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Tuesday, August 19, 2014
WND's Vliet Goes Doctor-Shopping To Help Her Fearmonger About Ebola
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Elizabeth Lee Vliet's schtick these days is to fearmonger about Ebola, as befits a WorldNetDaily columnist and a doctor affiliated with the far-right-fringe Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. Just one problem, though: American public health officials aren't playing along with her fearmongering.

What's a fact-averse doctor to do? Find a country whose health warnings about Ebola are somewhat closer to her own. Thus, an Aug. 8 WND article by Leo Hohmann quotes Vliet bashing the U.S. Centers for Disease Control for not fearmongering and praising Canadian health officials for more closely aligning to her agenda:

[Vliet] also pointed to a 2012 Canadian study in which healthy and infected monkeys were housed side by side in cages but had no physical contact. The healthy monkeys contracted Ebola.

And, according to a Canadian public health advisory, airborne spread of the virus among humans is “strongly suspected, although it has not yet been conclusively demonstrated.”

Generally, it takes far more than one to 10 organisms to transmit a virus.

“That’s one reason the virus is so out of control, is it takes so few particles,” Vliet said. “Dr. Hatfill, and the Canadian public health advisory, which is more detailed than the CDC, they talk about airborne transmission in much more specific terms than the CDC does.”

Ebola virus also stays active longer in body fluids such as blood and semen than most other viruses.

According to the Public Health Agency of Canada fact sheet on Ebola, the virus remains communicable “as long as blood, secretions, organs, or semen contain the virus.”

The Canadian alert also states that Ebola virus can remain active in a man’s semen 61 days after the onset of illness, and transmission of the disease through semen has occurred up to seven weeks after a man has recovered from the illness.

“This is why I’m concerned, as a physician, that perhaps our hospitals are not as well prepared as we would like to think. Because if other doctors don’t know this and if the CDC is not saying anything, if somebody recovers from Ebola and 60 days later the man ejaculates, he could infect his partner,” Vliet said. “I just think it’s huge. I think they are really underestimating the risk. I understand they are not wanting to create panic, but if doctors are not used to treating Ebola and they’re not getting the same information from the CDC as the Canadian doctors are getting … I’m not trying to create a panic. I’m just saying let’s get the information out.”

Hohmann also quotes Dr. Jane Orient doing more fearmongering, but he fails to identify how both Vliet and Orient are associated with AAPS and its politics-driven medicine.


Posted by Terry K. at 12:07 AM EDT
Monday, August 18, 2014
CNS, Where Speculation Is 'News'
Topic: CNSNews.com

This is the main substance of an Aug. 14 CNSNews.com article by Brittany M. Hughes:

Reports show thousands of unaccompanied illegal alien minors, some of them identified as obvious gang members by U.S. Border Patrol agents, have been transferred to several of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States, including Baltimore, Los Angeles, New York City, Houston and the Washington, D.C. area – cities that all rank among the top strongholds of the Latin American gang Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13.

A 2008 report by the Congressional Research Service lists several major U.S. cities as having some of the heaviest MS-13 presence in the nation. These cities include Washington, D.C. and the surrounding area in Northern Virginia, Los Angeles, Houston, New York City, Baltimore and Nashville.

Since October of last year, more than 57,000 unaccompanied minors have flooded across the Southwest U.S. border illegally, with most of them having come from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, all countries with strong ties to MS-13 and various other Latin American gangs and drug operations.

Completely lacking in Hughes' article: any actual evidence that unaccompanied minor gang members are actually being sent to cities with an MS-13 presence.

In other words, this article is nothing but speculation and guessing. That is apparently what passes for "news" at CNS these days.


Posted by Terry K. at 9:43 PM EDT
WND Zombie Lie Watch
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Many zombie lies roam the earth at WorldNetDaily. Here are a couple more.

Alan Keyes writes in his Aug. 14 WND column:

Obama himself supped with and strongly supported Kenya’s Raila Odinga, whose partisans went on a rampage of atrocity in Kenya in order to force Odinga’s savage ambitions on those who opposed him.

