I believe that if Hillary Clinton is elected, America is done, the U.S. Constitution is toast, and she will finish what Obama began – the “fundamental transformation” of America into a godless, neo-Marxist Third World banana republic. We’ve had decades of the Clintons to establish beyond any reasonable doubt that this woman is not only the most corrupt elitist to ever seek the presidency, she’s an evil ideologue hell-bent on the abolition of individual liberties and religious freedom. While Great Britain just voted to reclaim its national sovereignty, a vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote to completely relinquish our own.
God raises up kings (or queens), and He can depose them as well.
An American president empowered by God, whose nation will be protected and blessed, is one who humbly understands the servanthood role of leadership, acknowledging the ultimate authority of the King of Kings.
Everything in Hillary Clinton’s track record screams the opposite: arrogance, lawlessness, bald-faced deception, alliance with sexual depravity, injustice, greed, unaccountability, godlessness, treason.
The white suit worn during her DNC acceptance speech cannot hide the bloodstains in Hillary’s life. As with Lady Macbeth, those stains are increasingly difficult to wash off.
Hillary’s election as president will be a stab at the heart of this once-great nation. We may bleed to death on her watch, but she either won’t see or won’t care.
No sincere Christian should vote for Hillary Clinton.
[...]
So there you have it. Fascism continued and extended under a modern-day Jezebel. America can do far better than Hillary.
Please, if you claim to love the Lord Jesus, do not help elect this corrupt woman.
In this political environment, Americans are facing a choice in the upcoming general election between one presidential candidate who is possibly the most manifestly evil individual ever to seek the office in Hillary Clinton, and another who promises (if not in so many words) to reverse many of the policies of the last few presidential administrations in Donald Trump.
If the polls are to be believed, Hillary Clinton received an astonishing 7 percent bump from the Democratic convention. It just goes to show that if you refrain from referring to ISIS, Benghazi and the truth about the Obama economy, instead schlepping out the mothers of black thugs, Paul Simon, Sarah Silverman, Al Franken, Joe Biden, Eva Longoria, Meryl Streep, the Obamas and Bill Clinton, the tiny-brain people will eat it up with a spoon.
It’s August 2016, presidential and congressional elections are on the horizon and the Washington establishment is generally on vacation, but I’m not. The country continues to sink into an abyss of corruption, and the “Wicked Witch of the Left,” Hillary Clinton, continues to fly around the country on her political broom, dismissing her rank criminality over her most current scandals in order to convince the uneducated masses that she should be the nation’s first female president.
But it’s not just Hillary’s physical and mental health that is causing concern. There is also the dark history of speculated (but oh-so-unproven) “mysterious deaths” strewn in the wake of her political career. These, of course, have been creatively dismissed as suicides, accidents, plane crashes and even an “overdose of mouthwash.” But it couldn’t possibly be murder. Of course not.
It’s long been suspected – but never proven, of course – that the Clintons have (cough) “removed” those who knew too much or otherwise proved troublesome to their career trajectory. In just the short time since the DNC emails were leaked, three more people associated with the DNC have died under (cough) questionable circumstances.
Can we all be honest enough to admit that Hillary’s scandals are really criminal? I’m certain anyone else would be prosecuted had we put the nation at risk and lied to cover it up. The problem is, no one voting for her cares. Why? Three reasons: 1) Democrats don’t care about morality, 2) hyper-partisanship blurs the truth and 3) government dependents don’t care where or from whom they receive their benefits.
The fundamental transformation of America is here!
Hillary’s health is excellent, of course, just as her campaign says. Still, I find myself wondering what happens to the Democratic ticket if 1) she doesn’t make it to the election, or 2) if she is elected but goes to her final reward through natural causes between the election and inauguration. How can one assume office before the appointed day? The line of succession applies only to the president. Or maybe she intends to be frozen and become an ice sculpture before she actually dies? Makes one wonder if that’s why the Supreme Court was reduced by one Scalia.
At least somebody has, at least in theory, been thinking about it.
Maybe Hillary’s real job is just to hang on until after the Electoral College votes.
MRC Mad Media Didn't Fall for Benghazi Lawsuit Publicity Stunt Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Scott Whitlock grumbles in an Aug. 9 post:
The three network morning shows on Tuesday allowed a scant minute and 59 seconds to a lawsuit filed against Hillary Clinton by the grieving parents of Benghazi victims. This is out of a total of eight hours of possible air time. ABC, CBS and NBC continued their pattern of showing very little interest in Pat Smith, the mother who condemned Clinton at the Republican National Convention.
NBC’s four-hour-long Today allowed just 36 seconds to Smith’s wrongful death lawsuit. CBS This Morning managed 40 seconds and ABC’s Good Morning America provided 43 seconds. On CBS, Nancy Cordes quickly explained, “Charles Woods and Patricia Smith allege the attacks resulted from Clinton’s, quote, ‘extreme carelessness in handling confidential and classified information.’”
