Meanwhile...
Topic: Newsmax
Right Wing Watch catches Newsmax radio host Steve Malzberg mocking President Obama's remarks on race by speculating that the reason people locked their car doors when he walked by is because he was high on drugs.

Aaron Klein Anonymous Source Watch
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Aaron Klein writes in a July 21 WorldNetDaily article:

The Obama administration has quietly presented a plan in which the Palestinian Authority and Jordan will receive sovereignty over the Temple Mount while Israel will retain the land below the Western Wall, according to a senior PA negotiator speaking to WND.

The Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism.

The proposed plan is part of the basis for U.S.-brokered talks that are set to resume in Washington next week after Secretary of State John Kerry announced that both Israel and PA President Mahmoud Abbas have agreed to open negotiations aimed at creating a Palestinian state.

Israel has not agreed to the U.S. plan over the Temple Mount, with details still open for discussion, stated the PA negotiator.

As is usual for Klein, his source is anonymous, and he provides no evidence that the "plan" he's writing about even exists beyond his imagination.

Klein frequently hides behind untraceable anonymous sources to attack the Obama administration and advance his right-wing agenda.

Note to MRC: IRS 'Bombshell' Acually Is Old News
Topic: Media Research Center

Geoffrey Dickens writes in a July 19 Media Research Center item:

The Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC ) networks have essentially censored the latest IRS scandal news. Not a single network reported on the bombshell coming out of Thursday’s congressional hearing that IRS employees were ordered to send Tea Party tax-exemption applications to the office of the IRS’s Chief Counsel, which was headed by William Wilkins, who at that time was the only Obama political appointee at the IRS.

Dickens is essentially censoring the fact that his "bombshell" revelation is nothing new. As Media Matters details, a report from the Treasury Inspector General, released two months ago, details a timeline of events noting that the chief counsel's office was made aware of the issue in August of 2011.

Dickens' post is headlined "ABC, CBS and NBC to Viewers: IRS Scandal? Please, That's Old News." So is the the "bombshell" Dickens is trying to peddle.

WND Has Links to Racist Tea Party Group
Topic: WorldNetDaily

The group TeaParty.org recently sent out a email promoting a new endeavor by sister organization Citizen Freedom Project -- a campaign where "For just $29.95 you can send a PINK SLIP to all 535 members of the House and Senate telling them to IMPEACH OBAMA! Let this Pink Slip serve as 'official warning' that they are to put the president on notice right now!"

Does that sound and look familiar? It should --  four years ago, WorldNetDaily was running a very similar "pink slip" campaign, with a similarly factually challenged message, for exactly the same price.

It turns out that idea-sharing is not the only link TeaParty.org has with WND.

The TeaParty.org publishes "exclusive" regular commentaries by WND "reporter" Jerome Corsi. In his most recent commentary, for example, Corsi falsely claimed that President Obama refused to express support for "the verdict of the jury. In fact, Obama specifically said: "The juries were properly instructed that in a -- in a case such as this, reasonable doubt was relevant, and they rendered a verdict. And once the jury’s spoken, that’s how our system works."

But that's not all. WND publicist Tim Bueler is an official with TeaParty.org, serving as its secretary and media director. Bueler also accompanied Corsi on his ill-fated 2008 trip to Kenya, where they were briefly detained and Corsi brought back fraudulent documents he used to try and falsely smear Obama before the 2008 election.

Why do we care? First, TeaParty.org, also known as the 1776 Tea Party, is headed by Dale Robertson, who is best known for carrying around a sign at a 2009 rally with the (misspelled) N-word on it. Other tea party groups couldn't run from Robertson fast enough.

Second, Bueler and TeaParty.org executive director Stephen Eichler have another nefarious connection. They used to work with the Minuteman Project, the border vigilante group founded by Jim Gilchrist. (Corsi was a supporter of Gilchrist as well -- he also wrote a book about Gilchrist -- until Gilchrist endorsed Mike Huckabee in the 2008 election, whom Corsi deemed insufficiently anti-immigration.) The Minuteman Project's "border operations director" was Shawna Forde, best known for her role in the 2009 killings of a 9-year-old girl and her father, for which she was found guilty of first-degree murder.

(By the way, the only mention of Forde's crimes at WND come in a May 2011 column by Rob Sanchez complaining that "Shawna Forde got the death penalty even though she did not murder anyone" and that her case shows that "the courts have been corrupted by political correctness, mob rule and race-based politics.")

