WND's Cashill Hides Holes In Zimmerman Witness Claim Topic: WorldNetDaily
Jack Cashill -- whose biased "reporting" is enthusiasticallydefending George Zimmerman in the death of Trayvon Martin -- declared in a June 28 WorldNetDaily article:
The testimony of eyewitness John Good on Friday in the murder trial of John Good should have put to rest any doubts about George Zimmerman’s innocence on the charge of second-degree murder for the February 2012 shooting in Sanford, Fla., of Trayvon Martin.
Curiously, though, Cashill doesn't directly quote any of Good's testimony. That's because he backed off from the assertions he initially made to police after Martin's death -- the same assertions that Cashill previously said when Good testifies to them, "the case will be all but closed."
Cashill has been taking refuge in Good's initial statement to police that Martin "was pretty much just throwing down blows on the guy kind of MMA-style" on Zimmerman as the main hook of Zimmerman's exoneration. But he doesn't tell his readers that Good walked that claim back somewhat during his testimony, admitting he never saw an actual punch thrown.
Indeed, Good -- originally known to the public as Witness 6 -- had walked that claim back in another law enforcement interview three weeks after Martin's death. Has Cashill told his readers about that?
Joseph Farah and The Goverment's Secret Underground Maglev Railway Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joseph Farah uses his June 27 WorldNetDaily column to rant about "today’s surveillance state." As part of a slightly paranoid list of "the hard, cold facts" of how Americans allegedly can be surveilled, Farah adds:
To ensure continuity of government (COG), one or more buildings in the nation’s capital are linked to an underground railway network over a mile below ground using magnetic levitation (maglev) trains, interconnected to over a dozen military installations in the U.S.
Say what?
We have no idea what Farah is talking about. The closest thing we've seen in poking around on the 'net that even remotely comes close to what Farah is describing is from this website:
There are numerous witnesses who speak about a subterranean highway through America just like our own Interstate highway system, except it’s underground. It seems this underground highway uses trucks, cars, and buses driven by electric motors. (You wouldn't want gasoline fumes polluting tunnels.) They also mention another style of transport for freight and passengers that are linked together in a worldwide network called the "Sub-Global System." It has checkpoints at each country entry. There are shuttle tubes that "shoot" the trains at incredible speed using a maglev and vacuum method. They travel in excess of the speed of sound.
Farah's paranoid beliefs explain a lot. If you believe that the government is running a secret maglev subway a mile below ground, it's an easy leap to lying in your readers' faces and peddling bogus claims about the president's purported lack of "eligibility" to hold the job.
Newsmax's image rehabilitation project for the chronically wrong Dick Morris rolls slowly forward by giving him a June 27 column to rant about NSA surveillance.
Newsmax has been providing Morris withseveralopportunities to redeem his career after getting canned by Fox News for, among other things, predicting Mitt Romney would defeat President Obama in a landslide.
WND Can't Stop Keeping Arpaio Out of Homeschool Story Topic: WorldNetDaily
For more than a year, WorldNetDaily has been reporting on a homeschooling family, the Loudermilks, who filed a lawsuit against a law enforcement agency over a search of their house after an anonymous complaint. And for all of that time, WND's Bob Unruh hasrepeatedlyendeavored to obscure the fact that the law enforcement agency in question is the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, led by WND birther buddy Joe Arpaio.
Unruh's memory hole strikes again in a June 26 WND article on the case. While Unruh notes that the Loudermilks live in Maricopa County, he waits until the 22nd paragraph of his 25-paragraph article to mention that "six uniformed sheriff’s deputies" took part in the search of the Loudermilk home. Not only does Unruh fail to identify the deputies as members of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, he fails to tell his readers that Arpaio is one of the defendants in the Loudermilks' lawsuit.
Unruh quotes only the legal representatives of the Loudermilks in his article -- from one of WND's favorite groups, the Home School Legal Defense Association -- and he makes no mention of the defense's version of the story, nor does he explain why he does not find the other side of the story newsworthy.
That's right -- CNS is playing gotcha, ambushing senators (but only Democratic ones, it appears) with questions about an obscure provision in the immigration reform bill.