Whitlock, meanwhile, devoted zero seconds to explaining that the lawsuit is nothing more than a publicity stunt by a terrible lawyer, right-wing ambulance-chaser Larry Klayman.
Even Fox News host Steve Doocy admitted that the lawsuit is "obviously just to inflict as much political damage onto Hillary Clinton as they possibly could," and Fox News' Andrew Napolitano added, "Quite frankly, I don't think either parts of this lawsuit are going to go -- they're certainly not going to go anywhere during the election campaign." Right-wing radio host Laura Ingraham concurred, saying that "I think it's going to be very difficult to demonstrate the causes of action they allege. ... I think it's very difficult to prove that Hillary's actions were the proximate cause or direct cause of the deaths of your sons."
The fact that even the MRC's contemporaries agree the lawsuit has no legal merit makes Whitlock's insistence that there is news value to it highly suspect, if not completely ridiculous.
AIM Trots Out Ethically Challenged Journalist To Lament 'The Sad State of Modern Journalism' Topic: Accuracy in Media
Yes, this Aug. 8 Accuracy in Media article by Alex Nitzberg really exists:
Criticizing the current state of modern journalism, Tucker Carlson told Accuracy in Media (AIM) that journalists’ obsequious behavior, blatant bias and monolithic worldview have compromised the integrity of the nation’s fourth estate.
Carlson, a member of the Fox News team and a veteran journalist who co-founded The Daily Caller, asserts that many journalists bask in the presence of “the powerful” and are “…afraid to challenge anybody in power.”
[...]
He explained that regardless of the election’s outcome, the media’s advocacy has destroyed its claim to objectivity.
Pointing out that a conflict of interest will arise if Trump wins and the largely anti-Trump media must report on his presidency, he said, “… how are they gonna cover that, the administration? Can they? Haven’t they discredited themselves?”
[...]
Carlson believes journalists should seek the truth, “even if it leads them into uncomfortable places and especially if it leads them to places they didn’t expect to arrive…that’s what I thought journalism was, pursuit of what’s true, of accuracy, but not just accuracy, of truth.”
This would be the same Tucker Carlson whose Daily Caller has published numerous false and dubious claims as well as right-wing conspiracy theories. More recently, Carlson has admitted that he doesn't permit Daily Caller writers to publish anything critical of Fox News because he co-hosts a show there. So much for Carlson's pursuit of the truth.
That's who AIM thinks should opine on what the headline calls "the sad state of modern journalism": someone who's playing a key role in perpetuating it.
WND Just Can't Stop Blaming Capitalism on Obama Topic: WorldNetDaily
Over the past year, WorldNetDaily hasblamed the supposedly terrible "Obama economy" for capitalism working as intended through creative destruction in the form of retailers closing stores they no longer need. WND's Bob Unruh is at it again, this time trying to blame Obama for Macy's closing 100 stores:
Only two months ago, WND reported Macy’s stock had plunged precipitously after it summarily dropped its business connections to now-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump when he announced his bid for the White House.
Now Macy’s is announcing the closure of another 100 stores, a move that, according to a retail industry website, pushes the total number of stores closed by retailers in the United States since the beginning of 2015 – a period for which President Obama boasts of a rising economy – to more than 11,000.
The economy, in fact, has been horrible under Obama. A report just this week in the Weekly Standard said: “In truth, the economy under President Barack Obama has been historically bad. How bad? Adjusted for inflation, average yearly GDP growth under President Obama has been less than half of what it was under President Jimmy Carter, 1.5 percent to 3.3 percent.”
Let's sort through all this BS Unruh is peddling. In fact, Macy's didn't not link the state of the economy; it has said the stores to be closed are underperforming, and analysts point out that Macy's needs to adjust its business model as more customers shop online or turn to off-price and fast-fashion retailers instead of Macy's traditional department store. And far from being considered bad news by investors, Macy's stock went up 17 percent after the news was announced.
Also, WND's insistence that "the economy, in fact, has been horrible under Obama" is a dubious claim; it's hard to claim that continues GDP growth under Obama is somehow "horrible." And just a few days ago, in fact, all three major stock indices hit record highs.
Unruh also rehashed WND's earlier discredited claim that Macy's woes are tied to Donald Trump: "Macy’s stock has plunged precipitously since it severed connections to Donald Trump’s product lines last year." As we noted, there's no evidence that dropping Trump's clothing line had any effect whatsoever on Macy's sales.