As we wrote in 2012, there's no evidence Obama supported Odinga -- PolitiFact pointed out that Obama remained neutral in Kenyan politics during his 2006 visit to the country. While Odinga attended some of Obama's events while Obama was in Kenya and clearly wanted to associate himself with Obama, there's simply no evidence that Obama "strongly supported" Odinga.

Ann-Marie Murrell took her own stab at perpetuating a zombie lie in her Aug. 15 WND column, claiming that "Obama sent billions of taxpayer dollars to Brazil to fund Evil Big Oil and ultra-deepwater drilling."

As FactCheck.org and Media Matters detailed, the loan to Brazil was made by the Export-Import Bank, not by the Obama administration, and it was made at a time when the Ex-Im Bank was controlled by Bush appointees and when none of Obama's appointees to the bank had taken office.

Joseph Farah almost proudly claims that WND publishes misinformation, which pretty much guarantees that Keyes and Murrell will not be held accountable for publishing lies.


Posted by Terry K. at 12:23 AM EDT
Sunday, August 17, 2014
NewsBusters Ignores Simple Facts, Fails At Being A Limbaugh Apologist
Topic: NewsBusters

The folks at the Media Research Center are seemingly contractually obligated to defend whatever Rush Limbaugh says, no matter how offensive -- which would explain why so many MRC employees endorsed his disgusting attacks on Sandra Fluke.

Lesser Limbaugh offenses, meanwhile, get a more full-throated defense. Witness Randy Hall's Aug. 14 NewsBusters post (emphasis is his):

It's always interesting when liberals and members of the mainstream media think they've caught conservative icon Rush Limbaugh making an inappropriate comment during his three-hour weekday radio program. Even though almost none of them bother to actually listen to his remarks, the outrage flies from online posters and news outlets across the country.

This was the case on Tuesday, when Limbaugh's discussion of the suicide by beloved comedian Robin Williams was misquoted to say that the iconic actor killed himself because of a leftist worldview.

Curiously missing from Hall's post, however, is any direct quote of Limbaugh's original remarks on Williams. Hall is simply regurgitating Limbaugh's complaint -- as so often happens when he gets called out for saying something he shouldn't have -- that he was misquoted and/or taken out of context by the liberal media.

Thus, Hall's readers will never know that Limbaugh did, in fact, link Williams' suicide to a "leftist worldview," claiming that Williams' alleged survivor's guilt over several of his friends who died young "is a constant measurement that is made by political leftists in judging the country."

Hall concludes that claiming that "liberals fail to understand the bond between Limbaugh and his listeners, who have remained loyal during the radio host's ups and downs since 1988." Given that Hall took Limbaugh's defensive remarks at face value rather than bothering to examine what Limbaugh actually said, that bond apparently includes ignoring clear facts in order to maintain a cult of personality.


Posted by Terry K. at 10:54 PM EDT
WND Publishing Book By Contributors To Abortion Doctor's Murder
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Scheduled to be published on Oct. 2 by WorldNetDaily's WND Books subsidiary is "Abortion Free" by Operation Rescue's Troy Newman and Cheryl Sullenger, which claims to be a "practical manual" that teaches people "what you can do to help close your local abortion clinic and make America abortion free."

WND won't tell you, however, Operation Rescue's role in the murder of an abortion doctor.

As we've previously noted, Scott Roeder -- who murdered Kansas abortion doctor George Tiller in 2009 -- had contacted Sullenger and Operation Rescue several times seeking information about court hearings involving Tiller, and Sullenger's phone number was found on a note inside Roeder's car when he was arrested. Roeder has also claimed he ate lunch with Newman and Sullenger several years before he murdered Tiller.

Sullenger has been linked to anti-abortion violence before. In 1988, she was sentenced to three years in prison for conspiring to bomb a California abortion clinic. The indictment says she procured gunpowder and other material for the bomb, then gave another conspirator a wig to wear as a disguise in the plot.

