WND's Kupelian Does Not Like Cities, City Folk
Topic: WorldNetDaily

You know you're in for a doozy of a piece when David Kupelian begins his Aug. 16 WorldNetDaily column by likening all big cities to Babel:

There is something a little strange about big cities.

The enigmatic biblical story of the tower of Babel revolves around this strange something that occurs when large numbers of people come together in one place and form a great hive.

It’s not that something bad has to happen – it doesn’t, especially if the people governing that city are highly principled and grounded in reality. But how often does that happen?

Kupelian ghoes on to cite "the abandonment of traditional Judeo-Christian values that has led to today’s devastating social, moral and financial corruption," which mostly happens in big cities.

This leads, inevitably to invoking the urban liberal/rural conservative divide with a map of presidential voting by county -- utterly irrelevant since people, not counties, vote for president -- and then perhaps not so inevitably to bashing transgenders:

My childhood home was just outside of D.C., in Montgomery County, Md., one of the most affluent and – especially today – ideologically progressive counties in the nation. To illustrate, Montgomery County has been in the news for passing county ordinances permitting men to frequent women’s restrooms if they “feel” that they are really women – you know, “inside.” Behaviors and “orientations” that a generation ago would have been regarded as both pathological and possibly criminal are today enshrined in law and culture alike. And such upper middle-class suburban communities that serve as enclaves for the federal government’s hundreds of thousands of well-paid employees – most of them liberal – serve as natural proving grounds for such wildly progressive policies.

Then, back to the utterly inevitable side, Kupelian blames the ills of big cities on liberals in general and Obama in particular:

The real reason America’s big cities are dragging the rest of the nation kicking and screaming into socialism is that, for decades, those cities have been run by arrogant, power-mad, progressive leftists. Want to know why Detroit looks like a war zone bombed by an enemy power? It’s because it has been run for so long by leaders like former Mayor Coleman Young, who reigned over Detroit for almost two decades. Young was secretly a member of the Communist Party USA – an organization loyal to an enemy power!

What on earth do we expect to happen when, instead of elevating worthy statesmen as leaders, we instead turn our cities over to parasitic unions and plundering politicians dedicated to tearing down everything America has traditionally stood for, everything that has made this nation – including her shining cities – the envy of the world?

What could be worse than turning our thriving metropolises, the engines of civilization and progress, over to corrupt leftist “progressives” – a euphemism for neo-Marxists – with no clue how to run a candy store, let alone a great city? The only thing worse would be to make the same mistake with the entire country – which of course is exactly what we have done in elevating a corrupt Chicago politician and leftist revolutionary to the presidency of the United States of America.

Of course it Obama's fault. Why wouldn't it be?

Where Did Noel Sheppard Get His Radio Ratings Numbers From?
Topic: NewsBusters

Noel Sheppard writes in an Aug. 19 NewsBusters post:

NewsBusters reported Friday that counter to claims by the liberal media, conservative talk radio host Sean Hannity fired the Cumulus network due to his concerns about how the owners are managing their stations.

Data obtained by NewsBusters show that Hannity is actually right, and that in the key demographic of people aged 25 to 54, Cumulus has lost roughly 50 percent of its listeners since buying the stations in September 2011.

But where is Sheppard getting his numbers from? "Data obtained by NewsBusters" is utterly meaningless unless he provides a source.

Further, radio ratings tend to be proprietary and not publicly available -- one must pay to obtain that information. It's likely that Sheppard is violating somebody's confidentiality agreement by reporting these murky numbers.

That's one reason why Sheppard has left them so murky. Another reason might be that he obtained them from Hannity or his representatives, which would explain how they exclusively focus on denigrating Cumulus.

Because he won't tell us whose ratings numbers these are or how he got them -- and because he clearly has an agenda -- Sheppard's numbers simply can't be taken at face value. Yet people like Jeffrey Lord of the American Spectator have done just that.

Given the many things for which Sheppard has had to issue corrections (and the many other things he has yet to correct), he has not earned that kind of trust.

