NEW ARTICLE: Suddenly Reluctant Birthers At WND Topic: WorldNetDaily
Donald Trump finally forces WorldNetDaily to pursue -- very unenthusiastically -- the issue of Ted Cruz's eligibility, and it gives him benefits of doubt it never granted to President Obama. Even birther extraordinare Jerome Corsi flip-flops to protect Cruz. Read more >>
MRC Pretends Anti-Abortion Activists Are Real Journalists Topic: Media Research Center
Mike Ciandella writes in a Jan. 27 NewsBusters post regarding thte indictment of anti-abortion actiivsts at the so-called Center for Medical Progress for deceptive tactics in their secretly filmed anti-Planned Parenthood videos:
Undercover journalists from both sides of the political spectrum could be severely limited by a Texas grand jury indictment against pro-life activists. The charges are so sweeping that they could affect the entire journalism industry, everything from the network news to environmental activists.
Yet, out of the three broadcast evening news shows, only CBS Evening News has noticed the “dangerous precedent” that this indictment could have for journalism. NBC Nightly News devoted 70 seconds to the ruling, but failed to mentioned any negative consequences for the industry.
Ciandella went on to repeatedly assert that "this ruling wasn’t just bad for pro-lifers or conservatives, it was bad for all undercover journalists" and that there would be "repercussions against undercover journalism" if the indictment stands.
Yes, this would be an issue -- if David Daleiden and the CMP were actual journalists. But they're not.
Right Wing Watch points out that CMP "did not originally describe itself as a journalistic outlet. It was only around the time the group started releasing its videos that it updated its website's 'About Us' page to say that it was comprised of 'citizen journalists.'" Further, CMP officials have publicly stated that its goal is to destroy Planned Parenthood, not to tell a story fairly or objectively, and Daleiden himself said his goal was "obtaining criminal prosecutions" against Planned Parenthood officials and ultimately to "put an end to the abortion industry in America." That's not journalism.
Right Wing Watch sums up: "Daleiden is not an 'investigative journalist.' He is an anti-abortion activist who is now trying to pose as a journalist." That's a big difference -- not that Ciandella is himself objective enough to explain it to his readers.
It’s time to let fly with an American “Huzzah!” What used to be called a “white paper” or a “manifesto” is a way a nation can tell the world something it ought to know. The American manifesto I have in mind should be signed by everybody not surgically connected to Obama or his team. Round up the old Democratic patriots, Republicans left to right, every American who’s an elected official to state legislatures and all the mayors willing to join.
This manifesto will tell the world, “You may be wondering what happened to America. The good news is, we’re still here, albeit no longer audible or visible, smothered underneath the most self-destructive leadership in our history. You have every right to think we’re over-with and done-for. But dismiss us at your peril.
[...]
“If any of you, anywhere, harbor any plans for pushing America out of the way so as to crush the hope of freedom for oppressed peoples or to extinguish democracy in countries that have achieved democracy, we advise you to wait until our election next November. If the candidate being inaugurated one year from today – Jan. 20, 2017 – is not one who was recommended by Barack Obama, your adventuresome plans will not be worth the risk.
“You are not seeing the real America at this time. Sorry, but we regard our current leader as a kidney stone who will take one year to pass. Iran has proven we can stand the pain.”
To an extent, I am somewhat surprised to see the issue of eligibility for the office of president of the United States rearing its head at this point in time for reasons that shall become evident presently. On the one hand, in light of the fraud perpetuated by Barack Hussein Obama and his surrogates in this area, it is easy to understand that those for whom the rule of law still carries weight would want to to ensure that such a thing never occurs again.
Perpetrating another one of his Saul Alinsky scams on an ever-increasing dumbed down American public, the president of the United States and his gang of America-hating cronies are overly confident that there are enough Americans clueless to his freedom-hating agenda and his intentional deception on the relationship between crime and guns that he can actually get away with more and more criminal oath-violating infringement.
But, frankly, listening to the most divisive president in American history prattling on about returning civility to political discourse was sheer torture. This is the man who based his re-election campaign in 2012 by lying about a video, insisting that al-Qaida was on the run, and creating divisions among the electorate between rich and poor, white and black, young and old, men and women – scapegoating half of us and sliming a decent man like Mitt Romney – all in order to win a second term. To me, it was a lot like listening to King Henry VIII deliver a lecture on table manners.
It’s not exactly news that President Barack Hussein Obama harbors a deep-seated disdain, if not hatred, for Jews and Israel. While keeping a few ultra-leftist Jews around him in the White House for the last seven years for political cover, he has done everything possible to harm the Jewish state and advance the cause of Islam both at home and abroad.
CNS Reporter Promotes Anti-U.S. Propaganda From Iran Topic: CNSNews.com
How much does CNSNews.com hate President Obama? It's publishing anti-U.S. propaganda from Iran in an attempt to smear him.
In a Jan. 21 CNS article, Patrick Goodenough touted how "The head of the Iranian regime’s notorious Basij militia claimed Wednesday that Iran had received $1.7 billion from the U.S. in exchange for the release of imprisoned Americans, contradicting the Obama administration’s denial that the settling of a decades-old legal claim amounted to a ransom." Goodenough then quoted a Republican member of Congress saying somesthing similar in an apparent attempt to bolster Iran's allegation.
An act of God” was responsible for U.S. Navy sailors entering Iranian waters, leading to their arrest at gunpoint, Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday told Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) members who detained the Americans.
“Your job was excellent, interesting and timely and, in fact, we must consider this incident as an act of God, who brought Americans into our waters so they would be arrested through your timely action and in that manner, with their hands held above their heads,” Khamenei told the group in a face-to-face meeting, according to a report on the supreme leader’s office website.
The site said Khamenei had “heaped praise” on the IRGC Navy personnel “who had courageously taken action against the entry of U.S. troops into the Islamic Republic of Iran’s territorial waters by arresting the trespassers.”
We suspect Goodenough wouldn't be credulously repeating Iranian propaganda if there was a Republican president.
Goodenough has also quoted Iranian propaganda in a critical context; on Jan. 27 he noted that "the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's official website posted a video quoting the supreme leader’s questioning of the Holocaust," and on Jan. 29 he reported that "A U.S. Navy warship which Iran claims to have chased away from a naval exercise in the Persian Gulf this week was at the time more than 7,000 miles away – in its home port of Norfolk, Virginia."
It's interesting that Goodenough can be critical of Iran in those contexts, but Iranian propaganda is completely credible when it attempts to make Obama look bad. That's one thing CNS and Iran appear to have in common.
Flashback: 'Christian' Leader WND Defended Now On Trial For War Crimes Topic: WorldNetDaily
During a controversy over a 2010 election in the Ivory Coast, WorldNetDaily repeatedly sided with Laurent Gbagbo, the self-proclaimed "Christian" leader who had lost the election but was still clinging to power. WND insisted that Gbagbo had won the election over Alassane Ouattara, who we were informed at every opportunity was a Muslim -- despite the fact that both the United Nations and the European Union certified that Ouattara won and that the election was free and fair (or at least as close as one can get to that in the Ivory Coast). WND portrayed it as a religious battle, making a point of touting Gbagbo's alleged Christianity over the Muslim religion of Ouattara.
As it so happens, Gbagbo went on trial this week at the International Criminal Court in the Hague for crimes against humanity allegedly commited by him and his supporters in their effort to cling to power. More than 3,000 people were killed in the five months after the election as Gbagbo tried to cling to power and forces loyal to him attacked ethnic groups who were believed to support Ouattara.
So far, WND has reported nothing about Gbagbo's trial, let alone admited that it supported this man in the face of near-unanimous international opposition to his behavior.
MRC Denies That Anti Abortion Videos Were Dishonestly Edited, Influenced Planned Parenthood Killings Topic: Media Research Center
Melissa Mullins devotes a Jan. 21 MRC NewsBusters post to a screed against Teen Vogue for daring to write about Planned Parenthood's response to a anti-abortion group's secretly recorded videos. She bravely clings to her anti-abortion talking points, even in the face of reality. For instance, she writes in one of the "bias" points against the Teen Vogue article:
Bias #2: Calling the people behind the videos of conducting a “malicious smear campaign.” That in itself is incredibly subjective, but the truth is not.
Bias #3: Claiming the videos were “heavily edited in an effort to claim employees of Planned Parenthood sold “baby parts” for profit.” Were the videos edited? Yes – for brevity…however, the complete and unedited videos are online, stating the same as the shorter videos. Besides, you can’t put words into someone’s mouth when it’s on camera. Hey Teen Vogue – have you seen the videos? Or are you claiming ignorance like the Democrats who refused to watch the videos?
In fact, it's been amply documented that the edited videos do not accurately reflect the reality that's contained in the "complete and unedited" versions. In other words, they're not "the truth" at all.
Mullins then wrote:
Bias #6: Blaming an attack on Planned Parenthood that killed three people as a "devastating result" of these videos. This is absurd. It’s almost the same as saying the Matrix movies caused the Columbine school massacre.
Given that the shooter in the Planned Parenthood killings, Robert Dear, reportedly talked of "baby parts" upon his arrest -- a phrase that has been a key component of the MRC's promotion of the Center for Medical Progress' secretly recorded anti-abortion videos -- it's pretty safe to assume that the videos played some role in inspiring the shooting.
We're not aware that Mullins has criticized her publisher for repeatedlyblaming the Southern Poverty Law Center for a gunman's attack on the Family Reserach Council headquarters despite no evidence the gunman had any contact with the SPLC beyond looking at its website (which did not exhort anyone to violence).
Mullins concludes by ranting that "a magazine which targets teenaged girls is spoon-feeding them biased garbage such as this." So what's Mullins' excuse for her peddling of biased garbage?
WND Ridiculously Portrays NYC Blizzard Travel Ban As 'Martial Law' Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily tried to make things sound as scary as possible in a Jan. 24 article:
It’s the nagging fear many have about our government: what would happen if martial law was declared? New York City just found out, at least temporarily.
Eleven states as well as Washington D.C. declared states of emergency in the wake of the massive record-breaking snowstorm which blanketed the East. But New York City went a step further. Governor Andrew Cuomo imposed emergency measures that seemed to many to be like “martial law” in New York City by ordering all people to stay inside under police enforcement. He issued an absolute travel ban for anything that is not an emergency vehicle.
Of course, a travel ban during what WND admits is a "massive record-breaking snowstorm" is nothing at all like martial law. As WND later admits, the ban was instituted so the streets could be clear of those massive, record-breaking amounts of snow.
And the travel ban had its intended effect: it helped New York City to reopen its roads quickly despite the record snowfall. "Because we put the travel ban in, Sanitation was able to get out there and plow as well as they did," Mayor Bill de Blasio said.
WND also might want to read up on the definition of martial law, which is usually applied in times of governmental chaos, such as a coup or a military takeover, and is usually accompanied by the suspension of civil law and civil rights. Needless to say, none of that happened in New York; ergo, there was no "martial law" there.
If there's anything close to martial law happening in the U.S. right now, it's the militia takeover of a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon. But WND doesn't want to talk about that for some reason.
MRC Cheers RNC Dropping NBC From GOP Debate, Silent On RNC Dropping National Review Topic: Media Research Center
The right-wing Heathering of Donald Trump in National Review -- starring the Media Research Center's very own Brent Bozell -- has had consequences ... but the MRC won't talk about it.
Nowhere on NewsBusters -- the current front page for most MRC activities -- is it mention that the Republican National Committee dropped National Review as a sponsor of an upcoming GOP presidential debate.Bozell has apparently issued no statement on the removal he helped provoke -- none that his organization saw fit to reprint, anyway.
Ironically, this is the same debate from which the RNC bounced NBC as a sponsor just a few days before -- and the MRC couldn't have been happier about that development.
Bozell rushed out with a statement praising the decision to drop NBC, huffing that "it makes no sense to continue to allow committed left-wingers in the media to decide the nominee of the Republican Party," citing "the dreadful performance by CNBC’s moderators at the Republican debate in October." MRC apparatchik Dan Gainor added, "Serves 'em right!"
Of course, neither Bozell, for all its ranting about the purported bias of the CNBC debate, never provided any actual, objective evidence of it.
Given how vocal the MRC was about the RNC kicking out NBC, it's surprising that it's been utterly silent about the RNC's booting of National Review. Apparently, Bozell and Co. doesn't want to risk provoking the RNC any further.
And it's more than just affirmative action, it's propaganda. And you're trying to, well, create -- I mean, for instance, if in the movies, you have blacks who are always going to be leading scientists and physicists and they're the judges and they're the -- you know, Morgan Freeman, he's played both the president and God. Funny he wasn't cast as Moses during the 10 Commandments, I knoticed that. You know, you create these very unrealistic expectations when you have a society in which that same minority group is too much involved in drugs and, you know, they're not performing well, but yet you're going to wind up with expectations not just from them but from the population at large to see them in large numbers in professions in which under current circumstances they're certainly not likely to be entering in any large numbers. And so it skews expectations and then makes things like, you know, Black Lives Matter or #OscarsSoWhite, it makes them seem more plausible because you've created this, you know, unrealistic fantasy world, which is what Hollywood is.
Jada Smith is upset because her husband, Will Smith, didn’t win an Oscar for his movie “Concussion.” I’ve got an idea for you, Jada. Why don’t you make movies for yourselves?
Why can’t these blacks stop blaming whites and work on their character and craft so they can make movies that are worthy of recognition?
The only color Hollywood and the academy care about is green. Spike Lee, Jada Smith and other blacks complaining about being snubbed by the academy need to make better movies. Period.
According to reports, 60 percent of movie profits come from the foreign market, and movies starring blacks don’t do well overseas. The studios are in business to make money, so you can’t blame them for not casting more blacks.
In America, when you put out the best the marketplace will reward it. I don’t see a lot of Sidney Poitiers these days, or any great black movies worthy of the price of admission, let alone an Oscar.
Blacks are not being overlooked due to their race; they’re not winning Oscars because their work doesn’t stand out, and their movies don’t make money.
Blacks are taking the easy route and complaining and protesting to get their way. This is a continuation of the age-old war between Booker T. Washington’s “earn your way” and W.E.B. Dubois’ “agitate” to push your way in. These spoiled blacks are just repeating what Barack Obama, Black Lives Matter and other race hustlers have done successfully. They know that white liberals – who make up the bulk of Hollywood – will cave as they always do.
The path of least resistance for Spike Lee, Jada Smith and other angry blacks is agitation. Working on your craft and steadily getting better takes work – and who wants to do that?!
The problem with most black Americans today is that they feel entitled to have things handed to them. They’ve been told that white folks owe them, so when things don’t go their way, they cry “discrimination.”
“Shut up and act!” is what these spoiled brats should be told.
Will and Jada Pinkett own a production company called Overbook Entertainment. On their site, they tout that their company has "generated more than $3.0 billion dollars in worldwide box office receipts and even more in home video sales." Spike Lee's net worth is estimated at $40 million; his movies have grossed almost $400 million. Oprah Winfrey has her own media empire, and her net worth is an estimated $3 billion. Why can't these people pool their resources and cultivate talent instead of moaning about being excluded by whites?
They can't do it because most blacks cannot work together; they're jealous and distrustful of one another. They have a spiritual and moral deficiency because most haven't been raised in stable two-parent homes. The overwhelming majority of them haven't had good fathers.
-- Jesse Lee Peterson, Jan. 24 WorldNetDaily column
Last week, the Media Research Center joined other anti-abortion groups in demanding that "the media" cover the annual March for Life, even though it offered no evidence that other annual protest marches get the kind of coverage it demands, or that the march itself does anything inherently newsworthy. MRC chief Brent Bozell is quoted as saying:
After last year’s media blackout of the March for Life, the networks owe it to their viewers to meaningfully and accurately cover Friday’s march. The media have covered all manner of protests in our nation’s capital no matter how large or small, but they refuse to cover hundreds of thousands of peaceful marchers advocating for the unborn. We will raise our voices on behalf of these precious children and let the media know that they must cover the march. If the media want to retain any shred of credibility, they will give the March for Life and other life issues the full and fair coverage they deserve.
But does the MRC "news" division, CNSNews.com, demonstrate the kind of "full and fair coverage" of abortion it demands from "the media"?
Nope. CNS' abortion coverage is heavily slanted to the anti-abortion side, with pro-choice views -- when they're not being censored completely -- attacked and given no opportunity to respond to those attacks. CNS' runup to the March for Life was particularly telling. For instance:
In a Jan. 19 article touting a poll climing that "rhe vast majority of Americans, including those who label themselves pro-choice, favor restrictions on abortion," Lauretta Brown not only failed to obtain any pro-choice response to the poll, she failed to disclose that the organization that commissioned the poll, the Knights of Columbus, identifies itself as an anti-abortion group and, thus, has an interest in commissioning polls that reflect its views on the subject.
A Jan. 20 article by Barbara Hollingsworth touted a doctor "who bought out an abortion practitioner 16 years ago is now using the abortionist’s own instruments of death to deliver a pro-life message." Hollingsworth made no apparent effort to contact a pro-choice activist to respond to the claims the doctor made.
A Jan. 22 article by Susan Jones uncritically repeated David Daleiden's claim that his secretly (and possibly illegally) recorded videos of Planned Parenthood officials were not "edited to mislead." Jones ignored extensive evidence that Daleiden's videos were, in fact, deceptively edited.
A Jan. 22 article by Melanie Hunter repeats Carly Fiorina's anti-abortion attacks at the March for Life, including referring th "the horrific truth of the Planned Parenthood videos." Hunter sought no pro-choice response to Fiorina's remarks, and she, like Jones, ignored evidence that the videos are deceptively edited.
A Jan. 25 article by Jones quoted a Republican member of Congress smearing Planned Parenthood as "child abuse incorporated." Jones made no attempt to contact Planned Parenthood for a response.
The only article CNS published amid its March for Life coverage was an unbylined Jan. 22 article noting President Obama's statement on the Roe v. Wade anniversary. It carried the biased headline "58,586,256 Abortions Later--Obama Celebrates Roe v. Wade: It Affirmed Freedom."
If the MRC's own "news" coverage of abortion is so wildly biased -- something it has historically been -- what moral authority does it have to demand that other, more legitimate news outlets fit its coverage to the MRC's whims.
We've written CNS asking these questions. We'll post a response if CNS provides one.
WND Portrays Trailer Park Owner As Victim, Hides His Impending Payday Topic: WorldNetDaily
Bob Unruh writes in a Jan. 16 WorldNetDaily article:
The city of Palo Alto, California, wants a court to dismiss a lawsuit opposing its demand that the family owners of a mobile home park pay some $8 million for permission to close it down.
Lawyers for the park owners say they are just asking for the “courthouse doors [to] remain open for people, like the Jissers, to make their case when the government wrongfully takes their property.”
As WND reported, the Pacific Legal Foundation filed the case on behalf of the owners of the Buena Vista mobile home park. The owners want to close their business, but with a local median housing price of $2.46 million, the city demands that the tenants be compensated so they can find another place to live.
“No one should be forced to carry on a business that they want to close,” said PLF Attorney Larry Salzman in a statement. “The city is treating the Jissers as an ATM to solve a problem they didn’t cause – the lack of affordable housing in Palo Alto. That’s not just wrong, it’s unconstitutional.”
Since Unruh cares about telling only one side of the story, that of the Jisser family and their attorneys -- a statement from city officials is relegated to the very last paragraph of his article -- he leaves out pertinent facts.
Like the fact that the Jissers do not, in fact, have to close the trailer park -- they could sell it as a going business. But he has rejected offers to do so. In fact, city and county officials offered to pay the Jissers $39 million for the trailer park, but the familyrejected it, blaming a lawsuit filed by trailer park residents.
It appears the Jissers want an even bigger payday. The plot of land could fetch as much as $55 million for redevelopment into market-rate housing, according to the Wall Street Journal -- more than enough for the Jissers to pay that $8 million to his former tenants and still make more than they would by selling it intact.
The fact that the Jissers are simply choosing between a big payday (if they let their tenants stay) and an even bigger one (if they kick them out) does not fit WND's anti-government narrative. And Unruh is nothing if not a loyal spouter of WND's right-wing talking points.
The ConWeb Censors How Badly Benghazi Movie Tanked Topic: The ConWeb
We've detailed how the ConWeb plugged the heck out the new film "13 Hours," about the attack on Benghazi, and praised it for functioning as "rightwing propaganda." But the ConWeb won't tell you one key thing about it: how well it did at the box office.
That's because it didn't.
In its opening weekend, "13 Hours" -- which cost $50 million to make -- made just $19.2 million, despite having the action-film credentials of Michael Bay behind it and despite a wide opening on more than 2,300 screens. This past weekend, the film took in just $9 million. That does not bode well for the prospects of making back its production costs.
Forbes thinks that one reason the film is tanking is that it's "trapped by its inherently political origins" and how the film was marketed to conservatives and the right-wing media outlets who praised it as a way to torpedo Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. Remember the headline of Drew Zahn's WorldNetDaily review of the film was "How can Hillary possibly win after this?" Forbes adds: "In short, the film arguably wouldn’t have existed save for the controversies surrounding the 2012 terrorist attack, but it was the existence of said controversies that prevented the film from crossing over beyond the would-be converted."
You won't read any bad news about "13 Hours" in the ConWeb, however. WND, Accuracy in Media and NewsBusters have all censored news of the film's tanking. CNSNews.com published the usual Associated Press stories on weekend box office takes, one of which noted that the film "failed to make a large impact." But they were never given a link on the CNS front page, which means they may as well not have been published at all given how unlikely the typical CNS reader is to read anything on the site that didn't appear on the front page.
The film's flop hasn't stopped the ConWeb from promoting it, however. The Media Research Center's Tim Graham whined in a Jan. 18 NewsBusters post about how a Washington Post film reviewer told the truth about the film's political agenda. Even though that post was written after the opening weekend numbers came out, Graham made sure not to mention that his beloved film tanked.
That's ironic, because the MRC has a history of mocking paltry box office takes when they involve films they don't like.
WND Tries To Revive Clinton Body Count, Pretend It's Not Discredited Topic: WorldNetDaily
As we've noted, a key component of WorldNetDaily's plans to cover Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign is to relive its '90s coverage of (Bill) Clinton scandals, however false and misguided that original reporting was.
A Jan. 17 WND article by Chelsea Schilling goes on a deep dive into one of these pseudo-scandals, claiming that "Women in Clinton’s past were targeted by the IRS and reportedly found themselves on death lists":
As WND reported back in 1999, during Linda Tripp’s two-day deposition with attorneys from Judicial Watch on Filegate issues, she mentioned a “list” that was given to her mysteriously.
While she believed the list was left at her workstation in the White House counsel’s office by her former friend Monica Lewinsky, the list originated with former WND investigative reporter David Bresnahan.
Known around the Internet as “the Body Count,” the list was a collection of names of people associated with Clinton administration scandals who died mysterious and often violent deaths. Bresnahan broke the story of the list during the summer of 1997 while researching his book, “Cover Up: The Art and Science of Political Deception.”
“I started looking into all the various deaths of people that were involved in various Clinton scandals,” Bresnahan said in 1999. “I started to investigate the entire picture instead of just one focused event.”
clintonsBresnahan’s list was the same list given to Tripp, as well as the head of the FBI and Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr to name a few.
“It was common discussion on radio talk shows,” Bresnahan said. “Every student of the Clinton scandals would run into the list.”
The list spread on the Internet and received extensive coverage on talk radio.
Bresnahan was able to construct such a lengthy list because he investigated all of the scandals surrounding Clinton.
“Nobody out there was putting it all together,” he said. “If you look at one scandal, you’ll find one dead guy. When you investigate all Clinton scandals, you find similarities, you find common tactics, you find common actions and you find dead people.”
Schilling makes sure to ignore the fact that Bresnahan's "Clinton body count" has been utterly discredited. As Snopes points out, the goal of the list was to play word games by portraying the deaths as somehow directly implicating a Clinton in causing it -- which there is no evidence: "The longer the list, the more impressive it looks and the less likely anyone is to challenge it. By the time readers get to the bottom of the list, they'll be too weary to wonder what could possibly be relevant about the death of people such as Bill Clinton's mother's chiropractor."
As Snopes, explains, "Any unexplained death can automatically be attributed to President Clinton by inventing a connection between him and the victim." For instance, one person on the list, former White House intern Mary Mahoney, was killed during the 1997 robbery of a Starbucks where she worked, along with two co-workers.Deaths by natural causes have also been thrown onto the list. Sn opes concludes:
One final question to ask yourself before falling for any Clinton Body Count list: If the Chief Executive was having people bumped off left, right, and center, why aren't Monica Lewinsky and Linda Tripp on this list? At the time of Mary Mahoney's death — a death this list hints was ordered by Clinton — neither Tripp nor Lewinsky were the high-profile household names they now are; they were complete unknowns. It would be another six months before information about them would explode into the news. If the President were in the habit of having those dangerous to his presidency put in the ground, why didn't he order these deaths?
But then, Schilling's job isn't to do actual reporting (something at which she fails miserably); her job is to write what WND wants told and not to dig too deep into it. That's how she stays employed at WND.
MRC's Bozell Leads Conservative Heathering of Trump Topic: Media Research Center
National Review's issue dedicated to denouncing Donald Trump is, in effect, a mass Heathering. And who should be in the middle of that but a guy who runs an organization dedicated to Heathering anyone who deviates in the slightest from right-wing orthodoxy, Brent Bozell of the Media Research Center.
Indeed, Bozell's anti-Trump rant in National Review shuns Trump because he doesn't "walk with us":
A real conservative walks with us. Ronald Reagan read National Review and Human Events for intellectual sustenance; spoke annually to the Conservative Political Action Conference, Young Americans for Freedom, and other organizations to rally the troops; supported Barry Goldwater when the GOP mainstream turned its back on him; raised money for countless conservative groups; wrote hundreds of op-eds; and delivered even more speeches, everywhere championing our cause. Until he decided to run for the GOP nomination a few months ago, Trump had done none of these things, perhaps because he was too distracted publicly raising money for liberals such as the Clintons; championing Planned Parenthood, tax increases, and single-payer health coverage; and demonstrating his allegiance to the Democratic party.
We conservatives should support the one candidate who walks with us.
That's some textbook Heathering right there. It's only in the bio blurb that it's noted Bozell has endorsed Ted Cruz, who is apparently "the one candidate who walks with us" to which Bozell was referring.
