WND's Favorite Ex-Soviet Bloc Spy Has Nothing to Say About Trump Being Buddies With Russians
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Here's how WorldNetDaily describes its favorite ex-Soviet bloc spymaster:

Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa spent decades at the very top of the Soviet bloc’s intelligence and disinformation world, only to undergo a profound awakening and change of heart, leading him to become the highest-ranking Soviet-bloc official ever to defect to the U.S. Naturalized as a proud American citizen, he spent years briefing America’s intelligence agencies on how the super-secret Soviet intelligence world operated, exposing all its tactics, techniques, dirty tricks and disinformation campaigns.

So vital were Pacepa’s insights to America’s security that President Ronald Reagan referred to the former spy-chief’s first book, “Red Horizons,” as “my bible for dealing with dictators.”

So you'd think Pacepa would have something to say about Donald Trump's cozy relationship with the Putin regime in Russia, which include receiving funding from Russian oligarchs, changing the Republican Party platform to remove a plank that supported arming Ukranian rebels against Russian forces and a former Trump campaign manager, Paul Manafort, who worked as a lobbyist for pro-Russian officials in Ukraine.

Apparently not.

The above-mentioned WND article promotes a new e-book by Pacepa and co-author Ronald Rychlak, "Looming Disaster," which purports to reveal, in WND's words, "reveal, with utter clarity, the real war into which Americans have been thrust, as well as the momentous decision they will make in November" from "one remarkable person with the unique experience and moral authority to cut through all the lies, political posturing and propaganda."

WND is giving away the book for free (well, you have to hand over your email address so WND can send you several emails a day promoting its content and various other things), which seems to be what the book is worth. 

There's a lot of fact-free ranting about the Clintons by Pacepa and Rychlak, who at one point assert that "listening to campaign speeches of Hillary Clinton, we get the distinct feeling of listening to former Soviet Socialist bloc tyrants."

But what do Pacepa and Rychlak have to say about Trump, who actually has the cozy ties with Putin and Russian oligarchs that they wish they could ascribe to the Clintons? Why, nothing less than an unqualified endorsement:

We are not personally acquainted with Donald Trump, but we firmly believe that the whole of America – Republicans and Democrats and fringe thinkers – should unite behind him in order to defend capitalism and our great country during these existentially dangerous times. The alternative is unthinkable.

Pacepa and Rychlak are taking it on faith that Trump is a great guy, declaring without evidence whatsoever that "I know a few of Donald Trump’s intelligence advisers from my past cooperation with the U.S. intelligence community, and I have no doubt that a President Trump will start a new “Campaign of Truth” that will wreck ISIS and remake America as leader of the world without firing a shot."

Indeed, Trump's cozy ties to Putin and Russian oligarchs are not mentioned anywhere in Pacepa and Rychlak's book, though they declare that Putin was "enthroned in the Kremlin at the end of a KGB palace putsch" and "there is no end to his reign in sight."

In short: Pacepa and Rychlak's book is little more than an anti-Clinton screed dressed up in Cold War-era terminology that conveniently omits the closeness of Trump to Putin and his Russian oligarchs for the sake of an endorsement of Trump by two people who ought to know better. No wonder WND has no credibility.

MRC Trying To Get Univision Anchor Fired
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center has despised Univision anchor Jorge Ramos for quite some time, attacking him for purportedly going beyond his role as a news anchor (something that never seems to bother the MRC when Fox News anchors do it). The MRC's Jorge Bonilla actually complained that "Ramos had the audacity to complain that conservatives want to SILENCE him as a result of his biased coverage."

But it's abundantly clear the MRC wants to do exactly that by agitating for him to be fired.

The current wave of Ramos-hate at the MRC started when Ramos wrote an op-ed for a Mexican newspaper in July pointing out that Donald Tump "has put hatred and divisiveness up front in his presidential campaign" and expressed hope that "civility and rationality will prevail in America once again," which won't happen if Trump is elected president. Bonilla didn't dispute or rebut anything Ramos wrote -- perhaps because it's true -- but Bonilla declared that Ramos was "tacitly endorsing Hillary Clinton for President" (even though he offers no evidence Ramos even mentioned Clinton in his column) and ranting that "one can also look back and say that Ramos was always going to be in the tank for Clinton -- especially after vanishing while the FBI and the DOJ did their e-mail two-step."

In an Aug. 11 post, Bonilla took offense at another column Ramos wrote criticizing Trump,huffing that "no other national network news anchor has a weekly multinational opinion column. Likewise, no other broadcast network news anchor in recent memory has taken such an open stance in a presidential election before."

