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Saturday, August 20, 2011
At NewsBusters, Bashing Obama Is Media Criticism
Topic: NewsBusters

We're still wondering what this has to do with NewsBusters' stated mission of media criticism:

  • Tom Blumer writes in an Aug. 14 post of Obama's bus tour: "This habit of his of appearing in the proximity of GOP candidates and leaders is something you'd normally see from supposedly overconfident authoritarians in banana republic countries attempting to intimidate their opponents by stalking them. It is immature, betrays immense insecurity, is certainly not presidential, and gives one the distinct sense that he has nothing better to do."
  • Mike Bates asserts in an Aug. 17 post that President Obama is "the most inept president in history," adding: "More than one million in tax dollars for Obama to travel in luxury for a few days as he bashes Republicans.  We're the ones getting taken for a ride." 

If anyone at the Media Research Center is bothered by the idea that such overt partisan political activity on its websites violates the MRC's 501(c)3 status, they haven't shown it.


Posted by Terry K. at 12:48 AM EDT
Friday, August 19, 2011
MRC Repeats Malicious Misquote of Sen. Lautenberg
Topic: Media Research Center

An Aug. 18 MRCTV post carries the headline "Sen Lautenberg: ‘We Got to Eliminate the Rich,'" linking to a Breitbart.tv post and continuing: "Senior moment, or Freudian slip? Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) lets his class warfare rhetoric get the best of him at a press conference in Belmar, NJ."

In fact, that's not what Lautenberg said at all; he said, during a discussion of Warren Buffett's statement that taxes should be raised on the wealthy, that "we've got to eliminate the waste."

Breitbart.tv has since added a update stating, "Some of our readers with extra-keen hearing think they hear the Senator say 'We got to eliminate the WASTE.'" But Breitbart then cops out by adding, "We'll let you be the judge," even though it's quite clear to people with normal hearing that Lautenberg said "waste."

Will the MRC update or correct its post? We shall see.

 


Posted by Terry K. at 3:22 PM EDT
CNS' Jeffrey Again Falsely Suggests Planned Parenthood's Federal Money Pays For Abortion
Topic: CNSNews.com

Terry Jeffrey ramped up the shrillness level of CNSNews.com's war on Planned Parenthood in his Aug. 17 column:

By the end of September, when fiscal 2011 ends, House Speaker John Boehner must answer a simple yet profound question: Will he lead a Republican-controlled House of Representatives in enacting government funding bills for fiscal 2012 that allow tax dollars to flow to a group that kills an average of 910 unborn babies per day?

[...]

In this fiscal year, Boehner caved -- and permitted funding of Planned Parenthood.

In 2009, according to a fact sheet Planned Parenthood posted on its website, the group aborted 332,278 babies.

Had Planned Parenthood's abortionists worked seven days a week for all 12 months of the year, they would have needed to slice and suction 910 babies every day to amass that death count.

Had Planned Parenthood's abortionists worked 24 hours a day on every one of the 365 days in the year -- including Christmas, Easter and the Fourth of July -- they would have needed to terminate about 38 babies per hour to kill 332,278 in a year.

That's one dead baby every 95 seconds.

Surely, there are few institutions on earth that can match Planned Parenthood's pace in dispatching human lives. It is a true champion of death.

[...]

Every additional dollar paid to Planned Parenthood will be borrowed money that future generations will need to pay off -- the very generations Planned Parenthood is working to abort.

If Planned Parenthood continues to receive federal funding after Sept. 30, it only will be because Boehner cut another deal with Obama and a sufficient number of Republicans followed Boehner's lead in forging a coalition with House Democrats to approve the deal -- over the opposition of members who don't want tax dollars going to the nation's largest abortionist.

If Boehner takes a stand against Planned Parenthood funding, he will spark a certain-to-be-ferocious national debate in which the liberal media will use all their firepower to defend Obama and the abortionists.

Unmentioned by Jeffrey is one inconvenient fact: The federal money Planned Parenthood receives does not pay for abortions. But then, Jeffrey has committed this act of dishonesty before.


Posted by Terry K. at 11:45 AM EDT
WND's Cashill Whitewashes Tim Adams And His Crappy Master's Thesis
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Jack Cashill devotes his Aug. 17 WorldNetDaily column to boosting the case of a familiar WND friend, Tim Adams. It appears that Adams has written a master's thesis about his adventures as a birther, and Cashill is just the guy to whitewash things further.

