The headline of Media Research Center writer Katie Yoder's Dec. 15 NewsBusters post screams "Nets CENSOR Planned Parenthood Disposing Aborted Babies in Landfills." She elucidates within:

A story of aborted baby bodies in landfills should be reporter-bait. But it’s not, at least to ABC, NBC and CBS.

After a statewide investigation, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine announced Friday that his office found no evidence that Ohio Planned Parenthood affiliates participated in the selling of aborted baby parts. Instead, his office argued it discovered something else: aborted babies thrown into landfills by Planned Parenthood.

To date, the three broadcast networks, ABC, NBC and CBS, have ignored the story during their morning and evening news shows.

Needless to say, there's a whole other side to this story that Yoder deliberately ignores -- the part in which nothing nefarious is happening.

As Vox explains, Yoder's claim about "aborted babies in landfills" is more accurately -- and less inflammatorily -- explained as Planned Parenthood disposing of medical tissue as it always has. Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio president Stephanie Kight said Ohio Planned Parenthood facilities have been regularly inspected for decades — ever since the Ohio code about "humane disposal" was first enacted in 1974 — and they've never been cited for their fetal tissue disposal procedures until now. The contractors Planned Parenthood uses to dispose of unneeded medical tissue follow procedures are specifically outlined in state law.

While Ohio law states that fetuses "shall be disposed of in a humane manner," Vox states, it does not define what "humane" means in this context, so there's nothing to back up DeWine's claim legally. According to Vox, DeWine says pending legislation will clarify that definition and require fetal remains to be cremated or buried, but he won't explain why Planned Parenthood's procedures are improper based on current law.

(Curiously, at no point does Yoder mention that DeWine is a "pro-life Republican," and thus is arguably using his state post to advance an agenda instead of properly and fairly enforcing the law.) 

In short, Planned Parenthood is not breaking the law, and DeWine has effectively conceded that fact by saying he won't prosecute Planned Parenthood over the "humane" clause.

So, to clear things up for Yoder: The story hasn't been reported by the networks because there is no news to report -- Planned Parenthood following the law is not a newsworthy event. Unless Yoder considers DeWine's seeming abuse of his office to advance a political agenda to be news, which she probably doesn't since it's her agenda he's advancing.

Yoder concludes by whining that "Shining a bad light on Planned Parenthood doesn’t fit with the media’s agenda." Actually, "the media" treated this story responsibly; meanwhile, telling the entire, unbiased truth about Planned Parenthood certainly doesn't fit with Yoder's agenda.

Posted by Terry K. at 2:52 PM EST

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It's been quite a comedown for lying preacher Bradlee Dean in the past couple years. His You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International ministry went defunct amid charges it exploited and mistreated staffers and street team members. He's now reduced to doing a radio show that he has to give away in order to get airtime (stations typically pay for programming). He's also issued a "testimony" called "My War," a title that sounds uncomfortably close to Hitler's "Mein Kampf."

Through it all, Dean has kept his outlet as a columnist for WorldNetDaily, and it's here he's continued to push his lies. His Dec. 17 WND column is effectively one giant lie laden with Obama derangement.

He starts off by regurgitating Obama Derangment Syndrome sufferer Wayne Allyn Root's assertion that he didn't know Obama, and didn't know of anybody who knew him, at Columbia University even though the two attended the school at the same time. In fact, numerous people have recalled Obama at Columbia, and Root himself has contradicted his claim that Obama never attended Columbia by declaring that "Columbia University is a window into Obama’s soul" and that "The entire Obama agenda to overwhelm the system, destroy capitalism and murder the middle class was hatched at Columbia."

Dean lies again:

Why was Obama’s law license inactivated in 2002? It is said there is no record of him ever taking the Bar exam.

Why was Michelle’s law license inactivated by court order? We understand that was forced to avoid fraud charges.

In fact, Barack Obama placed his law license on inactive status in 2007, when he began his run for president, and changed it to "retired" status in 2009. And Michelle Obama had no disciplinary charges against her when she chose to place her law license on inactive status in 1994.

Dean then moves on to more lies:

It is circulating that according to the U.S. Census, there is only one Barack Obama but 27 Social Security numbers and over 80 aliases connected to him.

The Social Security number he uses now originated in Connecticut where he is reported to have never lived.

That number was originally registered to another man (Thomas Louis Wood) from Connecticut, who died in Hawaii while on vacation there. As we all know, Social Security numbers are only issued once – “they are not reused.”

