WND's Klein Pushes Idea That Obama Is The Devil Topic: WorldNetDaily
Despite his protestations to the contrary, it's undeniable that WorldNetDaily's Aaron Klein has it in for President Obama and has been trying to destroy him for years.
The utter hatred and contempt with which Klein treats Obama reaches a new cynical depth with a Jan. 25 WND article in which he promotes the idea that a fly landing on Obama's forehead means that the president is actually the devil.
No, really:
News reports have recounted Obama’s history of attracting flies during recorded interviews and speeches.
Already, religious and other websites are using the headlines to point out that a biblical reference for Satan, the Semitic deity Beelzebub, literally translates from Hebrew into “Lord of the Flies.”
[...]
The End Times blog named Obama the “Lord of the Flies.”
The blog connects Obama to Beelzebub, writing, “This really isn’t an academic question. The Lord of the Flies is real.”
Over at RevalationNow.net, a posting by “editorial staff” muses about whether Obama is possessed by a demonic entity.
“I feel like I am watching a horror movie and the secret evil character is revealed by the evil signs around him,” the post reads.
Beelzebub is first referenced in 2 Kings 1:2-3, 6, 16, in which Beelzebub is described as the god of the Philistine city of Ekron.
Jewish scholars have interpreted the title “Lord of Flies” as the Hebrew way of comparing followers of the Canaanite deity Baal to flies.
The name Beelzebub is found throughout the New Testament, mostly as a reference to the prince of demons.
This is what's considered "news" at WND. But then, WND also considers portraying Obama as the literal Antichrist to be "news."
If Klein had any sense of shame -- which, sadly, he doesn't -- he would apologize for writing this.
CNS Adds Bias To More AP Headlines Topic: CNSNews.com
It's been a while since we caught CNSNews.com adding bias to one of the Associated Press articles it publishes, but CNS seems to have rediscovered its love of slanting editorial copy.
A Jan. 24 Associated Press article on groups asking President Obama to sign an executive order banning federal contractors from discriminating against gay employees carries the headline "Gay rights groups seek order on employee bias."
Run that story through CNS' bias machine, and the headline magically turns into "Homosexual Advocacy Groups Seek Executive Order Banning Discrimination in Workplace."
Why did CNS change "gay rights" to "homosexual advocacy" in the headline when they didn't bother to do so in the article itself? Who knows? Could be laziness, could be that AP doesn't allow those kind of edits.
Meanwhile, a Jan. 25 AP article was sent out with the headline "Schools Must Provide Sports for Disabled, US Says."
But the CNS headline on the same article editorializes: "Shades of Title IX: Schools Must Provide Sports for Disabled, Obama Administration Says."
Whatever the reason for all this extracurricular editing, CNS is clearly unhappy that AP's articles aren't biased enough. That CNS is using AP articles at all remains strange since its corporate parent, the Media Research Center, regularly bashes the AP and even has a NewsBusters blogger, Tom Blumer, has sniffing out purported bias at the AP and other wire services as his main beat.
WND Lets Plaintiff In Abortion Case Overstate Things Topic: WorldNetDaily
Under the headline "The woman who started legal abortion," a Jan. 22 WorldNetDaily article tells the story of Sandra Cano, who was "Doe" in Doe v. Bolton, a 1973 case overturning an extremely restrictive abortion law in Georgia that was decided by the Supreme Court the same day its Roe v. Wade ruling was issued. WND lets Cano uncritically claim that she didn't realize she was the plaintiff until after the Supreme Court ruling, that she had never asked for an abortion (though the ruling claims that Doe "was denied an abortion after eight weeks of pregnancy"), and is pro-life. Cano is also quoted as saying, "because of me abortion was created."
Well, no -- abortion had been around for a very long time before Doe v. Bolton ever existed. And even if Cano and WND are talking about "legal abortion." that existed as well, in about one-third of the states by 1973.
While a companion ruling to Roe v. Wade, Doe v. Bolton more specifically overturned certain onerous clauses in Georgia abortion law, such as requiring an accredited hospital, two doctors and a hospital committee to sign off on the abortion, as well as that the woman seeking an abortion must be a Georgia resident.
The mysterious writer of the WND article (it's unbylined) went well beyond the established facts to present Cano's case. Then again, going well beyond the facts is what WND does.
NewsBusters' Unironic Likening Of Rachel Maddow To North Korean News Topic: NewsBusters
NewsBusters blogger Jack Coleman describes himself as "a recovering former liberal journalist from Massachusetts." He's recovered so much, it appears, that he's become a right-wing ranter who cares nothing about journalism.
