Politico's David Nather must have thought he was so clever. Here's how he opened a recent column: "It can happen to anyone, right? You rally behind a guy ... and suddenly he’s spewing racist bile and boy, does it splash on your face." Yes, I left out a few words, and I'll get to that. But before providing them, the quote just rendered would apply to how those at Los Angeles branch of the NAACP must feel about their now-withdrawn but not forgotten plan to confer a lifetime achievement award on Los Angeles Clippers' owner Donald Sterling, who has been caught on tape allegedly telling a woman that she shouldn't "associate with black people" or have blacks accompany her to Clippers games.
Let's revise Nather's blather a bit for another comic circumstance: "It can happen to anyone, right? You rally behind a guy because he comes over to your side on climate change, and suddenly he’s arrested in 'a 20-count federal indictment that includes charges of mail fraud, wire fraud and tax fraud.' Boy, does it splash on your face." Now I'm talking about the fools at Organizing For Action, who celebrated the "breakthrough" of having GOP Congressman Michael Grimm come over to their side mere days before his indictment, which occurred today.
These two far more damning examples demonstrate what a fool Nather was Thursday evening as he tried to tar Republicans who were expressing single-issue sympathy for Cliven Bundy in his ongoing battle with Uncle Sam's Bureau of Land Management with Bundy's later race-based remarks[.]
[...]
With its award, the LA NAACP was embracing Donald Sterling in his entirety. OFA cast Congressman Grimm as a supposedly shining example of political courage. With rare exceptions, those who have opined on the Cliven Bundy situation have expressed no such unvarnished support, but have limited their advocacy to objecting to the Bureau of Land Management's heavy-handed tactics and to the idea that Bundy and his family might deserve to continue to conduct their business as they have.
In other words, the Sterling and Grimm situations are steeped in embarrassing hypocrisy. The Bundy situation isn't.
I hope that crow you're eating tastes good, David Nather. I hear that lathering it with barbecue sauce covers up a little of the bitterness.
Of course, as we noted, Blumer himself was engaging in some serious guilt-by-association just a day earlier when he was highlighting the Democratic donations of apparently racist Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling.
It can happen to anyone, right? You castigate a racist because he donated money to Democrats 20 years ago, and suddenly he turns out to be a registered Republican. Boy, does it splash on your face.
Better keep that bottle of BBQ sauce out for your own helping of crow, Mr. Blumer. We recommend the pride of Kansas City, Arthur Bryant's.
WND's Massie Calls Obama A 'Mac-Daddy Sissy' Topic: WorldNetDaily
Mychal Massie begins his April 28 WorldNetDaily column by dismissing the racist comments of Cliven Bundy:
The past two weeks have been a race-monger’s dream. Cliven Bundy responded to an interview question that has allowed the press to portray both him and those of us who support him as racist.
But the truth is, even if Cliven Bundy were the grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, racism wouldn’t be the issue. The issue is a rogue federal government. The issue is the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which was handed scathing reprimands by Chief Judge Robert C. Jones of the Nevada Circuit Court in September 2012 and May 2013 in his finding for the Hage family, whom the BLM targeted as they did the Bundy family.
Amazingly, that's not the most offensive thing in his column. That comes in yet another example of his pathological hatred of President Obama:
Now come the alleged comments of Donald Sterling, owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, that were secretly recorded while he was having a dispute with his girlfriend. The recording then mysteriously found its way to TMZ for TMZ to present as an exclusive. During the dispute, Sterling opined to his girlfriend (who is black and Mexican) that he was upset by her public association with certain blacks – among whom was Magic Johnson. If we are to believe the tape has not been doctored, Sterling indicated he did not want his girlfriend to bring these blacks to basketball games.
And as quick as you can say “Mac-Daddy sissy,” Obama, with the blood of the Benghazi Four (Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods and Glenn Doherty) on his hands; the IRS scandal; Fast and Furious (and the blood of Brian Terry and Jaime Zapata also on his hands); unemployment at unparalleled highs; America becoming a food-stamp nation; Japanese reports that Michelle plans to divorce him (supposedly over his countless affairs); and “If you like your insurance you can keep it,” he finds time to feign insult over Sterling’s comments.
Obama called Sterling’s alleged comments, “incredibly offensive racist statements.” He continued: “We constantly have to be on guard on racial attitudes that divide us rather than embracing our diversity as a strength. … The United States continues to wrestle with the legacy of race and slavery and segregation, that’s still there, the vestiges of discrimination. … We’ve made enormous strides, but you’re going to continue to see this percolate up every so often … and I think that we just have to be clear and steady in denouncing it, teaching our children differently, but also remaining hopeful that part of why statements like this stand out so much is because there has been this shift in how we view ourselves.”
Obama’s comments were morally opprobrious and boorish but obviously not out of character for him. Obama has done less to further the racial unity of America and more to exasperate and, indeed, to exacerbate racial and religious tensions in America and around the world than any American leader before him.
Massie has apparently decided to channel another pathological Obama-hater, James David Manning, who delights in slurring Obama as a "long-legged mack daddy."
Massie then indulges in another depraved lie of the kind he cannot stop telling about Obama:
A true leader would have taken the opportunity to tell the world that even if the alleged recording of Sterling were accurate, Sterling doesn’t represent America. He is one person, and in America, unlike the rest of the world, he is entitled to his opinions even if they are offensive.
As the mess of ellipses in Massie's earlier quote of Obama indicates, he edited out a lot of Obama's statement. In fact, Obama did pretty much say what Massie demanded him to:
I don’t think I have to interpret those statements for you; they kind of speak for themselves. When people — when ignorant folks want to advertise their ignorance you don’t really have to do anything, you just let them talk. And that’s what happened here.
But the facts have never mattered to Massie when he has a heady froth of Obama-hate going, as further illustrated by his assertion that "Sterling has done more for blacks than Obama."
MRC Thinks Right-Wing Propaganda Filmmaker Is Just Like Spike Lee Topic: Media Research Center
As part of its suspiciously enthusiastic promotion of Phelim McAlleer's crowdfunding campaign to make a movie about "serial killer" Kermit Gosnell, the Media Research Center's Katie Yoder has cranked out yet another article about it, this time trying to manufacture a claim of bias:
Spike Lee and Phelim McAleer are both film-makers who’ve both achieved something unique: each has successfully raised $1.4 million to finance his movie through crowdfunding – a campaign seeking donations from the public. But Spike Lee is famous and established, with a net worth of $40 million. Phelim McAleer isn’t. So it’s a bit odd that the networks took note when Lee (a famous, if not household name) did it, but not when McAleer overcame greater odds to reach that number. Well, it would be odd, except that McAleer is trying to fund a movie about abortionist Kermit Gosnell – America’s “most prolific serial killer,” and the media’s most ignored story.
[...]
ABC, CBS and NBC gave Spike Lee’s psychological blood thriller on Kickstarter six mentions in 2013. The project earned a total of $1,418,910 with 6,421 funders. The nets adore the idea of raising money from the public for projects, and referenced crowdfunding (including mentions of Kickstarter and Indiegogo) 55 times in the past two years.
But the Gosnell movie failed to make their cut – or rather, meet their agenda.
Yoder seems not to have considered the possibility that Lee is a respected filmmaker while McAleer is a factually challenged right-wing propagandist whose filmmaking, to our knowledge, has demonstrated none of the artistry exhibited by Lee.
WND Columnist: Cliven Bundy Spoke the 'Truth' Topic: WorldNetDaily
Then there’s Cliven Bundy, the Nevada rancher who was the target of government overkill, in more ways than one, to get him off his land.
In an interview with the New York Times, he was selectively quoted in a way that portrayed him as – guess – racist!
Why?
Because he recollected what government housing for blacks was years ago and what has happened to them since, and related that to slavery.
He said that under government largesse, blacks have become slaves to the system for food, clothing, housing, health care, education and even jobs.
Funny, I said that on my KSFO talk show years ago – just looking at the dependence of so many blacks on Uncle’s largesse is comparable to being a slave to the government. You do what you’re told, or you get nothing.
He spoke of the breakdown of black families, the number of single parent families, the high incidence of black abortions, the number of blacks in prison, unemployment and dropout levels.
All illustrate a breakdown of black culture because of government dependence.
No, it’s not “slavery,” but it really is, just with a different face.
The reaction to just this part of Mr. Bundy’s statement was almost unanimous: “He’s a hateful bigot.”
Former supporter Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., called his remarks offensive and said he wholeheartedly disagreed.
Sean Hannity and other media conservatives also backed off their support on the land dispute.
Sad, isn’t it, when truth is considered “offensive”?
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., piled on, after having called Bundy and his supporters “domestic terrorists.” Reid said that Bundy’s comments “revealed himself to be a hateful bigot.”
Unfortunately, the next step is that Bundy’s complaints against the government because of the land issue now should have no relevance.
NewsBusters, WND Desperately Play Guilt-By-Association With Racist NBA Owner Topic: NewsBusters
It's almost as if the right-wing media is following the same set of talking points.
Both NewsBusters' Tom Blumer and WorldNetDaily's Joe Kovacs have basically written the same article highlighting the fact that Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling -- currently in hot water for allegedly making racist statements -- once donated to Democrats.
Both have to concede, however, that Sterling's donations to Democratic candidates came more than 20 years ago. Not that it stops their desperate guilt-by-association, of course.
Blumer at least appears to be aware he's peddling a desperate line of partisan bull:
What kind of crazy, reactionary mindset would cause an owner who works in an industry dominated by black players to have such opinions and feelings? The evidence is admittedly thin and a bit dated, but to the extent it exists, that answer is, apparently, "one who supports and donates to liberal Democrats[.]"
As noted, this is not definitive evidence of Sterling's current political leanings. But if the Clippers' owner had a 20 year-old record of donating to Republican candidates, it would not only be included in mainstream media stories about the controversy; it would also be considered prima facie evidence of racism.
Kovacs presumably knows he's peddling partisan bull, but he's too much of a WND loyalist to admit it. He quickly mentions that "Sterling donated $6,000, with no activity since the early 1990s," then moved on.
But Kovacs' and Blumer's guilt by association is all for naught: Turns out Sterling is a registered Republican. Will they ever get around to noting this inconvenient fact?
WND Columnist Still Shilling for WND Books Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily columnist Jim Fletcher justloves to shill for the books WorldNetDaily publishes, though he regularly fails to disclose that those books are published by the same folks who publish his column. Fletcher is in shill mode again in a pair of WND articles touting Republican activist Richard Viguerie. The first offers this loving introduction:
Many qualities are needed for success in politics, and “success” isn’t always universally agreed upon.
Yet it is the savvy realist who often emerges as an indispensable guru – especially for the minority party in the U.S. Congress.
Richard Viguerie is such a go-to analyst. He’s been at it a long time, and the conservative icon – a pioneer in direct-mail – is a voice sought out by those who want to see the GOP adopt a winning strategy. It’s a role that Viguerie quietly relishes.
Another Fletcher article fawningly repeats Viguerie's statements at a Heritage Foundation speech two weeks earlier.
While Fletcher makes sure to plug Viguerie's book "Takeover" in both articles, he somehow forgets to mention that the book is published by WND.
Meanwhile, an April 27 article by Fletcher features a softball interview with former congressman James Rogan, noting that he is "the author of 'Rough Edges' and 'Catching our Flag.'" Guess who published bothbooks?
Andrea Billups uses an April 24 Newsmax article to provide an uncritical portrait of filmmaker Dennis Michael Lynch and his latest project purportedly "capturing how U.S. authorities mistreat dissenters." Billups paints Lynch as a concerned citizen who "fears his country is in trouble and that is what motivates him to continue his investigative work."
There's no mention, however, of the extreme anti-immigrant views that drive much of Lynch's work. Media Matters notes:
Lynch's anti-immigrant films They Come to America I & II were, according to the Center for New Community, "so poorly made and offensive that not a single production company or film distributor in the U.S. or Canada would release it." The films were heavily promoted by the Federation For American Immigration Reform (FAIR), an organization the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated as a hate group. Lynch has also repeatedly smeared immigrants as criminals, saying some immigrants are coming to America "to cut your throat."
During one Fox News interview, Lynch implied that non-English speaking participants in the rally were undocumented: "I asked them straight out--are you undocumented? They didn't even understand what I was saying, so there's your answer I guess." Lynch did acknowledge that he did not "get to ask all 10,000 of them" that question.
In another Fox News interview, Lynch ranted that if immigration reform passes, "it's the end of America as you know it and I know it."
But instead of telling the truth about Lynch, Billups peddles fluffy statements like "Lynch wants to continue to tackle hard stories like the immigration problem and Obamacare that he asserts have taxed the country."
WND Managing Editor Denies Basic Facts In Bundy Case Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily managing editor David Kupelian begins his April 24 column by writing, "Why is the most powerful man in the United States Senate, Harry Reid, setting up Cliven Bundy, an aging Nevada rancher who supposedly owes grazing fees, to be destroyed?
Wait, what? Did Kupelian just say that Bundy "supposedly owes grazing fees"?
That is a fact that is not in dispute. Bundy grazes his cattle on federal land; therefore, he owes the federal government grazing fees. Pretty much every other rancher who grazes cattle on federal land pays those extraordinarily low grazing fees; Bundy hasn't. In the Salt Lake Tribune, Chris Wangsgard sums up the legal history substantiating that Bundy owes grazine fees:
In November 1998, Bundy made this argument in the U.S. District Court for Nevada. The court decisively rejected this same argument, ruling, "...the public lands in Nevada are the property of the United States because the United States has held title to those public lands since 1848, when Mexico ceded the land to the United States." Bundy now chants these same rejected arguments on Fox News and right-wing blogs.
The court also rejected Bundy’s claim that Nevada law somehow trumps federal law, thus giving him free grazing rights. The court ordered Bundy to remove any non-permitted cattle from BLM land by the end of November 1989. Perhaps suspecting Bundy would ignore his order, the judge specified that he would face fines of $200 per day for each unpermitted cow he refused to remove.
Bundy doesn’t owe a million dollars for grass; he owes that for intentionally refusing to obey a federal judge’s order for more than 20 years. He has talked himself into believing that federal law, including a federal judge’s orders, doesn’t apply to him. He has foolishly encumbered whatever ranching inheritance he might once have been able to pass on to his children.
Bundy not only refused to obey the court’s 1998 order, he expanded his illegal grazing onto new allotments of BLM land. In 2013, the court gave Bundy 45 days to remove his cattle and expressly ordered that the United States is entitled to impound any cattle Bundy fails to remove.
Kupelian is supposed to be a journalist, yet he refuses to acknowledge basic facts about the subject of his writing.
Kupelian went on to dismiss as "bizarre" Reid's assertion that the militia thugs who rushed by Bundy's side were "domestic terrorists." But as Wangsgard points out, "Bundy and his supporters instigated an armed confrontation rather than complying with any of the court’s orders."
Kupelian then likens the situation at the Bundy Ranch to the 1993 standoff in Waco, Texas, which "result[ed] in the FBI burning the entire compound down to the ground, killing 76 people inside – including many women and children." In fact, an investigation concluded that the David Koresh's Branch Davidians were responsible for igniting it, simultaneously, in at least three different areas of the compound. The investigation also found that some the victims inside the burned compound were shot to death, either by apparent suicide or homicide.
Kupelian also tried to whitewash "the deadly Ruby Ridge confrontation and siege in 1992," where, in his version of events, "Randy Weaver, accused of a minor firearms violation, was entrapped by the federal government, wrongfully targeted with an arrest warrant, ambushed by U.S. marshals, and saw his dog, and then his 14-year-old son, shot dead. Thanks to outrageous 'shoot-on-sight' rules of engagement given to government snipers, Weaver’s wife, Vicki, was also shot dead while standing in a doorway holding her baby."
Apparently, in the world Kupelian occupies, selling two illegal sawed-off shotguns is a "minor firearms violation," and shooting and killing a federal agent constitutes entrapment.
MRC Glosses Over RNC Spokesman's Falsehood Topic: NewsBusters
The Media Research Center is a de facto arm of the Republican Party, so it's no surprise that it would gloss over a falsehood told by a Republican spokesman.
In an April 25 NewsBusters post, MRC news analyst Matt Hadro claimed that Republican National Committee Sean Spicer "flayed the media for its double standard over Republican and Democratic controversies, on CNN on Friday morning," claiming "that the media had largely ignored Democratic Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, whose campaign recently tweeted – and then deleted – a link to an article likening black Republican voters to Jews working with Nazis."
But that's not what Spicer said. As the transcript Hadro supplies makes clear, Spicer said that "Pat Quinn, the Democratic governor of Illinois, the President's home state, made Jewish -- anti-Semitic Jewish and black comments."
There's a huge difference between Quinn's campaign tweeting a link to a columnist making an outrageous comparison -- which is what actually happened, as fellow NewsBuster Tom Blumer concurs -- and Quinn himself making "anti-Semitic Jewish and black comments," which clearly did not happen.
Rather than call Spicer out for his blatant falsehood, Hadro reinterprets it to what he thinks Spicer might have meant. That's what passes for media criticism at the MRC.
After the Times smeared as a rock-ribbed racist through the use of selective quotes the new hero of resistance to tyranny in America, there was a new development: The video recording of the actual remarks emerged.
To say the New York Times bent over backwards to make Bundy look like an unregenerate bigot would be an understatement. I suggest you view the video for yourself at the end of this column. Does he seem like a hater to you? Or does he actually sound like a man with compassion for blacks who have been systematically abused by a new plantation mentality imposed by government dependence?
Farah never explains how the supposed context of Bundy's words makes his references to "the negro" and his wondering if they were "better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy" any less offensive.
Farah also goes full Jack Cashill and declares that Harry Reid's use of two words has a larger meaning than he can actually prove:
Meanwhile, the guy who I suspect is the mastermind of the efforts by government to make an example of Cliven Bundy yesterday showed his own hand.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called on all of his “progressive” friends to form a “united front” against Bundy.
For those of you untrained in the tactical and strategic arts of the totalitarian left, let me explain that terminology. “United front” has special meaning to only one group – communists. If you doubt what I, a former commie, have to say about it, just Google the term. See for yourself. What Harry Reid’s use of this term suggests is the left considers Cliven Bundy and all those rallying around his cause to be the most important target of the day. The “progressives” are apoplectic about this showdown in the desert. After all, they are supposed to be the champions of hardworking people. The government is supposed to be the friend and savior of working people. Yet, what Cliven Bundy has done, using “progressive” terminology, is to “heighten the contradictions” of socialist reality.
Yet, apparently, Bundy's references to "the negro" and "picking cotton" carry no deeper meaning to Farah -- none that he'll admit to in public, anyway.
WND pulls a similar stunt in an unbylined April 25 "news" article declaring, "Even as elements of a traditional media bound to newsprint continued to blast Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy on Friday for his remarks about blacks, he was getting more support, from blacks." The only blacksWND can name, however, is right-wing activist Niger Innes and a bodyguard for Bundy.
The unbylined article then asserts:
First came the chorus of critics who blasted Bundy as a bigot and racist, but given his status as a folk hero for standing up to the federal bureaucracy, in the shape of the Bureau of Land Management, there was immediate suspicion that there was some context to the quote.
There was.
Again, WND fails to explain how the supposed context makes Bundy's words less offensive.
In both of these articles, WND engages in content theft by making a copy of Bundy's remarks from the version posted at Media Matters (disclosure: my employer) and placing that video in a WND-controlled frame so that it can run ads before it. WND doesn't even bother to alter the Media Matters ID logos, which makes the content theft all the more blatant.
So, to recap:
WND demands context for Bundy, but it unashamedly steals the work of others.
WND vehemently denies Bundy is a racist while it incessantlyrace-baits over "black mobs."
Newsmax A Little Too Eager To Forgive AFP For Inappropriate Image Topic: Newsmax
In an April 23 Newsmax article, Sandy Fitzgerald seems unusually eager to forgive Americans for Propsperity for using an inappropriate image in an attack ad:
Americans for Prosperity has quickly apologized for a television advertisement for the upcoming Colorado Senate race that mistakenly used a grim photo of Democratic Sen. Mark Udall standing with President Barack Obama after the Aurora cinema shooting.
The television spot cast blame on the incumbent senator for being closely allied with Obama and Obamacare, blaming him for the cancellation of nearly 335,000 health insurance policies in Colorado, reports The Los Angeles Times.
However, the photograph was one that was taken two days after the July 2012 mass killing at a movie theater while Udall and Obama were visiting victims and their families. Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper, who was also there visiting, was cropped out of the photo used in the ad.
Victims' families complained about the use of the photo, saying it was an "utter disgrace," and to "insinuate the somber expressions were for anything other than their compassionate response to our heartbreak is beyond unconscionable."
The conservative group, upon hearing of the families' concerns, quickly apologized to the families and replaced the photograph with a different one of Udall and Obama.
Actually, AFP wasn't quite as contrite as Fitzgerald would have you believe. The Denver Post quoted Dustin Zvonek, state director for AFP Colorado, as still in attack mode, "Fortunately, we can and will change the image. ... Sen. Udall can't change his record that led to over 335,000 Coloradans receiving letters indicating that their health care policy had been canceled."
WorldNetDaily is still furiously spinning away Cliven Bundy's racist comments. The latest attempt comes in an April 25 article by Sarah Kupelian -- daughter of WND managing editor David Kupelian who was telling us just a few short days ago that Bundy was "America's newest hero" -- fretting about how Bundy's remarks will affect minority outreach day today at the Bundy Ranch, which was totally previously scheduled before he mouthed off, and gets an opinion on Bundy's racism from the totally unbiased view of his live-in press secretary:
It seems ironic, in light of the media firestorm over his allegedly racist remarks, but Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy started planning early this week for today’s Bundy Ranch party, to which he specifically invited minorities, a close family friend who has become the Bundys’ live-in secretary tells WND.
Talking to Shawna Cox, who spends virtually all of her time at the Bundy Ranch and fields calls for the besieged family, WND jumped to the big question: “Is Cliven Bundy a racist, and what exactly does he think about slavery?”
“Of course not!” she replied strongly, regarding racism, adding, “We believe slavery is horrible!
“Friday night we are actually planning a party and specifically inviting blacks and Latinos,” said Cox. “We started planning this party way before these comments were made.”
Cox told WND that after last Friday’s party, Bundy began asking why it was that not many blacks or Latinos were present. So the controversial rancher met with some of the minorities in the community on Monday or Tuesday, she said, to reach out to them and invite them to today’s party.
“I know the man. He’s a God-fearing man,” she said. “This is a really good man who loves and cares about all people,” she added with conviction.
If you can't trust the conviction of a live-in press secretary, who can you trust?
Newsmax's Dershowitz Still Pushing For Pollard's Release Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax has published another column by Alan Dershowitz calling for the U.S. to release Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, including this argument:
Sixth, the recent declassification of a 1987 CIA damage assessment concerning Pollard confirms, in the words of Weinberger’s Assistant Secretary of Defense Lawrence Korb, that “Pollard did not divulge the most sensitive U.S. national security programs” and “provided intelligence only on the Soviet Union’s activities in the Middle East.”
The document also reveals that, whereas the sentencing judge overturned the plea agreement because Pollard had spoken to the media in supposed violation of the agreement’s terms, the interview had in fact been authorized by the government.
As we've documented, Pollard did a lot more than what Dershowitz claims. And the partially released damage assessment to which Dershowitz refers reveals that too, according to the National Security Archive:
The documents provided information on PLO headquarters in Tunisia; specific capabilities of Tunisian and Libyan air defense systems; Iraqi and Syrian chemical warfare productions capabilities (including detailed satellite imagery); Soviet arms shipments to Syria and other Arab states; naval forces, port facilities, and lines of communication of various Middle Eastern and North African countries; the MiG-29 fighter; and Pakistan's nuclear program. Also included was a U.S. assessment of Israeli military capabilities.4
Pollard's disclosures were alarming to U.S. officials for several reasons, some of which were noted in their official declarations (Document 7a, Document 10) – some of which were direct responses (Document 9) to claims and analysis made by Pollard in his sentencing memorandums (Document 6, Document 8b). One, despite the fact that both the U.S. and Israeli considered each other legitimate intelligence targets, was Israel's willingness to run a human penetration operation directed at the U.S. government. Another, was the damage to the intelligence sharing arrangement with Israel – since its acquisition of material from Pollard weakened the U.S. position vis-a-vis intelligence exchanges with Israel. In addition, there was no guarantee that such documents, revealing both sources and methods as well as assessments, would not find their way to the Soviet Union via a Soviet penetration of the Israeli intelligence or defense community – as had happened with a number of other allies. Further, since Israel was a target of U.S. intelligence collection – particularly technical collection - operations, the documents could be used by Israeli counterintelligence and security organizations to help Israel neutralize or degrade U.S. collection operations.
