MRC Attacks Another Fact-Checker Who Accurately Checked Facts Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Tim Graham grumbles in a Sept. 16 post:
The website Politifact Bias underlined how slippery the “fact checkers” get when they’re screening speeches by the Democrats – as they actually admit they’re following Clinton campaign tipsters. PolitiFact's Sean Gorman admitted "Sarah Peck, the Virginia communications director for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign, pointed us to a June 7 article in BuzzFeed News about the tent episode." They rated this speech nugget from Tim Kaine “True”:
"When Moammar Gadhafi was set to visit the United Nations, and no one would let him stay in New York, Trump allowed Gadhafi to set up an elaborate tent at his Westchester County (New York) estate."
Kaine’s next sentence: “That’s right, when Gadhafi was looking for a place to stay in America, and because of his human rights track record, and the pan am bombing, others were turning him away, he found one guy – one guy – who was willing to host him.”
There’s only one problem: Gadhafi never stayed there.
But Kaine never said Gadhafi stayed there. He said Trump allowed Gadhafi to set up a tent at his estate, something Graham and his fellow fact-check-hater concede is true. You really can't fact-check an implication.
You can, however, fact-check deliberately imprecise language used to promtoe a false talking point, as the MRC did all weekend in parroting Donald Trump by falsely insisting that Hillary Clinton directly promoted birtherism.
CNS Maliciously Attacks Obama As Insensitive By Not Speaking Publicly on Weekend Attacks Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com serves up a particularly odious bit of Obama derangement in the form of a Sept. 19 article by Susan Jones portraying Obama as, at best, callous and insensitive to the detonation of a bomb in New York and other violent incidents over the weekend and, at worst, celebrating them.
Jones' article has the out-of-context headline "Obama Tells Black Lawmakers, 'There's an Extra Spring in My Step Tonight'," which -- precisely because it's placed there devoid of context -- suggests that Obama is saying the spring in his step is because of the weekend's incidents.
Jones then maliciously frames Obama's speech to the Congressional Black Caucus as insensitive to the weekend's events:
As of early Monday morning, President Obama had made no public comment on a series of weekend bombings, attempted bombings and stabbings in three states, but he did make time to address a Congressional Black Caucus awards dinner Saturday night and a Democrat fundraiser Sunday night.
At Saturday's event, Obama thanked the assembled guests, then joked: "There’s an extra spring in my step tonight. I don't know about you guys, but I am so relieved that the whole birther thing is over.
"I mean, ISIL, North Korea, poverty, climate change -- none of those things weighed on my mind -- (laughter) -- like the validity of my birth certificate. (Laughter.)
Jones then complained that "all three attacks had happened by the time Obama attended a Democrat fundraiser in New York on Sunday night, and a transcript shows he made no comment on the attacks at that event. A fourth attempted attack, on a train station in Elizabeth, New Jersey, was discovered after Obama had left the fundraiser."
Indeed, portraying Obama as deliberately ignoring the weekend's events was Jones' directive and obsession this morning. She quickly followed up two hours later with an article whining that White House spokesman Josh Earnest didn't commit to a time that Obama would speak on the events of the weekend, emphasizing that "As of Monday morning, Obama has made no public comment on the series of bombings and stabbings in three states -- Minnesota, New York and New Jersey -- that took place on Saturday and Sunday."
In neither article does explain when Obama should have spoken on the weekend's events, given that few details were available immediately after they happened.
This is just sleazy Obama derangement at its worst, from a right-wing "news" outlet trying to score cheap political points after a potentially tragic event. Jones and her bosses Terry Jeffrey and Michael W. Chapman, should be ashamed.
UPDATE: Obama spoke about the weekend incidents later in the morning. Jones did not consider this newsworthy enough to write about story about, despite the fact that she wrote two articles complainingthat Obama was too slow to speak out. And even though CNS considered Jones' articles worthy of the front page, Obama's statement did not appear there in any form.
WND Still Clinging To Its Birther Lies Topic: WorldNetDaily
The news that Donald Trump has renounced birtherism (in front of the cameras, anyway) has to be a blow to WorldNetDaily, which helped Trump behind the scenes with his 2011 birther obsession. Not surprisingly, WND doesn't want to talk about the implications of it but, instead, endeavors to cling to its old, discredited birther lies.
Bob Unruh's Sept. 16 WND article on Trump's announcement refuses to admit that birtherism has been discredited or even admit that President Obama has released a valid birth certificate, rehashing tired old language that Obama released "a document he said was his Hawaii birth certificate" (the state of Hawaii says it is too) and that "The only official law enforcement investigation into the issue, authorized by Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, concluded the document was fraudulent" (actually, the investigation itself is what was fraudulent).
And rather than admitting the fact that WND's birther crusade was always a partisan fraud and never about the Constitution -- reinforced when WND's Jerome Corsi appeared on a right-wing radio show after Trump's statement and refused to even discuss the issue of which he has been such a key part of for several years (including being a key part of Arpaio's rigged "cold case posse") because it's being used to hurt his candidate Trump and "I’m done with the topic until Obama’s out of office" -- Unruh pivoted to the new Trump-approved talking point: it was all Hillary's idea in the first place and that birtherism is Obama's fault.
