Topic: WorldNetDaily
Even birthers don't believe the WorldNetDaily writer's claim that President Obama's ring says "There is no god except Allah." And that's merely the latest discredited Obama-bashing story Corsi has peddled. Read more >>
Thursday, October 18, 2012
NEW ARTICLE: Jerome Corsi's Ring Cycle
Topic: WorldNetDaily Even birthers don't believe the WorldNetDaily writer's claim that President Obama's ring says "There is no god except Allah." And that's merely the latest discredited Obama-bashing story Corsi has peddled. Read more >>
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:15 AM EDT
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
MRC Doubles Down on Benghazi Attack Transcript Trutherism
Topic: Media Research Center Matthew Sheffield set the template at the Media Research Center: He read President Obama's mind, and has decided that while Obama referenced "acts of terror" in denouncing the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi during a Rose Garden speech, he was not calling the attack itself an "act of terror" because "this is not what he meant by it." Now, the rest of the MRC is doubling down on Sheffield's version of transcript trutherism to launch an attack on presidential debate moderator Candy Crowley for pointing out that Obama did, in fact, call the Benghazi attack an "act of terror." Brent Bozell ranted, pretty much is only mode of operation, in an Oct. 17 MRC press release: Candy Crowley was an utter disaster last night, and was, by far, the worst moderator of the 2012 election. The rest of the release reiterated Bozell's remarks, while providing absolutely no evidence to back it up: Last night, in what was the most stunning and disgraceful single example of moderator malpractice in the history of presidential debates, CNN’s Candy Crowley allowed Barack Obama to lie to the American people about his administration’s Libya cover-up. Even worse, she then validated this lie of extraordinary magnitude by certifying it as honest and by attacking Mitt Romney when he pressed the president on his administration’s cover-up. Crowley robbed tens of millions of Americans of the truth on national primetime television. Real journalists – who were fed the Obama Administration’s Libya lies for two weeks – should be furious. The release went on to reference a MRC item that supposedly "documented that since 1992, moderators have called upon voters with a liberal agenda twice as often as those with a conservative agenda." But if you look at the Oct. 16 item, write Rich Noyes fails to document his methodology for categorizing the "agenda" of debate questions. Without that, Noyes' piece is meaningless as "media research" and is nothing more than partisan electioneering. Noyes echoed this in an Oct. 17 NewsBusters post in which he purported to relay "The Facts" regarding the debate. He repeated his unsubstantiated claim that "since 1992, moderators have called upon voters with a liberal agenda twice as often as those with a conservative agenda," going on to declare that "Obama only speaking generically about how 'no acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this nation,' not assigning that label to the violence in Benghazi." But Obama did not specifically exclude the Benghazi attack from the "acts of terror" he was referring to, so word-parsing works both ways. Other MRC writers have joined in the doubling down:
That's the MRC's story, and they're sticking to it, no matter how much reality they have to ignore in the process.
Posted by Terry K.
at 7:00 PM EDT
Updated: Wednesday, October 17, 2012 7:08 PM EDT
WND's Flaherty Still Getting His Race-Baiting Wrong
Topic: WorldNetDaily Colin Flaherty is still spreading falsehoods in his race-baiting at WorldNetDaily. In his Oct. 15 WND article, Flaherty peddles yet another story of "black mob violence" by highlighting what's called the "knockout game," chortling that the perpetrators messed with "The Wrong Guy," which resulted in one of them being shot dead. But as we've pointed out when Flaherty has done this in the past, the "knockout game" is not a "black thing," it's a product of a certin inner-city adolescent culture. Then, in an Oct. 16 article, Flaherty turned his attention to University of Wisconsin football player Montee Ball, who "has not been the same since five black men attacked him in August, sending him to the emergency room with head injuries," meaning that "Black mob violence has claimed another victim: This time, the Heisman Trophy. And maybe even a national college football championship." Well, actually, not so much. Last weekend, Ball ran for a career-high 247 yards and scored three touchdowns, in the process setting a the Big Ten record for career TDs. But never mind the facts -- Flaherty just wants to fearmonger, declaring that "Black mob violence is a new feature of life at college campuses around the country" with his usual cherry-picked compendium of isolated incidents he's trying to cobble into an "epidemic." He even references a "college black mob violence tour" despite the fact that he identifies no "black mob" roaming from campus to campus across the country beating up people. And that's why we call it race-baiting, folks.