NEW ARTICLE -- 'The Newsroom' Is Right: WND Makes Up Stuff
Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily and Joseph Farah engage in their usual thin-skinned whining about the HBO show portraying WND has having fabricated a story. But "The Newsroom" is more correct than it may know about WND's bogus "journalism." Read more >>

NewsBusters Defends Jennifer Rubin By Heathering Her
Topic: NewsBusters

Wannabe new-media guru Matthew Sheffield uses an Aug. 15 NewsBusters post to mount a weird defense of conservative Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin from former Post ombudsman Patrick Pexton's opnion that she should be fired "because she’s just plain bad." After citing some of Pexton's criticisms, Sheffield writes:

There are several laugh-lines in the above paragraphs, one of which is Pexton's claim that Rubin "parrots and peddles every silly right-wing theory to come down the pike." If Pexton had any actual working knowledge of the conservative blogosphere, he would know that many conservatives dislike Rubin because they believe she is not enough of a team player and does not endorse arguments they see as valid. But that doesn't matter. Liberals accuse her of being a parrot for far-right beliefs so it must be true.

That's right -- Sheffield's "defense" of Rubin is to Heather her by declaring she's "not enough of a team player."

Sheffield then turns his ire in the direction of a different Post blogger:

In truth, if any Post blogger deserves to be fired, it is Ezra Klein for his creation of the infamous Journo-list where politicians and liberal news reporters and opinioneers collaborated on how to shape the news to become more liberal. Nothing that Rubin has actually or allegedly done was ever as outrageous and abusive of reader trust than Journo-list. Klein created it before he worked for the Post but was never fired after it was exposed while he was in the paper's employ.

This from a man who, along with everyone else at the MRC, has been utterly silent about Groundswell, where conservative news reporters and opinioneers collaborated on how to shape the news to become more conservative. What a hypocrite.

WND's Race-Baiting Fail
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily really wants us to know that black kids killed another white person.

In an unbylined Aug. 20 WND article headlined "Police: Black Teens Kill White Man 'For Fun,'" we are told that Australian baseball player Chris Lane was killed in Oklahoma "by three black teenagers who simply 'wanted to see someone die.'"

WND included a picture of who it claimed were the suspects:

Gosh, they sure look black, don't they? That's very much in line with WND's fearmongering over "black mobs" that it has given Colin Flaherty space to peddle over the past year or so.

But it appears WND was too enamored of its race-baiting prospects to tell the truth. Compare WND's picture of Michael Jones to the picture of jones posted at numerous other news sites:

Not only does the real Jones not look anything like WND's version of him, he's pretty clearly not black.

Will WND correct its story? Or does it consider Jones to be an honorary black person because he (allegedly) took part in a murder?

UPDATE: WND has quietly updated the story with new photos of the suspects and deleted any mention of the suspects' race -- even changing the headline to "Teens kill baseball player 'for fun.'" WND has not alerted its readers to the fact that the article has been corrected.

The change, however, undercuts all the race-baiting that has been going on in the comment thread on the article. 

UPDATE 2: Despite the fact that WND changed the story (without telling readers, of course), WND's Twitter account is still promoting the original race-baiting headline several hours after the fact:

MRC's Dan Joseph: My Speculation About Transgenders Is Totally Accurate!
Topic: Media Research Center

Last week, Media Research Center videographer Dan Joseph embarrassed himself last week by pretending to be a transgender woman -- which, in Joseph's case, meant dressing in gym clothes and talking with a lisp, while still wearing his goatee -- and asking to use the women's locker room, all for the purpose of mocking a new transgender-rights law in California. Joseph's callous mocking has drawn the ire of transgender advocacy groups.

Now, Joseph is trying to defend himself. In an Aug. 19 tweet aimed at Media Matters' examination of his video -- which points out that "Transgender women don't typically walk around in men's clothing will full faces of facial hair. They don't typically refer to themselves as 'a transgender.' And they certainly don't stand outside of women's restrooms announcing themselves and asking passerbys for permission to "go in there... and change and shower and stuff" -- Joseph responds: "mmfa takes on my video on transgender bathroom law.But nothing inaccurate about our description of laws potential."