Take, for example, his Jan. 22 post about MSNBC's Rachel Maddow enthusing over an inauguration ball for President Obama. He warns "nausea may ensue," and grumbles, "OK, that settles it. This is what it's like to watch the news in North Korea."
First: Maddow is a commentator, not a journalist, so gushing a little too much over Obama is hardly a capital offense.
Second: Coleman would likely be just as gushy had Mitt Romney won the election.
Third: Does Coleman really want to see "what it's like to watch the news in North Korea"? He should try Fox News, where Obama is nothing less than an enemy of the state. Or maybe read -- oh, I don't know -- NewsBusters, where conservatives who aren't conservative enough get the gulag treatment (well, Heathering).
Jerome Corsi's New Attacks On Kerry Being Ignored, As They Should Be Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's Jerome Corsi declared last month that he would try to swift-boat John Kerry again in an attempt to derail his nomination as secretary of state, and he's finally making good on the promise with a Jan. 23 WND article rehashing his old attacks.
But his work is making nary a ripple because Americans know something they didn't when Corsi first appeared on the scene in 2004 for his first round of Kerry-bashing: how Corsi operates. Media Matters has a convenient compendium of Corsi's many journalistic offenses, mostly in the birther realm.
Corsi's lack of credibility is compounded by the even greater lack of credibility embodied by his employer. WND has utterly beclowned and destroyed itself by spending the past four years trying to destroy Obama and his administration by any means necessary, including publishing lies and lurid rumors. As a result of WND putting the politics of personal destruction ahead of time-honored journalistic principles, nobody believes anything it has to say.
Corsi has been laying the seeds of his irrelevence for years through his shoddy reporting as published by a "news" outlet where shoddiness is the coin of the realm. He has no one to blame but himself.
CNS' Lucas Puts Words In Obama's Mouth Topic: CNSNews.com
Putting "love" in scare quotes when referring to gay relationships wasn't the only shennanigan CNSNews.com pulled on President Obama's inauguration speech. In a Jan. 21 article, Fred Lucas has decided he can read Obama's mind:
President Barack Obama seemed to reject entitlement reform in his second Inaugural address Monday, even saying Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security “free us to take the risks that make this country great.”
Praising Social Security does not equal rejecting any reform of the program, and Lucas does not explain how it does.
CNS just loves to put words in the mouths of its ideological enemies.
WND's New Reporter Already Picking Up Obama-Hating Habits Topic: WorldNetDaily
Taylor Rose is new to WorldNetDaily, but he's already picking up the Obama-hate that is so endemic there. Rose begins a Jan. 22 WND article this way:
Barack Obama probably is one of the most abortion-minded politicians Washington ever has seen, and under his watch pro-lifers have been hounded by the Department of Justice, Planned Parenthood tax funding has rocketed to $540 million and coming health care laws are going to force business leaders of faith to pay for abortifacients in violation of their religious rights.
Rose makes no effort to back up any of this, and his implication that federal money to Planned Parenthood is used for abortion is a lie.
Also note that Rose does not identify Obama as the president of the United States, which makes one wonder if he even recognizes Obama's election.
Rose is also picking up bad habits from his WND stablemate Bob Unruh by focusing only on anti-abortion activists and refusing to let any pro-choice activists respond.
Speaking of Unruh, he uses a Jan. 22 WND article to give a platform to right-wing activist Mathew Staver to spew that Obama is forcing Americans to fund "'a Hitler-kind of killing machine' through the hundreds of millions of federal taxpayer dollars given to Planned Parenthood." Like Rose, Unruh can't be bothered to explain that federal money to Planned Parenthood doesn't pay for abortion.
Rose is definitely learning the ways of WND. Unfortunately, they have nothing to do with responsible journalism.
Kessler's Gone, But Newsmax Still Lavishes Attention on David Keene Topic: Newsmax
Just because Ronald Kessler has left Newsmax doesn't mean Newsmax can't do a Kessler-esque fluff job for his BFF, National Rifle Association president David Keene.
Jim Meyers and Kathleen Walter do the deed in a Jan. 15 article detailng an "exclusive interview" in which Keene is permitted to uncritically forward attacks on President Obama and his "rabid advisers" who are purportedly behind his alleged gun grab.
Meyers and Walter even got a second article out of the interview, in which Keene claims NRA membership is up afther the Newtown massacare "because the Obama administration’s gun control efforts are .scaring people." Meyers and Walter apparently never considered that the NRA's anti-Obama scare tactics might be what's actually scaring people.
