CNS' Starr Shills for Oil Industry Topic: CNSNews.com
The Media Research Center has received $412,500 in funding from ExxonMobil since 1998. This money presumably manifests itself in things like CNSNews.com reporter Penny Starr essentially doing PR work for the oil industry through "news" articles.
Take, for example, a May 26 article by Starr that uncritically reports on a PowerPoint presentation given by the John Felmy, chief economist at the American Petroleum Institute, the lobbying and promotion arm of the oil industry:
Armed with a Power Point presentation to illustrate the state of American energy, John Felmy, chief economist at the American Petroleum Institute (API), said the majority of “big oil” and natural gas ownership is in good hands – the hands of the American people.
According to a report published in 2007 by Sonecon, an economic advisory firm that analyses U.S. markets and public policy, corporate management owns only 1.5 percent of the U.S. oil and natural gas industry.
The rest is owned by tens of millions of Americans through retirement accounts (14 percent) and pension funds (26 percent). Mutual funds or other firms account for 29.5 percent ownership and individual investors own 23 percent of oil stock holdings.
Institutional investors hold the remaining 5 percent.
[...]
As for the profits made by U.S. oil and natural gas companies that have been cited by congressional Democrats as reason to end tax incentives for the industry, Felmy put those earnings in perspective when it comes to high gasoline prices.
“If you took 100 percent of the earnings of the oil industry, you’d save 30 cents on the gallon,” Felmy said.
Starr makes no effort to seek out anyone who might be critical of the API's claims. Failure to pursue such an journalistic effort, one can easily assume, is why ExxonMobil is giving the MRC all that money.
Starr also shilled for the oil industry in a May 20 CNS article, in which she also repeated the API line about ownership and taxes. Starr also tried to play gotcha with Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill -- who has been leading a call to investigate possible price-fixing of gasoline by U.S. refineries -- by asking her if she knew how many oil refineries were owned by the top five oil companies. She didn't know, which caused Starr to gloat that "the five largest oil companies own 23 percent, or less than one quarter, of the 141 oil refineries operating in September 2010."
A more meaningful figure than the number of oil refineries owned, however, is the amount of refinery capacity controlled. According to Public Citizen, the five largest oil companies control 56.3% of domestic oil refinery capacity; the top ten refiners control 83%.
Starr does seem to be relying on the API as her main source on oil-related issues. A March 17 article featured "reaction from the oil and natural gas industry on both sides of the U.S. and Canadian border," including the API, on federal delays in approving a new oil pipeline between the two countries. Starr touted how "pipeline advocates" claim the pipeline will bring "economic growth and revenue growth through taxes on the project."
Starr plugged the API again in a January 5 article, in which she touted API president Jack Gerard's claim that "if the Obama administration and Congress would allow the industry access to domestic oil and natural gas reserves, the United States would get the energy it needs, create hundreds of thousands of jobs, and the government would add more than $1.7 trillion to its coffers." Like the earlier article featuring the API's Felmy, Starr sought no dissenting views.
By contrast, a May 12 article by Starr which began by stating that "Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), a great-grandson of oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller who once controlled 90 percent of U.S. oil production, criticized the CEOs of the top U.S. oil corporations for being “out of touch” and compared their business practices to Saudi Arabia at a hearing on Thursday of the Senate Finance Committee," made sure to include Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch's statement that Democrats were trying to “exploit high gas prices for political gain” and that they have “no energy policy whatsoever.”
With Starr serving as the oil industry's shill, it seems ExxonMobil is getting its money's worth.
Is WND Conceding Mike Guzofsky Is A Terrorist? Topic: WorldNetDaily
A May 24 WorldNetDaily article boosts Michael Savage's continuing crusade against the United Kingdom's ban on his entering the country, repeating a claim by Republican Rep. Allen West that "Savage was put on the U.K.'s banned-entry list with 'ruthless criminals,' including a Hamas terrorist and Russian skinhead" and Savage's own statement that the list includes "actual murderers and terrorists."
It can be argued that WND is now implicitly conceding that far-right Israel extremist Mike Guzofsky is a terrorist.