Huh? Speculation -- which is what "potential" is -- is neither accurate nor inaccurate. It's just speculation.

Also notice that Joseph makes no effort to apologize for his crude mockery of transgenders, something that is also missing from the remainder of his Twitter account. But given that his fellow MRC co-workers have transgender freak-outs on a surprisingly regular basis as part of their anti-gay agenda, such lack of common decency is to be expected from Joseph.

WND Still Trying Not To Go Birther on Ted Cruz
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily's lack of enthusiasm for questions about Ted Cruz's eligibility to be president continues in a surprising manner: It farmed out the story of Cruz releasing his birth certificate by copying-and-pasting a story from the Dallas Morning News.

WND followed that up with an article by Garth Kant featuring birther Rep. Steve Stockman trying to split hairs:

To hear Rep. Steve Stockman, R-Texas, describe it, the difference between President Obama and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas – on the question of their eligibility for the highest office in the land – may be a case of comparing apples and oranges.

The congressman said with Cruz, it is a legal question of whether he is eligible to serve as president – whereas the issue with Obama is not really about where was born, but whether his documentation is authentic.

Cruz released a copy of his birth certificate Sunday to the Dallas Morning News, as some have begun questioning the possible presidential contender’s eligibility, just as many have questioned Obama’s eligibility since 2008 when the argument was first raised by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

The Cruz birth certificate shows he was born in Canada in 1970 to an American mother, which gave him American citizenship.

Obama, on the other hand, is the subject of Stockman’s proposed legislation calling for a congressional investigation of both the president’s constitutional eligibility and the authenticity of the birth certificate he released to show he was born in Hawaii.

In an exclusive interview with WND, Stockman said, in the case of Obama, it is more of a question about the validity of the documentation as well as his forthrightness, whereas with Cruz, it is more of a matter for legal and constitutional scholars to decide.

Kant's uncritical presentation of Stockman's opinion on Cruz's citizenship conflicts with WND's longtime insistence, as articulated in a 2011 column by R.D. Skidmore, that to meet the "natural born citizen" requirement for the presidency, both parents must be U.S. citizens. Kant concedes this later in the article when he states that "there are many more nuances" to the issue.

As WND is prone to do, Kant goes on to rehash allegations that Obama's birth certificate is forged while ignoring all evidence to the contrary.

Newsmax's Walsh Smears La Raza
Topic: Newsmax

James Walsh writes in his Aug. 16 Newsmax column:

Back in July 2011, when Obama spoke to members of La Raza (a radical immigration advocacy group), he stated, “Now I know some people would want me to bypass Congress and change the laws on my own . . . the idea of doing on my own is very tempting. But that’s not how the system works. That’s not how democracy functions.”

La Raza is hardly a "radical" group -- unless you consider civil rights for Hispanics "radical" (which, given his hostility toward immigrants, Walsh probably does). Further, its policy initiatives much more diverse than immigration, covering civil rights, education, and health.

No, Joseph Farah, 'The Newsroom' Is Still Right: WND Makes Stuff Up
Topic: WorldNetDaily

It was inevitable: Joseph Farah has devoted a column to WorldNetDaily's cameo appearance in HBO's "The Newsroom," with all the usual thin-skinned ranting and dishonest defense that implies:

Now, talk about irony: WND boasts among its full-time reportorial staff two reporters who are experts on Islamic terrorist groups. More than that, they are the only two reporters in the world who regularly talk to Islamic terrorists. One of them, Aaron Klein, a multiple New York Times best-selling author, wrote a book about his experience called “Schmoozing With Terrorists.” No reporter at any other news organization in the world could write such a book, because no reporter at any other news organization does it. (WND boasts the only two.) Take my word for it: Our guys are the least likely journalists to be fooled into reporting about a fake terrorist organization.