WND editor Joseph Farah's first column after Trump's statement was not about said statement but, rather, focused on a statement a week and a half earlier by Ben Carson that Trump should apologize for being a birther in order to appeal to black voters. Farah asserted that Carson was " just plain wrong" to say that:
Who believes support from black voters hinges in any way on this question?
Experience more of Joseph Farah’s no-nonsense truth-telling in his books, audio and video products, featured in the WND Superstore
Who believes that Donald Trump or anyone else who raised the question of Obama’s constitutional eligibility did so because they were motivated by racism?
How is the so-called “birther issue” even relevant with Obama’s term ending Jan. 20, 2017, and the American people faced with a choice between two candidates – both of whom questioned Obama’s eligibility, the first being Hillary’s campaign in 2008?
And how in the world does Dr. Carson’s answer help defeat Hillary Clinton, which I know is his priority?
It’s very strange and disappointing.
Farah went on to assert that "there were and are legitimate questions about Obama’s constitutional eligibility that have been swept under the rug – one more part of our nation’s foundation of the rule of law chipped away forever." But given the chance to further explore those questions with a candidate he didn't despise, Ted Cruz, Farah chickened out instead.
Farah actually addressed Trump's statement in his Sept. 18 column -- sort of. He main job here is to pivot the blame away from Trump (and, by extension, WND), insisting that the honor of being the first birther "belongs to one person and one person alone – Barack Obama," because of a 1990s-era book publisher's bio in which Obama "billed himself as having been born in Kenya." But that bio didn't surface until 2012 -- by which time WND had been hardcore birthers for years -- and Obama didn't provide that information to the publisher.
With that falsehood as a setup, Farah then shifts full gear into doing what he does best -- lie. Such as his assertion that "Obama refused to release his birth certificate during his entire first term in office." In fact, Obama released a birth certificate before the 2008 election; WND simply refused to recognize it as real.
Farah then claims that the certificate Obama released in 2011 "has never been authenticated as genuine." False -- as former cold case posse member Brian Reilly has pointed out, the state of Hawaii has officially verified the authenticity of Obama's birth certificate.
And then Farah's off to his beloved conspiracy land:
I won’t go into the voluminous amount of evidence of a cover-up, or all the valid reasons for questioning not only where Obama was born, but whether he had even retained citizenship when he and his mother left the country to move to Indonesia and enroll him in a Muslim school there over the objections of U.S. immigration officials concerned, at the time, about the status of his citizenship status.
I won’t go into his missing college records, which might shed light on whether Obama had claimed to be a foreign student, as many at Columbia assumed.
I won’t go into the fact that his supposed “birth hospital” in Hawaii steadfastly refused to acknowledge publicly that simple fact.
Personally, I thought it was important to establish that Obama met the minimal constitutional litmus test for eligibility. For that I was vilified, called a racist, lampooned, besmirched, called a conspiracy theorist and worse.
During all that time, I never drew any conclusions about his birthplace – just that there were questions that needed to be answered.
Funny, Farah never felt similarly compelled to establish that his beloved Ted Cruz met the minimal constitutional litmus test for eligibility, even though by the overly narrow definitions of "natural born citizen" WND has pushed over the years, Cruz is even more ineligible to be president than Obama.
The fact that WND refused to apply its Obama birther standards to Cruz tells us that, like Corsi, Farah never cared about the Constitution at all; he cared only about trying to personally and politically destroy someone he, for whatever reason, had some sort of grudge against.
Now, like Corsi, Farah no longer wants to talk about what was his website's signature issue for eight years: "Excuse me for not answering at least a dozen requests for interviews from the global media last week when Trump admitted Obama was born in the U.S. – something he actually has no evidence to conclude with any certainty."
Farah couldn't talk about birtherism enough when the target was Obama. But now that it's come back to bite not only his preferred presidential candidates but WND as well -- its insistence on clinging to birther lies and refusal to apply Obama birther standards to Cruz are no doubt two big reasons why WND is in serious financial trouble -- he wants to take his ball and go home.
But that means Farah has signed the death warrant for WND. No rational person would choose to believe a "news" organization that clings to something so definitively and prominently discredited.
Whether Farah admits it or not, birtherism is the hill WND will die on. His refusal to admit he misled readers about birtherism for years means that death will come sooner rather than later.
MRC Spins Hard To Falsely Blame Hillary For Birtherism Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center couldn't be a better public-relations agent for the Trump campaign if it was being paid for it (and it may be, as far as we know). Just look at how it is despserately spinning for Trump to go against the facts to portray Hillary Clinton -- not Trump -- as the biggest promoter of birtherism.
On Friday, both NBC’s Today and CBS This Morning blasted Donald Trump for refusing to respond to a question about whether President Obama was born in the United States and “fact-checked” his assertion that Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign actually first pushed the conspiracy theory. On Today, correspondent Peter Alexander noted: “The Trump team issuing a reversal, saying, quote, ‘Mr. Trump believes President Obama was born in the United States’....And falsely accusing Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign of first raising the issue.”