Is springing gotcha questions on senators whose ideology the reporters oppose about an obscure provision of a bill said reporters also oppose really responsible "journalism"? We have our doubts.
CNS has a notable history of treating gotcha questions as journalism, as CNS bete noire John Holdren knows all too well. In honor of that, let us relive CNS' greatest gotcha failure, when Barney Frank mocked the CNS videographer for asking him whether gay soldiers should be able to shower with straight ones.
WND Laughably Calls Pam Geller A 'Media Star' Topic: WorldNetDaily
A June 26 WorldNetDaily article by Chelsea Schilling on Great Britain's refusal to allow anti-Muslim activists Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer into the country carries the laughable headline "U.K. bans another U.S. media star."
The only claim to media "stardom" Schilling cites for Geller is that she's a WND columnist.
Schilling -- whose history of making false and misleading claims at WND is legion -- goes on to describe the English Defence League only as the group "which invited Geller and Spencer to its event," failing to mention the EDL's history of violence and Islamophobia. Schilling also didn't mention that EDL leader Tommy Robinson was recently convict of entering the U.S. under a false identity to attend an anti-Islam event with Geller.
That "another" person referenced in the headline as having been banned from Britain is Michael Savage, who apparently is also a "media star" in the eyes of WND. Of course, Schilling fails to disclose that WND hosts Savage's website.
In a companion piece, Geller used her WND column to rant about the ban, claiming that anyone who criticizes her and Spencer for their anti-Muslim activism supports jihad and Sharia law.
MRC Complains Historic Gay-Marriage Decisions Are Described As Historic Topic: Media Research Center
Apparently, in the eyes of the Media Research Center, it's "liberal media bias" to portray a historic event involving gays as historic. In April, for instance, the MRC's Matt Hadro complained that CNN portrayed Jason Collins' coming out as the first openly gay professional basketball player as a historic event.
That same attitude prevails in a June 26 MRC item by Kyle Drennen:
During live coverage of the Supreme Court's gay marriage rulings on Wednesday, NBC legal analyst Lisa Bloom could barely contain her enthusiasm at the decisions overturning the Defense of Marriage Act and Proposition 8: "There is no question that this is a sweeping historic decision for gay rights....I think this is only the beginning, by the way. This is the decision today, but this is going to engender many more cases to come to further protect gay rights."
Drennen offers no evidence that these Supreme Court decisions are not historic -- he's simply annoyed they were described as such.
Drennen has apparently also decided he can read minds. In a June 26 NewsBusters post under the headline "NBC Reporter Gushes: Gay Marriage Rulings 'Very Personally Satisfying' for Obama," Drennen writes that NBC correspondent Peter Alexander touted how the decisions were "very personally satisfying for the President, who it was only about a year ago during the course of the campaign...came out and said that he has had this personal evolution on the topic..."
Drennen offers no evidence that Alexander's reporting of the White House's approval of the Supreme Court decisions equates to him "gushing" over it.
NEW ARTICLE: Getting Schooled On Context Topic: The ConWeb
The ConWeb takes President Obama's remarks on religious schools in Northern Ireland out of context -- and they find themselves getting called on it by an unlikely critic. Read more >>
ConWeb Takes Gay Marriage Decisions Poorly, As Expected Topic: The ConWeb
The ConWeb reacted to the Supreme Court decisions overturning the Defense of Marriage Act dismissing a challenge to the overturning of California's anti-gay marriage Proposition 8 pretty much the way you'd expect.
Accuracy in Media chairman Don Irvine tweeted, "The country just went to hell in a handbasket.'
Purportedly objective CNSNews.com reporter Penny Starr ranted: "Sad day for our nation -- already on the path to a fallen civilization. If Obama gets another left-wing SCOTUS judge America is doomed."
WorldNetDaily responded with a heavily biased article by Bob Unruh, with the demeaning headline "Black robes 'delegitimize' Supreme Court," that quotes a plethora of anti-gay activists lamenting the decisions.It's not until the final four paragraphs of his 39-paragraph article that Unruh bothers to quote anyone expressing support for the decision.
