Conspiracy Theorist Noel Sheppard Mocks Conspiracy Theorist Alex Jones Topic: NewsBusters
Noel Sheppard begins his July 4 NewsBusters post by asking, "Have you ever wondered if conspiracy theorists actually live in their own world with little contact with anything close to reality?"
When it comes to Sheppard, yes, we have. He's a global warming denier who is so committed to denialism he actually showed up on a TV show actually called "Conspiracy Theory" to skulk around in the shadows and spin his denialism to host Jesse Ventura.
Oh, I'm sorry, Noel. You weren't talking about yourself?
As it happens, he wasn't. He was mocking radio host Alex Jones for saying, "I will defeat Rush Limbaugh in the free market of ideas. People, people like this show more than his." After posting ratings for top radio hosts, Sheppard adds:
You see Alex Jones's name anywhere on that list?
No. Neither do I.
Just keep that in mind the next time he spouts another crazy conspiracy theory.
Keep in mind, too, that the folks at Alex Jones' website loved his show on global warming conspiracies.
Aaron Klein Guilt-By-Association Watch Topic: WorldNetDaily
Aaron Klein tries, and fails, to get the goods on Mohamed Morsi in a July 2 WorldNetDaily article:
Was Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood involved in the deadly Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya?
Circumstantial evidence possibly links the attack to Morsi’s campaign to free the so-called blind sheik, Omar Abdel-Rahman, who is serving a life sentence in the U.S. for conspiracy in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
That's all Klein admitted he has: "circumstantial evidence" that "possibly" supports his claims.
Unfortunately, such shoddily source claims are a staple of Klein's WND reporting.
CNS Misleads on Obama's Africa Remarks Topic: CNSNews.com
Ryan Kierman misleads in a July 1 CNSNews article, under the headline "Obama: 'Planet Will Boil Over' If Young Africans Are Allowed Cars, Air-Conditioning, Big Houses":
President Barack Obama said at a town hall event in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Saturday that unless we find new way of producing energy "the planet will boil over" if people in Africa are allowed to attain air conditioning, automobiles and big houses.
Omitted from that lead paragraph is the proper context for Obama's statement, which Kierman waits until the second paragraph to include (emphasis added):
“Ultimately, if you think about all the youth that everybody has mentioned here in Africa, if everybody is raising living standards to the point where everybody has got a car and everybody has got air conditioning, and everybody has got a big house, well, the planet will boil over -- unless we find new ways of producing energy.”
Kierman goes on to attack Obama for claiming that global warming constitutes “the biggest challenge we have environmentally,” asserting that "the President’s statements do not reflect statistics released by the United Nations" because air and water pollution kill more people. But Kierman fails to mention that addressing climate change by cutting carbon pollution will help solve those other problems as well:
Building on efforts underway in states and communities across the country, the President's plan cuts carbon pollution that causes climate change and threatens public health. Today, we have limits in place for arsenic, mercury and lead, but we let power plants release as much carbon pollution as they want - pollution that is contributing to higher rates of asthma attacks and more frequent and severe floods and heat waves.
Cutting carbon pollution will help keep our air and water clean and protect our kids. The President's plan will also spark innovation across a wide variety of energy technologies, resulting in cleaner forms of American- made energy and cutting our dependence on foreign oil. Combined with the President's other actions to increase the efficiency of our cars and household appliances, the President's plan will help American families cut energy waste, lowering their gas and utility bills. In addition, the plan steps up our global efforts to lead on climate change and invests to strengthen our roads, bridges, and shorelines so we can better protect people's homes, businesses, and way of life from severe weather.
Kierman's goal with this article was not to tell the truth but to attack Obama, which probably makes him an ideal CNS reporter.
WND Proudly Proclaims It's 'Stocking Up On Everything Paula Deen' Topic: WorldNetDaily
Apparently, Paula Deen's retrograde racial attitudes are the kind of thing WorldNetDaily can make money on.
After running to Deen's defense following the reports of racially charged allegations involving her, WND took the next step, as announced in a July 1 article:
The rest of the media and corporate world may be running away from Paula Deen, punishing the celebrity chef for a 20-year-old remark for which she has apologized profusely.