On This Morning, correspondent Major Garrett similarly mentioned: “At a conservative political conference in 2015, Trump again questioned the President’s citizenship and falsely tried to pin the rumor on Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign.”
Most likely both reporters picked up the “false” label from liberal source PolitiFact, which rated the claim to be untrue. However, the website’s own fact-check of the issue cited a Daily Beast report which detailed the prominent role a Clinton campaign volunteer played in push birtherism during the 2008 campaign.
Drennen proves that statemenet wrong by quoting from a Politico article admitting that "a volunteer coordinator in Iowa had to step down from the Clinton campaign after the coordinator sent an e-mail saying Obama was a Muslim."
So, no, not actually "prominent" at all.
Next up was Tom Blumer, who was upset at the Associated Press for stating the fact that "there is no evidence" that "the 'birther movement' was started by Hillary Clinton." His evidence that this isn't true: The hosts of "Morning Joe" chatting about it. No, really.
Blumer also brings up the 2007 Mark Penn memo proposing to attack Obama's "American values," but he fails to mention that Penn's suggestion was never implemented by the campaign. Nevertheless, Blumer rants: "Memo to AP and all the other establishment press outlets claiming that Donald Trump is making a false claim about Hillary Clinton: Yes, there is evidence, and no, it's not a false conspiracy. You just don't have the courage to do your jobs, break from your reflexive pro-Hillary mindset, and report it."
Just like Blumer doesn't have the courage to admit he's trying to deflect attention away from Trump for an odious act he did for much longer than Hillary Clinton was ever accused of doing it?
Blumer followed up with another post with some new supposedly damning evidence: how Sidney Blumenthal, "a close confidant of Mrs. Clinton herself," allegedly floated it in 2008 to a couple of McClatachy reporters, who checked it out and found no merit. Blumer did note that Blumenthal denied the allegation, then sneered, "Sure, Sid."
But neither Blumer nor McClatchy offer any evidence that Blumenthal was acting in any official capacity for Hillary's 2008 campaign. Yet Blumer attacks McClatchy for keeping its investigation hidden for all these year -- as if facts would have stopped Trump from embracing birthers.
Remember, Blumer and the MRC could have forcefully denounced birtherism a long time ago before it took root on the right and when Trump first embraced it, but they didn't. The MRC it took great interest in the subject only when birther allegations swirled around Brent Bozell's preferred candidate, Ted Cruz (which, as it so happens, was also promoted by Trump).
Clay Waters came next, complaining that the New York Times "denied that the Hillary Clinton camp had anything to do with spreading the lie in the first place, though information both new and old undermines that easy assertion." Waters is muddying his terms here; by using the word "camp," he's suggesting that birtherism was promoted as an official campaign strategy -- which it wasn't.
Jeffrey Lord then rants about the "birther" issue being applied to John McCain in 2008 because he was born in the Panama Canal Zone. But Lord omits the obvious: once experts ruled that McCain was indeed a "natural born citizen" and, thus, eligible to run for president, it quickly stopped being an issue. Trump pushed birtherism for five years despite the fact that his claims had been discredited.
Brad Wilmouth then made his case for Blumenthal being meaningful: "Even though Blumenthal was not a paid part of the Clinton campaign, if he made efforts to boost Clinton by trying to tear down her opponent, such activities would still be part of the Clinton team effort." Well, no, not if he wasn't a "paid part of the Clinton campaign."
Next up was Nicholas Fondacaro, who asserted it was "not accurate" to claim that the Clinton campaign never pushed birtherism, but he cites only the never-implemented Mark Penn memo and Clinton supporters he does not prove had any official sanction from the campaign. Despite the fact that he has nothing, Fondacaro repeats his so-called evidence in a second post.
The MRC is being fundamentally dishonest. Rogue supporters were not the "Clinton campaign." Sid Blumenthal was not the "Clinton campaign." And the MRC completely censors the fact that it was right-wingers like WorldNetDaily and political opportunists like Trump (with WND's help) who perpetuated the birther lies long after anyone even remotely linked to the "Clinton campaign" stopped talking about them.
The fact that birtherism is an issue today is because of Trump, not Clinton. The MRC -- which promoted Obama birtherism off and on through the years -- should stop shilling for Trump and tell its readers the truth.
WND Censors Alleged Broaddrick Witness' Grudge Against Clinton Topic: WorldNetDaily
An anonymously written Sept. 14 WorldNetDaily article states:
Juanita Broaddrick’s rape accusation against Bill Clinton now has medical corroboration for the alleged violent attack that occurred in a hotel room 38 years ago.
Norma Rogers, the nurse who treated her in the hotel room immediately following the incident, told Aaron Klein, a radio host in the New York and Philadelphia markets and a staff writer for Breitbart News: “She was crying. And the thing I think I remember most is that her mouth was all swollen up. It was cut. … Her pantyhose were all ripped.”
At the time, Broaddrick was a nursing-home administrator volunteering for the gubernatorial campaign of then Arkansas Attorney General Bill Clinton in 1978.