As we've detailed, when the banned-entry list first came out, WND originally described Guzofsky (aka Yekutel Ben Yaacov) as a "Jewish extremist," but then retroactively changed it to "Jewish nationalist." WND's Aaron Klein -- who has previously whitewashed Guzofsky's connections to the banned far-right movement Kahane Chai and has admitted that he "agree[s] with some of the sentiments of Rabbi Meir Kahane" -- ran to Guzofsky's defense, claiming that he's merely a dog trainer, ignoring the Kahane movement's history of violence.
“We don’t want the dogs to kill the Arabs, just immobilize them,” Guzofsky said. He said that the dogs could smell the difference between an Arab infiltrator and a Jewish resident. “The adrenaline of the Arabs, they can detect it. The Arabs are very scared of dogs. Muslims think they’re unclean.”
WND, as has become regular procedure, didn't name Guzofsky among the people on the UK's banned list. But the fact that it's willing to call the non-Savage people on the list terrorists suggests that it may be getting tired of defending Guzofsky.
Ben Shapiro: Jews Who Vote for Obama are 'Jews In Name Only' Topic: CNSNews.com
In 2008, Obama grabbed 78 percent of the Jewish vote. Even the most wildly optimistic polling today shows that Obama's support remains high among Jews. It's a result that Republicans simply can't understand – why do so many Jews continue to support a president who has shown time and again that he stands against the State of Israel?
Why the reflexive lever-pulling on behalf of a man who appoints anti-Semites to positions of high power, attends a virulently anti-Semitic church for 20 years, and sees Israel as the cause of the West's conflict with the Muslim world?
The answer is deceptively simple: the Jews who vote for Obama are, by and large, Jews In Name Only (JINOs). They eat bagels and lox; they watch "Schindler's List"; they visit temple on Yom Kippur – sometimes. But they do not care about Israel. Or if they do, they care about it less than abortion, gay marriage and global warming.
[...]
Being Jewish is not like being black or Asian or Hispanic. It comes with certain attendant ideological responsibilities. There is no logical or inherent connection between skin color and liberalism or conservatism – melanin has no political playbook. Jewish identity, however, does. There is more to being truly Jewish than being born into a Jewish family, just as there is more to being Christian than being baptized.
Being truly Jewish requires allegiance to basic Judaic principles; the first and foremost of which is identity with the Jewish people and its enlightened national aspirations. In the Tanach (the Jewish canon, including the Old Testament, the Prophets and the Writings), when Ruth converts to Judaism, she states, "Your people will be my people and your God my God." The connection between Jews and the land of Israel is the running theme of the Old Testament. Any Jew who does not take these principles seriously – more seriously than global warming or affirmative action, for example – is a JINO.
And voting for Obama is a violation of those principles.
[...]
Simply put, Obama is an enemy of the Jewish people and the State of Israel. And any Jew who votes for him betrays his or her brothers and sisters at home and abroad. By definition, a vote for Obama is a vote against the truly Jewish part of Jewish identity. There is a reason that the observant Jewish community votes overwhelmingly Republican – they vote on Jewish principle.
-- Ben Shapiro, May 26 column, published at CNSNews.com
MRC's Double Standard on Sex Allegations Continues Topic: NewsBusters
Tim Graham complains in a May 24 NewsBusters post how Time magazine's Nancy Gibbs described sexual misbehavior allegations against Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dominique Strauss-Kahn as "an abuse of power and a betrayal of trust" but said Bill Clinton was, in Graham's words, " miraculous politician who deserved forgiveness."
Graham seems to have forgotten that his employer worked to minimize groping allegations against Schwarzenegger when they surfaced in 2003. As we documented, rather than portray it as, say, "an abuse of power and a betrayal of trust," the MRC insisted that nothing he did was as awful as what Clinton was accused of, and Graham himself complained that the story surfaced in the first place.
Graham huffed that Time "didn't care to investigate the claims of Juanita Broaddrick in 1999," ignoring that Broaddrick has a history of contradictory statements that undermine her story.
Graham's refusal to criticize Schwarzenegger severely undercuts his moral authority to criticize Democrats, then or now.
Intra-Birther Smackdown! Trump vs. Corsi Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's big birther scoop is turning into a war of words between Donald Trump and WorldNetDaily's Jerome Corsi.
A May 24 WND article by Bob Unruh touted how Corsi, author of the dubious birther book "Where's the Birth Certificate," claimed that Trump 'reached out" to him "with a long list of questions about where the [birth certificate] issue is, and where it seems to be going":
Corsi said Trump specifically wanted to know what will happen next in the campaign to reveal the truth about Obama.