But the WND Superstore is running toward her.
She’s been abandoned by her TV network, Walmart, Target – even the publisher of her upcoming No. 1 bestselling book in the country, which decided not only to punish Deen but itself as well.
So what is the politically incorrect WND Superstore doing? Stocking up on everything Paula Deen.
The article goes on to list several Deen cookbooks now available through WND.
So, apparently, WND hadn't thought of Deen as a moneymaker prior to the revelation of her racial remarks. But now that she's on record as a racist, she's a suitable commodity for WND's online store.
Sadly, given WND's penchant for race-baiting, this is not a surprising development.
MRC, Newsmax Complain 'White House Down' Has Right-Wing Villains Topic: Media Research Center
The ConWeb just hates it when a film features right-wingers as villains, so the whining over the new film "White House Down" was rather predictable.
In a July 1 Media Research Center Culture & Media Institute item, Katie Yoder has a full-on fit about it:
Once again, Hollywood can’t bring itself to acknowledge America’s real enemies – the ones who actually kill American soldiers, diplomats and civilians. Instead, it turns fellow citizens with a differing view into bloody-minded monsters. In White House Down,” Columbia Picture’s new film directed by Roland Emmerich and written by James Vanderbilt, pro-military citizens and right-wingers – the destroyers of the peace – bring are the culprits.
Right-winger Timothy McVeigh had a "differing view," too, and that didn't keep him from being a terrorist. Yoder doesn't mention that.
James Hirsen joins in the fit-having in a July 1 NewsBusters column:
A humbling $26 million take has landed the recently released Sony film, “White House Down,” in fourth place for the weekend’s box office.
The movie’s underachieving status is perhaps an indication that the public is not currently in sync with those in Hollywood who subscribe to a liberal agenda and who tangentially pledge allegiance to the current administration.
[...]
The mastermind of the domestic terrorist activity is eventually revealed to be the leader of the opposition party, a Boehner-like character who actually harbors presidential aspirations of his own and is willing to use any means to achieve his goal.
Once the villains are defeated, the president is able to usher in world peace.
Unfortunately, what he is unlikely able to do is to stop the word of mouth on this agenda-ridden flick.
Does Hirsen consider conservative films to be "agenda-ridden"? Probably not.
What even Axelrod didn’t try to laugh away was the fact that although Hillary Clinton had only visited the White House 43 times in four years and Leon Panetta, 20 times, IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman had been in and out 157 times. When you realize that, between fundraisers, vacations and golf outings, Obama only visited 78 times, you have to wonder if Shulman and Michelle have been carrying on an affair.
But why, O why, did the Nobel Wooden Spoon Committee award the thing to Black Jesus? To the very same Black Jesus who, if reports are to be believed, proposes to send U.S.-made weapons to stoke the war between one Islamic extremist faction and another in Syria, of all places?
In America, among the many destructive policies of President Barack Hussein Obama, he has included a campaign of placing Muslim Brotherhood operatives in key government positions. Notably of late, there has been inordinate deference paid to Islam in the military and the Pentagon, and an inversely proportional persecution and marginalization of Christian personnel at all levels. National defense protocols and training have been stultified due to the influence of Muslims in official capacity in the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security. Mosques, which serve as bases of operation for terrorists, have been off-limits to routine law enforcement surveillance efforts under the Obama administration.
By the time you read this, it may already have been voted upon and settled, just waiting for the magic signature of the man in the Oval Office – or, in other words: “The Great Oz” gets what he wants again, and the people be damned.
The country, too.
It’s euphemistically called “immigration reform,” but in reality it’s a massive sell-out of the United States to Third World illegals who have taken advantage of our laxity, stupidity, liberal racial guilt and the death-wish of the Democratic Party to gain political power that it hopes will put them in office forever.
Saint Patrick may have been recognized for driving the snakes out of Ireland, but this past week one of them slithered back in. Obama is the personification of an elapid that is now without the appendages some believe the serpent that beguiled Eve in the Garden had possessed before it was made to slither upon the ground. That said, he has not shed the character of the personage incarnate in that first serpent.
