Terry Jeffrey's Unprofessional, Uninformed Editorializing Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com editor in chief Terry Jeffrey has always been much more about advancing his right-wing agenda than practicing fair and ethical journalism. He is continuing to obliterate the line between journalism and opinion at CNS.
Jeffrey writes in a Dec. 3 CNS article that conservatives oppose a proposed National Women's History Museum because they "believe it will be tilted toward a feminist, pro-abortion vision of American women--and that it will promote such figures as eugenicist Margaret Sanger and cost-free-contraception health-insurance entitlement advocate Sandra Fluke."
Quite a mouthful there. How long did Jeffrey rearrange the words until he came up with formulation "cost-free-contraception health-insurance entitlement advocate" to dismiss Fluke? Do you get the feeling that Jeffrey was restraining himself from following in Rush Limbaugh's footsteps and calling Fluke a slut and a prostitute?
That's rank editorializing, and it doesn't belong in a "news" article.
Given CNS' longtimecensorship of Limbaugh's denigration of Fluke, one may surmise that Jeffrey approves of Limbaugh's words.
Jeffrey goes into full unethical mode in a Dec. 6 article noting President Obama's words about Jesus and the holiday season:
Barack Obama is one of the greatest champions of the legalized killing of unborn babies in the history of the United States. In the Illinois state senate, he went so far as to repeatedly oppose a bill that simply would have defined a newborn child as a “person,” “human being,” “child” and “individual.”
That law would have prevented live-birth abortions--a procedure in which a mother in late term is induced to deliver her child so the child can be left alone, without care, to die.
Even if that were true, Jeffrey's screed has no business being in a "news" article. But Jeffrey's portrayal of Obama's stance on the Illinois bill is disingenuous and misleading.
The bill Jeffrey is referring to is better known as a "born alive infant" law that would have entitled a fetus who survived an abortion to legal protection, even if doctors believe it could not survive. As FactCheck.org notes, Illinois law already provided such protection to infants with a "reasonable likelihood" of likelihood of surviving outside the womb.
Obama has long stated that he opposed the law because versions of it did not include a protective clause stating that it did not affect existing laws on abortion, according to FactCheck.
In other words, the law was designed as a wedge issue by anti-abortion activists. And Jeffrey's citing of it as a way to disingenuously smear Obama proves that intent.
WND vs. WND On China's Economy: Corsi Smacks Down Farah! Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joseph Farah was in a very pouty mood in his Dec. 4 WorldNetDaily column, lamenting that China's economy was on pace to surpass that of the United States:
At first glance, the news that China’s economy has surpassed that of the U.S. will probably result in yawns from the average guy on the street.
What difference does it make?
China’s population is a lot bigger than America’s. Big deal!
How does it affect my life?
But it is precisely at seminal moments like this, when another country’s economy is bigger than the economy of the United States of America for the first time since Ulysses S. Grant was president, that we should take a collective look at reality to figure out why.
Why is China producing $17.6 trillion in goods and services this year while the U.S. is producing $17.4 trillion?
Why does China now account for 16.5 percent of the global economy while the U.S. represents 16.3?
Only 14 years ago, the U.S. produced three times as much as China, so how did this change occur so rapidly?
Is it really important, significant, meaningful?
It is important, significant and meaningful.
Economic power translates directly to political and military power.
Needless to say, Farah was quick to lay blame for this. First up was abortion, because the children who were aborted in the early years after the Roe v. Wade decision would themselves be having children by now. Farah also blamed more usual suspects: the welfare state, big government, the alleged loss of the American work ethic.
But Farah's histrionics were overblown, as they usually are. And pointing that out is none other than his own employee, Jerome Corsi.
Corsi's Dec. 5 WND article doesn't explicitly state that he's correcting his boss, but he puts China's economy in perspective:
Has the Chinese economy really overtaken the U.S. economy as the world’s biggest?
Economists say it all depends on the metric used to measure the two economies.
[...]
The basic problem is that comparing the economies of China and the U.S. is truly like comparing apples and oranges.