No wonder all Obama’s records are sealed.

As the Fogbow documents, Obama's Social Security number did not "originate" in Connecticut -- it's likely that, since Obama's Hawaii zip code and one for Connecticut were one digit off, there was a clerical error; someone simply mistyped a number. Also, Wood's Social Security number is one digit lower and not the same number.

Further, the idea that Obama has multiple Social Security numbers is apparently based on uncorrected records from credit reporting databases, not in fact.

Notivce Dean's weasel words: "it is circulating," it is said," "we understand." That's a sign he knows that he's spreading lies -- but he does so anyway. Apparently, Dean has never read the Ten Commandments he purports to preach and follow.

Bradlee Dean is a joke -- the fact that he has lost his ministry and is reduced to ranting on the radio is proof enough of that -- but he does not see it. As long as he continues to lie (and be a columnist for WND), he will continue to be nothing but a sad, hateful joke.

Posted by Terry K. at 8:47 AM EST

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Apparently, if you believe that football causes brain damage from repeated concussions, you're part of a liberal media conspiracy. Or so the Media Research Center wants you to believe.

In a Dec. 8 NewsBusters post, anonymous coward "Bruce Bookter" rushed to defend ESPN's Danny Kanell for his "extreme journalistic bravery" in claiming that there's a "war on football" by the "liberal media." "Bookter" ranted that "The New York Times has been nearly canine in its uncritical zeal to destroy football, at one point writing four articles for every one documented case of the degenerative brain disease," and that "the Times literally calls for football to be made illegal for all kids under the age of 18."

In fact, that call for a ban wasn't made by the Times editorial board, as "Bookter" claims, but in a column published in the Times by Bennet Omalu, who as one of the lead discoverers of chronic traumatic encephalopathy in football players, a debilitating brain condition caused by repeated head trauma knows a thing or two on the subject.

And "Bookter's" claim that the Times has published "four articles for every one documented case of the degenerative brain disease" -- a claim copied from a Breitbart article by right-winger Daniel Flynn -- is a ridiculous and nonsensical one, given that CTE can only be currently positively diagnosed post-mortem. Apparently "Bookter" would rater see more prematurely dead NFL players before admitting that CTE is a thing.

Dylan Gwinn adds his two cents in with a Dec. 14 NewsBusters post attacking Bob Costas for pointing out any purported "war on football" is rather unsuccessful given the popularity of the sport and the NFL's billions. Gwinn then rants that not even the guy who discovered CTE (whose name he can't spell correctly) is qualified to speak about it:

Of course the problem with all this is that at this point no one, not Bennett Omalu, not me, not you, and certainly not the NFL, is qualified to make any qualifying statement about what we do or don’t know about CTE.

For example, the man who Dr. Omalu considers to be his mentor, Dr. Julian Bailes disagrees with Omalu about the dangers posed by football to kids under the age of 18. Bailes believes football is safer than ever and even has two children who play. He also casts doubt on the “prevalence of CTE,” acknowledging that it’s only been diagnosed in “about 100 players” out of “tens of thousands who have played.”

Now, maybe Omalu is right and Bailes is wrong. Fine. But, when you can’t even get a consensus among the two scientists who discovered CTE about what it does and doesn’t do to kids, this whole idea of concussions and CTE being “settled science” becomes absurd.

The reason why the NFL was willing to “settle” it in court is because the NFL has almost as much money as God, and hates negative PR. They didn’t settle because of science, they settled because it was cheaper to pay the players off and get the story off the front page than it was to drag it out and fight it out in public.

Like "Bookter," Gwinn ignores the fact that CTE can only be diagnosed post-mortem. And he seems to want to conflate a dispute about whether football is safe for children to one about whether CTE actually exists.

Of course, the real reason for all this consternation is the upcoming movie "Concussion," which examines the subject. These are just pre-emptive strikes to outline the right-wing agenda on the film.

Posted by Terry K. at 4:41 PM EST

Updated: Monday, December 21, 2015 8:02 PM EST

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Ben Kinchlow's Dec. 20 WorldNetDaily column is a list of what he presents as the "top 20 facts" abvout the "immigration crisis." It includes dubious things like "As many as 12,000 gang members would vanish out of Denver" and :"Nearly one million sex crimes are committed by illegals in the U.S. every year." Kinchlow rather convolutedly credits thte list to "Richard Corbeil, a popular columnist for Florida newspaper The Apopka Chief" and "attributed to freelance reporter Tina Griego."