Newman has denounced violence and claimed no association with Roeder. But before Tiller's death, the Operation Rescue website featured a graphic showing Tiller surrounded by fire with the words "America's Doctor of Death."The button linked to Operation Rescue's archive of stories on Tiller. The graphic was removed after Tiller's murder.

Why is WND publishing a book by anti-abortion extremists -- one of whom has an existing criminal record -- who appear to have played a role as accessories in a murder? Perhaps they would like to explain.


Posted by Terry K. at 2:01 PM EDT
Updated: Monday, August 18, 2014 12:25 AM EDT
Saturday, August 16, 2014
Meanwhile ...
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Media Matters catches WorldNetDaily promoting an tasteless article in the wake of Robin Williams' death claiming that Williams used the help of "demonic powers" that "aided him on stage" and these "insidious forces" eventually "drove him to suicide."

Richard Bartholomew has been on the WND Gaza prophecy beat, noting that WND has touted dubious self-proclaimed prophet Joel Richardson's claim that the current Israel-Gaza conflict somehow ponts to the return of Jesus, and that WND repeated a dubious claim from the Christian Zionist publication Israel Today that the hand of God was sending Hamas missiles into the sea.

Finally, Bartholomew highlighted the special guest on Joesph Farah's latest tour of Israel: disgraced televangelist Jim Bakker.


Posted by Terry K. at 11:14 PM EDT
Friday, August 15, 2014
NewsBusters Endorses Attack On Sharpton Featuring Vile Racial Slur
Topic: NewsBusters

A former basketball player hurled a vile racial slur at Al Sharpton, and NewsBusters has no problem with it.

NewsBusters' Randy Hall was so unbothered by it, in fact, that he put it right in the headline of his Aug. 14 post: "Sharpton Hits Back at Critic Who Called Him 'Coon' for Seeking Publicity After Ferguson Shooting."

So unbothered was Hall by this racial slur that he went on to endorse the message of the critic -- onetime NBA star Gilbert Arenas, best known for the gun obsession that got him suspended from the Washington Wizards --that Sharpton is "a publicity-seeking 'coon'" and even bolded the word in his excerpt of Arenas' rant:

That initial reaction came from Gilbert Arenas, a former guard for the Washington Wizards National Basketball Association team, who begged Brown's family to leave Sharpton out of the situation because “Caesar the monkey” or a character from the Planet of the Apes series “could get them better justice.”

Arenas then continued his race-tainted rant by stating that “the stats also show Al 'coon' sharpton has not helped one situation he has protested at; he actually made it worst [sic] and because of him, the jury goes the other way (think about it).”

He also pointed to other situations in which Sharpton's involvement had a negative impact, including the Jena Six -- black teenagers convicted in the 2006 beating of a white student at Jena High School in Louisiana -- whom Sharpton defended even after they were found guilty.

The athlete also discussed the minister's involvement in the Trayvon Martin case, when the teenager was shot by George Zimmerman, a Hispanic man who was later acquitted of any crimes in the incident.

“The list goes way back,” Arenas added, because Sharpton is “lookn for attention; what u said at trayvon's rally, #enoughisenough; ur right, we're tired of u PRETENDING.”

So unbothered was Hall by Arenas' vile racial slur that the only criticism he could muster was that Arenas' rant was "race-tainted." At no point did he  mention the fact that "coon" is a vile slur that has no place in civilized debate.

Such insensitivity is part for the course at the Media Research Center, which has also found nothing wrong with Rush Limbaugh calling Sandra Fluke a "slut" or Mark Levin calling Mary Landrieu a "whore."

UPDATE: Breitbart uncritically publishes Arenas' rant, including the "coon" slur.


Posted by Terry K. at 10:37 AM EDT
Updated: Friday, August 15, 2014 12:25 PM EDT
CNS' Starr Is Still Cranking Out Propaganda For Corporate And Oil Interests
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNSNews.com's Penny Starr has long been a propagandist for fossil-fuel interests, uncritically repeating the claims of industry lobbyists as though they were the gospel (as befits an organization that has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding from oil interests).

