NewsBusters Dubiously Claims TV Station 'Prevented' Access of Obama Video to Breitbart Topic: NewsBusters
Under the headline "Two Groups Trying to Prevent Breitbart Video Release Also Soros-Funded," Iris Somberg writes in a March 8 NewsBusters post that Boston public TV station WGBH "prevented" access by Breitbart.com to a video of Barack Obama in 1990 making a speech at Harvard Law School in favor of professor Derrick Bell getting tenure. This echoes a previous claim by Breitbart.com Big Journalism editor Dana Loesch that "WGBH refused to give Breitbart.com the video."
Somberg seems to have ignored that the Breitbart sites apparently didn't feel like paying for the video. As WGBH pointed out, the website Buzzfeed, which posted the entirety of what was available of Obama’s speech, paid WGBH for the footage it used. Breitbart apparently demanded the footage be given out for free.
It appears Breitbart was too cheap to pay for the footage it wanted. (WGBH has since posted the Obama-Bell footage in its entirety.)
Somberg also claimed this Obama-Bell footage "was hidden from the American public," which is utterly false. As WGBH noted, excerpts of the footage were used in a 2008 campaign special for the PBS show "Frontline."
Somberg goes on to irrelevently sacaremonger about George Soros, complaining that "more than $3.5 million was granted to WGBH and Harvard by Soros’s Open Society Foundations since 2000." Which, of course, has nothing to do with any of this.
WND Columnist: Sandra Fluke Is An 'Apparent Slut' Topic: WorldNetDaily
Phil Elmore uses his March 7 WorldNetDaily column to regurgitate Rush Limbaugh's slurs of Sandra Fluke:
Never mind that Sandra Fluke – who appeared at a press conference crafted by Democrats to resemble a congressional hearing – is a left-wing activist whose whining about the inordinate sum she pays for birth control has made her name a prurient punch line. Never mind that Fluke was originally misrepresented as a doe-eyed 20-something coed, when in fact the law student is a 30-year-old woman who ought to be able to buy her (presumably) many lovers’ cases of condoms. Never mind that libtalkers like Ed Schultz and Bill Maher have called prominent conservative women like Laura Ingraham and Sarah Palin names like “slut” (and worse). No, when Rush Limbaugh called this apparent slut a slut, his crime was immediately judged so heinous that sponsors started jumping ship without regard to the damage they might be doing themselves.
Elmore, of course, offers up no evidence whatsoever that discussing birth control in public, which is what Fluke did, automatically makes you an "apparent slut."
Perhaps Elmore ought to follow his idol by issuing a half-assed apology for his slur of Fluke. We don't expect him to be genuinely contrite, since Limbaugh wasn't either.
NEW ARTICLE: Brent Bozell's Profile in Cowardice Topic: Media Research Center
Not only can't the Media Research Center president be bothered to issue but tepid criticism of Rush Limbaugh's sleazy attacks on a congressional witness, he effectively rewards Limbaugh's hate with an "I Stand With Rush" website. Read more >>
WND Repeats Anonynmous, Never-Proven Claims of 'Election Crimes' Topic: WorldNetDaily
Andrea Shea King writes in a March 5 WorldNetDaily article:
The latest activity by Wikileaks dumped some 5 million emails and documents hacked from the database of Stratfor Intelligence. The emails reveal Democrats’ effort to steal the 2008 election.
Shocking revelations from a Wikileaks document dump show the Democrat Party committed a felony when it stuffed ballot boxes in Ohio and Philadelphia during the 2008 presidential election.
A memo further revealed that the so-called “Reverend” Jesse Jackson was paid a handsome figure to keep his mouth shut about candidate Obama, a man for whom he had little regard.
The same internal memo revealed that Obama’s campaign was taking Russian money surreptitiously.
In fact, those Stratfor emails revealed nothing of the sort. All they contained were anonymous, never-proven claims that even Stratfor did not consider worth publicizing.
As Talking Points Memo notes, the Stratfor emails mostly reveal the type of anti-Democratic rumor-mongering Stratfor traded in. TPM's Josh Marshall adds: "It confirms what every reporter on an intel beat (and a lot of other beats too) learns pretty quickly: the almost inexhaustible supply of show-boater, liars and sociopaths who will keep coming up with new made up stories to tell you to hold on to your attention."
Interestingly, WND had a partnership with Stratfor in 2001 and 2002, in which WND published daily items based on Stratfor work and promoted Stratfor memberships. Newsmax has also published Stratfor-sourced material.