Just a couple problems with the list: It's bogus, has been circulating for years, and the person Kinchlow "attributed" it to didn't write it.

As the TruthOrFiction.com website points out, that list has been circulating in one form or another since at least 2007. Griego, now a columnist for the Denver Post, has stated that she did not write it, and that a reference to a separate column she wrote that appeared in the original somehow got twisted into authorship for the whole thing. She goes on to point out that the numbers in the list as they relate to Denver and Colorado are mostly unverifiable -- "It is impossible to know how many gang members in the city [of Denver] are illegal immigrants" -- adding that "The numbers are a prop, arranged to support a larger argument and, in this case, it's a cultural one," raising questions that "no amount of drummed-up statistics and wishful thinking will answer."

This information was not hard to find, yet it appears Kinchlow didn't bother to verify it before sticking it in his column. Instead, he presents it as undisputed "facts," adding: "Maybe you can articulate the shock value better than I. Believe it or not, the above information actually left me speechless; all I could do was shake my head. It’s time to make a statement in the voting booth in the next national election."

(The Apopka Chief doesn't put much of its content online, apparently, so it's unclear where Richard Corbeil did any fact-checking of his own before copy-and-pasting the bogus list -- guessing from Kinchlow's blind acceptance of his work, were guessing he didn't.)

We know WND doesn't bother to fact-check much of anything on its website -- editor Joseph Farah exhibits a perverse pride that the opinion columns he publishes contain misinformation. But Kinchlow is not big on facts either, so his bogus column is a match made in WND heaven.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:13 AM EST

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Fellow conservatives aren't the only targets of the Media Research Center's Heathering tactics for straying even slightly away from right-wing orthodoxy. The MRC's fellow right-wing media outlets are in the bull's eye as well.

In a Nov. 29 NewsBusters post, MRC official Tim Graham goes after the Washington Free Beacon for failure to recommend Mark Levin's new book:

Washington Free Beacon culture editor Aaron McLean scrunched as many book recommendations as one might expect in a single article – 66! But it might seem odd that such a 2015 Favorites list for conservatives would leave out a top seller this year – Mark Levin’s Plunder and Deceit.

It might seem possible for book reviewers to see the author is a popular talk-show host and not read further. But Levin’s books are deep explorations of public policy and political philosophy.

While Graham's tone is light at first, he turns snarky at the end: "The Free Beacon is linking to its own book reviews, but somehow they missed the Levin book earlier in the year. But they didn’t miss it when Levin touted its reporting on George Stephanopoulos and his $75,000 in donations to the Clinton Foundation." Finally, he promotes his and boss Brent Bozell's column on Levin's book.

At no point does Graham mention that Levin has a business deal with the MRC, in which the MRC pays Levin to say nice things about it on his radio show, and the MRC recipriocates by saying nice things about him (and censors Levin's most offensive outbursts) on its network of websites. In effect,

Graham's Heathering of the Free Beacon is part of the deal to promote Levin.

Posted by Terry K. at 9:35 PM EST

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For the past 1,400 years however, Muslims – all Muslims – have repeatedly proved that they represent a societal malignancy; they will always perform as a body of enemy operatives, insidiously and incrementally worming their way into non-Muslim nations with the express intention of undermining and conquering them. Every individual has a part to play in this tragic comedy, from the helpless baby to the trained combatant.

When the Muslim population finds its numbers sufficient, for the non-Muslim it’s either conversion, death, or an indentured status. Prior to such a time, it is the duty of non-Muslims to take up the mantle of “infidel” with pride and neutralize this threat with every means at their disposal.

-- Erik Rush, Nov. 11 WorldNetDaily column

My own politically incorrect suggestion is that we remove ISIS from the face of the earth, hopefully as a joint effort with every other nation it has threatened or attacked, and that we then bomb Mecca off the face of the earth, not concerning ourselves in the least with collateral damage, letting the Muslims know once and for all that our God is far more powerful and, yes, vengeful than their own puny deity.

It’s harsh, but they’ve been asking for it for over 1,400 years, and it’s time they got it.

-- Burt Prelutsky, Nov. 19 WND column

While Paris grieves their shining young and talented victims, a blindfolded Muslim man was offering “hugs” to hundreds of shattered Frenchmen at the Place de la Republique.