China’s growth in recent years has been extraordinary, with the International Monetary Fund projecting a rate of 7.5 percent in 2014, nearly triple the 2.8 percent outlook for the United States.
But China, with a population of 1.3 billion people, more than four times the population of the United States, barely ranks in the top 100 nations for income per person. Chinese consumers are estimated to have only about one-tenth as much money to spend as Americans, on a par with the Philippines, Bolivia and Iraq, according to economist Brian Jackson of IHS Global Insight.
[...]
As of November, China, the leading foreign holder of U.S. debt, held an all-time record of $1.317 trillion of U.S. Treasuries, exceeding China’s previous high of $1.315 trillion in July 2011. Meanwhile, China’s holdings of foreign-exchange reserves surged to a record $3.82 trillion at the end of 2013, as noted by Fox Business.
The U.S. Treasury decision in November to issue more than $1 trillion in new debt to pay off old debt by retiring Treasury securities that were maturing and to fund new deficit spending by the Obama administration has been characterized as a “Ponzi scheme” by knowledgeable economic observers.
This debt analysis would indicate that the U.S. economy remains the largest in market value in part because of China’s willingness to subsidize U.S. growth by funding a large and increasing amount of debt.
Rarely does Farah get a public smackdown from one of his own employees, but that's exactly what's happening here.
Unfortunately, Corsi's bout of lucidity and common sense was brief; later in his article, he approvingly repeats CNSNews.com editor Terry Jeffrey's uninformed claim that refinancing federal debt is akin to a Ponzi scheme, asserting without proof that Jeffrey is a "knowledgeable economic observer."
Obamas' Happy Relationship Nauseates MRC Writer Topic: Media Research Center
Katie Yoder makes her opinion clear with the headline of her Dec. 5 Media Research Center item: "Nausea Alert: Barack and Michelle Obama's Love Story Coming to Theaters." She writes:
It’s all about true love – not only for the Obamas, but also for the media.
“The White House legend that is Barack and Michelle Obama’s romance is heading to the screen,” reported Deadline’s Jen Yamato on Dec. 5. The drama, “Southside With You,” will detail the Obama couple’s “epic first date” the summer of 1989 – consisting of the Art Institute, a long walk, and Spike Lee’s “Do The Right Thing.”
In July 2015, the filming will begin where their romance blossomed: Chicago. “Get On Up” actress Tika Sumpter will star as Michelle Obama – but the real question is, as Yamato asked, “who will play young Barack?”
Allain’s Homegrown Pictures producer Tracey Bing gushed with excitement for the “smart and timeless film” on “one of the great love stories of our time.” She hyped how screenplay writer Richard Tanne “captures the essence of that romantic connection between Barack and Michelle that is so evident in the way that they look at each other.” Yuck.
Funny, we thought that the MRC approved of happy, stable, child-producing marriages. Apparently that's not the case when the couple in question isn't conservative.
Only someone so filled with petty hatred as Yoder can turn someone's happy marriage into a sick political attack -- to the point where she's apparently phsyically repulsed by the idea that her political enemies are happily married.
WND Perpetuates Ex-Chaplin's Lie, Obsesses Over Judge's Sexual Orientation Topic: WorldNetDaily
In a Dec. 2 WorldNetDaily article, Bob Unruh is unusually eager to let us know that the judge who ruled against right-wing activist Gordon Klingenschmitt is "openly lesbian," even though he offers no evidence that the judge's sexual orientation played any role whatsoever in the ruling.
As is usual for Unruh's shoddy journalism, he doesn't quote from, or link to, the judge's decision, for which he also refused to provide a link -- usually a sign he's trying to hide something. Rather, he quotes Klingenschmitt purporting to paraphrase the judge:
“Although Judge Elaine Kaplan ruled against me, at least she affirmed how I was vindicated by the U.S. Congress, who rescinded [military regulation] 1730.7C after it was enforced against me in the Navy court,” he continued.
“She also admitted in her ruling that the government really did punish me, a Navy chaplain, for quoting the Bible in chapel, which would be protected by the First Amendment, but this judge refused to correct the Navy’s obvious abuse of power.