Bonilla then suddenly tries to pretend he's being a reasonable critic: "None of this should be construed so as to dismiss any legitimate concerns millions of Americans (including this author) may have about a potential Trump presidency. The problem is that Ramos appropriates those concerns for the purpose of promoting partisanship via the back door." First, again, thie MRC has no problem with "partisanship via the back door" when it's done by Fox News anchors. Second, the MRC has stopped criticizing those who criticize Trump when he clinched the GOP nomination -- gotta be on the GOP bandwagon, after all -- so it's officially MRC policy that no criticism of Trump is "reasonable," and it's silly for Bonilla to pretend that any such distinction exists.

On Aug. 25, Bonilla again pretends to be reasonable after more criticism of Trump by Ramos:

In Ramos' hand, legitimate concern over the possible perils of a Trump presidency (shared by this author, in fact) becomes a shield with which to wage partisan battle. Outrage over both Trump's harsh statements on immigration and Ramos' stage-crafted expulsion from Trump's Iowa press conference created a permission structure for Ramos to more overtly take to the soapbox- with little or no consequence.

The truth is that Ramos was always going to be adversarial towards the Republican nominee regardless of who that may have been, and Donald Trump is simply a target of convenience. Ramos' depictions of Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio as race-traitors are a matter of record, and are reflective of the coverage they would have received had they won the nomination. Everyone else would have received varying degrees of his Generic Republican coverage.

Bonilla goes on to claim: "When contrasting Jorge Ramos' very public statements with his unwillingness to engage the Democratic candidate's own glaring failings, it is clear that there is a desire to tilt the scales in favor of one candidate over the other. " That's rather laughable given that his employer operates a "news" outlet that's doing the exact same thing -- only this time it's Trump's glaring failings that are being censored by CNSNews.com.

Bonilla is as likely to complain about CNS' blatant bias at his MRC forum as he is about his claimed reservations about a Trump presidency.

But when Ramos declared that "neutrality is not an option" regarding Trump and that journalists will be judged by how they covered him, the MRC pushed the button on something they've probably been waiting for an appropriate occasion to implement: a campaign to get Ramos fired. MRC chief Brent Bozell ranted:

By deciding to openly take sides and urging all journalists to be as unethical as he is in his coverage of this year’s U.S. presidential election, Univision anchor Jorge Ramos has rendered himself incapable of serving as a credible, impartial news anchor for Univision’s millions of viewers. At the very least, Univision should remove Ramos from the network’s national evening news anchor chair, from now through Election Day. If Jorge Ramos has any sense left of professional integrity, he should tender his resignation and pursue his new passion, as an anti-Trump, pro-Clinton political activist.

The irony that Bozell's CNS is at least as unbalanced as he claims Ramos is went unremarked upon.

Bozell followed up with a challenge to Ramos for a debate:

Ramos could not be more clearly invested in favoring one candidate over the other, and it should be clear to everyone that he is no longer capable of delivering election news to Univision's audience with even a modicum of fairness. At this point, Ramos is doing a great disservice to both his viewers and the field of journalism by continuing to parade himself as anything other than a political activist. I challenge Ramos to a debate at a venue of his convenience about the proper role of journalists and the media in our society.

In his TV appearances, Bozell rarely appears with a liberal counterpart; he's almost always solo and almost always appearing in the friendly confines of Fox News, where he knows he will get no challenging questions and his rant of the day will never be interrupted. He can't handle a debate with a random liberal; what makes him think he can take on Ramos?

After Ramos failed to immediately respond, Bozell, as he is wont to do, threw a tantrum: "So I challenge Mr. Ramos to debate me. Is he a reporter or a political hack? Is he practicing journalism, or political advocacy? A man confident in his position would have no problem participating in a debate, yet this man who questions everyone is nowhere to be found when questioned himself."

It's pretty clear which one -- reporter or political hack -- Bozell is.

Meanwhile, the MRC bought the domain RamosMustGo.com, where its anti-Ramos campaign is regurgitated.It's promoted on otherMRC websites with the promo boxes above, one of which ludicrously claims that Bozell is engaging in "a battle for truth" with Ramos.

And Bonilla returned to rant again in an Aug. 31 post, taking offense at an interview Ramos did with CNN's Anderson Cooper, about which Bonilla complained that "there was no acknowledgement of the MRC's call for Ramos to step down from Univision's anchor chair due to his extreme biases, nor any acknowledgement of MRC President Brent Bozell's challenge to debate Ramos." Bonilla huffed:

If Ramos insists on peddling these factual inaccuracies in order to bolster his narrative, promote his ongoing jihad against Donald Trump, and push out the edges of objective journalistic coverage, then he should also expect the increased scrutiny that comes with it.  

Judge not, and call not for judgment based on reaction to Donald Trump, lest ye be judged and found guilty by your own words.

Again, don't expect Bonilla to apply those same standards to the outlets his publisher operates.

WND Columnist Repeats False Nazi Smear of Soros
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Burt Prelutsky rants in his Aug. 29 WorldNetDailiy column:

When I heard Hillary Clinton in 2004 say: “We need more people like George Soros, people who are fearless and ready to step forward,” I knew everything I would ever need to know about the state of her soul.