Pam Geller Assumes Your Muslim Neighbor Is A Murdering Jihadist Topic: WorldNetDaily
Noted crazy person Pam Geller cranked up the crazy yet again in her Jan. 21 WorldNetDaily column:
Again and again, we see all of the fallacies and delusions of Western “leaders” and the media elite crumble in the face of reality.
It was revealed Monday that a “Canadian” was in charge of the jihadist operations at the Algerian gas plant. Of course, this jihadist was no more Canadian than Osama bin Laden was. As Robert Spencer says of him and another Canadian reportedly involved in the jihad massacre: “They most likely didn’t consider themselves Canadians. They no doubt thought of themselves as members of the global, supranational umma.”
But in Canada he was almost certainly assumed to be a “moderate.” And so were the gas plant employees who were in on the jihad plot.
What does this tell us about “moderates”? How do we tell the players? How do we know which of our co-workers and neighbors aren’t bloody jihadists in the making? Remember: Anwar Awlaki, the imam to the 9/11 Muslim terrorists (who assisted in the purchase of their airplane tickets), was the go-to imam the media consulted (the “moderate” imam) for all things Islam right after 9/11. And so did the 9/11 hijackers, for “spiritual guidance.”
[...]
Today’s moderate is tomorrow’s mass murderer. What’s the difference? Good PR and a lot of propaganda served as hot as apple pie by a jihad-aligned media.
Geller also claims that "over 80 percent of the mosques in America teach, advance and promote jihad," something only Muslim-haters like Geller believe.
CNS Turns Another Jay Leno Joke Into A 'News' Article Topic: CNSNews.com
The NewsBusters-ization of CNSNews.com is continuing apace, for reasons nobody's sure of.
For the second time this month, CNS has made a "news" article out of a Jay Leno joke. From the Jan. 23 article by Eric Scheiner:
Tonight Show host Jay Leno took a jab at the attendance levels for President Barack Obama’s second inauguration.
“On the news they made a big deal out of the fact that four years ago there were twice as many people at his first inauguration as there was at this one, “ Leno said on Tuesday night’s broadcast, “Well, yeah, that was because four years ago twice as many people could afford to stay in hotels.”
According to USA Today and other news reports, attendance was significantly lower for Monday’s inaugural ceremonies than for the inauguration in 2009.
Yes, that's a "news" story. Apparently, CNS has stopped caring about journalism and just wants to do right-wing stenography.
Colin Flaherty Can't Find A Black Mob To Blame, But Does So Anyway Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's resident race-baiter, Colin Flaherty, is back again with yet another "black mob violence" article. Only he can't find a "black mob" to blame. But he does anyway.
This time, Flaherty has latched onto a case in which the city of Chicago has agreed to pay millions to the family of a white woman who had been taken into custody for causing a disturbance at an airport but later released -- despite exhibiting signs of mental illness -- into a crime-infested black neighborhood, where she was sexually assaulted and fell from a 7th-story window, leaving her incapacitated.
Because the victim is white and her alleged perpetrators are black, Flaherty stops his investigation right there and declares this "racial violence" even though he offers no evidence that race was a driving factor behind any of the events that occurred.
But who needs facts when there's race-baiting to be done? Not Colin Flaherty.
MRC Falls for Fake Video Game Targeting NRA Topic: Media Research Center
Matthew Balan uses a Jan. 17 Media Research Center item to defend the honor of National Rifle Association president David Keene from CBS' Norah O'Donnell, who purportedly "barely contained her contempt" for him. Balan went on to complain that O'Donnell "also failed to mention a new online video game that lets users simulate assassinating Keene."
Just one problem with that: It's a hoax.
As Salon reported the day before Balan's item was published, this "online video game" is in reality a slapped-together demo created for the express purpose of trolling right-wingers. The MRC is just one of many right-wing outlets that fell for it.
Balan should considered himself trolled. But will he correct the record and apologize for taking the bait? we shall see.
WND's Farah Bails on Prayer Breakfast After All Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily has been in a uproar over editor Joseph Farah being disinvited from an inauguration day prayer breakfast -- until he was re-invited as prayer breakfast organizer Rev. Merrie Turner abruptly repudiated what she told Media Matters (disclosure: my employer) about Farah's involvement. WND, meanwhile, made no effort to hold Turner accountable for her changing stories.
So the big day came and went -- and Farah was a no-show.
Right Wing Watch reports that most of the special guests -- including Pat Robertson, Michele Bachmann and Pat Boone as well as Farah -- failed to attend, though "Robertson, Farah, and Pat Boone sent messages that were read out loud." Among those who did show up was Wiley Drake, a birther who has prayed for President Obama's death.
