WND's Mercer Rips Obama Comment Out of Context Topic: WorldNetDaily
Ilana Mercer writes in her May 30 WorldNetDaily column:
While pitting a favored voting bloc against the rest of us, Obama told militant Latinos: “We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us.”
First, Obama made the statement during an interview on the Spanish-language network Univision, which is nobody's idea of "militant Latinos."
Second, Mercer took the comment way out of context -- Obama meant it as an encouragement for Latinos to vote, and he was not speaking for himself:
Well, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna see how well we do in this election and I think a lot of it is gonna depend on whether we still have some support not only from Democrats, but also Republicans, but they're gonna be paying attention to this election. And if Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, we're gonna punish our enemies and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us, if they don't see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it's gonna be harder and that's why I think it's so important that people focus on voting on November 2.
Obama later apologized for using the term "enemies," saying that "I probably should have used the word 'opponents.'"
CNS' Starr Freaks Out Over Sexual Information Provided to Teens Topic: CNSNews.com
Does CNSNews.com writer think that forbidding governments from providing factual sexual health information to teenagers will somehow keep them from having sex? Apparently so -- she devoted two articles last week to attacking such efforts.
In a May 28 article, Starr railed against a smartphone app provided by New York City "that teens can download to their smart phones to get information on “sexual health,” including where they can get birth control and abortions. Starr doesn't challenge the accuracy of claims made by the app, only that the information is available. She went on to complain that "Inquiries to the department from CNSNews.com about sources of funding for the website and the app, including whether any federal funds were used, were not answered," but she offers no explanation for why providing factual information is not a legitimate government function.
Starr continued her attacks on government-provided sexual health information in a May 31 article:
A government website designed for girls ages 10 to 16 offers health advice and information on a wide range of topics, including homosexuality, anal sex and “mutual masturbation.”
The Health and Human Services’ girlshealth.gov includes tips on fitness and nutrition and an “environmental health” section where girls can read about leading a “green” lifestyle.
But the site also includes a glossary that explains anal sex and “mutual masturbation” and includes information about birth control and how to access everything from condoms to “emergency contraceptives.”
Again, Starr does not challenge the accuracy of any of the information, only that it is available. Again, she adds that "Requests from CNSNews.com to the HHS on how the website is funded and who is responsible for its content were not answered."
At no point in either of these article does Starr explain why a government serving as a distributor of factual information on an issue of public health is a bad thing.
WND's Klein Glosses Over Bush Release of Terrorist From Gitmo Topic: WorldNetDaily
The headline on Aaron Klein's May 30 WorldNetDaily article reads, "How Obama, Hillary wrecked Libya," but the article doesn't support the claim.
Klein's article is about how a Library of Congress report detailed "how al-Qaida established a major base of operations in Libya in the aftermath of the U.S.-NATO campaign that deposed Muammar Gadhafi and his secular regime." But Klein never explains how this is the fault of the Obama administration, let alone how they "wrecked Libya."
Actually, Klein glosses over how one key component of how terrorists gained a foothold in Libya is not Obama's fault at all. He writes:
The Library of Congress report said Ansar al-Sharia, led by Sufian Ben Qhumu, a former Guantanamo detainee, has increasingly embodied al-Qaida’s presence in Libya.
Qhumu, formerly a driver for Osama bin Laden, was released by the U.S. in 2007 and was transferred to a Libyan prison where he remained until being freed in a 2010 amnesty deal.
Klein doesn't mention it, but Qumu was released from Guantanamo under the Bush administration. Stating that inconvenient fact out loud would have undermined Klein's bogus Obama-bashing narrative.
NewsBusters Discovers A New Word Topic: NewsBusters
Sneering Alex Wagner Mocks 'Alligator Moat' Border Plans in New Lean Forward Ad
[...]
MSNBC on Wednesday debuted yet another hard-left Lean Forward ad. This time, liberal anchor Alex Wagner slammed anyone who wants border security, sneering that they want "bigger, meaner, scarier fences" and "electrified, alligator moats to prevent 'them' coming in."
In a sneering tirade against conservatives on Wednesday’s PoliticsNation, Reid broke the entire party into five separate groups: the “angry” Tea Party, the evangelicals that “want to litigate social issues only,” the “economic conservatives” who want to “get rid of Social Security and Medicare,” those who focus “on ripping away programs for the poor,” and the “Wall Street guys who really run the party.”
But she quickly turned the nonpartisan cause into a sneering criticism of the former president's intelligence and decision-making, with nary a word of praise for the charity work:
“I guess they walked or ran or something on their prosthetic limbs,” Maher sneered about George W. Bush’s ride around his Texas ranch with 20 servicemen, “and I found this to be nauseating. I mean, first he sends them off to war to get their limbs blown off and then he has them over for a barbecue.”
Youths commonly heed adult ideas and mark themselves accordingly (I’m stupid, clumsy, ugly, or even brilliant or wise!). However, adults are meant to help vulnerable youths grow, learn and become who they are meant to be – years hence.
Instead, 854 adults stamped a “bull’s eye” on the Boy Scouts as pederast targets.
Now, bigger and/or more manipulative lads, with cell phones and other pornography resources stirring their sinews, will greedily entrap any and all boys who seem easy prey.
Self-proclaimed ex-gay Michael Glatze is seriously trying to overcompensate for something by adding an unhealthy does of sexism to the mix:
I don’t think it’s coincidental that President/Emperor Obama is referred to by some as “the first gay president,” and he has no qualms weaving together “gay rights” with “civil rights” in a single breath, positioning himself even further as the Great Human Emancipator (which causes gays to love him viscerally – even if they don’t agree with every aspect of his policies).
Christians – yes, you – we do have a solution. The solution is found in the same place where it was found back when Paul encountered a society that deified Man through homosexual “worship.” Men lead society, and women follow. What men elect to do will have an effect on the responses of women. That, also, is the natural order of things, which is why many have suggested that the feminist movement was, simply, a natural reaction to the lack of strong masculinity in their homes and in the culture around them. Women need strong men; are you, men, willing to be one?!
To be strong, as men, Christian men must understand that homosexuality is a direct raping of the relationship between Man and God – NOT, as some have suggested, a perfectly viable sexual “choice” open to the same freedoms that any other “consensual choice” seems to have in our relativistic society. Sure, Christian truth may not become the law of our land any time soon (though it certainly could), but Christian truth can certainly become the law of our lives – and it should, if we hope to make an impact on our world!
Ken Hutcherson, who officiated Rush Limbaugh's (most recent) wedding, has something to say on the subject:
Watch out, Girl Scouts. Next year you might have to sell cookies dressed in drag.
Parents: Imagine your son is 12 years old. He enjoys the outdoors and loves Scouting. Would you have reservations about him sharing a tent with a young girl his age if they were gone for the weekend? Come on, don’t be such a buzz-kill. What’s the worst that could happen? Are you afraid that they might go on a different kind of scouting trip?
Now imagine sending your son on a camping weekend where he shares a tent with the president of a junior-high LGBTQ club. The homosexual youth has already declared his intentions. Would you honestly want your child to be put in that compromising of a position where his tent-mate has announced he is attracted to people of the same sex? Well, if you wouldn’t allow the first scenario to take place, how, in good conscience, could you permit the second?
And Jane Chastain feels the need to assert that "I do not hate anyone" before unloading her anti-gay hate by going Godwin and insisting that "hormone treatments" can cure gays who are "predispose[d]" to that "lifestyle":
Adolf Hitler introduced the principle of winning the battle of the mind with the “Big Lie” in his book “Mein Kampf”:
“… the most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. Here, as so often in the world, persistence is the first and most important requirement for success.”
The Big Lie as practiced by gay rights activists:
Homosexuality is not a choice. One is born that way.
Homosexuality is normal and natural for these individuals.
If you have any of these feelings, you should embrace them.
If you do not agree with the above statements, you are displaying homophobic behavior (fear of homosexuals).
And therefore you discriminate against gay individuals.
No one likes to be accused of discrimination or to be called names, which is part and parcel of the bullying process. However, to cave in to bullies is not bravery, it is cowardice.
I would be the first to admit that some people are “born gay” if there were scientific evidence to support such a claim. There is not!
Some people (a tiny fraction of a percent) are born with physical abnormalities that might predispose one to that lifestyle. These cases are 100 percent correctable. It often involves something as simple as hormone treatment.
NewsBusters: Ex-Heritage Researcher Was 'Objectively Observing' That Hispanics Are Dumb Topic: NewsBusters
Tom Blumer wrote in a May 27 NewsBusters post that Jason Richwine "recently resigned from the Heritage Foundation over objectively observing, in the words of a Fox News report, 'that Hispanics had a lower IQ than American whites, and that their descendants would too.'"
Really, Tom? It's an objective observation that Hispanics are dumber than whites?
Well, not so much. Think Progress summarizes the problems with Richwine's research:
If the dissertation was bad enough to get him fired from the Heritage Foundation, how did it earn him a degree from Harvard?
A popular answer among Richwine’s defenders is that, quite simply, it was exemplary work. Richwine’s dissertation committee was made up, by all accounts, of three eminent scholars, each widely respected in their respective fields. And it is Harvard.
But dozens of interviews with subject matter experts, Harvard graduates in Richwine’s program who overlapped with him, and members of the committee itself paint a somewhat more textured picture. Richwine’s dissertation was sloppy scholarship, relying on statistical sophistication to hide some serious conceptual errors. Yet internal accounts of Richwine’s time at Harvard suggests the august university, for the most part, let serious problems in Richwine’s research fall through the cracks.
[...]
Jason Richwine received a PhD from Harvard University for sub-standard research, work that makes strong assertions on a charged topic based on poorly defined concepts, incomplete and misleading summaries of opposing arguments, and bald analytic overreaches.
[...]
And as for Richwine, the overwhelming sense you get from reading his work and speaking to his acquaintances is that he was, as odd as this sounds, a well-intentioned naïf. We’ve all met the type: someone so airily focused on their own passions and interests (in Richwine’s case, Murray-style hereditarian work on race and IQ) that they miss the broader social forest for the trees.
“I think what happened was that he tried to make an academic argument but did not foresee this [racism] problem,” his friend, Professor Tran, told me.
Whatever one thinks about Harvard or Richwine, the real lesson here goes beyond both of them.
Even if Richwine’s dissertation, despite all of its errors and omissions, was “good enough” to earn a passing mark, it’s emphatically not “good enough” to make a real contribution to our knowledge about the intersection between race and IQ. The scholarly errors in his research are too pervasive and severe.
Beyond the failure of craft, however, is the serious harm that can result from quasi-eugenic works masquerading as serious research.
So, not objective -- or even particularly good -- research happening on Richwine's part. But he generates the kind of results people like Blumer want to hear, so Blumer is more than happy to give Richwine a pass on the dubious racial aspects of his work.
'The Obama Name, The IRS And Polygamy All In 1 Story' Topic: WorldNetDaily
You can easily imagine -- if not actually hear -- the folks at WorldNetDaily having multiple orgasms over writing this email tease:
The article it's promoting, by Jerome Corsi, cites apparent fraudster Walid Shoebat to claim that "Funds contributed in the United States to a 501(c)3 foundation run by President Obama’s older half-brother, Abongo 'Roy' Malik Obama, have been diverted to support Malik’s multiple wives in Kenya."
NewsBusters Misleads on Cross-Dressing Superhero Cartoon Topic: NewsBusters
A May 29 NewsBusters post by Randy Hall carries thet headline "Transvestite Superhero Cartoon to Debut on Children’s Network The Hub." The cartoon in question is "SheZow," in which a boy gains superpowers by wearing a ring that transforms him into the title character, which is defined by a female-tailored costume.
Since the lead character doesn't derive much pleasure from having to wear the female outfit and has no interest in changing genders -- and indeed remains a boy while in the SheZow costume -- he's not a "transvestite," as Hall's headline claims. It's cross-dressing, which has been a comedy staple since forever. Bugs Bunny? Tootsie? Bosom Buddies? Apparently none of those ring a bell for Hall.
(Interestingly, the URL for the item indicates that Hall did originally, and correctly, use "cros-dressing" in the headline, but it was changed to "transvestite" somewhere along the line.)
Hall plays things mostly straight in trying to explain the show's premise, but he does get snarky at the end:
Despite the strange, bizarre premise, [Hub chief executive Margaret] Loesch is maintaining a positive attitude about the series, speculating that if “SheZow” is a hit, the channel and its toy partner Hasbro can start merchandising her white go-go boots and her ring.
“We'll see, won't we?” she asked.
No, we probably won't.
Said like someone who has never seen what he's criticizing.
As clueless as Hall is about the cartoon, perhaps we can thank the deity of our choice that the MRC's Culture & Media Institute, with its openhostility toward transgenders, did not handle this item.
WND's Klein Trying to Boost Murderous Assad Regime in Syria Topic: WorldNetDaily
Two years ago, WorldNetDaily's Aaron Klein served as a de facto spokesman for the dying Mubarak regime in Egypt, uncritically peddling the dictator's party line and even making sure members of Mubarak's regime got a copy of an Obama-bashing book Klein wrote.