This effectively marks the MRC's shift from quietly hands-off on Trump to actively opposing him. We've documented how the MRC refused to follow up on Trump's accusation of media bias against him in the Fox News-hosted debate, but w as much more amenable to echoing Ted Cruz's bias accusations.
Now that Bozell has gone public with his anti-Trump Heathering, the MRC itself is becoming more anti-Trump. A Jan. 24 post by Curtis Houck highlights now National Review editor Rich Lowry "blasted Republican strategist Alex Castellanos for coming out as someone who’d accept Trump as the GOP nominee after his attempts to seek alternatives (i.e. a moderate, establishment candidate) failed and 'your donors wouldn't go with you.'" While Houck noted National Review's anti-Trump issue, he failed to disclose that his boss contributed to it.
A Jan. 23 NewsBusters post by Tom Johnson highlights "left-leaning pundits commenting Friday on National Review’s anti-Donald Trump editorial and symposium" pointing out that conservatives helped create the rise of Trump, but he also failed to disclose that the publisher of NewsBusters was a key player in that "symposium."
Ex-Newsmax Reporter Kessler Is Still A Trump Sycophant Topic: Newsmax
We documented how Ronald Kessler, then with Newsmax, was an enthustiastic promoter of Donald Trump's presidential ambitions during the 2012 presidential campaign -- while failing to disclose he was a good friend (or at least a sycophantic hanger-on) of Trump, having slobbered all over the guy in a 1999 book he wrote on Palm Beach's social scene.
Now Trump is actually running for president, and Kessler remains a loyal sycophant.
The headline of a piece Kessler wrote for the gossipy British tabloid the Daily Mail -- "Truffle and ricotta ravioli, surf & turf, Trump's own bubbly and Secret Service agents struggling to open bejeweled clutch purses to search for weapons: My New Year's Eve dinner (and other good times) with Donald Trump" -- is as overstuffed as the article itself, dripping with praise for Trump as he lovingly documents the "black-tie New Year's Eve party, which my wife Pamela Kessler and I attended at Mar-a-Lago, his club and Florida home in Palm Beach":
First came hors d'oeuvres and champagne on the terrace overlooking the pool, always heated to 78 degrees, like the second pool right on the ocean.
Cocktail shrimp, stone crab claws, cold lobster, oysters on the half shell, sushi, and caviar dished onto blini were among the offerings.
After that, the guests swanned over to the ballroom for dinner and dancing. No one would be hungry for dinner, which included truffle and ricotta ravioli and filet mignon and scallops. The bubbly: from Trump's own Charlottesville, Virginia vineyard.
If Donald had wanted to invite them, he could have attracted some of the biggest celebrities in the country to the bash. But the guests were club members and old friends.
Donald's family, including nine-year-old Barron, sat with him watching the rocking event band, Party on the Moon.
Kessler went on tell how "Like a proud maitre d', Donald went around greeting guests and posing for photos with his stunning wife Melania," repeat unsubstantiated allegations about Hillary Clinton's relationship with the Secret Service, quotes Trump emplpoyees about how awesome he is, then took a potshot at President Obama before fawning over Trump one more time:
In his book 'Dreams From My Father', Barack Obama admitted that as a community organizer, he got some asbestos removed from some pipes in one Chicago housing project but accomplished little else.
In contrast, Trump has amassed a fortune of $10 billion and employs 34,500 people. He didn't do that by being an idiot, a nut, or a bigot, some of the kinder terms that have been used to describe him.
Trump is running for president because he believes deeply in America. He symbolized that when he engaged in a protracted dispute with the town of Palm Beach over the American flag he erected on the front lawn of Mar-a-Lago on South Ocean Boulevard.
That's the kind of writing that ensures Kessler and his wife keep getting invited to Mar-a-Lago. Appropriate, since Kessler gave up being a serious reporter years ago.
(Photo: Ronald and Pamela Kessler with Trump, from the Daily Mail article.)