Except, of course, that they have. As we pointed out in WND's previous attack on "The Newsroom," Klein falsely accused the charity Islamic Relief of having terrorist ties and raising money for nonexistent orphans. Or did Farah forget about that because the article was purge d from the WND website and replaced with a retraction so legalistic it sounds like it was written by attorneys in a desperate attempt to avoid a libel lawsuit from Islamic Relief.

Farah continues by asking, "Want some more irony?" Sure, why not? Lay it on us, Joe:

The plot line mirrors closely an actual journalistic faux pas committed by another news organization some might consider a competitor to WND. Last February, Breitbart.com ran a bogus story reporting an allegation that a group named “Friends of Hamas” had donated money to organizations connected to Chuck Hagel, who was then under consideration for secretary of defense. While Hagel had plenty in his background for which he should be ashamed, there was no such group as “Friends of Hamas.” Again, this is not a mistake WND could possibly make, given the expertise of our reporting staff.

Meanwhile, WND has made the mistakes of  treating an April Fool's story as real, hyping a bogus "Kenyan birth certificate" for Barack Obama, and made a claim about Obama that was so bogus even fellow birthers were compelled to shoot it down -- among many other mistakes. Oh, and spent seven years fighting a defamation lawsuit from a man who WND smeared as a "suspected drug dealer" before abruptly flip-flopping before the case was to go to trial and retracted the claim in an out-of-court settlement.

Farah has even more irony to spread:

The irony and absurdity doesn’t end there, sadly. HBO is the same cable network that in 2012 became infamous for a show called “Game of Thrones,” which featured a prop of the severed head of President George W. Bush on a stick. Even HBO was forced to apologize for that episode.

Remember that Farah runs a website that placed Hillary Clinton's autobiography in a bookstore's science-fiction section and portrayed Obama as the Antichrist. Funny, we don't recall Farah apologizing for any of that.

And how's this for irony? Joseph Farah, who's complaining that HBO "had to make up mistakes committed by us," has been caught telling lie after lie after lie.

Speaking of lies, Farah tells another one here:

Earlier in the episode, another character in the show disparaged WND with the following line: “Keeping in mind that WorldNetDaily reported that Obama murdered his gay lover.” Of course, that slur, too, was a complete fabrication.

Farah has also apparently forgotten that WND posted an Oct. 12, 2012, article by Jerome Corsi with the screaming headline "TRINITY CHURCH MEMBERS REVEAL OBAMA SHOCKER!" in which it is strongly hinted that  Obama played a role in the deaths of at least one gay man who "was murdered to protect Obama."

The score? "The Newsroom" 1, WND 0.

NewsBusters' Pierre Still Dishonestly Shielding Catholic Church From Priest Abuse Scandal
Topic: NewsBusters

Dave Pierre is NewsBusters' resident apologist for the sexual abuse conducted by Catholic Church priests, even going so far as to claim that one bishop's paying off abusive priests rather than subjecting them to the criminal justice system was "fast and economical."

Pierre is at it again in an Aug. 12 NewsBusters post proclaiming that former Milwaukee Archbishop (and current cardinal and head of the New York City diocese) was vindicated over a judge's ruling that the creation of a cemetery trust fund that effectively shielded more than $50 million from exposure to lawsuits from victims of abusive priests was permitted. Pierre insists that "Dolan created the trust for the explicit purpose of protecting donors' donations and having them used as they were intended – for the care of over 100 Catholic cemeteries in the archdiocese."

Pierre didn't mention that Dolan specifically stated that he created the trust fund because "I foresee an improved protection of these funds from any legal claim and liability," which would seem to belie any vindication Pierre is claiming. Just because Dolan's creation of the fund is legally permitted doesn't mean that shielding the funds from abuse lawsuits wasn't a motivation for creating it.

Pierre then turns his venom on David Clohessy, head of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, calling him "nasty" and a "bigot."