The anonymous writer did admit that Rogers "worked for Broaddrick," but there's no mention of another, more pertienent issue regarding Rogers.
We've previously noted that Rogers and her family has a grudge againsdt Bill Clinton because as Arkansas governor he had commuted the death sentence of the man convicted of murdering her father.
That, along with her apparently loyalty to her former employer, tells us that she's not objective on this issue, though that should be taken into consideration in reporting her story. Klein's story at Breitbart summarizing his interview also fails to report this important fact.
But she's telling the story that WND wants to hear, so WND will give her a free pass.
MRC's Bozell Defends Pence Against Tough, Fair Questioning Topic: Media Research Center
In a Sept., 12 interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Mike Pence refused to call David Duke "deplorable" -- laughably insising that "I'm not in the name-calling business" -- though he did disavow Duke's support of his and Donald Trump's campaign.
Cue a Brent Bozell temper tantrum.
Bozell raged about Blitzer's "hounding" of Pence in an official Media Research Center statement:
Wolf Blitzer and CNN showed their true colors tonight. Blitzer’s question to Gov. Mike Pence was textbook gotcha journalism and it didn’t work. The question was both absurd and obnoxious. And for anyone to suggest Gov. Pence failed to repudiate David Duke is laughable. What part of ‘we don’t want his support’ does CNN not understand? This is just another left wing smear designed to help Hillary because they know she is in trouble and CNN is all too willing to do Clinton’s dirty work. Media trust and credibility continue to plummet in public polling because there is nothing the press won’t do to slander conservatives. It’s despicable and repulsive.
Notice that Bozell conveniently omits what the question is, so as not confuse his readers with the facts.
Bozell continues his rant in his and Tim Graham's Sept. 14 column:
Let's be clear about this interview. Blitzer offered 39 hostile questions or interjections about Trump's tax returns, medical records and charities, and made offensive remarks before asking a single question about policy. In the middle of this contentious exchange, Blitzer arrived at Hillary Clinton's recent gaffe of calling Trump backers a "basket of deplorables." Blitzer obnoxiously underlined that some Trump backers were truly deplorable: "David Duke, for example, (and) some other white nationalists, (would) fit into that category of deplorables. Right?"
[...]
It's the kind of "gotcha" journalism that has the public disgusted with the press. Whatever Pence answered would have been deemed wrong and exploited by the media. Had he uncorked the easy answer and called Duke deplorable, Blitzer and everyone else would have had their headlines read, "Pence Admits Hillary Was Right." Pence chose not to give them that luxury, so he gets "Pence Won't Deplore Duke."
So Bozell and Graham are defending Pence for refusing to make an unequivically true statement lest it make his opponent look good? Sad!
But Bozell and Graham want to completely avoid opening the can of worms that is the group of alt-right activists, white nationalists and neo-Nazis that have gotten behind Trump's campaign, immediately going into attack-and-misdirection mode on Hillary and Tim Kaine.
Bozell and Graham whine: "Blitzer & Co. unloads smears designed to help Hillary Clinton because they know she is in trouble. And CNN is all too willing to do Clinton's dirty work."Only in the fevered hyper-partisan minds of Bozell and Graham is asking simple questions "dirty work."
But Bozell and Graham must rush to change the subject because they know if the conversation turns in detail to the "basket of deplorables," Trump is in trouble, and they're all too willing to do his dirty work.
In this alternative reality scenario, Hillary Clinton would be a completely different story. Objective reality would probably represent her appearance as an amorphous, grayish-green entity with only occasional glimpses of her leering face and trendy designer apparel peeking through the goo. Festering boils, sores and other lesions would populate a shifting, gelatinous corpulence. Groups of diseased genitalia and excretory organs might form in random areas on her glistening skin, migrating across its surface and occasionally engaging each other in horrid fashion. Even to the non-religious person, her appearance would be truly evocative of a creature from hell, a vision to make even the late H.R. Giger cringe.
Clinton’s campaign speech would be a disturbing cacophony of insane squeals, gibbering laughter and profanities punctuated with her trademark shrill yammering. Audibly bursting abscesses and purulent excretions emanating from her would give rise to a stench of sufficient putridity to induce immediate vomiting in most individuals, thus it’s unlikely that many would dash off to cast votes for the slithering obscenity.
Unfortunately, the electorate doesn’t have the benefit of such insight, and the power of America’s incomprehensibly corrupt press cannot be underestimated. Ms. Clinton could be clinically dead for six weeks before the election, and the press might still manage to get her elected. For now, they focus on a mission similar to their mission in 2008: Nothing is going to prevent the election of Hillary Clinton, nor should anything prevent this momentous and historic event.
We are on the verge of electing our first woman president – it matters little that she is the most fundamentally evil individual ever to seek the office.
“Lying Hillary Clinton” is the poster girl for the politically correct, post-Christian age in America. She is a perfect illustration of how morally empty and philosophically barren the PC landscape and the world of secular law have become. Joseph Farah sees her “as an existential threat to life and liberty” and “perhaps the most corrupt major American political figure in the last 50 years,” and Dr. Herbert London says she is “the embodiment of evil.” Dr. Ben Carson even links her with Lucifer himself by virtue of her connection with Saul Alinsky!
