WND's Klein Can't Stop Misleading About Group's Statements on Muslim Brotherhood Topic: WorldNetDaily
Earlier this year, we detailed how WorldNetDaily's Aaron Klein deliberately cherry-picked a report on Egypt by the International Crisis Group in order to portray it as overly sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood. Klein asserted that the ICG report called for the Egypian government "to normalize ties with the Muslim Brotherhood" but failed to note that it also pointed out that "serious questions linger" about whether the Muslim Brotherood can "make a credible case that they embrace the rules of democratic politics, including the principles of citizenship, rotation of power and multiparty political life," particularly "concerning the role of women and the place of religious minorities, neither of whom, for example, the Muslim Brothers believe should be eligible for the presidency."
Six months later, Klein is doing the exact same misleading cherry-picking. From a July 7 WND article:
In a June 2008 report entitled "Egypt's Muslim Brothers Confrontation or Integration," Soros' ICG urges the Egyptian regime to allow the group to participate in political life.
The report dismisses Egypt's longstanding government crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood as "dangerously short-sighted."
The ICG report called on Mubarak's regime to "pave the way for the regularization of the Muslim Brothers' participation in political life," including by allowing for the "establishment of a political party with religious reference."
The ICG specifically stressed allowing the Brotherhood to serve as an Islamist party several times in its 2008 report.
Again, Klein failed to note that the ICG made numerous requests of the Muslim Brotherhood. From the ICG report:
To the Society of Muslim Brothers:
4. Engage in a dialogue with members of the government, opposition and civil society, notably by:
(a) approaching officials and reform-minded NDP members to discuss conditions necessary for the Society’s peaceful political integration;
(b) engaging with secular opposition parties and movements to form a consensus on how the Society can best be integrated as well as wider issues of political reform;
(c) engaging with representatives of the Christian community in a frank dialogue on sectarian relations and the Society’s stance toward religious minorities;
(d) supporting comprehensive political reform clearly, as opposed to a bilateral arrangement between the Society and the regime; and
(e) ensuring that consensus positions on these issues are formed within the Society in a democratic manner to avoid contradictory approaches by members.
5. Finalise and amend the Society’s political program, in particular by:
(a) altering its position on the role of women and non-Muslims in public life;
(b) continuing to seek input from a wide range of its members as well as non-members; and
(c) clarifying relations between the Society and a future related political party.
Such shoddy, deliberately misleading reporting inspires no confidence whatsoever that anything Klein writes for WND can be trusted.
AIM-WND-Loudon Attack on Panetta Was Ignored; Now It's Discredited Topic: Accuracy in Media
We've previously detailed how Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid teamed with foreigner Trevor Loudon, in an attempt to derail Leon Panetta's nomination as defense secretary, purportedly had a "close and personal relationship with a member of the Communist Party." WorldNetDaily's Aaron Klein also regurgitated the claims by the foreigner Loudon. We also pointed out that AIM's and WND's attacks were ignored, as evidenced by Panetta being unanimously confirmed by the Senate as defense secretary.
It turns out there was another reason the accusations by the foreigner Loudon and his American agents were so roundly ignored: they had no basis in reality.
Media Matters details how what Loudon and crew portrayed as a "close and personal relationship with a member of the Communist Party," Hugh DeLacy, was nothing more than a congressman responding to a constituent. Kincaid's claim that "Panetta promised DeLacy several apparently sensitive documents" is, again, nothing but typical constitutent correspondence.
Loudon, Kincaid, and Klein inflated the DeLacy-Panetta correspondence well beyond its significance -- thus falsely smearing Panetta. Don't expect any apologies, though; we're still waiting for Kincaid to admit that we were correct about the death penalty provisions in Uganda's proposed anti-gay legislation, or that he was wrong to defend Bruce Ivins, ultimately proven to have mailed several anthrax-laden letters shortly after 9/11 that killed several people.