What this country needs is a sober Eliot Ness, eager to clean up the corruption in Washington. What it has, unfortunately, is Barack Obama, a Marxist airhead who is so infatuated with himself that in high school, I’m willing to bet, he invited himself to the prom.
Obama has bankrupted America. His interventions in Benghazi, Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt and Syria have been inept at best, illegal at worst.
Obamacare will import all the worst features of the communist country in miniature that is Britain’s now terminally collapsing National Health Service, where treatment is rationed by death.
His climate change policies, and the slew of lavishly taxpayer-funded renewable-boondoggle bankruptcies, are mad.
His anti-Christian attitudes, enthusiastically endorsed by the Supreme Kangaroo Court, spit upon the memory of the men of religion who founded your nation and intended that Congress should pass no law circumscribing religious freedom.
And his birth certificate is bogus. He is not entitled even to hold the office of president.
The cost of another president leading us as a nation under ever more surveillance will be a future 9/11 in which the terrorists will have won – even before all the corpses they amass are counted.
Bear in mind that a majority of us re-elected Obama, our lead betrayer. Shall we continue betraying ourselves?
Let’s forget for a moment that Obama is what passes for black in America (though not necessarily in Africa). There’s the Obama who genuflects before the Chinese and Saudis, and apologizes for America’s colonialist past when he speaks to European liberals and those in Arab nations. Then, there’s the Obama who goes to Africa and patronizes the hell out of them, dangling American largesse on the one hand while attempting to dictate their social agenda on the other. He’s the ultimate con man.
Newsmax to Trump: We Can't Quit You Topic: Newsmax
In case anybody was wondering: Yes, Newsmax still loves Donald Trump.
The latest example of Newsmax's Trump-fluffing is a July 1 article by Michelle Smith repeating Trump's claim that he can "fix" America's problems, adding the tease: "Some suspect that Trump's current claims to possess solutions for America's problems coupled with an upcoming speech in Iowa indicates that he is considering a run for the White House in 2016."
Smith doesn't mention how Newsmax tried to pave the way for a Trump presidential run in 2012, only to get jilted after a proposed Republican presidential debate to be hosted by Trump and Newsmax ended with Trump backing out after most of the other candidates refused to take part.
Despite that history, Newsmax still can't quit Trump.
WND Pushes Discredited Claim About Death of Priest in Syria Topic: WorldNetDaily
Garth Kant writes in a July 1 WorldNetDaily article:
The Vatican has confirmed the beheading of a Catholic priest in Syria.
Franciscan Father Francois Murad was killed by Syrian jihadists on June 23.
Catholic Online reports jihadits accused Father Francois of collaborating with the Assad regime.
The publication has obtained this video it believes shows his beheading.
The first sign that something is wrong with this story is a few paragraphs laters, when Kant's quoting of the Vatican is much less confirming than Kant portrays it:
The news release states, “The circumstances of the death are not fully understood. According to local sources, the monastery where Fr. Murad was staying was attacked by militants linked to the jihadi group Jabhat al-Nusra.”
Meanwhile, at the same time WND was publishing Kant's article, the video purportedly of Murad's beheading -- which WND luridly touts as "extremely graphic footage" -- was determined to be something else entirely. The UK Telegraph reports:
The footage posted on YouTube shows three men kneeling on the ground surrounded by a group of foreign jihadists, now thought to be a group of Chechen rebels. The crowd whips itself into frenzy and screaming "God is great" some of the rebels slaughter two of the prisoners.
The film is too grainy to be able to confirm the identity of either of the victims as Father Francois. While the video's title refers to the killing of a priest and a bishop, none of the participants in the actual video refer to any such actions, and only accuse the victims of being collaborators and 'shabiha', a reference to pro-government militia members.
Father Pizzaballa, a colleague in the Franciscan Friars of the Custody of the Holy Land, to which Father Francois belonged, told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica that none of their priests were the victims in the video.