In a masterful display of inappropriate grandstanding, he made the tragedy all about him and his. “Hug me if you trust me, I’m told I’m a terrorist,” his sign read. Rather than offer an apology or a single tear, the anonymous Muslim asked grieving Parisians to make peace with him. And they did, overcome with some kind of group-hug phenomena, so great that mere genocide is nothing beside it.

Obviously my opinion wasn’t shared by the crowds caught up in this. Their cathartic tears were real, but only prove Europeans “trust” virtually anyone, which may be very empowering news for ISIS. Perhaps they all went home feeling much better after submitting to a Muslim stranger yet again. It’s like a child who is repeatedly raped, but occasionally shown love and affection by his attacker to confuse and disarm him. Also it suggests a new motto for liberal Parisians: “We are all Stockholm (Syndromers) now.”

-- "Marisa Martin," Nov. 20 WND column

The question at this point is whether they have the legal authority to overrule the federal government, especially one under the thumb of the schmuck who has an open-door policy when it comes to Hispanics, who are most likely to vote for Democrats, and Muslims, who are most likely to massacre Americans.

-- Burt Prelutsky, Nov. 26 WND column

ET wonders if Westerners, a confused lot, believe the Angry Muslims in their midst are gods in need of appeasement. This might explain the furry and fiery offerings on the sidewalks. ET also notes that the Pale Faces have the same crippling reverence for blacks and Hispanics.

With his luminous finger – it works like the Microsoft Surface Tablet pen does – ET scribbles the following furiously: “Are Western ‘leaders’ recruiting this incompatible cohort because they consider them, irrationally, to be gods?”

-- Ilana Mercer, Nov. 26 WND column

When Barack Obama mocks Republicans who reject the notion of Muslims flooding into America by saying: “Apparently, they’re afraid of widows and orphans,” you would hope that someone on our side would confront the arrogant jerk and say: “No, Mr. President, what we fear is that as a result of your endless pandering to all things Islamic, we might wind up with thousands of widows and orphans of our own, just the way we did on 9/11.”

The truth is that until fairly recently, no national leader in the West, and certainly not in the U.S., has ever looked around and said: “You know what we don’t have nearly enough of? Muslims!”

-- Burt Prelutsky, Dec. 3 WND column

Nobody wants to say it – and I mean nobody.

But America has an Islam problem. In fact, the whole world has an Islam problem.

Some, like Barack Obama and John Kerry, like to ignore it completely – even whitewash it. They call Islam a “religion of peace.” To which I say: Show me the evidence! Islamic persecution of other religions, its expansionism, its misogyny, its brutality and it desire to force its will on others has essentially defined world history for the last 1,300 years – with a brief exception following World War I through 1979, when it came back from the dead in a ferocious way with the Islamic revolution in Iran.

-- Joseph Farah, Dec. 6 WND column

This situation is not about gun control. It’s about Muslim control!

The silver lining in this tragedy is that it shows Obama, many fellow Democrats and the media clearly side with our enemies, and they refuse to stand with the American people.

Obama is still trying to force Syrian refugees into America, even into the area that was just attacked! Killers Syed Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, lived in a townhouse in Redlands, and the city is roiled in a debate over admitting Syrian refugees.

To paraphrase Donald Trump, “Get them the hell outta here!”

-- Jesse Lee Peterson, Dec. 6 WND column

Do we really want to import any of this mindset into the U.S.? Why would “liberals,” of all people, want to do that? Why would we use “human rights” as an argument to open the doors of America to this kind of twisted, evil worldview?

One other factor we need to consider, though, is demographics.

Islam the fastest-growing religion in the world for two reasons:

• It coerces coverts;
• Muslims have a higher birthrate than Christians and Jews.

Islam is already projected to become the second-largest religion in America in about 30 years – without an additional wave of immigration!

Already in the U.S., Islam is loud in its protestations against what they call “Islamophobia.” Remarkably, with all the pain, death and suffering Muslim terrorists have inflicted on this country, there’s little actual evidence of much blowback against innocent Muslims.

-- Joseph Farah, Dec. 16 WND column

Posted by Terry K. at 10:26 AM EST

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CNSNews.com really, really wants you to believe that Muslims aren't actually persecuted in the United States. On the same day, Dec. 9, it published two articles with effectively the same message.