Posted by Terry K.
at 2:22 PM EDT
NewsBusters' Sheffield Parses, Mind-Reads To Defend Romney, Attack Candy Crowley
Topic: NewsBusters In an Oct. 16 NewsBusters post, Matthew Sheffield ranted that presidential debate moderator Candy Crowley "disgraced herself" by her "incorrect seconding of Obama's statement that he declared the Libya terrorist attacks to be 'terror.'" Sheffield then asserted: "While Obama did indeed use the word, this is not what he meant by it. Instead, he was simply referring to 'acts of terror.' There was no mention of Al Qaeda or any of its affiliates with respect to the actual attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi." Sheffield is not only parsing words, he's reading minds. How does he know what Obama "meant" by his reference to "acts of terror" in his Rose Garden speech? He doesn't. Nor can he prove has later assertion that Obama was "willing to deliberately misquote himself." Sheffield also doesn't provide any evidence that it was known by anyone in the immediate aftermath of the attack that Al Qaeda was involved. If it wasn't, there would have been no reason for Obama to mention "Al Qaeda or any of its affiliates." If Sheffield is going to play this sort of word-splicing game, he should also acknowledge that Obama did not specifically exclude the Benghazi attack from his references to "acts of terror," and that one can reasonably conclude that because he did not, Obama considered the Benghazi attack to be a terrorist act. But Sheffield doesn't care about facts, he cares about trying to score political points and cares even more about Obama being defeated. He goes on to rant: "If Obama truly believed it was terrorism, he likely would have inserted this. He also wouldn't have gone on multiple fund-raising trips after the incident happened nor would he (and his underlings) have repeatedly blamed an internet video for the attacks for 2 solid weeks." In fact, the video did play a role in the attack. The New York Times reported:
Sheffield wasn't done screeching about Crowley, though -- he called her essentially accurate claim "offensive," hyperbolically asserting that "America had just witnessed one of the most outrageous acts of liberal bias in history." Sheffield isn't engaging in media analysis -- he's trying desperately to spin for Mitt Romney, repeating conservative talking points without regard for their accuracy. That's the mark of partisan activist, not a media analyst.
Posted by Terry K.
at 9:49 AM EDT
Updated: Wednesday, October 17, 2012 10:00 AM EDT
'Dreams From My Real Father' Discredited; Will WND's Corsi Report?
Topic: WorldNetDaily For the past several months, WorldNetDaily -- led by Jerome Corsi -- has been promoting Joel Gilbert's anti-Obama film "Dreams From My Real Father," which posits that Obama's father is Frank Marshall Davis, and Obama's mother posed nude for him in Hawaii. Like many other things Corsi has been involved with, that claim has been utterly discredited. Loren Collins at the Barackryphal blog has utterly demolished Gilbert's claims in a seven-part series demonstrating Gilbert's falsehoods and history of mendacity. Perhaps most importantly, Collins shot down the claim that Ann Dunham posed for Davis by proving that photos that Gilbert claims are of Dunham were actually published in an erotica magazine when Dunham was 15 -- years before she and her family moved to Hawaii -- and are of a woman considerably older than 15. Collins also made a videotaped debunking of the photo claim. As Collins explains, Gilbert apparently tried to suppress the video by filing a frivolous copyright claim against it that temporarily removed it from YouTube (despite Collins' usage of a clip from an ad for Gilbert's film clearly falling under fair use). Collins removed the offending section and reposted the video. So Gilbert clearly knows about Collins' work to the extent that he tried to keep others from seeing it. But so far, Gilbert has not responded publicly to it. And you know what that means -- Corsi will ignore it as well. After all, Corsi has done such a bang-up job of suppressing any criticism of his rapidly imploding birther conspiracy theories, there's no reason he won't put the same effort into ignoring how Gilbert's smear of Obama (and false and malicious slut-shaming of his mother) has been discredited. This is just another reason why nobody believes WorldNetDaily.
