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Tuesday, June 12, 2012
MRC Is Offended GM Wants to Sell Cars to Gays
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center's anti-gay agenda leads it to do many silly things.

Like this June 11 MRC Culture & Media Institute article by Taylor Hughes, which takes offense at the idea that General Motors is marketing to gays:

What do GM and President Obama have in common (besides that fact that he bought it)? They’re both catering to the gay agenda for cash. Soon after President Obama declared that “same sex couples should be allowed to marry,” government-owned GM decided that gays should also be targeted by its ad campaigns. 

While Obama’s move paid off immediately (Hollywood had lavished some $12 million on his campaign within days of his announcing that his opinion had “evolved”), the jury is still out on whether it will pay off for Chevy.

An LGBT Detroit based paper, Between the Lines, ran an ad showing the Chevy Volt taking the most important step in a gay person’s life, coming out. Parked between two gas powered Chevy vehicles, the ad shows the Volt boldly proclaiming, “Mom, Dad, I’m Electric.”

This move was hailed as “particular strategic move for the car manufacturer” by the Huffington Post and others, noting that the LGBT community tends to be more “eco-friendly.”  

Um, so? Why shouldn't GM target any audience it chooses in order to sell cars? Why is that a bad thing? Doesn't Hughes want the government to make some money (or at least lose a little less of it) on its GM investment?

Apparently not according to Hughes, if that means treating gays as merely another target audience instead of a minority to be despised.


Posted by Terry K. at 11:14 AM EDT
WND's Ellis Washington Embraces Discredited Historian
Topic: WorldNetDaily

We've noted how WorldNetDaily's Ellis Washington is frustrated that he can't get the tenure-track teaching gig he so desperately wants, and which his arrogance and extreme views will make it unlikely that he will get. Here's another reason he won't get that job: He embraces discredited so-called experts.

In his June 8 WND column, Washington begins:

Conservative historian David Barton, in his outstanding new book, “The Jefferson Lies: Exploring the Myths You’ve Always Known About Thomas Jefferson,” has once again presented an opus that shines the light of truth on the lies and propaganda of atheism, progressivism, liberalism, humanism and secular elites who possess a venal hatred for American exceptionalism.

There's Washington's first problem. Warren Throckmorton has detailed how Barton's book is replete with falsehoods, undermining Washington's insistence that "The Jefferson Lies" is "outstanding."

Washington then digresses to a discussion of "deconstructionism," in which he bizarrely insists that the Salem witch trials weren't that bad because other countries killed many more suspected witches:

Deconstructionism teaches students about the “intolerant” or “fanatical” Christian Puritans who conducted the notorious witch trials in Salem, Mass. While history records 27 individuals unjustly accused, tried and killed in the Salem witch trials, what liberal revisionists almost universally disregard is that these trials weren’t unique to America. In fact witch trials were happening concurrently throughout the world – including 30,000 in England, 75,000 in France, and 100,000 in Germany. In total over 500,000 people were put to death throughout Europe. Additionally, the American witch trials lasted 18 months, but the European trials lasted decades.

Twenty-seven vs. 500,000 deaths. You do the math!

Barton uncovers the real history of the Salem witch trials. The Puritans were not Christian fanatics with a bloodlust towards witches. 

If Barton is Washington's source on this, there's a pretty good likelihood that Barton is misleading or wrong here as well.

Of course, a tenure-track-caliber professor would not simply accept someone's so-called research at face value simply because they reinforce one's preconceived notions.


Posted by Terry K. at 10:36 AM EDT
Monday, June 11, 2012
Newsmax Still Promoting Discredited Ed Klein
Topic: Newsmax

We've detailed how Newsmax has been promoting discredited author Edward Klein's new Obama-bashing book -- it's even brought in crazy person John LeBoutillier to interview Klein, and is touting the book with a blurb from another noted crazy person, Donald Trump.

A June 11 Newsmax article appears to be an excerpt from Klein's book -- while it carries Klein's byline, it's not identified as an excerpt. It's based on an unnamed "liberal historian" who spent "nearly two hours" bashing Obama after purportedly met with Klein "in a restaurant where we were unlikely to be seen" where the interview was "conducted under the condition of anonymity."