Unruh even repeated the nonsensical claim by blogger Michael Snyder that "In impoverished urban centers all over the nation, it is not uncommon to find entire malls that have now been completely abandoned." First, malls as a general rule are not built in "impoverished urban centers"; they're mostly found in prosperous (or formerly propsperous) suburban and exurban areas. Second, even the conservative Daily Caller has pointed out that "the mall itself is an inefficient system" being supplanted by other types of retail as well as the Internet, which means malls are dying because of, yes, capitalism: "People have moved to superior options. And that is what happens in an open, competitive capitalist system."
Apparently, Unruh and WND don't believe in capitalism when it doesn't serve their anti-Obama agenda.
CNS Promotes Another Mel Gibson Project While Hiding His Ugly Personal History Topic: CNSNews.com
In June, CNSNews.com's Mark Judge was waxing enthusiastic at the idea that Mel Gibson is planning a sequel to "The Passion of the Christ." Now, Judge is back again to plug another Gibson project in a July 29 CNS blog post:
Lions Gate has just released a trailer for “Hacksaw Ridge,” the forthcoming film directed by Mel Gibson. It tells the true story of Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield), a conscientious objector who served in World War II by rescuing wounded soldiers. In Okinawa Doss saved 75 men without firing or carrying a gun.
The film follows Doss from his childhood in Lynchburg, Virginia to the battlefield on Okinawa. According to Time magazine, “His love story with a local nurse (because Hollywood) and his Christian faith (because Mel Gibson) feature prominently.”
"Hacksaw Ridge" opens November 4.
Just as he did in his earlier post, Judge makes no mention of Gibson's ugly personal history, which includes anti-Semitism and verbal abuse of a ex-mistress.
Why bring this up? Because the Media Research Center has a blatant double standard when it comes to mentioning unflattering past activities. Most recently, the MRC's Kristine Marsh complained on Aug. 10 that CNN's Brian Stelter quoted Dan Rather while not mentioning "his botched attempt to create a scandal surrounding then-sitting President George W. Bush as the election loomed a scant few months away."
"Reversing Rather’s reputation seems to be one of the media’s priorities in recent months," Marsh grumbled. But it seems CNS and the MRC are trying to fix Gibson's reputation by uncritically promoting his new film projects.
CNS isn't anone, though: Accuracy in Media's Specer Irvine also plugged the trailer for Gibson's new movie while also omitting any mention of his ugly past.
NEW ARTICLE: WND Loves Its Tax Protesters Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily has a long history of taking the side of people who refuse to pay their taxes. Here are a couple recent examples. Read more >>
CNS In Promo Mode For New 'Ben-Hur' Film Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com has moved from being the PR shop for Judicial Watch to movie promotion. Specifically, the upcoming remake of "Ben-Hur."
Now, Newsmax had already been promoting the film (while forgetting that it had been made into movies before the 1959 epic version), while noting that the film's producers "have been screening the movie for influential Christian leaders" to try and counter the negative buzz that had been surrounding the film.
One of those was the Media Rsearch Center's Brent Bozell, who declared in an Aug. 4 tweet: "I've previewed the remake of Ben-Hur. It is AMAZING. August 19. A definite must-see." He followed that with another tweet saying basically the same thing: "Encouraging everyone I know to check out the #BenHur remake August 19. I went to a screening last week. Fantastic!"
Apparently, those tweets were the marching orders for the MRC to plug the film. On Aug. 8, the Twitter accounts of CNS, NewsBusters, MRCTV, MRC Culture, the MRC's Business and Media account and the main MRC account all sent out the exact same message: "A must see film! Check out the new Ben Hur movie," accompanied by a link to the film's trailer.
CNS, which parades as the "news" division of the MRC, is takingthe whole promo thing to the next level. An Aug. 15 article by Mark Judge dutifully transcribes the producers' praise of their own film:
This is not you grandfather’s "Ben-Hur."
That’s the message from Roma Downey and Mark Burnett, the producers of “Ben-Hur,” a new version of the 1959 film classic. Both movies are based on the 1880 novel by Lew Wallace.
“It was a great movie in ’59,” Burnett told CNSNews.com in a recent interview, “and it’s about time to update 55 years later. We reimagined changes from the original film where instead of a movie about revenge this movie is about reconciliation and forgiveness - and it still has a huge chariot race scene and a sea battle scene. So it provides all the values that theatergoers are expecting. In it Judah Ben-Hur encounters Jesus, and those encounters give him the understanding to forgive and teach him how to reconcile rather than seek revenge.”
Judge shills further in an Aug. 17 article, hammering home the film's religious content:
In a recent interview with the Christian Post, Jack Huston, star of the new film “Ben-Hur,” talked about the power of a particular scene in the film. In it, Ben-Hur, a Jew living in Jerusalem in 33 A.D., witnesses the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
Prior to witnessing Christ, Ben-Hur had been in a years-long bloody feud with his brother Messala (Toby Kebbell), a Roman soldier.