Posted by Terry K.
at 2:22 AM EDT
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
MRC Spins for Romney on Abortion
Topic: Media Research Center Newsmax isn't the only ConWeb outlet that was desperate to spin away concerns over Mitt Romney's statement "There’s no legislation with regards to abortion that I’m familiar with that would become part of my agenda." In an Oct. 10 Media Research Center item, Matthew Balan claimd that CBS' Norah O'Donnell was "repeatedly hinting that Mitt Romney flip-flopped on the issue of abortion." Balan added that "O'Donnell conspicuously failed to mention that during the same interview, Romney promised to 'reinstate the Mexico City policy....that foreign aid dollars...would not be used to carry out abortion in other countries.'" But as Balan himself admits in the very next paragraph, reinstating the Mexico City policy would be done via executive order, not legislation. Balan wasn't done spinning, though. After quoting from the interview in which Romney made the statement, Balan wrote, "Note that the Republican didn't say anything about Supreme Court nominees (which would be needed to overturn Roe v. Wade), nor did he give an answer as to whether he would sign pro-life legislation if it reached his desk as president. But O'Donnell glossed this over completely, and badgered her guest about Romney's supposed flip-flop in giving that answer." Balan concluded by huffing, "With this kind of a record, the CBS anchor has all the marks of an Obama campaign stenographer." And Balan has all the marks of a Romney campaign spin doctor. Is that even allowed under the MRC's nonprofit status?
Posted by Terry K.
at 8:27 PM EDT
WND's Farah Is STILL Wondering Why Nobody Beleives His Website
Topic: WorldNetDaily In Joseph Farah's world, being (justly) ignored means you make the same argument again, only more shrill. Farah already devoted an Oct. 6 column to complaining that the rest of the world is ignoring Reza Kahlili's WND-published claim that President Obama purportedly cut a deal with Iran to stop its uranium enrichment as a pre-election "October surprise." But everyone ignored that too, so Farah is trying again in his Oct. 11 column:
As we pointed out last time, Kahlili's sources are anonumous, so there's no way anyone can judge how "impeccable" they are. Further, Kahlili's fearmongering claims -- he's best known for his discredited claim that Iran was planning nuclear suicide bombings with "a thousand suitcase bombs spread around Europe and the U.S." -- are treated with skepticism by actual Middle East analysts. In other words, Kahlili can't be trusted. But that inconvenient fact isn't stopping Farah from going into full conspiracy mode:
Of course, Farah ignores the elephant in the room: WND has so beclowned and discredited itself with its near-pathologiclal obsession with smearing President Obama with all manner of sleaze and untruths that nobody believes what's published there. Led by Jerome Corsi, WND is so invested in the idea that Obama's birth certificate is fake -- even instigating Sheriff Joe Arpaio's cold case posse "investigation" of the issue and sucking up to Arpaio so hard that Corsi was a de facto member of the posse -- that it has refused to acknowledge all evidence (and there's a lot) that contradicts Corsi's conspiracy theory. Just in the past week, Corsi's big "scoop" that blurry, blown-up photos prove a ring Obama wears contains the statement "There is no god except Allah" in Arabic was shot down by one of his own birther buddies, Mara Zebest. And yes, Farah wrote a column wondering why the media was ignoring this too. It's simple -- nobody believes WND. Even birthers have stopped believing it. Farah has nobody but himself to blame for that.