These are the people who are WND's fellow travelers, with some of them being WND employees. Is it any wonder that nobody believes WND?

MRC Doesn't Like Gay-Related 'What Would You Do?' Scenarios
Topic: Media Research Center

Matt Vespa huffs in a July 17 NewsBusters post:

With the Supreme Court ruling on the Defense of Marriage Act last month, you know that ABC’s “What Would You Do?” just had to produce a segment on gay marriage – again.  In the July 12 broadcast, the show decided to pick the liberal state of New Jersey -- a blue state for a change -- in order to find these nasty, homophobic Americans.  The scenario was simple.  Two lesbians walk into a local bakery picking out their future wedding cake.  The baker is a homophobe.  He hurls insults.  What would you do?

To no one’s surprise, the vast majority of the bystanders were appalled by the baker’s remarks.

Vespa ignores the fact that, location of the stunt aside, the incident is based in reality. In Colorado -- which has something of a progressive tradition -- a gay couple is suing a bakery for allegedly refusing to make a cake for their wedding ceremony.

Still, this inspired the Media Research Center to crank out a July 18 piece by Scott Whitlock, headlined "ABC's Top Five Lamest Hidden Camera Attempts to Expose American Bigotry." As befits the MRC's anti-gay agenda, two involve gay-related scenarios, "a faux Boy Scout who announces he's gay" and "an actor playing a therapist told a homosexual teenager 'we can pray away the gay.'"

Funny, we thought the MRC loved hidden-camera stunts -- at least, when they're perpetrated by the likes of Lila Rose and James O'Keefe.

WND's Unruh Cherry-Picks Dubious Survey To Attack Obamacare
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Bob Unruh writes in a July 19 WorldNetDaily article:

In a survey by a top research firm, six in 10 physicians said it is likely many doctors will retire earlier than planned in the next one to three years.

The same percentage say the practice of medicine is in jeopardy as medical experts lose control of their clinics and compensation with the implementation of the Affordable Health Care for America Act, or Obamacare.

[...]

The survey by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions found that the “future of the medical profession may be in jeopardy as it loses clinical autonomy and compensation.”

But the way Deloitte compiled the survey makes it less than authoritative. According to the survey, Deloitte sent out more than 20,000 surveys to randomly selected names from the American Medical Association's master file of physicians, but received just 613 responses. That's a response rate of well below 5 percent.

That's a rate below even a comically awful survey conducted by the anti-Obamacare Doctor Patient Medical Association claiming that 82% of doctors were thinking about quitting because of "changes in the medical system."

Despite citing a dubious survey, Unruh curiously failed to cite a survey result that was favorable to Obamacare. According to Deloitte, 44 percent of respondents said that the Affordable Care Act is a "a good start," and the number of those who believe that the ACA is a step in the wrong direction dropped 6 percentage points from the 2011 survey, from 44 percent to 38 percent.

CNS 'Waste Watch' Changes Name, Still Considers LGBT-Related Spending A Waste
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNS' "Waste Watch" is perhaps best known for determining that pretty much any spending on LGBT-related issues is a "waste."

CNS -- perhaps to put a slightly nicer spin on things -- has changed the name of its "Waste Watch" page to "The Golden Hookah Award," providing this explanation of the name (though no explanation for the change):

The Golden Hookah is the symbolic token that CNSNews.com confers on government agencies that win our “What Were They Smoking Award” for outrageous government spending. CNSNews.com presents the award to a component of government that has distinguished itself in taking the hard-earned money of taxpayers and sending it up in smoke.

Inspired by CNSNews.com stories that exposed federal grants used to subsidize research on hookah smoking in Syria and Jordan, the “Golden Hookah” symbolizes how a prodigal government squanders the taxpayers’ money on outrageous, unconstitutional and unconscionable programs.

The page's modus operandi hasn't changed, though: Of the 23 items currently  on the page, four are LGBT-related, which continues to make it disproportionately represented.

Or, in CNS' words, spending money on LGBT issues is "outrageous, unconstitutional and unconscionable."

Newsmax Creates A Peter King Presidential Boomlet
Topic: Newsmax

Newsmax has long promoted Donald Trump's presidential ambitions, trying to present him as a credible candidate. Now it's trying to do the same for a Republican congressman.