In fact, there was no real effort at making a constitutional case against a duly enacted piece of legislation, passed overwhelmingly by the House and Senate with strong bipartisan support and signed by a Democratic Party president, Bill Clinton.
What actually happened at the Supreme Court was that five justices decided – and wrote in their opinion – that anyone who opposes same-sex marriage does so for no other reason than bigotry against homosexuals.
[...]
What’s next?
It’s obvious, isn’t it?
The Supreme Court virtually declared an open season on those with whom the 5-4 majority disagree.
We are no longer relevant. What we think no longer counts. We are, after all, bigots who only want to demean homosexuals.
But Farah is a bigot who demeans homosexuals (except for that one he hired to cheerlead for the Iraq War). Remember his paranoid rant about "the forced homosexualization of America" that came in response to a critic who called him out on WND's dishonest reporting on LGBT-related bills in California?
Farah appears to be demonstrating one again that there's no reasoning with a person who thinks anyone who issues a legitimate criticism of his and WND is out to get him.
WND's Gun Columnist Tries To Bring Back Waco to Attack Hillary Topic: WorldNetDaily
Jeff Knox -- who we last saw promoting "pork-infused" bullets as a final insult to dead Muslims -- goes back to the '90s to try and dig up some dirt to attack Hillary Clinton in his June 20 WorldNetDaily column:
Could they end the reign of Obama?
Could the tragic events of Waco in 1993 bring down the president and the Democratic machine after 20 years? Mike McNulty, producer of the Emmy Award winning, Academy Award nominated documentary “Waco: Rules of Engagement” and its follow-up films, “Waco, A New Revelation” and “The FLIR Project,” believes it could. McNulty says that the close ties between the Waco atrocity and members of the Obama administration – including Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder and powerful congressional Democrats – could unravel the administration and the entire Washington Democratic power structure.
[...]
Hillary Clinton’s role in the assault on the Davidian campus and its subsequent cover-up has never been fully disclosed. McNulty says that his information indicates that Mrs. Clinton was not only involved, but in command, directing the FBI’s actions from the White House and leading the subsequent cover-up. The Texas Rangers have said that their objections to the destruction of the Waco evidence were squelched directly by the White House.
Knox doesn't explain why Clinton is responsible for the deaths of people so brainwashed by cult leader David Koresh that they didn't have the sense to flee a burning building.
NewsBusters Doesn't Think Fox News Is Biased Topic: NewsBusters
In a June 22 NewsBusters post, Tom Blumer takes offense at the idea, forwarded by Salon's Alex Seitz-Wald in the wake of the channel hiring Howard Kurtz as a media critic, that Fox News has become "a stable for journalists who have fallen on hard times." Blumer then confirms what we've suspected all along, that nobody at the Media Research Center thinks Fox News is biased:
Overall, what Seitz-Wald doesn't get is that what looks "conservative" to him is more often than not "fair and balanced."
If that's true, the the opposite must be as well: What looks "liberal" to Blumer is more often than not "fair and balanced."
Blumer then goes on to prove just that, as he defended Sean Hannity's attacks on Rep. Keith Ellison:
Congressman Keith Ellison is an Islamic radical, and sharia law treatment of non-Muslims is in many ways comparable to the KKK's enforced treatment of Negroes in the South as second-class citizens and even non-citizens. Ellison's "rabid support for the anti-semitic views of Nation of Islam leader Pastor Louis Farrakhan and the late Black Militant leader Khalid Muhammad" definitely qualify him as an Islamic radical.
Blumer offers no evidence to back up any of this, of course. To the contrary: While Ellison did some work for Farrakhan's Nation of Islam in support of its Million Man March, he pointed out that he has "long since distanced myself from and rejected the Nation of Islam due to its propagation of bigoted and anti-Semitic ideas and statements, as well as other issues." Further, numerous Jewish organizations have defended Ellison against Hannity's Islamophobic attacks.
Apparently, in Blumer's eyes, every Muslim is a radical.
