Last time we checked, WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah was demanding credit for inventing the term "alt-left," despite the fact that the "alt-left" is not a thing. So WND suddenly had a momentous task: Prove "alt-left" is a thing.

Thus, we have an anonymously written Aug. 27 article trying to do just that:

Progressives haven’t stopped with tearing down Confederate statues: The Founding Fathers, Christopher Columbus and even Abraham Lincoln are all under attack by masked extremists.

Trump supporters, people waving the American flag and even completely random white people have been stabbed or attacked by ironically named “anti-fascist” groups, or “antifa,” who accuse everyone who is not a communist of being a Nazi.

Just weeks after Republican lawmakers narrowly escaped a massacre at the hands of an unhinged Democrat, the leftists are doubling down on violence.

President Trump pointed out it was the left-wing extremists who initiated the violence in Charlottesville by attacking a legally sanctioned demonstration. And he called the “Antifa” the “alt-left,” forever branding this growing group of radicals.

But what is the alt-left? The mainstream media is claiming there is no such thing. Yet close observers of American college campuses are not surprised by what is happening nationwide.

The “alt-left” has not only been a force in American higher education; it practically runs the campuses. Violent, extremist and viciously anti-white gangs have shut down classes, chased dissenters off campus and engaged in property destruction and wholesale riots that have reduced entire colleges to places that more closely resemble open-air asylums than institutions of higher learning.

The "news" article, though, is actually just an ad for books and videos for sale in WND's online store.

Meanwhile, Farah was still demanding credit for inventing the term. He ratcheted up the self-aggrandizement in his Aug. 27 column:

As the fake news media kept pounding on the “alt-right” label, I decided to coin the term “alt-left.” I’ve coined many terms throughout my career, but I’ve actually been credited with this one. But, unlike the alt-right disinformation artists beginning with Hillary Clinton, I actually defined it, supported it with a factual foundation and explained the phenomenon.

Two days later, Farah took things to absurd lengths, as he is wont to do:

Take a look at your computer keyboard. Look to the bottom rung of keys and over to the left.

What do you see?

If you have a Microsoft keyboard, you probably see to the extreme left bottom an abbreviation for the word “control.” “Control” on any true ideological spectrum is on the left – be it communist, socialist, fascist. They are all left-wing ideas, and they all demand strict government control. That’s the common denominator, even though socialists have disputes with communists and communists have disputes with fascists. The common denominator is they are all of the left.

If you look past through that Microsoft flag next to the control key you will see the world “alt.” Both keys are neatly positioned on the left side of the keyboard and, ironically, on the bottom rung.

(If you have, as I do, an Apple keyboard, the “alt” key is appropriately called “command.”

So, one keyboard juxtaposes control and “alt,” and the other juxtaposes control and command.

What does that suggest? Maybe I misnamed the “alt-left.” Maybe a more accurate and comprehensible moniker would be “ctrl-left.” Because, ultimately, that is what the left is all about – control.

Just a thought. Any significance?

Not really. And Farah makes sure not to mention that most Microsoft and Microsoft-compatible keyboards (for instance, this one) have "alt" and "control" keys on the right side of the keyboard as well. But that would have blown up his wacky little analogy, so he had to censor that information.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:41 AM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

The Media Research Center's Nicholas Fondacaro complained in an Aug. 27 item:

With the remains of Hurricane Harvey still threatening the communities and lives of the people living along the coast of Texas, the liberal media still couldn’t put their obsession with President Trump aside. In a segment of CNN’s Reliable Sources on Sunday, host Brian Stelter wanted to talk about Trump’s description of political journalists as “sick people” from earlier in the week. But his panel twisted Trump’s words to connect them to those reporters covering the hurricane and those in war zones.

Wait a minute. Trump never specifically said he was singling out "political journalists" in his Phoenix speech, nor did he specifically exclude non-political journalists; he repeatedly refers to "the media" throughout the speech. Trump's reference to "sick people" was arguably framed as an attack on journalists who criticize his tweets, but even that did not specifically single out "political journalists."

Which means Fondacaro is putting words in Trump's mouth, insisting that his criticism of "the media" is limited to only national political journalists when he has never specifically made that distinction.

He went on to complain about the "conflation between the national political reporters and local news people" when, again, Trump has never specifically excluded "local news people" from his repeated attacks on "the media," concluding that the "Reliable Sources" panelists "politicized a natural disaster, which had taken lives, for political gain." How so? By defending the honor of journalists from a critic who's using a broad-brush smear?

Fondacaro went on to complain that one "Reliable Sources" panelist pointed out that Sean Hannity wasn't on the ground in Houston, "while ignoring the fact that Sean Hannity was just a political commentator and not a journalist." But Hannity has, in fact, called himself an "advocacy journalist" earlier this year, and he said he was a "journalist" in 2008 when he was relentlessly attacking Barack Obama.

Posted by Terry K. at 9:44 PM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

Last fall just before the election, WorldNetDaily and the Media Research Center both tried to create a fake-news scandal about Andrew McCabe, an FBI official who was taking part in the agency's investigation of Hillary Clinton's emails whose objectivity was purportedly compromised because a PAC run by Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe donated money to a campaign by McCabe's wife for a Virginia state legislative seat. But as Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler explained, the donations by McAuliffe's PAC to Jill McCabe's campaign were made well before her husband was named to an FBI team proving Clinton's emails -- three months after McCabe lost her election, in fact -- and there was no way "McAuliffe would know that the husband of someone he was supporting in a Virginia legislative race was going to be promoted months later."

Well, discredited WND freelancer Paul Sperry didn't get the message that there's no scandal here, so he spends an Aug. 28 article trying to stoke the witch hunt against McCabe:

Politically compromised deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe continues to run an investigation into the Trump campaign’s alleged “collusion” with Russia, bureau sources familiar with the probe say – even though it overlaps with the special counsel’s investigation, and even though McCabe, whose wife is a Democratic activist, is under investigation for political conflicts of interest.

As the subject of no fewer than three separate investigations of his own, McCabe is operating under a growing ethical cloud, critics inside the bureau complain.

Yet, he is “still running that investigation,” an FBI source said. “He didn’t recuse himself from the Hillary Clinton case, and he won’t recuse himself from the Russian matter.”

Though Special Counsel Robert Mueller took over the Russia investigation from the FBI in May, McCabe continues to oversee a parallel investigation through the bureau’s national security division, sources say. And he maintains a lead role in the case, despite being replaced Aug. 2 as acting FBI director by Trump appointee Christopher Wray.

The allegations Sperry makes against McCabe are either anonymously made, unsubstantiated, or both. And nowhere does Sperry mention that McCabe didn't join the Hillary investigation until three months after his wife's political campaign ended.

The fact that Sperry had to descend to his fellow discredited conspiracy-mongerers at WND to get his nasty, politically motivated story published tells you all you need to know about its shady, empty nature.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:29 AM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

Apparently, even the big Trump flip on unemployment reporting at CNSNews.com -- in which CNS switched from being relentlessly negative under President Obama to relentlessly positive under President Trump despite the jobless numbers trending roughly the same way -- has its limits.

For her main article on August's unemployment numbers, Susan Jones did what she usually did under Obama and has rarely done under Trump -- lead with unpleasant statistics about the relatively low labor force participation rate:

Heading into the Labor Day weekend, the latest jobs report is a disappointment.

Tthe number of Americans over age 16 who are not in the labor force – for whatever reason – remained stubbornly high in August, at 94,785,000.  That is partly attributed to the rising number of retirements among Baby Boomers.

Of course, Jones rarely mentioned the Baby Boomer factor in playing guilt-by-assocation in blaming low labor force participation on Obama. 

CNS editor in chief Terry Jeffrey contributed his usual article on manufacturing jobs, but he remained on message in dishonestly blaming a decline in them on Obama and crediting Trump's election for an increase:

When Obama was inaugurated in January 2009, there were 12,561,000 people employed in manufacturing in the United States. But in the next month, February 2009, manufacturing employment dropped to 12,380,000. Manufacturing employment would eventually dropped to 11,4530,000 [sic] in February and March of 2010.

Last November, at the time Donald Trump was elected president, there were 12,325,000 employed in manufacturing. That rose to 12,343,000 in December—and since then has climbed to the 12,480,000 it reached in August, an increase of 155,000 since last year’s election and 137,000 so far for this calendar year.

Jeffrey doesn't mention that the country was in the middle of a recession when Obama took office, nor does he explain why Obama doesn't get credit for the increase of nearly 2 million manufacturing jobs between the 2010 low and the election (or afterward, since it's unlikely that any action Trump has taken can be directly attributed to the increase).

Jeffrey also contributed his usual article on the number of government jobs. Managing editor Michael W. Chapman added for only the second time under Trump his regular Obama-era feature on black unemployment vs. white unemployment; Chapman finally concedes that high black unemployment is a longtime trend, though he'll only admit that it's been since 2007 (as we've noted, it's been that way since statistics were first compiled in 1972).

Posted by Terry K. at 11:21 PM EDT

Updated: Friday, August 17, 2018 5:30 PM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

Is that all these white imperialist demons brought to far-away lands – a legacy of pain? I hardly think so. They also brought innovation and progress. Sure, there were dark moments in the history of all these explorers and conquerors, but maybe it’s high-time we treat the past as the past and ponder how far most of the entire human race has come. Not the white race or black or brown or yellow race – the human race.

I say most of us because I am reminded of the tribe that was just recently discovered in the Amazon rainforest.

However improbable, photos emerged, just this past November, of a tribe living in complete isolation in the depths of the Amazon jungle. They know nothing of the rest of the world. They live virtually as the cavemen did.

Is this the existence you leftist protesters and “indigenous” peoples want? No running water, no indoor plumbing, no electricity, no modern conveniences of any kind? Living hand to mouth? Really?

This may seem controversial and may sound abrasively racist, but without the “imperialist” explorers of old, I dare say that most of the “indigenous” people on various continents would still be living as the Amazonian tribe is currently.

We all wish that ignorant white explorers hadn’t treated others the way they did, but history is what it is. Try as they might to erase it, what happened, happened, and there’s no going back and no changing it.

But I’ll also bet that given the choice between being a modern-day black American, European or Aboriginal Australian, any and all would choose their current faux-oppressive state to merely existing as part of the lost Amazonian tribe.

-- Brent Smith, Aug. 25 WorldNetDaily column

Posted by Terry K. at 10:54 AM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

We've noted that when then-Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly asked pointed questions of Donald Trump at a 2015 presidential debate -- which caused Trump to complain about Fox News' bias -- the Media Research Center refused to take a side in the matter, presumably because it neither wanted to offend the network on which its employees appear most often or admit that Trump was right about Fox News' bias (though it eagerly signed on to Trump's "fake news" rants). The MRC effectively let Kelly twist in the wind.

When Kelly bolted Fox News for NBC after the 2016 election, you think the MRC -- freed from having to defend her as a Fox employee -- would take the opportunity to bash her work for the purportedly "liberal" NBC. But it mostly hasn't, even with Kelly providing ample ammunition in the form of low ratings and a controversial interview with Alex Jones, the kind of fringe figure the MRC loves to excoriate the "liberal media" for "mainstreaming" for simply doing stories about.

The lone piece the MRC did on the entire eight-episode summer run of Kelly's NBC was indeed about the Jones segment. A June 18 post by Melissa Mullins, posted before the interview, noted that Kelly "completely reconfigured her Sunday night show by bringing on the families of Sandy Hook and editing her interview to seem tougher on Jones." Mullins wrote at the end of her tepid post, "But I guess we will have to wait and see, when Kelly’s interview airs tonight. Or in most cases, wait to hear."

The only follow-up the MRC did on the interview was not about the interview itself, but bashing former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw, who appeared at the end of Kelly's show, for issuing a "liberal lecture" calling conspiracy theorists like Jones a "common threat" against the country. The MRC's Curtis Houck ranted that "Brokaw’s two-minute-plus commentary wasn’t used to make a broader argument against far-left rhetoric that nearly did the same to Republican congressmen," referring to the shooting of Rep. Steve Scalise.

It seems Kelly has done enough for the conservative movement and the MRC -- remember, the MRC cheered how Kelly insisted against all evidence that Fox News wasn't biased and perpetuated the notion of a "left-leaning bias in news" -- that it will apparently give her a pass on her NBC work.

Posted by Terry K. at 11:37 PM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

WorldNetDaily is in business with Paul Nehlen, having published his anti-"globalist" book "Wage the Battle" in July, which also apparently serves as a manifesto of sorts for his quixotic 2018 Republican primary challenge against House Speaker Paul Ryan. (How quixotic? Nehlen ran against Ryan in 2016 and lost by 68 percentage points.) WND is also selling a Nehlen-produced anti-Muslim film called "Hijrah," which purports to expose "the dark underworld of the Muslim refugee crisis."

But WND is also in business with Nehlen in another way: It's effectively the PR shop for Nehlen's longshot campaign, in an apparent attempt to make it somewhat less quixotic.

The June 16 WND article announcing Nehlen's candidacy was written by Paul Bremmer -- who works on the marketing side, not the "news" side, not that there's much difference between the two at WND in practical terms -- touted Nehlen's "spirited" campaign against Ryan in 2016 but didn't mention he lost by 68 points, or that WND published his book, which is prominently promoted in the article.

This was followed by a series of articles featuring Nehlen bashing Ryan:

• An anonymously written June 25 article let Nehlen complain that Ryan is "actively thwarting" President Trump and is "giving a blank check to the left's priorities."
• On July 14, Liam Clancy -- an WND "news" intern -- forgoes any pretense of journalistic balance in writing of Nehlen: "Everyday Americans are sick of the corruption in Washington, and one man plans to 'drain the swamp' himself, by starting in his own congressional district."
• A July 26 article by Clancy touted Nehlen's tweeting that "'Ryan never misses an opportunity to undermine [President Trump]' and that Ryan has spent more time defending Mueller rather than defending 'this nation from illegal aliens,' defending President Trump, and defunding 'Obama’s spending priorities,'" adding, "Stop and think about how much good work we could do if Paul Ryan was an America First guy."
• An anonymously written July 29 article gives Nehlen a platform to rant about "we have a Congress full of spineless jellyfish, unwilling to fulfill their oath of office to protect and defend this country from enemies foreign and domestic." the anonymous writer also gushes over "Hijrah" as "the most explosive documentary of the year. It reveals an Islamic invasion like no other before it."
• An Aug. 1 article by Bremmer is a fluffy profile of Nehlen, pumping up his credentials as a "businessman and inventor" and hyping Nehlen's alleged hope to "bring a message of hope and encouragement to business leaders and working-class people – not just in Wisconsin’s first district, but all across America."
• An anonymously written Aug. 26 article promoted how Nehlen "contends the speaker [Ryan] is betraying the GOP grassroots by failing to forcefully condemn 'Antifa.'" (The anonymous writer also asserts without evidence that Antifa "instigated the violence in Charlottesville.")

Even before Nehlen officially announced his campaign, WND was giving Nehlen a platform to bash Ryan:

• Wisconsin Republican: Ryan is 'Quisling of Capitol Hill'
• Primary challenger: Ryan trying to 'undermine' Trump
• Paul Ryan 'Beaver Cleaver at home, Eddie Haskell in D.C.'
• Man who challenged Paul Ryan: 'We're defenders of this generation'

In none of these articles, however, does WND indicated they ever attempted to contact Ryan for a response on Nehlen's attacks. That tell us that this is public relations -- not news. Which makes WND's work an in-kind contribution to Nehlen's campaign.

The Federal Election Commission has laws regulating the use and disclosure of in-kind contributions. Both Nehlen and WND would be wise to follow them. Unless, of course, Nehlen is actually paying WND for all of this fawning, uncritical press, in which case that would have to be disclosed as well.

Posted by Terry K. at 3:16 PM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

The Media Research Center has long despised Univision news anchor Jorge Ramos, mainly for daring to be critical of President Trump. This is taken to a new level in an Aug. 24 post by Ken Oliver (bolding his):

As President Trump recently stated, many media outlets are currently having a field day giving  platforms to hate groups, on both ends of the country’s political spectrum.

At Univision, activist anchor Jorge Ramos decided to replay on his weekly Al Punto show his 2016 interview with white nationalist leader Jared Taylor. 

In the segment, one of the central exchanges between Ramos and Taylor reveals how both men actually share a similar, race-based view of American politics that is inherently divisive (not to mention un-American).

JARED TAYLOR, WHITE NATIONALIST: You want more power for Latinos.

JORGE RAMOS, HOST, AL PUNTO, UNIVISION: Exactly.

TAYLOR: That comes at the expense of my people’s power.

RAMOS: We are 17% of the population.

TAYLOR: Correct.

RAMOS: And we only have three senators. Therefore, we do not have the political representation we deserve.

TAYLOR: And you want more and more.

RAMOS: Of course, because we only have three senators.

RAMOS: Right now, 14 more senators.

As MRC Latino pointed out when the segment originally aired as part of Ramos’ pre-election horror film, titled Hate Rising, both Ramos and Taylor exhibit a race-based logic that is inimical to the core, color-blind ethos of the American political project.

It is, at both extremes, an identity politics gone mad, that only serves to divide Americans, rather than heal and unite them as President Trump has urged. In other words, in Jared Taylor’s America, as a white man he evidently cannot be adequately politically represented by a non-white, nor in Jorge Ramos’ America can Ramos be adequately politically represented by a non-Hispanic.

It is a race-based logic that the vast majority of Americans roundly reject.

The fact that Oliver invokes Trump twice in an item that has nothing whatsoever to do with Trump tells us the level of bias he's going to serve up. Oliver also fundamentally misunderstands the concept of identity politics -- and, thus, the difference between Taylor and Ramos.

Taylor wants all power to be kept in the hands of whites and no other races to have a voice -- he is a white supremacist after all (which Oliver strangely softens as being a "white nationalist"). Ramos is arguing for Hispanic political representation proportional to their portion of the U.S. population, which is not the same thing. Oliver doesn't explain how it's racially divisive to include more Hispanics or any other minority in politics.

That's important because history has shown that minority legislators represent the concerns of minority constituencies better than non-minority legislators, which suggests that those concerns are not adequately addressed by non-minority legislators. And rightly or wrongly, voters use a candidate's race as a proxy for ideology.

No, Mr. Oliver, Ramos is not a Hispanic supremacist, and wanting proportional political representation doesn't make him one. Ramos wants Hispanics to have a meaningful voice; Taylor wants Hispanics to have no political voice at all. Taylor wants supremacy for his race; Ramos just wants a proportional voice. In other words, Ramos and Taylor couldn't be more different in their "race-based view of American politics."

Portraying Ramos as no different from a white supremacist is nothing but a lazy, hateful slur.

Posted by Terry K. at 10:14 AM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

In an Aug. 28 article, WorldNetDaily's Bob Unruh cheered Joe Arpaio's "tongue-in-cheek reference" upon his pardon by President Trump "to the years-long investigation by his Cold Case Posse of the validity of Barack Obama’s birth certificate." Unruh then served up a selective history of it:

At issue was whether or not Obama was a “natural born citizen,” a term that is not defined by the Constitution. Complaints about Obama’s status went nowhere in U.S. courts during the first four years of his presidency.

Arpaio, however, assigned the only official law enforcement investigation of the issue.

The conclusion: What Obama released to the public in a White House news conference likely is a forgery.

[...]

The posse, comprised of former law-enforcement officers and lawyers with law-enforcement experience, interviewed dozens of witnesses and examined hundreds of documents. It also took numerous sworn statements from witnesses around the world.

Mike Zullo, Arpaio’s lead investigator, said at the time his team believed the Hawaii Department of Health has engaged in a systematic effort to hide from public inspection any original 1961 birth records it may have in its possession.

“Officers of the Hawaii Department of Health and various elected Hawaiian public officials may have intentionally obscured 1961 birth records and procedures to avoid having to release to public inspection and to the examination of court-authorized forensic examiners any original Obama 1961 birth records the Hawaii Department of Health may or may not have,” Zullo said at the time.

The investigators say the evidence contained in the computer-generated PDF file released by the White House as well as important deficiencies in the Hawaii process of certifying the long-form birth certificate establish probable cause that a forgery has been committed.

The investigation was launched after 250 members of the Surprise, Arizona, tea party presented a signed petition to Arpaio in August 2011 asking him to undertake the investigation.

The tea party members petitioned under the premise that if a forged birth certificate was used to place Obama on the 2012 Arizona presidential ballot, their rights as Maricopa County voters could be compromised.

Unruh leaves out a lot of important information -- such as Zullo misrepresenting numerous facts during his presentation, his utter botching of earlier parts of his investigation, his refusal to take questions about it, and his refusal to let anyone else see his purported evidence.

Further, the Surprise Tea Party petition to Arpaio was a setup by then-WND reporter and rabid birther Jerome Corsi (presumably, with the help of the rest of WND) to get an "official" investigation done. Corsi was also a member of the Cold Case Posse despite lacking the law-enforcement and legal credentials -- as well as any interest in a fair investigation -- Unruh falsely claims all posse members had.

The birther conspiracy -- never anything more than Joseph Farah's attempt to turn Obama's birth certificate into the new Vince Foster -- remains WND's greatest act of fake news, as demonstrated by Unruh's refusal to report all the facts regarding it.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:28 AM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

Looks like Chuck Colson remains the hardest-working dead guy at CNSNews.com, still earning bylines despite the fact that he died in 2012.

Now, though, Colson is sharing bylines with an actual living person -- John Stonestreet, who now heads the BreakPoint ministry Colson founded. A July 28 CNS column appears to be nothing more than a transcript from a BreakPoint radio show, with Stonestreet doing an introduction followed by a rerun Colson commentary, this one on how archaeology allegedly proves the Bible is true.

CNS took the same lazy transcript approach with a Aug. 25 column, but for a more callous cause -- this time, denying the humanity of transgenders. (Not a surprise, given the anti-LGBT hate of CNS managing editor Michael W. Chapman.) Stonestreet touts anti-transgender "renowned psychiatrist" Paul McHugh, formerly of Johns Hopkins University, followed by a clip of Colson intoning a stereotyped, mean-spirited view of transgenders:

You see them at night in big cities: men dressed up as women, complete with makeup, jewelry, and high heels. Despite their best efforts, it’s not a pretty sight. Nor is the sight of men who take a more drastic step: undergoing so-called sex-re-assignment surgery.

As we've documented, McHugh's views on transgenders have been widely discredited -- something Stonestreet doesn't mention. Inastead, there's an snide editor's note: "This commentary first aired on June 5, 2005. Johns Hopkins University has recently, and tragically, resumed sex-reassignment surgeries."

Interesting, in neither of these columns does Stonestreet or CNS explicitly point out that Colson is dead. That would seem to be a necessary, important disclosure, given that the byline suggests otherwise.

Posted by Terry K. at 7:02 PM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

We've noted how spinning conspiracy theories has been a key part of WorldNetDaily's coverage of the events in Charlottesville, Va. And WND's leader, Joseph Farah, made sure he contributed to the cause:

While the left of the ’60s and ’70s accused the FBI and political opponents of employing agents provocateur, they did so because they themselves used them so effectively.

It certainly looks to me like history is repeating itself in 2017.

The Charlottesville “alt-right” rally, bringing together a motley collection of neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members and other white supremacist scum, has all the familiar trappings of a setup by the left, designed to incite violence and mayhem that could then be blamed on Donald Trump.

Take the case of “Unite the Right” leader Jason Kessler. He had been a big-time supporter of Barack Obama, an Occupy Wall Street activist, a gun-control supporter, and, for some reason, suddenly shifted gears to become a “pro-white activist” in 2016. I suppose that could happen. Anything can happen. But this strange turnabout certainly came at a convenient time for the left. With the “Russian collusion” narrative fading as the focal point of the “Stop Trump” movement, the left needed a new cause.

The left got what they needed in Charlottesville, tragically, propelled by the death of Heather Heyer.

Did Kessler have any regrets?

Not at all. Instead he tweeted this disgusting message: “Heather Heyer was a fat, disgusting Communist. Communists have killed 94 million. Looks like it was payback time.”

There’s one thing I can absolutely assure everyone. Jason Kessler was never a right-wing activist, a conservative, a constitutionalist or even a rational American nationalist. My guess? Agent provocateur.

In fact, in a 2015 blog post, he may have given himself away. He wrote: “I can’t think of any occupation that I admire more than the professional provocateur, who has the courage and self-determination to court controversy despite all slings and arrows of the world.”

Later in his column, Farah hilariously contradicts himself, insisting he's not spinning a conspiracy at the very same time he's spinning one:

My intent is not to weave a conspiracy theory here; it’s to point out facts about this national tragedy that has left our country on the brink of a new civil war.

Who was it that told the police to stand down in Charlottesville – leading to things getting uglier than almost anyone could image?

Two people come to mind:

• Virginia’s Democrat Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a big supporter of Bill and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama; and
• Charlottesville’s Democratic Mayor Mike Signer.

Since Charlottesville, we’ve seem similar clashes occur in big cities like Boston. But the police remained engaged, and tragedy was averted.

Let’s hope and pray Charlottesville was one of those unholy “perfect storms,” aided, perhaps, by overly zealous puppeteers who actually welcomed violence, mayhem and death – with the united purpose of hurting the presidency of Donald Trump.