A July 17 Newsmax article by John Gizzi claimed: "In a recent political development that could only be called surprising, Newsmax has learned that U.S. Rep. Peter King, past chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, is being encouraged by friends in and outside the Empire State to seek the GOP nomination for president in 2016." Gizzi cites only unidentified "friends" of King to back up the claim.

That started Newsmax's echo chamber in motion:

• A July 18 article by Bill Hoffmann featuring King confirming his presidential ambitions to Newsmax radio host Steve Malzberg.
• Another Hoffmann article quoted former Rep. Vito Fossella endorsing a possible King candidacy. Hoffmann also quotes Fossella opining on the current political campaigns of Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer: "Everybody is entitled to a second chance. So they can throw their hat in the ring. Let the voters decide." Hoffmann did concede that Fossella "faced his own scandal in office when it was revealed he had a secret love child," but didn't mention that Newsmax has been trying to rehabilitate him ever since.
• A July 19 article by Todd Beamon featured Newsmax columnist Matt Towery chatting up a possible King campaign.

Newsmax caps this speculation with a July 20 meta-article on how "A storm of media interest erupted after Newsmax broke the story on Wednesday that Rep. Peter King was seriously considering a White House run in 2016."

None of these articles, however, touch on one potential stumbling block for a King presidential campaign: his longtime support for the terrorists of the Irish Republican Army. The New York Times reports:

“We must pledge ourselves to support those brave men and women who this very moment are carrying forth the struggle against British imperialism in the streets of Belfast and Derry,” Mr. King told a pro-I.R.A. rally on Long Island, where he was serving as Nassau County comptroller, in 1982. Three years later he declared, “If civilians are killed in an attack on a military installation, it is certainly regrettable, but I will not morally blame the I.R.A. for it.”

As Mr. King, a Republican, rose as a Long Island politician in the 1980s, benefiting from strong Irish-American support, the I.R.A. was carrying out a bloody campaign of bombing and sniping, targeting the British Army, Protestant paramilitaries and sometimes pubs and other civilian gathering spots. His statements, along with his close ties to key figures in the military and political wings of the I.R.A., drew the attention of British and American authorities.

[...]

He said he does not regret his past pro-I.R.A. statements. The Irish group, he said, was “a legitimate force” battling British repression — analogous to the African National Congress in South Africa or the Zionist Irgun paramilitary in British-ruled Palestine. “It was a dirty war on both sides,” he said of I.R.A. resistance to British rule.

Newsmax has a notable history of disappearing inconvenient information about candidates it supports, even when it used that very same information to attack the candidate before switching to support.

MRC's Graham: It's 'Liberal Junk' To Say Tsarnaev Was 'Promising'
Topic: NewsBusters

Tim Graham uses a July 18 NewsBusters post to rail against the Rolling Stone cover featuring Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev:

Rolling Stone tried to manage the controversy label with the words over the picture: “THE BOMBER: How a Popular, Promising Student Was Failed by His Family, Fell Into Radical Islam, and Became a Monster.”

So there are the words “bomber,” “monster,” and “radical Islam.” But there’s also that usual liberal junk about being “popular” and “promising,” as if anyone in high school is voted “Most Likely To Kill and Maim In a Terrorist Attack.”

So only "liberals" would have described Tsarnaev as "popular" and "promising"? Really, Tim?

Of course, RS is hardly alone in sprucing up the image of terrorists. Here's Graham's boss, Media Research Center chief Brent Bozell happily sharing his stage at the MRC's 20th Anniversary Gala with domestic terrorist and Hitler enthusiast G. Gordon Liddy (far left):

We're guessing Graham didn't voice any objection to that.

WND Promotes Old-School Secret-Society Conspiracy-Mongering
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Devvy Kidd is a former regular WorldNetDaily columnist prone to far-right rants like calling for the repeal of the 17th Amendment. Her July 17 WND column is a veritable potpourri of old-school conspiracy theories about "secret socieities":

Nothing in politics happens by accident, so the saying goes and is absolutely true. Our constitutional republic has been under attack for more than a century by individuals who desire to rule the world. You and I are merely underlings who provide massive power and riches to them through the ballot box and our consumer dollars.