“That was very emotional actually,” Huston told Jeannie Law about the scene. “The actual act is very effective, the crucifixion that is followed by forgiveness, everyone was affected up there on that mountain.”
Needless to say, Judge had no interest in doing factual reporting pointing out the film's continued bad buzz. Variety reports that "The $100 million Biblical epic is battling devastating pre-release tracking that suggests the story of a prince who is betrayed by a Roman nobleman may be one of the year’s most painful flops," with a projected opening weekend take between $10 million and $20 million despite a wide release. Variety also noted how the film is being heavily promoted to faith-based audiences and that the makers "believe that the film and its story of redemption will be able to draw faith-based crowds, who may not be getting polled by tracking services."
The MRC also promoted the flop Benghazi film "13 Hours" and hid how badly the movie tanked.
UPDATE: Looks like the rest of the MRC is in full promotion mode for the film as well. An Aug. 17 item by Katie Yoder is basically an expanded version of Judge's CNS article on how the film's actors were "changed" by the shooting of the crucifixion scene.
Which brings up the question: Is the MRC getting paid for its fawning promotion of the film?
Looks like WorldNetDaily's experiment with employing actual journalists is over.
In 2015, as its credibility lay in tatters, WND hired Cheryl Chumley and Douglas Ernst, who had both previously worked at the Washington Times, which sort of passes for journalistic credentials in the ConWeb. But Ernst left after less than a year to go back to the Times.
And now Chumley has left as well. Her last WND-bylined articles appeared on July 18, and her bio at The Blaze, which publishes some of her op-eds, describes her as "a former news writer with WND.com." Chumley did not announce her departure from WND on her Twitter account, and she appears not to have immediately gone to another full-time position (though her name still appears on WND's masthead).
Despite her reporting credentials, Chumley didn't do much original reporting for WND, instead mostly doing rewrites of stories from other news outlets or being interviewed for other WND articles on matters that touch the subject of her WND-published book "The Devil in D.C." She had a bad habit of latching onto right-wing conspiracy theories, like the idea that last summer's Jade Helm military exercise was some sort of secret conspiracy that was tied to the closing of a few Walmart stores in the states where the exercise took place, or that Justice Antonin Scalia died from other than natural causes. Most recently, Chumley was citing a Scientology front group to attack psychiatric drugs, arguing that it was perfectly fine for whites to keep black people from moving into their suburban neighborhoods and using her WND perch to pursue a weird vendetta against conservative reporter Michelle Fields.
So, with these departures, who's left at WND? It currently has only two listed reporters, Jerome Corsi and Garth Kant, as well as several "news editors," some of whom also write bylined articles. And then there's Paul Bremmer, who also writes bylined articles but has the job title of "marketing associate," which makes sense when you realize most of the articles he writes exist to promote WND's authors. WND has yet to replace Aaron Klein, who departed months ago, and the Jerusalem bureau he headed is dormant, if not entirely closed.
This reduction by attrition appears to be a function of WND's financial problems, and no new reporter has been hired since WND editor Joseph Farah declared the immediate "existential threat" to his operation to be over.
MRC Can't Hide Hatred of Muslim Olympian Getting Media Coverage Topic: Media Research Center
WorldNetDaily's not the only ConWeb outlet that have their issues in recent days with the fact Muslims exist. The Media Research Center has issues as well.
This time, the Muslim in question is Olympic fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad. In an Aug. 12 post, Alatheia Nielsen and Katie Yoder demonstrate they don't understand how news works:
Winning is a matter of faith for some of Team America at the Rio Olympics. Except journalists only seemed to care about Islamic faith and almost nothing about Judeo-Christian beliefs. So much so that the broadcast networks covered the Islamic faith of one Olympian more than 100 times more than the Judeo-Christian beliefs of five gold-medal winners.
When the U.S. women’s gymnastics landed a gold medal Tuesday evening, the broadcast networks spent 22 minutes, 35 seconds celebrating the win and interviewing the girls. Only 0.6 percent of the coverage mentioned the girls’ faith, even though several of them clearly expressed that God was their inspiration for competing.
In contrast, the networks dedicated 13 minutes, 25 seconds to Muslim fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad simply because she was the first American athlete to wear a hijab while competing in the Olympics. The networks began covering her a full three days before the Olympics even began.
Dear Alatheia and Katie: The word "news" is largely composed of the word "new." A Muslim U.S. Olympic athlete is new; Christian and Jewish Olympic athletes are not.