"None of our priests have died in this manner. All our priests are alive. Reading the reports circulating in the media I conclude that they have mixed up events," he said.
Peter Bouckaert, Emergencies Director for Human Rights Watch said: "Confusion may have arisen because of the appearance of this video around the same time that the news came out that Father Francois had been killed.
"Human Rights Watch has been conducting an in-depth investigation into this video, and it looks like it may have been filmed in a different location several months ago, long before Father Francois was reportedly killed."
Yasser, a Syrian activist who has been researching the killings in the video said that the incident took place "months" before the priest's death.
The Telegraph goes on to report that Murad was shot to death while defending a monestary from being ransacked by Islamist fighters. He was not beheaded.
Meanwhile, the International Business Times reported that the first user to upload the video on YouTube was a group known for its support of the regime of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. That dovetails nicely with WND's previoussupport of the Assad regime.
We'd ask when WND will issue a correction of Kant's inaccurate article, but propaganda is more important to them than accuracy.
UPDATE: Kant wrote a WND article the next day admitting his original article was inaccurate -- while trying to spin things away from his shoddy reporting by claiming that "A resounding silence is the reaction of those supporting the U.S. arming of Syrian rebels after the murder of a priest by rebels." Kant also whitewashes is original inaccuracies by declaring, "To be sure, the circumstances of the killing are murky but not the fact the priest was murdered by rebels."
Kant's original article, meanwhile, remains posted and uncorrected.
CNS' Starr Doesn't Think Perry's Personal Attack on Texas Legislator Is Newsworthy Topic: CNSNews.com
It took five days, but CNSNews.com reporter Penny Starr wrote a July 2 article about Texas Gov. Rick Perry's June 27 speech at the National Right to Life convention. Starr dutifully highlighted Perry's partisan bashing of Texas legislators who blocked passage of an anti-abortion law and the "mob tactics" that disrupted a final vote on the legislature floor.
Strangely, the most newsworthy thing Perry said during his speech did not make it into her article.
As pretty much every other news outlet reported at the time of the speech, Perry launched a personal attack on state Sen. Wendy Davis, who led a filibuster against the anti-abortion bill:
"Even the woman who filibustered the Senate the other day was born into difficult circumstances. She was the daughter of a single woman, she was a teenage mother herself. She managed to eventually graduate from Harvard Law School and serve in the Texas senate," Perry said Thursday in a speech to the National Right to Life Convention. "It is just unfortunate that she hasn’t learned from her own example that every life must be given a chance to realize its full potential and that every life matters."
Davis was raised by a single mother, and she became a single mother herself at 19. She went on to graduate from Harvard Law School and was elected to the Texas state Senate in 2008.
But Starr didn't feel the need to include this in her article. Why? Perhaps because she's a hopelessly biased "reporter" who uses her CNS articles to forward an aggressively anti-abortion agenda -- and who's trying to protect a "pro-life" politician from being seen in a negative light.
Another Homophobic Rant From Mrs. Molotov Mitchell Topic: WorldNetDaily
We haven't checked in on D.J. Dolce's painfullyunfunny and homophobic "comedy" videos at WorldNetDaily lately (mainly because a little bit of our soul dies when we do), but we figured it was time for a little look-see. And darn it if Mrs. Molotov Mitchell wasn't spewing more homophobic rage:
The Supreme Court has overturned the Defense of Marriage Act, and already everything's coming undone. The most egregious thing I've heard so far is that gay spouses can now be buried in Arlington Cemetary alongside our fallen heroes.
On the bright side, adding pink crosses to the landscape is really going to brighten the mood. Because nothing says equality like burying a gay guy who died in a bathhouse next to a soldier who died diving on a grenade to save his squad. Puts a whole new spin on eternal flame, doesn't it?
Funny, we thought Dolce would be happy about dead gays no matter how they died, since she apparently shares her husband's desire to achieve "the abolitiion of homosexuality."
WND, MRC Ignorant of Inspiration For Proposed 'Sex Strike' In Texas Topic: Media Research Center
As much as right-wingers complain about the state of American education for allegedly abandoning teaching the classics, they apparently know nothing about classic Greek literature.
Lauren Enk uses a July 1 Media Research Center Culture & Media Institute item to have a freakout over a proposal that women in Texas withhold sex from their male partnersuntil they give up on trying to pass more restrictive anti-abortion legislation:
Misanthropic feminists are at it again. HuffPo’s Vivian Norris just suggested a sex strike in Texas to pressure male voters into giving in to the feminist agenda (aka abortion on demand – er, “women’s healthcare.”)
Deeply disgruntled that Texas might pass a bill banning abortions after 20 weeks, Norris urged Texas women to force men to vote for pro-choice agendas in the future by refusing to have intercourse with them this summer. “Don't give in if your man, boyfriend, husband, toyboy is not voting for your best interests, your reproductive health -- do not sleep with that man!” ranted Norris. “I don't care how cute or charming he is! I don't care if he is your husband of many years. Resist! Go swimming! Meditate!”
[...]
What about Texas pro-life women? Apparently they’re just oppressed by the patriarchy and that’s the only reason they fight for the lives of children in the womb or encourage chastity: “These women, like women who hurt other women everywhere by criticizing and judging them, need to wake up as well. Women hurting other women is suicidal. Women who play into the hand of patriarchy need to be shown the way out of that prison,” insisted Norris.
So apparently, she thinks the screaming mob that blocked the abortion bill last time around wasn’t quite radical enough. But feminists are all about power, so it’s not really a shocker that feminists would want to use sex as a power weapon. Because using your sexuality to manipulate people doesn’t objectify or degrade women at all. Right?
An outspoken feminist is recruiting women to stop having sex with all Texas men – even their husbands – until the men start voting for the “right” to end an unborn baby’s life with a late-term abortion.
“Don’t give in if your man, boyfriend, husband, toyboy is not voting for your best interests, your reproductive health – do not sleep with that man!” warns Huffington Post contributor Vivian Norris. “I don’t care how cute or charming he is! I don’t care if he is your husband of many years. Resist! Go swimming! Meditate!”
Neither Enk nor Schilling mentioned the obvious inspiration for Norris' "sex strike" call, let alone that it dates back thousands of years. Sum it up, Wikipedia:
Lysistrata ... is one of the few surviving plays written by Aristophanes. Originally performed in classical Athens in 411 BC, it is a comic account of one woman's extraordinary mission to end The Peloponnesian War. Lysistrata persuades the women of Greece to withhold sexual privileges from their husbands and lovers as a means of forcing the men to negotiate peace — a strategy, however, that inflames the battle between the sexes. The play is notable for being an early exposé of sexual relations in a male-dominated society.
One doesn't even have to go back to 411 BC for an example. In 2011, the women of a small, remote town in Colombia launched a "crossed legs movement" in order to force the state to build a paved road to the town.
How come we, with our lowly public-school education, apparently know more about classical literature than Schilling or Enk?
Les Kinsolving Bestiality Watch Topic: WorldNetDaily
In a July 1 WorldNetDaily column charmingly titled "I'm with Scalia, not the zoophiliacs," notorious homophobe Les Kinsolving writes:
To quote Sen. Cardin:
“There is no place for discrimination in America based on sexual orientation.”
That should be an absolute boon for those alternate Mormons who still believe in polygamy – as well as the polyandrous (women who would like to have more than one husband at a time).
Then, consider the great joy of members of the North American Man/Boy Love Association, or NAMBLA, which was allowed to march – men with their small boy lovers – in gay parades in both New York and San Francisco.
Among the many other alternate sexual orientations that may well be counted upon to cite this Supreme Court decision are:
The incestuous;
Necrophiliacs (providing they properly and healthily preserve the corpses);
Zoophiliacs, who practice bestiality (providing this form of sexual expression is applied only to freely consenting beasts).
The American Family Association Online has noted that the American Psychiatric Association has published 30 sexual orientations, beginning with apotemnophilia (sexual arousal associated with a stump of an amputee), asphyxophilia (sexual gratification from oxygen deprivation) and autogenophilia (sexual arousal of a man by perception of himself as a woman or dressed as a woman).