Michael Morris asserted that "Despite the liberal narrative to the contrary, Jews, not Muslims, were the greatest victims of what the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program designated as religiously targeted hate crimes in America in 2014." Morris pointed out that according to these statistics, 56.8 of reported hate crimes targeted Jews, while "A mere '16.1 percent [16.1%] were victims of anti-Islamic (Muslim) bias.'"

Morris went on to note that there are even fewer anti-Christian hate crimes than anti-Muslim hate crimes, though he didn't admit that this throws a damper on right-wing claims of anti-Christian discrimination.

A column by the Heritage Foundation's Mike Gonzalez drives home the same right-wing message anti-Muslim violence isn't a thing:

At his national address Sunday night, President Barack Obama lectured Americans at length on the evils of Islamophobia. That is a lofty sentiment, no doubt, but the harangue did strike many as disproportionate. After all, on this score Americans can already be rightly proud.

Despite 9/11; two long and grinding wars against two Muslim countries; terrorist attacks at Fort Hood, Chattanooga, and San Bernardino; and the threat from ISIS, a murderous cult that has beheaded compatriots, Americans have by and large been paragons of equanimity and tolerance.

Candidates may say many things in the midst of an electoral year, but the FBI statistics show that Jews, not Muslims, are the greatest victims of what is designated as religiously targeted hate crimes in America.

Gonzelez did concede that there have been "isolated incidents of bigotry," and did surprisingly admit that these were "reprehensible." Then he quickly added: "But the real story here is that these are isolated events, and thankfully not part of some national furor."

After pretending that  Islamophobia didn't exist, Gonzalez then proceeded to blame Obama for it anyway: " Obama may actually make Islamophobia more likely by A, not reassessing his failed strategy against ISIS, and B, appearing to cynically raise fears of Islamophobia to promote his multicultural agenda." Gonzelez also asserted that "The president’s churlish approach has served to divide America."

So people who hate Muslims aren't to blame for their anti-Muslim attitudes? Quite the pretzel of logic there.

Needless to say, CNS has never reported on the numerous anti-Muslim attacks happening across America since the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino.

Also needless to say, neither Morris nor Gonzalez explained how many anti-Muslim attacks need to happen in America before they consider it to be an actual problem.

Posted by Terry K. at 2:44 PM EST

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It was a story too good to be true -- and too good for WorldNetDaily to actually bother to check out for accuracy.

Cheryl Chumley wrote in a Nov. 24 WND article:

A man who was used by American leftists as an example of righteous outrage over the U.S. government’s no-fly lists and the supposed biased targeting of innocent Muslims has been arrested and jailed by Turkish authorities who say he’s tied to ISIS.

Saadiq Long and his family members were all arrested near the Turkey-Syria border earlier this month on charges they belonged to an ISIS terrorist cell, PJ Media reported.

What’s most interesting about the arrest is Long was the face chosen by the likes of MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, Mother Jones magazine and author and columnist Glenn Greenwald to use as an example of government surveillance gone wrong.

Matthew Vadum dutifully repeated the claim, making him a bullet point in a Dec. 6 WND article purporting to debunk the idea that Islamophobia exists:

Saadiq Long: the American-born Muslim convert promoted by the Left as a victim of Islamophobia has been arrested in Turkey near the Syrian border, accused of being part of an Islamic State terror cell. Long became a media darling after he was placed on the U.S. government’s no-fly list, which prevented him from flying from his current home in Qatar to his native Oklahoma to see his ailing mother two years ago. Marxist muckraker Glenn Greenwald howled that Long was “effectively exiled from his own country,” and Kevin Drum of Mother Jones lamented that Long was trapped in the “Kafkaesque World of the No-Fly List.” Eventually the government caved and allowed Long to fly to the U.S. While stateside police returned him to the list, preventing his return to Qatar. He hopped on a bus and flew out of Mexico and was later picked up by Turkish authorities along with other accused terrorists.

Turns out it's not true at all.

The Intercept reports that "Neither Long nor his wife or daughter have been arrested on charges that he joined ISIS. He faces no criminal charges of any kind in Turkey." The reason for his detention is that he is apparently on the no-fly list -- which WND itself noted just a few days ago "relies on an overly broad standard of reasonable suspicion" and is filled with "thousands of innocent people" --  and the U.S. embassy in Ankara is intervening on his behalf.

Given that WND typically allows falsehoods to remain on hits website uncorrected unless a lawsuit or threat of a lawsuit is involved, don't expect WND to do the right thing here.