Unraveling all the organizations that yank the strings of American politics can be daunting. In 2005, I penned two important pieces for WND: “The treasonous Council on Foreign Relations” and “The treasonous Trilateral Commission.” Nothing has changed. Those two organizations are not some harmless think tanks. If you go to the CFR’s history page, nuggets of the truth are right there for everyone to see. Elihu Root headed the original CFR. The Rothschilds and Wall Street were instrumental in financing the Bolshevik Revolution. Root was the bag man to deliver $20 million to the Bolsheviks who were founded by mass murderer Vladimir Lenin and Alexander Bogdanov.

[...]

Seemingly harmless groups like the Alfalfa Club draw little if any attention, even from the compromised “mainstream” media. The Alfalfa Club meets once a year for a big dinner – 200 attendees who pay $200 per plate and no media. The official list of inductees (not invited dinner guests) is an eye opener.

Past presidents, both Bushes and the current impostor president, Barry Soetoro, aka Obama, have attended Alfalfa dinners. If you haven’t made the inner circle of elites, don’t expect an invitation. In 2012, attendees included John Boehner, John Kerry and out-going club president, former associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Sandra Day O’Connor, who, in the infamous Lawrence v Texas sodomy set-up case didn’t deny homosexuality is a voluntarily chosen lifestyle.

[...]

One the more important things I’ve written is an in-depth research piece regarding who is behind the curtain and the evil agenda choking our beloved republic to death. “The House That Evil Built” will connect the dots and give you the truth – especially about secret organizations like the Skull and Bones. It’s real, and we ignore the bigger picture at our own peril. When one starts peeling back the layers, the number of secretive groups boggles the mind, but if we the people are ever going to take back our country to self-governance instead of totalitarian domination, we must identify those destroying it and stop supporting them.

Remember that WND's online store still sells conspiracy books making similar claims.

Michelle Obama Derangement Syndrome
Topic: CNSNews.com

Most people I know just roll their eyes when Michelle Obama comes out with a new part of her anti-obesity program, mainly because we are Americans and we don't need someone telling us what to do.  But then, most people I know understand right from wrong and will pay our own way, thank you very much, and don't look to government to solve our problems.

But another headline touting another grand plan to get kids moving and eating healthy caught my eye and I thought, with all the hate-mongering and victimization happening in her Sweet Home Chicago and cities nationwide, she could lead as a First Lady ought to, and start healing the nation by teaching the female youth in this country how to behave as ladies.

Women can and should lead the way on improving the treatment of women and in turn, the treatment of everyone.

She has mentioned that being in the White House is kind of like being in prison. So, I ask, what better use of time could there be for a First Lady, who happens to be in the sphere of influence of every young female, regardless of color, than to teach them how to refuse to be labeled a "bitch" or a "ho" and how twerking is unacceptable?

Just once, I'd like to see Michelle Obama sit next to someone like Snooki on the couch at The View and have her say, "Sweetie, you don't need to degrade yourself like that.  Twerking is not sexy, dear, it's porn."

[...]

So, perhaps I have found the reason why Mrs. Obama doesn't teach the youth of today to respect themselves.  Perhaps, it is because keeping them degraded and sexually promiscuous and ruled by emotion keeps them dependent on government.

-- Jen Kuznicki, July 16 CNSNews.com blog post

NEW ARTICLE -- NewsBusted: The Coleman File
Topic: NewsBusters
NewsBusters blogger Jack Coleman is such a "recovering former liberal journalist" that he's a right-wing demagogue who cares nothing about facts as he bashes Rachel Maddow and defends right-wing crazies. Read more >>

WND's Molotov Mitchell Is Just As Thin-Skinned As Joseph Farah
Topic: WorldNetDaily

It appears that Molotov Mitchell is as thin-skinned as has WorldNetDaily boss, Joseph Farah.

The overall theme of Mitchell's July 16 WND video is getting revenge on Glenn Beck for having "stole our show title" by naming one of the shows on his Blaze TV "For The Record" by pretending his hateful little video is now "The Blaze, Created by Molotov Mitchell." Here's a screenshot:

Perhaps if Mr. Mitchell had shown a little foresight and trademarked the name of his show for webcasting purposes, he wouldn't have this problem. Or perhaps he did try but was rejected because it was too common of a title to trademark.

For instance, a 2008 documentary on Britney Spears is titled "Britney: For the Record." Did Mitchell ask permission from Spears before cribbing her title? We suspect not.

By the way, this is at least Mitchell's second video on the subject. Back in January, he dedicated an entire video to an "open letter" to Beck begging him to change the show's name.

Uh, yeah. Farah and ol' Molotov deserve each other, don't they?