Soros, a Hungarian Jew who made his bones as a teenager working for the Nazis, separating his fellow Jews from their valuables as they were getting on cattle cars heading to places like Auschwitz, just might be the vilest creature currently residing in America. In a just world, he would have been tried as a war criminal. Instead, he became a billionaire in the nether world of currency manipulation. And that is the sort of person Mrs. Clinton wishes we had in greater abundance. I’m afraid that she will have to die and go to hell in order to have that particular wish granted.

The Soros-Nazi smear is a staple of right-wing haters like Prelutsky, but it's a malicious smear. In fact, the then-teenage Soros, a Jew, had assumed the false identity of a Christian and Soros' father had paid a Hungarian official to allow Soros to pose as his godson. Soros had accompanied his protector in inventorying property that had already been seized by the Nazis.

The Anti-Defamation League has denounced this smear of Soros, pointing out that "To hold a young boy responsible for what was going on around him during the Holocaust as part of a larger effort to denigrate the man is repugnant."

It appears that Prelutsky is mad that the Nazis didn't kill more Jews -- or at least one particular Jew. Repugnant indeed.

CNS Unemployment Numbers Distortion Watch
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNSNews.com keeps up the unemployment shuffle in reporting on August's employment numbers, with the lead article by Susan Jones once again putting undue emphasis on the labor force partcipation rate and using it to declare there was "little or no improvement from the prior month" -- while burying the fact that 151,000 jobs were created, waiting until the fifth paragraph of her article to mention that fact.

Jones' article is joined by a sidebar from CNS editor in chief Terry Jeffrey, who laments that "Government employees in the United States outnumber manufacturing employees by 9,932,000." He does concede, however, that this is not a new phenomenon -- government employees started exceeding manufacturing employment in 1989 -- but he doesn't concede that this has occured under Republican administrations as well as Democratic ones.

A couple days before the government numbers came out, however, CNS managing editor Michael W. Chapman wrote an article with a headline declaring, "Real Unemployment 9.7%." The "real employment" number Chapman is promoting is from Gallup, which claims that "Widely reported unemployment metrics in the U.S. do not accurately represent the reality of joblessness in America."

But as pollster John Zogby points out, Gallup CEO Jim Clifton is using the "real employment" number to push the idea that the government's numbers are nothing but a "big lie." That thinking is in line with the right-wing media, which has similarly tried to undermine unemployment statistics.

Indeed, Donald Trump has followed in CNS' footsteps by falsely potraying the labor force participation rate as the unemployment rate.

Again! MRC Complains Historic Event Is Described As Historic
Topic: Media Research Center

Near as we can tell, base on our observations, this is the Media Research Center's thought process: If a historic event occurs that doesn't advance the MRC's right-wing political agenda, it's "liberal bias" to call it historic.

We see this again in Kyle Drennen's Aug. 31 post on a reporter taking the first commercial flight from the U.S. to Cuba in more than 50 years, something most non-agenda-driven observers would admit is historic:

On Wednesday’s NBC Today, correspondent Kerry Sanders once again acted like a representative from the Cuban board of tourism as he reported live from a plane set to take off for the Communist nation: “Well, good morning from the cockpit of Jetblue Flight 387....this is going to be a one hour and eight minute flight into history.”

The on-screen headline proclaimed: “U.S. Flights to Cuba Resume; Jetblue Makes History With First Flight in More Than 50 years.” Sanders gushed: “This morning, Americans can once again buy a commercial airline ticket and fly from the U.S. directly to Cuba. The last scheduled U.S. Flight was a Pan-Am DC-6 back in 1961. JFK was in the White House, hardly anyone had heard of the Beatles.”

[...]

Back in May, Sanders giddily boarded a cruise ship bound for the island. He celebrated the “historic” voyage as a “pinch-me moment.” 

Scott Whitlock similarly put "historic" regarding Cuba in scare quotes in a Sept.  1 post, huffing that "CBS isn’t the only network to be excited over the communist country. On July 21, 2015, as ABC thrilled over the 'historic' opening of a Cuban embassy in Washington D.C., the same network skipped coverage of the country’s human rights violations."

A Child's Garden of WND Portraying Obama As Mocking Its Readers
Topic: WorldNetDaily

We've detailed how WorldNetDaily has used a particular photo (which it stole from the Associated Press) to falsely smear transgenders as hairy guys in dresses. But that's not the only picture WND has used with transgender-related stories -- it's also fond of out-of-context pictures of Obama as well, portrayed as appearing to mock WND readers.