Later, Nielsen and Yoder sorta concede the nature of news, then demonstrate they really don't understand at all:
There’s nothing wrong with the media sharing Ibtihaj’s story. It’s a “first” worth reporting. But when the media spend 13 and a half minutes focusing almost exclusively on one competitor's Muslim faith, and only 8 seconds hinting at the gymnasts’ Judeo-Christian faith, it becomes an offensive discrepancy.
So it's not only biased but "offensive" that a Muslim gets coverage in the media? Sheesh.
The same day, Nielsen and Yoder's bosses, Tim Graham and Brent Bozell rant about Muhammad, particularly offended at comedian W. Kamau Bell's suggestion that she should have carried the American flag during the opening ceremonies. They declared that she's not a real American because she dared to highlight anti-Muslim discrimination in the U.S.:
If the mission is to find an American who does not support American greatness, Muhammad is an excellent choice. To say she's not a fan of the United States is to put it mildly. Part of her "role model" behavior is denouncing this country. The Daily Beast headlined her claim: "I'm Not Safe In The U.S." She denounced a "climate of anti-Islamic sentiment in the United States" and said she "had someone follow me home from practice and try to report me to police ... right on 28th and 7th in New York City."
That kind of blame-America thinking resonates with the elites.
Graham and Bozell then quote a hit piece on Muhammad by anti-Muslim activist Pamela Geller (whom they benignly describe only as a "columnist") and cited a tweetshe made about Black Lives Matter, then huffing, "But the left thinks she was the perfect candidate to proudly bear the American flag at the Olympic parade."
In an Aug. 16 post, the MRC's Matthew Balan whined that CNN's Chris Cuomo "gave Muhammad the kid glove treatment by failing to ask her about her anti-Israel posts on Twitter and her controversial criticism of the 'climate of anti-Islamic sentiment in the United States.'" Balan didnt explain why it's "controversial" to point out an indisputable fact.
WND Columnist Straight-Up Lies About Margaret Sanger Topic: WorldNetDaily
Far-right writer Devvy Kidd, once a regular WorldNetDaily columnist, pops back up at WND in an Aug. 14 column advising Donald Trump to win black votes from Hillary Clinton by spreading lies about Margaret Sanger. She doesn't think they're lies, of course. Here's what Kidd writes:
But what does Hillary Clinton really think of black Americans?
In 2009, Hillary accepted the Margaret Sanger Award at the Planned Parenthood Honors Gala in Houston, Texas.
In her acceptance speech, Clinton said: “I admire Margaret Sanger enormously, her courage, her tenacity, her vision. I am really in awe of her, there are a lot of lessons we can learn from her life.”
Sanger’s vision was the work of Satan so much admired by Hillary Clinton:
“We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.”
(Margaret Sanger, Dec. 19, 1939, letter to Dr. Clarence Gamble. Original source: Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, North Hampton, Massachusetts. Also described in Linda Gordon’s “Woman’s Body, Woman’s Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America.”)
Sanger’s vision so greatly admired by Hillary: “Birth control is not contraception indiscriminately and thoughtlessly practiced. It means the release and cultivation of the better racial elements in our society, and the gradual suppression, elimination and eventual extirpation of defective stocks – those human weeds which threaten the blooming of the finest flowers of American civilization.”
(“Margaret Sanger, Apostle of Birth Control Sees Cause Gaining Here,” New York Times, 1923-04-08, Page XII Ibid.)
Human weeds? Make no mistake about Sanger’s words – she is talking about black Americans.
Margaret Sanger, October 1926 issue of Birth Control Review: “[Slavs, Latin, and Hebrew immigrants are] human weeds … a deadweight of human waste … [Blacks, soldiers, and Jews are a] menace to the race. Eugenic sterilization is an urgent need … We must prevent Multiplication of this bad stock.”
“[Our objective is] unlimited sexual gratification without the burden of unwanted children .. [Women must have the right] to live … to love … to be lazy … to be an unmarried mother … to create … to destroy … The marriage bed is the most degenerative influence in the social order … The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.”
(Margaret Sanger, editor, “The Woman Rebel,” Vol. I, No. 1. Reprinted in “Woman and the New Race,” 1922)
That’s the woman Hillary Clinton admires so much.
So much lie, so much fail. Where to begin?
First, the "exterminate the Negro population" quote is taken out of context to falsely portray Sanger as a racist; in fact, the point of getting black ministers to support her contraception campaign was to dispel the notion that she was, since racists actually did want to exterminate the Negro population in part through sterilization, which is not what Sanger was promoting.
Second, Kidd is maliciously lying when she claims that Sanger called blacks "human weeds." As we've pointed out, the term appears nowhere in Sanger's writings. And it should have raised a red flag to Kidd that the these "quotes" of Sanger filled with parentetical insertions and ellipses are made up.Either she was too lazy to fact-check or she decided they served her agenda to the point that fact-checking was not necessary in her eyes.