WND Discovers Bono Is A Christian Topic: WorldNetDaily
Most casual music fans were aware of this a long time ago, but it's apparently news to WorldNetDaily: U2 singer Bono is a Christian.
A June 24 WND article by Drew Zahn sure treats this as a massive revelation:
Bono, the lead singer of the Irish rock band U2, is declaring that Jesus Christ of Nazareth is indeed the Son of God.
In a brand-new interview with Focus on the Family set to air Tuesday, the rock star and activist sounded like “Mere Christianity” author C.S. Lewis who argued Jesus was a lunatic, liar or Lord.
“When people say ‘Good teacher,’ ‘Prophet,’ ‘Really nice guy,’ … this is not how Jesus thought of himself,” Bono said. “So, you’re left with a challenge in that, which is either Jesus was who He said He was or a complete and utter nut case.”
“And I believe that Jesus was, you know, the Son of God,” Bono said, according to a transcript provided to Religion News Service. “I understand that for some people and we need to … if I could be so bold, need to be really, really respectful to people who find that ridiculous.”
This is all news to Zahn? Apparently, for he also includes referenes to some of the band's "many songs that include lyrics about God and His coming kingdom," like "Gloria" and "40."
As for Bono sounding like C.S. Lewis, that's nothing new either. In the video for U2's 1995 song "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me" (which includes Bono's devil-inspired alter ego, MacPhisto), a cartoon Bono is shown reading Lewis' "The Screwtape Letters" (about a demon's advice to his apprentice nephew) as he gets hit by a car.
Bono and U2 have injected spiritual and Christian elements into their music all along. We're surprised it took WND this long to notice.
Alan Caruba's Passel of Discredited Claims Topic: Accuracy in Media
Alan Caruba is a longtime anti-global warming bamboozler, and the bamboozlement continues in his June 24 Accuracy in Media column, in which he rants (boldface his):
There is nothing that humans can or should do regarding the Earth’s climate. It is a force that is so vast and powerful that calls for renewable energy, energy conservation, and a “carbon tax” on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are utterly false, a danger to human life, a threat to global economic development, and the work of scoundrels and charlatans.
At present, there has been no warming for almost seventeen years. The Earth is in a natural cooling cycle as the result of another natural cycle, the reduction of the Sun’s radiation that warms the Earth.
In fact, as we've previously documented, the claim that "there has been no warming for almost seventeen years" relies on cherry-picked data and an arbitrary starting point for examining the data; the long-term trend demonstrates continued global warming, no matter what Caruba says.
Caruba also declares of efforts to reduce carbon dioxide levels: "Carbon dioxide is not 'pollution'; it is, along with oxygen, the other gas most vital to all life on Earth." As Caruba certainly knows, nobody's attacking the mere existence of carbon dioxide as a pollutant -- the question is whether elevated levels of CO2 in the atmosphere is contributing to global warming (which appears to be true) and other effects on life on earth. It's simply dishonest and ignorant of Caruba to say such a thing.
Caruba also rants:
Obama continues to conjure up global warming despite overwhelming evidence that it does not exist. Dubbed “climategate”, revelations in 2009 made clear that a small group within the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were deliberately falsifying their climate models.
In fact, the stolen emails that were the basis for "climategate" uncovered no evidence that climate models were falsified or manipulated.
But Caruba is not content to lie and mislead just about global warming. He asserts that the stimulus bill "wasted billions of dollars that accomplished nothing to reduce unemployment and avoid economic stagnation." In fact, the Congressional Budget Office found that as many as 3.3 million jobs were created by the stimulus.
Caruba rants about "the revelation that the IRS engaged in a deliberate program against Tea Party, patriot groups, and even Jewish organizations." But it turns out the IRS also targeted groups with "progressive," "occupy" and "medical marijuana" in their names. So much for that scandal.
Caruba also ranted that thet Obama administration "has reduced and degraded the U.S. military with programs to permit homosexuals to serve and women to be in combat units. An outbreak of sexual assaults—26,000 and most men-on-men—in the military has resulted." In fact, there is no link whatsoever between increased sexual assaults and the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Even the Washington Times admits that experts say few of the perpetrators in male-on-male sexual attacks are gay.