Here's a June 10 article by Bob Unruh on how "a school district has sued the federal government over his mandate that schools allow boys into girls’ lockers and showers, and girls into boys'" that includes a sinister-looking picture of Obama:

And here's a June 2 article by Unruh on how Obama says his gender identity policy is based on the Golden Rule, using a photo of an apparently smug-looking Obama ntaken from the White House photo archive and presumably having nothing to do with transgender issues:

Here it is again in a May 27 article on "a lawsuit against the Obama administration’s transgender agenda":

And in a May 4 article by Unruh:

WND also used that same smug photo in a May 20 article on Obama appointing a transgender to a government post.

And here's a different smug-looking Obama used in a May 17 article by Unruh on Obama "ramped up his war on 'transphobia'":

WND suggesting that Obama despises its readers isn't limited to transgender issues. Here's a June 22 article by Bob Unruh on an anti-abortion group accusing Obama of "twisting words to defend a California state mandate that forces churches to fund abortion in violation of the First Amendment right to free exercise of religion, featuring an out-of-context picture of a laughing Obama:

Such misuse of photos is yet more evidence of why WND has no credibility and is in serious financial trouble.

At CNS, Another Op-Ed From A Dead Guy
Topic: CNSNews.com

A couple weeks back, we noticed that CNSNews.com had made Watergate criminal Chuck Colson a semi-regular bylined columnist, not letting the fact that he died in 2012 stand in his way of getting published.

Well, CNS let Dead Chuck Colson write another column on Aug. 26. It was introduced as a "classic BreakPoint commentary" and it's parenthetically noted at the end that "This commentary originally aired June 30, 2010."

Nowhere is it mentioned, however, that Colson died four years ago.

We can't decide whether Colson is CNS' Bernie or the character in "Space Mutiny" who just couldn't stay dead. Any thoughts on the matter, CNS?

MRC Goes WND-Style Birther on Hillary's Health, Thanks to Jeffrey Lord
Topic: Media Research Center

Two recent trends -- the Media Research Center's embrace of WorldNetDaily-style far-right sensationalism and WND's obsession with maliciously portraying Hillary Clinton as suffering from myriad health issues as "diagnosed" by right-wing doctors who have never examined her -- come together in an Aug. 27 NewsBusters rant by factually challenged Trump-fluffer Jeffrey Lord.

Lord is upset that fact-checkers at the Washington Post pointed out that there isn't any actual evidence that Hillary has any serious health problems and gave Donald Trump's claim otherwise four Pinocchios. Lord responded by citing a Carl Bernstein book noting that Hillary had trouble keeping up with her husband in the early years of his presidency. Let the birther -- er, healther screed begin, Jeffrey:

And there it is. The flat out statement as fact that way back there in 1993 the then-46 year old First Lady of the United States was seen by her aides as being “physically exhausted” by her duties, that she “lacked” her husband’s stamina and in fact was so exhausted by simple Capital Hill appearances that she would “collapse in the car on the way back to the White House.”

Hmm. Did Mr. Kessler the “Fact Checker” ever bother checking the reporting of one of the best reporters in the history of his own paper? Did Mr. Borchers? Obviously, not. So what we get instead from them both is the assertion that Donald Trump has lied with an “unsubstantiated ‘stamina' argument” about Hillary Clinton when in fact it has been very much substantiated by Carl Bernstein who got the information from Hillary Clinton’s own staff members.

This is the kind of horse hockey that passes as “fact checking” today. It is called “fact checking” when in fact it is nothing more than one more set of factual misstatements coming from a virulently anti-Trump paper. A paper that has, no kidding, said this on its editorial page about Trump: “Mr. Trump is pathologically dishonest and morally bankrupt.”

Today, of course, Hillary Clinton is no longer 46 years old. She is about to turn 70. Logic dictates that a person who had stamina problems at 46, by the account of her own staff,  would have even more stamina problems a full 23 years later. Yet, with the fact of her stamina problems fully evident in a biography by one of the most respected and well-known journalists of the day - and, I might add, no conservative - the media not only totally ignores. 

And, thus, the WND-ization of the MRC, as well as the MRC's Jeffrey Lord problem, continues apace.

WND Endorses GOP Gov's Foul-Mouthed Tirade (And Lies About Margaret Sanger)
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Maine Gov. Paul LePage, a Republican, went on a massive foul-mouthed tirade against a Democratic state legislator he (falsely) believed called him a racist, calling him a "cocksucker."

And WorldNetDaily loved it.

Leo Hohmann cheered LePage's potty-mouthed rant in an Aug. 26 WND article:

Charges of racism and bigotry from the Democrat Party are nothing new, of course.

But what is new is the reaction by Republicans.

And it’s being led by the Trump phenomenon.

While LePage’s reaction might have been over the top, it illustrates how Republicans are no longer rolling over in fear when branded with the dreaded “racist” label.

Hohmann didn't mention that the legislator LePage unloaded on denied calling him a racist, even though it was in the newspaper account to which Hohmann linked in support of his article.