If Farah didn't weave conspiracy theories, what would he write about?

And let's not forget that Farah has worked as the kind of "puppeteer" he now purportedly deplores, guiding Donald Trump behind the scenes on birther conspiracies and doing other things with the purpose of hurting the presidency of Barack Obama.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:38 AM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

James Hirsen complains in his Aug. 21 Newsmax column: "One of the unfortunate byproducts of the irrational treatment of President Donald J. Trump by the politically entrenched establishment class, predisposed mainstream media, and Hollywood radical left is a precipitous decline in the respect customarily surrounding the presidency." Hirsen was referencing how some recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors were refusing to show up to accept the award if President Trump was to show up.

Hirsen, however, seems to have forgotten who publishes his column.

Newsmax has never shown much respect for President Obama. Then-reporter Ronald Kessler repeatedly attacked him during the 2008 presidential campaign, as did other Newsmax writers. After the election, Newsmax had trouble accepting the results, with one Newsmax columnist likening him to Hitler and another calling for a military coup to resolve the "Obama problem" -- among the many ways Newsmax disrespected Obama just in his first year in office, which also included embracing birtherism.

Indeed, to this day some Newsmax writers are still suffering from Obama Derangement Syndrome.

Seems like Hirsen should have started in his own house before attacking others over lack of respect for the president.

Posted by Terry K. at 10:23 PM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

CNSNews.com managing editor Michael W. Chapman huffs in an Aug. 18 "news" article:

When Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was Speaker of the House for four years (2007-2010), at least 709,885 black babies were killed by abortion, which is 35.4% of all the abortions during those years, according to the Abortion Surveillance reports of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 

[...]

In all, that equals 709,885 black abortions -- 35.4% of the total -- during the four years that Nancy Pelosi was Speaker of the House, based upon the areas that reported to the CDC. 

There were a total 1,918,419 abortions during those four years.

Blacks make up 13.3% of the U.S. population, according to theCensus Bureau.

In 2015, Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider, presented then-Speaker Pelosi (D-Calif.) with the Margaret Sanger Award. The award is Planned Parenthood's "highest honor" and is named for a woman who believed in breeding better humans through eugenics and even promoted her birth control philosophy to female members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).

What is the "news" hook that justifies the existence of this article? None that we're aware of -- the Margaret Sanger Award Pelosi received was two years ago. What direct link does Pelosi have to the number of black women having abortions? None. What relevance does the number of abortions among blacks have to any current debate about abortion, expecially given that no organized campaign led by Planned Parenthood or anyone else exists for force black women to have abortions? None.

In other words, Chapman is simply making a partisan political attack and, yes, presenting it as "news" -- it does appears in the "news" section of CNS.

One side note: As proof of Sanger's speaking to "female members of the Ku Klux Klan," Chapman links to a 2015 CNS column by right-wing historian Paul Kengor in which he's responding to me (though he refused to use my name) after I had called him out for distorting the events surrounding Sanger's talk and for misleading about Sanger in general. Kengor didn't condede his factual failings, of course, but he effectively admits he's exploiting the alleged ambiguity of Sanger's words to present the worst possible interpretation of them as fact in order to smear her as a virulent racist.

Posted by Terry K. at 4:24 PM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink

On Aug. 20, WorldNetDaily copied-and-pasted an article from an Australian news website (misleadingly credited to the New York Post, which is merely cited in the article) about Joshua Witt, "believes his long-on-top, buzzed-on-the-sides haircut got him mistaken for" a neo-Nazi, "and he was nearly stabbed to death by a confused anti-fascist."

Turns out that's not true. Authorities now say that Witt's knife wounds were self-inflicted, and that he made up the story about being attacked by a protester "with hopes that the Department of Veterans Affairs would pay for his medical bills."

Despite the fact that Witt's faslehood has been exposed for two days now, WND's original copy-and-past job remains on its website live and uncorrected.

WND does have this problem of perpetuating fake news (not to mention generating its own). For instance, a story WND copied-and-pasted onto its website in February about a claim that "dozens of Arab men sexually assaulted female patrons at bars and restaurants in downtown Frankfurt on New Year’s Eve 2016" has long been discredited, but it remains live and uncorrected five months later.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:14 AM EDT

Share This Post

Permalink