“She also acknowledged that I had written permission to wear my uniform during ‘public worship’ but that my prayers offered in Jesus’ name at a press conference did not qualify as ‘public worship,’” he said.
“Finally, she acknowledged I was punished for writing to my congressman and the president, but again claimed she didn’t have jurisdiction to enforce whistleblower laws. My lawyer and I plan to immediately appeal this bad ruling, and again later if necessary all the way to the Supreme Court,” Klingenschmitt told WND.
Given that Klingenschmitt is rather invested in the case, he's hardly an objective source. In fact, Unruh is working with Klingenschmitt to perpetuate a lie, that he was removed as a Navy chaplain for praying in Jesus' name.
As Kaplan's ruling notes, Klingenschmitt was removed as a Navy chaplain because he prayed at a political event while in uniform, and he was warned beforehand by his superiors that not to participate in the event while in uniform.
This is the event that Unruh let Klingenschmnitt describe as a "press conference" and Unruh described as a "public worship event." Kaplan noted that Klingenschmitt said that "given the event was being organized by a clergy lobbyist group, I have strong reservations about whether this event will, indeed, be a bona fide religious service or observance, rather than a demonstration or assembly to promote personal or partisan views on political, social, or religious issues."
Kaplan pointed out that “The Order did not limit Dr. Klingenschmitt’s right to engage in any religious practices (including presenting an opening prayer at the event or invoking the name of Jesus in his prayer). It simply prohibited Dr. Klingenschmitt from engaging in this activity while wearing his uniform at what was clearly a political event and not, as Dr. Klingenschmitt seems to suggest, a bona fide religious service.”
Unruh tried to downplay the significance of Kaplan's ruling: "Technically, the judge granted the government’s motion for a judgment on the case’s administrative record and her determination her court lacked jurisdiction over some issues." In fact, Kaplan pretty much demplished Klingenschmitt's claims:
Dr. Klingenschmitt has failed to establish that there was any violation of law, rule, or regulation in connection with the separation process itself. Thus, the Court can find no basis for Dr. Klingenschmitt’s contention that neither the CARE board nor the Assistant Secretary had before them an adequate record on which to judge Klingenschmitt’s suitability to be recertified and retained.
Indeed, at the oral argument in this matter, counsel for Dr. Klingenschmitt abandoned his argument that the administrative record before the Court was incomplete, and acknowledged that he had no basis for challenging the government’s representation that it included at AR 1977-2127 the entire record considered by both the CARE board and the Assistant Secretary.
[...]
Finally, Dr. Klingenschmitt’s claim that the decision not to recertify him constituted reprisal for constitutionally protected activity is not supported by the administrative record before the Court. As the court of appeals for the D.C. Circuit observed, “[b]ecause mandatory, the Secretary’s initiation of separation proceedings could not have been motivated by retaliatory animus.” Klingenschmitt v. Winter, 275 F. App’x. at 13. Moreover, the administrative record reveals that the ultimate decision not to recertify Dr. Klingenschmitt was based on performance deficiencies and misconduct that were, as described above, unrelated to the content of his sermons or any other even arguably protected activity.
In that regard, the Court finds unpersuasive Dr. Klingenschmitt’s argument that his First Amendment right to practice his religious beliefs was infringed by Captain Pyle’s Order that he not wear his uniform to the media event held in Lafayette Park in March 2006. Captain Pyle’s Order was based on Navy regulations that prohibit the wearing of a uniform in connection with political activities. ... The Order did not limit Dr. Klingenschmitt’s right to engage in any religious practices (including presenting an opening prayer at the event or invoking the name of Jesus in his prayer). It simply prohibited Dr. Klingenschmitt from engaging in this activity while wearing his uniform at what was clearly a political event and not, as Dr. Klingenschmitt seems to suggest, a bona fide religious service. Therefore, taking this infraction into consideration in deciding whether to recertify Dr. Klingenschmitt as a chaplain did not violate either his First Amendment rights or RFRA.