Posted by Terry K. at 8:45 AM EST

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After the Republican presidential debate on CNBC, Media Reserach Center chief Brent Bozell denounced the CNBC moderators as "smarmy, condescending, arrogant," and the MRC later released a so-called "study" of the debate complaining that too many of the questions asked involved "negative spin, personal insults or ad hominem attacks."

That's no longer a bad thing at the MRC.

Earlier this month, Bozell wrote a Facebook post sneeringly calling MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry "Melissa Al-Jazeera." This week, Bozell sent second-rate Jesse Watters wannabe Dan Joseph --  best known around here for his douche-y mocking of transgenders by lamely pretending to be one who wants to use a women's restroom -- to Las Vegas for the Republican presidential debate, for the sole apparent purpose of ambushing Chris Matthews with the question of whether he still feels a thrill up his leg (a reference to a comment Matthews once made about President Obama). Being a douche, Joseph presses the issue even after getting his desired response of being told to go to hell by Matthews: "Are you limping? Did the thrill go away with surgery or did it just going go away on its own?"

Remember this the next time Bozell complains about the "liberal media" purportedly not being respectful enough to conservatives. He's nothing but a hypocrite. A guy who sent a minion across the country for the sole purpose of acting like a jerk has not earned the respect he demands.

Posted by Terry K. at 5:40 PM EST

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Joseph Farah started his Dec. 13 WorldNetDaily column this way:

When White House spokesman Josh Earnest claimed Donald Trump “disqualified himself” in his bid for the presidency by calling for a moratorium on Muslim immigration until Washington figures out how to screen out terrorists, I really expected a better Trump response.

“Disqualified?” Barack Obama making judgments about who’s “qualified” to be president? Isn’t this the guy who refused to release his long-form birth certificate to prove he was constitutionally eligible and legally qualified for the job? And then didn’t he release a document that shows all the earmarks of fraud? Wasn’t that the conclusion of the only law enforcement investigation into the document?

Actually, that "law enforcement investigation into the document" -- that would be the one by Joe Arpaio, Mike Zullo and the Cold Case Posse -- was a sham and a joke that promoted demonstrably false information that WND has yet to correct years after the fact. Zullo, by the way, is currently embroiled in a corruption investigation of Arpaio that is semi-related to his birther posse, in which he invoked his Fifth Amendment rights literally hundreds of times before suddenly changing his mind and "angrily defended his work."

Funny, WND hasn't reported on Zullo's current travails either. But never mind, Farah still wants to prove he's a birther:

Even if Obama’s fake birth certificate were real, which it clearly is not, it would still not prove his eligibility. It showed Obama was the son of a foreign student, not a U.S. citizen, and a woman probably too young to confer natural born citizenship upon her son.

Actually, as former Cold Case Posse member Brian Reilly has pointed out, the state of Hawaii has officially verified the authenticity of Obama's birth certificate, which officially puts the issue to rest. The purported anomalies in the PDF of Obama's birth certificate that the posse has promoted as evidence of fraud are easily duplicated by scanning the document using a common Xerox office scanner -- which the posse has never disproved despite having more than two years to do so. And guess what? WND has never reported on the existence of this evidence further discrediting the cold case posse.

But rather than admitting he's wrong, Farah just wants to change the subject:

Of course, that’s water under the bridge now. I’ve been quiet about the eligibility issue for a long time now. Obama managed to “fundamentally transform” the nation’s definition about constitutional eligibility – and, perhaps, that’s what he was aiming for. Now, the assumption is that any anchor baby is eligible to become president. You can’t even have an intelligent debate or discussion about the issue any longer.

Farah won't tell you, of course, that WND's own fundamental dishonesty in covering the issue -- Farah was much more interested in trying to personally destroy Obama than in reporting the truth -- is the reason why "you can’t even have an intelligent debate or discussion about the issue any longer."

If Farah wanted to approach the issue honestly and intelligently, he and WND would be applying the same "eligibility" standards to Ted Cruz that he did to Obama. But they're not. Indeed, Farah does not mention Cruz one in his column.

Farah then invokese again his birther revisionism, insisting that "It was never about whether someone had a birth certificate. It was always a question about what that document revealed about whether the person met the criteria." For someone who insists Obama's birth certificate isn't the issue, Farah sure has spent a lot of time obsessing over Obama's birth certificate.