The moral bankruptcy of Hillary Clinton is a bottomless pit, but it graphically illustrates how secular legalism and post-Christian “morality” are the driving forces behind America’s regressive march back to the primitive, godless and pagan roots of humanity.
Hillary Clinton has neither disavowed the KKK leaders who were her friends nor has she disavowed members of the KKK who support her. One branch of the KKK says it has donated $20,000 to her campaign, and she has not returned that money.
Clinton praised former KKK Kleagle and Exalted Cyclops Robert Byrd while she was secretary of state.
Hillary Clinton did the opposite of disavowing. She praised the former Klan leader while she was secretary of state, and she still refuses to disavow him.
We can only speculate as to why Hillary Clinton refuses to distance herself from the KKK. Could her party’s historical ties to the KKK be the reason?
Hillary Clinton cannot have it both ways and neither can her lapdog sycophants in the media. Clinton cannot claim to be fit to be president while at the same time claiming incompetence suffering from what she herself said was severe head trauma that causes her to forget.
Friday, Sept. 2, responding to Freedom of Information Act demands from Judicial Watch and others, the FBI released dozens of pages of documents from its interviews of Hillary Clinton. The documents, although many of the pages contained redactions including some pages that had been fully redacted, were a damning indictment of her that leaves only the questions of whether she is an abject liar, a pernicious liar, or a woman suffering from a debilitating mental illness. Regardless, the released documents clearly prove Clinton is someone who is too unfit physically and/or too unstable to occupy the White House.
[...]
There are also the issues of Clinton’s health. It is a gross understatement to simply say Clinton is in poor, if not failing health. The Twittersphere exposed that some in the mainstream media have been using photos from as long as four years ago in a draconian attempt to conceal how sickly and horrid she looks.
Hillary Clinton’s broom as the Wicked Witch of the Left has flown off with her once again, this time not only with regard to her mission to obstruct justice, compromise national security and generally lie about her continuing private-server email scandal, but now also to ignite a race war. Continuing to woo black and black Muslim votes in her quest for the presidency, Hillary Clinton continues to stir up racial conflict between blacks and whites, furthering the racist agendas of the likes of Black Lives Matter, Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam, Rev. Al Sharpton, the New Black Panthers and of course their evil benefactor George Soros, who is funding much of this hatred toward white and black police officers, Jews, Christians and anyone who believes in the vision of our Founding Fathers.
“Hillary, I’m your Conscience. You can’t lie to me. Why didn’t you designate Boko Haram as a terrorist group when you were secretary ofsState? Maybe those hundreds of girls in Nigeria wouldn’t have been kidnapped. Most still haven’t been located. Couldn’t the U.S. do more to find them?”
“I sent out tweets about the kidnapped girls, just like Michelle Obama! The Nigerian government could have done more. I said it was ‘abominable‘! And it’s John Kerry’s problem now.”
“Is this the whole story? One Nigerian bishop believes the U.S. won’t help them or other African countries unless they embrace homosexuality, population control and abortion.”
[...]
Conscience paced. “Sorry to unload on you, Hillary. Well, actually, I’m not sorry. You and I don’t talk much. In fact, we haven’t really gotten to know each other at all over the years – although I keep trying.”
The coughing spasms finally ended. Hillary stormed out the door.
MRC's Bizarre 'Chappaquiddick' Attack on Esquire Writer Topic: Media Research Center
On Sept. 14, the Media Research Center used its NewsBusters Twitter account to bizarrely attack Esquire writer Charles Pierce as "Chappaquiddick Charles Pierce":
The post being promoted -- an item by Tom Johnson complaining Pierce wrote that if modern conservatism hadn't been graded "on an intellectual curve, it would've flunked out of Human College decades ago" -- says nothing about Chappaquiddick, nor does it mention any member of the Kennedy family; it actually features a picture of Ronald Reagan. Heck, Johnson doesn't even question the accuracy of Pierce's statement.
What's going on here is a continuing petulant grudge the MRC has had against Pierce for years. As we've documented, Pierce wrote a 2003 profile on Ted Kennedy that noted the Chappaquiddick incident and added, "If she had lived, Mary Jo Kopechne would be 62 years old. Through his tireless work as a legislator, Edward Kennedy would have brought comfort to her in her old age." Ever since then, the MRC -- led by Tim Graham -- has falsely promoted this quote as a an example of fawning liberal bias toward Kennedy. In fact, as Pierce himself states, it's taken out of context from a section that takes a "tough, but fair, shot" at Kennedy by acknowledging that the Chappaquiddick incident effectively kept him from having the "moral credibility" to be president.
The MRC has continually refuse to apologize to Pierce for misrepresenting the quote, let alone give him space anywhere on any MRC website to tell the truth about it.
But then, Graham -- like his boss Brent Bozell -- never has to answer for any of his falsehoods and failures, let alone pay any sort of price for getting it wrong.