In short, the record fails to support a showing of any causal connection between any protected activity and Dr. Klingenschmitt’s separation. For that reason, and because his other challenges to the lawfulness of the recertification process are without merit, the Court concludes that the Navy’s decision not to recertify Dr. Klingenschmitt, which resulted in his administrative separation from the Navy, was neither arbitrary, capricious, nor contrary to law.
In other words, as Right Wing Watch points out, Klingenschmitt's entire career as a WND-promoted right-wing activist facing religious persecution is based on a myth. But because Unruh has no interest whatsoever in reporting facts and only cares about promoyting false propaganda, WND readers will learn none of this.
WND's Klein Has A Buddy Inside The Assad Regime Topic: WorldNetDaily
We've detailed how WorldNetDaily's Aaron Klein cozied up to the repressive regime of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, effectively serving as his public-relations agent to deflect allegations of brutality by the regime. Apparently, Klein is still on Assad's payroll.
Klein defends Assad's regime yet again in a Dec. 1 WND article, claiming that "The United States and Saudi Arabia are holding discussions about the possibility of targeting the regime of Syrian President Basher al-Assad,' a scheme supposedly "intercepted by Russia."
To whom does Klein attribute this claim? "A top source in Assad’s regime." Klein thus continues his love of anonymous, untraceable sources that can't be verified. Indeed, all the direct sources of information in Klein's article are anonymous.
Klein also claims that "the Obama administration has outlined a plan to train up to 5,000 Mideast rebels to fight ISIS." But he wants us to forget that he falsely claimed the U.S. had trained members of ISIS.
If Klein is only capable of reporting anonymous claims, what good is he as a reporter? Such murky, shoddy journalism is still good enough for WND, apparently.
MRC Can't Stop Being Mad That Conservatives Are Labeled As Conservative Topic: NewsBusters
The Media Research Center's Clay Waters has a weirdfixation on stories about conservatives that label conservatives as conservatives. He's at it again in a Dec. 4 NewsBusters post:
The New York Times' labeling bias isn't just aimed at U.S. conservatives; the Times' global reach and bias extends overseas, as demonstrated in Wednesday's edition, crammed with dangerous and unpleasant right-wingers in Europe, Asia, and of course Israel, both among politicians and the media (who knew the "right-wing media" were so powerful?).
The headline to a front-page story by Martin Fackler on a controversy over Japanese "comfort women" from World War II read: "Rewriting War, Japanese Right Goes on Attack." "Ultranationalist" was an apparently insufficient label for the bad guys in the story; Fackler eagerly identified them as "conservative" and "right-wing" at every junction.
Waters doesn't explain why accurately labeling conservatives as conservatives is "labeling bias," let alone why it's not truthful to apply the lable. Most people not obessed with finding bias where none actually exists would call that factual reporting.
Look at the so-called “leaders” who are blaming the cops and “racism” for Brown’s death. Most of them are products of bad parenting:
Barack Obama continues to draw moral equivalency between police and rioters. His dad was a raging alcoholic who neglected him. His mother was a radical who pushed young Obama on bad role models who shaped his anti-American and racist worldview.
-- Jesse Lee Peterson, Nov. 30 WorldNetDaily column
America is suffering from a lack of leadership. Obama isn’t a leader; he is Erebus eulogizing over America sans having anything kind or truthful to say about her.
His manic supporters are selective in what they view as an example of leadership, none moreso than the hordes of blacks who suffer from willful “he’s black and therefore can do no wrong” syndrome. When they are unable to debate cogently (which is their one constant) they make excuses for Obama and/or wave off his need to be involved in the situation.
[...]
A true leader is a man respected at home, revered abroad and feared by the evildoers. But Obama panders to our evildoers, alienates our allies and shows himself to be a limp-wristed paper doll at home. Obama’s only real domestic strength is to foment racial discord and racial antipathy.
On July 3, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the unemployment rate for black Americans is more than double that for white Americans: 10.7 percent versus 5.3 percent.
On Aug. 28, the Washington Post reported that the black unemployment rate has consistently been twice as high as the white unemployment rate for 50 years.
So why on earth is America’s first black president doing so much to impede black American employment by what was headlined in the Washington Post as: “President Defers Deportations for 4 Million, Challenges His Opponents”?
Instead, the Obama administration continued to stoke the flames and deepen the divide, opening the door to a possible “civil rights” suit against the officer even though they all know that a charge like that will go nowhere. Instead of gathering together pastors, ministers and other peaceful leaders together to form a strategy to communicate to young people the importance of strong values, morals and respect, Obama met with the likes of Al Sharpton, whose only purpose was to elevate the anger and chaos to further his own agenda.
Obama seems to sit back patiently and watch all of this happen. Maybe he even welcomes some of the chaos in the streets of our cities in order to deflect attention from his executive orders and numerous scandals. With a complicit media who live for ratings, he lit the fire, and now can watch it burn. Could this possibly be what he really wants?
With the tsunami of bizarre, truly insane moves by this president and his clear and present dangerous America haters surrounding him and writing his speeches, more and more caring, thinking, “we the people” Americans are waking up from their apathetic slumber every day, rising up, re-engaging this sacred experiment in self-government, demanding accountability and adherence to the U.S. Constitution – and making clear that we will not put up with much more of this nonsense.
There has been some outfreakage regarding an incident in which President Obama responded to hecklers in Chicago last week at one of his tedious speeches. Apparently, he was in the Windy City to drum up support for his new immigration measures.
I find this more than a bit ironic, since it was only this past July when black Chicago residents organized to protest Chicago mayor and Obama bathhouse buddy Rahm Emanuel’s proposal to house some of the “unaccompanied minors” (who were arriving in droves at our border with Mexico) in Chicago. Black residents were opposed to this, given the record high unemployment among blacks there. With good reason, they have been generally disgusted with the deterioration of the city under Emanuel, and feel that Obama has ignored them.
I sometimes wonder how they would have reacted had they known the Obama administration had in fact orchestrated that flood of Mexican and Central American youth.
The question is no longer whether racial relations in America have deteriorated under the first black president. The only question is why he deliberately inflames the passions of racists – black and white.
Is it just a matter of distraction? Political sleight of hand? Is it to let off steam of the broken promises of six years in power and policies that have hurt the very people they were supposed to help?
Or is this orchestrated mayhem rooted in Obama’s own visceral hatred of America? Is it intended to grow exponentially and bring down the whole system – in the model of Cloward-Piven manufactured crisis?
Obama is no longer the “community organizer in chief.” He has become “arsonist in chief.”
President Obama said he would be “a transformative” president. Now we know what he means – he’s transforming the United States into a Third World country.
The president’s executive amnesty has legalized 5 million low-wage workers. What has gotten less attention is his jobs plan for illegal immigrants – a plan that will reverse 200 years of America’s economic development from agrarian colony to industrial powerhouse.
From the myriad of Obama’s so-called “phony scandals,” to his igniting what has sadly become a war between the races, to his stifling socialist economic policies and his pro-Muslim foreign policy and weakness generally, the nation is in a free fall. Now is the time to act, and we at Freedom Watch, along with brave clients like Sheriff Joe Arpaio, are doing all we can to help save the nation from total collapse.
Newsmax Writer's 'News' Article Stuffed With Editorializing Topic: Newsmax
Nick Sanchez's Dec. 2 Newsmax article on Chris Rock's comments about President Obama is filed under "The Wire," which presmably means it's supposed to be a "news" article. But Sanchez goes on a severe editorializing bender:
Comedian Chris Rock thinks President Barack Obama turned out more like a Shaquille O'Neal than the Michael Jordan that the nation expected.
"Everybody wanted Michael Jordan, right? We got Shaq. That’s not a disappointment. You know what I mean? We got Charles Barkley. It’s still a Hall of Fame career," Rock told New York magazine in an interview published Sunday.
Rock's analogy is shaky at best, as Obama will likely finish his presidency with one of the lowest approval ratings of any outgoing president. The broad strokes of his presidency – the failed stimulus, the undoing of progress in Iraq, and the ongoing disaster of Obamacare – doesn't put him in league with either the highest rated or most accomplished presidents. He's no FDR or Reagan, that’s for sure.
Even by Rock's own standard, which he laid out in the same breath as the Shaq/Jordan analogy, Obama is nowhere near Hall of Fame status.
"The president should be graded on jobs and peace, and the other stuff is debatable. Do more people have jobs, and is there more peace?' asked Rock. "I guess there’s a little more peace. Not as much peace as we’d like, but I mean, that’s kind of the gig. I don’t recall anybody leaving on an up. It’s just that kind of job."
Peace is on the wane. The U.S. is looking at active threats from resurgent terrorist groups – which Obama likened to "jayvee" teams in Lakers jerseys – and diplomatic relations with traditional allies like Turkey and Israel are in shambles. That's not even to mention ever-worsening threats from Russia and Iran.
In fact, the stimulus wasn't a failure, Obamacare is an "ongoing disaster" only to right-wingers like Sanchez whose failed attempts to repeal it are the real ongoing disaster, and it's hardly solely Obama's fault that "peace is on the wane." So it's not even factual editorializing.
If this is what passes for "news" at Newsmax these days, its efforts to be taken seriously as a news outlet are doomed to failure.
WND Fearmongers About Gays Donating Blood Topic: WorldNetDaily
Bob Unruh's Dec. 2 WorldNetDaily article on a proposal to allow gays to donate blood is your usual festival of one-sided Unruh reporting, citing anti-gay activists and making no mention of the fact that blood can now be easily tested
to detect both the antigen and antibodies for HIV.
But WND's promotion for the article goes where Unruh didn't when it comes to raw fearmongering. The front-page carousel promo used the headline "Will getting blood kill you next time?"
And the article's URL indicates that the article originally had the headline "Bloody hell: Feds to let 'gays' donate blood." (WND always puts the word "gay" in needless scare quotes, and we assume it did so here as well.)
Of course, both Unruh and WND have a clear antipathy toward gays, so it's no surprise they would fearmonger about this policy change.
CNS' Jeffrey Thinks Refinancing Debt Is A Ponzi Scheme Topic: CNSNews.com
The headline on Terry Jeffrey's Nov. 28 CNSNews.com article reads "Ponzi: Treasury Issues $1T in New Debt in 8 Weeks—To Pay Old Debt." ANd yes, that's exactly what Jeffrey thinks:
The Daily Treasury Statement that was released Wednesday afternoon as Americans were preparing to celebrate Thanksgiving revealed that the U.S. Treasury has been forced to issue $1,040,965,000,000 in new debt since fiscal 2015 started just eight weeks ago in order to raise the money to pay off Treasury securities that were maturing and to cover new deficit spending by the government.
During those eight weeks, Treasury took in $341,591,000,000 in revenues. That was a record for the period between Oct. 1 and Nov. 25. But that record $341,591,000,000 in revenues was not enough to finance ongoing government spending let alone pay off old debt that matured.
[...]
This mode of financing the federal government resembles what the Securities and Exchange Commission calls a Ponzi scheme. “A Ponzi scheme," says the Securities and Exchange Commission, “is an investment fraud that involves the payment of purported returns to existing investors from funds contributed by new investors,” says the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Well, no. Refinancing debt by rolling it into new debt is not a "Ponzi scheme" -- it's a universally accepted way of financing debt for both private businesses and for government, particularly if that old debt is at a higher interest rate than can be today.
Indeed, the Treasury Department's new debt is financed at a longer term to lock in current low interest rates.
This, by the way, is another piece of CNS' business and economic reporting that's credited as being "funded in part with a gift made in memory of Dr. Keith C. Wold." Even if Wold was a rock-ribbed conservative, it's probably unlikely he would accept such biased and misleading reporting occurring in his memory.
WND's Double Standard On A Country's 'License to Kill' Topic: WorldNetDaily
Bob Unruh dramatically writes in a Nov. 30 WorldNetDaily article:
The chief of a Christian organization in Pakistan is warning that the nation’s blasphemy laws, essentially, are a license to kill Christians.
The comments came from the president of the Pakistan Christian Congress, Nazir Bhatti, in a report from the Gatestone Institute’s Mohshin Habib, who was looking at the fallout from the recently torture deaths of two Christians accused – but never convicted – of burning a page from the Quran.
By contrast, if a state essentially grants a license to kill, say, homosexuals, Unruh and WND will look the other way and even cheer it on.
When a proposed law in Uganda would have permitted the death penalty for homosexuality, there was no editorializing at WND against it. In fact, WND videographer Molotov Mitchell enthusiastically endorsed it by saying a state has the right to establish its own laws. And anti-gay activist Scott Lively -- who is said to have inspired the proposed law -- was given space at WND to distance himself from the law while also ranting that gays are "murderers."
Lively was also recently quoted as saying that homosexuality is worse than murder. If Lively is willing to say such things in public, what did he tell Ugandan officials in private, who then went on to draft the kill-the-gays law?
Of course, Unruh has no concern with the lives of homosexuals -- after all, he's a gay-hater too, and it appears that to him, the lives of Christians are inherently more valuable.
AIM Trots Out Rabid Obama-Hater To Trash GOP Benghazi Report Topic: Accuracy in Media
WorldNetDaily's Aaron Klein isn't the only right-winger who can't accept the results of the Republican-led House committee's debunking of right-wing Benghazi conspiracy theories.
Accuracy in Media -- home of the little kangaroo court of Obama-haters and birthers that calls itself the "Citizens' Commission on Benghazi" -- can't accept it either. So AIM has trotted out commission member Clare Lopez to rant that the House report is "a whitewash of the CIA" designed to "exonerate the Intelligence Community (IC), and, by extension, the Obama administration, of responsibility for intelligence failures prior, during, and after the terrorist attack that took the lives of Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Foreign Service Information Officer Sean Smith, and CIA contractors Glenn Doherty and Tyrone Woods."
But Lopez has shown herself -- like much of the rest of AIM's commission -- to be a rabid Obama-hater with an agenda who cannot be trusted to fairly and objectively investigate Benghazi.
In an August WND interview, Lopez made her hatred of Obama very clear, asserting that President Obama is just like Osama bin Laden because they share the same goal of removing U.S. troops from the Middle East and putting jihadis in power.
Lopez also told WND that Obama had bin Laden killed only because he “thought it might look good,” and that Obama switched sides in the war on terror by endeavoring "to bring down the secular Muslim rulers who did not enforce Islamic law."
Does this sound like someone capable of being objective on anything involving Obama? Didn't think so.
Nevertheless, AIM's Roger Aronoff is touting Lopez's "debunking" of the House report in a Dec. 2 article, complaining that the conspiracy theories the report debunked -- and to which AIM still clings -- were described as conspiracy theories.
Phil Elmore's Anti-Liberal Tirade Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily columnist Phil Elmore is capable of common sense not typically found at WND, such as pointing out the phoniness of the WND-hyped link between vaccines and autism. But he can also be as rabidly reactionary and kneejerk right-wing as any given WND columnist.
Elmore's Nov. 26 column, unfortunately, was one of the latter, which he devotes to how liberals are lying to you on the Internet:
Very few people stop to understand the social media culture war that is raging around them. Culture wars are nothing new. Totalitarian, statist Democrats, the would-be fascists of the modern era, have long conspired to subjugate the American people. Barack Hussein Obama’s quest to “fundamentally transform” the United States is just the latest iteration of this long-fought battle, which has seen Democrats perverting everything from the meaning of the word “liberal” to every other traditional moral value and social norm.
Liberal Democrats don’t just hate America; they hate free thought, free speech and the free exchange of ideas. This is why liberals fight their endless battle to silence all speech, to quell all ideas, that they find distasteful. If you disagree with a liberal Democrat, you are not just wrong; you are a horrible person who deserves to lose his job and be censured by his peers.