Farah insists that "It’s really just a question of what 'natural born citizen' means that is at issue." But WND was dishonesty about that too, repeatedly denying that the Wong Kim Ark case is recognized as the controlling Supreme Court decision on the definition of "natural born citizen" -- solely because that ruling would not disqualify Obama under WND's exceedingly narrow definition (both parents being U.S. citizens) that has never been upheld in court.

But Farah wants you to think he's done with the birther stuff -- "water under the bridge" and "probably too late to do anything about the Obama fraud" and all that. He devotes the final third of his column to pushing the conspiracy theory that Obama is a secret Muslim who was born in Kenya by taking statements out of context and repeating other statements that are clearly incorrect.

And he concludes the column by shilling for his Hillary witch hunt -- which no sane person can trust because of his filthy dishonesty in obsessively pushing the bogus birther story.

Farah seems to think that no longer actively pursuing the birther story will restore WND's squandered credibility. Until he admits it was all a vendetta against Obama and apologizes for promulgating false information for (attempted) political gain, he doesn't have a chance in hell of ever being taken seriously again.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:50 AM EST

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In a Dec. 11 blog post, Accuracy in Media chairman Don Irvine complained that University of Maryland president Wallace Loh, in defending the decision to drop the name of a former school president with a history of racism from the school's football stadium, "managed to quote the wrong official motto of the United States" by bringing up the phrase "E Pluribus Unum."

Irvine added: "Considering that 'In God we Trust' has been the official national motto since 1956, it’s hard to figure out how Loh committed such an atrocious mistake, except to say that the official motto wouldn’t have fit his narrative as he caves to the left and practices revisionist history."

In fact, Loh never said "E Pluribus Unum," was the "official motto" but, rather, "our national motto engraved on our coins" (as Irvine directly quotes Loh). And "E Pluribus Unum," while not the "official motto," is unquestionably *a* national motto.

History professor Thomas Foster points out that "'E Pluribus Unum' has long been acknowledged as a de facto national motto. After all, it is on the Great Seal of the United States, which was adopted in 1782. Moreover, in the 1770s and ’80s Congress opposed a theistic motto for the nation, and many of the founders worked hard to prevent one from being established." It was founding fathers John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson who approved putting that motto on the Great Seal. "In God We Trust," by contrast, "was made the official national motto in 1956, at the height of the Cold War, to signal opposition to the feared secularizing ideology of communism," Foster writes.

If this debate sounds familiar it should: The ConWeb had a cow in 2010 when President Obama did something similar.

Posted by Terry K. at 2:42 PM EST

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Poor Erik Rush: He thinks he is feared.

So much so, in fact, he feels compelled to explain why he is feared. Indeed, his Dec. 9 WorldNetDaily column is called "Why the left fears me." He opines:

I can always tell I’ve hit a nerve when something I’ve written causes the left-wing websites to go berserk in their efforts to ridicule me following its publication. When anyone hits a nerve, we typically see more hyperbole, mischaracterization and ridiculous extrapolations than usual from the left. By hitting a nerve, I mean articulating concepts truly threatening to the agenda of the left.

Black conservatives tend to grind on those aforementioned leftist nerves by their very existence; this is why such vigorous efforts are made by the left to marginalize them. Part of this stems from leftists’ thinly veiled racism; they resent black conservatives for not “minding their place” by rejecting liberal doctrine and liberals’ largesse.

Another factor is a fallacy or stereotype the left itself created, and which is a component of negrophilia: The notion that black Americans possess some mysterious, sage wisdom originating in their unique collective experience on this continent.

Following this line of reasoning, it’s all well and good for a right-wing nut job like me and my ilk to howl at the moon about communists and conspiracies, but it’s an entirely different proposition if people start seriously considering what we have to say.

We -- and, we presume given that WND remains his highest-profile platform, the vast majority of the planet -- haven't seriously considered anything Rush has had to say for years. What little we've written on him has mostly been relegated to clipping his rants for Obama Derangement Syndrome posts.

And his self-described "howling at the moon about communists and conspiracies" has pretty much guaranteed that Rush will never be taken seriously. For example:

• Rush's obsessive hatred of President Obama, starting with likening him to a prison rapist and going from there.
• Rush's declaration that all Muslims should be killed, which he was forced to walk back as "sarcasm."
• Rush's peddling of weird Chinese conspiracies.
• Rush's insistence that his conspiracies are true, while still never providing actual evidence to back them up.