"He asked, 'aren't you discouraged?'" said Corsi.
"But why should I be discouraged? There's breaking news about Obama's eligibility, the book is selling well," he said.
[...]
"I told him he needs to publicly say that the document in the vault, the original long-form birth certificate, needs to be exposed and examined independently," Corsi said. "The doctor's records, the Kapiolani records of Ann Dunham to corroborate she was in that hospital."
"I told him if you don't press these issues you can't be surprised if there are those who think you're working with Barack Obama [on the dispute]," Corsi added.
WND embeds a YouTube video of a Corsi radio interview in whichhe made the claim, but curiously does not identify whose radio show it was. Perhaps because it was on the radio show of Alex Jones, an even bigger conspiracy-monger than Corsi.
Why is WND afraid to credit Jones with the interview? Are they afraid that associating with Jones will make him look even more discredited than he already is?
This was followed up the next day with an unbylined article claiming that, "in a telephone call to WND senior reporter Jerome Corsi, Ph.D.," Trump "says he believes the 'birth certificate' released by the White House is forged," adding that "Trump told Corsi his own computer expert told him at the release that it was a computer-generated document."
Then, one little problem surfaced in Corsi's story: Trump denied Corsi's version of events. Trump issued a statement to Mother Jones:
I am proud of the fact that I was able to get President Obama to release his birth certificate. President Clinton couldn’t do it, Senator McCain couldn’t do it—no one else could do it! Frankly, many people were surprised that it took so long for this to happen. Is his birth certificate legitimate? I hope it is for the good of the country, but that’s for experts to determine—not me. I have not read the book written by Jerry Corsi nor did we discuss whether or not the birth certificate was computer generated or in any way fabricated. I merely asked him how his book was doing and wished him good luck.
WND has responded to this exactly the way you'd expect them to: by getting all pissy about it.
A May 26 WND article notes Trump's claim not to have read Corsi's book "despite having his staff sign a non-disclosure agreement to get the book three weeks before it was released May 17."
The article also states: "Corsi says Trump repeated a conversation he had weeks ago in a conference call with WND Editor and Chief Executive Officer Joseph Farah in which the building magnate said he is concerned about the validity of the document released April 27 by the Obama White House. Farah confirms Trump questioned the authenticity of the birth certificate and said others around him do as well."
Wait -- wasn't Farah denying that he had ever spoken to Trump just a few weeks ago (despite previously stating that he had)? Yes, he was.
WND then goes off on a conspiratorial tear:
Farah wonders aloud why Trump would ask for a copy of a book he had no intention of reading – even going to the extent of having his organization sign a non-disclosure agreement to get an early electronic copy.
"If he wasn't going to read the book, why go to the trouble of requesting a PDF copy and having your representative sign an NDA for it?" asked Farah. "Was his intent all along to violate the NDA and give it to someone else? Was his intent other than what he represented to us – to go to school on the eligibility issue? Trump needs to explain himself to someone other than Mother Jones. That doesn't sound like good faith to me."
Farah and Corsi say Trump talked about a golf course designer he works with – someone Trump described as a "genius" on the computer – who shared with him his expert opinion that the birth certificate was a fraud. Trump said he was considering renewing his calls for Obama to establish his eligibility, but wanted more to go on.
"He kept urging us to hold press conferences – assuring us he'd be right behind us, holding our coats, so to speak" said Farah. "When I pushed him to join us, he quickly backed off – saying he couldn't jump back into the issue right now. I have strongly begun to suspect that Trump had other motives than seeking the truth about Obama. I think he was pumping Corsi for information for some other purpose than being on the right side of history."
This actually falls in line with how the Alex Jones crowd promoted Corsi's interview with him. An article on Jones' Infowars site sums it up by noting that in his interview with Jones, "Corsi sensationally accused short-lived Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump of 'working with Obama' to neutralize the birther controversy."
Who's telling the truth here? We have no idea -- neither Trump nor Corsi are famous for their truth-telling, and Farah can't keep his story straight either.
As we've noted, WND is essentially betting it all that the birth certificate Obama released is forged, and it's going to some absurd lengths to keep that angle alive. Trump was a somewhat credible ally for WND to have on the issue.