The funny part of all this? Caruba's lies were spewed in a column denouncing Obama as "the World’s Greatest Liar."
It was just a little over six months ago that Rick Santorum started writing a column for WorldNetDaily, whose editor, Joseph Farah, had endorsed Santorum's run for president (which, curiously, WND was loath about promoting, a rare case of WND turning down an occasion to engage in self-promotion). Now, he's going away.
Santorum used his June 23 WND column to engage in a round of self-congratulation before stating that it would be his last:
Last year, following the presidential campaign, we formed a group called Patriot Voices that is committed to fighting for all of these issues – faith, family, freedom and opportunity. And now I’ve joined EchoLight Studios as its CEO, a fast-growing faith and family film production company that is using film to promote many of these same ideas. Through Patriot Voices and now EchoLight, I will continue to promote a positive culture and stay engaged in the political process as America looks to find the right leaders in 2016.
Many thousands of you have supported us, and we will continue to fight. But rather than using our pen for this weekly column, we’re going to be using our feet and our voices more going forward. We’ll use our feet to cover as much of the country as we can to meet you and listen to you. And we’ll use our voices to take your message back to Washington and out into the media so that you too can be heard. With the resources we have, we need to make every minute count – and this is the best way for us to do our work going forward.
Santorum could have kept a column going under his name whether he actually wrote it or not (and his use of the third person in discussing "using our pen for this weekly column" indicates he wasn't), but instead he's pulling the plug completely. That's a curious decision.
Did Santorum realize he was being tainted by his association with WND, which so discredited itself in its Javert-esque pursuit of Obama that nobody believes it? Perhaps.
MRC's Gainor Dishonestly Takes Obama's School Remarks Out of Context Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Dan Gainor is a loyal right-wing apparatchik, and he's not about to let facts get in the way when he's bashing President Obama.
Gainor wrote a June 20 NewsBusters post complaining that Obama "used a town hall meeting for youth in Belfast to show his contempt for religious education" and "criticized separate religious schools for promoting 'division.'" Gainor went on to complain that "ABC, CBS and NBC all skipped the story, even though it made the rounds in conservative media especially on Wednesday."
Of course, the reason it "made the rounds in conservative media" and not the media in general is because conservative media took Obama's quote out of context. As we'vedocumented, Obama was speaking specifically to the situation in Northern Ireland, which has a lengthy history of animus and violence between Catholics and Protestants.
The faux outrage from Gainor and other right-wingers also ignores one of the core reasons there is an extensive Catholic education system in the U.S. in the first place -- the public schools were dominated by Protestants.
But such facts don't matter to Gainor. He simply went on to rant how "The Obama administration has angered people of faith" by citing the manufactured controversy of "hiding a cross when Obama was speaking at Georgetown."
But then, Gainor is not being paid to pay careful consideration to facts that interfere with his agenda, is he?
Jack Cashill -- whose biased "reporting" is enthusiastically defending George Zimmerman in the death of Trayvon Martin -- declared in a June 28 WorldNetDaily article:
Joseph Farah uses his June 27 WorldNetDaily 
Newsmax's image rehabilitation project for the 
For more than a year, WorldNetDaily has been reporting on a homeschooling family, the Loudermilks, who filed a lawsuit against a law enforcement agency over a search of their house after an anonymous complaint. And for all of that time, WND's Bob Unruh 
Notice the common thread in the headlines of these CNSNews.articles:
Apparently, in the eyes of the Media Research Center, it's "liberal media bias" to portray a historic event involving gays as historic. In April, for instance, the MRC's Matt Hadro 
Jeff Knox -- who we last saw 
In a June 22 NewsBusters 
Most casual music fans were aware of this a long time ago, but it's apparently news to WorldNetDaily: U2 singer Bono is a Christian.
Alan Caruba is a 
It was just a little over six months ago that Rick Santorum started 
The Media Research Center's Dan Gainor is a loyal right-wing apparatchik, and he's not about to let facts get in the way when he's bashing President Obama.