Why should the rantings of someone too cowardly to go on the record with his opinions be taken seriously? They shouldn't. But because the anonymous person is bashing Obama, it's important as far as Klein is concerned. And Newsmax, too.


Posted by Terry K. at 6:50 PM EDT
WND's Mercer: Men Are Enabling 'Female Incompetence'
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Ilana Mercer writes in her June 7 WorldNetDaily column:

“A dual spigot for an exterior faucet”: We purchased this item at Home Depot, the shop where men roam to feel at home.

The item was without a sticker. A woman clerk was manning the checkout counter. She and her female colleagues congregated to solve the problem. A man at the back was contacted on the intercom system and asked for a price. Alas, and eventually, another man had to save the day. Not one of the ladies was able to coherently describe the 2-outlet faucet adaptor, for the purpose of pricing the item.

A young man who worked the floor staged an “intervention.” He arrived on the scene, held the thing comfortably in his hands, and intuitively blurted out the description above. It was second nature to him. A few minutes later, we were finally on our way.

[...]

Everywhere you go, men are enabling – and compensating for – female incompetence in work to which women are unsuited.

Everywhere, men are doing double duty, sometimes endangering themselves (as in police work), to give girls the delusions of omnipotence they demand. And they do this without question. I guess a guy doing unequal work for equal pay would get fired if he questioned this PC protocol.

So women are genetially incapable of making their way through a Home Depot with any level of competence?

Of course, Mercer ignores the possibility that a checkout clerk is not where you should go at Home Depot for expertise on a specific product and that people who specialize in them are stationed in specific sections of the store. Checkout clerks at such a large store are not necessarily cross-trained to be experts on every single item the store sells.

Just because a female checkout clerk couldn't immediately identify the part you were seeking, Ilana, doesn't make all women incompetent.


Posted by Terry K. at 5:43 PM EDT
MRC's Graham Complains Food Network Host Said Something Nice About Michelle Obama
Topic: NewsBusters

Yes, Tim Graham devoted an entire June 9 NewsBusters post to complaining that a Food Network host said something nice about Michelle Obama:

Michelle Obama’s showing up on yet another cable reality show, and once again TV Guide is kissing her ring. The new June 11-17 issue carries the headline “A First-class First Lady.” Reporter Oriana Schwindt said the Food Network’s “Restaurant Impossible” will make a new dining room, kitchen and garden for the charity Horton’s Kids in the poor Anacostia neighborhood in Washington, DC, and Michelle came for a few hours to supervise and make her latest cameo.

“I’ve worked for different presidents,” said the program’s host Robert Irvine, “but forget politics – this lady is one of the most humanistic, charismatic, caring people I’ve ever met.” TV Guide wasn’t done:

“She spoke to every child, every worker, every mother,” marvels Irvine, “and didn’t leave, even when she was being pulled left, right, and center by aides and Secret Service.”

If you believe Michelle Obama is just yanked around by the Secret Service like she’s a rag doll, you might also believe she’s one of the most magical people you could ever come across.

That's the MRC's bizarre definition of "liberal bias" at work -- simply saying something nice about a non-conservative is "liberal bias."

Does Graham have nothing better to do with his life than to troll TV Guide and the Food Network to find "liberal bias"? Apparently not.


Posted by Terry K. at 12:27 PM EDT
Diana West's Legal Process Fail
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Diana West apparently doesn't udnerstand how the legal process works. Otherwise, she wouldn't have gotten so much wrong in her June 9 WorldNetDaily column-slash-birther rant.

West writes:

New Jersey citizens, represented by attorney Mario Apuzzo, made two claims: that Barack Obama has not proved he meets the conditions for presidential eligibility (namely, that he is a “natural born citizen”), and that the proof Obama released attesting to his bona fides (an Internet image of his long-form birth certificate) is fraudulent.

In fact, Apuzzo was not representing "New Jersey citizens"; he was representing two specific New Jersey citizens, Nicholas E. Purpura and Theodore T. Moran. And Obama has proven his "presidential eligibility"; West simply refuses to accept it by insisting on a definition of "natural born citizen" that does not exist in American law and ignoring the fact that the state of Hawaii has vouched for the authenticity of Obama's birth certificate.

