Remember the big name change for CNSNews.com's Waste Watch feature to the Golden Hookah Award a couple weeks back? Well, never mind.

CNS has changed the name back to Waste Watch, with no explanation provided for the flip-flop.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:15 PM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

David Kupelian begins his July 28 WorldNetDaily column by declaring, "I thought I knew a lot about lying."

Why, yes, he does. As we've documented, Kupelian has used his position as WND managing editor to peddle myths, bias, and outright lies about President Obama and related subjects.

But, sadly, Kupelian wasn't making the kind of confession he needed to in order to properly repent for his sins (just like his boss, Joseph Farah). Rather, he's shilling for WND's new book by former Soviet Bloc intelligence official Ion Mihai Pacepa (another WND-linked writer who, like Reza Kahlili, does not make public appearances unaltered).In desperately trying to link Pacepa to Obama, Kupelian trots out his usual hateful smears:

First, forgive the unpleasant reminder, but in an era when the gravest threats to America emanate from two malevolent, expansionist ideologies – Marxism and Shariah Islam – we have twice elected a president in thrall to both. And the cowardly and craven news media made it happen. Moreover, government is broken, our culture is in the toilet, family breakdown is rampant, drug dependency (illegal and legal) are the new normal and God is increasingly being shut out of our society. You get the picture.

As we try to comprehend how America could possibly have sunk so low so quickly (remember, just 25 years ago Reagan was president and it was “morning in America”), along comes Ion Mihai Pacepa to once again expose the secret super-lies of sociopathic leaders and to shine his unique light into the oncoming darkness.

Of course, Kupelian is something of a sociopath as well. What other kind of person who seek to so desperately try and personally destroy a president and pretend it's "journalism"?

Posted by Terry K. at 12:10 AM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

The Media Research Center howled when the existence of Journolist -- an email list that included journalists and liberal think-tankers discussing political issues -- was revealed. NewsBusters alone has six pages of posts referencing it, and the MRC has two pages of links. MRC chief Brent Bozell declared that Journolist proved that journalists are "political strategists" who serve as "a shameless channel for leftist message coordination."

Bozell added, "What's most shocking is the silence. How many in the "mainstream" press are publicly denouncing those members of JournoList for their blatant disregard of journalistic ethics? Listen to the crickets..."

Last week, Mother Jones revealed the existence of Groundswell, an email list for conservative journalists and think-tankers that demonstrated that right-wing journalists are little more than a shameless channel for message coordination.

What has the MRC had to say about Groundswell? Listen to the crickets.

No MRC site, including NewsBusters, has made a peep to date about Groundswell despite all the noise it made denouncing Journolist.

Hypocrisy? Double standard? You bet. But the MRC is hardly a stranger to that.

Posted by Terry K. at 11:09 PM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

Pamela Geller uses her July 23 WorldNetDaily column to take potshots at author Reza Aslan for daring to write a book on Jesus:

Recently this immature creep wrote a book (or more likely, had it written for him) about Jesus, with the pejorative title “Zealot.” The enemedia machine is in full throttle to deliver this seditious hater a bestseller. In what can only have been inspired by the Goebbels template, Reza Aslan will not only be on the Bill Maher show and “The Daily Show,” but this subversive lowlife will be speaking at universities like NYU, Ohio State and the University of Southern California, as well as at numerous public libraries and (gasp) synagogues like Temple Judea in Palm Beach, at upwards of $30,000 a pop. Despite denying basic Christian doctrines, he is speaking at several churches and even preaching the Sunday sermon at one.

You should ask yourself, how did we get here? How can a reasonable, educated and pre-eminent scholar like Robert Spencer be relegated to the very fringe (if that) of the literary world, while jihadist operatives like the vicious Reza Aslan are carried on the shoulders of the media and intelligentsia like a football hero at the end of an impossibly fought game.

Who would have imagined that 12 years after 9/11 the media and academic elite would laud this pro-nuclear Khomeinist? He is funded by who knows who, and he employs vicious trolls who spend their days spreading libel and defamation about Spencer and other freedom fighters, much the way the wicked witch of the west used the flying monkeys – and they, too, are very well paid.