Newsmax Still Not Enthused by Romney Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax seems to have given up its quest to slant its website to push Newt Gingrich's presidential campaign, but that doesn't mean it (aside from Ronald Kessler, that is) has gotten on board the Mitt Romney presumtive-nomination train.
Here are some headlines from the pasdt couple of days in the wake of Super Tuesday's primaries:
And Newsmax did edge itself toward resigning to the Republican electoral fate with an article headlined "Gillespie to Newsmax: Social Conservatives Eventually Will Embrace Romney." Again, not exactly a vote of confidence, but it's a sign that Newsmax is moving into the acceptance phase of its Gingrich grief process.
CNS Tries to Distract From Limbaugh By Attacking Fluke Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com does not want its readers to think about Rush Limbaugh's sleazy attack on Georgetown law student for discussing birth control on Capitol Hill. It most certainly does not want its readers to know that its own director of communications, Craig Bannister, inspired Limbaugh's misogynistic rants by portraying Fluke as a "sex-crazed co-ed."
So, instead, CNS has decided to attack Fluke's credibility by focusing on a single claim she made: that birth control can cost a law student $3,000 over three years.
A March 5 article by Gregory Gwyn-Williams Jr. claims that "a Target store only 3 miles from the law school currently sells a month's supply of birth control pills for only $9 to people who do not have insurance plans covering contraceptives."
CNS tried to hammer home the talking point with twoarticles asking members of Congress about the claim.
At no point, however, does CNS indicate it ever tried to contact Fluke to ask her about where her figures came from. That's a basic reporting failure -- and demonstrates CNS' right-wing agenda.
CNS chose to smear Fluke without having all the facts beforehand. That's blatant bias.
Obama has called for blacks to rally in support of his re-election by launching “African-Americans for Obama.” This race-based call to assembly presses blacks to organize en masse in support of his re-election through volunteer community organizing work to get blacks registered and out to vote.
He used a video promo to tell blacks to pressure churches into supporting his administration by using the so-called faith community. He also instructed voters to become church “congregation captains.”
Cries and assertions that this was an overt act of racism by an overtly racist president – whose wife is the equivalent of Black Panther socialist Angela Davis, only with a taxpayer-paid no-limit credit card – were swift and plentiful.
But I see it a bit differently. I see it as emblematic of Obama’s grotesque narcissism and his eager willingness to elevate himself above God.
[...]
The one thing Obama has fought for is to provide more abortions for low-income women and low-income black women in particular. He has promoted debauchery and fear, and he is the primary reason for fuel prices that make it difficult to put cereal and buttered rice on the table.
MRC Ignored Cal Thomas' Slur of Rachel Maddow -- And His Apology, Too Topic: Media Research Center
Brent Bozell's refusal to criticize Rush's Limbaugh's misogynistic attacks on Sandra Fluke in anything but the most tepidterms possible is not just a Limbaugh-centric issue.
At February's Conservative Political Action Conference, Cal Thomas declared that MSNBC's Rachel Maddow "is the best argument in favor of her parents using contraception." The MRC apparentlydidn't think that opinion was in any way controversial, for no mention of it whatsoever can be found on any of the MRC websites, including NewsBusters. (Granted, the MRC may have been too busy pulling out of CPAC in a snit over Bozell being denied the prime speaking slot he thought he deserved to notice.)
But the MRC managed to take this memory-hole approach to a surprising extreme.
Thomas penned a Feb. 16 column in which he offered a full, unequivocal and abject apology to Maddow, stating: "One of the principles in which I believe is not to engage in name-calling; which, to my shame, I did. ... I had embarrassed myself and was a bad example to those who read my column and expect better from me." In short, it was the kind of apology Bozell apparently thinks Limbaugh offered to Fluke but in reality has not.
NewsBusters carries an archive of Thomas' columns. His Feb. 16 column is curiously absent.
Why would the MRC want to flush this incident down the memory hole? After all, Thomas exhibited the model of how one apologizes for making ugly remarks in public -- a model Limbaugh has thus far chosen not to follow.
Does Bozell think it's weakness for conservatives to apologize when they've clearly done wrong? Given his refusal to speak out on Limbaugh and his utter silence on Thomas, apparently so.
This is just another example of Bozell's moral cowardice when it comes to his fellow conservatives.
Lawrence Sellin, AIM's Birther Columnist Topic: Accuracy in Media
Lawrence Sellin has apparently become Accuracy in Media's official birther columnist.
We noted last month how Sellin promoted debunked birther conspiracies, including one over Obama's purported use of a fraudulent Social Security number (never mind that Sellin himself could be prosecuted for publicly releasing Obama's alleged Social Security number in public). AIM has published two more Sellin columns since then.
