic desolation, he is doing, spinning his policies into some sort of novel genius via the sycophantic press. While the sort of domestic unrest I describe will remain tinfoil-hat stuff to most Americans until it actually happens, it is becoming an increasing theoretical probability to those who are paying attention – especially anyone looking at Europe.
What might have to transpire for a national emergency, or even martial law to be declared? It is, of course, difficult to tell. Hyperinflation might do it, if the inflation rate rose high enough to provoke widespread rioting by enraged masses unable to buy food with worthless dollars. With a sufficient level of disorder and fear, the 2012 general election might even have to be suspended, so "dangerous and destabilizing" might a transfer of power be at that juncture.
Last year, WND reported on soldiers recruited to be "Internment/Resettlement" specialists by the National Guard. Although the Guard maintained that the personnel and facilities in question were designated for overseas operations, some people – and some seasoned observers – are not so sure. While National Guardsmen might not be persuaded to round up or draw down on civilians, it occurs to me that our president has amongst his staunchest supporters many thousands of quasi-militant, thoroughly propagandized inner-city thugs who might have nothing better to do than join an "elite civil defense force."
Perhaps Obama has visions of Caesarhood; he has already usurped power from the legislative branch as Julius Caesar did with the Roman Senate in 49 B.C. (via his many czars), during a period of crisis that some historians might argue was orchestrated. It is also worth noting that circumstances in Rome at the time were in such dramatic upheaval that Romans actually were relieved when Caesar demonstrated he was willing to take the reins of government in his own hands.
In fact, they declared him dictator perpetuus – dictator for life.
When I attended college, in a different America, our American government class used a well-known textbook titled "The Consent of the Governed." The latest Rasmussen Reports shows that only 21 percent of Americans say that the Obama administration and the Democrats in Congress have the consent of the governed. Put plainly, we have an illegitimate government.
That fact hasn't stopped America's Stalin from using Chicago mob tactics to enact his communist revolutionary agenda. Indeed, the illegitimate tag seems to have intensified commissars Pelosi and Reid in their support for Obama's push toward a communist nation, where the government controls not only your thoughts (hate crimes), but your body (Obamacare) as well.
AIM Posts Misleading Obama Video Topic: Accuracy in Media
A March 10 Accuracy in Media blog post by Don Irvine touts a video of President Obama speaking in 2005 about "why the filibuster was important and that all voices need to be heard," adding, "Now that the Democrats are in the majority and Obama is in the White House he is singing a different tune by pushing for reconciliation on the health care bill as a way to get around the filibuster." The video, made by the right-wing website VerumSerum, claims that Obama was speaking about "the so-called 'nuclear option.'"
They're both misleading. Obama was speaking out about the actual "nuclear option" -- a Republican proposal to change Senate rules to forbid filibusters on judicial nominees (called the "nuclear option" by Republicans, by the way). By contrast, reconciliation is an existing Senate procedure that Republicans have used regularly over the years.
Von Campe: Obama 'Lies Like Hitler' Topic: WorldNetDaily
When it comes to raging Obama-hate, it's hard to beat Hilmar von Campe -- after all, he's merely applying the lessons he learned as a former Hitler Youth. Von Campe lets the hate fly again in his March 11 WorldNetDaily column (the bolding is his):
As one American among millions, I observe the present administration trying to destroy the sovereignty and power of this nation. Most of what comes out of the White House is unconstitutional, and the reasoning is dishonest. Most likely Barack Hussein Obama is not even eligible for the presidency of the United States.
It is one thing to let the American people know how financially absurd his trillion-dollar projects are; it is another thing to make that aspect in reporting the main angle. It is like discussing with a thief whether he could do better in his burglaries without mentioning the criminal character of that activity. After all, Obama is not interested in the well-being of the American people but in getting a permanent power base and a weak America. He is the head of the American Socialist/Communist Thieves Incorporated. He wants the government to dispose of other people's money and redistribute wealth, and so destroy the spirit and the truth of our Constitution.
[...]
We need to apply our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. There it is stated: "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among them are, Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness – That to secure these Rights Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them seems most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. ..."
We don't want to have a president who lies like Hitler and who has the killing of human beings in the womb of their mothers on his political platform – and who, together with his accomplices Reid and Pelosi, is working to make us, our children and our grandchildren slaves of the godless global socialist/communist establishment. What else could be the reason for his not listening to the people, spending trillions of dollars on nonsense and refusing to present his birth certificate?
Farber: Obama Is A Secret Indonesian Topic: WorldNetDaily
We already knew Barry Farber was a birther -- he embraced that back when he was still at Newsmax. We didn't know Farber was, er, whatever you call someone who believes Obama is hiding his Inodesian-ness.