CNS Promotes Bishop's Weird Threat Against Gay Nominee, Hides Cardinal's Slur
Topic: CNSNews.com

A July 15 CNSNews.com article by Michael W. Chapman promotes an apparent threat made by a Catholic bishop in the Dominican Republic against an "openly gay" Obama administration nominee as ambassador to the country:

President Barack Obama’s openly gay ambassadorial nominee to the Dominican Republic, James “Wally” Brewster,” faces strong opposition from the conservative and largely Catholic island nation, where Bishop Pablo Cedano says if Brewster becomes the U.S. ambassador, “he is going to suffer and will have to leave.”

On Monday, Catholic, evangelical, and other opponents in the Dominican Republic organized and took part in what were billed as “Black Monday” protests, whereby participants donned black clothing and set black decorations on cars and buildings to protest the nomination of Brewster, who is a long-time homosexual activist and fundraiser for the Democratic Party and President Obama.

Monsignor Cedano, who is the auxiliary Catholic bishop of Santo Domingo, said in early July that the selection of Brewster showed “a lack of sensitivity, of respect by the United States.” Cedano also, in reference to opposition against Brewster, according to the Associated Press,  said,  “I hope he does not arrive in the country because I know, if he comes, he is going to suffer and will have to leave.”

Chapman did not make any attempt to explain what Cedano meant by claiming that Brewster "is going to suffer and will have to leave," but it sure sounds like a threat, doesn't it? One gets the feeling that Chapman seems quite OK with that.

Chapman also hid an anti-gay slur voiced by the Dominican Republic's Catholic cardinal. He writes:

Cardinal Nicolas de Jesus Lopez Rodriguez, the archbishop of Santo Domingo, also expressed disappointment with the nomination of Brewster. As reported first in the Dominican newspaper La Opinion and then the Associated Press, Cardinal Nicolas said, “We don’t have to do anything. It’s the government’s job to accept them [homosexuals]. They’re interested in advancing their agenda, but they have to know there are many people in the world who are against that, both in Christian and non-Christian governments.”

“Ask the Muslim world what they think about that, in addition to Christians and Evangelicals,” said the cardinal.

But the Daily Mail reports that the cardinal has expressed much more than "disappointment": He also referred to Brewster as a  "maricón" -- slang for "faggot" or "sissy" -- during a press conference. Chapman made no mention of this in his article.

If Chapman has no problem with a bishop threatening a gay man, why would he get all squemish about an anti-gay slur? Perhaps he's trying to protect the Catholic Church from folks who might look askance at a man of God using such vile language.

Newsmax Touts Anti-Obamacare Lawsuit Backed By Fringe Medical Group
Topic: Newsmax

A July 11 Newsmax article by Todd Beamon promotes a lawsuit by a Texas doctor seeking to stop the individual mandate in health care reform.  But Beamon buries the doctor's ties to a fringe medical organization that's backing the lawsuit.

Beamon waits until the 18th paragraph to reveal that Steven Hotze's lawsuit is being represented by Andrew Schlafly, counsel for the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, which Beamon describes only as "a conservative nonprofit association founded in 1943 that seeks to 'fight socialized medicine and to fight the government takeover of medicine,' according to its website."

In fact, the AAPS is a right-wing group that peddles fringe medical theories and political conspiracies. AAPS has defended corrupt doctors that prescribed thousands of pain pills per day to patients, some of whom died of overdoses or resold the pills. Not only did AAPS fight health care reform under the Clinton administration, it peddled Vince Foster conspiracy theories.

Perhaps most notoriously, in 2005 the AAPS' Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons published an attack on illegal immigrants, claiming that leprosy "was so rare in America that in 40 years only 900 people were afflicted. Suddenly, in the past three years America has more than 7,000 cases of leprosy." In fact, there had been just 431 reported cases of Hansen's disease, or leprosy, over the "past three years" in question. 

Additionally, Hotze himself holds some fringe views. He's a proponent of "bioidentical" hormone replacement that are not supported by science and are potentially harmful. He also once signed onto a "Manifesto for the Christian Church" that proclaimed, among other things, that "Biblical spanking" that results in "temporary or superficial bruises or welts" should not be considered a crime" and "Medical problems are frequently caused by personal sin." He's also anti anti-gay activist who has funded anti-gay candidates and campaigns in his native Houston.

This is who Newsmax thinks is a credible opponent of Obamacare.