Needless to say, GHeller doesn't back up any of smears of Aslan. As Aslan pointed out in a FoxNews.com interview by the hostile and misguided Lauren Green, he holds numerous degrees and wrote the book as a historian, not a Muslim.

Yet Geller wants us to believe that Aslan is inferior to her Muslim-hating comrade, Robert Spencer:

Not so long ago, Robert Spencer, one of the world’s leading scholars on Islam, wrote an extraordinary book entitled “Did Muhammad Exist?” It was a brilliant, original and scholarly work investigating the legitimate questions surrounding the historical value of the early Islamic texts about Muhammad. Spencer pulled together information from ancient documents with linguistic and archaeological data in a remarkable re-evaluation of Islam’s origins.

Robert Spencer is a writer without peer and a nonpareil scholar, the author of 12 books on Islam, jihad and related topics, including two New York Times bestsellers. Yet “Did Muhammad Exist?” was ignored and dismissed by the intelligentsia, the media elite and subversive academia.

But unlike Aslan, Spencer has no documented scholarship in studying Islam. And if Aslan is disqualifed from writing about Jesus because he is a Muslim, Spencer -- a Melkitte Catholic -- is similarly disqualifed from writing about Islam. 

Further, as one critic has pointed out, Spencer does not speak or understand Arabic, which one would think would be a prerequisite to be the scholar of Islam that Spencer proclaims himself to be. Another critic says that Spencer's book "goes to an extreme in its disregard for proper source criticism, and its arguments have more in common with those skeptical and atheist critics of early Christianity than with the best of modern historical scholarship."

Geller wants us to believe that an anti-Muslim activist should be more trusted to write about Muslims than a highly credentialed religious historian's work on Jesus.

Posted by Terry K. at 9:47 PM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

Newsmax has a notable history of promoting dubious financial schemes to its readers. Now Newsmax is at it again -- this time with one that would seem to be at cross purposes to its conservative agenda.

Media Matters' Simon Maloy details how the Newsmax-published Franklin Prosperity Report is telling its audience to take advantage of a "weird trick" to go on taxpayer-funded vacations and "add $1000 to monthly Social Security checks," despite Newsmax being otherwise opposed to instances of government waste.

The Newsmax page telling you all about it says that people over 50 can "Grab up to $20,500 of the trillions in money, services,
and other goodies that Uncle Sam may have ALREADY allocated for
your family for 2013 — and find out about more than 40 unclaimed
government grants, giveaways, and subsidized trips."

This is the usual Newsmax modus operandi -- throwing in a bunch of "free" reports on top of a "free" trial subscription to two Newsmax newsletters that you must cancel at the end of the "free" period to avoid being charged for an entire year's subscription to them, at a cost of $144 for both (which Newsmax optimistically frames as "convenient automatic renewal").

Posted by Terry K. at 5:52 PM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

It seemed like a reasonable question: The AP reporter asked me if I thought the pundits and police overreacted to the Trayvon verdict when they predicted and prepared for riots, mayhem, lawlessness and all sorts of other black mob violence.

Toure and his crew on MSNBC thought so. He said anyone who anticipated violence was a racist, blah, blah, blah. The other panelists dutifully and mournfully nodded their head in agreement as they always do when Toure makes one of his pronouncements on pervasive and permanent racism.

Which is pretty much all the time.

Post-verdict, we saw some violence, with the worst in Oakland and Los Angeles. Like most black mob violence, police and media tried to pretend it was less than it was.

[...]

Now the Associated Press, Time magazine and others are wondering if all the preparations for post-Trayvon violence were overkill, a symptom of the white racism and white supremacy keeping so many black Americans down.

This is not a hypothetical question. It is the exact question city leaders in Indianapolis had to answer just a few days after the acquittal as they prepared for their annual Black Expo. For the last 10 years, Black Expo has featured some nasty violence, shootings, looting, rampaging and other mayhem after the Friday and Saturday night events released thousands of black people into the downtown.