We're told Obama spent several years in school in Indonesia. The Indonesian language is among the most interesting in the world. When they want to make a noun plural they just say it twice. "Man" in Indonesian is "Orang." "Men" is "orang-orang," and when they write it they just write one "orang" and put a "2" after it, so an Indonesian newspaper looks like an unending algebraic equation. Indonesian is poetic. Their word for "sun" is "mata hari" (same as the seductive World War I female spy, who was considered the "sun" of Asia). Literally, "mata hari" means "the eye of the day." Isn't that nice? Can you imagine Axelrod and the gang not making sure we knew that this president, instead of uttering non-English grotesqueries like "mis-underestimate," actually speaks a major Asian language? Wouldn't you expect at least once to turn on TV and watch the president schmoozing with the Indonesian ambassador in Indonesian? I would; provided, of course, that the president actually speaks Indonesian.
Here's a whole new player with a spotless jersey.
"Mr. Gibbs, does President Obama speak Indonesian?"
I've asked many friends of Obama, including Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois. Nobody so far has a clue. Not producing a legitimate birth certificate is one thing. Refusing to utter a few words in Indonesian is another. By my reckoning, Mr. Obama should speak fluent Indonesian, considering the years he spent in school there.
What magnificent coup would be achieved if we learn of Mr. Obama's ability or inability to speak Indonesian? None. This has none of the potential combustibility of the birth-certificate issue. It's just that I'm the world's foremost authority on what interests me. And I'm excruciatingly curious to know if the president speaks the language of the nation with the largest Muslim population in the world. If he does, why have his image-burnishers failed to harvest some points for that? And if not, what gives?
Media matters Jamison Foser has been swiftly dismantling claims of media bias by NewsBusters' Scott Whitlock this week:
Whitlock's bashing of MSNBC's David Shuster for raising questions about the National Republican Congressional Committee's references to Charles Rangel as a "crooked Harlem Democrat" gets taken to the woodshed when it's noted that other congressmen haven't been identified by the NRCC by the city they represent. When Whitlock further bashed Shuster for bringing that up -- ignoring Shuster's point, then whining that Shuster didn't complain when Luke Russert also called Rangel a "Harlem Democrat" -- it's time for another visit to the woodshed.
When Whitlock complained that Shuster "tossed softballs to an 11-year-old supporter of Obamacare" but MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell last year "grilled a conservative teen and fan of Sarah Palin," Foser points out that the "teen" O'Donnell questioned was 17 -- a big difference from 11 -- and said "grilling" consisted of asking whether the girl knew that Palin supported the 2008 bank bailout.
And when Whitlock, to counter ABC's claim that 9/11 truthers "come from all over the political spectrum," cited a Rasmussen poll claiming a significant number of truthers are Democrats, Foser noted that Whitlock cited that very same poll finding to show the folly of ascribing party affiliation to those who "subscribe to a bizarre conspiracy."
A March 9 WorldNetDaily article toued an "unscientific CBS News poll evaluating President Obama's first year in office." Why? Because most respondents were giving him a failing grade.
WND is coy about exactly what "unscientific" means -- it doesn't reflect reality because respondents are self-selecting, which makes the poll numbers open to manipulation in the form of stuffing the results to favor one outcome -- or freeping, after the propensity of posters at Free Republic to perform such poll-skewing.
New Article: Cliff Kincaid's International Gay-Bashing Topic: Accuracy in Media
The Accuracy in Media editor enthusiastically promotes a proposed Uganda law that would permit the death penalty for homosexuality. Read more >>
Another Anti-Gay Video By Molotov Mitchell Topic: WorldNetDaily
Molotov Mitchell is still in the anti-gay business.
His new WorldNetDaily video praises Lauren Ashley, the beauty queen who’s following in Carrie Prejean’s footsteps and criticizing same-sex marriage. On-screen text: "Another hot homophobe."
Molotov goes on to reference "Uganda’s democratic right to abolish homosexuality" and says he’s gotten "a lot of support" from "thoughtful Christians" for his position supporting it. He goes on to say, “If liberals pass laws based on their religion, so should we.” This is accompanied by a screenshot of various liberals – Obama, Gore, Pelosi – with signs that read “cap and trade,” “socialized healthcare” and “gay rights.” He then says:
Don’t buy the leftist hype. I wouldn’t flip some magic switch and kill all the gays. Neither would Ugandan Christians or Lauren Ashley. But if they've got the votes, free people should have the right to ban activities they don’t like -- drug abuse, suicide or homosexuality.