Dershowitz is not going to mention this. Will anyone else at Newsmax?
WND's Farah Falsely Claims Bundy Is Victim Of A Sting Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joseph Farah huffs in his April 24 WorldNetDaily article:
There’s some high-fiving going on over at the New York Times.
A reporter got Cliven Bundy, the Nevada rancher who became a hero to millions for standing up to gun-toting federal authorities, to step in a big cow pie.
In a profile of Bundy, who likely didn’t have the benefit of a slick New York public relations firm to keep him to the script, the Times apparently got him to say some appallingly racist remarks. It’s unclear what the context of those remarks were, if there is a recording or what the circumstances were that prompted them.
[...]
This was a sting operation by the New York Times. The entrapment target wasn’t so much Bundy, but anyone in public life who denounced the Bureau of Land Management’s Gestapo-like tactics in dealing with him.
[...]
Criminal suspects who are entrapped by authorities in sting operations often see their cases dismissed.
Cliven Bundy won’t be so fortunate after been stung by the New York Times.
Farah is lying (which he does a lot). New York Times reporter Adam Nagourney explained to Politico that he did nothing to prompt Bundy to say his racist remarks:
Nagourney, who interviewed Bundy and reported on the statements, said he didn’t ask a question during the press conference, where the only members of the media were himself and a Times photographer.
“The stuff he is in trouble over today was stuff he said on his own unprompted toward the beginning of the event. He said it and I just kept my head down, kept my tape recorder on took notes and that was it,” Nagourney said.
None of Bundy’s supporters seemed to react to the quote and no one from Bundy’s entourage sought to clarify or defend it while he was visiting, Nagourney said, though he immediately knew it was going to be big.
“It’s just one of those things you hear it and you go this is really news, N-E-W-S,” he said.
Nagourney visited Bundy’s ranch on Saturday but said he didn’t publish the piece until Wednesday because there were no other outlets there to compete with, which gave them time to “get the story right.”
[...]
“I’m really into transparency, the key point was I was there and with him, I was holding a tape recorder and a notebook, it wasn’t like sneaking into a meeting, it was a public event he called a press conference,” Nagourney said.
Perhaps Farah assumes there was some dishonesty in Nagourney's reporting because that's how he runs WND. DishonestyaboundsinWND'sjournalism -- that's Farah style, so it's no wonder he thinks other journalists are as dishonest as the ones he employs.
While Farah concedes that Bundy's remarks were "appallingly racist," he's still giving the guy a pass:
Let me say this: Cliven Bundy may be an old racist, redneck coot. But that’s not why he was targeted and treated like a serial killer. And, yes, even racist, redneck coots grazing their cattle on public land don’t deserve to be surrounded by armed federal agents.
[...]
No one should apologize for defending Bundy. He was never held up as a paragon of virtue or for his intellectual prowess. His case was simply an illustration of what happens when the government is out of control and loses all perspective of right and wrong.
Terry Jeffrey writes in an April 23 CNSNews.com article:
The acreage the federal Bureau of Land Management currently owns in the state of Nevada is more than all the land in all of the states of New England combined, according to data published by the Congressional Research Service.
By contrast, the BLM does not own a single acre of land in any New England state.
Meanwhile, as of this writing, CNS has published no original coverage of Cliven Bundy's racist remarks, and it has refused to place wirearticles about the remarks on its front page so that readers are aware of them.
Tom Blumer rants in an April 28 NewsBusters post:
Mychal Massie begins his April 28 WorldNetDaily 
As part of its 
Then there’s Cliven Bundy, the Nevada rancher who was the target of government overkill, in more ways than one, to get him off his land.
WorldNetDaily columnist Jim Fletcher 
Andrea Billups uses an April 24 Newsmax 
WorldNetDaily managing editor David Kupelian begins his April 24 
The Media Research Center is a de facto arm of the Republican Party, so it's no surprise that it would gloss over a falsehood told by a Republican spokesman.
WorldNetDaily has decided on its narrative -- that Cliven Bundy's racist remarks were somehow taken out of context -- and they're sticking to it.
In an April 23 Newsmax 
WorldNetDaily is still 
Newsmax has published 
Joseph Farah huffs in his April 24 WorldNetDaily 
Terry Jeffrey writes in an April 23 CNSNews.com 