Perhaps if the church Pierre so zealously defends hadn't turned such a blind eye to abuse by its priests for so long, Clohessy -- who himself was abused by a priest -- wouldn't have to be so "nasty."

Meet Porter Stansberry, WND Financial Columnist
Topic: WorldNetDaily

The last time we checked in on WorldNetDaily financial columnist Porter Stansberry, he was ready to flee the country while facing a $1.5 million sanction from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Well, Stansberry still writes for WND, and he's still as shady as ever.

Media Matters details how, despite his shady history, Stansberry is still championed not only by WND but other conservative websites and personalities as well. Further, Newsmax is among the conservative organizations that have rented out their mailing lists to Stansberry & Associates.

Media Matters has also documented how Stansberry has no problem using racial and homophobic epithets on his radio show for "premium" subscribers, denouncing as "fucking bullshit" that people get mad at him over it.

Again: Stansberry is a WND columnist. Which means they apparently have no problem with such behavior.

CNS Readers Unload Their Misogyny on Sandra Fluke
Topic: CNSNews.com

We've documented the misogyny and gay-bashing the readers of CNSNews.com have become known for in the website's comment sections. The readers show their classlessness once again in an Aug. 16 CNS article by Susan Jones on "a brief interview on MSNBC" with Sandra Fluke. Jones didn't mention that tirade of misogyny Rush Limbaugh hurled at her, though she makes sure to mention that Fluke "posed for a glamor shoot in Vogue's September issue."

And it appears that the slut-shaming skills of CNS readers haven't abated, for they attack Fluke with renewed sneering vitriol, with multiple regurgitations of Limbaugh's "slut" insult:

CNS polices its forums very lightly, if at all, and such vileness is typically tolerated, if not encouraged by posting such articles in the first place.

WND Columnist: Bring Back the Poorhouse!
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Jane Chastain writes in her Aug. 14 WorldNetDaily column:

Some of you are old enough to remember an admonition from your parents to work hard and save a portion of what you earn so that “you don’t wind up in the poorhouse.” That was a fate worse than death to my father’s generation because it signified abject failure, loss of pride and a complete dependence on welfare, most likely for the remainder of one’s life.

The poorhouse, or more commonly the poor farm, was a place of last resort for those who could not support themselves in the 19th and early 20th century. Residents were required to work, to the extent they were able, in order to provide for their daily needs. Accommodations were sparse, and pleasures were few.

Most of our parents and grandparents of that era didn’t have big houses or drive fancy cars, but they had good-sized savings accounts. Why? When hard times come – and they invariably do – our folks didn’t want to end up in the poorhouse.

Chastain's justification for her poorhouse nostalgia? A Fox News program:

Last week, Fox News aired a special, “The Great Food Stamp Binge,” that should be required viewing for every American. The star of the show was a 29-year-old musician/surfer name Jason Greenslate. Jason is leading and promoting “The Rat Life” – living off others – so that he can wake up at noon, spend his days on the beach hitting on chicks and his nights drinking and partying with friends.

Jason proudly held up his EBT card, which was designed to look like a credit card to take away the stigma of using food stamps. He walked reporter John Roberts through the ease of obtaining such a card and then took Roberts grocery shopping where he hit the gourmet section and finished off with a lobster.

[...]

Jason is an example of why we need the modern-day equivalent of the poorhouse, where all individuals and families going through hard times and have no resources can go to be cared for and helped to get back on their feet. While there, all able-bodied people would be expected to pull their own weight and share chores. Entertainment would be minimal. One’s free time would be spent on education and job training. Once marketable skills are achieved, an agency would place these people in real jobs.

Chastain won't tell you that Greenslate is hardly representative of the typical food stamp recipient, or that the Fox News special was specifically designed to denigrate food stamp users as "losers" (which a Fox News reporter did, in fact, call them during the show).

Noel Sheppard Defends Trump's Right To Not Be Asked About His Birtherism
Topic: NewsBusters

Is Noel Sheppard a secret birther? The way he's defending Donald Trump, he just might be.