Why Won't Farah Report Existence of People Who Don't Think Birth Certificate Is Fake? Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joseph Farah writes in his July 7 WorldNetDaily column:
Now that so many highly qualified graphics experts – seven by my count – have weighed in unequivocally in pronouncing Barack Obama's "long-form birth certificate" as an outright fraud, it's time to issue a challenge to other highly qualified experts to explain why they're wrong.
Isn't it curious that not a single media outlet has quoted even one such expert to proclaim the document valid?
[...]
Now, I can't say there are no experts out there who can explain the anomalies and contradictions that the seven experts say make it impossible for the White House document to be valid. But I can say they haven't been forthcoming.
So I am hereby issuing a challenge to them: Come forward and explain what the seven experts proclaiming Obama's birth certificate fraudulent are missing. Explain these anomalies in a way the American public can understand. Allay our fears that the biggest hoax in American political history is being perpetrated on us all by this White House.
[...]
Why are no other experts coming forward to answer the very public indictments of this document by highly qualified people?
Isn't the absence of evidence of authenticity in fact an indictment of a complacent, lapdog media with no interest in pursuing truth if it reflects poorly on Obama?
For heaven's sake, where are Obama's experts to explain what seven distinguished experts say cannot be explained away?
Farah is lying to you. At least two experts have come forward to "explain what seven distinguished experts say cannot be explained away": "Dr. Conspiracy" at the Obama Conspiracy blog, and computer expert John Woodman.
Thus, Farah's fallacious premise is utterly destroyed. The real question is why WND has hidden analyses that contradict its presumption that the birth certificate is fake from its readers. Then again, Jerome Corsi did promise during WND's Esquire lawsuit dog-and-pony show to try and discredit "Dr. Conspiracy" while downplaying his debunking of WND's so-called "experts."
Of course, that's not the way real journalism works. But Farah, Corsi and WND are interested only in information aimed at destroying President Obama, no matter how bogus and no much they discredit themselves in their Javert-esque pursuit.
If Farah and Corsi cared about the truth, they would ave reported on Dr. Conspiracy and Woodman by now. But they don't, so they haven't.
UPDATE: Here's a third defense of the long-form birth certificate that Farah and Corsi have chosen to ignore, from Neal Krawetz. Thanks, L.C., for the tip.
Newsmax's Rehabilitation of Fossella Rolls On Topic: Newsmax
We'vedetailed how disgraced former Republican Rep. Vito Fossella has been the benificiary of Newsmax's career-rehabilitation skills. The latest effort in that endeavor is a July 5 Moneynews article quoting Fossella attacking President Obama.
Forrest Jones and Ashley Martella identify Fossella as a "former GOP Congressman" but, needless to say, they don't mention how he got to that status: He left office in disgrace after a DUI arrest led to the revelation that Fossella had a mistress in Washington and fathered a child with her.
Corsi's Latest 'Expert' So Good He Won't Tell You Who He Is Topic: WorldNetDaily
Jerome Corsi's latest so-called "expert" to claim to have proof that President Obama's long-form birth certificate is afraid to go public. Corsi, though, is more than happy to explain that away.
In a July 5 WorldNetDaily article, Corsi claims that his source is "a high-level programmer for a state government" who "spoke on condition his name not be used, fearing he might lose his job." Corsi added: "He asserted that revealing his name is not necessary, because the analysis is self-evident."
Well, not exactly. The so-called "expert's" analysis is based on an examination of the PDF of the long-form certificate as it appears in Adobe Illustrator. But as we've noted, the PDF was not created in Illustrator -- it was created in a program called Mac OS X Quartz PDFContext -- so examining it in Illustrator is of very limited value, if not completely worthless.
If we had made such a fundmental error, we wouldn't want our name publicly known either.
If gays, lesbians and transsexuals are really "our brothers and sisters," why aren't polygamists and polyandrists also our brothers and sisters?
And if so, why did Obama fail to mention "our brothers and sisters" who are dedicated to multiple marriages?
Is there any medical evidence in existence that indicates polygamists and polyandrists have anything at all resembling the HIV/AIDS and syphilis rates of our nation's promiscuous homosexuals – so many of whom have died of AIDS and syphilis?
Moreover, if the president believes that gays, lesbians and transsexuals are "our brothers and sisters," why does he not also believe that "our brothers and sisters" include not only polygamists, but exhibitionists, the incestuous, coprophiliacs, necrophiliacs, urophiliacs and zoophiliacs (those who have sex with animals who are unable – or unwilling – to run away)?
None of these additional sexual orientations has the huge rate of HIV/AIDS and syphilis, which deadly diseases are distributed so widely by the nation's large number of sexually profligate homosexuals.
Their continued deadly-disease spreading was surely aided and abetted by Mr. Obama's announcement that they (with no distinction between the sexually profligate and other homosexuals) are "our brothers, our sisters, our children, our cousins, our friends, our co-workers."
Such presidential pandering to deadly-disease spreaders is surely a despicable means of trying to attract votes by an incumbent who will apparently do anything to try to win re-election.
I don't happen to think that homosexuals are bad people, although I do wish they hadn't managed to confiscate a perfectly fine word, gay, which strikes me as an inappropriate moniker for a group that includes so many drama queens. I've never suggested they're evil. Feeling as I do about having an appointment with a proctologist – trepidation bordering on stupefaction – I confess that I find their sex lives extremely bizarre. But, I hasten to add, I know that some people, including my wife, regard my love of baseball as a sure sign of derangement.
What I do find annoying about a great many homosexuals is their insistence on identifying themselves solely on the basis of their sexual activities. To be fair, I have an equal intolerance with heterosexual men whose identity seems to be totally wrapped up in their sexual activities and whose conversation consists of bragging about their conquests. It just strikes me as adolescent.
As you may have noticed, I have made several references to sexual activity – which is something that all the propagandists gloss over. Although gays populate movies and TV shows to such a degree that you would think that they represent 25 percent of the population, rather than their actual 2.5 percent, they are nearly always depicted as asexual human beings. They are cute, they are cuddly, they're amusing neighbors and loyal chums, but they're not sexual human beings. Their mascot is Nathan Lane. What Hollywood and the media would have us believe is that they are nothing more or less than teddy bears who have somehow mastered speech.
As for gay-pride parades, I can hardly imagine anything goofier. What is it exactly that they're so proud of? That their sexual activity will never lead to the birth of a baby, but only, tragically on occasion, to a dreadful disease?
NewsBusters Touts Purported 'Bullying' By White House, Can't Identify Any Actual Bullying Topic: NewsBusters
A July 6 NewsBusters post by Aubrey Vaughan regurgitates a Dally Caller article claiming that White House director of progressive media and online response Jesse Lee is "bullying" conservatives by responding to them on Twitter. Unlike the Daily Caller, Vaughan did disclose that a target of the so-called bullying, Kevin Eder, is a former MRC employee, which would seem to run counter to Eder's claim that he's "quite literally...a nobody." (The Daily Caller article was written by the Heritage Foundation's Rob Bluey, who himself is as former MRC employee.)
Disclosure aside, Vaughan is in regurgitation mode, so no actual "bullying" is identified. As Huffington Post's Jason Linkins points out, Lee is simply responding to comments Eder directed to him, and Eder himself is quoted as saying he enjoys the "back and forth" with Lee. Linkins adds: "No need to cut any 'It Gets Better' videos over this, I suppose."
Nevertheless, Vaughan portrayed this as an example of Lee "pick[ing] fights" with conservative bloggers. Go figure.
Nobody Wants to Sell Advertising For WND Topic: WorldNetDaily
On April 14, WorldNetDaily posted a "news" article that was actually a help-wanted ad:
The James R. Whelan Agency, a fast-growing ad sales agency headquartered in West Palm Beach, Fla., is seeking an inside account executive to sell online and print advertising.
The agency sells advertising for WND.com, the Internet's largest independent news website, as well as its monthly magazine, Whistleblower.
"Our strong subscription and advertising sales growth allows us to continue to develop our West Palm sales team," explains JWA founder James Whelan. "The successful hire will call on national advertisers and their agencies to secure multi-buy advertising schedules. Strong phone skills are a must, and established advertising contacts are a plus."
The story concluded with a phone number to which one could fax a resume.
Nearly three months later, this article-slash-ad is still hanging out at the bottom of the WND front page. Apparently, nobody is so desperate for a job that they will sell advertising for WND.
Then again, it could be the guy they would be working for. On his website, next to a picture of himself shaking hands with Donald Trump, James R. Whelan explains himself (boldface in original):
Hi. I'm Jim Whelan. I'm "The Guy" you see below.
No, I'm not "The Donald." I'm the guy wearing the rawhide cowboy hat and $14,000.00 tuxedo - not to mention my politically incorrect crocodile leather cowboy boots. My entire outfit might even cost more than the threads Mr. Trump is wearing.
By the way, Donald came over and introduced himself to ME after a number of "Who is that?" glances while signing autographs and talking to the tee-vee cameras. HOW on earth did I make that happen? Wouldn't you like to know?
Let me tell you, I am a MAGNET for FREE Publicity that Paris Hilton would envy (i.e. I don't have to doff my duds to get it) - as well as helping my clients get worldwide exposure via wise and prudently selected media placement.
Yes, it's true: The Cowboys at The James R Whelan Agency specialize in getting YOU the best seat at the rodeo - and believe me, dealing with the media is a lot like rasslin' a steer to the ground.
Uh, yeah.
On the photo page of Whelan's website, amid pictures of Whelan hanging with assorted celebrities and foreigners while wearing gaudy Western-style getups even actual Westerners would be embarrassed to be seen in, there's this awesome photo of Whelan with WND's Joseph Farah and "Mit Romney's assistant":
CNS Admits Existence Of U.S. Casualties In Iraq Topic: CNSNews.com
We've detailed how CNSNews.com has repeatedly emphasized the casualty rate of U.S. troops in Afghanistan without mentioning that the rate was much higher at the peak of the Iraq war. Now, CNS finally admits that U.S. troops are still getting killed in Iraq.
A July 5 CNS article by Patrick Goodenough reports that "Fifteen U.S. troops died in Iraq in June, more than in any single month since June 2009." Of course, CNS is days behind in reporting this revelation. But that didn't appear until the third paragraph of Goodenough's article; a claim that "Iranian security agencies" were to blame for "a fresh increase in violence" comes first.
Goodenough further tries to spin things by stating that "attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces and Iraqi civilians have dropped fourfold since 2007, when they averaged some 400 each week." No such spin is permitted Edwin Mora's monthly body counts, where the word "Iraq" is prohibited.
Admission of the existence of casualties in Iraq, this story is reminiscent of CNS' coverage of Iraq war casualties from 2007 to 2009, with heavy emphasis on how they have fallen. Here are some sample headlines from that period, where even monthly casualty increases are accompanied by proclamations of how they are down from the previous year:
By contrast, as we noted, the last two body-count articles by Mora carried the headlines "Under Obama, U.S. Casualty Rate in Afghanistan Increased 5-Fold" and "2011 On Pace to Match Deadliest Year in Afghanistan for U.S. Troops."
Will Mora and CNS be touting the inevitable casualty rate declines in Afghanistan as breathlessly as it did for Iraq casualty declines? Don't count on it -- that's not part of CNS' mission.
WND's Klein Reduced To Complaining About Masturbation Topic: WorldNetDaily
So it's come to this: Aaron Klein complaining about masturbation.
Klein devotes an entire July 4 WorldNetDaily article to an attempted hit job on AOL for publishing "an item on its main page about how men fake orgasms, recommending any male engaged in the practice should masturbate to help 'discover what stimulates you.'" At no point did Klein explain why masturbation is a bad thing; of course, he really couldn't since the AOL article (to which he failed to offer a link) he attacked was "medically reviewed" by a physician.
The ostensible goal of Klein's article was to paint the article as a consequence of AOL's merger with Huffington Post, where, he claims, "some have noticed a shift in AOL's content toward the Huffington Post's notorious liberal bent." Of course, this is a extremely poor example of it; the previous article in the "sexual health" section of the AOL EverydayHealth site that Klein is attacking, as listed at the end of it, carries the headline "The Anatomy of an Erection," and it was published in October 2009, well before the AOL-HuffPo merger. Klein does not explain what a "sexual health" website should be talking about in place of these subjects.
And while Klein is eager to identify Huffington Post as "liberal" -- which he does no less than five times in his article -- at no point does he cite the critics he describes as attacking HuffPo, such as American Thinker and the Media Research Center, as conservative. Klein even references the MRC's 2007 attack on HuffPo, which we've pointed out is utterly useless as "media research" because it cherry-picks 19 posts out of the tens of thousands on the website in order to attack HuffPo as "loaded with profanity and crude sexual and excretory metaphors." Of course, the point of such shoddy work is precisely so that right-wing hacks like Klein will mindlessly repeat it without examining the MRC's crappy methodology.
But let's look at the larger issue here: Why is someone stationed in Jerusalem writing about an American website publishing an article about masturbation? Isn't he supposed to be covering, you know, the Middle East?
Of the 23 articles Klein has written since June 1 only six carry a Jerusalem or Tel Aviv dateline and are devoted to Middle East issues. Nearly all of the rest are attacks on the Obama administration or other Democrats and liberals, which could have been written anywhere. Also, most of his Middle East-themed articles of late are anonymously sourced, so those are of marginal journalistic value as well.
Paying to keep Klein ensconced in Jerusalem seems like a needlessly expensive way for WND to pursue such right-wing hack work, since he's obviously doing little these days to justify being located there.
AIM Joins The 'Dick' Conspiracy Topic: Accuracy in Media
A July 1 Accuracy in Media blog post by Roger Aronoff follows the Media Research Center in failing to condemn Mark Halperin for calling President Obama "kind of a dick" while simultaneously acknowledging that it was so offensive that he can't use the word uncensored, instead using "d***" and "the 'd' word."
Aronoff even goes on to literally repeat an MRC conspiracy, claiming that it Halperin "had instead called George W. Bush a fascist or a war criminal, no problem there at MSNBC, as Media Research Center has pointed out." But if Aronoff is so unbothered by Halperin's use of the word "dick," why won't he spell it out?
WND Posts Video Of Its Dog-And-Pony Show Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily has posted video (in five parts) of its dog-and-pony show from last week in which it presented its lawsuit against Esquire magazine and pushed birther conspiracy theories.
We haven't watched the whole thing to see if WND deleted anything embarrassing, like the long gaps of Mara Zebest fumbling around at the computer -- we're in no hurry to lose another hour and a half of our lives reliving this experience again -- but we do know that the end of part 5 does keep intact Joseph Farah refusing to answer our question about whether WND-affiliated attorneys supplied Tim Adams with the affidavit he signed (and WND later reported on) and shutting down the press conference instead.
Public School Derangement Syndrome Watch Topic: WorldNetDaily
have a confession to make. Until I was an adult – as in, until a few years ago – I never completely read the Declaration of Independence.
Oh sure, I was familiar with the basics. I knew what it said … sort of. But somehow I just never got around to reading it.
This isn't surprising. I am, after all, a public skool gradjuate. And public schools, as everyone knows, hardly go around emphasizing such things.
But now that I'm a homeschooling mom, I was darned if my kids were going to be as ignorant as I was.
[...]
When one nation takes over another, that second nation is considered "occupied." That's currently the situation of We the People. We are occupied by the Government of America. An efficient parasite weakens and sucks blood from its host, but doesn't quite kill it. The Government of America has become a parasite on the body of the People of America.
And so this is why a thoughtful study of our founding documents is actively discouraged in government schools. Studying these documents puts students in opposition with the occupying force. The Declaration is considered inflammatory because students might recognize that the whole purpose of it was to put limitations on the Government, not to feed the beast.
CNS Belatedly Decides Obama Videos Can Be Used As A Cudgel After All Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com is having a tryout for another attack on President Obama -- but this time it gave itself the added degree of difficulty of having declared it wasn't an issue first.
A June 29 article by Matt Cover breathlessly declared that "White House visitor logs reveal that President Obama’s political organization, Obama for America, filmed two campaign videos featuring the president--inside the White House." Cover waited until the second-to-last paragraph of the 12-paragraph article to undo all the hinting at illegalities he had been doing in the rest of the article, conceding that "the videos are not illegal" and that "presidents have often used the White House as a setting for political material."
Then, two days later, Cover apparently decided he didn't trust his legal analysis -- or, more likely, he or his bosses decided that this could be turned into a politically motivated wedge issue against the president. So he scared up a pair of right-wing activists who he presents as "election law experts" to declare that the videos are illegal after all.
Cover identifies Cleta Mitchell only as "a member of the American Bar Association’s election law committee"; in fact, she's a right-wing activist who we last saw serving as a contact for Dick Morris' Super PAC for America. Cover does offer some hint of the political slant his other "expert," Hans von Spakovsky, by noting that he's a "Heritage Foundation legal analyst," but he's much better known for obsessing over the largely nonexistent scourge of voter fraud.
But while Cover, in his June 29 article, noted that "President George W. Bush also filmed part of a campaign ad in the residential portion of the White House. President Bush also used a picture of himself in the Oval Office in a fundraising email from the RNC," he apparently did not ask Mitchell or von Spakovsky about the legality of those incidents, for he does not reference them in the new article. Nor does Cover mention that he had declared the videos to be legal just two days before.
Then again, it's not in Cover's interest to find out if Bush broke any election laws -- that's not what the Media Research Center is paying him to do. It doesn't matter to them that the flip-flop and the double standard is so blatant.
Geller Isn't Bringing Her A-Game Crazy To WND Columnist Gig Topic: WorldNetDaily
Pamela Geller never made sense as a Newsmax columnist. Her rabid anti-Muslim tirades and birther leanings conflicted with Newsmax's attempts to present itself as a moderate conservative voice -- and they demonsrated a more natural fit at WorldNetDaily. And lo and behold, a few weeks back that came to pass: Geller is a WND columnist.
Thus far, Geller has let her WND readers see only bits of her weapons-grade crazy. Her most high-profile controversies have yet to see the light of day at WND.
For instance, Geller has been defending accused Serbian war criminal Ratko Mladic by downplaying the number of Muslims killed in a massacre in Srebenica and by claiming that Mladic is actually being accused of "daring to fight back when Muslims attacked."
Most recently, Geller has been trying to figure out what to do about her steadfast support for the English Defence League, a far-right British anti-Muslim group long associated with violent attacks and long accused of having racist elements. After the head of the EDL's Jewish Division, Roberta Moore, resigned from the group complaining of "Nazis" in the EDL ranks, Geller first declared that she was withdrawing her support from the EDL, then flip-flopped the next day, insisting that "There is a struggle for the soul of the EDL" and that she still believes the EDL is "noble and true."
C'mon, Pam. If Ilana Mercer can use her WND perch to defend apartheid, certainly you should be able to hold forth at length on the virtuousness of Mladic and the EDL.
