Topic: Newsmax
Three Newsmax writers are working either for or with The League of American Voters -- but Newsmax has been loath to tell its readers about that even as it promotes the anti-Obama group's attacks. Read more >>
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
New Article: The League of Newsmax Columnists
Topic: Newsmax Three Newsmax writers are working either for or with The League of American Voters -- but Newsmax has been loath to tell its readers about that even as it promotes the anti-Obama group's attacks. Read more >>
Posted by Terry K.
at 9:51 AM EDT
NewsBusters Falsely Claims CRA Contributed to Financial Collapse
Topic: NewsBusters In a March 15 NewsBusters post, Anthony Kang criticized a "60 Minutes" report on the financial crisis because it "didn't mention the role of the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act in forcing banks to loan to high-risk credits." In fact, experts have concluded that the CRA played no substantial role in the financial crisis.
Posted by Terry K.
at 7:25 AM EDT
Monday, March 15, 2010
WND Columnist Bashes Media Bias, Ignores WND's
Topic: WorldNetDaily Jim Fletcher writes in his March 15 WorldNetDaily column:
Fletcher might have a point if the Yahoo! article was presented as a news story. But it wasn't -- it appears in a "week in review" post on Yahoo's Buzz Log blog. Unless Fletcher is holding blogs to the same standards as professional reporters, he has no point. Further, the words "some who suspect" in the Yahoo! post are linked to a Seattle Weekly blog post in which an actual named person makes the allegation that the laugher for Palin was canned. Also, Fletcher didn't have to go so far to find anonymous sources and "some say" claims: WND is infested with them. As we've detailed, WND reporter Aaron Klein -- whom Fletcher lionized just a couple weeks ago -- is a frequent user of anonymous sources, even granting anonymity to terrorists. Indeed, a March 14 article by Klein builds yet another claim around an anonymous source, that "a member of the U.S. government" met with Israeli activists who are agitating to build a Jewish temple on Jerusalem's Temple Mount, currently the site of an Muslim mosque. He writes: "The organizer talked on condition of anonymity and also on condition that WND kept confidential the name of the U.S. official who met with the Temple event planners." And here's Joseph Farah himself invoking the "some say" hedge:
Why do Klein and Farah get a pass when a blogger doesn't? After all,bogus anonymity is just as effective a tactic when used by the right-wingers at WND.
Posted by Terry K.
at 10:09 PM EDT
NewsReal Promotes Bogus Fishing Ban Claim
Topic: Horowitz A march 15 NewsReal blog post by Rhonda Robinson approvingly quotes a NewsReal commenter, whom she calls "entertaining and informative," making the claim that "the efforts to bring an end to sport fishing are neither rumor nor something that just popped up on the internet." Actually, they're completely bogus. We'd cite Media Matters to back this up, but since NewsReal hates them, we'll have to go with no less a sporting authority than ESPN Outdoors, in which it essentially retracting a column that had forwarded the bogus claim:
Is that good enough for Robinson and her favorite commenter? Probably not -- they probably would much rather promote anti-Obama conspiracies.
Posted by Terry K.
at 8:47 PM EDT
Newsmax Columnist: Health Care Reform Will Create More Slackers
Topic: Newsmax From a March 14 Newsmax column by Richard Grenell:
Grenell would also like you to get off his lawn.
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:57 PM EDT
Updated: Monday, March 15, 2010 1:01 PM EDT
Newsmax's Patten Fawns Over Palin
Topic: Newsmax David Patten's March 13 Newsmax article is little more than a love letter to Sarah Palin, in the ostensible guise of reporting on a speech she gave to Florida Republicans. Patten fawned over the speech, gushing that it "reflected the conservative populism and homespun American fervor that are her hallmarks" and that she "she displayed a Reagan-esque wit that offset the well-honed rhetorical jabs she perfected as Arizona Sen. John McCain’s running mate on the campaign trail during the 2008 election." Patten also noted that her scripted jokes "drew a big laugh from the crowd," as if they wouldn't in a group of Republicans. He did concede, though, that Palin sounded "like a candidate honing her stump speech," though that could very well be more gushing in trying to get Palin to run for president in 2012. After copiously quoting from Palin's speech, Patten wrote that "She concluded with a rousing defense of American exceptionalism, the view that the United States is a proud example of freedom and prosperity for the rest of the world to follow." Patten, mind you, is Newsmax's managing editor. This is fawning drivel that's coming straight from the top.
Posted by Terry K.
at 8:47 AM EDT
WND Columnist Pushes Debunked Claim On Senate Bill, Abortion
Topic: WorldNetDaily A March 13 WorldNetDaily column by Dave Welch repeats a claim from the Heritage Foundation that "the Senate-passed Obamacare bill funds abortion in several ways, even creating an appropriation for Community Health Centers that contains no restriction on abortion subsidies." Welch asserted that this means "millions of taxpayers fund the taking of innocent life, escalating the rate and frequency of abortions and further enslaving women of all ages to the physical, emotional and spiritual trauma." But claims that the Senate bill funds abortion have been debunked, as has the specific Heritage claim about community health centers. From Politics Daily's David Gibson:
Any chance WND will tell the truth on this issue? Not likely.
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:23 AM EDT
Sunday, March 14, 2010
NewsBusters Forwards Bogus Claim on Senate Bill, Abortion
Topic: NewsBusters In attempting to rebut Rachel Maddow's true claim that the Senate health care reform bill doesn't fund abortions, Jack Coleman writes in a March 14 NewsBusters post:
But the "cite-the-page-numbers trick" fails Coleman if he doesn't read what the bill actually says and what it's referring to -- even though he includes a screenshot of the section in question. Under the heading "ABORTIONS FOR WHICH PUBLIC FUNDING IS ALLOWED," the bill states that it is "based on the law as in effect as of the date that is 6 months before the beginning of the plan year involved." The "law as in effect" is the Hyde amendment, which currently prohibits federal funding for abortions, except in cases of rape or incest or when the pregnancy endangers the life of the mother. The Hyde amendment has always permitted federal funding abortions under those conditions. Maybe next time Coleman should go beyond quoting subsection headers and actually, you know, read the thing.
Posted by Terry K.
at 11:35 AM EST
Updated: Sunday, March 14, 2010 11:41 AM EST
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:
Sounds like Washington really does want to eliminate the presumption of innocence.
Posted by Terry K.
at 10:38 AM EST
Saturday, March 13, 2010
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." We've debunked this claim before when CNS has made it. The latest to debunk it is David Gibson of Politics Daily:
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.
Posted by Terry K.
at 11:52 PM EST
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:
Noebel closes by quoting Eurpides. Who does he think he is, Ellis Washington? Nah -- he's still not crazy enough.
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:18 AM EST
Friday, March 12, 2010
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. We've documented other examples of Porter's extremism.
Posted by Terry K.
at 10:19 PM EST
Updated: Friday, March 12, 2010 10:23 PM EST
Obama Derangement Syndrome Watch, WorldNetDaily Edition
Topic: WorldNetDaily
-- Erik Rush, March 11 WorldNetDaily column
-- Craige McMillan, March 11 WorldNetDaily column
Posted by Terry K.
at 3:24 PM EST
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.
Posted by Terry K.
at 8:42 AM EST
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):
Looks like Von Campe is venturing into John Perry territory.
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:05 AM EST
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