Hohmann takes his article into the well-worn WND script of portraying liberals as the real racists, and then into complete fiction when invoking Margaret Sanger, as brought up by WND columnist Jesse Lee Peterson:

The founder of Planned Parenthood, the Democrat icon Margaret Sanger, was in fact a devout racist, Peterson said.

“She was loved by the Ku Klux Klan,” he said.

Next to that was a picture of Sanger with the caption, "Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger is a heroine of the Democratic Party and a notorious racist."

Both Hohmann and Peterson are lying. As we've pointed out, nobody who has actually studied Sanger's work thinks her birth-control work was motivated by racism, let alone that she was a "notorious" or "devout" racist.

But who expects the truth from WND anymore? No wonder they're in financial trouble.

Brent Bozell Is Walking Hand In Hand With Trump
Topic: Media Research Center

In February, Media Research Center chief Bozell declared in an essay for National Review that Trump does not "walk with" conservatives, denouncing his proclaimed "allegiance to the Democratic party" and insising that "We conservatives should support the one candidate who walks with us.

How times change -- as if there was any doubt Bozell would eventually fall in GOP lockstep after Trump won the nomination. Despite all of his bluster, he is ultimately a loyal Republican.

Trump's Aug. 31 anti-immigrant speech brought a round of ecstatic tweeting from Bozell:

"1,000 times more detailed"? Really? Will his MRC minions quantify that for us, or is he using that fuzzy Trump math?

So Bozell is now not only walking with Trump, he's dancing to Trump's tune. Expect his MRC to be even more jiggy with Trump's tune.

ConWeb Touted 'Ben-Hur' Remake, Is Silent On How It's Bombing In Theaters
Topic: The ConWeb

A few weeks back, we documented how both Newsmax, CNSNews.com and the Media Research Center were all shilling for the new remake of "Ben-Hur" and touting its religious bona fides, in line with the producers' aim to make the film appeal to a religious audience.

They weren't the only ones in the ConWeb who signed on as unpaid (or paid) spokespeople for the film. WorldNetDaily got in on the act too:

• In an Aug. 15 article, Rusty Wright -- "an author and lecturer who has spoken on six continents" -- rehashed the background of the book that inspired the film and asserted that "'Ben-Hur’s' poignant depiction of revenge, reconciliation and redemption generates a powerful message for today’s world filled with racial and religious violence, cop killings and more."
• George Escobar, who runs WND's film division but is grandiosely described in the headline as a "top film executive," lamented in an Aug. 20 article that "we are in an age of colonization in our politics, theology and mass migrations, fought most visibly within inner-city plantations" before giving the film a gushing review: "Probably more than at any other time, a film such as 'Ben-Hur' is needed. Does it deliver the power and drama of its predecessors? Mostly. Is it relevant for our time? Definitely. Should you go see it? Absolutely."

The reality, however, is that the film is tanking -- badly.

The film made only $12 million its opening weekend and to date has made a little over $20 million in just under two weeks -- very bad for a film that opened wide (3,000+ screens) and cost $100 million to make. Even counting foreign revenue, it's highly unlikely the film will recoup what it cost to make during its theatrical run, making this movie "the bomb of the summer."

YOu won't read about that at WND, CNS  or the MRC, though -- none have seen fit to mention the "Ben-Hur" bomb on their front pages the way they promoted the film.

Newsmax, however, made a game attempt to spin the failure with an Aug. 23 article by David Patten, blaming the bad reviews on the "mainstream media" who actually reviewed the film and found it wanting:

The mainstream media is doing such a fine job of heaping coals on the new Mark Burnett and Roma Downey epic, "Ben-Hur," that it might want to be careful. The intensity of their vituperation might just induce movie-goers — particularly faith-oriented ones — to go see what all the fuss is about.

Rolling Stone branded the film "a remake disaster of biblical proportions."

ABCNews.com dismissed it as "a miscast remake that will only appeal to a specific [read Christian] audience." Others were less kind.

If film lovers ignore those reviews and go anyway, however, what they'll see is a picture far different from the one being portrayed in the media as a flop — which explains why some are extolling it.

"I love 'Ben-Hur,'" host Glenn Beck remarked on his program recently. "It is great."

Patten made excuses for producers (and Christian-media faves) Burnett and Downey, whom he baselessly proclaimed to be "Hollywood's No. 1 power couple": "If the film's director and producers are guilty of anything, it is their soaring ambition in trying to boil down a story that took three hours and 32 minutes to relate in the 1959 version — clearly too long for modern audiences – to a little over 2 hours in the remake."

Patten also claimed that "Evangelicals trust Burnett and Downey to handle their cherished biblical narratives with care," ignoring the fact that "Ben-Hur's" main story -- a revenge story involving a Jewish prince forced to become a slave and a climactic chariot race -- is not a "cherished biblical narrative"; it's from a novel first published in 1880. In the book, the crucifixion of Christ is a parallel narrative to the story of Judah Ben-Hur.

WND Reporter Has Trouble Counting, Can Only Copy-And-Paste
Topic: WorldNetDaily

The headline of Bob Unruh's Aug. 29 WorldNetDaily article screams "10 PROMINENT DOCTORS QUESTION HILLARY'S HEALTH." But do they really? And are there really 10 of them?

Unruh prefaced a bullet list by stating that "many physicians, based on publicly available information have raised concerns." But that bullet list contains only six names that are rehashes of previous WND attacks on Hillary Clinton's alleged health problems; as we've noted, three of them are affiliated with the far-right-fringe Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, and a fourth is a urologist has nothing relevant to add regarding Hillary's purported maladies. None of them have actually examined clinton in a clinical setting, so all they have to offer is speculation.

That's six. Where are the other four?

You have to go down to the 55th paragraph of Unruh's article to find a bullet list of three other doctors that are taken from WND attacks earlier this year, when Jerome Corsi was portraying warfarin, a commonly used blood thinner, as rat poison. As with the previous six, these three also have never examined Clinton and are simply engaging in speculation.

That's nine. We're missing one.

The 10th doctor appears to be Ben Carson, who like the others have never examined Clinton. But Unruh never mentions his name or otherwise cites him anywhere in his article. Rather, a few paragraphs up from the bullet list at graf 55 is an inserted video of Carson saying that both Clinton and Donald Trump should release their health records. Not only does he make no specific claims about Clinton's health, he actually debunks the other speculating doctors, saying that "physicians and scientists generally will not make a diagnosis based on something they see from a long distance. They want to have the facts."

In short, Unruh has turned in a badly written article that's mostly copy-and-paste. No wonder WND is in deep financial trouble.

Unruh goes on to complain that "Rather than address the concerns, many Clinton supporters have responded with torrents of abuse and ridicule." But Unruh is not behaving in a manner that requires a serious response. He mentions how a Clinton campaign spokesman has pointed out that Trump "has put forward a laughable letter that omits basic health information including the date of his exam, past medications, family medical history, heart rate, respiratory rate, EKG, or cholesterol level, but he does nothing with that information; instead, he pivots to his regurgitated Clinton-bashing.

Think of this as a reminder that WND not only fails as real journalism, it fails at being a partisan mouthpiece. Again, no wonder WND's in deep financial trouble.

MRC Personally Attacks Colin Kaepernick For His Protest
Topic: Media Research Center

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick's refusal to stand for the national anthem in a preseason game, prompting the Media Research Center to lash out at Kaepernick personally for his protest and dismiss mock the reason he did it: a protest over the way blacks are treated in America.

NewsBusters' Dylan Gwinn was first to lash out, huffing that Kaepernick's Twitter account "basically reads like a Black Lives Matter site" and sneering, "Unclear as to whether or not Kaepernick considers our black President and black head of the Justice Department as in on the racist cabal. That story coming later, probably. Actually, probably not." Gwinn then dismissed Kaepernick completely because "he’s not good at football anymore."

Anonymous coward "Bruce Bookter" took umbrage at ESPN commenter Pablo S. Torre for suggesting only Trump supporters are angered by Kaepernick's protest:

Yeah, it’s not all about sports at all. It’s supposed to be a unifying moment that brings us together as one, before we all yell and scream and foam at the mouth at each other. This is a point understood by most people. These same “most people,” many of whom elected and then re-elected a black President, don’t believe the American flag represents bigotry or oppression.

The fact that it’s apparently not understood at all by the leftist sports media is…well…sadly not surprising. However, heed Torre’s words here, and expect a renewed push on the part of the sports media to eliminate the National Anthem as a quaint old custom that has nothing to do with sports and everything to do with oppression.

This from a guy who doesn't even have the courage of his convictions to put his own name on them.

Gwinn returns to attack NFL Players Association president DeMaurice Smith for defending Kaepernick (italics his):

Smith categorically rejects the idea of “shut up and play.” The notion that athletes should just do their jobs and leave their politics out of it. Smith claims that this turns the athlete into a two-dimensional person, and doesn’t allow for the athlete to express those attributes which make him “human.”

Of course, those critical of Kaepernick are not saying he doesn’t have a right to feel how he feels. They’re disputing what he says. Not his right to say it.

Actually, Dylan, if you're telling Kaepernick to "shut up and play" -- and it certainly appears you are -- you are, in fact, disputing his right to say it.

Also pretending he's not disputing Kaepernick's right to say it while actually doing do is "Bookter," who goes on a tirade against both him and ESPN’s Ian O’Connor for daring to defend him:

Someone needs to get ESPN and 49ers Quarterback Colin Kaepernick a room. Preferably a room in another country. Yet, a room nonetheless.