With Trump bailing on them, WND seems to think it's more important to get in a pissing match with him rather than act like a real news organization. Then again, that's pretty much how WND has always operated.
CNS Instructs Right-Wing Media On How To Make Obama Look Bad Topic: CNSNews.com
A May 24 CNSNews.com article by Susan Jones noting that President Obama "as sent his "deepest condolences" to the people in tornado-devastated Joplin, Mo." while he "heading to London for a visit with the British royals" begins with a curious editor's note:
According to the White House Web site, President and Mrs. Obama will take part in an arrival ceremony at Buckingham Palace Tuesday at 7:20 a.m. Washington time. They will then have lunch with Her Majesty the Queen. At the same time, the morning news shows in the U.S. will continue their live coverage of the devastation in Joplin, Mo., which could make for jarring side-by-side images of royal pomp in London and dreadful circumstance in Joplin.
It's as if CNS was sending marching orders to Fox News and other right-wing media to start creating those "jarring side-by-side images." There's no reason for CNS to point that out other than to prompt its ideological allies to make Obama look bad.
CNS was only slightly less obvious in its marching orders in a May 25 article by Jones in which she actually complains that the media isn't portraying Obama as a " blundering fool" over a couple minor gaffes during his visit to Britain:
Imagine the newspaper headlines if President George W. Bush had written the wrong date in the Westminster Abbey guest book; or if he had continued toasting the Queen of England after the British national anthem started playing.
Obama did both of those things on Tuesday, and while media outlets reported the incidents, there was no suggestion that he is a blundering fool.
Is this sort of thing really the job of a "news" organization? Not that we're aware of.
Newsmax Columnist: Obama Statement on Israel Like Giving Hitler the Sudetenland Topic: Newsmax
Add Herbert London to the list of Newsmax columnist who are in freak-out mode over President Obama's stance on Israel, and he takes it up a notch by going all Godwin on us:
This statement by Obama has the odor of Munich about it. Just as the Sudetenland was sacrificed to Hitler “for peace in our time,” the contention that Israel return to the ’67 borders may have the same toxic effect. An Israel with a width of nine miles would not be in a position of defending itself. Pre-emption would be its only option. A Hamas terrorist with a Stinger over his shoulder can shoot down any commercial aircraft landing at the Tel Aviv airport.
President Netanyahu responded by noting, “Israel believes that for peace to endure between Israel and Palestinians, the viability of a Palestinian state cannot come at the expense of the viability of the one and only Jewish state.” Alas, the echo of the 1930s fills the corridors of contemporary history.
It is difficult to know if President Obama is serious about his proposal. Afterall, he did engage in subsequent backpedaling at the AIPAC meeting. But even so, it seems as though he either doesn’t understand what Israel is up against or doesn’t care.
[...]
There is an Orwellian quality to the speech since freedom is embraced on the one hand and crushing imposition on the other hand. Obama has found his voice on the freedom agenda, but there is the nagging Chamberlain apparition that haunts his perspective.
London, of course, doesn't mention that Obama's endorsement of the pre-1967 borders as a start for negotiations with Palestinians is pretty much the same policy the U.S. has always had.
In September 2006, [James] Frey and publisher Random House reached a tentative legal settlement, the terms of which mandated refunds for readers who felt that they had been defrauded by Frey's book.
In January 2009, that same publishing house signed a deal with Obama [for a young-adult edition of "Dreams From My Father"] to defraud hundreds of thousands of new readers, little ones, likely with no choice in the matter but to be defrauded.
At some point, Bill Ayers has got to blow the whistle on this despotic bit of literary child abuse.
One feature that marks a totalitarian regime is media that serve as the government's information service. TASS, Radio Berlin, Voice of Hanoi – these were all government entities that conveyed what the dictatorship wanted. The handout comes, the handout is published. The real danger point arrives when propaganda no longer rankles, but flows naturally. That's when authority carries more weight than evidence, and peer pressure suppresses independent thinking. It's also when captives become subjects.
Watching our free, First-Amendment-protected media react to the surprising release of President Barack Obama's long-form birth certificate, I have to wonder: What exactly is the difference?
Never forget that the No. 1 mantra of the left is that the end always justifies the means. As left-wing radicals are fond of saying, in revolutions, innocent people get killed. In other words, the deaths of innocent bystanders is just one of those things – an unfortunate sacrifice for the greater good. That said, if the left isn't bothered by the deaths of innocent people, why would Obama care about Osama bin Laden getting a bullet through the eye?