WND's article on the breakfast, meanwhile, is curiously silent on Farah's failure to attend or the controversy it tried to manufacture about his invitation. Instead, the unbylined article documents the words of Jonathan Cahn, "author of 'The Harbinger' – the startling New York Times bestseller that suggests the U.S. is in the shadow of judgment from God for its rejection of Him." Farah is mentioned only once in the article, as the producer of a video accompanying Cahn's book.
How very like WND to put marketing ahead of the truth.
Jill Stanek's Empty Words On Anti-Abortion Activists And The Children Of Their Enemies Topic: NewsBusters
In a Jan. 20 NewsBusters post, anti-abortion activist Jill Stanek complains that a new real-housewives reality show includes the daughter of an abortion doctor, then oddly says, "We in the pro-life movement don’t believe children should be punished for the sins of their fathers."
As Stanek's attack shows, that's simply not true. Additionally, given one recent chance Stanek had to denounce targeting children of an anti-abortion activist's enemy, she punted.
Last year, anti-abortion activists started handing out fliers depicting the landlord of an abortion clinic as akin to Nazis. Stanek wrote that she was asked to condemn it, "but I couldn’t. I responded by asking what was inaccurate about it."
That was followed by anti-abortion protesters picketing the school that the landlord's 11-year-old daughter attends. Rather than condemn such behavior -- as her NewsBusters statement suggests she would -- Stanek instead expressed no opinion and threw the question out to her readers: "Do you think involving the children of either abortion proponents or opponents is fair game?"
It seems that when it actually comes down to proving that she believes that children of their targets shouldn't be targeted, Stanek can't back up her words.
A Jan. 16 WND article by Bob Unruh details Wenzel poll results claiming that 73 percent of respondents said that they didn't mind that state and local governments were acquiring "military-style equipment and armaments." Unruh then quotes Wenzel offering up his own invented interpretation of the results:
“This is perhaps because, the survey shows, a wide majority of Americans doubt their local or state police would ever engage in the imposition of some sort of martial law. Such imposition would severely restrict personal freedoms, but 59 percent said they just don’t think such a thing would happen here in America,” he continued.
“That is largely because 51 percent said they cannot conceive of any circumstances or actions by government that would so cause them to agree it is time for a citizen revolution against the government. Just 18 percent said they could conceive of something the government could do to cause them to want to revolt.
“This is a testament to the longstanding stability that the country has known, but also spells a risk of tyranny. If government leaders know the citizenry is unwilling to revolt and they know their law enforcement agencies are well-equipped to put down any uprising with military-style weaponry, one could argue that those leaders might be tempted to impose tyranny on the country in some form or another,” he said.
The next day, Unruh served up some more Wenzel results, this time claiming that "one in seven Americans believes that the nation eventually will be ruled by a dictator." But the questions are decidedly leading:
In world history, whenever a democratic society similar to ours has failed, it has been followed by a dictatorship – usually a brutal dictatorship. If the current American federal government were to fail, what do you think would be the most likely outcome?
Some opinion leaders in America today say the current federal government of the United States is so badly in debt and is so bloated as a dysfunctional bureaucracy, and faces such grave threats from foreign enemies, that it is unlikely to last much longer. How likely do you think it is that our national government will collapse during your lifetime from the combination of these serious problems facing the country?
How likely do you think it is that the country will collapse during the next 20 years?
How likely do you think it is that the country will collapse during the next 10 years?
Then, in a Jan. 19 article, Unruh quotes Wenzel going rogue from the facts again:
“At the beginning of a second presidential term, you generally expect the country to be in full-bore optimism, in part as an endorsement of the re-elected president and in part a reflection of the nation settled in its current course,” said Fritz Wenzel, president of his strategies organization.
“We saw that with Reagan, we saw that with Clinton, and we saw that with George W. Bush. But that is not what we find with Obama,” he said.
“The country is already in full-on depression, as just 34 percent said they think things in America are headed in the right direction. Even among Democrats, just 62 percent said they think things are headed in the right direction, an abysmal figure for the president’s own fellow party members.”
He continued: “There is just no sugar-coating this – America may have liked Obama more than Romney, but they have no confidence in his leadership. This spells nothing but tough sledding for the nation over the next four years. Politically, it’s bound to get very ugly as the nation continues in a downward spiral and leaders in Washington point fingers across the political aisle. Forget solutions and reform for the next four years – the only thing coming from Washington will be blame for our sorry condition. This survey finding reflects that the nation is in the process of giving up hope.”
Wenzel somehow manages to extrapolate all of that from a single poll finding that 34 percent of respondents say the country is moving in the wrong direction.
Way to put partisan politics ahead of scientific polling, Fritz.