[...]

Rebranding disrespect to America and its flag as patriotism is, of course, verbatim from the leftist handbook. If people call Colin Kaepernick un-American, it’s not because they think he doesn’t have the right to speak. They say it in response to his actual words and actions.

Also funny is that O’Connor feels Kaepernick’s protest will remind the world that the United States is “still a pretty damn good place to live.” Really? How is telling the world that our nation oppresses black people and minorities a good thing? Upon reading Colin Kaepernick’s protest, will people in Africa or Central America more likely think, “Hmm, maybe I’ll go to America where I’m free to speak my mind?” Or, “Holy cow! American cops ruthlessly murder minorities with impunity, and nobody does anything about it!”

I’m guessing the latter.

O’Connor, honestly, likely has no idea himself what he meant when saying that whites forever ask blacks to overcome obstacles “that whites themselves created.” Just remember the important things here: a white family adopted Colin Kaepernick, who was drafted into the league by a white head coach and General Manager, paid millions of dollars by NFL owners who happened to be white, a majority white country has now twice elected a black President, and you’re all racists.

The end.

Gwinn piled on in yet another post, declaring that " in addition to being a moron, he’s also bad at football."

Kyle Drennen, meanwhile, declared Kaepernick to be "anti-American," according to the headline of his Aug. 29 post, upset that one reporter allegedly "treated Kaepernick like a martyr," while Brad Wilmouth asserted that Kaepernick's proest was an "expression of anti-U.S. sentiment." with his protest. 

Actually, what could be more American then protesting the actions of others? If that's "anti-American," than the MRC is anti-American too.

Gwinnn returned once again to slam Kaepernick's purported incompetence as a QB (never mind that he led the 49ers to the Super Bowl in 2012), sneering that he was merely "assuming the sitting position he’s likely to become very familiar with over the course of the next season." Gwinn also attacked Kaepernick for the alleged futility of his protest:

Has he started the Colin Kaepernick Fund for Underprivileged or At-Risk Youth? Has he spent hours and hours mentoring kids? Is he trying to improve police/community relations?

Even if every other player in the league followed Kaepernick’s lead, and sat during the anthem at every game for the rest of the season, the end result of that would be?...

I can think of a few outcomes. None of them would do anything to help the cause Kaepernick claims to want to fix.

Finally, Randy Hall calls in a lower-tier right-wing commentator to hurl insults at Kaepernick:

During Monday night's edition of the Tomi program on The Blaze, conservative host Tomi Lahren harshly criticized Colin Kaepernick -- quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers professional football team -- for refusing to stand during the performance of the National Anthem at the start of the preseason game against the Green Bay Packers the day before.

Lahren began her “Final Thoughts” segment by promising to “eviscerate” Kaepernick's “mouth diarrhea” before calling him a “whiny, indulgent, attention-seeking crybaby” and asserting that “if this country disgusts you so much, leave!”

[...]

Lahren then said she was going to “eviscerate” this “mouth diarrhea” sentence by sentence.

As with most of the MRC's nasty personal attacks on Kaepernick, this has nothing whatsoever to do with its claimed mission of rooting out "liberal media bias."

AIM's Kincaid Defends the Honor of White Supremacists
Topic: Accuracy in Media

For some reason, Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid loves Jared Taylor, the unambuguously racist head of white-supremacist group American Renaissance. He's promoted Taylor before, fretting that the Southern Poverty Law Center "has smeared Taylor as a 'white nationalist'" (it's not a smear if it's true, Cliff) and laughably denying that Taylor and AmRen are racist, insisting that merely deals with "racial issues" like the Congressional Black Caucus.

Well, Kincaid has struck again in an Aug. 29 AIM column. First, he's upset that Hillary Clinton's campaign is pointing out the white-nationalist support for Donald Trump and doesn't see why it's such a big deal: "I frankly don’t know who or what she is talking about. Is it objectionable for white people to defend their interests and even be proud of their race? Is that 'white nationalism?'"

Kincaid quickly moves from that to defending the honor of his white-supremacist friends at AmRen:

It would be nice if these columnists would let the pro-white groups speak for themselves. It would also be nice to have a few facts in place of their vitriol.

One good source of information on all of this is the website of American Renaissance, a self-described “white advocacy organization.”

American Renaissance declares, “The United States is not a territory that is up for grabs, and that belongs to whoever manages—legally or illegally—to get here. It was founded by Europeans, who gave it its culture and institutions, and America’s European core has every right to resist dispossession.”

Is there some doubt that European Americans founded this country?

American Renaissance goes on to say, “American Renaissance is a voice for all white people whose hopes for preserving their people and culture are being sacrificed under the delusion that diversity is a strength. Diversity of race, language or religion is a source of weakness and tension for a country. To ask whites—anywhere in the world—to ‘celebrate diversity’ is to ask them to celebrate their declining numbers and dwindling influence. It is to ask them to welcome oblivion.”