As we’ve detailed, the Ugandan law as currently written would permit the death penalty for mere homosexual behavior, which he conveniently fails to mention. That is Molotov's "magic switch" that would kill at least some homosexuals. Given that Mitchell previously highlighted Ashley's statement that "the Bible prescribes the death penalty for homosexuals," he's being a tad disingenuous when he says he doesn't want to "kill all the gays." That's exactly what he says his religion is telling him to do.
Mitchell's focus on how a majority of citizens “have the right to ban activities they don’t like” is strange -- demonstrating that he would like his "magic switch" to spread. Somehow, we suspect that ol' Molotov would not be so accepting of a the will of a "free people" who voted to ban something he liked -- say, Christianity. We'd be hearing a bit more about the tyranny of the majority.
(And how, exactly, do you outlaw suicide? It's not like you can prosecute anyone who commits it, being that they would be dead and all. Unless Molotov wants to prosecute the dead...)
We also noticed that WND's videos now begin with a short commercial form an outside advertiser. When we watched it, the advertiser was Toyota, a company under the gun over certain issues with its cars. Does it also want to be linked with Molotov's hateful anti-gay rhetoric, too?
It's been a tidal wave of emotions at Newsmax over Eric Massa over the past few days.
On March 5 Newsmax happily touted the Democratic congressman's resignation over allegations of harassment from male staffers under the headline "Rep. Massa: 'I Am Guilty' and Will Resign." But when Massa alleged that he was forced out by Democratic leadership over his opposition to health care reform and would go on Glenn Beck's Fox News show to dish the details, Newsmax went all giddy:
Just a day after triggering a political firestorm with accusations he was forced out of office because he rebelled against his fellow House Democrats’ healthcare plan, former New York Rep. Eric J.J. Massa will take his story to "The Glenn Beck Program" on Fox News tonight.
Beck said Monday he will devote a full-hour to an interview with Massa. The show airs at 5 p.m. EST and 2 a.m. on the Fox News Channel.
"I'm not saying he's, you know, pure as a driven snow. I don't know. I don't know the guy," Beck said of Massa in a video clip from Fox News. "But this is a moment that will decide the course of this nation, possibly."
[...]
Massa was the talk of Washington Monday after he made allegations Sunday on a Hornell, New York radio station that he was "set up" to fall so that House Democrats would have an easier path to passing healthcare reform.
Any denials of that, of course, were buried at the end of the article, all the better to push Massa's newfound embrace by conservatives.
After Massa's appearance on Beck, however, the bloom came off the rose. The headline of Newsmax's post-interview article carried the sympathetic headline "Massa Fumbles in Glenn Beck Interview," but the story itself was much less so:
Fox News host Glenn Beck apologized to his viewers for “wasting your time” Tuesday after an interview in which former New York Rep. Eric Massa seemingly backtracked on his allegations that he was forced to resign over his opposition to Obamacare.
“We learned a lot I think, but what we learned I don’t think affects you at all,” Beck said, shaking his head and laughing at the conclusion of his hour-long interview with Massa, who resigned his office Monday after it became public that he was the subject of a House ethics committee investigation for possible harassment.
Staring into the camera after Massa seemingly contradicted himself on many points and refused to disclose any alleged corruption Beck suggested he had promised to disclose in a private pre-interview phone call, the conservative host apologized.
"I have to shoot straight with you. I think I’ve wasted your time," Beck said. "I think this is the first time I’ve wasted an hour of your time. I apologize for that. Because I think we could have spent a lot less time backtracking a lot....”
“I’m not backtracking,” Massa responded. “I wasn’t forced out. I forced myself out. I failed. I didn’t live up to my own codes... I own up to my misbehavior.”
Newsmax still clung to hope, though, that Massa could still be portrayed as a victim of those mean Democrats. A separate article noted that "new, leaked details of his ethics probe were hitting the Washingtonpost.com website," and that "Drudge was quick to point fingers at the culprit for the leaks, featuring a picture of Rahm Emanuel with the headline “Slime” – which linked to the Post story." Never mind that Newsmax cites no evidence directly implicating Emanuel or anyone else.
Aaron Klein Obama Nominee Smear Fail Topic: WorldNetDaily
A March 8 WorldNetDaily article by Aaron Klein bizarrely portrays as "controversial" Transportation Security Administration nominee Robert Harding's views on expanding ethnic diversity in intelligence agencies.
but as Media Matters points out, numerous officials have stressed the importance of cultural diversity in the intelligence community as vital to national security.
This is just one in the long line of dubious attacks on Obama nominees by Klein and WND.