In an Aug. 14 NewsBusters post, Sheppard blames ABC's Jonathan Karl for having the temerity to bring up Trump's longtime birtherism in an interview with him last week, and he parroted Trump's protests that he would never have talked about President Obama's birth certificate if Karl hadn't brought it up. "Not surprisingly, Trump was right," Sheppard added.

Sheppard did concede that "Trump could end all this birther discussion by simply saying that he has moved on and wants to now exclusively talk about what's ailing the nation," but he then huffs that "it's clear that the media want to discuss the birther issue moving into the 2014 midterm elections in order to depict Republicans as being racist." We didn't know Sheppard could read the minds of reporters to divine that purported motivation

Sheppard followed that up by pushing an old Republican canard:

Readers should recall George Stephanopoulos bringing up birth control at a Republican presidential debate in January 2012 despite this not being an issue during the campaign up to that point.

This of course metastacized into the Republican War on Women with everyone in the media piling on a contrived controversy.

In fact, as Media Matters reminds us, debate participant Rick Santorum had been asked about his views on birth control -- which included that states have a right to ban it -- a few days earlier.

Does Sheppard think the public had no right to know about that stance? Apparently so.

WND-Scott Lively Whitewash Watch
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily has long served as a mouthpiece anti-gay activist Scott Lively and whitewashed just how virulent and Draconian his gay-bashing views are. It does so again in a Sept. 16 article by Bob Unruh on the latest developments in a lawsuit against Lively for his anti-gay activism.

Unruh follows in his employer's footsteps by misleadingly portraying Lively's actions in Uganda as merely engaging in "biblical preaching ... against homosexual behavior." In fact, as we've documented, Lively has been accused of working with anti-gay Ugandans to propose a law that would permit the death penalty for mere homosexuality.

Unruh is reporting a judge's ruling that a lawsuit against Lively from Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) can proceed. It's telling that Unruh does not provide a link to the ruling, which gives him free rein to mischaracterize and even lie what it says.

Right off the bat, Unruh tells a lie by writing, "SMUG alleges Lively must be punished for criticizing homosexuality, calling his speech a 'crime against humanity' in violation of 'international law.'" In fact, SMUG has stated that "none of Plaintiff’s claims are predicated on any speech or writing of the Defendant, odious and ignorant as they may be. His speech is merely circumstantial evidence of the discriminatory intent and motive behind his campaign to deprive LGBTI persons of fundamental rights and thus admissible to help prove the elements of the conspiracy to persecute."

Unruh also claims that the judge in the case "sided with the 'gays' in his first paragraph, explaining that while SMUG is made up of groups “that advocate for the fair and equal treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people,' Lively is an 'American citizen residing in Springfield, Mass., who, according to the complaint, holds himself out to be an expert on what he terms the ‘gay movement.’” Unruh does not explain how an accurate description of both parties in the lawsuit constitues having "sided with the 'gays'" (WND traditionally and illogically puts "gays" in scare quotes).

Unruh writes that "Lively sought to have the complaint dismissed recently when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Alien Tort Statute doesn’t apply to foreign territory. The court said the law cannot be used to challenge foreign conduct in courts in the United States. The ruling came down in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum." But Unruh doesn't explain the judge's finding that Kiobel does not apply to Lively:

Two facts alleged in this case distinguish it from Kiobel. First, unlike the British and Dutch corporations, Defendant is an American citizen residing within the venue of this court in Springfield, Massachusetts. Second, read fairly, the Amended Complaint alleges that the tortious acts committed by Defendant took place to a substantial degree within the United States, over many years, with only infrequent actual visits to Uganda.

The fact that the impact of Defendant’s conduct was felt in Uganda cannot deprive Plaintiff of a claim. Defendant’s alleged actions in planning and managing a campaign of repression in Uganda from the United States are analogous to a terrorist designing and manufacturing a bomb in this country, which he then mails to Uganda with the intent that it explode there.

The rest of Unruh's article uncritically rehashes Lively's defense without any mention of claims by SMUG that rebut them.