Here's the full text of "Woman and the New Race," which is easily available online. None of what Kidd attributes to Sanger from that book is located within. The closest thing is the final sentence, which actually reads (with the missing word from Kidd's version italicized): "The most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it." In context, Sanger was noting the research of the time that in large, poor families later children have a higher risk of death.
And here's the article Sanger wrote for the October 1926 issue of Birth Control Review. None -- absolutely none -- of what Kidd claims Sanger said in this article appears there.
In other words, it seems Kidd simply and lazily copied something off the internet from some right-wing anti-Sanger website and never bothered to fact-check it.
Yet Kidd thinks these lies should be the foundation of Trump's outreach to blacks:
Hundreds of black pastors and ministers support Donald Trump. His campaign needs to put together a one-page flyer and send it off to those pastors and ministers with the truth about Margaret Sanger and Hillary Clinton’s very public support for her.
Trump should ask those members of the clergy to network all across this country to predominately black constituencies with that simple one-page flyer with two questions: Is that the person you want as president of our country? A woman who praises and is inspired by such an evil person as Margaret Sanger?
Then again, Trump has even more disregard for the facts than Kidd, so the appeal is not out of the question.
If Kidd had any integrity, she would retract her column and apologize for spewing such easily debunked lies. But as far as we know, she doesn't.
MRC's Graham Can't Stop Obsessing Over Anita Hill Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Tim Graham has a weird obsession with Anita Hill. Nearly a quarter-century after the fact, he's stilltrying to insist (without evidence, of course) that Hill lied in making her sexual harassment allegations against Clarence Thomas and/or that she made the allegations solely to advance her career.
Graham does so again in an Aug. 10 NewsBusters post complaining that NPR had on Hill to talk about sexual harassment allegations against now-former Fox News chief Roger Ailes (a story the MRC's many tentacles have largely ignored, by the way). Graham shows us where this is going by grumbling, "Hill is treated as a kind of feminist saint, and no one brings up how she came to Bill Clinton’s defense in the adultery-slash-sexual harassment fight before he was impeached in 1998."
Then Graham plays his usual game by adding, "A Thomas fan would laugh as NPR explains that Hill says she was 'ostracized,' which is an odd word for a six-figure book deal and a very secure professor’s job in New England."Again, he offers no proof for his suggestion that Hill was driven by visions of dollar signs.
Graham also complains, "Justice Thomas is always presumed guilty of harassing Hill." And Graham presumes Hill is lying simply because she had the temerity to make her accusation against a sainted conservative -- just like he presumes that every single accuser of a sexual fling against Bill Clinton is telling the indisputable truth because Clinton is a political enemy.
Indeed, Graham for some reason goes back a couple decades to discuss a 1998 New York Times op-ed by Hill pointing out that unwanted sexual harassment is different than the consensual affair between Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. Graham misrepresented what Hill wrote, falsely framing it as about earlier Clinton flings, which Hill did not discuss:
In a September, 28 1998 op-ed in The New York Times, Hill basically absolved Clinton of charges of sexual harassment made by Paula Jones – charges he later paid out $850,000 to settle – by simply failing to acknowledge the case existed. That's not very feminist. Wasn't Jones far, far less powerful than Gov. Clinton? Wasn't Kathleen Willey far, far less powerful than President Clinton?
Graham then huffed: "Hill offered a feminist fundamentalism: Support abortion rights, and your sexual accusers can be ignored." And if the alleged perpetrator is a prominent conservative like Ailes or Thomas, Graham will indulge in a right-wing fundamentalism by happily ignoring their accusers or dismissing them as money-grubbing liars.
A Muslim Wins An Election, And WND Freaks Out Topic: WorldNetDaily
The victory of Ilhan Omar in a Minnesota state legislative primary, in a Democratic stronghold that virtually seals her victory in November, got a sloppy, biased, fearmongering treatment from WorldNetDaily.
Let the fearmongering and Muslim-bashing begin, WND reporter Leo Hohmann:
The state that has imported the most Somali Muslims over the past 25 years has reached a historic milestone that may be a harbinger of things to come.
In Tuesday’s Democratic primary for the Minnesota House of Representatives, Ilhan Omar, a hijab-wearing Somali woman, defeated 44-year incumbent Phyllis Kahn and will likely become the first female Muslim legislator in U.S. history in November. The district is made up mostly of college students and immigrants, offering zero chance for her Republican challenger in November.
[...]
Omar is the current president of the state Democratic Party’s Feminist Caucus, which would seem to fly in the face of the beliefs of a practicing Muslim. Islam teaches the submission of women under men, and wearing the hijab is but one symbol of that submission. Women are counted as “half” of a man under Shariah law for purposes of inheritance.
Oooh, "harbinger"!