Starr phones it in again in an Aug. 8 article in which she dutifully regurgitates the latest corporate claim:

A study commissioned by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) on the impact of a proposed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulation shows that it could be the costliest federal rule by reducing the Gross National Product by $270 billion per year and $3.4 trillion from 2017 to 2040 and adds $2.2 trillion in compliance costs for the same time period.

Starr didn't bother to mention that NAM's official position is opposing EPA regulations, so it's  not a surprise that it would commission a study that backs up its claims.

Starr's old friend, the American Petroleum Institute, also makes an appearance:

At an event for reporters on Friday, the American Petroleum Institute introduced a map it has produced showing how the new regulation would harm the economy in states across the country.

API also claims that the nation’s air quality is improving and health benefits from the lower ozone standards are not backed by the science.

As you would expect from such a dutiful stenographer, Starr made no apparent effort to talk to any actual environmentalists about the claims made by NAM and API.


Posted by Terry K. at 12:16 AM EDT
Thursday, August 14, 2014
Ferguson Tension Gives WND Opportunity To Bash Black Mobs And Police
Topic: WorldNetDaily

The tension in Ferguson, Mo., following the shooting of an unarmed black teen by police has proved to be a boon for WorldNetDaily. Since two of the things it hates most are black mobs and overactive police, it has been attacking both sides.

An August 13 WND article by Bob Unruh was quick to race-bait, repeating a claim that "a New Black Panther Party member is advocating violence against law enforcement in response to the shooting of Michael Brown." Unruh also claimed that "Multiple Twitter posts said the looting was a negative for the community and should have been done in 'white' neighborhoods."

Jerome Corsi tried to join the race-baiting parade with an Aug. 14 article attacking the Justice Department for having "dispatched its Community Relations Service to the scene of racially charged unrest in Ferguson, Missouri." Corsi uncritically quoted Judicial Watch's Tom  Fitton claiming that the CRS "intervened in the Trayvon Martin case in Florida, helping organize protests that pressed for the prosecution of George Zimmerman, who later was acquitted by a jury of murder."

In fact, PolitiFact found that the CRS went to Florida "with the idea of keeping the situation peaceful and calm, not to instigate or condone protests or violence." 

Because Corsi can't be bothered with basic fact-checking, he privileged Fitton's falsehood.

Meanwhile, an unbylined Aug. 13 article (though a tag at the end of the article credits it to an intern) claimed the situation in Ferguson "has put on display the country’s increasingly militarized local police force." WND quoted WND-published author Cheryl Chumley saying, "Armored vehicles on patrol, Kevlar-wearing, camouflage dressed officials carting high-powered rifles, tear gas wafting through the air – sounds like something right off the streets of Iraq. But it’s not. It’s actually the scene that’s playing out in Ferguson right now, with SWAT-type police taking to the residential streets for crowd control duties."

This was followed by a column by Chumley in which she denounces police tactics in Ferguson:

The camouflage battle-dress uniforms are simply part and parcel of the intimidation factor that’s trending among local law enforcers. Police are with ever-increasing frequency dressing and behaving more like battlefield soldiers.

What ever happened to the old “serve and protect” model and mantra of civilian policing?

[...]

More than lives are being lost from this alarming police militarization trend. Our Constitution, and its specific rights to be safe and secure in one’s home and possessions, and to be considered innocent until proven guilty – two ideals that a shoot-first policy doesn’t uphold – are being rapidly scratched from our legal process. The spotlight of SWAT-type tactics may now be on Ferguson. But it really belongs on the backyards and residential streets around our nation – on the thousands of communities that serve as home to these same type of police agencies that are currently commandeering St. Louis.

WND seems to have found itself on the horns of a dilemma. It's bashing both sides, and it can't back off either one lest it be accused of condoning either black mob violence or heavy-handed police tactics.