We presume Elmore is totally down with the culture wars his publisher wages againstgays and for homeschoolers, which is just as dishonest, if not more so, as anything he accuses liberals of doing.
Somehow, this turned into a tirade against the New York City catcalling video, which Elmore dismissed as " deceptively edited and dishonestly presented" and shows the woman, in fact, "rudely refusing to respond to any greeting." And then, it moved to a defense of caddish men:
Modern women are apparently so incapable of coping with diversity of thought and opinion that even an unsolicited “hello” is “harassment.” These are people so weak-minded that they must have controversial ideas prefaced with absurd phrases like “trigger warning.” They trade in a manufactured argot of victimhood that includes terms like “patriarchy,” “hetero-normative” and “cis-gender.” They hate men and maleness, they hate heterosexuality, they hate families, and they hate traditional norms. They lie, blatantly and constantly, to attack these facets of our culture.
The message of the faked “drunk girl” video, by comparison, is that all men are not just rude, but also rapists. This idea – that all men are part of “rape culture” – is part and parcel of a “social justice” movement that now pervades the Internet and social media. According to that movement, all masculinity is wrong, and all men are criminals who simply haven’t been punished yet.
These are, like so much of liberal thought and philosophy, all lies – but that never stops Democrats from telling them.
Elmore is starting to sound like one of those anti-feminist men's rights creeps -- which WND happens to like as well.
Newsmax Columnist Goes Godwin on Guns In Israel Topic: Newsmax
In a Nov. 26 Newsmax column, Stephen P. Halbrook goes Godwin by likening restrictive gun laws in Israel to, yes, Nazis:
Restrictive gun laws, imposed by a well-meaning government, deprive people of the means of self-defense. So say Second Amendment advocates. Modern history and recent headlines alike support their argument.
The recent atrocities in Israel, where terrorists slaughtered four unarmed Jewish citizens at prayer — three of them rabbis — have led that nation’s government to peel back some of its draconian laws restricting the private ownership of firearms.
The new proposals do not go nearly far enough, extending only to a small group of Israelis already licensed to carry firearms, such as security guards. It’s doubtful that such a reform would prevent a repeat of this week’s slaughter.
With all due respect to a grieving, embattled nation, Israeli lawmakers — and freedom-loving Americans — should remember some tragic events of history.
In 1943, Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels fulminated, “The Jews have actually succeeded in making a defensive position of the Ghetto . . . It shows what is to be expected of the Jews when they are in possession of arms.” He was outraged at the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, which impeded deportations to the death camps and allowed partisans to escape and fight from the forests.
[...]
One of Weimar’s emergency decrees imposed strict registration of firearms, and gave the state authority to confiscate them if “public security” so required. But the decree backfired: Law-abiding citizens had duly registered their guns, while the private armies maintained by the Nazis and communists had not. Worse still, this decree put obedient citizens at risk.
As the Weimar Interior Minister warned about the registration records: “Precautions must be taken that these lists cannot . . . fall into the hands of radical elements.”
Just a year later, in 1933, the worst “radical elements” in Germany indeed came to power.
Curiously, Halbrook never explains which Israeli gun laws are so "draconian" as to be Nazi-esque. In fact, those laws appear to be quite commonsensical. The Washington Post summarizes:
Israel limits gun ownership to security workers, people who transport valuables or explosives, residents of the West Bank, and hunters. People who don't fall into one of those categories cannot obtain a firearm permit. Moreover, Israel rejects 40 percent of firearm permit applicants, the highest rejection rate in the Western world. Both Switzerland and Israel require yearly (or more frequent) permit renewals to insure that the reasons are still applicable.
Janet Rosenbaum, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the School of Public Health at the State University of New York (SUNY) Downstate Medical Center School, explained: "Ten years ago, when Israel had the outbreak of violence, there was an expansion of gun ownership, but only to people above a certain rank in the military. There was no sense that having ordinary citizens [carry guns] would make anything safer."
Halbrook doesn't explain how anything he proposes for Israel -- by way of invoking Nazis -- would change that.