In fact, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, "Omar built a vast coalition of support beyond East African citizens and tried to connect with many new voters, winning a three-way battle in what emerged as the most wild and unpredictable legislative primary in the state," which means it wasn't just "college students and immigrants" as Hohmann claims.
While Hohmann includes a couple of quotes from Omar he gleaned from other sites -- he couldn't be bothered to actually talk to her in person for his story -- his article is mostly packed with the rantings of anti-Muslim activists and his own anti-Muslim attacks:
But some Minnesota Republicans were not so giddy, especially those who have warned for years that the build-up of Somali enclaves would eventually lead to their political empowerment, which represents a whole new phase of what they believe is a campaign of cultural jihad.
Cultural jihad, also called civilization jihad in Muslim Brotherhood documents, uses America’s liberal immigration laws to infiltrate and take over through peaceful means, a strategy that’s spelled out in the “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America.” This seized document was entered by the FBI as evidence against the Holy Land Foundation during the largest terror-financing trial ever held on U.S. soil in 2007.
“The Democratic Party rejects the idea of civilization jihad as advanced by the Muslim Brotherhood,” said former Congresswoman Michele Bachmann of Minnesota. “Who’s laughing now?”
Hohmann gave free rein to anti-Muslim right-wingers like Debra Anderson to spew their hate: “Their extensive co-opting of American ideas and words overwhelm me. I don’t know where to even begin to counter their lies.” Hohmann permits nobody to respond to the anti-Muslim hate he pushes.
And Hohmann's article is so poorly edited that Phyllis Kahn's last name is misspelled several times in the article and in captions as "Khan."
MRC Blames Media for Building Up Trump, Then Trying to Destroy Him Topic: Media Research Center
For the Media Research Center, it's always the media's fault. Exactly what the media did, however, changes and is even contradictory -- like how it blames the media for both creating donald Trump's presidential candidate and for trying to destroy it.
The MRC has long whined that "NBC has spent more than a decade building [Trump's] brand as a successful businessman of almost mythic proportion," even after Trump clinched the Republican nomination and the MRC was supposed to be fully supportive of the campaign as a good right-wing outlet should. It was still doing so in an Aug. 3 post by Sam Dorman, who disapproved of NBC Entertainment Chairman Robert Greenblatt disputing the notion that his network was responsible for Trump.
Dorman grumbled that "Starting in 2004, NBC’s Today show acted as a de facto PR outlet for The Donald and gave regular interviews to him and his Apprentice contestants," adding, "NBC imprinted a mythic persona of Trump onto its broadcasts by hyping his business success, and at times, describing him with messianic language."
Three days later, Trump sycophant Jeffrey Lord took to the MRC's NewsBusters blog to whine that the media is reporting on the crazy things his boy Trump says, and insisted that this somehow proves that the media is biased against Trump:
Out and abroad in the land there are millions of Americans who feel intensely that “the media” - fill in an outlet of your choice in print, TV, radio and now the Internet - are out there with the sole object of destroying Donald Trump. That the slightest misstep of Trump’s will be magnified and replayed over and over endlessly - while major events like the clear case of the Obama administration’s payment of $400 million in cash to ransom Iranian hostages are simply downplayed.
On Friday former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told Sean Hannity on Sean’s radio show that real conservatives have to wake up and understand that 80-90 percent of the media are enemies and that the Left is in such an anti-Trump frenzy that the media has set out to destroy him. As if to confirm Gingrich’s point Hillary Clinton that same day gave a speech to the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists - in which she essentially made a bald appeal for the members of those groups to use their positions in the media to help her defeat Trump. I would add to this that any GOP nominee would have faced this situation, although it is indeed more intense now that Trump is the nominee.
[...]
Donald Trump has never refrained from taking on the media in this campaign. The point now is that millions of his fellow Americans get the problem - and as I saw first hand the other night in a Pennsylvania high school gym, they have his back. They believe with Newt Gingrich that the Left is in such an anti-Trump frenzy that the media has set out to destroy him.
Which says that it won’t just be Hillary and the Obama era that are that the issues in this campaign, but rather the media itself in all its many forms.
Lord forgot to mention, let alone offer thanks for, the fact that according to the right-wing outlet that publishes his column, that very same media is reponsible for Trump being a presidential contender in the first place.
WND Does Damage Control For An Anti-Clinton Author Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's Art Moore was doing so well, engaging in actual journalism at the Republican National Convention. When he got back, though, he reverted to WND form with July 31 article that played damage control for a Clinton-hating author.
That would be former Secret Service officer Gary Byrne, whose book "Crisis of Character" WND surprisingly did not publish or even carries in its online store; links top the book in Moore's article direct you to Amazon. His claim to fame is that, as Moore states, he was "posted outside the Oval Office door for three years" during the Clinton administration and has some sordid tales to tell.