Posted by Terry K.
at 6:24 PM EDT
Kessler Repeats Unsubstantiated Attack on Biden
Topic: Newsmax The flip side to Ronald Kessler's Romney-fluffing is attacks on Mitt Romney's enemies, chief among them President Obama and Vice Presdient Joe Biden. Kessler devotes his Oct. 15 Newsmax column to the latter, declaring that "Biden’s arrogance during the debate also provides a window on his character."Kessler then rehashes an attack on Biden he first peddled in June:
But Kessler, both here and in his original June article, fails to back up his claims, and he relies on an unverifiable anonymous Secret Service agent to make his attacks. Kessler has more than proven himself to be a pro-Romney hack. Why trust his attacks on Obama and Biden?
Posted by Terry K.
at 3:03 PM EDT
WND Tries to Spin Chuck Norris' Apocalyptic Video
Topic: WorldNetDaily Last month, Chuck Norris released a video in which the clear implication was that if President Obama was re-elected, it could result in "one thousand years of darkness." Apparently, Norris didn't take kindly to how crazy that sounded, so he re-edited the video. And WorldNetDaily is only too happy to properly spin things from what the "establishment media" said about it. In an Oct. 9 article, WND wants it known that Norris was merely quoting Ronald Reagan, not specifically saying crazy things about Obama's re-election:
We didn't know that Mediaite and AdWeek were the "establishment media." The implication that Obama will destroy the country if re-elected, and would be better off under Mitt Romney, remains. He still implies that Obama is "evil" by repeating the famous Edmund Burke quote about good men doing nothing. And the implication that Obama will plunge the country into "a thousand years of darkness" remains obvious despite the words coming out of Reagan's mouth instead of Norris'. Despite WND's spin job, Norris is still an Obama-hating crazy man.
Posted by Terry K.
at 11:26 AM EDT
CNS' Strange, Biased Debate Fact-Check
Topic: CNSNews.com In an Oct. 12 CNSNews.com article, Patrick Goodenough offered up a strange, biased fact-check of the vice presidential debate. Biased because, well, it's CNS. Seven statements from Joe Biden were cited, versus two from Paul Ryan. Strange because it focused on foreign policy questions (CNS published no other fact-check on the rest of the debate) and because of Goodenough's approach to fact-checking. Responding to a pair of Biden statements highlighting how Iran is "more isolated today than when we took office" and that "the world for the first time totally united in opposition" to Iran getting a nuclear weapon, Goodenough responded by ... referencing a meeting a non-aligned organizations that was recently held in Iran. How does that disprove Biden's claim that Iran is isolated in the international community? Goodenough doesn't explain. No other fact-checker we could find addressed the claim, which means it must be true. Meanwhile, Goodenough served as an apologist for Ryan on his statement that "It took the president two weeks to acknowledge that" the attack on the U.S. consulate "was a terrorist attack":
Goodenough shows his anti-Democrat bias in responding to Biden's claim that President Obama has met with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu "a dozen times":
It's a strange, nitpicky and lazy fact-check -- just the kind of thing you'd expect CNS to churn out.
Posted by Terry K.
at 8:06 AM EDT
Monday, October 15, 2012
Matt Barber Peddles Long-Debunked Lie About Obama
Topic: WorldNetDaily Matt Barber uses his Oct. 12 WorldNetDaily column to repeat an outright lie about President Obama:
As we documented four years ago, Obama was not "lamenting" that the Warren Court didn't "break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution" -- he was making the accurate observation that because it didn't, the Warren Court wasn't as "radical" as people think it is. Barber dishonestly took Obama's quote out of context and lied about what Obama said. On top of that, Barber falsely claims that Obama said this in 2008; in fact, it comes from a 2001 interview that surfaced in the 2008 campaign. Barber works for right-wing legal group Liberty Counsel. Surely he knows what happens when you deliberately tell a lie -- some people call that perjury. Does Barber have the moral character to correct his lie and apologize for telling it? Doubtful.
Posted by Terry K.
at 8:41 PM EDT
MRC Botches Unemployment Rate Analysis; WIll It Correct?
