It appears that NewsBusters likes its liberals the way Fox News likes them: in name only.

Under the headline "Normally Level-headed Lib Kirsten Powers Goes Berserk at Daily Beast," Ken Shepherd writes in a Sept. 19 NewsBusters post about his disappointment that the Powers wrote something liberal:

"The Republican Party is destroying America" with a "murder-suicide" pact in the U.S. Congress to "shut down" the government.

You might expect such over-the-top language from anyone at MSNBC and quite a few at CNN, but, alas, that's from the pen of one Kirsten Powers, a liberal Fox News contributor who has struck us in the past as a rather rational lefty who doesn't resort to the same tired talking points. After all, she is a pro-life Christian who was great on the Kermit Gosnell issue. And let's not forget she's been good on the Benghazi matter. But today, however, she was railing that Tea Party-friendly congressmen in Washington "seem determined to take us all down with them."

At no point in her September 19 piece did it occur to Powers that President Obama is being equally if not more intransigent by issuing inflexible veto threats rather than entertaining some concessions like, I don't know, a bill to suspend implementation of ObamaCare -- including the individual mandate -- to AFTER the 2014 midterms, which could then serve as a national referendum on ObamaCare: If you love ObamaCare, vote for Democrats. Hate it and want it scrapped or significantly gutted, vote for the GOP.

[...]

On most other issues, Powers has been a staunch but intellectually honest liberal pundit. It's a shame she's sticking with the liberal media's herd mentality on this issue.

Of course, NewsBusters does what it can to enforce a herd mentality on the right by going all Heather on anyone who dare deviates from conservative dogma. Why won't Shepherd let conservatives do what he's encouraging Powers to do?

Posted by Terry K. at 11:05 PM EDT

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Bradlee Dean does a fine job of playing the victim in his Sept. 18 WorldNetDaily column, parlaying an online petition into a conspiracy against him and his ministry:

This week I received some information that my ministry was being petitioned by change.org, which is funded by none other than the international criminal George Soros, in an attempt to prevent my participation at the Minnesota State Fair. We also became aware of the fact that he who is petitioning the ministry is representing himself under a feigned manner and has no affiliation with the Fair. Outside of the fact that I have nothing to hide, the truth and facts, which bear forth my fruit, will expose their lies and those advocating crimes toward our American republic.

Dean might be taken a little more seriously if he didn't begin his alleged recitation of "the truth and facts" with apparent falsehoods.

First, change.org did not petition Dean -- change.org is an online platform used to circulate petitions. Dean offers no evidence that anyone in the employ of change.org has targeted him.

Second, neither the Soros Files nor Discover the Networks list change.org as a recipient of Soros money. Earlier this year, change.org received a $15 million investment from a trust created by the founder of eBay.

Then, Dean does something peculiar: He responded to the petition's charge that his ministry "crosses the line by advocating violence" not by denying it but, rather, by ticking off random instances of children molested or killed by presumably gay adults and playing guilt-by-association with others. Like this:

What of Kevin Jennings? Obama’s first “safe school czar” is the founder of GLSEN, that is, Gay, Lesbian, Straight, Education Network. Kevin Jennings wrote a forward [sic] to a book called “Queering the elementary education” [sic].

Jennings is a hero and icon of the organization NAMBLA, the North American Man Boy Love Association. NAMBLA’s motto: “Sex before eight before it is too late.”

Dean provides no evidence that Jennings is a "hero and icon," and his foreword to "Queering Elementary Education" has nothing to do with sex; Jennings called for valuing "every human being as a precious gift" and looked forward to the day when students could "walk down our streets without fear."

Dean laughably concluded his column by stating, "Friends, this is not about attacking any particular people," pretending he hadn't just spent the entire column attacking particular people.

Once again, Dean's column also includes a request for donations to fund his lawsuit against Rachel Maddow, despite the fact that the lawsuit has been dead for months.

So where are those "truth and facts" Dean promised? History shows he's not capable of telling the truth.

Posted by Terry K. at 6:35 PM EDT

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Nicholas Guariglia uses a Sept. 24 Accuracy in Media column to rant about people smarter than he is:

None of this is to say climate change is not happening.  It is to say, however, that if climate change is in fact happening, it may be due to heretofore unmeasured-and, in retrospect, somewhat obvious-”natural variables,” such as the behavior of the Sun.  Nevertheless, President Obama is gearing up for a push of his anti-CO2 climate change agenda, this time by unconstitutionally using the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to bureaucratically enforce, through fiat regulation, what his administration cannot get passed democratically through Congress.  And remember, this is the same EPA that spawned the outbreak of the once nearly-eradicated malaria by arbitrarily banning the insecticide DDT (to the silence of environmentalists, humanitarians, and journalists the world over).

This phenomenon-the trillions wasted by the IPCC; the millions dead because of the EPA-is the result of what can only be called “the credentialist fallacy.”  The credentialist fallacy is a dogmatic interpretation of reality, one where greater importance is placed on an authority’s credentials than on its merits.

Meanwhile, Guariglia provides no credentials whatsoever to back up his pontifications, and boy, does it show.

Take, for instance, Guariglia's laughable claim that the EPA is responsible for "millions dead" because it banned DDT. First, the EPA could not (and did not) ban DDT use outside the U.S., and as we've documented, there was never a global ban on DDT usage.

Guariglia also conveniently ignores the fact that, as we've also noted, malaria-carrying mosquitoes were developing a resistance to DDT due to its overuse, reducing its effectiveness.

We would have examined Guariglia's arguments on the merits whether or not he has any credentials to speak of (which, again, he doesn't). And the merits of  Guariglia's mix of anti-intellectualism and anti-environmentalism is decidedly lacking.

Guariglia later writes, "An ignoramus has no business arguing the periodic table with a chemist." As he has demonstrated, an ignoramus also has no business ranting about the environment.

Posted by Terry K. at 3:56 PM EDT

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Last Wednesday, the great usurper, Barack Hussein Obama, after having been indicted by an Ocala, Fla.,citizens’ grand jury, was convicted by a people’s court of defrauding the American people and Floridians by proffering them with a fake birth certificate. See CitizensGrandJury.com.

As readers of this column and WND know too well, Obama is not a natural-born citizen eligible to be president of the United States, as he was not born in this country to two American citizen parents. However, to justify his fraud and his elections to the highest office in the land, and after years of inquiry, in 2011 the Obama White House posted on its website a birth certificate purporting to show him having been born in Hawaii. The problem is, however, according to forensic experts, the birth certificate is altered and forged.

The day of reckoning has come. Obama, having failed to plead in response to the indictment that was served upon him, waived his right to a jury trial. Thumbing his nose at We the People, as the citizens’ prosecutor, I appeared before a citizens’ court judge and presented evidence from Cold Case Posse investigator Michael Zullo showing that Obama tricked voters into electing him in 2008 and 2012. As a result, the citizens’ judge found him guilty on two counts of falsifying information to federal and state election officials. He was thus sentenced to the maximum prison term for these offenses of 10 years and ordered to immediately surrender himself into the custody of the citizens of the United States and Florida.

Of course, Obama will not willingly obey the law of the people. He will attempt to hide behind the iron fences of the White House, perhaps cowering under his desk for fear that the people will rise up and demand his ouster.

On Nov. 19, 2013, a day that will hopefully live on in the history of our once great republic, I call upon millions of Americans who have been appalled and disgusted by Obama’s criminality – his Muslim, socialist, anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, anti-white, pro-illegal immigrant, pro-radical gay and lesbian agenda – among other outrages, to descend on Washington, D.C., en masse, and demand that he leave town and resign from office.

-- Larry Klayman, Sept. 20 WorldNetDaily column

Posted by Terry K. at 9:45 AM EDT

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In case you were wondering if NewsBusters associate editor Noel Sheppard faced any meaningful discipline from his employer for his second use in a year of an anti-Semitic image, the answer appears to be no -- Sheppard is still blogging away.

Sheppard has been a busy fella of late. Not only did he use the anti-Semitic image, write a post that required a correction and go on a massive Heathering fit, he even found time to squeeze in some of his favorite headline cliches:

Newt Gingrich Smacks Down Robert Reich on Debt Ceiling: 'This Is Historical Baloney'

Bill Kristol Schools Tavis Smiley on Why Republicans Oppose ObamaCare

NewsBusters clearly has no problem with such lame, shoddy and offensive work -- Sheppard is still employed there.

Posted by Terry K. at 10:56 PM EDT

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We said we'd get back to Joseph Farah's Sept. 18 WorldNetDaily column, and so here we are.

The main thrust of Farah's column is to engage in Matthew Shepard trutherism:

A new book, “The Book of Matt,” written by a sympathetic “gay” man, Stephen Jiminez, finds that virtually everything that has been reported about Matthew Shepard’s death is wrong.

To recap the story, Shepard was a homosexual in Laramie, Wyo., who was unquestionably tortured and murdered in 1998 and left hanging on a fence. It was not until a day later that his body was discovered.

Police found a bloody gun linked to the crime along with Shepard’s shoes and wallet in the trunk of two men – Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson.

On those facts, there is little question.

But, according to the new book, the story told by the murderers that they killed Shepard because he was a homosexual who came on to them is flat wrong. Shepard was not a martyr in the battle with homophobia. He was simply the victim of consensual homosexual relationship gone bad – as too many do.

Nevertheless, over 15 years, Shepard has achieved a degree of sainthood in the homosexual movement. He became the poster boy for hate-crimes laws, movies, songs, books, scholarships and disinformation galore. He’s been an icon of the phony war on homophobia that has chilled free speech and free association.

It turns out the hero was a meth dealer. He and the lead attacker were also friends and lovers. His death was the result of a squabble over a large amount of meth he had in his possession.

Farah doesn't mention that McKinney -- the person that Shepard was supposedly  in a "consensual homosexual relationship" with -- mounted a "gay panic" defense during his trial, and he doesn't mention that McKinney has denied any such relationship.

Most importantly, Farah doesn't tell you that Jimenez (whose name Farah misspells) served as a producer for a 2004 segment of ABC's "20/20" that first forwarded such reality-denying claims, which set off a wave of Shepard revisionism at WND when it first aired.

Further, as Media Matters points out, Jimenez is also a friend of Henderson's defense attorney, which further raises questions about his objectivity.

Again, Farah also wrote this in his column:

But there’s a lesson to be learned here for those who prefer the truth to actions based on lies: Some unscrupulous people will twist and distort reality to achieve their objectives. In fact, some will do anything to get their way politically. They will use any means necessary – including, but not limited to, total fabrication.

Farah most definitely won't tell you that he will eagerly twist reality and engage in fabrication to get his way politically. And the way Farah wants to push is that gays are lying scum, and he doesn't care about facts that prove otherwise.

Posted by Terry K. at 7:52 PM EDT

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The author of a Sept. 23 Media Research Center item appears to be a little sheepish about her work because it lacks a byline. (The version of it on NewsBusters, however, indicates it was written by Katie Yoder.) And we can see why, given the utter stupidity of this so-called "media research." Here's how it starts:

Dare a top newspaper journalist to play connect-the-dots and chances are he’ll fail miserably – at least with drawing the line between Islam and terrorism. In Nairobi, Kenya last weekend, Islamist militants took over a high-end shopping mall and began executing non-Muslims. In Pakistan, Islamist suicide bombers detonated at a Christian Church on Sunday.

Yet on Monday, September 23, 90 percent of the top ten (via circulation numbers) daily newspapers’ headlines in the United States censored the words “Islam” and Muslim” from Nairobi and Pakistan reports. One – the New York Daily News – didn’t even have a headline for the latest Islamic terrorist attacks. That’s journalism at its finest. 

That's right -- Yoder is complaining  that the media isn't playing guilt-by-association by linking all Muslims to terrorists. That's religion-baiting at its finest.

If that's the way the MRC operates, may we suggest Yoder's next assignment: Count how many newspaper headlines labeled Scott Roeder, murderer of abortion doctor George Tiller, as a "Christian."

Posted by Terry K. at 5:34 PM EDT

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An unbylined Sept. 20 WorldNetDaily article states:

Librarians across America are set to observe ”Banned Books Week” by highlighting titles that recently have faced censorship.

But the librarians themselves this year are being accused of banning books.

The claim comes from advocates for the community of ex-”gays.”

“Every week is ‘Banned Books Week’ for the ex-gay community,” says Regina Griggs, executive director of Parents and Friends of Gays and Ex-Gays.

“Books about leaving homosexuality are routinely censored in high schools and community libraries across the United States, while gay-affirming books are readily available for any young person questioning their sexuality,” she said.

Strange thing about this article, though: At no point does it mention any specific incidents of ex-gay books being "banned," and it only cites a single incident of these books supposedly being "banned":

“Kristin Pekoll, the librarian in charge of young adult books at the West Bend Community Memorial Library in Wisconsin, advocates for children’s books with gay themes but refuses to accept our donation of ex-gay books for children,” she said. “Public libraries are supported by all citizens, and it is appalling that tax dollars are supporting such narrow minded thinking and viewpoint discrimination.”

WND didn't mention that this case dates back to 2009, or that what opponents of "books with gay themes" wanted to do to them was far worse.

CNN reported that some opponents wanted to hold a "public book burning" of the offending titles, and a man at one public meeting told the city's library director he should be tarred and feathered.

Of course, there's no mention of the other side of the story -- specifically, what Pekoll had to say. In an essay, Pekoll points out that the whole controversy began because the library's website linked to a list of LGBT-friendly books, then moved to a request to remove specific LGBT-friendly titles from circulation or restricting them to adults only even though many were considered books for young adults. Pekoll concluded:

Last year when I decided to stand up for over eighty book in the West Bend Community Memorial Library's young adult collection, it wasn't because I though every single book on the list was gold-star material. It was because I believe that every book has a reader and every reader has a book. When you deny that person, espeically that teenager, his or her book -- when you ban that book -- you ban that kid.

It's hypocritical for PFOX to complain about censorship when apparently endorsed the censorship of books it found offensive. And it's just more bad reporting on WND's part not to tell the whole story. But then, we're used to bad reporting from WND.

Posted by Terry K. at 9:57 AM EDT

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Noel Sheppard's Sept. 18 NewsBusters post came too late to be included in our roundup of Heathering at NewsBusters, but it's instructional in a way because it's basically a one-stop Heathering shop.

Sheppardhas a freakout that MSNBC's Richard Wolffe said that "on his network, Joe Scarborough, former John McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt, and former RNC chairman Michael Steele represent – wait for it! – conservative views." And Sheppard gets all huffy about it, as he's prone to do:

So Wolffe sees Schmidt, one of the biggest RINOs on television today, as being a conservative voice.

Frankly, Schmidt wouldn't know a conservative view if it hit him in the face. But this is the kind of "conservative" liberal news stations love to bring on to trash Republicans.

No wonder Wolffe and Maddow love him.

[...]

Now, I like Michael Steele, but he's not a conservative. Right of center? Yes. Conservative? No.

As such, when you add it all up, the three so-called conservatives Wolffe cited by no means represent conservative views.

Sheppard doesn't explain the difference between "right of center" and "conservative" views -- funny since Sheppard and others at NewsBusters have no problem using "left of center" and "liberal" interchangeably.

Sheppard then declared that it is "after all an immutable fact" that Fox News' Shepard Smith is "left of center." But Sheppard doesn't cite any of those "immutable facts" to back him up.

And then he sinks into MRC dogma-speak, whining that of "major newspapers," only the Wall Street Journal's opinion section "leans to the right, and that somehow compensates for all the others that lean to the left?" Sheppard doesn't back up this claim either.

Sheppard even throws Fox's Bill O'Reilly under the Heathering bus: "Anyone that has watched O'Reilly over the years knows full-well that he is not as conservative as he used to be, and often espouses rather left of center views."

This, folks, is what passes for "media criticism" at the Media Research Center. Though it's occasionally delivered with added anti-Semitism.

Posted by Terry K. at 11:15 PM EDT

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Jack Cashill knows just how to deal with a sticky controversy involving someone he's written a book about: change the subject.

In the face of George Zimmerman's misbehavior and alleged domestic violence involving his estranged wife, Cashill -- who has written a Zimmerman-lionizing book coming out soon -- knew he had to distract by going on offense. He had done that already with Zimmerman's previous peccadilloes, essentially blaming the media for Zimmerman's increasingly erratic behavior.

And that's what he does in his Sept. 18 WorldNetDaily column, declaring that the real issue is Zimmerman's prosecutor:

Here is the state of the major media in a nutshell: George Zimmerman makes national headlines for a speeding ticket and a divorce dispute while a critical state investigation of his prosecutor, Florida State Attorney Angela Corey, goes unreported beyond her Jacksonville, Fla., home.

Cashill does not mention Zimmerman's problems again until the final paragraph, when he declared: "While the left busily fretted about 'ticking time bomb' George Zimmerman, one of its own, Obama supporter Aaron Alexis, actually did blow up. Such is the state of our media."

Such is the state of WND that Cashill thinks he can get away with playing the distraction card to protect the book he has coming out.

Posted by Terry K. at 10:07 PM EDT

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Roger Aronoff devotes a Sept. 19 Accuracy in Media column to complaining about how the Washington Post's Dana Milbank mocked AIM's "Citizens' Commission on Benghazi." Aronoff does his best to bolster the panel's alleged credibility:

Now take a look at the biographies of the people on the Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi, people who Milbank delights in belittling: people like Clare Lopez, a long-time CIA officer. The commission also includes people like Admiral James Lyons (Ret.) and Retired Generals Tom McInerney and Paul Vallely. There are 13 of us altogether, including 12 who were either top CIA agents, or high-ranking military officers, collectively with hundreds of years of service to the security of this country.

And as we've documented, McInerney and Vallely are birthers, two of at least four birthers on AIM's panel. Lyons, meanwhile, is a conspiracy-monger who claims that the scandal involving an extramarital affair by David Petraeus was a cover for Benghazi. Most of the rest are either anti-Muslim, anti-Obama or both.

In short, hardly an objective panel. But Aronoff desperately wants you to believe otherwise.

And so does Cliff Kincaid, who uses his Sept. 20 AIM column to highlight how "speakers" at the "Citizens' Commission" kickoff "said that the scandal could implicate the President in illegal operations that are international in scope." That's a statement show that the panel expects to put partisan attacks on Obama ahead of any actual fact-finding.

Posted by Terry K. at 9:04 PM EDT

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Last year, NewsBusters associate editor Noel Sheppard was forced to apologize for using an anti-Semitic image of President Obama in a post he wrote (shown at right). Sheppard's apology stated that "the original article included a doctored picture of Obama and others that turned out to have anti-Semitic imagery that I didn't notice when I incorporated it into the piece. Those familiar with my work know that's not something I would intentionally do. I apologize to anyone with better eyes than I have that noticed the imagery and was in any way offended."

Well, Sheppard has managed to do it again -- with the exact same image.

Media Matters once again caught Sheppard using the very same image -- which shows Obama with a Star of David-patterned tie and an Israeli flag lapel pin, as well as former Sen. Joe Lieberman with a Israeli flag-themed tie -- in a Sept. 21 NewsBusters post.

The image has since been removed from Sheppard's post, but no apology was offered even though Sheppard has previously called the offending image anti-Semitic.

Sheppard's new use of the image is inexcusable, and it calls into question his earlier claim that his earlier use was unintentional and the result of not having better eyes. And the lack of an apology for using it is just as disturbing given NewsBusters' profuse apology last time.

Between pathetically cliched headlines, promotion of climate denier propaganda, and just plain getting stuff wrong, Sheppard has been an embarassment to NewsBusters (if a boon to ConWebWatch). Will NewsBusters discipline Sheppard for his reign of error?

Posted by Terry K. at 2:01 PM EDT

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Joseph Farah writes in his Sept. 18 WorldNetDaily column:

But there’s a lesson to be learned here for those who prefer the truth to actions based on lies: Some unscrupulous people will twist and distort reality to achieve their objectives. In fact, some will do anything to get their way politically. They will use any means necessary – including, but not limited to, total fabrication.

Farah is writing about coverage of Matthew Shepard -- which he's wrong about, and which we'll cover in another post -- but he might has well be talking about himself and the website he runs regarding President Obama's "eligibility."

We've documented how WND has utterly refused to report facts that debunk its birther conspiracy theories -- the very definition of unscrupulous behavior. And WND has kept quiet about the most recent piece of evidence that utterly destroys its work over the past several years.

In June, the blog Native and Natural Born Citizenship Explored demonstrated how the layers birthers found in the PDF image of Obama's long-form birth certificate-- which they claim are evidence that the document is a fake -- were replicated by scanning the document normally into a Xerox Workcentre 7655 multifunction printer.

Not only has WND failed to report this development, the Obama Conspiracy Theories blog notes that Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Cold Case Posse has been silent about it as well.

Farah goes on to write:

Once truth is no longer important, people are incapable of governing themselves effectively. They become irrational. They make decisions based purely on emotional reactions unconnected with reality.

Is there any more persuasive evidence of irrational behavior unconnected with reality than WND's birther obsession, where the truth is no longer important, if it ever was?

Posted by Terry K. at 5:04 PM EDT

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At NewsBusters, Matt Hadro rushes to defend the Catholic League's Bill Donohue from less-than-fawning interview on CNN:

CNN's Chris Cuomo turned a discussion on Pope Francis' recent interview into an ugly personal attack and sharp lecture of his guest, the Catholic League's Bill Donohue, on Friday's New Day.

The fracas began when Cuomo lectured Donohue on the Pope's statement that the ultimate focus of the church is "salvation" and not one particular moral issue. He said "it really sounds like you're one of the people [Francis] is sending this message to, to be fair, Mr. Donohue, isn't it?" Cuomo clearly had a bone to pick with his guest. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

"I mean, you have bashed on these issues for years and years, most infamously recently saying that the church had a homosexual problem, not a pedophile problem. I mean really incendiary, flagrant, divisive stuff," Cuomo continued.

Hadro didn't mention that Donohue's remarks about homosexuality and pedophilia are not just "incendiary, flagrant, divisive," they are completely wrong. Experts -- including those who worked on a study of sexual abuse in the Catholic church that Donohue has previously touted -- agree that homosexual acts do not necessarily correlate to a homosexual identity, and that same-sex pedophilia does equal homosexuality.

Hadro then huffed that "Cuomo repeatedly drew from Donohue's past statements in an effort to attack him for being so controversial. He did no service to any CNN viewers who were hoping to gain insight on Pope Francis' words." But Hadro doesn't explain why Donohue shouldn't be held accountable for his inflammatory rhetoric.

One reason for that also went undisclosed by Hadro -- his boss, Brent Bozell, is on the board of advisers for the Catholic League. That's a clear conflict of interest that should have been disclosed.

And for someone who purports to abhor "ugly personal attacks," Hadro sure didn't hesitate to engage in one against Cuomo's family:

Cuomo's brother Andrew is the Democratic Governor of New York who supports abortion rights, pushed for gay marriage, and lived with an divorced woman while he himself was divorced. All of the above are serious violations of church teaching and are public scandals.

But then, double standards are the coin of the Media Research Center realm.

Posted by Terry K. at 9:30 PM EDT

Updated: Monday, October 14, 2013 1:50 AM EDT

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