No, Erik, "the left" doesn't fear you. Nobody fears a ranting, hateful conspiracist.

In fact, the opposite is true: You fear those who tell the truth about you. Why else would you block us from following your Twitter account?

Posted by Terry K. at 8:51 AM EST

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See how many extraneous ideological labels the Media Research Center's Matthew Balan sticks in his Dec. 2 post on the new film "Spotlight." We'll help by putting them in bold:

CBS Celebrates 'Very Powerful,' 'Fantastic' Liberal Reporter Movie

Wednesday's CBS This Morning raved over the new movie Spotlight, which touts the work of the investigative reporters at the liberal Boston Globe who chronicled the Catholic priest sex abuse scandal in the Archdiocese of Boston. Gayle King gushed, "Gosh, that movie was so good." She later labeled the movie "very powerful." Fill-in anchor Kristen Johnson asserted that the new release was "such a fantastic movie." [video below]

The morning newscast brought on left-wing actor Mark Ruffalo and the Boston Globe correspondent he played in the movie, Mike Rezendes. Johnson set up Rezendes to praise the movie, along with his profession: "When you saw the movie, were you pleased with how real it was?" The guest replied, "Yeah. I think the movie is incredibly authentic....I love the message that it gives about investigative reporting. I love the message it gives about clergy sex abuse."

Anchor Charlie Rose followed up by underlining that "there are two stories here. One is a story of reporting; two is a story about something like this could go on for so long." Rezendes returned to praising the movie: "I like the movie, because it keeps public attention focused on this issue, which is still really important." Rose asked him to clarify: "Meaning that the Church has not done anything, or hasn't done enough?" The journalist responded, "I think the Church has...taken several meaningful steps. I think most victims/survivors will tell you that the Church has not done enough."

King then prompted Ruffalo to give his take on the issue, as she continued her praise for the motion picture. The left-wing actor included his inaccurate summary of Catholic theology on the priesthood:

[...]

Near the end of the segment, the Obama-supporting TV personality asked Rezendes, "Did it change, Mike, how you felt about your religion, when you were reporting the story — working on it?" The journalist answered, "Yeah. Even though I was a lapsed Catholic at the time, I still considered myself a Catholic. I still identified Catholic. And it did change how I felt about the Church — no question about it." King and Johnson ended the segment with their "very powerful" and "fantastic" superlatives about the movie.

For all the label-tossing Balan does, he never explains why he's doing it -- perhaps it's an attempt to dismiss the film as a "liberal" enterprise, something the MRC has been doing for a while. But even if the Boston Globe is the "liberal" paper he claims it is, does that make the story it reported on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church any less accurate? Does Ruffalo being a "left-wing actor" -- something Balan is compelled to state twice -- have any bearing whatsoever on his role in this movie? And what does Balan's labeling of Gayle King as an "Obama-supporting TV personality" have on anything in his post? Obama has nothing to do with either the events depicted in "Spotlight" or the contents of the interivew.

Witih no actual hook to  base his criticism, Balan is effectively complaining that a film he doesn't like is being promoted. That's not "media research" -- that's an attempt at censorship.

Posted by Terry K. at 3:13 PM EST

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Joe Kovacs seems a little upset in a Dec. 9 WND article:

Achtung, political fans!

Images of Donald Trump on swastikas are now making their debut into this presidential race.

Police in northeast Atlanta spent much of Wednesday morning trying to scrape the swastikas from at least two bridge supports in the area.

The symbols feature a cartoon of Trump sporting a Hitler-style mustache and a bow tie made out of a $100 bill.

Their appearance comes only days after Trump’s controversial call to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. until a proper vetting process is developed. Trump said in a statement released Monday there should be a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”

Kovacs being conserned that Trump is being portrayed as a Nazi is particularly rich given WND's own history of smearing President Obama as a Nazi.

As we've documented, WND not only has published numerous attacks on Obama likening him to various and sundry Nazis, it actually defended doing so. WND also published a columnist, Hilmar von Campe, whose apparent sole purpose in life was to hurl Obama-Nazi smears, showing that he learned well from his childhood as a member of the Hitler Youth.

Kovacs doesn't mention that actual neo-Nazis and white supremacists and nationalists are totally down with Trump's plan to bar Muslims from entering the country. That's something that lends a little heft to those Trump-Nazi accusations, unlike with anything involving the Obama-Nazi smear.

Posted by Terry K. at 8:45 AM EST

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