Posted by Terry K. at 9:27 PM EDT
NEW ARTICLE: Fluffing -- And Protecting -- The Great One
Topic: Media Research Center
Not only does the Media Research Center play stenographer for the pearls of wisdom that pour from the mouth of right-wing radio host Mark Levin, it hides his offensive remarks from its readers. Read more >>

Posted by Terry K. at 10:17 AM EDT
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
WND's Massie Blames Clinton For 9/11, Thinks Dick Morris Is A Foreign Policy Adviser
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Mychal Massie writes in his Aug. 11 WorldNetDaily column:

In factuality, the blood of the Americans who were murdered Sept. 11, 2001, is on the head and hands of Clinton. Clinton was offered bin Laden on a silver platter, but he refused the Sudanese President Bashir’s offer to arrest, detain and hand over Osama bin Laden to the United States. The Bashir government had intelligence of OBL’s daily activities and detailed intelligence concerning his finances; but, as Steven Simon, then-director of counter-terrorism on Clinton’s National Security Council, told the Washington Post: “I [we] really only cared about one thing, that was getting [OBL] out of Sudan, not the accepting of responsibility for taking him into custody.” Former Clinton adviser Dick Morris said, “[Clinton] didn’t do a single thing of the stuff that I recommended on terror” (“Hannity & Colmes,” Dec. 20, 2001). Had Morris’ suggestions been heeded, Mohamed Atta would have been deported before 9/11. As Morris put it, “In each of these areas he [Clinton] fell asleep at the switch.”

First: The 9/11 Commission found no reliable evidence that Sudan offered bin Laden to the U.S.

Second: Dick Morris, seriously? The guy who's wrong about everything all the time should have been trusted to advise Clinton on foreign policy?

We know Massie is a depraved liar, but trusting Dick Morris can never go well.


Posted by Terry K. at 12:17 AM EDT
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Newsmax Pretends Ed Klein Is Credible
Topic: Newsmax

Back in 2005, Newsmax enthusiatstically embraced Ed Klein's anonymously sourced hatchet job on Hillary Clinton. Klein has a new book out -- similarly dubiously and anonymously sourced, this time about the supposed bad blood between the Obamas and the Clintons -- and Newsmax is credulously promoting that one too, treating every dubious claim he makes as a pearl of wisdom.

An Aug. 5 article by Bill Hoffmann describes a Newsmax TV appearance in which Klein claimed that "The Kennedy family is sharply divided on whether to support former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016." Hoffmann offered no indication Klein provided any kind of credible source to back up his claim.

Two days later, an article by Courtney Coren detailed another Newsmax TV appearance by Klein, this time claiming that "President Barack Obama's senior adviser has been meeting with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren to encourage her to run against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, at the president's request." Again, no evidence is provided that Klein supplies credible sources to back up the claim.

Neither Hoffmann nor Coren mention Klein's credibility-straining claims, which have earned his book the description of being anti-Clinton fan fiction.


Posted by Terry K. at 10:35 PM EDT
WND's Unruh Peddles Falsehoods About Houston Nondiscrimination Ordinance
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily's Bob Unruh has never been all that interested in using his reporting to tell the truth -- all he wants to do is push his own (and WND's) right-wing propaganda.

Unruh proves his disregard for journalism yet again in an Aug. 8 WND article that promotes a right-wing attack against a nondiscrimination ordinance in Houston. Unruh quotes only critics of the ordinance and can't be bothered to talk to any supporter of it. 

Because Unruh is a propagandist and not a reporter, he repeats several falsehoods about the ordinance and its supporters. For instance, he attacks Houston Mayor Annise Parker, claiming that "The ordinance was adopted 11-6 by the Houston City Council on the insistence of Parker, who has acknowledged it’s 'all about me.'"