Unfortunately for Byrne, the Association of Former Agents of the United States Secret Service has denounced the book as eroding the trust between the Secret Service and those it protects, and Politico has reported that critics of the book point out that Byrne, as a low-level agent, could not have firsthand knowledge of some of the things he claims in his book.
Thus, Moore's damage control efforts. Moore mentions the Politico article but refused to provide a link to it so readers can see for themselves. Instead, he gave Byrne a space to respond vaguely to critics: "I’m telling you what I saw personally, what I know is true. ... If it wasn’t true, who would put themselves at this risk and this exposure?"
Byrne also faces the accusation that some of the sordid stories he tells are different from what he testified to before independent counsel Kenneth Starr. When Buzzfeed tried to ask Byrne for an explanation of his changing stories, he hung up on them.
By the time Moore came calling, Byrne had invented an excuse for the discrepancies:
He noted that Clinton supporters went right to the testimony when the book came out and tried to compare it.
“They tried to say that I was saying stuff that I didn’t say in testimony,” Byrne told WND.
“Well, of course I did. I was answering questions to things the investigators were asking. It wasn’t my job to tell them how to do their job.
“They asked me questions about tissues, I answered about tissues.
He explained there were “so many things that happened that I had information about.”
“If they didn’t ask about those things exactly, then I couldn’t talk about it,” he said.
He said the investigation had many rules that “seemed to change by the day,” and he noted that because he was a government employee, he had no attorney-client privilege.
Note that Byrne is once again speaking vaguely about a specific allegation -- in this case, Byrne claims in his book he disposed of a stained towel, something he told Starr he didn't do.That's not a place where narrowly answering a question to prosecutors is a sufficient defense for changing one's story. Then again, Byrne claimed in a radio interview that somehow both stories were true.
Moore, however, didn't address another Byrne discrepancy that he had previously. In a June 20 WND article, Moore touted Byrne's claim to have walked in on a tryst between Bill Clinton and Eleanor Mondale, then an E! Network correspondent. But Buzzfeed noted that Byrne told Starr that he had merely heard rumors about the tryst.
Moore has apparently given up on his brief journalism career and is back to peddling dressed-up falsehoods like a good WND reporter should.
CNS Becomes the PR Division of Judicial Watch Topic: CNSNews.com
One way you know a news organization isn't really into news is its willingness to serve as a platform for the views of an ideological group.
CNSNews.com has chosen to do that for the right-wing legal group Judicial Watch. An Aug. 10 CNS article by Rachel Hoover is about how "The U.S. Department of Justice gave $342,168,401 in grant money to 10 “sanctuary” states and cities that shield illegal aliens, even violent ones, from deportation by refusing to cooperate with federal immigration officials, according to a Judicial Watch report."
It's effectively a rewrite of a Judicial Watch blog post issued several days earlier. Nothing appears in Hoover's article that wasn't in the Judicial Watch post, and Hoover makes no apparent attempt to contact anyone to respond to Judicial Watch's accusations, which would seem to be a violation of the edict by her boss, Media Research Center chief Brent Bozell, that "The first rule of journalism is that if you don’t have two independent sources, you don’t have a news story." (She's done this before.)
Then, interestingly, just three hours after Hoover's article was published, CNS posted a column by Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton on the very same subject, ranting that "You and I are less safe on the streets these days because President Barack Obama and his Justice Department reward localities that openly break the law." Fitton actually reprints word-for-word much of the earlier blog post -- which, of course, was rewritten by Hoover for a "news" story.
The near-simultaneous timing of Hoover's "news" story and Fitton's column raises some questions. It certainly appears that CNS worked with Judicial Watch to coordinate its editorial content -- a collaboration with an outside organization that is usually frowned upon from an ethical standpoint.
Also curious is that Judicial Watch lists CNS on its list of apparently approved "sources." Granted, numerous other news organizations are also on the list, most of which are right-leaning like CNS, and there may not be any quid pro quo going on, But it's still brings up the seeming appearance of impropriety and the definite appearance of bias, which CNS doesn't admit it engages in, still insisting in its mission statement that it "endeavors to fairly present all legitimate sides of a story."
Then, on Aug. 12, CNS' Barbara Hollingsworth devoted an article to Fitton complaining that Congress won't investigate its politically motivated attacks on the Obama administration. Like Hoover, Hollingsworth doesn't bother to seek comment from anyone else about Fitton's work; indeed, she's so content to serve as a stenographer for Fitton that she devotes fully half her article to "a list of its major court filings" that "Judicial Watch provided CNSNews."
Nope, not a lot of balanced or independent reporting that fairly presents all legitimate sides of a story going on here.