Last year, police were ready. This year too: They turned downtown into a police state complete with towers, high-powered weapons, dogs, SWAT, tactical vehicles, infra red binoculars and police breaking up crowds of five or more and telling them to split up.

Miami Beach was faced with the same choice over the Memorial Day weekend as it prepared for the 300,000 black people in town for the annual Black Beach Week.

This event has a similar history, but way worse: Shootings. Lawlessness. Robberies. Assaults. Defiance. Property destruction. Vandalism. Drugs. And like Indianapolis, trash: Mountains and mountains of trash on the streets and beaches of this town that manages to stay pristine 51 weeks a year.

Miami Beach used the same play book: Towers. Lights. Dogs. Guns. Cops. Cops. And more cops everywhere.

After the fact, some saw the lack of violence in Indy and Miami as a success. Others wondered if all the police presence was an overreaction. Profiling.

[...]

So you make the call: Cops stopped riots. Or riot preparation is just another example of the over-policing that fills prisons with disproportionate amounts of black people.

Easy enough to settle. Call Indy. Call Miami Beach. Ask the Mayors if they plan on going cop-less next year.

Let me know.

-- Colin Flaherty, July 26 WorldNetDaily column

Posted by Terry K. at 12:51 AM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

A July 28 Associated Press article states that "Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream."

The headline on Newsmax's version of that article, however, falsely blamed it all on President Obama:

Posted by Terry K. at 11:41 PM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

A July 25 WorldNetDaily article by Aaron Klein carries the headline "The explosive secret Huma is hiding." According to Klein, "there is a glaring part of Huma Abedin’s personal story that is not being told – her ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic supremacists."

But this supposedly "secret" information was previously reported by WND months ago. And it's all the kind of guilt-by-association attacks that Klein specializes in.

Klein writes: "As WND reported last August, a manifesto commissioned by the ruling Saudi Arabian monarchy places the work of an institute that employed Abedin at the forefront of a grand plan to mobilize U.S. Muslim minorities to transform America into a Saudi-style Islamic state, according to Arabic-language researcher Walid Shoebat." Klein makes no mention of the fact that numerous questions have been raised about Shoebat's self-proclaimed ex-terrorist background, as well as the finances of the charity Shoebat operates, making him a less-than-credible source.

The other claims about Abedin rehashed by Klein from earlier WND articles are also sourced to the untrustworthy Shoebat. And Klein provides no direct link between Abedin and terrorist activity.

Surprisingly, Klein comes off as a voice of  reason on Abedin compared with WND columnist Diana West, who slimes Abedin as "a veritable Muslim Brotherhood princess."

Posted by Terry K. at 3:35 PM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

Terry Jeffrey writes in a July 26 CNSNews.com article:

Speaking in the impoverished Varginha neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Thursday, Pope Francis said that it is necessary to "give bread to the hungry," but stressed that society cannot promote the common good when it ignores the "fundamental pillars that govern a nation"--listing as the first two of these "life" and "family."

Jeffrey made no mention of the pope's main message during his Varginha speech -- that the wealthy should do more to help achieve justice for the poor:

Speaking amid cheers in the soccer field of a Rio de Janeiro shanty town, Pope Francis urged people who are more economically privileged to “never tire” of working for solidarity and social justice.

“The Brazilian people, particularly the humblest among you, can offer the world a valuable lesson in solidarity, a word that is too often forgotten or silenced, because it is uncomfortable,” he said July 25 to the residents of Varginha, a “favela” of the city hosting World Youth Day.

He continued, “I would like to make an appeal to those in possession of greater resources, to public authorities and to all people of good will who are working for social justice: never tire of working for a more just world, marked by greater solidarity.”

Is that message from the pope not important to a man who makes more than $122,000 a year?

Posted by Terry K. at 12:18 PM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

Here's another thing Joseph Farah should repent for on his self-aggrandizing little "Day of Prayer and Repetence": Telling lies to sell a discredited book.