In that same vein, Klein has been toying with promoting the views of another Middle East dictator embroiled by a popular revolt, Bashar al-Assad. He cranks that up in a May 30 WND article touting the missiles Assad says he bought from Russia:
The Syrian government already has received a first shipment of S-300 air defense missiles from Russia and is waiting for more, stated President Bashar al-Assad in a television interview today.
Assad told Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television station that Syria “has got the first batch of Russian S-300 missiles” and “the rest of the shipment will arrive soon.”
Citing Arab intelligence sources two weeks ago, WND was first to report that S-300 missile batteries had reached Syria.
Klein countered his credulous promotion of Assad's claimed weapons acquisition with only a single statement that "Israeli security sources said two weeks ago there was no information to support the Arab claim."
Meanwhile, even Fox News reports that according to "two senior U.S. officials privy to sensitive intelligence matters," Syria "does not yet have advanced surface-to-air missiles from Russia." It turns out that Klein was relying on a botched translation of Assad:
Although Assad was initially quoted as saying "Syria has received the first shipment of Russian anti-aircraft S-300 rockets," a subsequent transcript was inconclusive.
"There are many arms agreements between us and the Russians from a long time," the later transcript stated. "The Russians are committed to their agreements. All that was agreed with Russia will be implemented and part of it has been already done. We and the Russians are in agreement and we will continue to be like this."
We're not big fans of anonymous sources, but Fox's anonymous sources seem much more trustworthy than Klein's especially given Klein's long history of using anonymous sources to smear his political enemies and benefit his political friends, there's no reason to believe that Klein is doing anything here other than to try and help the Assad regime, despite its murderous record in the Syrian civil war.
In other words, Klein is putting his personal partisan agenda ahead of the truth. As if we expect any different from him and WND.
Let Newsmax's Kerik Rehabilitation Project Resume Topic: Newsmax
Now that Bernard Kerik has been released from prison, Newsmax appears to be taking that opportunity to kickstart its reputation rehabilitation project for him.
A May 28 Newsmax article by Paul Scicchitano informs us that Kerik was "the highly-decorated police commissioner of New York City during 9/11" and was "catapulted to national hero status for his service on September 11, 2001 along with his then-boss, 'America's Mayor' Rudy Giuliani."
It's not until the fourth paragraph -- after the above flattery -- that Scicchitanogets around to noting the reason Kerik was in prison in the first place: "he pleaded guilty to tax fraud and lying to authorities over $250,000 worth of free renovations done to an apartment he owned in the Bronx, NY."
Then, it's back to Kerik-fluffing, with Scicchitano noting how the "street-smart" Kerik "bagged more than 100 awards, including one of the police department's highest awards, the Medal of Valor, a commendation from President Reagan himself, and an honorary appointment as commander of the British Empire from Queen Elizabeth II." Scicchitanoeven highlighted how "Kerik was planning to celebrate his first evening of freedom with his family and more than a dozen pals with a 'robust feast' of beef short ribs, shrimp scampi, fresh mozzarella, and brownies provided by Brownstone caterers, owned by Al Manzo and his wife Caroline of 'The Real Housewives of New Jersey.'"
Newsmax has long been an aggressive booster of Kerik, to the point of downplaying the corruption charges he faced and trying to build him into a credible spokesman on terror issues. That was rudely interrupted by Kerik's guilty plea, though that didn't stop Newsmax from portraying him as a victim.
Joseph Farah Pretends WND Cares About The Truth Topic: WorldNetDaily
Awww, how cute -- Joseph Farah uses his May 26 column to try to convince us that his WorldNetDaily cares about the truth:
It’s not about “fair and balanced.” It’s about seeking the truth.
The Internet lowered the cost of entry into the news game, and with it came other alternative media – like WND.com, the very first independent news-gathering organization to be formed specifically for the Internet.
We have been fearless seekers of the truth ever since – for more than 17 years. So I think I have more than a little knowledge in this area.
The WND team is a collection of journalistic refugees from the “mainstream media,” which abandoned their watchdog role and their mission to expose corruption, fraud, waste and abuse in government.
All of that is a bald-faced lie.
We've documented lie after lie after lie after lie at WND, some of those lies coming from Farah himself. WND and Farah have yet to correct or apologize for any of these.
If Farah and WND really cared about telling the truth, why do they tell so many lies?
And Farah's "journalistic refugees" are little more than right-wing hacks who could no longer handle telling the truth without fear or favor. For example, Bob Unruh may have once worked for the Associated Press, but the biased work he generates for WND fails even the AP's basic journalism standards. And since their boss is a documented liar, they certainly have no example to follow in telling the truth. Farah doesn't seem to understand that peddling lies about your political enemies does not equal being a "watchdog."