[...]
Those who now give Barack Obama a favorable rating for supposedly ordering the killing of Osama bin Laden still don't understand that Obama is the Master of Distraction. The whole event was simply a distraction from his ongoing destruction of the American economy.
[...]
The Master of Distraction knows how important it is that he continue to distract the pudding heads who are anxious to give him a boost in the polls every time he makes a smart-aleck crack about tea baggers or moats or alligators. The truth is, he doesn't give a damn about Osama bin Laden – or anyone else who isn't integral to his revolutionary goals.
If it takes a bullet in someone's eye to distract the American public, so be it. That said, I'd like to propose a national moratorium on the gushy applause for Chairman Obama for his "gutsy call." Please, enough already with the naiveté.
I am so grateful that for the first time in American history, and surely the first time in Mr. Obama's life, he was told no. Bibi will not sell out his country, Israel, as Mr. Obama is willing to do with America. Netanyahu drew a line in the sand and refused to budge. Netanyahu turned protocol upside down, lectured a sitting president in the Oval Office and then clearly refused to take a presidential directive.
I would love to have been a fly on the wall in the Oval Office during the meeting. The subsequent photo op was tense, to say the least. America wants to stand with her friend, Israel, and Netanyahu reminded the child president of that reality. Our nation will stand by the only true democracy in the Middle East.
Obama rolled into town and has spent virtually all his time, when not playing golf or on vacation, changing the country and the world to suit his view. Not only that, but he acts with an attitude of entitlement that enables him to make decisions for everyone, everywhere.
Barack Obama came to American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, on Sunday and declared that the U.S.-Israel relationship was ironclad. I was there and heard him say it, but it did not reassure me. I am dubious about Obama's promise. After all, he caused fright and worry amongst freedom-loving peoples when he endorsed the 1967 Auschwitz borders for Israel, and he did not dispel that concern at AIPAC.
[...]
The money quote of the day was, "If there's a controversy, then, it's not based in substance." Oh, really? I vill gaslight you and you vill like it.
Obama didn't break the color barrier for America, he broke it for elitist liberals like Marsh. And you can bet, if he hadn't gone to Harvard, wasn't pro-homosexual, or pro-Margaret Sanger's systematic extermination of blacks and the poor, or a pro-Alinskyite spawn of a Marxist Kenyan and a communist, [May Anne] Marsh and her kind wouldn't be championing him. She and her ilk objected to a decent (although clearly misguided) black Democrat like Harold Forde [sic] and mercilessly attacked every conservative black appointed to office or who won office.
President Barack Obama is not suffering a mild bout of geographical nostalgia. He's simply our first anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian president. How stupid of us Jews to wallow for decades in the post-Holocaust pity of the world and the world's admiration of Israel's military prowess, and never give a thought to the possibility of such a thing. An open enemy does not necessarily mean an honest enemy. This one lies.
Donald Trump decided not to run for president. I have mourned and have moved on. Herman Cain is now my favorite. Why? Because he's not a politician. He is a human being capable of understanding what people want and need. He understands that we have been pushed around for the past four years and cannot take it anymore. Cain has beaten cancer, and now he'll take on America's sickness, Obama – and I believe he'll be two for two after the 2012 elections.
-- Chrissy Satterfield, May 25 WorldNetDaily column
Aaron Klein Hides Behind More Anonymous Sources Topic: WorldNetDaily
The unverifiable hits just keep coming for WorldNetDaily's Aaron Klein.
Klein's May 23 WND article claims that "Dennis Ross, Obama's Middle East envoy, has exchanged messages the past few weeks between Israel and the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad" with the purported aim on "an Israeli surrender of the strategic Golan Heights." Klein cites only anonymous and purportedly "informed Israeli and Arab officials" to back up his claim.
This is just the latest in a long line of articles -- 31 in the first four months of 2011 alone -- in which Klein cited anonymous, unverifiable sources in support of major claims. At least one of those claims proved to be utterly false, which raises questions about the reliability of his sources.
Noel Sheppard expressed his annoyance in a May 23 NewsBusters post that Howard Dean said that right-wingers "hate Muslims, they hate gays, they hate immigrants." Sheppard huffed: "Honestly, is this the kind of talk Comcast and General Electric should tolerate from someone on their payroll?
