WND Hooks Up With Messianic Jewish Publication In Israel Topic: WorldNetDaily
A Jan. 6 WorldNetDaily article on Barack Obama having a Jewish half-brother actually comes from a publication called Israel Today. The article contains a link to the WND online store for a subscription offer to Israel Today, stating that "Israel Today’s mission is to be the definitive source for a truthful and balanced perspective on Israel and to provide timely news directly from Jerusalem."
But the description of the magazine at WND's online store promises something other than balance. It states that "Israel Today is a Jerusalem-based news agency providing a biblical and objective perspective on local news" and also claims to be "the only Israeli magazine providing a Messianic perspective on events in the region."
Israel Today's declaration of a "Messianic perspective" seems at odds with its claim to also be "balanced" and "objective." Also at odds is the fact that Israel Today appears to be unabashedly pro-Israel; a graphic on the website's front page states, "Please help us in the online media war against Israel!" which links to a registration page for the site.
The fact that Israel Today has specifically declared pro-Israel and pro-Messianic biases means that, by defintion, it cannot be "balanced" and "objective." It makes sense that Israel Today is hooking up with WND, which claims in its mission statement that it seeks "truth and justice" despite publishingnumerousfalsehoods.
Regardless of its agenda, the fact that Israel Today has hooked with such a mendacious publication as WND does not make Israel Today look good.
CNS Pretends Pat Caddell Is A Real Democrat Topic: CNSNews.com
A Dec. 17 CNSNews.com article by Susan Jones touts how "Former Democratic pollster Patrick Caddell says the midterm election could be a 'rolling disaster' for Democrats."
Jones doesn't stop to wonder why someone who is so eager to cling to an identity as a "Democrat" would be so disparaging of those in the same party. Indeed, Caddell hasn't done anything for Democrats in years -- he's frequently seen on right-leaning Fox News where, as Salon's Alex Pareene notes, "he’ll reliably repeat every idiotic right-wing talking point that comes down the pike." Caddell also served as a consultant on an anti-Obama film made by right-wing group Citizens United.
Does that sound like someone who should be identified as a Democrat? It does to Jones, which tells you all you need to know about CNS' journalistic standards.
Will WND's Loudon Confront WND's Playground Politics? Topic: WorldNetDaily
Gina Loudon writes in her Jan. 5 WorldNetDaily column:
Politicians and their consultants are like amateur sociologists and psychologists. Politicians spend each election season trying to figure out what constituencies want and get into the mind of the voter. The 2014 midterms will be no different.
The political bullies hit the playground every two years and do the same thing they did in elementary school (which is exactly why I homeschool my children). Dr. Dathan Paterno and I called this “Playground Politics” in our book, “Ladies and Gentlemen,” and I believe we could lose our country based upon our gut reaction to political games and our childish reaction to the head games they play on the political playground.
Loudon then lists those playground tactics, pretending that only liberals engage in them and failing to note that her employer does the very same thing. Let's help her out, shall we?
Fear the rich kid
WND -- and Aaron Klein in particular -- lovestofearmonger about George Soros, as if no right-wing billionaire ever sunk lots of money into politics.
Fear the new kid (he is extreme)
That's pretty much the underlying theme of WND's mendacious coverage of President Obama for the past five years.
Fear the unknown
That's the underlying theme of WND's birther obsession. There's a reason why WND never reports that birther conspiracy theories have been discredited.
Fear the fear
FEMA camps, anyone? On top of that, WND is ratcheting up the fear of Obama to foment a military coup and make it palatable to its readers.
Sadly, Loudon is too busy ranting against "most vacationing, golfing, tyrannical president in the history of the republic who has never even held a job in the private sector, met a payroll or successfully built an empire based on his own merit" to hold her employer accountable for the very same behavior she's criticizing.
CNS Transcribes Limbaugh Global Warming Denierism Topic: CNSNews.com
James Beattie serves as CNSNews.com's dutiful transcriber of the pearls of so-called wisdom that fall from the mouths of right-wing radio hosts. He's so dutiful, in fact, that he can't be bothered to fact-check anything he transcribes.
Beattie performs another bit of stenography in a Jan. 6 CNS blog post:
Rush Limbaugh said "the truth and left never intersect, anymore" when discussing a Daily Beast article with a headline reading: "Thank Global Warming for Freezing You Right Now."
The article claims that this year's weather could be the coldest in history due to a "polar vortex," a term used to discuss a persistent, large-scale cyclone. Included in the article is a warning from the National Weather Service to Twin-Cities, Minnesota residents stating that "ANYONE STUCK OUTSIDE FOR ANY LENGTH OF TIME WILL BE AT SERIOUS RISK FOR INJURY OR DEATH."
Responding his radio program today, Limbaugh said:
"There's an article - I referenced this a moment ago - it's in The Daily Beast, which is a Tina Brown website, so it means the leftists love this site, 'Global Warming is Freezing You' is the headline. It's journalistic malpractice. I'm telling you, the truth and the left never intersect, anymore. It's stunning how everything, their entire agenda, is based on one lie after another.
"'Global Warming is Freezing You' and the article claims that manmade global warming is slowing down the jetstream, and that's why the cold air is coming down. They don't explain how, they just say 'it must be,' because, see, they've bought it. They have bought hook, line, and sinker manmade global warming. They believe it.
"I've told you, I read the tech blogs. Stunning, folks. They believe it. There's no questioning it. In a lot of sectors, particularly millennials, young people, those who think they're experts in science. There's no doubt. They just believe it. And so there has to be an explanation. And whatever man is doing has caused the jetstream to slow down, and that is permitting the polar vortex, cold arctic air."
Beattie didn't mention that Limbaugh, in that same segment, also claimed that the polar vortex is a "hoax" perpetrated by global warming activists and the media -- which Beattie surely knows is wrong, given how he used part of his post to define the term.
If Beattie really is the aspiring journalist he claims to be, shouldn't he tell the truth about Limbaugh's false claim instead of selectively quoting around it in order to hide the falsehood? Then again, CNS is not paying Beattie to tell the truth about Limbaugh.
WND Does Oppo Research Work For Steve Stockman Topic: WorldNetDaily
We've noted how WorldNetDaily apparently has a quid pro quo deal going with Texas Rep. Steve Stockman -- WND gave Stockman copies of Aaron Klein's slow-selling impeachment book to give away to members of Congress, and Stockman gave WND the scoop on his run for John Cornyn's Senate seat.
Now, WND is trying to help Stockman's campaign with a Jan. 5 article by John Griffing trying to claim Cornyn isn't a real conservative because he purportedly is "not standing up to President Obama’s agenda to move the nation toward more socialism." Griffing declares that "Stockman’s assessment that Cornyn hasn’t lived up to his billing as a conservative is correct."
Griffing's article reads like an oppo-research document -- for all we know, Griffing worked with Stockman's campaign to put it together. Last time we checked, such blatant shilling for a candidate does not qualify as journalism under any reasonable standard.
Further, as conservative Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin points out, the fact remains that Cornyn "is no squishy RINO" and is "the second most conservative senator, according to one ranking."
WND loves to blather about how it has "no sacred cows." That has always been a baldfaced lie. And it's clear that Stockman is a very sacred cow for WND.
MRC Whines That Wash. Post Article On Kochs Used Accurate Information Topic: Media Research Center
Mike Ciandella whines in a Jan. 6 Media Research Center Business & Media Institute item:
The Washington Post slammed Charles and David Koch for their “political network” on the paper’s front page Jan. 6, but they partnered with a group funded by George Soros to get their information.
The Post proudly stated its partnership with the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), a group they labeled “nonpartisan.” Nowhere in their 2,457-word hit job on the Kochs, did the Post mention CRP’s Soros funding or Soros’ similar network of organizations and media outlets he uses to influence politics and the economy.
Apparently blind to the hypocrisy, the Center for Responsive Politics has received $725,000 from liberal billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Foundations since 2000. To the Post, the CRP was merely “a nonpartisan group that tracks money in politics.”
The Post attacked the Koch brothers, as well as a number of right-leaning groups, including the NRA, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and Americans for Tax Reform.
At no point does Ciandella dispute any of the information in the Post article -- only where the information came from, and only because that place has taken money from Soros.
Despite his bandying around terms like "attack" and "hit piece," Ciandella offers no evidence that the Post article deviates from standard journalistic practice. Nor does he disclose that his employer has received money from Koch interests.
WND's Corsi Pens Hitler Conspiracy Book Topic: WorldNetDaily
Last year, WorldNetDaily's Jerome Corsi tried to cash in on the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination by rehashing conspiracy theories about his death (parts of which were apparently plagiarized). Now, Corsi is doing the same for Adolf Hitler.
Corsi's new book, "Hunting Hitler," actually takes the opposite approach -- he tries to prove that Hitler didn't die in a Berlin bunker but escaped to South America. As a WND article tells it:
Everyone knows Adolf Hitler committed suicide by gunshot in his underground bunker on April 30, 1945.
At least, that has been the conventional wisdom.
Now comes WND senior staff reporter Jerome R. Corsi’s new book, “Hunting Hitler: New Scientific Evidence That Hitler Escaped Germany.”
Examining declassified FBI and U.S. military intelligence files, Corsi makes a compelling case that U.S. investigators suspected from the beginning Hitler had escaped. For political purposes, the evidence indicates, they were willing to go along with the cover story that in the final days of World War II, Hitler married his mistress, Eva Braun, and the two took their lives in a joint-suicide ritual just before the Soviet army entered Berlin.
But the truth is, no one actually saw Hitler commit suicide. There are no photographs documenting a joint suicide of Hitler and Eva Braun, and the bodies of the two were never recovered or preserved for positive identification.
[...]
In “Hunting Hitler,” Corsi posits Hitler made his way to Argentina with the help of U.S. intelligence agents that had been secretly working with the Nazis since 1943. Allen Dulles, then an agent of the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS, the predecessor agency to the CIA, was communicating secretly with top Nazis from his office in Bern, Switzerland, Corsi said.
Interestingly, Corsi's employer apparently thought so little of this book that it passed on publishing it -- it bears the imprint of something called Skyhorse Publishing, whose other titles include a JFK conspiracy book by Jesse Ventura and a novel by porn star Jenna Jameson.
Given that Corsi remains such a committed birther that he has yet to acknowledge that Mike Zullo and his buddies in the Cold Case Posse have been utterly discredited -- as well as his propensity for failing to do even basic research -- it seems prudent to treat this book with the same hands-off policy his previous work has earned.
CNS Gives Mendacious Birther Janet Porter A Platform Topic: CNSNews.com
Barbara Hollingsworth devoted a Jan. 3 CNSNews.com article to the views of Faith2Action's Janet Porter on the "Duck Dynasty" imbroglio. Hollingsworth didn't mention Porter's history of hate and lies.
As we've documented, Porter has been a promoter of conspiracy theories about Barack Obama's birth certificate, even showing up in WorldNetDaily's factually challenged birther documentary. In addition, Porter has used her public platforms -- most notably her now-discontinued WND column -- to promote numerous falsehoods about Obama and others.
It says something about CNS that it considers such a mendacious hater like Porter to be a quotable source for a "news" article.
WND Finds Another Military Man to Endorse Overthrow of Obama Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily sure loves folks who are essentially calling for a military coup against President Obama.
WND finds another one in former Army colonel Harry G. Riley, and Bob Unruh devotes a Jan. 4 article to his coup attempt:
“There is not much time and the only planning necessary is to select a starting date, which we have done, and then show up in Washington, D.C., on that date, and plan to stay for the duration. The goal is restoring the U.S. Constitution as the law of the land, removing the lawless leadership,” Riley explained.
“Will this be a cake-walk? No, it will be painful, and some people may die because the government will not be non-violent; some of us will end up in a cell, and some may be injured. If that’s what it will take to save our nation, do we have any choice? Freedom loving Americans will say there is no choice, we must begin the second American Revolution. Not with guns, but with millions of Americans demanding a return to constitutional government and the resignation of Obama, Biden, Reid, McConnell, Boehner, Pelosi, and Holder as a start…then the constitutional restoration process can begin.”
He urged “all organizations, groups, particularly veterans and military retirees, [to] begin planning to visit Washington, D.C., beginning May 16, 2014.”
His plans seems to align mostly with what another retired military leader, Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely, has advocated.
You'd think that WND would be more wary of military power, given that it has latchedonto the death of Miriam Carey as an example of police excess. But it appears WND hates Obama more than it fears the military.
AIM's Kincaid: Apartheid Wasn't So Bad Because Mandela Wasn't Executed Topic: Accuracy in Media
In a Jan. 3 Accuracy in Media column, Cliff Kincaid follows WorldNetDaily in taking post-mortem shots at Nelson Mandela that have the effect of whitewashing apartheid:
Referring to Nelson Mandela, Rove says he “spent 26 years in prison before emerging to end apartheid and serve as the first president of a multiracial South African democracy.” However, Mandela’s debt to Soviet communism, which armed his movement, went unmentioned in Rove’s Wall Street Journal column. Rove also failed to note that the communists who run South Africa today counted Mandela as one of their own. The “democratic” South Africa of today is effectively a one-party state, and the white minority is under siege and facing genocide.
Rove writes that Mandela went “on trial for his life,” neglecting to mention that he was convicted of terrorism and could have been hanged for his crimes. Instead, Mandela received a prison sentence. The white government was actually quite lenient and offered to release him if he would renounce violence and terrorism. He never did. His terrorism cost innocent lives.
So apartheid wasn't so bad because Mandela wasn't immediately executed? Is that what Kincaid is saying?
As WND did, Kincaid ignores what Mandela actually said in response to offers to free him if he renounced violence: that his freedom was meaningless if apartheid was still legal. While Kincaid laments the "innocent lives" taken by Mandela's "terrorism," he's silent on on the innocent lives taken as a result of South Africa's apartheid regime.
WND's Klein Tries, Fails to Discredit NY Times Benghazi Story Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's Aaron Klein is so desperate to discredit the New York Times' series debunking right-wing myths about the Benghazi attack that he devoted three whole articles to attacking it.
In a Dec. 29 article, Klein complains that the Times' report claiming that an anti-Muslim video played a major role in sparking the attack is a contradiction of findings in the State Department’s Accountability Review Board report of the Behgazi incident. This would be the same ARB report that Klein touted as having been discredited a couple months earlier by a "60 Minutes" report by Benghazi. Of course, Klein flip-flopped when the "60 Minutes" report itself turned out to be discredited.
In an article the next day, Klein tries to do a little fine parsing by claiming that the Times' claim that al-Qaeda did not play a role in the Benghazi attack is "directly contradicted" by earlier Times reporting that “Al-Qaeda-leaning” terrorists had training camps near Benghazi. Of course, one does not have to do with the other.
In a Dec. 31 article, Klein claims another purported contradition, that the lack of evidence al-Qaeda played a role in the assault differs from earlier Times reporting naming the "al-Qaida-linked group" Ansar al-Sharia as having led the attack. But as Media Matters points out, Ansar al-Sharia's desire to emulate al-Qaeda or having some murky links to al-Qaeda does not mean that the attack was conducted by al-Qaeda -- as in the core group founded by Osama bin Laden. Klein is using an overbroad definition to imply a link that is more solid than has been documented.
Klein really is rather desperate to cling to the right-wing narrative on Benghazi. In October, he cranked out threearticles in a futile attempt to discredit a Media Matters e-book. (Disclosure: I'm employed by Media Matters.) That's what happens when you put a partisan political narrative before reality.
Fred Fleitz Doesn't Understand Journalism Topic: Newsmax
Fred Fleitz devotes a Jan. 2 Newsmax column to freaking out about the New York Times' series disproving right-wing claims about the Benghazi attacking, in particular its noting that the Times had a reporter on the ground who was “talking to the attackers during the attack”:
This raises several serious ethical questions.
Why was this information withheld for 15 months and not published in September 2012?
Are there ethical guidelines for Times reporters that would bar them from being embedded with terrorists in the act of conducting a terrorist attack? How could a reporter stand by and watch a U.S. Embassy be attacked and burned?
Didn’t this reporter and the Times have a moral obligation to immediately contact U.S. officials about the attack? Did the reporter have a cell or satellite phone that he could have used to alert U.S authorities or his New York Times editor in New York?
What does this reporter know about the death of Ambassador Stephens? Has he told Congress what he knows?
As Media Matters detailed when Fox News anchors made the same claim, Fleitz's attitude demonstrates a lack of understanding of how journalism works or the facts on the ground at the time of the attack:
War reporters and groups that represent them say that the Fox critique shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the role of journalism, particularly during dangerous conflicts.
"When you're in the middle of a riot or an attack like that, first of all, it is not a reporter's job to call the authorities and he would have to assume the authorities know about it. It seems so bizarre," said Josh Meyer, director of education and outreach for the Medill National Security Journalism Initiative and a former Los Angeles Times national security reporter who has reported from Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
Sonya Fry, executive director of the Overseas Press Club, an association for foreign correspondents, agreed. "The job is to be an eyewitness and report on what they see, sometimes the consequences of that are that help arrives. It is not their job to call in the ambulances," said Fry. "Their job is to report. It is a sad state of affairs that people don't understand what journalists do these days."
Other war correspondents pointed out that it's unclear who the Times reporter could have called for help. As the series makes clear, Libyan militia leaders who were alerted as the attack unfolded refused to aid the Americans, Libyans who did seek to help were turned back by the attackers, while U.S. forces in Tripoli were quickly alerted. No help arrived until long after the first stage of the attack had concluded.
Nevertheless, Fleitz asserts that "there clearly is a New York Times editorial/newsroom conspiracy here."
WND's Unruh Still Pushing Lazy Birther Boilerplate Topic: WorldNetDaily
Bob Unruh's Jan. 2 WorldNetDaily article claiming that the existence of a biryher lawsuit in the Alabama Supreme Court is a "White House nightmare" is pretty much what we've come to expect from Unruh -- lazy, biased reporting.
There's all the boilerplate recitation of so-called evidence to prove that Barack Obama's birth certificate is fake without any mention that said evidence has been discredited.
There's the touting of Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore's views on Obama's eligibility as evidence that the court will rule against Obama, with no mention of the fact that it's a prejudicial opinion that should disqualify Moore from judging this case.
Then there's the hyperbolic "White House nightmare" headline, which we are pretty sure is no more true than Mike Zullo's claim that he has "universe-shattering" evidence about Obama.
More Hypocritical Faux Outrage from Brent Bozell Topic: Media Research Center
Brent Bozell devoted his weekly Fox News appearance to yet again ranting about what Martin Bashir said about Sarah Palin:
BOZELL: It talks about defecating in her mouth. That's what was put on there on a planned segment. It took 19 days for this man to resign, he was never fired for this, and on top of that, they praised him, Comcast praised him as a good man when he resigned after doing that.
As we've pointed out, this faux outrage is rather rich coming from someone who called President Obama a "skinny ghetto crackhead" and could not be moved to even faux outrage when Rush Limbaugh denigrated Sandra Fluke. Bozell knows all too well that if you never apologize, you never have to resign.
Further, Bozell employs a man named Matt Philbin, who also hurled misogynistic slurs at Fluke (and homophobic slurs at me). Has Bozell ever criticized Philbin's sleazy comments? Not that we're aware of -- indeed, Philbin remains an MRC employee.
Unless Bozell can hold his side and his own employees to the same standard he applies to non-conservatives, he should simply shut up. But keeping silent doesn't keep the big bucks rolling into the MRC, does it?
WND's Flaherty Is Mad That Feds Won't Race-Bait Like He Does Topic: WorldNetDaily
Federal prosecutors' plan to charge a white man with a hate crime for engaging in a "knockout game" attack on an elderly black man has set off WorldNetDaily's Colin Flaherty. Why? Because the feds won't race-bait like he does.
Flaherty unleashes his rage in a Dec. 31 WND article by Drew Zahn:
Colin Flaherty, who researched and documented hundreds of cases of racial violence for his 2013 book, “White Girl Bleed A Lot: The Return of Racial Violence to America and How the Media Ignore It,” told WND the administration may be using the case to manipulate public opinion on the Knockout Game.
“I have uncovered hundreds of recent examples of black mobs and black teens taking violent actions toward specifically white targets. There can be little doubt there is a racial motivation behind these crimes,” Flaherty told WND. “Where have Obama and his DOJ been until now?
“White people don’t have a monopoly on hate,” Flaherty continued, “and it smacks of some alternate agenda for this administration to ignore scores of black hate crimes until a white hate crime is found to finally pounce upon.”
Here we see Flaherty's race-baiting agenda laid bare.Flaherty offers no proof that the crimes he singles out are racially motivated; he has simply decided that because the attacker is black and the victim is white, there is ipso facto a racial motive.
Flaherty wouldn't be a WND writer if he didn't buy into right-wing conspiracies, and he does so here:
Flaherty suggested that “agenda” may be to keep the state of racial tensions in the U.S. under wraps.
“For years, there has been an effort to scrub news stories about these crimes of any details about the assailant’s race,” he explained. “The press has been so determined to avoid any mention of violence among blacks, that it has created a false narrative that it’s only ‘youths’ committing these crimes. I have to wonder if the administration didn’t deliberately seize upon this case, knowing the publicity would further the narrative there’s no problem with black violence in America, just random violence.”
But Flaherty has never proven there is a "problem with black violence in America" -- all he has done is cherry-pick isolated incidents to perpetuate a race-baitingnarrative, to the point where non-blacks (and non-humans) are included as members of his scary "black mobs."
Zahn performs his own race-baiting in the article, claiming "knockout game" incidents are "typically black violence" with assailants who are "usually black."
A Jan. 6 WorldNetDaily article on Barack Obama having a Jewish half-brother actually comes from a publication called Israel Today. The article contains a link to the WND online store for a subscription offer to Israel Today, stating that "Israel Today’s mission is to be the definitive source for a truthful and balanced perspective on Israel and to provide timely news directly from Jerusalem."
A Dec. 17 CNSNews.com 
Gina Loudon writes in her Jan. 5 WorldNetDaily 
James Beattie serves as CNSNews.com's 
We've 
Mike Ciandella whines in a Jan. 6 Media Research Center Business & Media Institute 
Last year, WorldNetDaily's Jerome Corsi tried to cash in on the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination by 
Barbara Hollingsworth devoted a Jan. 3 CNSNews.com 
WorldNetDaily 
In a Jan. 3 Accuracy in Media 
WorldNetDaily's Aaron Klein is so desperate to discredit the New York Times' series debunking right-wing myths about the Benghazi attack that he devoted three whole articles to attacking it.
Fred Fleitz devotes a Jan. 2 Newsmax 
Bob Unruh's Jan. 2 WorldNetDaily 
Brent Bozell devoted his 
Federal prosecutors' plan to charge a white man with a hate crime for engaging in a "knockout game" attack on an elderly black man has set off WorldNetDaily's Colin Flaherty. Why? Because the feds won't race-bait like he does.