In a Feb. 28 column, Sellin touts the Obama-bashing claims of John Drew, whom he describes as " a contemporary of Obama at Occidental College." In fact, as we've detailed, Drew graduated from Occidential the semester before Obama enrolled , and the two apparently met only twice at social occasions while Drew was making return visits to the schoool.
Sellin went on to suggest Obama never actually attended Columbia University, and that if he had, it didn't mean that much because it was the real Columbia:
In 1981, after two years at Occidental, Obama presumably transferred to the Columbia School of General Studies, one part of the Columbia University system that does not have rigorous Core Curriculum and transfer constraints as the elite Columbia College.
Sellin also delves into conspiracy-mongering about how Obama financed his college education: "It has never been clear, who paid for Obama’s Harvard education, but it is possible, if not probable, that the money came from Saudi Arabia."
Sellin also repeats his discredited claims about Obama's purportedly " forged Certificate of Live Birth, a forged Selective Service registration and the use of a Social Security Number (SSN) not issued to him."
In his March 5 column, Sellin promotes the results of the highly dubious Arpaio cold case posse "investigation" of Obama's "eligibility," touting how it "stated that Obama’s Selective Service card was most likely also a forgery." In fact, as Dr. Conspiracy has detailed, the posse's explanation for how this purportedly occured is an utterly impossible scenario.
Sellin goes on to lament that the media is trying to "discount the evidence of an Obama felony by discrediting Arpaio," but Sellin never disproves any of the criticism made against Arpaio. Nevertheless, Sellin is on a conspiratorial roll:
The Democrat and Republican establishments and the mainstream media will do anything within their power to bury the evidence because they have a clear vested interest in doing so. Revealing the full truth about public figures would drive a stake into the heart of a hopelessly corrupt political system.
It would, furthermore, expose the American media for being little more than the propaganda arm of extreme left-wing Democrats promoting the goal of a de facto one-party state for the U.S., reminiscent of the role played by the Communist Party newspaper Pravda in propping up the dysfunctional Soviet Union.
Fully vetting our country’s top politicians will be a giant step in the right direction.
As would AIM not giving space to gullible birthers so they can spin their discredited conspiracies.
Noel Sheppard's Muddled Attack on Jon Stewart Topic: Media Research Center
NewsBusters' Noel Sheppard has picked a particularly stupid way to rebut Jon Stewart.
In a March 6 post, Sheppard took offense to the "Daily Show" host for "hysterically claiming" that if having insurance cover the cost of contraception is paying for someone to have sex, as Rush Limbaugh contended, then so is paid maternity leave. Sheppard's big response: "unpaid maternity leave depending on how much a woman makes could cost her and her family tens of thousands of dollars." That really has nothing to do with the issue, but whatever.
But then Sheppard huffed:
But there’s potentially a larger point in Stewart’s attack on Limbaugh and Kelly: if Fluke were a conservative going to Congress and asking for her birth control to be covered, the Daily Show host and his crew would have savaged her.
Wrong -- Sheppard's MRC colleagues would have savaged her first before Stewart would have a chance.
Since free birth control is not a conservative position, Sheppard and the MRC boys would be adamantly deny that a woman who advocates it -- even if she meets all the other requirements of conservatism -- is a true conservative.
How do we know this? Because Sheppard's colleagues perform this same bit of party-line Heathering on conservatives they have deemed insufficiently conservative, from Kathleen Parker to David Brooks to David Frum to Joe Scarborough to Jennifer Rubin.
Indeed, the MRC prefers its conservative women to sound like Rush Limbaugh. A March 6 NewsBusters post by Ken Shepherd touts how Georgetown student Angela Morabito said that Fluke was really saying, "please pay for me to have all the sex I want!" Morabito added, "And I know that we are so, so much better than what Sandra Fluke would make us out to be."
Would Ken Shepherd treat Morabito the same if she changed her position on contraception? Absolutely not. She would cease being conservative in the dogmatic view of the MRC.
Noel Sheppard has forgotten that his employer is more ideologically rigid -- and picks its friends and enemies accordingly -- than Stewart will ever be.
Farah Rants That Media Covering Corsi Cashing In on Birther Posse Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joseph Farah spends his March 5 WorldNetDaily column complaining that the media is covering a part of the "cold case posse's" so-called birther "investigation" that he would rather be ignored: The fact that a posse leader is collaborating with a WND reporter to cash in on the "investigation" by writing a quickie e-book about it:
Because Mike Zullo, the lead investigator for Arpaio’s Cold Case Posse, has, with the help of WND’s Jerome Corsi, put the findings of the investigation in an inexpensive e-book format for the public, the entire investigation is suspect.
The entire point of the e-book project was to go over the heads of the media, which have almost universally hidden and obfuscated the facts of Obama’s eligibility from the public. And, keep in mind, Zullo participated in the criminal investigation as a volunteer – getting involved reluctantly and skeptically and with no pre-conceived conclusions.
Farah (deliberately?) misses the point. Zullo and Corsi are trying to profit from an "investigation" conducted under the aegis of a nonprofit group that arguably should receive that money instead, a point Farah conveniently omits. This raises the question of whether profit motive -- including the money WND makes from birther and other anti-Obama operations -- is the only motive for WND in keeping the birther issue alive. There's also the question of how Corsi got such intimate access to the posse that he was able to crank out a book that was released the same day as the press conference.
It turns out that Zullo and Corsi's e-book is barely worth the pixels it's printed on. Largechunks of the book are simply copied-and-pasted from Corsi's earlier book,"Where's the Birth Certificiate?" As Dr. Conspiracy details, there is so little in the book that's genuinely new, and no apparent effort made to address holes in previous birther probes, that one must wonder if the posse did any actual investigating at all.
Farah also ignores the fact that WND -- through Jerome Corsi and also through raising money for the posse -- has apparently been inappropriately influencing the posse to reach a predetermined conclusion and deliberately ignoring evidence that contradicted that conclusion, such as the work of John Woodman. One might say that WND has engaged in a form of bribery, as well as having "almost universally hidden and obfuscated the facts" it doesn't want to hear about what Woodman has reported.
Until WND and the posse come clean about their financial entanglements and interpersonal relationships, this "investigation" is too tainted and biased to be taken seriously. Somehow, we doubt Zullo and Corsi's book will give us that answer.
Farah headlined his column "Media in full posterior-cover mode." Until Farah and WND can answer the many questions surrounding the posse "investigation," it's clear that the only person in "posterior-cover mode" here is Farah.
Bozell: Limbaugh's Three Days of Sleaze Merely A 'Regrettable Blunder' Topic: Media Research Center
Brent Bozell's cowardice in the face of Rush Limbaugh continues.
Bozell penned a letter to CNN's Piers Morgan complaining that he criticized Rush Limbaugh's three-day parade of sleaze against Sandra Fluke while having Bill Maher, who has used "far more vile sexist language," as a guest of his show. As before, Bozell can't bring himself to anything but the most tepid criticism of Limbaugh's vicious smears of Fluke:
Rush Limbaugh made the regrettable blunder of calling Sandra Fluke, who testified on behalf of the administration’s mandate against religiously affiliated institutions, “a slut.” Let’s all agree Limbaugh crossed a line. He agrees. He issued an apology to Fluke “for the insulting word choices.” This should be sufficient, but it’s not and the skewering continues.
Bozell doesn't mention the reason Limbaugh's apology is not considered sufficient -- Limbaugh apologized only for using two words, "slut" and "prostitute," and not the dozens of other attacks he hurled at Fluke.
Also: "regrettable blunder"? Is that the strongest criticism of Limbaugh that Bozell can utter in public? What is wrong with him? Does Limbaugh have something on him that he will unleash if Bozell commits the offense of criticizing him too harshly, even for an offense that cries out for harsh criticism?
Bozell continues:
In the interest of promoting and cultivating a meaningful dialogue based on mutual respect, you and other prominent figures in the media, including other journalists at CNN, ought to report such defamatory personal insults made towards all public figures.
Double standards only serve to make these situations worse. If you are really serious about promoting civil discourse you should treat figures like Maher, Schultz and other liberal pundits the same way you treat Limbaugh.
I think a constructive conversation can be had in the media addressing such a double standard, and you are certainly in a place to do just that.
We suggest that Morgan start that conversation with the issue of Bozell's own blatant and pathetic double standard.
Paul Babeu Gets the Newsmax Image Rehab Treatment Topic: Newsmax
Let's say you're a county sheriff in Arizona who's running for Congress. It's just come out that you had a longtime relationship with another man (you're a Republican, so the gay stuff is not exactly look upon favorably) who's a Mexican national (raising questions about your own commitment to cracking down on illegal immigration), who has accused you of threatening him with deportation if he ever revealed the relationship publicly. You need to do some quick image rehab because there's a primary coming up. Where do you go?
Why, you go to the experts in image rehab for disgraced conservatives: Newsmax.
Following in the footsteps of Bernard Kerik, Ralph Reed and Vito Fossella is Paul Babeu, who is given the whitewash treatement in a March 4 article by Martin Gould and Ashley Martella. They portray Babeu as "the victim of what his supporters says is a vicious smear campaign in his bid to gain the Republican nomination for a congressional seat," and they assist Babeu in spinning it away:
“It’s been pushed around for months and months, in fact for years; political opponents have threatened me, trying to go to the newspapers and the TV station and nobody would touch it,” Babeu told Newsmax. He said believed his friend was living legally in the U.S. "I had no reason to believe he was any less legal than me or you," Babeu said, adding, "He held a graduate degree, driver's license and full time job."
Babeu says voters should judge him on his long record in public service, including military duty in Iraq. In 2010 Babeu retired from the National Guard after 20 years of service. As a patrolman in Arizona, Babeu was awarded two Life Saving Medals for performing police duties.
Last month, Babeu called a news conference to deny the allegations of threats made by his former friend. Attending the news conference were about three dozen high-ranking uniformed deputies, local elected officials, and citizens, according to The Associated Press.
Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain also joined in supporting Babeu. Noting that Babeu is a “friend of mine,” McCain said, “He also deserves the benefit, as every citizen does, of innocence until proven guilty.”
“I believe we should be defined by not only the value we bring to our community but to our country. That’s what I have done my entire life, that’s how I want and ask people to judge me, the same way that they want to be judged in the end — fairly,” Babeu told Newsmax TV.
The video interview of Babeu accompanying the article is even more fluffy, with Martella teeing up softballs like, "Can you tell us why these allegations suddenly surfaced?"
Once that unpleasantness is dispensed with, Martella gets on with the business of promoting Babeu's law enforcement record and cueing up attacks on President Obama.
MRC's Philbin Parrots Boss Bozell, Tries to Change Subject From Limbaugh Topic: Media Research Center
Following in the footsteps of his boss Brent Bozell's capitulation to whatever hold Rush Limbaugh has on the Media Research Center is the MRC's resident misogynist, Matt Philbin, trying to change the subject away from Limbaugh's sleazy words just like Bozell did:
Liberals and the media continue to be upset about Rush Limbaugh’s comments, despite his public apology. Limbaugh’s comments, we’re told, were “unforgivable.”
That’s laughable coming from those who’ve ignored or excused attacks from the left against conservative women like Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter and Carrie Prejean. Liberals slime conservative women regularly, usually in language far worse than Limbaugh used. And they are seldom, if ever, held to account for sexual, violent misogynistic speech. Conservative women – whether pundits, politicians or even politicians’ wives – are fair game to the left.
Even as he detailed offenses by liberals, Philbin couldn't bring himself to repeat what Limbaugh actually said about Sandra Fluke.
Not that he objects in any way, mind you. Philbin has endorsed Limbaugh's sleazy attacks on Fluke -- he's tweeted that "Rush's prob was semantic. Shoulda said 'Woman of dubious reputation,' 'horizontal laborer' or 'Lincoln Tunnel Hitcher,'" also writing, "Anybody got Fluke's mailing address? I'm gonna send her a big Costco-sized box of condoms."
And Philbin is not done sliming Fluke. He has since tweeted: "Lawschool in your 30s, kvetching on "The View," calls from the prez, free BC so you can sleep around w/impunity. Some #waronwomen."
And this is the person selected by the MRC to lecture liberals on offensive behavior? No wonder Bozell can't bring himself to offer any real criticism of Limbaugh -- the culture inside the MRC headquarters is apparently as anti-woman as it is at Limbaugh's studio.
Like Craig Bannister, whose hateful CNS blog post inspired Limbaugh's three-day flight of misogyny, Philbin's position at the MRC is secure ... woman-bashing and all.
Birther Bribery: Arpaio Rents WND Mailing List Topic: WorldNetDaily
The list of financial ties between Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the "cold case posse" that conducted the birther "investigation," and WorldNetDaily just keeps growing.
Arpaio is running for re-election as Maricopa County sheriff, and his campaign rented out WND's mailing list Monday to send an email soliciting donations. It reads like it was ripped from Jerome Corsi articles--like Corsi, the email complains about how his opponents are "lying about me and my record" and how the Justice Department's investigation of Arpaio's office "is nothing but a political stunt aimed at intimidating me from doing the job I was elected to do."
How much did Arpaio pay to use WND's mailing list? Is it payback for WND's campaign of sucking up to guarantee that his posse's birther "investigation" would return the results it wanted (which it did)?
The web of deceit just keeps getting more and more tangled. Will Arpaio and WND ever tell the truth about their relationship?