Sheppard might have a point if his fellow MRC employees weren't busy living up to at least one of those characterizations.
Indeed, just an hour before Sheppard's post went up, a NewsBusters post by Tim Graham was complaining that the Washington Post ran an article on a homeless shelter for gay and transgender youths."You know you’re reading the liberal Washington Post when a story rejoices in the D.C. government offering 'a measure of freedom she has never had' to 'slip on a flower-print blouse and shave her face,'" Graham snarked.
Graham went on to grouse that the article was "typically all sympathy and zero skepticism for the politically correct cause" and "all who fail to accept their moral choices are bad," even complaining about "all the raging inaccuracy of pronouns -- where the transgendered person in question gets to define which sex they are regardless of the biological realities."
Is this not the exactly the kind of thing Dean was referring to? Or is Sheppard simply being nice to his fellow MRC employee by not holding him to the same standard he's holding Dean?
Graham's post wasn't the only fit of gay-bashing the MRC was engaged in as Sheppard complained about Dean's remarks. A May 24 TimesWatch post by Clay Waters complained there were too many New York Times article on gays:
So much for objective journalism; in recent weeks the Times has embraced gay advocacy. The May 16 front page carried a complimentary profile by Dan Barry (normally the "This Land" columnist for the paper) of Rick Welts, president of the NBA’s Phoenix Suns, coming out as a gay man, "Going Public, N.B.A. Figure Sheds Shadow Life."
[...]
On May 8, reporter John Branch praised NHL "enforcer" Sean Avery of the New York Rangers under the headline "In Rarity, a Player Speaks Out for Gay Rights."
Not such a rarity apparently, given that Branch followed up on May 14 with "Two Straight Athletes Combat Homophobia."
The front of the May 17 Metro section was dominated by former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey, who resigned and outed himself in a memorable press conference in 2004: "Out of Politics and Closet, McGreevey Pursues Dream to Join Clergy."
The trend culminated with the paper’s online multi-media feature "Coming Out," datelined Monday. Sarah Kramer introduced it with a post "Gay Teenagers, in Their Own Words," a placeholder for a selection of 30 stories from "L.G.B.T. youth," with more to come. Kramer’s story was pure advocacy with not a dash of skepticism or disagreement.
Yeah, five gay-themed stories out of the hundreds the Times published over the time period Waters is complaining about is obviously too much.
Before Ronald Kessler served as Newsmax's chief emissary for Donald Trump's presidential ambitions, before he sold out his previous loyalties to dutifully back John McCain in 2008, he was a huge supporter of Mitt Romney -- disturbingly so, given his creepy fawning over Romney's wife.
Kessler may still be carrying a flame for a Trump presidency, but he's also reviving his old love for Romney. Which brings us to Kessler's May 23 column, in which he declares that, according to American Conservative Union chairman Al Cardenas, "Mitt Romney is ahead in the race for the Republican presidential nomination."
Romney is not the only beneficiary of Kessler's fluffing; he also slobbers over Cardenas as well, touting how, as a child, "Cardenas and his family fled Fidel Castro’s Cuba with only the clothes on their back," that Cardena "essentially rebuilt the Republican Party in Florida, becoming its chairman and helping Jeb Bush win election as governor," and that Cardenas "was a mentor to Sen. Marco Rubio, who was a young lawyer in Cardenas’ Miami law firm."
That's largely recycled from Kessler's previous fluff job of Cardenas when he became ACU chairman, succeeding longtime Kessler fluffee David Keene.
WND Still Whitewashing Ousted Ivory Coast Dictator Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily, it seems, just can't get enough of its favorite African dictator.
A May 21 WND article by Michael Carl repeats claimsthat the Ivory coast "election late last year apparently won by a Christian candidate when the government found voter fraud in Muslim regions. But that result was overturned following intervention by the United Nations and the United States, who insisted that the Muslim candidate be given the office." In fact, as we've detailed, the constitutional council that declared Laurent Gbagbo (the Christian) the winner over Alassane Ouattara (the Muslim) was headed by a loyal Gbagbo ally, something Carl fails to mention.