West goes on to complain that an administrative judge ruled that "A presidential candidate has no obligation under New Jersey state law to prove his eligibility, period." Which, of course, is the correct ruling. Still West whines about it by demanding that judges go beyond their legal authority:

The following questions, asked last week by the three judges who heard the New Jersey case on appeal, typify the official attitude:

“Why is it incumbent on New Jersey to resolve this issue?”

Subtext: Voters, schmoters.

“What statute of New Jersey says he (Obama) has to prove his eligibility?”

Subtext: Please make it someone else’s problem.

“Why won’t Congress and (the Electoral College) protect the integrity of the election?”

Subtext: It’s not our problem.

“Why don’t we accept at face value that they made that determination (after the 2008 election)?”

Subtext: It’s no one’s problem anymore. Can we go home yet?

“Do you agree that we need not reach the issue of natural born citizen?”

Subtext: We don’t want to walk that scary plank, whatever we do.

Surprise, surprise, the appeals court upheld President Obama’s eligibility. The judges, along with Obama’s counsel, agreed that any eligibility questions should be kicked upstairs to Congress and the Electoral College – and after the November 2012 election.

Again, the appeals court made the correct ruling. Apuzzo never established that New Jersey has any legal obligation to vet the eligibility of presidential candidates, so the judges are correct in not enforcing one.

But West is not done whining. After asking "What’s up with that funky online ID of his? No junior high school would hire a P.E. teacher on the strength of that" -- again, ignoring that the state of Hawaii has vouched for its authenticity -- she complains that "some media outlets that subscribe to this column have informed me they won’t run anything I write on the eligibility subject."

If West would recognize reality instead of regurgitating discredited birther conspiracies, that might change.


Posted by Terry K. at 11:39 AM EDT
Updated: Monday, June 11, 2012 11:42 AM EDT
Sunday, June 10, 2012
CNS' Week of Anti-Gay Freakouts
Topic: CNSNews.com

 Given the Media Research Center's anti-gay agenda, assume that any reference to gays are meant to be either disparaging or to provide an opportunity for disparagement. Case in point: CNS resorting to anti-gay hate group leaders to bash a proposed law banning reparative therapy for gays.

This past weekend, though, CNS has piled up a bunch of gay-related freakouts mostly related to June being Gay Pride Month:

In a June 5 article, Penny Starr was appalled that the State Department is celebrating Pride Month by featuring LGBT employees, including "an Obama political appointee whom the department describes as a transsexual who has been 'an international development practitioner, academic, and ethicist.'"

A June 6 article by Starr complains that "Middle and high school students in Minnesota who were bullied because 'they dared to be out' and a Department of Justice attorney who is a transgender activist were honored by Attorney General Eric Holder and other DOJ officials on Wednesday."

A June 6 article by Pete Winn reports that "An Army chaplain has performed the first same-sex nuptial ceremony on a military base--one involving two lesbian soldiers."

In a June 7 article, Amanda Swysgood is not thrilled that President Obama made a Pride Month video message in which he "praises lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Americans, describing them as 'unsung heroes' who have 'bent the arc of the moral universe towards justice.'"


Posted by Terry K. at 12:23 AM EDT
Updated: Monday, June 11, 2012 12:22 PM EDT
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Ellis Washington Whines That He Can't Get A Decent Teaching Job -- Then Demonstrates Why
Topic: WorldNetDaily

There are lots of reasons no respectable institution of learning should hire Ellis Washington as an instructor -- his propensity for exaggerating his resume and getting things flamboyantly wrong being just two of them (not to mention merely being a columnist for WorldNetDaily).

Still, Washington is upset by this -- so much so that he took to his personal blog a couple months back to issue a manifesto on the subject. Of course, he doesn't blame his own shortcomings for this but, rather, discrimination against conservatives.

Washington begins by outlining what he believes are his qualifications:

Dear Law School or University Dean X:

This unsolicited letter expresses my enduring and strong desire to apply for any open faculty positions at your law school, college, or university within my areas of expertise, scholarly pursuits, and teaching experience which include—Natural Law, Constitutional Law, Jurisprudence, Legal History, First Amendment, International Law, Legal Ethics, Law & Education Policy, Critical Legal Studies, Family Law, Juvenile Law, Critical Race Theory, Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Contracts, Business Law, Administrative Law, Law & Politics, Law & Humanities, and Law & Literature.

Due to my numerous and unsuccessful efforts for almost 20 years in obtaining neither a real, fair, or good faith interview for a law faculty or college position, this year I have elected to pursue a new, novel, and proactive strategy which I am convinced will cause a paradigm shift inside the Academy… and beyond. I will write an original Manifesto which outlines some of my scholarly accomplishments while addressing what I consider to be the endemic, racist, discriminatory, and frankly irrelevant criteria most American law schools and universities use to pick essentially the same vanilla, ideological-minded Leftists for all of their faculty appointments while others like myself of an “other” ideology; a different but equally relevant experience and scholarly achievement has for 20 years been ignored and shamefully treated as, to coin a phrase from that 1970s literary/movie classic, The Spook Who Sat by the Door.

~ E. Washington

In the manifesto proper, Washington recalls his childhood, asserts that "I always knew it was my destiny to be a law professor and to thrive as a university professor," complains about "a Fabian Progressive hegemony inside the Academy dominated by Leftists," repeatedly demands that the law school or university dean at whatever place he wants a job "tell me I’m ideologically unfit to join your law school faculty" when he is such a brilliant guy, and insists that his new "opus" of a book "will revolutionize how America, Europe, and the world will understand and view the Progressive movement and the destructive effects of the Progressive Weltanschauung (worldview) which I describe as omnipresent, Machiavellian manipulation of every aspect of society controlled by a Nazis tactic called Gleichschaltung (coordination, synchronization)."

You know, perhaps smearing your ideological opposites as Nazis -- a base and juvenile tactic -- is not the way to impress a prospective employer. Neither is rejecting the foundational basis of American case law.

In his March 30 column, Washington attacked Marbury v. Madison, the 1803 Supreme Court decision that established the time-honored practice of judicial review in the American legal system. But Washington thinks that the decision turned the Supreme Court into an overly powerful body that rules essentially by fiat:

Fast forward to 1803, about 15 years after the establishment of the U.S. Constitution, and the first pivotal case by a young U.S. Supreme Court called Marbury v. Madison – a landmark case in United States law and in the history of law worldwide. It formed the foundation for the exercise of judicial review in the United States under Article III of the Constitution. This was the first time in Western history a court invalidated a law by declaring it “unconstitutional” without a demonstration that a particular statue conflicted with the language of state constitutions or federal law.

In Marbury v. Madison we witnesses the greatest power grab in the history of our republic, above even FDR’s “New Deal” and LBJ’s “Great Society,” where the majority opinion written by America’s second chief justice of the Supreme Court, John Marshall, forever expanded the court’s power beyond the bounds of the Constitution by infusing it with godlike power and authority of “judicial review.” In other words, from that point forward in our American constitutional history, a majority of five or more members of this formerly weakest branch of government could invalidate any law passed by Congress and by the state legislatures in any or all of the 50 states it decided was unconstitutional simply because a majority of members on the court didn’t like said law – We the People be damned! From that moment onward, the separation-of-powers doctrine became perverted as the court repeatedly usurped unbounded constitutional powers not accorded by the constitutional framers.

Lord Acton answered such unbridled power in a famous aphorism, “Power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

The headline on Washington's column reads, "John Marshall's fascist jurisprudence." Such name-calling is also hardly becoming of a would-be college professor.

Any prospective employer of Washington doesn't even have to broach the question of his ideology to reject him. All they must do is look at his slipshod scholarship and dishonest resume puffery. 

And the manifesto doesn't exactly help either, except perhaps to give Washington license to portray himself as a victim in the future. Still, Washington does use it to make the narm-ish declaration: "I AM A MAN ~ I AM A SCHOLAR ~ I AM A MAN!"

Again, not the mark of a someone who should seriously expect to find employment of the kind he claims to desire.


Posted by Terry K. at 12:37 AM EDT
Friday, June 8, 2012
Meanwhile ...
Topic: NewsBusters
John Bates uses a June 6 NewsBusters post to complain that the media is ignoring that a book signing by first lady Michelle Obama requires a photo ID, while they compare "comparing voter ID laws to the Jim Crow Laws." Media Matters makes the obvious point, to which Bates is apparently oblivious, that voting is not the same thing as a book signing by the first lady.

Posted by Terry K. at 5:16 PM EDT
Updated: Saturday, June 9, 2012 12:13 AM EDT
Obama Derangement Syndrome Watch, Jack Cashill Edition
Topic: WorldNetDaily

In a recent column, I posited that Barack Obama did not in any meaningful way write the love letter Washington Post reporter David Maraniss unearthed for his new book, “Barack Obama: The Story.”

The wannabe author who wrote the spectacularly awful “Breaking the War Mentality” for the Columbia University Sundial under his own name could not have written this esoteric, exquisitely punctuated letter unaided during the same time period.

[...]

There are several classic Obama problems on display here. For one, Obama has no feel for the use of participles. 

-- Jack Cashill, June 6 WorldNetDaily column


Posted by Terry K. at 9:38 AM EDT
MRC's Graham Invents A Beauty Pageant Conspiracy
Topic: NewsBusters

Yes, Tim Graham really suggests in a June 4 NewsBusters post that the only reason Olivia Culpo won the Miss USA title is because she endorsed transsexual beauty pagent contestants:

On NBC Sunday night, the new Miss USA, Olivia Culpo from Rhode Island, carefully toed the “LGBT” line endorsing the idea of transgender beauty queens to win the crown. She learned from Carrie Prejean, who lost the Miss USA crown in 2009 after refusing to endorse judge Perez Hilton's demand for an endorsement of gay marriage. Hilton, and then the rest of the media, denounced Prejean for weeks afterward.

[...]

Donald Trump told Fox News that he vetted all of the questions, including the one about transgendered contestants. "Whoever gets that one ... that's a tough one," he said he thought after okaying the question. "She gave a great answer."

She gave the Politically Correct Answer. So Trump is pressured into surrendering on the transgender contestants, and then he then turned around and pressured the contestants to endorse his surrender on camera. What a goose-stepping parade this is.

Graham has not expressed any criticism that we know of regarding Trump's rampant birtherism, yet not hating transgendered people is "goose-stepping"? Really, Tim?


Posted by Terry K. at 9:13 AM EDT
Who Said Ed Klein Was A Liberal?
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Barry Farber spends his June 5 WorldNetDaily column chortling that discredited author Ed Klein's poorly written, anonymous-source-laden smear job on President Obama got past the "mainstream-media-mafia" to top the New York Times bestseller list. Farber then claims: "To make the feast even tastier, Ed Klein is described as a 'liberal.' He was an editor of Newsweek and the New York Times Sunday Magazine."

Who is describing Klein as a "liberal"? Nobody we know. He last worked for the Times Magazine in 1987. Anyone who has done any cursory research on Klein will discover his hatchet job on Hillary Clinton and his embarrassing self-published novel treating every crazy Obama conspiracy as fact, co-authored with crazy person John LeBoutillier.

Farber, meanwhile, isn't even claiming Klein's book is accurate:

It’s past time for cool, chin-stroking deep-thinking analysis. This president’s a failure. We made a national mistake. Get him the hell out! Ed Klein has taken out the machine-gun nests and cleared the way.

All Klein's book sales prove is that there's a market for Obama-bashing books, no matter their accuracy.


Posted by Terry K. at 12:01 AM EDT
Thursday, June 7, 2012
AIM Dismisses WND, Alex Jones As 'Russian Dupes' For Bilderberg Obsession
Topic: Accuracy in Media

Earlier this week, we detailed how WorldNetDaily had essentially teamed up with conspiracy-monger Alex Jones to lead and promote protests outside the Washington-area hotel where the Bilderberg Group was meeting last weekend. Now Jones and WND are being denounced for their Bilderberger obsession by an unlikely source -- another conspiracy-monger.

In a June 4 Accuracy in Media column headlined "Russian Dupes Behind Bilderberger Protests," Cliff Kincaid dismissed Jones for his regular appearances on "Moscow-funded Russia Today (RT) television"and complaining that "The major news organizations have been driven by the Drudge Report and WorldNetDaily" to cover the protests. Kincaid quotes right-wing radio host Ben Barrack asking whether Jones is a "dupe" or "actively working toward" an Islamist-led New World Order: "Islamists love Alex Jones. He runs interference for them by pushing 9/11 Conspiracy theories while publicly seeing them as a threat not worth dealing with because the NWO is actually using them for its own agenda."

Kincaid also repeated his own previous claim that "Russia Today is eager to publicize Alex Jones and his claims about 9/11, the Bilderbergers, bankers, and various other villains and culprits because they divert attention from the increasingly totalitarian nature of the Russian regime and the military threat that Russia still poses to American interests."

Kincaid, meanwhile, is no stranger to nutty conspiracy theories -- he thinks Frank Marshall Davis is Barack Obamas's father, posits that a U.S. soldier accused of committing a massacre in Afghanistan was "programmed" by the Taliban, and tried to falsely smear Leon Panetta as a Marxist.

Don't you love a good intra-conspiracy-monger fight?


Posted by Terry K. at 11:10 AM EDT
Les Kinsolving Whining Watch
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily has published yet another misleading article whining about how Les Kinsolving is being ignored in the White House briefing room.

The headline of the June 4 article reads, "White House mum on Civil War hero," but it provides no evidence that the White House refused to answer a question on the subject. Instead, it's just more whining about how White House press secretary Jay Carney wouldn't call on Kinsolving.

Despite the fact that Kinsolving has not earned the respect he demands from an administration he clearly despises, Kinsolving and WND regularly whine that his inane questions are being ignored.

The question Kinsolving would have asked involved the possibility of Civil War hero Alonzo Cushing being awarded the Medal of Honor -- an odd cause for Kinsolving to champion, since he's a Confederate sympathizer.


Posted by Terry K. at 10:23 AM EDT
Gainor's Double Standard on Billionaire Philanthropy
Topic: Media Research Center

We've detailed how the Media Research Center's Dan Gainor has obsessed about George Soros spends his billions on -- ironic, since Gainor hold the title of "T. Boone Pickens Fellow."

Well, Gainor is at it again with a new MRC "special report" ominously titled "George Soros: Godfather of the Left." A sample of Gainor's vitriol:

Left-wing donor George Soros spent more than $400 million world-wide to indoctrinate students and teach them to promote liberal, and in some cases extremist, causes. He has even funded his own university that promotes his own unique philosophy of open society. His reach and influence far surpasses that of the Koch brothers, who have been vilified by the left and the media for their grants to universities.

While the left shrivels at the thought of the Koch brother’s donations to universities, their beloved Soros gave more than 50 times as much. Central European University and Bard College received the most from Soros. One professor at CEU praised the Occupy movement combining environmentalism, feminism, the labor movement, and social justice. Grants to Bard College for “community service and social action” included a Palestinian youth group and an initiative to educate prisoners across the country. To top it off, all of the Ivy League universities, along with a variety of state schools, private institutions, and even religiously-affiliated institutions, were also funded by Soros.

Soros funded programs and classes at universities around the world promote his radical ideology. Soros’s Open Society Foundations granted $407,790,344 in gifts and commitments to higher education since the year 2000. 

Needless to say, Gainor ignores the higher education philanthropy conducted by the man who funds his MRC salary. Pickens has matched Soros' donations to colleges, except Pickens gave all of that money to a single school: more than $500 million to Oklahoma State University.

We've previously noted that Pickens has given at least $1.5 million to the MRC, part of which funds Gainor's position.

So Gainor is using his position funded by one billionaire's largesse to complain about another billionaire's largesse. How hypocritical.

But then, the MRC is all about that, isn't it?


Posted by Terry K. at 9:29 AM EDT

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