We documented in May when WND began aggressively selling David Barton's book "The Jefferson Lies," falsely claiming that the book is "so hot and so politically incorrect, the publisher pulled it from the shelves of every bookstore in America" when, in fact, it was pulled because it was discredited. Well, the lies haven't stopped -- WND has promoted the book again, recycling the lie that it was pulled because it was "so hot and so politically incorrect" and offering it for "only $4.95 – a huge $18 discount off the normal $22.99 price." That makes it about $4.95 more than it's worth.

WND once against states that "the WND Superstore has plenty of copies and is making them available to you so you can know the truth about one of America’s greatest founding fathers." Given that it was pulled from bookstores, the publisher has disowned it, and Barton himself purchased 17,000 copies of the book, it seems all but certain that WND is getting its copies from Barton himself.

The fact that WND is still telling lies to sell a discredited book is evidence that Farah has not done what he demands others do: humble himself before God and turn from his wicked ways.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:31 AM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

Cliff Kincaid writes in a July 21 Accuracy in Media column:

The Huffington Post has perfected the smear technique of expressing shock and anger at things that conservatives say which make complete sense and are factually based. “Hannity’s Awful Reaction To Obama’s Trayvon Martin Comments” was the headline over Fox News host Sean Hannity’s reaction to President Obama comparing himself to Trayvon Martin. Hannity said he wasn’t sure how to interpret Obama’s remarks because “he was part of the Choom Gang and he smoked pot and he did a little blow” and “we know that Trayvon had been smoking pot that night.”

Obama, of course, was not deliberately comparing himself to Martin because of their common interest in smoking dope. But the comparison by Hannity was not unreasonable, since Obama was in fact a heavy dope smoker, a member of what his biographer David Maraniss called the Choom Gang, and Martin was smoking dope before he was killed by George Zimmerman following a violent confrontation. Obama had also admitted doing cocaine, or “blow.”

Given that Kincaid thinks white supremacists are credible and supports a proposed law in Uganda that would permit the execution of gays, perhaps his idea of a reasonable view is a little skewed.

Posted by Terry K. at 4:52 PM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

Burt Prelutsky writes in his July 24 WorldNetDaily column:

I have no way of knowing if Obama will give Holder the thumbs-up to make a mockery of the Bill of Rights, but my instinct tells me that Mr. Zimmerman will once again be put through the emotional and financial wringer.

After all, this is the same team that decided not to indict the club-bearing black hooligans who stood outside a Philadelphia polling place in 2008 and intimidated white voters.

In fact, the polling place the New Black Panthers stood outside of was located in a heavily black neighborhood, and nobody -- white or otherwise -- has ever come forward to say they were intimidated.

Posted by Terry K. at 2:43 PM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

Here's something we haven't seen in a while: Newsmax columnist James Hirsen mentioning his buddy Mel Gibson.

In a May 22 column on the battle berween Harvey Weinstein and Warner Bros. over the title of the upcoming film "The Butler," Hirsen recounts a similar battle a few years before:

Weinstein was actually on the other side of a film title dispute about a decade ago, when he asserted a claim on the title “The Passion,” based on a title registration with the MPAA for a 1987 novel of the same name.
 
Mel Gibson had originally planned on using “The Passion” title for a movie that he was producing and directing, a film that ultimately went on to experience huge box-office success under a new name, “The Passion of the Christ.”

Hirsen doesn't mention, however, that he played a role in promoting Gibson's film.

As we've documented, Hirsen devoted an entire chapter of his 2005 book "Hollywood Nation" to Gibson and "The Passion of the Christ," in which he admits that he "would visit Icon's (Gibson's production company) offices on numerous occasions and would be in close contact with Mel and his associates" in promoting and defending the film.

Hirsen also heads an organization that owns a 26-acre tract of land in western Pennsylvania purchased for the purpose of permitting Gibson's father to found a branch of a dissident ultraconservative Catholic sect that rejects modern church reforms. Hirsen did not disclose his insider relationship with Gibson while using his Newsmax column to promote Gibson's work.