We could not find the original source of Parker being quoted as saying the ordinance was "all about me." We did find, however, a similar statement that, when put into context, shows that Parker is not making the narcissistic statement Unruh portrays her as saying. From the Houston Business Journal:

"This is personal. It is not academic. It is my life that is being discussed," said Parker, the first openly gay mayor of a U.S. city. "It applies to the range of protected groups ... but the debate is about me. It is about two gay men at this table. It is very intensely personal."

That's much different than Unruh's made-up quote. But then, Unruh's not interested in facts.

Unruh also uncritically repeats right-wing claims that the ordinance shields sexual predators:

Critics dubbed the Houston law the “sexual predator protection act,” claiming that by designating transgender or gender-confused persons as a protected class, women and children are threatened by predators seeking to exploit the ordinance’s ambiguous language.

Political activist Steven F. Hotze said the ordinance would establish minority status for transvestites, allowing men who dress as women to enter women’s public bathrooms, locker rooms and shower facilities.

“I want to protect my wife, daughters and granddaughters from being exposed to the dangers of male sexual predators masquerading as women in women’s public bathrooms and other facilities,” he said. “This is why it has been called the Sexual Predators’ Protection Act.”

In fact, numerous experts have debunked this claim -- no state or city that has enacted a nondiscrimination ordinance similar to Houston's has reported problems with sexual assaults as a result of it.

Strangely, Unruh doesn't want to inform his readers about this fact. It seems he's so used to lying about transgenders that the truth is utterly foreign to him.

It's just another reason nobody believes WND.


Posted by Terry K. at 12:27 AM EDT
Updated: Tuesday, August 12, 2014 12:38 AM EDT
Monday, August 11, 2014
CNS' Starr Unhappy That U.S. Promotes 'Homosexual Rights Agenda'
Topic: CNSNews.com

Penny Starr declares in an Aug. 6 CNSNews.com article:

The president, vice president and a former State Department official with the Obama administration took advantage of the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit this week in Washington, D.C., as an opportunity to advance the homosexual rights agenda.

And what is this supposed "homosexual rights agenda" the U.S. is trying to advance? Starr identifies nothing beyond "human rights" and "respect." Starr doesn't explain why she considers such an "agenda" to be so distasteful that she feels she must call it out.

Starr, however, makes sure to tell us that "homosexuality is illegal in 38 of the 57 countries on the African continent – or almost 67 percent." She adds, with an apparent tinge of regret:

On Aug. 1, a Ugandan panel of five judges ruled that Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act was not valid, because it had been passed by Parliament without a proper quorum. The ruling does not preclude the law from being reconsidered and put in place with the proper quorum requirement.

Starr failed to mention that right-wing American anti-gay activists like Scott Lively are the driving force behind Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act.


Posted by Terry K. at 9:07 PM EDT
WND: 'Obama Seeks To Appease Pagan Gods'
Topic: WorldNetDaily

An Aug. 10 WorldNetDaily article by Steve Peacock serves up the most ludicrous we've seen in quite some time (and remember, our job is to monitor the ConWeb, so we see lots of ludicrous stuff):

Yes, that's right, "Obama Seeks To Appease Pagan Gods." And how, exactly, is Obama doing that? By providing money to Egypt to protect historic temples:

Amid surging violence in the Mideast, from Gaza to Syria to Iraq, the Obama administration is stepping up efforts in Egypt to preserve a multi-deity temple to the “creator god” Horus and the “crocodile god” Sobek.

After footing a multi-million-dollar bill to help the government of Egypt lower the water level at the Temple of Kom Ombo and other archeological sites, U.S. taxpayers are now shelling out more cash to extend the project beyond its contractual end date, according to procurement documents WND discovered via routine database research.

While Peacock's article never makes the claim that that Obama is appeasing pagan gods,  theheadline is ridiculous, and Peacock should be complaining to his WND bosses that his articles are ill-served by misleading headlines.

Then again, Peacock's main function at WND is to obsess about how much aid money is going to Kenya under the Obama administration, so perhaps he sees this headline as accurate.


Posted by Terry K. at 12:35 AM EDT

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