WND's Favorite Ex-Soviet Bloc Spymaster Still Silent About Trump's Russian Ties Topic: WorldNetDaily
You'd think a former Soviet Bloc spymaster would have something to say about a presidential candidate with deep ties to Russia and who has said nothing but good things about its authoritarian leader and former KGB chief, Vladimir Putin. Apparently not.
We've documented how onetime Soviet-era Romanian spy chief Ion Mihai Pacepa -- who WorldNetDaily insists on referring to as a general or lieutenant despite the fact that the regime in which he earned that title ceased to exist nearly 30 years ago -- co-wrote (with right-wing prof Ronald Rychlak) an entire e-book about the 2016 election that somehow never touched on Donald Trump's cozy relationship with the Putin regime, so busy were he and Rychlak to denigrate Hillary Clinton. Heck, they effectively pleaded ignorance by stating, "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, presumably, Rychlak as his ghostwriter-slash-mouthpiece, given that Pacepa is in his upper 80s) is back with a Sept. 11 column attacking Hillary once again, declaring that "Hillary Clinton’s lies regarding her gross mishandling of America’s national secrets should disqualify her from running for the White House."
You'd think a former Soviet Bloc spymaster would think a personal relationship with Putin like Trump apparently has is also disqualifying for a presidential candidate. But Pacepa makes no mention whatsover of Trump in his column, let alone to note his Russian ties.
We have to wonder: Is Pacepa a coward, or is he just being led around by right-wingers and Trumpophiles like WND and Rychlak as a useful idiot to rubber-stamp their agenda? Perhaps Rychlak can speak up and clear up some things.
MRC Complains Media Didn't Do Something Its Own 'News' Division Also Didn't Do Topic: Media Research Center
While the Media Research Center is all in on defending Donald Trump against the "liberal media," it still can't quite make peace with Trump's occasional liberal tendencies. Remember that the MRC has whined that the media has ignored Trump's "past liberalism," even though that's an issue mostly for purity-obsessed ideologues like those at the MRC -- and it hasn't kept the MRC from offering a full-throated defense of Trump.
Nevertheless, the MRC trods this territory again courtesy of a Sept. 14 post by Scott Whitlock:
The three networks generally don’t hold back in slamming Donald Trump, highlighting his controversies and scandals. But when the liberal candidate offers up policy prescriptions that echo theirs, ABC, CBS and NBC are silent. On Wednesday, none of the networks offered any conservative critiques on Trump’s new federally mandated maternity leave plan. In fact, ABC hit the businessman from the left, worrying it didn’t go far enough.
[...]
It’s not as though there isn’t harsh criticism from conservatives on this plan. Radio host Mark Levin said the plan “sucks” and that Trump “is, in his heart, a liberal.”
You know who else didn't provide any conservative critiques of Trump's "liberal" maternity leave plan? The MRC's own "news" outlet, CNSNews.com.
A Sept. 14 CNS article by Susan Jones uncritically outlines Trump's proposed policy without quoting any conservatives critiquing it. There is no separate article quoting conservative critics of the plan.
If the MRC really thinks this is such a major issue, why didn't it order CNS to do the story the networks won't do? That's supposed to be CNS' mission, isn't it, to "provide an alternative news source that would cover stories that are subject to the bias of omission and report on other news subject to bias by commission"?
Or it could be that the MRC is just tossing this out as another cynical excuse to attack the media -- hypocritically demanding the media do something its own "news" division has thus far refused to do -- and really doesn't care how pure a conservative Trump is as long as he beats the hated Hillary.
HIllary Email Bullet List: You Read It Somewhere Other than WND First Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily runs a continual feature on its front page called "You Read It Here First," which purports to identify things WND has published before other selected news outlets. But it goes the other way too.
On Sept. 2, the Washington Post published an article headlined "12 things I learned from the FBI report on Hillary Clinton’s private email server":
Five days later, WND published an article by Art Moore with the suspiciously similar headline "10 things we've learned about Hillary from her emails":
Not only did Moore apparently steal his story idea from the Post, he was a bit lazy about it, coming up with two fewer things to be learned.
Moore duplicated only two items from the Post's article of rthings he supposedly "learned": that Hillary used 13 mobile devices during her tenure as secretary of state, and that she received emails from Sidney Blumenthal (whose name Moore misspells). Moore apparently spent the rest of the five days between the Post article and his own trying to find the things that made Hillary look as bad as possible, i.e., "She suffered a blood clot that, by her own estimation, hindered her mental capacity."
So not only is WND highly biased to the point nobody believes what it reports, it's not even terribly original in its bias. No wonder WND is in deep finanical trouble.
CNS Hints At Pushing Zika Conspiracy Topic: CNSNews.com
We've noted how medical misinformer Jane Orient of the far-right-fringe Association of American Physicians and Surgeons has been pushing the idea that the Zika virus really isn't anything to worry about by insisting without credible evidence that Zika is hardly to blame for birth defects. It seems that CNSNews.com wants to further that conspiracy.
In a Sept. 8 CNS article, Penny Starr complains that "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are collecting data on women who are pregnant and infected with the Zika virus and the number of children born with birth defects, but they are not reporting the number of children born from virus-infected mothers who have no birth defects." Starr seems a bit annoyed at this:
CNSNews.com asked the CDC if it could provide the number of children from mothers infected with the virus who were born without birth defects.