Topic: Media Research Center An Oct. 5 Media Research Center Business & Media Institute item by Dan Gainor and Julia Seymour repeated claims that September's drop in the unemployment rate was driven by "a huge jump in part-time workers." Turns out that's wrong. Rex Nutting at MarketWatch explains:
The MRC is not exactly known for correcting items unless they're so obviously wrong that it can't be avoided. You'd think this would fall under that category, but it's more likely that Gainor and Seymour will just shove this under the rug and stay silent about their error.
Posted by Terry K.
at 7:13 PM EDT
WND's Ellis Washington Ludicrously Likens Obama to Caligula
Topic: WorldNetDaily Ellis Washington regularly beclowns himself in his WorldNetDaily -- see, for instance, his insistence on turning Socrates into a right-wing nutjob like he is. Washington achieves a new level of ... something in his Oct. 12 column by drawing wildly wrong, and unintentionally hilarious, parallels between President Obama and, yes, Caligula by treating every lunatic Obama conspiracy theory -- up to and including Obama killing his gay lovers -- as proven fact:
A better question: Is Ellis Washington's madness, in the form of a raging case of Obama Deragement Syndrome, beyond remedy? It appears so. No wonder Washington complains that he can't get a tenure-track teaching job. What sane person would hire someone who writes such a ludicrous and hate-filled analogy like this?
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:06 PM EDT
Updated: Monday, October 15, 2012 1:35 PM EDT
Newsmax's Kessler Gets Some One-On-One Romney-Fluffing Time
Topic: Newsmax Newsmax's Ronald Kessler finally gets to do his Romney-fluffing one-on-one with a Oct. 12 interview with Mitt Romney. In the 11-minute video of the interview attached to the article, Kessler tosses softball after softball to Romney, heavy on "somebody did this, what's your reaction" type of questions that prompts Romney to spout his usual talking points. These are hardly the kind of challenging questions one expects from someone who purports to be a journalist, though is exactly the kind of question one expects of a Romney sycophant. Sample question from Kessler:
It's unclear when the interview was conducted (it appears to have been on Oct. 12 because Romney referenced the vice presidential debate "last night"), but at one point Kessler said to Romney that "wholesale gasoline prices went up again today." But gas prices have been trending down for the past month.
Posted by Terry K.
at 9:22 AM EDT
Even Birthers Aren't Buying WND's Obama Ring Story
Topic: WorldNetDaily WorldNetDaily's Jerome Corsi has managed to write something that even birthers are skeptical about. We've noted the craziness of Corsi's claim that blurry, blown-up photos prove that a ring Obama has worn reads "There is no god except Allah." Turns out we're not the only ones. The Birther Report blog (aka Obama Release Your Records) cited a "prominent computer software and graphics expert" who says that the claim by Corsi, via Obama-hating filmmaker Joel Gilbert, is a "major hoax," that Gilbert's images were Photoshopped, and that a high-resolution image of Obama's ring shows that it has no Arabic symbols on it. That prompted Corsi to pen a follow-up article responding to the Birther Report's then-unnamed expert having Gilbert insisting that he "made no alteration whatsoever" to the pattern on the ring. Corsi made no mention of the high-resolution image. In response to that, the Birther Report named its "expert" -- turns out it's none other than Mara Zebest, a birther who made a supporting appearance alongside Corsi last year at WND's press conference announcing its defamation lawsuit against Esquire magazine (recently booted out of court). In a June 2011 article, Corsi touted Zebest as "a nationally recognized computer expert who has served as contributing author and technical editor for more than 100 books on Adobe and Microsoft software." Corsi has not addressed the issue at WND since the Birther Report's "expert" was revealed to be Zebest. This isn't the only instance of right-wingers backing away from Corsi's ring claim:
Meanwhile, Corsi's boss, WND editor Joseph Farah, was wondering (as he's prone to do) why nobody else was covering Corsi's big scoop:
Farah appears not to have considered the possibility that nobody else is reporting the story becuase it isn't true. When can we expect a correction and apology from Corsi and Farah about this? Our impression of that answer is here.
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:26 AM EDT
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