Carl's star witness is an anonymous "missionary who asked to be called only Pastor Andrew" who claims that "has shut off the Internet and now likely is tapping the Christians' telephones." As happensso often with anonymous sources WND cites -- in defiance of WND editor Joseph Farah's dismissal of quotes from anonymous sources as "usually quotes made up out of whole cloth to help make the story read better" -- Carl offered no reason why he granted anonymity to "Pastor Andrew."
Surprisingly, Carl did give space to a Heritage Foundation Africa analyst who said that "Ouattara won the election. I think that's been verified by a number of independent observers." But he went on to obsess of "Muslim-on-Christian violence" in the Ivory Coast while not mentioning that Gbagbo and his supporters have also been accused of human rights violations -- which WND has regularly failed to report.
MRC Unhappy That NY Times Reported The Truth Topic: Media Research Center
Clay Waters uses a May 23 MRC TimesWatch post to complain that the New York Times "did its best to paint Israel’s conservative, pro-security prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu as being disingenuous and stubborn in the face of President Obama’s reasonable offer for Israel to give up land to the Palestinians."
And how did the Times do that? By pointing out that President Obama did not call for Israel to return to its pre-1967 borders but, rather, established it as a starting point with adjustments to be made by mutually agreed land swaps, and that Netanyahu and American conservatives "ignored that nuance."
At no point does Waters contest the truth of what the Times stated -- he's just mad that it was reported at all.
Newsmax Twists Obama Adviser's Words Topic: Newsmax
A May 23 Newsmax article (credited only to "Newsmax Wires") twists the words of Obama adviser Samantha Power to claim that she "once declared that the United States might one day invade Israel to disarm it and support a Palestinian state along the very controversial lines Obama now embraces."
In fact, as the transcript Newsmax includes later in the article clearly states, Power was talking in terms of what needed to be done to avert a "move toward genocide" by either the Israelis or Palestinians. At no point did Power advocate disarming Israelis, nor did she advocate restricting Israel to its pre-1967 borders -- despite Newsmax's suggestion, Power did not even mention borders.
Newsmax did include some conservative praise for Power, but it's buried in the final two paragraphs of the 20-paragraph article.
WND's Klayman Lies About Obama's Israel Speech Topic: WorldNetDaily
Larry Klayman keeps up his anti-Obama jihad in his May 22 WorldNetDaily column:
Emboldened by increased popularity brought about by the killing of Osama bin Laden, Barack Hussein Obama, our first "Muslim" president, has joined with Palestinians to now knock off Israel. In a speech delivered not only to intimidate but also again embarrass Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just prior to his state visit to Washington, D.C., the "mullah in chief" demanded that Israel give back all the land it acquired in the 1967 war to the Palestinians, thus compromising the Jewish state's national security. This would mean ceding all of the West Bank, including but not limited to East Jerusalem, to the Palestinians, allowing Israel to be split in two in the event of a quick successful assault by Arabs to cut bifurcate the nation. It would also mean that Christian and Jewish holy sites, from the places where Jesus was crucified and resurrected to the sacred wailing wall, would fall into the control of Muslims hostile to our Judeo-Christian roots and culture.
This rank "chutzpah" by Obama is not isolated. Since the beginning of his presidency two and a half years ago, he has steadfastly unmasked his disdain for Jews and Christians, first by giving a pandering "Cairo" speech apologizing to the Arab world for American "atrocities," then bowing down to the king of Saudi Arabia, canceling the White House National Day of Prayer celebration and instead feasting the Arab holiday of Ramadan, endorsing the Ground Zero mosque, and last but hardly least using the death of Osama bin Laden to effectively argue that al-Qaida's terror threat is over and that now we can have "healing" with the Muslim world – despite its having done nothing to bring the master terrorist to justice. It would appear that Obama identifies more with his father's Muslim faith than his own feigned and politically convenient alleged Christianity.
[...]
We need to mobilize Hollywood to tell the story of Israel and its importance for the nation. We need to preserve our our way of life. We need to protect our religious freedoms, which are under attack by our "Muslim" president and his fellow anti-Semites and anti-Christian haters.
Obama did not "demand that Israel give back all the land it acquired in the 1967 war to the Palestinians"; he merely continued in the footsteps of his presiential predecessors in establishing the pre-1967 borders as the basis for future negotiations and that any changes in borders must be mutually agreed to by Israel and the Palestinians.