A spokesman responded that the voluntary “registry” created by the CDC does not track those babies.
“We are only reporting the number of pregnant women in the registry and [the] number of adverse outcomes,” the spokesman said via email. “Bottom line is we're not reporting other outcomes because we are just beginning to understand the full spectrum of adverse outcomes associated with Zika infection in pregnancy.
“The decision was made to only report [the] number of pregnancies and adverse outcomes at this point,” the spokesman said.
Starr then cited a study showing that "12,000 Zika-infected women gave birth to children without microcephaly" in Colombia, but also that there is "an impending microcephaly epidemic in Colombia" due to Zika.
This was followed by Starr citing the tabloid TV show "Inside Edition" about a baby born to a Zika-infected mother taht didn't have microcephaly but appears to have other signs that the virus has affected the baby.
Starr seems to be following in Orient's steps in downplaying the threat of Zika, even though all the risks and consequences of the virus aren't known yet. Since Starr is an anti-abortion activist, we can assume that her story is linked to, or inspired by, the fight over a federal bill to fight Zika that's being held up in part because Republicans inserted a clause that prohibits funding from the bill to Planned Parenthood (though Starr doesn't mention the battle in her article).
Because if Zika doesn't really harm fetuses, there's no need to fund Planned Parenthood because (in Starr's mind) the only possible thing they would want to do is an abortion. That's how the right-wing mind works.
We Call BS on WND's Hillary Parkinson's 'Diagnosis' Topic: WorldNetDaily
Remember last month when WorldNetDaily cited an anonymous poll claiming that Hillary Clinton was losing support among Jewish voters? We called BS on it. It's time to go there again.
Hillary Clinton has stage-three Parkinson’s disease and suffers from seizures, according to three sources who have had a personal relationship with the Democratic Party presidential nominee.
The sources, who spoke to WND on condition of anonymity, explained that her seizures or dizzy spells can be triggered by being out in the sun, such as apparently occurred Sunday when she was videoed collapsing as she was escorted into her limousine in New York City.
We call BS.
First, given that Corsi is a notorious Clinton-hater -- just check out his book "Partners in Crime," which is flopping so badly WND is begging people to buy it in bulk -- so it's highly unlikely, if not impossible, that anyone with a "personal relationship" with Hillary would deign to talk to him, let alone the "three sources" that he claims who can somehow identify the exact stage of Parkinson's that Hillary purportedly has.
Second, Corsi is also a knownliar, so it's not unreasonable to believe he's making this up as well. And WND is in deep financial trouble, and it may very well be desperate enough to gin up a fake story to generate clicks.
Corsi also mentioned in his article a WND article the day before, in which Bob Unruh touts two doctors who also speculate that Hillary has Parkinson's, but a close look reveals that to be kind of bogus as well.
Unruh first cites an anonymous "board certified internist" published at the right-wing Powerline blog. Powerline insists the doctor is "prominent," but is also making "admittedly speculative comments." The second actually has a name, Ted Noel, who "assembled a 16-minute video explaining that the evidence suggests she has had Parkinson’s and has known about it, for several years."
But a look at Noel's website, Vidzette, reveals an agenda: "Our purpose is to show the world how unfit Hillary Clinton is for office." It also provides a big reason not to believe him: "Much of VidZette will be parody or caricature in nature." Here's a screenshot of Noel's website stating that:
Further, as fact-checkers havenoted, Noel is an anesthesiologist, which means he has no formal training in neurological conditions like Parkinson's.
So, more BS. Exactly what we'd expect from Corsi and WND.
WND Is Happy to Portray Trump As The Messiah Topic: WorldNetDaily
When people linked Barack Obama to messianic imagery, WorldNetDaily was outraged. For instance:
Before the 2008 eleciton, WND played up a quote from the hated (by WND) Louis Farrakhan, who said when Obama talks “the Messiah is absolutely speaking.”
In April 2009, Drew Zahn whined that "On his 100th day in office, President Obama will be 'crowned' in messianic imagery at New York City’s Union Square" through an artist's rendering "featuring Obama with his arms outstretched and wearing a crown of thorns upon his head."
WND columnist Jesse Lee Peterson huffed in a 2012 column: "President Barack Obama is the most divisive man to ever occupy the White House –period! Yet, 95 percent of black Americans worship him as if he’s the messiah. Why?" He added, "Blacks have been looking for a physical messiah and have forgotten that Christ has already come and made a way for them to be free."
WND claimed in 2013 that an available school lesson plan allegedly portrays Obama as a messiah, quoting right-wing activist Kyle Olson as retorting that the lesson plans "are more fitting for an authoritarian regime in which children are taught to deify and praise their dear leader. One can almost envision teachers in Cuba, Venezuela and Iran using similar books and lessons."
Another 2013 article approvingly features Rush Limbaugh noting that millions on the left who still believe Obama is the messiah, lamenting, "They’re wedded to Obama for a host of reasons, ideological loyalty, race, hatred of conservatism. They are going to support anything that denies us any kind of a real or perceived victory."