Terry Jeffrey isn't even bothering with objectivity on the "news" operation he run.
What is supposed to be a June 28 CNSNews.com article by Jeffrey ranting that how the final regulations for health care reform "requires virtually all health-care plans to provide cost-free coverage for sterilizations, contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs" concludes with this definitely-not-objective claim:
The Obama administration now says to Catholics and other Christians who oppose sterilization, contraception and/or abortion: You are not free to exercise your faith. You must act against its teachings. You must do what we say, not what your conscience says.
Jeffrey seems to believe that the federal government should follow the dicates of the Catholic Church, which would be a violation of the constitutional separation of church and state.
Then, in a July 2 article, Jeffrey deviates from journalistic objectivity from the get-go:
The final version of Obamacare’s “preventive services” regulation that the Department of Health and Human Services published on Friday discriminates against faithful members of the Roman Catholic Church by effectively barring them from owning and operating health-insurance companies.
At no point during this lengthy "news" screed does Jeffrey identify any "faithful members of the Roman Catholic Church" who operate health-insurance companies now, meaning that Jeffrey's fretting over this manufactured issue is meaningless.
Of course, when it comes to Obama, Jeffrey abandoned objectivity a long time ago.
WND's Lazy Attack on Benefits For Same-Sex Military Spouses Topic: WorldNetDaily
Gina Loudon turns in a lazy attack on gays in a June 29 WorldNetDaily article:
The benefits now granted to same-sex couples as a result of the Supreme Court decision striking down key parts of the Defense of Marriage Act will put an immediate strain on the defense budget, warns the Center for Military Readiness.
After the ruling Wednesday, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel announced that all benefits given to military spouses would now be extended to same-sex couples.
Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, said the “ruling will have immediate consequences in America’s armed forces, which employ personnel from all states and grant extensive marriage benefits under federal law.”
Donnelly said the U.S. military budget will be under pressure because of the Supreme Court’s actions, but it is hard to calculate how much.
“No one has estimated what the impact will be,” said Donnelly, “especially during a time when sequestration cuts, large and small, are affecting military families worldwide.”
Donnelly is the only person Loudon talks to on the subject for her article, so her claims are presented as indisputable fact. That ignores some basic logic that Donnelly and Loudon simply fail to apply.
While Donnelly is throwing around the "unknown" costs of expanding benefits to same-sex military spouses, it's a certainty those costs will be a tiny fraction of that currently spent on benefits of opposite-sex spouses, given the ratio of gay marriages to opposite-sex marriages in the civilian population.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Pentagon sought $150 billion to cover pay and benefits of current and retired members of the military for fiscal year 2013, which includes benefits for spouses. Any increase in that amount due to same-sex spouses is negligible.
We were able to figure that out. Why couldn't Loudon and Donnelly?
NEW ARTICLE: Alan Caruba, Climate-Change Bamboozler Topic: CNSNews.com
CNS and Accuracy in Media regularly let Caruba peddle factually challenged attacks on the reality of global warming. Read more >>
Noel Sheppard begins his July 4 NewsBusters post by asking, "Have you ever wondered if conspiracy theorists actually live in their own world with little contact with anything close to reality?"
Aaron Klein tries, and fails, to get the goods on Mohamed Morsi in a July 2 WorldNetDaily 
Ryan Kierman misleads in a July 1 CNSNews 
Apparently, Paula Deen's retrograde racial attitudes are the kind of thing WorldNetDaily can make money on.
In case anybody was wondering: Yes, Newsmax still loves Donald Trump.
Garth Kant writes in a July 1 WorldNetDaily 
It took five days, but CNSNews.com reporter Penny Starr wrote a July 2 
As much as right-wingers complain about the state of American education for allegedly abandoning teaching the classics, they apparently know nothing about classic Greek literature.
In a July 1 WorldNetDaily 
Terry Jeffrey isn't even bothering with objectivity on the "news" operation he run.
Gina Loudon turns in a lazy attack on gays in a June 29 WorldNetDaily 
