WND's Corsi Picks Up Breitbart Death Conspiracy Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's Joe Kovacs, it seems, has had enough of the conspiracy suggesting that President Obama had a hand in killing a medical examiner in California. So he's passed the story on to someone with even fewer scruples and less ethical integrity than him: Jerome Corsi.
And so, we have a May 7 WND article in which Corsi tries to make something out of even more nothing that Kovacs had: the apparent disappearance of "the only eyewitness to the sudden death of media innovator and conservative activist Andrew Breitbart." This is all so stupid that Breitbart's allies want nothing whatsoever to do with Corsi's obsession:
Filmmaker Steve Bannon, appointed executive chairman of the Breitbart News Network after Breitbart’s death, has insisted to WND that the media mogul died of natural causes and to suggest anything else is irresponsible.
“Breitbart had an enlarged heart,” Bannon told WND. “He had been hospitalized for the problem last year and told to lose weight that he did not lose.”
Because this is Corsi, however, the facts do not matter. He returns to hinting -- without any evidence whatsoever -- that Obama had something to do with some of this. He fails to mention, as Kovacs failed before him, that the medical examiner who died had nothing to do with Breitbart's autopsy.
Is this more of the "real news" Kovacs claimed to be so proud to report as a WND employee? Or has WND in full super PAC mode?
AIM's Kincaid Cites Racist to Attack Jehmu Greene Topic: Accuracy in Media
Mychal Massie isn't the only person in the ConWeb to take offense at Jehmu Greene referring to Tucker Carlson as a “bow-tying white boy.” While Massie channels Bull Connor, Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid finds his own racist to invoke.
In a May 7 AIM article, Kincaid brings in Jared Taylor of American Renaissance to weigh in on the subject:
“There is an obvious double standard according to which blacks needn’t worry about showing the kind of ‘racial sensitivity’ that is always required of whites,” says Jared Taylor of American Renaissance, an organization that is often criticized by the Left for examining racial issues from the point of view of white self-interest. Taylor’s book, White Identity, argues that whites should not be afraid to exercise the same rights as other racial and groups.
Taylor told AIM that the double-standard that guides media coverage of racial controversies excuses racially-charged comments like those of Jehmu Greene as well as Melissa Harris-Perry of MSNBC.
As we pointed out the last time Kincaid did this, the Anti-Defamation League calls American Renaissance a "white supremacist journal" that "promotes pseudoscientific studies that attempt to demonstrate the intellectual and cultural superiority of whites and publishes articles on the supposed decline of American society because of integrationist social policies." Taylor himself has declared that we don't "need more Hispanics" and attacked Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor for not "pronouncing her name the way an American would."
Kincaid laughably insisted that "there is no evidence that American Renaissance by any objective standard is a racist organization" and that it merely deals with racial issues just like the Congressional Black Caucus -- a claim he walked back a few days later.
Despite his own embrace of a racist, Kincaid insists that Greene is the racist one here.
Meanwhile, if Kincaid was really concerned about racist remarks on Fox News, wouldn't he have complained by now about Brent Bozell calling Obama a "skinny ghetto crackhead"?
WND's Massie Channels Bull Connor, Calls Black Woman A 'Negress' Topic: WorldNetDaily
A few years back, Mychal Massie used his WorldNetDaily column to accuse Sen. Harry Reid of sounding like "His Uncle Bull Connors [sic] and his Uncle Orval Faubus" for committing the offense of criticizing Clarence Thomas. So it's sadly funny to see that the person who has come to truly emulate the likes of Connor and Faubus is Massie himself.
In his May 7 column, Massie bizarrely refers to Jehmu Greene -- who recently got into trouble for calling Tucker Carlson a "bow-tying white boy" -- as a "Negress." That, of course, is an archaic term dating from the era of segregation. In other words, the kind of word a Connors or a Faubus would use.
Massie seems to delight in this sort of thing -- saying things that would be considered screechingly racist if he were not black. For instance, there's Massie's obsession with labeling Michelle Obama as "Buttzilla." If a white man did that, he would be hounded out of the public square. But Massie does it with impunity, and WND continues to publish his increasingly hateful and bitter column.
But WND loves hate and bitterness when it's directed at the Obama, and Massie delivers that in spades.
WND doesn't care that Massie is using historically racist imagery to denigrate people. And, apparently, neither does Massie.
Noel Sheppard Forgets That Right-Wing Gay-Bashers, Not 'The Media,' Made Issue of Grenell Topic: NewsBusters
The first thing you realize when reading the May 7 NewsBusters post about Noel Sheppard's appearance on CNN to discuss the resignation of Richard Grenell from Mitt Romney's campaign is that, despite the "NB Staff" byline, it's pretty clear it was written by Sheppard himself. The phrase "video follows with transcript and commentary" appears here as it does in most Sheppard posts, and the attention lavished on further elucidating on what Sheppard said could only have been done by someone with a personal stake in it. Like, you know, Noel Sheppard.
The second thing you notice is that Sheppard got it all wrong. He repeatedly blames "the Obama-loving media," including the host for his on-air discussion, CNN's Don Lemon, for making Grenell an issue as a distraction from reporting on the economy:
It’s the media that made it a gay rights issue because they’d rather talk about anything other than how lousy the economy is.
Consider that this discussion took place the day after the Labor Department released horrible numbers about job creations in April. There were other terrible economic stats that emerged in the prior week involving real estate, durable goods, consumer spending, as well as the very disappointing first quarter GDP estimate.
Instead of discussing those issues Saturday night – issues that every poll including the one Sheppard referred to show are front and center on the minds of the American people – Lemon chose to address a social issue that although important doesn’t appear on most national priority surveys.
This of course is what the media have been doing all year beginning with the contraception issue in January to the student loan issue last month and now Romney’s gay adviser.
Everything is important to the media EXCEPT the state of the economy.
Sheppard went on to insist, "It was Grenell's decision to resign. There’s absolutely no evidence that he did so due to pressure from either Romney or the campaign." Never mind the fact that nobody, including Sheppard, knows what actually went on behind the scenes.
But Sheppard conveniently ignores who made a big issue out of Grenell's sexuality in the first place -- right-wing activists like Bryan Fischer and Sheppard's MRC colleague Dan Gainor. If Grenell's sexuality wasn't a big deal as Sheppard claimed, why did Fischer and Gainor make it one? Sheppard might want to ask Gainor about that the next time they pass in the hallway at MRC headquarters.
And Sheppard's furious spinning on this tells us that all his ranting about how "the media" would rather talk about anything but the economy is a smokescreen for the fact that Sheppard would rather talk about anything but right-wing homophobia.
After all, Sheppard's employer does have a pretty obvious anti-gay agenda, which was further exemplified by Gainor's anti-Grenell activism. And despite Sheppard claiming that "the media" are seizing on this issue to "try to make Romney appear as a homophobe who's opposed to gay rights issues," it's obvious Romney was under pressure by anti-gay activists whose votes he needs to get rid of Grenell. Neither liberals nor "the media" were pressuring Romney.
This is the problem with the MRC, as we've detailed -- everything can, and must, be blamed on "liberal media bias," even when the facts show otherwise.
Les Kinsolving, it seems, just can't stop whining that he's not treated with the respect he hasn't earned.
This latest round of whining comes in the form of a May 3 WND article complaining that "Even on World Press Freedom Day, Les Kinsolving, WND’s correspondent at the White House and the second most-senior reporter on the beat behind only Connie Lawn, was not allowed by press secretary Jay Carney to ask any questions."
It's never explained why Kinsolving deserved to be called upon on World Press Freedom Day -- or any day, for that matter. As we've detailed, Kinsolving's penchant for right-wing hackery (not to mention his raging homophobia) means he has earned the contempt in which he's treated. Whether Kinsolving is "the second most-senior reporter on the beat" is irrelevent.
More NewsBusters Heathering, Now With Added Class Warfare Topic: NewsBusters
NewsBusters loves to go all Heather on conservatives who are not dogmatically so, and one of their favorite targets is New York Times columnist David Brooks.
Tim Graham has decided to go the class-warfare route in his latest Heathering of Brooks, writing about him buying a new, pricey house under the headline "David Brooks Is In 'The One Percent.'"Um, aren't right-wingers like Graham supposed to celebrate rich people?
Graham put "conservative" in scare quotes when describingBrooks, but he also noted that "Brooks outraged Occupy types last October in a column attacking the '99 percent' concept." But doesn't being rich and mocking the poor make Brooks exactly the kind of conservative Graham is supposed to like?
Ellis Washington Channels His Fantasy Version of Socrates Again Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's Ellis Washington is back with another one of his so-called "dialectics" in which he masquerades as a smack-talkin', right-wing-shillin' Socrates. Try to imagine the actual Socrates saying this:
Socrates: We are gathered here today at this Symposium to discuss various tactics and strategies radicals have used to denigrate, deconstruct and destroy America – the greatest nation in the history of the world. In a previous Symposium, “The damnation of ideas,” we discussed the differences between ideas that uplift society and those that damn society in the context of 10 infamous writers and their most controversial books, and discussed whether these books have either elevated society to ascend the steps of Parnassus or condemned society into the pit of Tartarus.
Today we will examine the people and radical governmental agencies that come from those infamous ideas that collectively have caused the damnation of modern society. How would you achieve this goal, if you wanted America to fail?
As usual, Washington sets up anyone opposed to his -- er, "Socrates'" -- right-wing ideology as straw men easily knocked down by the power of alleged "truth." For instance, there's this:
Dr. NEA: Although my fascist organization was birthed in 1978 concomitant with the creation of President Jimmy Carter’s Department of Education, my real birth occurred over 150 years ago in 1857 by a small but zealous group of radical atheists, humanists, Marxist and progressives dedicated to forever separating education from morality, truth and the canon.
Would the real, truth-seeking Socrates engaged in such ad hominem and factually misleading attacks? Probably not.
Washington also bizarrely puts Saul Alinsky -- who was not a dictator and never ordered anyone's death -- on the same plane as Marx, Lenin and Hitler.
Washington's pretention is amazing, even for someone best known for getting things flamboyantly wrong. There are few people so stupid as those who insist on masquerading as one of history's greatest intellectuals and philosophers.
CNS' Chief Propagandist Frets Over Future of Reporting Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com editor in chief Terry Jeffrey uses his May 3 column to fret ab out the future of journalism, because "We live in a nation where the government is growing exponentially and the press is shrinking steadily." He goes on to write:
But anyone who wants America to remain free cannot cheer the demise of the press as an institution. We need more reporters — especially reporters who love liberty and want to defend it — not fewer.
It may be a mistake for Americans to blithely accept the unexamined conclusion that the new electronic media, because of their speed and wide availability, will compensate for the virtual extinction of old-time reporters. Excellent reporting takes time and skills learned through experience — both of which require investment.
That's quite rich of Jeffrey to be concerned. After all, the organization he works for, the Media Research Center, has spent millions of dollars over the past couple of decades trying to undermine people's trust in the media in order to advance its partisan right-wing agenda.
Further, Jeffrey himself is no journalist -- he's a propagandist and rabid Obama-hater who's erasing whatever vestiges of journalistic credibility CNS might have in order to turn it into an anti-Obama propaganda mill.
This is nothing but crocodile dears. Jeffrey cares nothing about journalism, so he can't possibly care about its future.
WND's Klein Admits He's Out to Destroy Obama Topic: WorldNetDaily
A May 5 WorldNetDaily article touts a profile of WND's Aaron Klein in the Jerusalem Post. Klein rather laughably breathes a sigh of relief that "the article itself seems fair."
In fact, the Jerusalem Post profile by Josh Hasten is all but a love letter to Klein. He's the only one quoted in it, which allows Klein to spin his story as positively as possible, and the Post apparently talked to nobody else.
For instance, Hasten talks up Klein appearing on Talkers magazine's "Heavy Hundred" list for 2012, calling it " the most prestigious recognition in the US talk-radio industry." Actually, it's not all that prestigious; Klein ranks at No. 99 on the list of 100 radio hosts.
Since it's nothing but a fluff piece, Hasten avoids mentioning the less-than-glowing aspects of Klein's work, such as his being an admitted Kahanist -- the far-right sect that has been banned from Israeli politics for its history of violence -- and overly relying on untraceable anonymous sources and dubious guilt-by-association for his right-wing hack work.
Interestingly, Klein also concedes that he's not interested in being fair and balanced when it comes to reporting on President Obama (hence the anonymous sources and dubious guilt-by-association). He admits that his work is designed “to defeat President Obama, and stop the so-called [extreme left-wing] progressive movement and its followers from taking over the US."
In otherwords, he's not an objective reporter, he's a partisan activist. That, of course, fits in nicely with the mission of the WND Super PAC.
Such sympathies, of course, mean that his work can't be trusted. Again, just like the rest of WND.
MRC Bashed Journolist, But Is Silent On Conservative Journalists Working With Romney Topic: Media Research Center
In 2010, the Media Research Center went ballistic when the existence of Journolist -- a private email forum for an invited group of journalists and opinion writers -- was revealed:
Brent Bozell harrumphed that Journolist was proof of liberal bias: "The revelation of these e-mails simply proves that we have been right all along. The liberal media have no interest in being fair or unbiased." He added, "Any member of the media that was privy to these Journolist emails, and remained silent, is just as much to blame as the folks that crafted these e-mails. Their silence indicts them."
Bozell followed up with a column asserting, "What they prove is that the "mainstream" media today are often just a shameless channel for leftist message coordination, and that anyone who assumes he's simply getting the 'news' from the national media is a very callow and uninformed consumer."
Bozell sent a letter to the Washington Post insisting that "Post readers are owed full disclosure" about which Post employees took part in Journolist.
So Bozell and Co. don't like (liberal) journalists collaborating in secret. Gotcha.
But then, last week, we learned at presumed Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney held an off-the-record meeting with conservative journalists and bloggers, who were under orders from the Romney campaign not to talk about the what was discussed at the meeting or even that it took place.The goal of the meeting was to solidify conservative media support for Romney.
Curiously, no MRC outlet has made any mention of the off-the-record meeting, nor has any MRC employee admitted attending it.
Why is that? And why has Bozell -- who railed so bitterly against Journolist -- remained silent about this sort of journalistic collaboration? Why won't he say whether any of his employees, including those at "news" outlet CNSNews.com, took part in this clandestine meeting?
Or is he exempting his own organization from the standards of integrity he demands from others?
WND Unhappy That U.N. -- Which It Has Vowed To Destroy -- Won't Give It A Press Pass Topic: WorldNetDaily
Why does Joseph Farah expect an organization he has vowed to destroy to give him a press pass? It makes no sense -- unless you're Joseph Farah, anyway -- yet he persists.
An April 30 WND article is dedicated to whining that the United Nations' U.S. mission refused to allow Stewart Stogel, "WND’s veteran U.N. reporter," to attend a "government event" that was closed to the public. WND goes on to fluff Stogel as "one of the most senior U.N. correspondents, who values his long and cordial working relationships with everyone from John Bolton to Ban Ki-moon."
WND is fibbing about Stogel being its "veteran U.N. reporter." He's a freelancer who, near as we can tell, is not on the full-time WND payroll. He has also freelanced for other ConWeb outlets like Newsmax -- where he promoted the alarmist, wildly inaccurate claim that Al Qaeda has suitcase nuclear bombs that it planned to detonate in, er, 2005 -- and CNSNews.com. Stogel has also done birther work for WND, touting the so-called "citizen's court" held by crazy person James David Manning and whitewashing Manning's insane Obama hatred, i.e. omitting the fact that he loves to call Obama a "long-legged mack daddy."
In other words, he's basically a right-wing hack, despite also having written for the Miami Herald.
Aside from burying Stogel's right-wing activism, WND also plays dumb about why the U.N. would deny WND a press pass. But as we detailed back in 2009, the last time WND attempted to get a U.N. press pass, WND editor Joseph Farah wrote a 2005 column, which he repeated in 2007, headlined "Death to the U.N.!" In it, Farah called the U.N. "a global criminal enterprise determined to shift power away from individuals and sovereign nation-states to a small band of unaccountable international elites," adding that "there’s just no place for the United Nations in the United States."
That's not all. In a 2006 column, Farah called the U.N. part of the "Kingdom of Darkness." And in 2005, Farah asserted: "If the United States truly wants to be that “shining city on a hill” to inspire the rest of the world toward freedom and self-government, it’s time to start by kicking the United Nations out of the United States and withdrawing our membership and support."
In short, Farah wants to destroy the United Nations -- but not before it gives WND press credentials.
Farah whined further about this in his May 2 column blaming the White House for this and playing the victim -- ignoring the fact that WND routinely gets no respect because it puts its right-wing, anti-Obama agenda before actual journalism -- and, of course, begging for money by telling readers "you might want to consider making a contribution to WND’s legal defense fund."
Needless to say, Farah makes no mention of his utter contempt for the U.N. or the role that is likely playing in the U.N.'s disregard for WND.
MRC Upset That NY Times Is Covering News Topic: Media Research Center
In a May 2 MRC TimesWatch item, Clay Waters accuses the New York Times of having "a clear Rupert Murdoch obsession" because of its front-page coverage of News Corp. scandals. Waters notes that News Corp. "a direct Times competitor in New York with the Wall Street Journal and New York Post," but he fails to mention other News Corp. properties in New York.
News Corp. -- which is headquartered in New York city -- also owns New York TV station WNYW, the Fox Broadcasting flagship, as well as community newspapers in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. News Corp.'s book division, HarperCollins, is also headquatered in New York.
That significant New York presence makes News Corp. a local story. Does Waters think the Times shouldn't cover local news?
If you'll recall, the MRC has long tried to downplay News Corp.'s phone-hacking scandal at its British newspapers in order to protect its beloved Fox News.
WND's Lashing Out At Sharpton's Birther Criticism Shows It's Scared Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily dedicated a May 3 article to attacking a segment by MSNBC's Al Sharpton mocking birthers, in a way that defies reality:
A segment on Al Sharpton’s MSNBC show deriding the findings of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s investigation of Barack Obama’s presidential eligibility shows the White House fears coming revelations, according to WND senior writer Jerome Corsi.
Corsi, who has probed Obama’s eligibility for four years, said “it’s obvious that the White House is scared.”
The segment by Sharpton on his daily “PoliticsNation” show April 27 was an attempt to get out ahead of the news, Corsi said.
The White House is “front-running the story, putting it out through a surrogate trying to ridicule Arpaio’s investigation, because they know how much damage he is about to do to the president,” he said.
“The legitimacy of Obama’s presidency is about to come unglued.”
First, Corsi provides no evidence that the White House had any role whatsoever in Sharpton's segment. That's just paranoia on his part.
Second, the fact that WND feels it must try to knock down Sharpton, of all people, shows that it's Corsi and WND, not the Obama White House -- who are running scared.
WND has been in a state of denial about the unraveling of its birther story. It can't hide anymore that it manipulated Sheriff Joe Arpaio into cranking out an "investigation" that reads like it was copied from WND's website (which it, in significant parts, was).
Now, a former member of the "cold case posse" that conducted the birther "investigation" has come out with a new e-book detailing the manipulation of Arpaio into conducting the investigation. It alleges that the Surprise Tea Party was using Arpaio as part of a publicity stunt in the second "birther" press conference, not really announcing any new information, but rather getting people to show up and sign a petition for the "birther" legislation. As we've detailed, the Surprise Tea Party was itself manipulated by Corsi and WND into petitioning Arpaio to do a birther investigation -- something WND has never denied.
The authors also claim that Corsi has been granted "special deputy" status by Arpaio -- which makes Corsi's role as Arpaio's PR agent even more suspect.
The jig appears to be up, but Corsi and WND are so far up Arpaio's backside that they don't recognize it. They can only hide their behind-the-scenes manipulation for only so long.
After All These Years, Kessler Still Hearts Waterboarding Topic: Newsmax
Ronald Kessler renews his love for waterboarding in a May 2 Newsmax column:
As normally defined, torture is the infliction of severe pain. While waterboarding causes fear because it simulates drowning, it is painless. Terrorists much prefer it to the Obama administration’s weapon of choice: a deadly drone attack.
In fact, as we'vepreviouslynoted whenever Kessler has made this claim, medical experts have said that waterboarding carries a real risk of death, not to mention mental health issues, and "is contradictory to well established medical knowledge and clinical experience."
WND's Klein Hides Nature of Glenn Beck's Sleazy Attacks on Soros Topic: WorldNetDaily
In a May 2 WorldNetDaily article bashing the Jewish Funds for Justice for honoring activist Van Jones, Aaron Klein writes:
The Jewish Funds for Justice, or JFFJ, was the driving force behind a campaign to paint former Fox News host Glenn Beck as anti-Semitic after Beck used his show to air a special investigation into [George] Soros.
[...]
After Beck’s weeklong special on Soros, the JFFJ in January 2011 delivered a petition with 10,000 signatures to Fox News in protest of the Soros show in which Beck referred to the billionaire as a “puppet master.” JFFJ deemed the show anti-Semitic.
Klein curiously failed to mention what exactly Beck had said about Soros that caused such a backlash.
As Media Matters detailed at the time, Beck falsely portrayed Soros as a willing collaborator with the Nazis in his native Hungary. In fact, he was hiding his Jewish identity as the adopted godson of a man who was inventorying property the Nazis had earlier confiscated from Jews. Beck also invoked anti-Semitic stereotypes by portraying Soros as a "puppet master" who controls the economy and the media. Beck also had a history of citing anti-Semitic sources on his now-defunct Fox News show.