But now that the target of deity-esque worship is its favorite candidate Donald Trump, WND is totally cool with such messiah comparisons.
In a Sept. 5 WND article, Leo Hohmann highlights how a "Jewish rabbi from New Jersey" is using that imagery to describe Trump, "making clear in the process that he doesn’t see the GOP presidential nominee as the Messiah but rather a messiah." Hohmann uncritically summarizes how Rabbi Mendel Kessin "says the Hebrew numerical value of Donald Trump is the same as that of Moshiach ben David (Messiah son of David). He quickly assures his listeners that Trump is not the long-awaited Messiah of the Jewish people. At the same time, Kessin plainly asserts that Trump has the qualities of a messiah-like figure."
Hohmann called in a couple of WND authors to back up the concept: Joel Richardson says "the rabbi’s view of Western Christianity fits right into the mainstream of Judaism even if his eye-popping views on Trump seem controversial," and Carl Gallups is quoted as saying that "I think the main thrust of Rabbi Kessin’s message is that, somehow, Yahweh might be in the process of using Donald Trump to bring about some much-needed biblical reformation to the United States and, thus, the world."
Hohmann lets Gallups uncriticallyengaged in his usual weasel words to spin his long history of likening Obama to the Antichrist (remember, WND touted Gallups' video rather explicitly making the claim back in 2009 when he was hiding behind the pseudonum PPSIMMONS), claiming that "a number of Christians and even biblical scholars have examined Obama’s journey, candidacy, and eight-year presidential legacy and point out his clearly ‘antichrist’ characteristics without ever believing him to be, or declaring him to be, the actual antichrist."
Hohmann also lets Gallups get a anti-Jewish dig at the rabbi: "I so wish that Rabbi Kessin could see that Yeshua/Jesus is the soon-coming Messiah!"
We've highlighted WND columnists -- such as fanfiction writer Theodore Roosevelt Malloch -- portraying Trump in near-messianic terms, but for sheer idol worship at WND, one needs look no further than Gina Loudon's Sept. 4 column:
I stood in front of my television as Donald Trump was speaking. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing as he addressed the crowd at the Great Faith International Ministries church in Detroit.
My jaw dropped as I realized Donald Trump is the candidate we have been waiting for all these years since Ronald Reagan. It’s funny how God delivers what you need, when you need it, but not always in the package that you were expecting.
[...]
Donald Trump is uniquely positioned to fix the problems that plague cities like Detroit.
Had any other Republican attempted to promise factories, schools, wealth and prosperity to that church that day, it would have been seen as an empty promise. Only Trump can actually deliver.
Trump can see value where others cannot. He has proved over and over in his career that he has the ability to take a piece of property and make it beautiful and profitable. He has shown how he can create high-paying jobs in the private sector and make others wealthy along with him.
Also notable is that Trump didn’t dodge the topic of discrimination. He stated, “I fully understand that the African-American community has suffered from discrimination and that there are many wrongs that must still be made right.”
Trump won’t make it right by giving speeches and throwing taxpayer money at the problem. Factories, schools, wealth and prosperity was his pledge, and Trump will do what he says. Trump’s career proves that he follows through.
Watch his speech again and try to envision any other candidate from the GOP primary battle delivering his speech. And don’t forget to watch it again and be inspired.
Loudon didn't call Trump a messiah, but it's clear she was thinking it -- and that WND approves.
The Media Research Center's Tim Graham grumbles in a Sept. 16 post:
The news that Donald Trump has renounced birtherism (in front of the cameras, anyway) has to be a blow to WorldNetDaily, which helped Trump behind the scenes with his 2011 birther obsession. Not surprisingly, WND doesn't want to talk about the implications of it but, instead, endeavors to cling to its old, discredited birther lies.
The Media Research Center couldn't be a better public-relations agent for the Trump campaign if it was being paid for it (and it may be, as far as we know). Just look at how it is despserately spinning for Trump to go against the facts to portray Hillary Clinton -- not Trump -- as the biggest promoter of birtherism.
An anonymously written Sept. 14 WorldNetDaily 
In a Sept., 12 
In this alternative reality scenario, Hillary Clinton would be a completely different story. Objective reality would probably represent her appearance as an amorphous, grayish-green entity with only occasional glimpses of her leering face and trendy designer apparel peeking through the goo. Festering boils, sores and other lesions would populate a shifting, gelatinous corpulence. Groups of diseased genitalia and excretory organs might form in random areas on her glistening skin, migrating across its surface and occasionally engaging each other in horrid fashion. Even to the non-religious person, her appearance would be truly evocative of a creature from hell, a vision to make even the late H.R. Giger cringe.
You'd think a former Soviet Bloc spymaster would have something to say about a presidential candidate with deep ties to Russia and who has said nothing but good things about its authoritarian leader and former KGB chief, Vladimir Putin. Apparently not.
While the Media Research Center is 
We've 
When people linked Barack Obama to messianic imagery, WorldNetDaily was outraged. For instance:
