WND Tries To Build False Mystique Around Obama-Bashing Speech
Topic: WorldNetDaily

On Jan. 21, at a so-called Presidential Inaugural Prayer Breakfast -- to which WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah was invited, disinvited, re-invited, then ultimately didn't bother to attend -- Farah buddy Jonathan Cahn gave a pretty standard right-wing, evangelical Christian, Obama-bashing speech, tying in his book "The Harbinger," which claims that the 9/11 attacks were a judgement from God. Weirdly, it took two weeks for WND to write up an article summarizing the speech.

Now, WND is trying to promote Cahn's months-old speech by creating a mystique about it. From a Nov. 30 article:

Given the moral and spiritual state of the nation, some have called it “the most important speech given in modern American history.”

It was delivered by Jonathan Cahn, author of the best-selling book “The Harbinger,” Jan. 21, 2013, the morning of Barack Obama’s second presidential inauguration, at the Presidential Inaugural Prayer Breakfast. The unofficial gathering, which included members of Congress, government leaders and Christian ministers, took place just one hour before Obama took the oath of the presidency.

“[The address] was a prophetic exposé of America’s fall from God, a revealing of the biblical signs of judgment manifesting in America, and a call to return,” said Joseph Farah, producer of “The Isaiah 9:10 Judgment,” the No. 1 faith movie of 2012 and 2013 based on Cahn’s teachings.

The speech became pointed when Cahn addressed his words to Obama: “Can you lay your left hand upon His Word and then with your right hand enact laws against it? Can you invoke the name of God to assume the presidency and then use the presidency in any way to endorse that which clearly wars against the ways of the God you invoke? … Can you utter the words ‘so help me God’ if you should in any way take part in helping to lead a nation away from the God whose help you invoke?”

Those who were present described Cahn’s address as electrifying, a prophetic clarion call and nothing short of a historic moment. At the speech’s end, the gathering erupted into what one observer described as “a near riot.”

Soon after the speech, a recording of it began spreading across the Internet like wildfire. At the same time, viewers began noticing that as quickly as it was being posted, it was being taken down.

Thousands of viewers began noticing that as they tried to repost it and send it to others, the links to the speech were going dead. Confusion and speculation spread through social media.

WND even received threats for trying to air it.

Note that not a thing WND alleges happened has any documented evidence to back it up:

• Who called the speech "the most important speech given in modern American history"?
• Who described Cahn's speech as "electrifying, a prophetic clarion call and nothing short of a historic moment"? (We know Farah didn't, because he couldn't be bothered to attend.)
• Who was the "observer" that called the after speech scene a "near riot"? What were they "near rioting" against? The audience was cheering Cahn's words at the end of the speech, which is not the definition of "near riot."
• Who was taking down copies of the speech from the Internet?
• Who threatened WND for "trying to air" the speech? What did those threats say?

WND provides no answers for these questions, which raises the question of whether any of it happened at all and WND is just trying to create a controversy in order to generate clicks.

The dishonesty extends to the headline. It reads, "the speech you were never supposed to see" in quote marks, but nobody is quoted in the article as saying that.

If this was such a big, important speech, why did WND fail to write about it until two weeks later? And why did WND fail to post a video of it until now, months after the fact?

We don't care whether or not WND posts a video of Cahn's speech. We do care, however, that WND appears to falsely trying to inflate its importance by creating a myth around it by making claims WND won't document.

MRC's Bozell Invokes Limbaugh -- Who He Couldn't Criticize -- To Bash Martin Bashir
Topic: Media Research Center

In 2012, when Rush Limbaugh repeatedly denigrated Sandra Fluke, Brent Bozell was a profile in cowardice, unable to work up any harsher criticism than "let’s all agree Limbaugh crossed a line" and even starting a short-lived "I Stand With Rush" website.

Which makes Bozell's whining about Martin Bashir's comments about Sarah Palin while invoking others' criticism of Limbaugh -- criticism he couldn't be bothered to make himself -- utterly hypocritical:

While the liberal networks all blew gaskets over Limbaugh calling Sandra Fluke a "slut," not one of them has covered Bashir's remarks. How's that for hypocrisy? Associated Press media reporter David Bauder filed at least three stories, but there was mostly silence outside of Fox News. The Washington Post and USA Today published nothing, and it only came up in The New York Times as a clause of a TV listing about the subjects of "Fox News Sunday." There was nothing on ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR or PBS. CNN only touched on it once during its "New Day" morning show and once on its "Reliable Sources" journalism program.

One obvious answer for this blackout is that Limbaugh is far more popular in America than Bashir, who few watch. But another obvious answer is media liberals despise Limbaugh and Palin, and sympathize with Bashir and the audience that loves this kind of hate speech toward conservatives.

Not only is Bozell sympathetic to Limbaugh's views, his Media Research Center gave Limbaugh its very first "William F. Buckley, Jr. Award for Media Excellence" in 2007. He can't even claim to apply the same standard to all MSNBC hosts who said ugly things; when then-MSNBC host Don Imus insulted the Rutgers women's basketball team with a racial slur, Bozell said only that the remark was "stupid" then tried to change the subject.

He couldn't possibly diss Limbaugh by doing something so gauche as criticizing something that manifestly deserved criticism -- as we've seen, ideological loyalty is much more important to him than logical consistency.

Bozell concludes his column by sneering, "There's a concept with which the folks at MSNBC are manifestly unfamiliar. Honor." Speak for yourself, Brent.

WND's Farah Peddles More Obama Lies
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Joseph Farah just can't stop lying about President Obama.

In his Nov. 28 WorldNetDaily column, Farah pretends he's not denigrating Obama's faith -- "I’m not saying he is not a believer. I’m not saying he is a Muslim masquerading as a Christian" -- then goes on to do exactly that through falsehoods and distortions.

Farah writes: "Obama released a reading of the Gettysburg Address he did at the request of filmmaker Ken Burns. What were the only words missing from the actual Gettysburg Address as delivered by Abraham Lincoln? 'Under God.'" Farah didn't mention that was because the draft of the address Burns had Obama read did not have "under God" in it.

Farah also wrote: "In 2009, Obama announced in Turkey, of all places, that America was no longer a Christian nation. 'We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values,' he said." Notice how Farah twists Obama's words. Obama never said America was no longer a Christian nation, as Farah claims -- he said that America is defined by a set of priniciples that transcends religion.

Farah writes: "Also in 2008, Obama called the recitation of the Shahada, the Muslim confession of faith, 'one of the prettiest sounds on Earth.' In an interview with Nicholas Kristof, published in the New York Times, Obama recited the Muslim call to prayer, the Adhan, 'with a first-class [Arabic] accent.' The opening lines of the Adhan (Azaan) is the Shahada: “Allah is Supreme! Allah is Supreme! Allah is Supreme! Allah is Supreme! I witness that there is no god but Allah I witness that there is no god but Allah I witness that Muhammad is his prophet … ' According to Islamic scholars, reciting the Shahada, the Muslim declaration of faith, makes one a Muslim. This simple yet profound statement expresses a Muslim’s complete acceptance of, and total commitment to, the message of Islam." Farah doesn't seem to understand that one can appreciate the faith of others, or even how a prayer sounds, while not following it themselves.

Finally, Farah lapses into the Obama derangement his website is famous for:

Let’s just face facts.

Obama is hostile to Christianity in any orthodox form. He’s hostile to Catholicism. He’s hostile to evangelicalism. And he seems to be hostile to the faith that formed the root of all Christianity – the faith of Hebrew patriarchs.

Should we stop being surprised, then, when Obama censors words like “God” from important American historical documents?

I think not.

He is simply shaking off the vestiges of hypocrisy he clung to publicly to win the presidency. Today, Obama’s antipathy to the God of Israel is right out there in the open.

Who appointed Farah to be the arbiter of proper Christianity? Nobody that we can recall.

TruthRevolt Follows NewsBusters In Getting Punk'd By Satirical Website
Topic: Horowitz

TruthRevolt really needs to stop taking its cues from NewsBusters.

Just like NewsBusters' Noel Sheppard, TruthRevolt devoted a Nov. 25 post by Jeff Dunetz to a claim that a college history professor said that "If you are a white male, you don’t deserve to live," attributing it to "the progressive Diversity Chronicle."

But as we pointed out when Sheppard did it, Diversity Chronicle is not "progressive" -- it's a right-wing satirical site that links to numerous "white nationalist" websites, as well as sites that promote eugenics and Holocaust denial.

If TruthRevolt is going to ape NewsBusters, they should at least go all the way -- unlike Dunetz, Sheppard has updated his post to acknowledge it's a hoax.

Jesse Lee Peterson Buys Into 'Knockout Game' Hysteria, Blames Obama and Oprah
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Jesse Lee Peterson writes in a Nov. 28 WorldNetDaily column:

Did you ever imagine that, in America, groups of black thugs would attack unsuspecting whites? Did you ever think the first black president and Oprah Winfrey would encourage division and hatred between races?

In today’s America, that’s the unfortunate reality.

In what many tamely call the “knockout game,” black teenagers target whites to attack them without provocation. The aim is to knock the victim unconscious with one blow. Man, woman, young or old – it doesn’t matter – these thugs do not care.

[...]

Despite the facts, mainstream media outlets refuse to truthfully report these black-on-white hate crimes. Some outright call it a “myth.” When the media downplay these crimes or omit the racial component, they put lives at risk. Imagine if whites victimized blacks today. There would be wall-to-wall coverage and President Obama and Oprah would both be on TV condemning it.

How did we get to a point where lawless blacks are able to commit violent crimes and get away with it? More importantly: How can we stop it?

Peterson is basically lying. As we've pointed out, there's no evidence that the "knockout game" is exclusively a black thing, driven by racism, or even that it exists as a trend over and above existing crime rates. And there's even less evidence that blacks are "getting away with it."

But the fact that it doesn't exist isn't going to keep Peterson from blaming President Obama and Oprah Winfrey for it:

Hatred for whites is reinforced and encouraged in black movies, hate-filled rap music and by black leaders: Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, the NAACP, the Congressional Black Caucus, Barack Obama and even Oprah Winfrey.

Oprah recently stated that white opposition to Barack Obama was rooted in racism and that older whites “just have to die” for racism to diminish.

Oprah has made billions of dollars thanks to white people who watch her shows and buy products she endorses. For her to smear millions of whites as “racist” without proof is despicable.

Her race baiting is akin to Obama accusing the white Cambridge, Mass., police officers of “acting stupidly.” Or when Obama weighed in after the Trayvon Martin shooting and said to highlight the racial factor: “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.” Shameful!

This type of racial demagoguery coming from influential blacks fuels anger toward whites and the judicial system – this is what is encouraging these blacks to attack whites.

Peterson then offers up a solution:

First, whites have to get over the fear of being called “racist.” Most whites are terrified of this word and recoil when a black person hurls it at them. Blacks understand the effect this word has, and they use it to shut down honest dialogue about race. This hurts race relations and divides the country like nothing else.

White people must speak out against black racism, no matter where it rears its ugly head. There are a few blacks who have the courage to speak honestly about immorality within the black culture, and whites should work with them to help unite the races with truth.

Most white Americans will not tolerate racism toward blacks from their own family members and friends – but they turn a blind eye to the black racism that’s landing white people in hospitals and morgues. It’s time to speak up, and it’s time to end the racial double standard!

Apparently, refraining from recklessly and baselessly accusing people of having racist motives is not part of Peterson's solution to this non-existent problem.

NewsBusters' Sheffield: 'Slut' Is A Tame Insult
Topic: NewsBusters

If you'll recall, Media Research Center employees condoned and even cheered on Rush Limbaugh's tirade of misoygny against Sandra Fluke last year. The MRC, it seems, just can't stop minimizing Limbaugh's offensive behavior.

The latest to do that is NewsBusters' Matthew Sheffield, who insists in a Nov. 26 post that Limbaugh's  comments were "much tamer" than what Martin Bashir said about Sarah Palin. Sheffield further suggests that Limbaugh made only a single passing comment about Fluke that was not "deserving of wall-to-wall attention."

Let's review the record, shall we? Limbaugh made 46 separate personal attacks on Fluke over three days, and he apologized for only two of them: calling Fluke a "slut" and a "prostitute." Bashir, by contrast, made only one single statement about Palin, for which he apologized in a more profuse manner than Limbaugh did.

Sheffield goes on to complain that "Bashir has been neither suspended nor fired" for his remark, adding that "Journalists who were so quick to attack Limbaugh need to ask themselves why they aren’t willing to hold Bashir accountable for his consistent pattern of using deliberately inflammatory language in a pitiful attempt to save his low-rated show from cancellation."

Not only did Sheffield's MRC colleagues demand that Limbaugh be punished for his insults against Fluke -- that might have something to do with the "William F. Buckley, Jr. Award for Media Excellence" the MRC gave him in 2007 --  the MRC actually launched an "I Stand With Rush" website declaring that Limbaugh's wholly inadequate apology was good enough but "the radical left will never accept it because they despise him and want him off the air."

If Sheffield is going to complain about hypocrisy, he might want to start with his own side first.

Irony: WND Columnist Laments Dearth of Honest Reporters
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Jim Fletcher begins his Nov. 28 WorldNetDaily column this way:

It’s a myth that reporters always “just report” the news. Further, it is a myth that media bias is a new thing. If we are honest, we understand that folks have been manipulating data and facts and narrative since the beginning of time.

Fletcher should probably be more aware of this than most, since he writes for a website that employs some of the most dishonest journalists on the planet. Whether it's telling lies about the president or hiding behind anonymous sources to peddle smears or race-baiting about "black mob violence," WND is less a "news" website than a far-right propaganda operation.

Fletcher himself has committed his own share of dishonesty, giving fawning reviews to books published by the website that prints his column. Fletcher has also peddled discredited theories of newspaper economics and pushed birther nonsense.

In short: If you see anyone at WND complaining about the dearth of "honest reporting," either run away or point and laugh.

CNS' Starr Upset Obama Acknowledged That Gays Exist
Topic: CNSNews.com

Penny Starr is CNSNews.com's most homophobic reporter -- we've recently caught her putting the sexual orientation of two Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients before their accomplishments and freaking out over the State Department holding a "Transgender Day of Remembrance."

the hate continues in a Nov. 27 CNS article in which she tsk-tsks that President Obama acknowledged gays in his Thanksgiving proclamation:

In his annual proclamation on Thanksgiving, President Barack Obama signals his endorsement of same-sex couples – “no matter who we are or who we love” all Americans are alike, Obama wrote in remarks posted Tuesday at Whitehouse.gov.

“Thanksgiving offers each of us the chance to count our many blessings – the freedoms we enjoy, the time we spend with loved ones, the brave men and women who defend our Nation at home and abroad,” Obama wrote. “This tradition reminds us that no matter what our background or beliefs, no matter who we are or who we love, at our core we are first and foremost Americans.”

We can't have that, can we, Penny?

WND's Cashill Still Making Excuses for Zimmerman
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Jack Cashill's bias in the death of Trayvon Martin has been simple: Martin's extracurricular behavior should be held against him even though there's scant evidence it was at play in his death, while his shooter, George Zimmerman, cannot be held accountable for his actions because he's the real victim.

That double standard is all too clear in Cashill's Nov. 27 WorldNetDaily column. In it, he complains that the Orlando Sentinel ran a "tasteless" article speculating on cast members for an imaginary Trayvon Martin movie, making sure to whine that "I can assure you that there has been no bidding war for the rights to my book." Cashill, meanwhile, has endorsed murder, which is arguable even more tasteless than anything the Sentinel could come up with.

Cashill goes on to complain that "the paper chose to know as little as possible about the real Trayvon Martin." He then launches yet another defense of Zimmerman, declaring that the five guns seized from Zimmerman's house after his arrest for domestic violence were "legally owned" and was not an "excessive" number, adding that thanks to the Sentinel, Zimmerman was "the most openly hunted man in America since Dillinger."

Of course, Cashill doesn't mention that his unquestioning defense of Zimmerman as a civil rights martyr even as Zimmerman becomes increasingly violent -- just the latest example of Cashill's soft spot for killers -- is probably the reason nobody's interested in optioning his book for a movie.

You'd think Cashill by now had gotten to the point where Zimmerman is no longer defensible. But he did write a book defending the guy, and now he has decided he won't cut his losses, choosing against all reason to continue lay in that particular bed he made.

CNS Presents Another Leno Joke As 'News'
Topic: CNSNews.com

Earlier this year, CNSNews.com had the very bizarre idea to treat Jay Leno jokes as "news." That's now back for some reason. In a sad little Nov. 26 CNS article, Eric Scheiner writes:

Jay Leno, host of NBC's "Tonight Show," discussed the state of the relationship between President Barack Obama and the turkey to whom he is extending a Thanksgiving presidential pardon.

That is what a joke being presented as "news" looks like.

Then again, Scheiner is also appalled that gays are allowed to ride trains, so there does seem to be something a little off with the guy.

WND's Movie Reviewer: Life Under Obama Is Just Like 'The Hunger Games'
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Drew Zahn uses a Nov. 24 WorldNetDaily review of the new "Hunger Games" film to rather desperately draw a parallel to today:

If our elected officials scented in the popularity of the first “Hunger Games” a wave of outrage against the tyranny of centralized government, wait until they get a whiff of this one.

[...]

Here, then, is the point that’s suddenly so timely for today. The movie is well made – really well made. Audiences feel the rage and betrayal the characters feel, the stirring of revolution … when the overreaching central government breaks its promises.

And here we are in modern-day America, where a smug, isolated capital is filled with power-hungry politicos, the chief of which said he could be trusted with control of our health care because he promised, “If you like your health coverage, you can keep it.”

Oops.

then again, Zahn also thinks Obama is a Decepticon, so why wouldn't he think this?

Noel Sheppard Gets Punk'd, Falls For Racist, Sexist Website's Story
Topic: NewsBusters

Noel Sheppard ominously begins a Nov. 25 NewsBusters post:

Noel Ignatiev, a professor at Massachusetts College of Art, has for years advocated the total elimination of Caucasians.

During his final lecture before retirement last Monday, he told his white male students "you don’t deserve to live. You are a cancer, you’re a disease."

Just one problem: It appears not to be true. Sheppard hastily added an update to his blog stating that "It has come to my attention that this might be a hoax," noting that the source for the claim, a blog called Diversity Chronicle, describes its content as "largely satirical."

But Sheppard is not telling the whole story. Media Matters notes:

A scan of the list of blogs Diversity Chronicle recommends reveals a number of "white nationalist" blogs, including American Renaissance (amren.com), a white supremacist think tank.  The site also recommends various articles with titles such as "Pedophilia More Common Among 'Gays'" and "Virgin Brides Less Likely To Divorce." Under a section labeled "Eugenics," Diversity Chronicles links a website supporting "humanitarian eugenics."  The "Institute for Historical Review," which deals largely in anti-Semitism and Holocaust-denial, is also in the list of recommended websites.

Remember, Sheppard did run an anti-Semitic image with one of his NewsBusters blog posts, profusely apologized for it when he was caught -- then, a year later, did it again. Is it any surprise that he would consider a racist and sexist like like Diversity Chronicle to be a reliable source?

To quote Sheppard: Yes, that was a rhetorical question.

WND's Esquire Lawsuit Tossed Again; Klayman Remains A Failed Lawyer
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Failed lawyer Larry Klayman continues his record of failure -- not that you'd know it from reading WorldNetDaily.

The headline on WND's Nov. 26 article on its lawsuit against Esquire magazine is laughably vague: "Court rules in WND's 'birth certificate' lawsuit; 'This is an issue for the jury to decide.'"

It's not until you actually read the story that you realize that 1) WND's lawsuit was dismissed yet again, this time by a federal appeals court, and 2) the person quoted as calling for a jury trial was not a judge but Klayman. WND is so clearly incapable of objectively reporting on itself that it can't even put the main fact of the story in the headline.

The article curiously fails to link to the ruling, even though it was posted online, and it waits until the 11th paragraph to actually quote from the ruling while giving copious space to Klayman rant about why the lawsuit should not have been dismissed (but is really just demonstrating why he sucks as a lawyer).

Surprisingly, WND actually tells the readers the gist of why its lawsuit was dismissed -- no "reasonable reader" would take Esquire's satirical blog post about WND pulping Jerome Corsi's birther book seriously -- though it buries excerpts from the ruling with blather from Klayman. WND didn't tell readers, however, that the judges also pointed out that WND editor Joseph Farah "immediately recognized the blog post as a 'parody,' although he told The Daily Caller that in his view it was 'a very poorly executed' one" -- one of the reasons lower courts had dismissed WND's lawsuit, or that the judges ultimately ruled that Klayman had failed to state a legitimate claim.

WND also gives space to Klayman to spout his trademark Obama derangement:

Klayman added that in the current political environment, suggesting in any way that Obama might not be eligible would be career suicide for a jurist.

“These judges know that if they make an unpopular decision against the establishment that they will never be able to be promoted to the Supreme Court or any other position they might get through political patronage,” he said.

WND apparently doesn't realize that quoting such lunacy only makes Klayman appear even crazier -- and makes people wonder why WND has such trust in this incompetent lawyer.

NEW ARTICLE: James Hirsen, Right-Wing 'Media Analyst'
Topic: Newsmax
Much of the Newsmax columnist's so-called media analysis is defending conservatives and bashing liberals. And that doesn't count his defenses of his buddy Mel Gibson. Read more >>

WND's McMillan Doesn't Understand 'Court-Packing'
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Craige McMillan writes in his Nov. 22 WorldNetDaily column:

Stacking a court with ideologically sympathetic judges isn’t a new strategy. During America’s earlier “never waste a good crisis” economic moment, known as the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, after being rebuffed by the Supreme Court for his efforts to expand government beyond its constitutional bounds, took another approach: He attempted to turn the nation’s highest court into a rubber stamp for his utopian dynasty.

[...]

The current White House occupant has no such compunctions about the monarchy, assuming he is the monarch. Note the similarities in mindset to many of the poorest African nations: Whoever becomes the “monarch” distributes the spoils to his followers.

Picking the Washington, D.C., Court of Appeals as the packing victim was a good strategy for someone with disregard for the rule of law. Roosevelt was busted for his effort to stack the Supreme Court, so why not drop down one level and try it again? After all, the D.C. court decides lots of government-overreach lawsuits. Why not pack it with ideological sympathizers, so the answer is always the same: The feds can do anything they want, Constitution and all and the rest of you be damned!

The two examples McMillan provides are not remotely the same. FDR tried to add additional positions to the Supreme Court, while Obama is merely trying to fill already existing vacancies on a lower court.

McMillan also throws in some gratuitous birtherism:

You and the rest of the Republicans in the Senate can begin an investigation into the meaning of the term “natural born citizen,” as used during the period of history when the Constitution was written. You may actually find that the current White House occupant does not meet the constitutional requirements to hold the office of president.

Apparently McMillan hasn't noticed that even the website that publishes his columns has largely abandoned birther conspiracy theories.