One can disagree with Trump on this or that issue. But the idea that it’s wrong to appeal to or attract white voters is simply ludicrous. Is it objectionable for whites to advocate policies advantageous to their race?

Kincaid then complains that if appealing to minorities is OK, why is it such a bad thing for anyone to explicitly appeal to whites, like Jared Taylor does?

It is perfectly fine, from the liberal media’s point of view, to appeal to blacks and other minorities. But whites are off-limits. Hence, to even speak of a “white identity” makes one a racist or a nationalist. This is complete nonsense, especially from a media that doesn’t even use the accurate phrase “illegal aliens” anymore.

In 2012 the Obama campaign ran a 60-second ad entitled, “We’ve Got Your Back,” appealing to black voters’ nostalgia about the election of the nation’s first African-American president. It called on those voters to “have the President’s back” and stand with Obama again in November of 2012.

Obama’s mentor had taught him that black people have “reason to hate.”

Where was the outrage?

We commented four years ago that Jared Taylor, author of the book, White Identity, had been banned from most programs because he dared to talk about whites as people with special interests of their own, separate from various minority groups. Taylor runs American Renaissance.

He’s getting more attention today because he is a target of Hillary Clinton’s campaign against Donald J. Trump. Taylor has been lumped into the alt-right category and branded as a “white nationalist.”

That's because he is a white nationalist, Cliff.

Kincaid concludes with what he thinks is his coup de grace: The real racist is Hillary!

Hillary has a $10 billion plan to fight drug addiction with “multi-faceted federal policy leadership.” Her plan says nothing about how to stop the heroin, which kills white people, from coming across the border.

Is she anti-white?

Um, no, Cliff -- you're just projecting. Further, as Vox explains, Clinton's plan does address the heroin epidemic through increased funding for prevention and treatment programs. It also proposes to increase access to naloxone, a drug that can reverse the effects of an overdose of heroin or other opiates.

Vox also points out that prescription opioid drugs have contributed to heroinuse, and Clinton's plan would also give doctors better training and tools to know which patients actually need painkillers and which may be likely to abuse them.

Kincaid apparently doesn't understand that one key way to address the supply of heroin is to address the demand; as the Economist notes, rising supply is linked to rising demand. Merely addressing supply without addressing demand, as Kincaid seems to want, does not solve the problem.

In short, Kincaid is once again fighting perceived bigotry with actual bigots. How does AIM chief Don Irvine justify keeping Kincaid employed at his family organization?

WND Helps Homeschoolers Defend Being Anti-Vaxxer
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily loves endangering the health of its readers by promoting anti-vaccine propaganda, and it certainly isn't going to stop now.

WND's latest attempt is an Aug. 21 article by Bob Unruh that ropes his homeschooling friends into being anti-vaxxers:

A fight has erupted over a decision by bureaucrats in Colorado to go, according to critics, well beyond what the law allows and threaten parents of homeschoolers seeking exemptions from state vaccinations requirements for their children.

There was a plan before the legislature earlier this year that would have demanded homeschool parents sign forms stating things like, “My child/I may be at increased risk of developing …” and “Failure to follow the advice of a physician … who has recommended vaccines may endanger my child’s/my health or life and others who come into contact with my child/me.”

Officials with the Home School Legal Defense Association said they helped defeat the “attempts to invade families’ privacy.”

The proposal didn’t give parents the option – it simply demanded they make that particular political statement.

But, the HSLDA explains, demanding that parents “affirm that by exempting their child from immunizations they are endangering the life and health of that child … is at odds with some parents’ personal and/or religion beliefs.”

“By forcing parents to make this statement, the state of Colorado is unconstitutionally compelling speech.”

By making being anti-vaccine a "religious belief," the HSLDA, with an assist from WND, is now effectively an anti-vaxxer group.

Unruh tries to spin that little troublesome aspect away, writing of the HSLDA: "The organization doesn’t necessarily advocate for or against vaccinations, but believes, 'whether to immunize a child is a medical decision that HSLDA believes is best made by fully informed parents in accordance with the law and without undue interference or burdens imposed by the state.'"

So the HSLDA will defend every foolish thing a homeschooling parent declares just to stick it to purportedly intrusive state officials? That seems like a lack of standards, especially given the universally acknowledged benefits of vaccines and the indisputable risk one takes by not getting them. WND, being largely staffed by homeschooling parents, is so close to the HSLDA that it effectively acts as the group's PR division, so Unruh (also a homeschooling parent) is simply doing stenography.

Indeed, this being an Unruh-written article published by WND, there's no attempt whatsoever to tell the other side of the story. The new rules, approved last year, are designed to raise immunization rates in Colorado, which are among the lowest in the nation.