As Cashill writes, Adams presents himself in his thesis as a Hunter Thompson-esque gonzo journalist who "hoped to have some fun" with the "paleo-conservative" Council of Conservative Citizens by revealing his questionable story about the purported non-existence of Barack Obama's long-form birth certificate.

Of course, as Cashill surely knows, the CofCC is not just "paleo-conservative"; it's outright white supremacist, as we've noted. And the radio host to whom Adams told his birther story does not merely have a show with an "unsavory title" ("The Political Cesspool"); he has declared that it represents "a philosophy that is pro-White."

Cashill uncritically repeated Adams' claim that in Hawaii, "he ran an office that verified voter eligibility that had a staff of about 50 people." In fact, Adams' boss has pointed out that Adams was nothing more than a low-level data entry clerk.

Cashill also rails against Keith Olbermann for calling Adams a "white supremacist" -- a logical conclusion to make about someone who made his claim at what even Cashill admits was "a meeting of a group whose own racist website denounced anyone who advocated integration." Cashill also huffed that Olbermann "concluded his slander with a smarmy zinger, 'Well done, WorldNetDaily.'" In fact, as the video shows (embedded in this WND article), Olbermann was pointing out, as we did, that WND failed to report the white supremacist ties of Adams.

Cashill then claimed that "anti-journalists like Olbermann do not report the news, let alone the truth. Rather, they attack the people who do." In fact, the exact opposite is happening here. Cashill is the anti-journalist: Olbermann reported the truth, and Cashill is attacking him for it.

We expect no better behavior for the conspiracy-obsessed Cashill. The real issue is that many of these same distortions and omissions -- and many more -- appear in Adams' thesis, which makes one wonder how it ever made it past the thesis committee at Western Kentucky University, where Adams is working toward his master's degree.

We will delve into Adam's thesis very soon. Stay tuned...

Posted by Terry K. at 8:41 AM EDT
Has Newsmax Found A New Conservative to Rehabilitate?
Topic: Newsmax

Newsmax has already served up image-rehabilitation services for the likes of Bernard Kerik, Ralph Reed and Vito Fossella. Now Newsmax is apparently adding a new disgraced conservative politician to the program.

An Aug. 17 column by Ronald Kessler serves up the opinions of Alphonso Jackson, the secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Bush, about President Obama (spoiler: Jackson doesn't like him). Kessler serves up a heartwarming story about Jackson's background:

When Jackson, 65, was growing up in Dallas, blacks had to sit at the back of the bus. They could not drink from the same water fountain as whites. They were not allowed into the same restaurants or even on the same floor of department stores as whites.

Jackson’s father was a Republican, but Jackson grew up as a Democrat. He began to have second thoughts about being a Democrat after a black athletic director at Truman State University in Missouri, who was a Democrat, told him he was not capable of majoring in political science and taking pre-law classes. Instead, he said, Jackson — an All-American athlete — should major in physical education.

Jackson told Ken Gardner, a white track coach who was a Republican, what the athletic director had said. “He looked at me and he said, ‘You don’t have to be a physical education major,’” Jackson says. “He took me in to see the athletic director, and the athletic director backed off. I had never experienced a white person who truly had faith in our abilities.”

Jackson asked his father why he was a Republican. “Because the Republicans respect me as a human being,” his father said. “They don’t categorize me as a black.”

Needless to say, Kessler didn't mention the ethics issues that forced Jackson's resignation as HUD secretary -- specifically, a federal invesigation sparked by Jackson's claim that he had canceled the contract a HUD contractor who admitted to disliking President Bush. The investigation was later closed without charges being filed.

It seems we can look forward to more whitewashing of Jackson with nary a mention of his ethical difficulties.


Posted by Terry K. at 12:24 AM EDT
Thursday, August 18, 2011
NewsBusters Gets Busted Making False Claim
Topic: NewsBusters

Scott Whitlock asserted in an Aug. 16 NewsBusters post that ABC "hid the identity of a global warming activist" during a news segment:

The journalist featured a clip of Heidi Cullen, who ABC simply labeled as a "climatologist." She announced, "When you crank up the heat, when you globally warm the planet, you're going to see more extreme events."

Yet, Cullen is also the communications director for Climate Central, a group dedicated to "helping mainstream Americans understand how climate change connects to them, and arming our audiences with the knowledge they need to make informed decisions about their future."

But as Media Matters pointed out, the segment in question included "Climate Central" superimposed during the Cullen clip.

Whitlock has since inserted a correction into his post:

[08-17-11 Correction: ABC did have the words "Climate Central" in the upper left-hand corner of the screen. Though, the network did not offer any explanation of the group's advocacy.]

This correction did not appear on the front page of NewsBusters, which runs counter to the MRC's demands for correction placement by non-MRC media.


Posted by Terry K. at 5:49 PM EDT
Cashin' In At The MRC
Topic: Media Research Center

Romenesko gleans the latest IRS nonprofit group reports to find the salaries and assets of media watchdog groups. Turns out the MRC is doing quite well:

The conservative Media Research Center — it tells the IRS its mission is “to create a media culture in America where truth and liberty flourish” — reports in its Form 990 that it had net assets of $11,271,007 at the end of 2010. The salaries disclosed include:

Brent Bozell; president/director; $422,804
Brent Baker; vice president; $126,300
David Martin; executive vp/asst. treasurer; $215,000
Dan Gainor; Business & Media Institute vice president; $122,400
Terry Jeffrey; CNSNews.com editor-in-chief; $122,400

With $11 million burning a hole in its pocket, no wonder the MRC can afford to pay Bozell more than the president makes. Their brand of right-wing hate appears to be quite lucrative.


Posted by Terry K. at 4:50 PM EDT
WND Back To Fearmongering About Vaccines
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily has long fearmongered about vaccines, which went somewhat into abeyance after research claiming a link between vaccines and autism was discredited. As we documented at the time, WND couldn't be bothered to devote an original article to the discrediting, leaving it to one of its columnists to write about it.

But now, WND is back in the fearmongering business with an Aug. 15 article by Michael Carl:

More than 100 children from Malawi's southern district of Nsanje have been forced at gunpoint to receive measles vaccinations, according to a report from the southern African nation.

And the partner in the forced medication program? The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, according to Natural News.

Carl made no apparent effort to verify the original report, which comes from a website of unknown veracity called Malawi Voice. It claims to "provide the true information to Malawians and other interested parties independently and honestly." That's basically what WND claims, and we know how that worked out.

WND's other source is something called Natural News, a Taiwan-based website that also cites the Malawi Voice report as its basis. Its veracity is questionable as well, given such headlines as "Why is George Soros selling gold and buying farmland?" and "Unplugging from The Man, Part II."

Despite not bothering to verify any of the major claims he's reporting, Carl pretended they were true anyway giving space to activists like Brannon Howse -- who we last saw praying for liberal journalists to take their inspiration from Fox News and WND -- to attack the Gates Foundation and claim that "I believe the globalists have every desire to destroy parental authority and they will do so in the name of 'helping children'" and "Hitler also spoke of how the 'state' owned the German children."

As per WND style, the article's headline -- "Government vaccinations at gunpoint reported" -- is written vaguely in order to falsely suggest that this was going on in the United States.

In short: There's no reason to believe what Carl has written here, since he couldn't be bothered to find out of any of it was true before he wrote about it.


Posted by Terry K. at 11:46 AM EDT
MRC Still Unhappy That Gays Are On TV, Part 2,487
Topic: NewsBusters

Yes, Media Research Center employee Matt Hadro wrote this in an Aug. 16 NewsBusters post:

CNN's own poll recently showed that voters 60-to-one believe the economy is the most pressing issue facing the United States, as opposed to policies toward gays and lesbians. CNN's Anderson Cooper apparently thought the views of Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann toward gays and lesbians important enough to merit the lead segment on his Monday show.

But you already knew that the MRC has an anti-gay agenda.


Posted by Terry K. at 9:10 AM EDT
Les Kinsolving, Confederate Sympathizer
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Who knew that Les Kinsolving was such a staunch defender of the Confederacy?

WorldNetDaily's White House reporter reveals his Southern sympathies in his Aug. 15 column, in which he complains that the NAACP wants to ban the Confederate flag from flying at the South Carolina capitol building.

Kinsolving brings up the description of the Civil War preferred by Confederate sympathizers, the "War of Northern Aggression." Then, in a fit of tone-deafness and weird loathing that marks his hatred of homosexuals, coninues:

If South Carolina ever decides to dishonor the memory of so many of its men who died in what might well be termed the Second American Revolution – and if Mississippi ever yields to similar pressure to remove the Confederate battle flag from its state flag – can we imagine the next demands of the frequently incredible NAACP (which remains tongue-tied at the scandalous racial segregation now practiced by the Congressional Black Caucus)?

Think of the possibility that the NAACP might demand the name of the capital city of Washington be changed because the father of our country was a slave owner.

Think of the NAACP demanding that the Washington Monument be renamed – in honor of John Brown. And further demanding that the name of our nation's capital be changed from Washington to Nat Turner City, and the state of Washington to the state of Malcolm X.

There would, of course, also be a need to remove the name and photograph of Gen. and President Ulysses Grant from our currency, for he too was a slave owner, as was Mrs. Grant, who, with her two slaves, was very nearly captured by Confederate cavalry.

On top of the absurdity of naming a state for Malcolm X, Kinsolving seems not to understand the difference between founding fathers who owned slaves but did not fight under any banner to preserve it, and states who fought a war of secession in order to preserve the institution of slavery, which is what the Confederate battle flag represents.

Kinsolving, it seems, loves the Confederacy as much has he hates gays.

It's almost like Kinsolving was using this column to audition for a job with the Washington Times. He's a little late for that: The Times' Confederacy fetishists, like Wesley Pruden and Robert Stacy McCain, have long since departed the paper.


Posted by Terry K. at 12:09 AM EDT
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
MRC Invents 'Gay Slurs' Against Bachmann, Ignores Actual Gay Slur By Limbaugh
Topic: Media Research Center

Given the Media Research Center's anti-gay agenda, you'd think it wouldn't be bothered by gay slurs. And you'd be right -- except when conservatives are the alleged target.

Thus, we have the spectacle of Matt Philbin whining in an Aug. 16 MRC Culture & Media Institute article that "liberals" are being mean to Michele Bachmann's husband by suggesting that he's gay. The headline on Philbin's article: "Lefty Hypocrites Level Gay Slurs."

That hypocrisy, of course, pales against the MRC's record of gay-bashing bigotry, which results in howls of outrage anytime a homosexual appears on TV without being denounced for being all gay and stuff.

We suspect Philbin cares only because Bachmann is currently a leading Republican presidential candidate. No mention at all of an actual gay Republican presidential candidate, Fred Karger. No, the MRC is too busy bashing him for getting any media coverage at all.

Meanwhile, as Philbin was trying to generate a controversy that really didn't exist, he was ignoring actual gay slurs. 

Rush Limbaugh said on his Aug. 16 radio show that a person who asked a favorable question of President Obama during his bus tour was a "classic butt boy," adding that there are "Obama butt boys all over the place." "Butt boy," of course, is a fairly prominent anti-gay slur.

Will Philbin, with his newfound sensitivity toward gay issues, hold Limbaugh accoutable for his gay slur? Or will he follow MRC policy by ignoring Limbaugh's strange obsession with anal sex?


Posted by Terry K. at 4:49 PM EDT
CNS' Jeffrey Attacks George Will For Criticizing Bachmann
Topic: CNSNews.com

When the editor-in-chief of a "news" website seems much more concerned with attacking his enemies instead of reporting the news, you know a line has been crossed.

Terry Jeffrey is so determined to turn the CNSNews.com, the site of which he is editor-in-chief, into a right-wing attack machinethat he's even violating longstanding MRC policy not to criticize fellow conservatives. Here's how Jeffrey kicked off an Aug. 14 article:

Washington Post columnist George Will, who has never commanded anything with greater throw-weight than a word processor, suggested on ABC’s “This Week” this morning that President Barack Obama would have an easier time in the general election defeating Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann than Texas Gov. Rick Perry because the “threshold question in any presidential race” is “[s]hould this person have control of nuclear weapons.”

Earlier this year, Will used very similar terms to deprecate what he also perceives to be former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's lack of fitness to control the U.S. nuclear arsenal as president.

Yeowch. Jeffrey continues his rant:

Palin, Bachmann and Perry all have one thing in common: They are conservative Republicans. Palin and Perry have one thing in common that they do not share with Bachmann: They both have served as governors of states.

Yet Bachmann has one qualification neither Perry nor Palin has: As a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, she has served in a federal office that has oversight over national security issues.

And Palin and Bachmann have one common characteristic they do not share with Perry: They are both women.

Is this why Will deprecates Palin's and Bachmann's fitness to command the U.S. nuclear arsenal, but not Perry's?

The more interesting question: Why are Will's statements so out of bounds that Jeffrey responded so forcefully, when the MRC has ignored arguably more egregious acts by Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter? Is it because Jeffrey is operating CNS as a partisan attack website in violation of the MRC's 501(c)3 tax status?

We report, you decide.


Posted by Terry K. at 3:18 PM EDT
WND Ramps Up Anti-Perry Campaign
Topic: WorldNetDaily

A few weeks back, WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah explained why he wasn't voting for Rick Perry (he doesn't hate gays as much as Farah does). Turns out that, along with a previous Farah column bashing Perry for wanting to vaccinate girls against a type of cervical cancer, was just the beginning of WND's anti-Perry efforts.

Farah cranked out yet another Perry-bashing column on Aug. 5,complaining that "Some people still don't appreciate why Rick Perry's remark to Republican fat cats condoning the New York Legislature's vote to approve same-sex marriage should disqualify him from consideration for the Republican presidential nomination," declaring that you should "Cross Perry off your list of acceptable candidates to oppose Obama in 2012."

With Perry officially entering the race, WND has ratcheted up the Perry-bashing. An Aug. 14 column by Steve Baldwin listed "10 areas in which Perry has taken positions anathema to conservative principles," for which he is demanding answers.Like: "Are you still a member of the Bilderbergs? Why would you be invited to join this group?"

The same day, self-proclaimed prophet Joel Richardson wrote a column attacking Perry for  "an apparently close relationship Perry has fostered over the years with a Muslim leader know [sic] as 'His Highness' Prince Shah Karim Al-Husayni, the Aga Khan IV." Richardson engages in his usual Islam-bashing:

It should also be mentioned that one of the doctrines espoused by Ismaili Muslims is the doctrine of Taqiyya. In simple terms, the doctrine of Taqiyya allows Muslims to purposefully hide or lie about their true religious beliefs to "unbelievers" or even Muslims of different sects. Of course, it is doubtful that the children of Texas will learn anything of Taqiyya in their Perry-sponsored education concerning Islam.

Of course, while lying in the name of religion may seem like a foreign concept to most, it is the principle of "the ends justify the means" that underscores many aspects of the Islamic approach to win the West.

One can only hope that such is not the principle driving Gov. Perry's campaign for the presidency.

Of course, people who are not hysterically anti-Muslim have little problem with that relationship.

Nevertheless, Pamela Geller was in full anti-Muslim freakout mode in her Aug. 16 column, headlined "Yes, Rick Perry is the 5th column candidate." Geller huffs that "I want a presidential candidate who is unafraid of the stealth jihadists in our midst, and who will vow that he will clean out the infiltratord," then rails against the Aga Khan, concluding:

The fact that Hamas-tied CAIR, one of the top five groups named in AFDI's Threats to Freedom Index, immediately praised Perry, speaks volumes. All this speaks to a pattern. And the pattern is not good. It speaks to a pattern of going along with our civilization path to suicide. No matter who wins the nomination, I will support him or her with every breath of my body. But I am going to fight like a cat to get the right cat there. Of course, a candidate should make nice with Muslims who oppose jihad. But introducing the Islamic whitewash into our public schools and universities is the most dangerous thing you can do. It is not my intention to damn all Muslims, but we need a president who will call out the Islamic supremacist groups on stealth jihad. That is real political courage, not calling for tax cuts.

We have had enough of dhimmi candidates who kowtow, out of ignorance or financial interest or both, to Islamic supremacists. In my new book, "Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance," I detail the advances it is making, and show how Americans can and must resist. Do you really think that Rick Perry, in light of the information above, is really the man who is going to lead that resistance? Has Gov. Perry addressed the jihad ideology that has been responsible in recent years for the slaughter of thousands across the world? Or is he busy putting lipstick on a halal pig?


Posted by Terry K. at 9:13 AM EDT
NEW ARTICLE: Not-So-Special Reports, Part 2
Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center keeps up its record of reports that reflect its right-wing agenda more than any genuine media research. Read more >>

Posted by Terry K. at 12:35 AM EDT
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Sheppard Still Thinks Insults Are Media Criticism
Topic: NewsBusters

NewsBusters' Noel Sheppard loves pretending that insults and partisan attacks are "media criticism," no matter how much that might violate the Media Research Center's 501(c)3 nonprofit status.

Sheppard keeps that up with an Aug. 16 post touting Rush Limbaugh's insult wondering "which NBC personality" might be found in President Obama's next colonoscopy.

Sheppard knows how to keep it classy, doesn't he?


Posted by Terry K. at 9:22 PM EDT

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