Hirsen has endeavored to paper over Gibson's history of hateful and bigoted remarks; he only disclosed his relationship with Gibson in coming to his defense in a 2010 outbreak of hatred.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:37 PM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

WorldNetDaily's Joseph Farah has been pushing for a "National Day of Prayer and Repentance" on Sept. 11 despite his own utter lack of remorse for all the lies about President Obama and other ideological enemies he has used his website to spread. Farah promotes his hypocritical little day of prayer again in his July 24 WND column:

I know. I know. There have been many “days of prayer” in America – even several this year! So what’s the difference between those and the one I called for 9-11-13?

Simple. Note the word “repentance.” That’s the key. This is a day of prayer not for the non-believer. This is exclusively for what I call the “remnant” of true believers across America, who number in the millions, to trust in and glory in the power and promises of God to deliver us from evil – if we only follow His prescription.

And what is that prescription?

It’s found very clearly in 2 Chronicles 7:14. It’s really worth taking another look at it. It’s worth studying. After all, these are the words of God as recorded by Solomon.

It’s very simple, yet very profound.

“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

God tells “His people” that if they do four things, He will do three things:

Our prescription is to:

humble ourselves

pray

seek His face

turn from our wicked ways.

That last one is about repentance. That’s the very definition of repentance – turning away from evil and back toward God. Repentance is an ongoing matter – not a once-in-a-lifetime event. And, along with humility, it’s where most believers fall short.

Again, Farah demands repentence from others while refusing to repent for his own sins.

That makes Farah a cynical, hypocritical charlatan who is still pretending his "day of prayer" isn't about advancing his vicious, hateful, and completely dishonest anti-Obama agenda. 

And he wants us to repent before he makes any offer to do so? Please.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:48 AM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

Only CNSNews.com would consider an effort to prevent cancer to be a waste of money.

The  latest entry under CNS' Golden Hookah Awards (formerly Waste Watch) is a July 24 article by Eric Scheiner complaining that "The National Institutes of Health has awarded $544,188 to the University of California this year for a study on how to boost the number of young girls getting Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccinations in Los Angeles County."

Scheiner doesn't explain why he considers this money to be a waste; rather, he tries to fearmonger about the vaccine, hyping "772 serious adverse side effects, including 32 deaths, among the millions of doses administered to young girls between June 2006 and December 2008."

Scheiner then skews what the Centers for Disease Control has said about HPV vaccine to suggest that it's on the verge of banning it:

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it continues to recommend HPV vaccination -- "based on information available today."

Along with the Food and Drug Administration, the CDC examined adverse effects from the Gardasil HPV vaccine from June 2006 through December 2008.

Of the 23 million doses administered during that period, it counted 12,424 adverse events, 776 of which it described as "serious," including 32 deaths.

Neverthelss, the CDC concluded that the vaccine's benefits continue to outweigh the risks at the present time.

CDC says it continues to "closely monitor" the vaccine's safety and will take additional action, if warranted, to protect the public.

In fact, theCDC has been much more affirmative about the overall safety of the vaccine that Scheiner suggests:

To date, adverse events reported to VAERS  are consistent with those identified during the vaccine’s pre-licensure clinical trials, and reporting patterns have remained unchanged, with no new concerns, since a summary of VAERS reports was published in 2009.  

VAERS data continue to be routinely monitored and analyzed by CDC and FDA, with a detailed review of every serious VAERS report.

[...]

Post-licensure safety monitoring from June 2006 through March 2013 continues to show:

• No new or unusual patterns of adverse events to suggest a HPV vaccine safety concern.
• Syncope (fainting) can occur among adolescents who receive vaccines, including HPV vaccine.  To decrease the risk of falls and other injuries that might follow syncope, CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommends that clinicians consider observing patients for 15 minutes after vaccination. 

Posted by Terry K. at 4:58 PM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, August 14, 2013 10:13 AM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink