NEW ARTICLE: Creating A Catholic Controversy
Topic: Media Research Center
Brent Bozell and the Media Research Center try to manufacture outrage over purported lack of coverage of a lawsuit by Catholic groups against the Obama administration. Too bad they feel the need to throw Jews under the bus to do it. Read more >>

WND's Farah Proud To Be Associated With Right-Wing Nutjobs
Topic: WorldNetDaily

The pride is almost palpable in Joseph Farah's May 25 WorldNetDaily column:

When an extremist group like the Southern Poverty Law Center labels you one of the top 30 most dangerous radicals in America, you must be doing something right.

That’s the way I look at it.

But what is it that makes me such a dangerous, right-wing leader to Morris Dees and company?

Do you know what my political views are?

They are a mirror reflection of those of America’s Founding Fathers.

[...]

I’m honored to be listed among so many other great Americans on the SPLC watchlist: David Barton, Michael Brown, Tom DeWeese, Frank Gaffney – even three other WND colleagues: Pamela Geller, Kevin DeAnna and Molotov Mitchell. Just think about it. Of the 30 names, fully 13 percent are WND personalities. Can any other freedom-loving news organization in the world make that claim?

You know all about Muslim-hating Pam Geller and the gay-hating Molotov Mitchell. We've previously noted DeAnna as the author of a fluffy WND-published profile of Pat Buchanan in which it was revealed that Farah met his wife at a Buchanan conference.

As the SPLC notes in its list of the 30 top activists in the "radical right,
DeAnna is the former head of something called Youth for Western Civilization, which has received the benefit of fundraising by none other than white supremacist Jared Taylor.

These are the kind of people Farah is proud to be associated with. Think about that.

Tim Graham Anti-Gay Freakout Watch
Topic: NewsBusters

The MRC's Tim Graham spent a significant part of his Memorial Day weekend in anti-gay freakout mode, as he is wont to do.

In a May 27 NewsBusters post, Graham ranted about "promoting homosexuality in comic books and strips now that President Obama has un-closeted his long-obvious support for gay marriage," and that a Washington Post article on the subject didn't include "conservatives who thought it was a bad idea." Graham goes on to play the Depiction-Equals-Approval Fallacy card:

In other words, ["Funky Winkerbean" creator Tom] Batiuk feels "we have to" ... proselytize. He told The Huffington Post "It shows promise that this emerging generation will one day bring this cultural war to an end. Until then, this story is an attempt to reach across the divide and speak to the intolerance that still exists on the other side." In other words, liberals seek to "reach out across the divide" and tell conservatives to shut up and get with the new "relevance."

Graham is clearly uncomfortable with that truth about anti-gay activists like him being revealed for what it is.

In a May 28 post, Graham was offended that a child appearing on Ellen DeGeneres' show said he hoped that Barack Obama wins re-election because Obama "said that men and men can marry each other and woman and woman can marry each other and I think that’s right." He then attacks the child's parents for feeding the child's "recitation of liberal mantras":

Rainer and Atticus are liberally raised by their literary parents Matt Pasca and Terri Muuss. (The little fact they use their mother's surname signals the feminism.) Muuss is a survivor of incest and travels with her own stage show called "Anatomy of a Doll." She touts herself as "an actor, poet, teacher, director, and social worker."

Shouldn't we also assume that Graham's children are spouting the conservative mantras he has drilled into them?

Dishonest David Kupelian Takes Anita Dunn Out of Context
Topic: WorldNetDaily

In a May 27 WorldNetDaily column about how the horrors of socialism in general and Mao Zedong in particular, David Kupelian writes:

This is even more chilling when one considers that Barack Obama’s former White House communications director, Anita Dunn – who publicly attacked Fox News as illegitimate, called it a wing of the Republican Party and “opinion journalism masquerading as news” – claimed in a speech to students that Mao Zedong is one of her “favorite political philosophers.”

As we've previously detailed when others have done it, this interpretation takes Dunn out of context.Dunn never praised Mao's ideology or excused his atrocities; she was simply pointing out that Mao and Mother Teresa share a similar philosophy about forging your own path in life.

To portray Dunn's remarks as praise of Mao is utterly dishonest. But that's the kind of guy Kupelian is.

WND Tries to Nudge Trump Into Donating to Birther Cause
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Joseph Farah may have despaired that "Donald Trump is not going to come to our rescue" in terms to shoveling cash into WorldNetDaily's anti-Obama super PAC, but that doesn't mean WND will stop pitching him on the idea.

An unbylined May 26 WND article touted how right-wing radio host Steve Malzberg told Sheriff Joe Arpaio to beg Trump for a donation for the cold case posse "investigation" of Obama's "eligibility."

The article also uncritically repeats Arpaio's denial that tax money is being used for sending a sheriff's deputy along with the posse's junket to Hawaii. At no point does Arpaio offer any evidence to back up the claim, nor has he disclosed the donor list for the posse, even though as a 501(c)3 organization it is required to disclose its donors.

At The MRC, 5 Blog Posts Over 5 Months = 'Obsession'
Topic: Media Research Center

In a May 21 MRC Culture & Media Institute post, Paul Wilson asserts that "The Huffington Post has developed an obsession with cheating, and has spurned the very concept of monogamy."

Wilson's evidence for this? He cites five posts written over a five-month span.

That's right -- of the hundreds of posts HuffPo posts in a typical month, Wilson has declared that five posts over five months equal an "obsession."

Nevertheless, Wilson goes on to insists that HuffPo has launched an "assault on monogamy."

Which makes it even funnier when a May 25 CMI post by Taylor Hughes asserts that HuffPo, which Hughes snarkily dismisses as "The house organ for the Hollywood left," "finally acknowledged a benefit to monogamy": that men are more likely to experience heart failure when engaging in extramarital sex, as opposed to having sex with a spouse in a familiar environment.

Hughes references the "slew of articles" purportedly generated by HuffPo "citing the positive effects of cheating," linking to Wilson's post that cites only five.

WND's Klayman Just Can't Stop Libeling Obama
Topic: WorldNetDaily

We've noted how WorldNetDaily's house attorney, Larry Klayman, sure libels people a lot for a guy who makes his (meager) living these days suing people for defamation. He strikes again in his May 25 column:

Third, Obama has harmed our national security by illegally disclosing classified information about our intelligence-gathering methods, sources and capabilities. In recent front-page New York Times stories I have previously written about, Obama had his minions at the CIA, National Security Agency and Defense Department criminally leaked not only how we gather intelligence on the Iranian nuclear program, but also our war plans if the United States is drawn into a conflict between Israel and the mullahs should a unilateral Israeli attack of the nuclear facilities prove necessary.

As we noted, there's no evidence whatsoever that Obama personally played any role in making such disclosures, and Klayman has not provided any.

This is the sort of thing that opens himself up to a libel lawsuit against him if he can't back up his claim.Given Klayman's long line of defamatory remarks against him, the president certainly has a case.

The rest of Klayman's column is your usual Klayman-esque torrent of Obama derangement:

The French delicacy of foie gras – light brown goose liver served in many culinary forms – should become the official food, if not symbol, of President Barack Hussein Obama’s 2012 campaign to win re-election to the presidency.

[...]

First and foremost, the American people were defrauded into electing as president a person who, even if he was not born in Kenya but Hawaii (Hawaii is unlikelihood given the doctored birth certificate Obama eventually produced), is the offspring of a Kenyan Muslim father. As provided for in the Constitution, only a “natural born citizen” can become president – that is, someone who is sired by both an American citizen mother and father. Thus, Obama was not eligible to be president of the United States, and his false claims that he is eligible is a poison he falsely rammed down the voters’ throats. This lie not only got him and his accomplices control of the White House and executive branch of government, but has severely harmed our nation, given his anti-American sympathies and acts to aid foreign Muslim countries and groups (like the Muslim Brotherhood). The framers were smart. They understood that a president like Obama, with at best divided loyalties, could present a great problem, if not a security risk, for our nation.

Second, obviously as a result of Obama’s foreign Muslim heritage, he has waged a war against not only our Judeo-Christian way of life, but also furthered a radical Muslim takeover of several Arab states that surround the Jewish state. 

In fact, the Constitution does not define "natural born citizen," and no American court has issued a definition. Thus, Klayman is lying when he says that only "someone who is sired by both an American citizen mother and father" can be president.

The guy just can't stop lying, can he?

NewsBusters Tries to Build An Echo Chamber Around Catholic Lawsuit Story
Topic: NewsBusters

We've detailed how the Media Research Center is trying to manufacture a controversy about alleged non-coverage of a lawsuit filed by various Catholic entities against the federal government over its contraception coverage mandate. The campaign has moved onto its next step: creating an echo chamber of people mouthing the MRC's agenda.

NewsBusters has been posted them all weekend:

• In a May 26 post, Noel Sheppard promoted Mike Huckabee's bizarre claim that not reporting on the lawsuit is "like missing the Roe v. Wade decision." Of course, a lawsuit and a court ruling are two entirely different things.
• Tim Graham touted how, on "Fox News Sunday," host Chris Wallace not only interviewed Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington DC, but asked him about the MRC’s finding that the broadcast network evening news shows only gave the Catholic lawsuits against Obamacare 19 seconds of air time.
• Brad Wilmouth similarly parroted Fox News' parroting of "a recent MRC finding" on reporting about the lawsuit, this time coming from "liberal FNC analyst Kirsten Powers." Actually, Powers isn't that liberal -- after all, she signed onto the MRC agenda of distracting from Rush Limbaugh's misogyny by pointing at liberal commentators.

Remember, this is an echo chamber. The whole point is to make the MRC's manufactured controversy look bigger than it is.

Obama Derangement Syndrome Watch, Supersize WorldNetDaily Edition
Topic: WorldNetDaily

The real tragedy is that we have a black president who would rather hector white people about clinging to their guns and religion than address black Americans about the actual reasons so many of them doom themselves to remain on the lowest rung of society’s ladder.

-- Burt Prelutsky, May 15 WorldNetDaily column

Do you think the “king” in America is above the law? Or is he bound by the same laws the rest of us are?

Do you think the “king” has the right to reward his “lords” – his political supporters and donors – from the public treasury, and to give them special treatment under the law?

Do you think the rest of us are serfs, destined to work the land and hand over the proceeds of our labor to the king? And when we’re too old and feeble to work, is it our duty to die at the behest of an Obamacare death panel?

Some very evil people think the same approach that worked in Nazi Germany will work in America today. They just may be right.

-- Craige McMillan, May 16 WND column

If America survives President Obama, volumes will probably be written on the treasonous actions of the press over the last several years, but I am not addressing that at this moment.

-- Erik Rush, May 16 WND column

As with his choice of a church, Obama’s selection of a bride was fragrant with calculation, not only on an emotional level but also on a political level. To run for office in Chicago, Obama needed a wife and not just any wife.

[...]

“Dreams” culminates in Obama’s wedding to Michelle.

At his most passionate, Obama says of his new bride, “In her eminent practicality and Midwestern attitudes, she reminds me not a little of Toot [his grandmother].” That description must surely have warmed Michelle’s heart.

But then again Obama did not select Michelle for her warmth or her heat. He almost surely chose her for future votes. She rooted him in the African-American experience. He could not get elected in Chicago without a woman quite like her.

-- Jack Cashill, May 16 WND column

Recall that Vladimir Lenin advocated robbing banks to finance the communist revolution in Russia. Likewise, Obama’s friend and Chicago neighbor, William Ayers, advocated killing police and also wealthy parents. To Obama, as with any self-appointed revolutionary, lies are often necessary for the advancement of the global socialist agenda. As such, they are not only moral, they are noble.

Time is short to put an end to the Obama lies broadcast from the White House, lies told in service to his radical plans and visions. A man is entitled to his dreams and delusions, but not at the expense of American liberty.

-- Tom Tancredo, May 18 WND column

Our civilization is literally being turned upside-down through the strategic redefinition (and therefore transformation) of our society’s operating principles.

Today’s most obvious case in point: Barack Obama, a far-left radical manifestly hostile toward free-market capitalism and American exceptionalism – in fact, to just about everything American – but who campaigned using powerfully evocative words of national restoration and reconciliation. “Hope,” “change,” “fairness,” “justice,” “reform” and “transparency” would usher in a bright new era of “healing” and “unifying” America and the world through this charismatic young leader’s “post-racial,” “post-partisan” presidency. What we got instead was a jarringly narcissistic, supremely demagogic and corrupt Chicago politician, lacking both in experience and wisdom, and displaying breathtaking contempt for America’s Constitution and its best-in-the-world system of government.

-- David Kupelian, May 20 WND column

My contention is that having been apprised of these sobering facts, Americans will finally understand why President Obama has been operating as he’s been operating. Of course Obamacare is overreaching, intrusive and unconstitutional; it was crafted by a lifelong radical, America-hating Marxist and his like-minded colleagues. Why wouldn’t Obama’s economic policy give rise to high unemployment and the failure of businesses, since communism is diametrically opposed to capitalism?

It won’t necessarily be important that Americans have a deep working knowledge of the history of communism to grasp why it has been necessary for Obama to divide us by class; it’s always been the Marxist modus operandi. They’ll understand why Obama came out in support of gay “marriage,” and why blacks are now being pressured to do the same by a compromised black clergy. Americans will know fully why the administration is attacking religious organizations. They will also comprehend why it was integral to the agenda for the left to cultivate a slavish dedication to Obama, as evidenced by the Hunter Rogers incident, as well as countless others.

-- Erik Rush, May 23 WND column

Buddha said something even more profound when it comes to combating myth-based intuition: “Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.”

Barack Obama, on the other hand, says, “Believe everything I say, no matter what you read or hear to the contrary, or who said or wrote it, no matter if God said it, regardless of whether it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.”

Unfortunately, because Buddha isn’t on television every day, about half the people in America seem to be taking advice from the guy who is – Chairman Obama.

-- Robert Ringer, May 23 WND column

Republicans have been inept in dealing with this cultural guerrilla war because they have been slow to see it for what it is. Obama’s program is a challenge to the core principles and values that support the pillars of constitutional liberty. It’s not a debate about “four more years.” It’s a contest for America’s soul.

Once the true scope and pervasive character of this war is understood, no one can seriously propose to limit the battlefield to economic issues alone – and efforts to do so are doomed. The 2012 election is not referendum on the economy. It is referendum on Obama and his radical vision of a different, “transformed” America, an America that will look a lot more like modern Greece or France than any America dreamed of by our forefathers.

-- Tom Tancredo, May 25 WND column

Double Standard Time: Noel Sheppard Ignores Breibart Blogger's Sexual Slurs
Topic: NewsBusters

NewsBusters is known for its egregious double standards, and Noel Sheppard comes through again.

In a May 25 post, Sheppard whined that "Salon editor Joan Walsh took a truly disgusting cheap shot at the late Andrew Breitbart Friday" by noting that his successors at his eponymous website "have gotten lower than Andrew Breitbart" with their passive-aggressive birtherism in freaking out over a 20-year-old literary agency bio of Barack Obama. Sheppard never actually explained how Walsh's remark was so insulting, but he freaked out anyway:

Does Walsh have absolutely no shame or respect for the dead?

Is nothing sacred when it comes to getting Barack Obama reelected?

With shills like Walsh appearing on this farce of a so-called news network, the answers are clearly "No" and "No!"

The next day, Sheppard touted how the right-wing website Twitchy (whose political leanings he failed to mention) "marvelously" reported that Walsh's remark "sparked a new hashtag on Twitter." He then begged his readers to visit Twitchy for more.

Meanwhile, Sheppard has remained silent about how one of Breitbart's bloggers has gone after Walsh with eferences to oral sex that Sheppard might, if he was not a right-wing hack, call truly disgusting.

Media Matters reports that Breitbart blogger Dan Riehl tweeted, "I don't mind Joan Walsh getting low, but if she's going to open her mouth, wish she'd do something I might actually enjoy for once!" Riehl later tweeted: "I think I may have just discovered the most polite way of telling Joan Walsh to suck on this. lol"

Riehl used to be a NewsBusters blogger, so maybe that's why Sheppard is afraid to call him out. Or perhaps Sheppard thinks it's perfectly fine to hurl insulting sexual references as long as the victim is a liberal.

Either way, Sheppard's double standard is painfully obvious, and it's all too clear this is the kind of hackishness the MRC loves in its writers.

WND's Klein Invents 'Racial Swipe' By Obama At Colin Powell
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Aaron Klein is back to his out-of-context Obama-bashing shenanigans in a May 24 WorldNetDaily article, in which he claims that "President Obama took an apparent racial swipe at Colin Powell in a 1994 NPR interview in which he implied the four-star general is acceptable to 'white America.'"

It's clear, however, that Obama was not targeting Powell in his NPR "interview" -- in fact, it was a commentary -- but Charles Murray, who had just published the racially inflammatory book "The Bell Curve."

Here's the entire commentary, from which Klein included only snippets:

The idea that inferior genes account for the problems of the poor in general, and blacks in particular, isn't new, of course. Racial supremacists have been using IQ tests to support their theories since the turn of the century. The arguments against such dubious science aren't new either. Scientists have repeatedly told us that genes don't vary much from one race to another, and psychologists have pointed out the role that language and other cultural barriers can play in depressing minority test scores, and no one disputes that children whose mothers smoke crack when they're pregnant are going to have developmental problems.

Now, it shouldn't take a genius to figure out that with early intervention such problems can be prevented. But Mr. Murray isn't interested in prevention. He's interested in pushing a very particular policy agenda, specifically, the elimination of affirmative action and welfare programs aimed at the poor. With one finger out to the political wind, Mr. Murray has apparently decided that white America is ready for a return to good old-fashioned racism so long as it's artfully packaged and can admit for exceptions like Colin Powell. It's easy to see the basis for Mr. Murray's calculations. After watching their income stagnate or decline over the past decade, the majority of Americans are in an ugly mood and deeply resent any advantages, real or perceived, that minorities may enjoy.

I happen to think Mr. Murray's wrong, not just in his estimation of black people, but in his estimation of the broader American public. But I do think Mr. Murray's right about the growing distance between the races. The violence and despair of the inner city are real. So's the problem of street crime. The longer we allow these problems to fester, the easier it becomes for white America to see all blacks as menacing and for black America to see all whites as racist. To close that gap, we're going to have to do more than denounce Mr. Murray's book. We're going to have to take concrete and deliberate action. For blacks, that means taking greater responsibility for the state of our own communities. Too many of us use white racism as an excuse for self-defeating behavior. Too many of our young people think education is a white thing and that the values of hard work and discipline and self-respect are somehow outdated.

That being said, it's time for all of us, and now I'm talking about the larger American community, to acknowledge that we've never even come close to providing equal opportunity to the majority of black children. Real opportunity would mean quality prenatal care for all women and well-funded and innovative public schools for all children. Real opportunity would mean a job at a living wage for everyone who was willing to work, jobs that can return some structure and dignity to people's lives and give inner-city children something more than a basketball rim to shoot for. In the short run, such ladders of opportunity are going to cost more, not less, than either welfare or affirmative action. But, in the long run, our investment should pay off handsomely. That we fail to make this investment is just plain stupid. It's not the result of an intellectual deficit. It's the result of a moral deficit.

Even though Klein conceded that "Obama clearly focused his ire on Murray," he insisted that "his singling out of Powell as acceptable to 'white America' may raise some eyebrows." Of course, Obama is speaking about what Murray apparently finds acceptable to "white America," not himself.

Klein then played his trademark guilt-by-association card, segueing to how "Radical black leaders have long taken racial swipes at Powell," even though Obama did no such thing.

Nexis of Nuttiness: LeBoutillier Interviews Trump for Newsmax
Topic: Newsmax

Newsmax's May 23 interview with Donald Trump, in which he revealed "he is seriously considering launching his own super PAC to produce anti-Obama ads showing how Washington is allowing outsiders to 'absolutely suck the blood out of this country,'" was conducted by the one person at Newsmax who could rival Trump for sheer nuttiness: John LeBoutillier.

We've detailed how LeBoutillier -- a Vanderbilt heir and one-term congressman-- was the public face of the failed effort to create a "Counter Clinton Library" to attack President Clinton. As Media Matters notes, LeBoutillier has a long history of extremist political attacks, from making scurrilous, unsupported allegations about Gary Condit's sex life to promoting the so-called "Clinton death list" to writing a self-published birther-y "satirical novel" about Obama (with discredited author Edward Klein).

LeBoutillier began his interview by calling Trump "one of the most famous people on the planet Earth." It doesn't get any better from there.

Meanwhile ...
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Richard Bartholomew takes apart a May 20 WorldNetDaily article by Steve Peacock on violence in northern Nigeria. Not only does the headline, "Obama: Slaughter of Christians a Misunderstanding," falsely claim that President Obama has spoken out about it -- he hasn't, and the article doesn't even quote him -- Peacock falsely implied that the U.S. Agency for International Development is denying the role of Islamic extremism in Nigeria or portraying the situation as a "misunderstanding."

In fact, Bartholomew points out, the USAID document that Peacock quotes from points out that the Nigeria conflict, "at its root, it is more about the governance of contested resource," not a "religious war."Even though Muslim and Christian communities are in conflict, the motivation is not primarily a religious one. Other experts on the issue agree with this assessment.

This is just another ham-fisted attempt by WND to falsely paint Obama as anti-Christian.

MRC's Graham Throws Jews Under the Bus to Deflect Attention from Catholic Scandals
Topic: NewsBusters

As we've documented, the Media Research Center has been lashing out at the TV networks for failure to "correctly" cover -- by which it means uncritically promoting -- the lawsuit by Catholic groups against the Obama administration regarding the contraception mandate. Now it appears that the MRC will throw other religions under the bus to promote its pro-Catholic agenda.

In a May 24 NewsBusters post, MRC director of media analysis Tim Graham takes offense to covering a Catholic sexual abuse scandal in Philadelphia instead of the lawsuit, adding: "While CBS highlights the Catholic sex-abuse allegations in Philadelphia, it’s ignoring the Jewish sex-abuse story in its own hometown."

Huh? What does that have to do with anything? But Graham has decided that it has. After quoting from a New York Times story about a Brooklyn prosecutor facing "intense scrutiny for his handling of sexual abuse cases in the politically powerful ultra-Orthodox Jewish community," Graham adds: "Sex-abuse charges in the Catholic Church are deadly serious, but aren't they in all religions? Aren't they in public schools? But Pelley was singling out the Catholics, spreading across the nation the prosecutors comparing the Catholic Church in Philadelphia to the Nazis during World War II[.]"

But a national network news program is not supposed to cover "hometown" news -- it's supposed to cover stories of national interest. And since Catholics are 23.9% of the American population,  it's a story that a large number of Americans are interested in. By comparison, only 1.7% of the U.S. population are Jews, and ultra-orthodox Judaism is a small subset of that.

Interestingly, this is not the first time that NewsBusters has invoked the ultra-orthodox sex abuse scandal to deflect attention from Catholic scandals:

• In April, Dave Pierre complained about a PBS "Frontline" program about the Catholic scandal, retorting: "When will PBS’ Frontline investigate the massive child abuse and cover-ups happening today - not decades ago - in our nation's public schools? How about the recent cover-ups of abuse by Orthodox rabbis in New York City?
• Pierre returned in December to attack the New York Times for allegedly ignoring how "85 accused child predators have been arrested in Brooklyn's Orthodox Jewish community," while "The Times has never been shy about trumpeting cases involving allegations of abuse by Catholic priests decades ago."

It's more than a little unbecoming for Graham and Pierre to invoke Jewish scandals to deflect from Catholic scandals.

Irony: AIM's Kincaid Complains About 'Inflammatory' Writer
Topic: Accuracy in Media

In his May 23 Accuracy in Media column promoting a claim that "the Obama Administration is rapidly revising federal counter-terrorism training materials in order to eliminate references to Jihad and Islam," Cliff Kincaid complains about "an inflammatory headline about 'Islamophobia' supposedly characterizing the federal government’s response to global Islamic terrorism." He continues:

[Ryan] Mauro told Accuracy in Media that another factor behind the ongoing review, in addition to the inflammatory reporting of Wired blogger Ackerman, is the influence of the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress (CAP), which issued a “Fear, Inc.” report attacking critics of radical Islam as bigots involved in “Islamophobia.”

Kincaid is referencing Ackerman's report on FBI instructional materials about Muslims, some of which characterized them as prone to violence or terrorism. Kincaid never actually counters what Ackerman wrote, just dismissed it as "inflammatory."

That's right -- the writer who condones the killing of gays and who apparently thinks Frank Marshall Davis is Barack Obama's father is complaining that some other writer's work is "inflammatory."