Indeed, Farah doesn't give a damn about the truth -- all he cares about is pushing his right-wing agenda and trying to destroy Obama. Funny thing is, all those lies he and his website have peddled in the pursuit of that agenda means nobody believes them anymore.
NewsBusters Crops Fox's Bolling, Portrays His Petulantly Hanging Up Mid-Interview As Noble Topic: NewsBusters
Jack Coleman used a May 29 NewsBusters post to misleadingly portray Fox News' Eric Bolling as some kind of hero for petulantly hanging up on Geraldo Rivera's radio show after having his version of the Benghazi narrative challenged.
Coleman waves away Bolling's petulance by declaring, "Ever reach that point when you realize you're arguing with fools? Eric Bolling got there yesterday on Geraldo Rivera's radio show," and going on to portray Rivera as making an unreasonable, unfounded claim by saying that Bolling was portraying President Obama as a "damn murderer" because of the events in Benghazi.
But the audio clip accompanying Coleman's post chops off what transpired before Rivera accused Bolling of portraying the president as a "damn murderer," and Coleman makes no effort to explain. As the full clip posted at Mediaite reveals, Bolling did in fact claim that Obama and his administration deliberately "left four Americans to die":
BOLLING: For 237 years the motto, the U.S. Marine -- forget the Marines, the U.S. armed force motto is no one left behind, leave no one behind, leave no one under fire wanting or wondering if America was going to come back and help them. That’s what Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the administration did on September 11 of 2012, they left four Americans to die because they said ‘Stand down! Don’t go help.’ And that is a problem.
Coleman also portrayed Bolling's assertion that the stand-down order cost American lives is accurate. But as Mediaite's Tommy Christopher pointed out, congressional testimony shows that the stand-down order came after the four Americans at the Benghazi compound were killed, so nobody was "left behind" as a result of it.
WND Will Really Miss Michele Bachmann Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily is really, really going to miss Michele Bachmann.
Upon Bachmann's announcement that she will not seek re-election to her House seat, Garth Kant penned a May 29 tribute to Bachmann that's staggering in its monumental fealty. Much of it is a rehash of previous interviews Bachmann gave to WND -- indeed, Kant points out that "Bachmann has been a good friend of WND," which named her "woman of the year" last year.
Kant also accepts Bachmann's reasoning for leaving Congress -- that pending ethics investigations and the potential strength of a Democratic challenger in 2014 were not factors -- at face value. By contrast, actual political analysts pointed out that she was a weak candidate for whom scandals could not simply be written off with any degree of seriousness, winning her last election by just 4,296 votes in a solidly Republican district that Mitt Romney won by 15 percentage points. Further, Bachmann had already begun airing TV ads for her 2014 race prior to quitting.
Kant makes little effort whatsoever to quote anyone but Bachmann and his own bosses, WND's Joseph Farah and David Kupelian, slobbering all over her. The fact that Kant could not be moved to perform any actual journalism here is another sign of how badly Bachmann will be missed.
Noel Sheppard: Some Actresses Are Too Pretty To Portray Hillary Clinton Topic: NewsBusters
Are some actresses too beautiful to accurately portray Hillary Clinton in a film? Noel Sheppard thinks so.
Sheppard begins a May 26 NewsBusters post by asking, "When you see Hillary Clinton, do you think of Scarlett Johansson? Or Reese Witherspoon?" After noting that the two are being considered for the lead role in a biopic on Clinton's role in the Watergate hearings, Sheppard attaches photos of Johansson ("conceivably one of the most beautiful actresses in film today") and Witherspoon, followed by pictures of a young Clinton. Sheppard then sneers: "Oh yeah! And Brad Pitt's going to play me when my memoirs are published."
(Yeah, Sheppard really has no room to judge the beauty of others. Just look at the guy.)
Sheppard concludes with a picture of another actress reportedly being considered for the role, Jessica Chastain, adding that it "isn't as far a stretch" and "I could see Chastain in the role" -- presumably because she isn't as conventionally beautiful as Johanssen or Witherspoon.
Sexism is still a thing at the Media Research Center -- remember that MRC staffers joined in Rush Limbaugh's three-day tirade of misogyny against Sandra Fluke, and MRC boss Brent Bozell offered only tepid criticism of Limbaugh's hate.
NEW ARTICLE: David Kupelian's War On Obama Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's managing editor has no problem with peddling misleading claims and outright lies about the president if it forwards his anti-Obama agenda. Read more >>