Topic: WorldNetDaily
Did the WorldNetDaily editor really march with Martin Luther King, pal around with radicals as a youth and dream up the "Left Behind" books first? That's what he'll tell you. Is it true? Who knows? Read more >>
Wednesday, September 13, 2017
NEW ARTICLE: Joseph Farah, The Right-Wing Zelig
Topic: WorldNetDaily Did the WorldNetDaily editor really march with Martin Luther King, pal around with radicals as a youth and dream up the "Left Behind" books first? That's what he'll tell you. Is it true? Who knows? Read more >>
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:12 AM EDT
Tuesday, September 12, 2017
MRC Tries To Make 'MSNBC Conservative' A Thing
Topic: Media Research Center Back in 2012 or so, the Media Research Center tried to float the idea of the "MSNBC conservative" -- an attempt to bash conservatives (in this case, the target was Joe Scarborough) who failed to be conservative enough for the MRC that was really just another form of Heathering. Now, it looks like the MRC is trying to make "MSNBC conservative" happen again. Brad Wilmouth tries to define the term in the midst of tagging someone as one in an Aug. 1 post:
In an Aug. 22 post, the person getting the "MSNBC conservative" tag from Scott Whitlock is P.J. O'Rourke, for mocking President Trump -- as if Trump had ever exhibited conservative tendencies before the 2016 election. (Remember, MRC chief Brent Bozell declared that Trump didn't "walk with" conservatives like him until a little Mercer money apparently changed his mind and he turned the MRC into a total Trump tool.) Wilmouth took another shot at Rubin in a Sept. 4 post, calling her not only an "MSNBC conservative" but also "allegedly right-leaning." This attempt at nomenclature comes with no acknowledgement whatsoever of its inspiration: the "Fox News Democrat," who actually lives up to the description Wilmouth ascribes to people like Rubin, who merely holds the same views on Trump Bozell did until mid-2016.
Posted by Terry K.
at 9:21 PM EDT
WND's Hohmann Doesn't Want To Be Cured of His Hatred of Muslims
Topic: WorldNetDaily An Aug. 30 WorldNetDaily article by Leo Hohmann starts off by detailing how "A group of researchers from Germany and the United States claims to have found at least a partial cure for xenophobia, a much heralded accomplishment in the wake of a historic migrant crisis that has swept more than 1.7 million Muslim refugees from the Middle East and Africa into Europe’s cities and led to fissures in social cohesion that some predict have sewn the seeds of civil war." But seeing as how we're talking about an inveterate Muslim-hater here, Hohmann doesn't take long before he calls on his fellow Muslim-hating friends to reject in the nastiest possible terms this opportunity to be cured of their disease, portraying this instead as Nazi-esque brainwashing (because, you know, Germans):
Hohmann even called in his boss, WND managing editor David Kupelian, to rant about how "“The left politicized the science of psychiatry, and the top levels of the social sciences are all dominated by the far left, whether it be the American Psychological Association, American Psychiatric Association, or whatever; they are all dominated by the left, and that’s why they came out and de-pathologized gender identity disorder in 2013. They did it despite there being a 41 percent suicide rate, cutting off healthy body parts, etc.” Hohmann talked to no actual expert in psychiatry for his highly biased and hostile article.
Posted by Terry K.
at 3:03 PM EDT
Did Mercer Money Make MRC Bury Bannon's Catholic-Bashing?
Topic: Media Research Center The Media Reserarch Center is usually quick to pounce on any real or perceived slight of Catholics made in the media. After all, the MRC's leaders, Brent Bozell and Tim Graham, are Catholic, and Bozell is a member of the advisory board of Bill Donohue's right-wing Catholic League. But when that anti-Catholic slight comes from a trusted adviser to a Republican president, the MRC decided to look the other way. In an excerpt from a "60 Minutes" interview released before its airing, recently departed Trump White House adviser Steve Bannon -- who claims to be a Catholic -- said that the Catholic Church has been "terrible" on the subject of undocumented immigrants, adding: "You know why? Because unable to really to come to grips with the problems in the church, they need illegal aliens, they need illegal aliens to fill the churches. That's -- it's obvious on the face of it. ... They have an economic interest. They have an economic interest in unlimited immigration, unlimited illegal immigration." Now, that's the kind of anti-Catholic insult that normally gets people like Bozell and Graham in a froth. But the MRC did everything it could to distract from it. In a Sept. 7 post, Scott Whitlock didn't criticize Bannon's Catholic-bashing -- the remark was noted only in the transcript and written around in the body of the item, in which Whitlock stated only that "Bannon shot back that the 'Catholic Church has been terrible about this' issue" -- but instead attacked Bannon's interviewer, Charlie Rose, for questioning if Bannon was being a "good Catholic" since even influential Cardinal Dolan opposes the Trump administration's stance in trying to end DACA. Whitlock huffed: "Apparently, the CBS position is that a 'good Catholic' supports the liberal agenda and conservative Catholic positions are to be ignored or dismissed." He didn't mention that it could be argued that CBS and Cardinal Dolan are on the same side. A Sept. 8 post by Kristine Marsh bashed late-night comedians for mocking Bannon, but she would concede only that "Bannon admitted he disagreed with the Catholic Church’s stance on DACA" and not offer a direct, full quote of Bannon's remarks. Rather, she actually complained that Stephen Colbert "bashed Bannon for implying the church had ulterior motives for wanting to help 'strangers who desperately need help'" -- the same thing the MRC would be bashing Bannon for if he wasn't a key Trump adviser. A Sept. 11 post by Nicholas Fondacaro complains that Rose "lectured and berated Bannon about America and his worldview." Fondacaro is careful to edit out Bannon's Catholic-bashing from the transcript, replacing it with ellipses:
Meanwhile, over at the MRC's "news" division CNSNews.com, no stories were published about Bannon's remarks. CNS did, however find the time and space to highlight two other alleged Catholic slights, plus a column by David Limbaugh attacking one of those slights. The Catholic League's Donohue even wrote an article critical of Bannon -- but neither the MRC nor CNS published it despite both having no problem giving space to Donohue in the past. Why did the MRC give Bannon a pass? One possible, if not likely, explanation: Mercer money. We've already noted how Mercer family interests are the single largest donor to the MRC; likewise, Bannon is heavily tied to the Mercer empire, which began when Bannon worked for the Mercer-owned data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica and continues through Mercer's part-ownership of the Bannon-headed Breitbart.com. As with their stance on Donald Trump, Bozell and the MRC have proven they're not afraid to flip-flop and put money ahead of previously declared principles.
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:55 AM EDT
Monday, September 11, 2017
David Kupelian's Delusions
Topic: WorldNetDaily WorldNetDaily managing editor David Kupelian devoted an entire Aug. 27 column to ranting about how liberals are literally insane and delusional because they don't believe the same things he does. We're not making that up; the headline on the column is "Why so many leftists are genuinely delusional." The column begins with a definition: "Delusion: a fixed false belief that is resistant to reason or confrontation with actual fact." So, let's talk about delusions -- specifically the ones Kupelian loves to perpetuate as a top official of WND. WND's eight-year war on President Obama (the first four we summarized here) was always an exercise in delusion -- so delusional, in fact, that Kupelian, his boss Joseph Farah, and writers like Jerome Corsi destroyed what little credibility WND had -- so much so that Farah tried to rebrand his far-right-fringe WND as "the largest Christian website in the world" (it's not). So utterly beclowned was WND that Farah was reduced to begging for money from readers in mid-2016 to keep his operation afloat. It took mass delusion on the part of Kupelian and Co. to continue to run their website into the ground in the face of that cratering credibility. It took even more delusion for them to double down on the strategy. For some reason, WND ramped up the amount of fake news on its website, even as it inveighed against the "fake news" of others.It also decided that spewing hatred of Muslims was a sound business strategy. Its fealty for Donald Trump has been embarrassing, to the point that it portrays him as being divinely guided (as compared to maliciously comparing Obama to Nazis and even the Antichrist). Meanwhile, Kupelian is living his own personal delusion. Obama sent him into paroxysms of delusion, and he happily jettisoned his self-proclaimed sense of Christian morality to back a thrice-married adulterer for president. Kupelian writes at one point in his column:
Kupelian has just described the motivation of WND's editorial agenda, as well as his personal mindset, during the Obama years. He, of course, remains so caught up in those delusions -- he actually asserts that a Hillary Clinton presidency would be "sheer horror" -- that he is unable to recognize this.
Posted by Terry K.
at 10:03 PM EDT
Updated: Monday, September 11, 2017 10:08 PM EDT
MRC Rushes to Limbaugh's Defense (Again)
Topic: Media Research Center Is there anything Rush Limbaugh can do that the Media Research Center won't defend? It seems not. The headline of a Sept. 7 MRC item by Tim Graham declares: "Al Roker Uncorks False Charge That Rush Limbaugh Said Irma Was 'Fake,' Not 'Dangerous'." Actually, it's Graham who's making the false charge: The Roker tweets Graham includes in his post makes it clear that he was saying that Limbaugh was downplaying warnings about Hurricane Irma, not that the entire hurricane was "fake." Nevertheless, Graham goes on to rant: Neither of these tweets stand up to an actual reading of the Tuesday Limbaugh transcript. Read it. Nowhere did Limbaugh say Hurricane Irma was "fake" or "not a dangerous storm." He never told anyone to "ignore" the forecasts. No one should expect the liberals at PolitiFact/PunditFact to award Roker with a big "FALSE" on the "Truth-o-Meter." But he deserves one. Actually, as the Washington Post's Callum Borchers summarizes:
But tell that to Graham, who was too far into full Limbaugh defense mode -- with an added healthy dose of mindless media-bashing -- to be concerned by the facts:
Of course, Graham and the MRC repeatedly complained that the media wasn't publishing enough bad news about Democrats, real or fake. (Graham and the MRC never did apologize or correct the record after enthusiastically promoting Fox News' fake-news story before the election taht Hillary Clinton's indictment was imminent.) Meanwhile, Limbaugh didn't have the courage of his own words to ride out the hurricane whose threat he downplayed; he evacuated from Florida before Irma hit.
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:53 PM EDT
WND's 'Sanhedrin' Freakout -- And Fail
Topic: WorldNetDaily Leo Hohmann complains in an Aug. 31 WorldNetDaily article:
But Hohmann gets one key fact wrong. As religious blogger Richard Bartholomew explains, the Israeli rabbinical court that made this ruling is not a "Sanhedrin" -- a Sanhedrin handles criminal matters, and this is a civil matter -- and does not use that word to describe itself. Bartholomew adds: "Hohman (or an editor) perhaps chose the word 'Sanhedrin' because of its Biblical connotations – reflecting a Christian Zionist tendency to conflate modern and ancient Israel, and in the context of rabbinical hostility to Messianic Jews perhaps also recalling the trial of Jesus before the Sanhedrin as described in the New Testament." Despite this wrong terminology, WND perpetuated it. Editor Joseph Farah ranted in a Sept. 1 column:
But if Farah is the Israelophile he claims he is, wouldn't he know that the rabbinical court is not a Sanhedrin? Apparently not. In a Sept. 5 column, Farah documents his email exchange with the webmaster for "the nascent Sanhedrin." But this is not the Sanhedrin that made the ruling; we we've noted, this is a group of extremist rabbis with links to the banned, violence-tolerating Kahane movement and an intent to replace secular law with Torah law. Farah cheered the group's existence earlier this year when it bashed the United Nations, going so far as to declare himself "in total agreement with Israel’s Sanhedrin, which not only sees this issue the way clear-thinking people on earth do, but understand the way it is viewed by the Creator-God, who sees the beginning from the end and the end from the beginning." (The Sanhedrin webmaster, however, did get Farah to back off his suggestion that today's nascent Sanhedrin was the same one that condemned Jesus to death. And he curiously didn't disabuse Farah of his incorrect notion that the rabbinical court that issued the ruling is not the Sanhedrin.) Why isn't Farah in "total agreement" with the Sanhedrin, or whatever, now? Preobably because WND columnist Michael Brown is a "messianic Jewish scholar" -- WND's original article and Farah's first column on the subject quote him -- and apparent WND buddy Zev Porat is a messianic rabbi in with a ministry in Israel seeking to convert Jews into believing Jesus is the Messiah. Also, WND's favorite terrible lawyer, Larry Klayman, also claims to be a messianic Jew. Hohmann gave Porat a platform to rant about the "Sanhedrin" in a Sept. 6 WND article, in which he "issued a direct challenge to the regathered Sanhedrin, or rabbic council."In true WND tradition, Hohmann could not be bothered to contact a member of the issuing council to offer its views its decision -- or explain to him why they're not the Sanhedrin.
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:30 AM EDT
Sunday, September 10, 2017
Irony: CNS Relies on Liberal Media to Cover Hurricane
Topic: CNSNews.com As much as the Media Research Center loves to bash the "liberal media," its "news" division, CNSNews.com, has relied on it -- for instance, being a longtime subscriber to the Associated Press, which was discontinued earlier this year for unexplained reasons. CNS' weekend coverage of Hurricane Irma is another example. Now that CNS can no longer repeat the right-wing talking point about the length of time between "major" hurricanes hitting the U.S., it has to find other ways of covering news (and, no, taking stenography from the Trump administration does not count). A Sept. 10 article promised "Live Coverage of Hurricane Irma."
But the article, credited to "CNSNews.com Staff," states only:
That's right: This right-wing "news" organization must rely on the normally despised "liberal media" -- WTFS is an ABC affiliate, and the Miami TV station linked to above is owned and operated by CBS -- to cover actual news. Apparently, the MRC doesn't think the evil "liberal media" isn't that evil after all. But will they ever say so in public?
Posted by Terry K.
at 7:24 PM EDT
WND's Crowdfunding For Film Project Is A Fail
Topic: WorldNetDaily WorldNetDaily's attempt to crowdfund its campaign to push Seth Rich conspiracy theories has been a dismal failure, raising a paltry $4,358 (as of this writing) of its $100,000 goal. Which makes it strange that WND is trying the crowdfunding route again. This time, it's for WND's film division to make a movie of Anna Dittman's WND-published memoir "Trapped in Hitler's Hell." Dittman, you might remember, earned WND's love by smearing President Obama as purportedly exhibiting Nazi-esque tendencies -- something she strangely denied applied to Donald Trump. One article touting the campaign states: "It’s a timely story that offers plenty of lessons for us in our present age. All the critical issues young Anita faced in the 1930s and ’40s are resurfacing today. Fake news is being pushed, just like Nazi propaganda in the days of old." Needless to say, the article doesn't mention how much of that fake news is coming from WND. WND is seeking $120,000, none of which would actually go toward making the film; instead, it wouid cover "legal expenses, business operations, marketing plans and materials (promo reels, websites, posters and press kits) as well as pre-production budgeting, scheduling and location scouting." WNDS adds: "After this preliminary work is done, the film can be pitched to investors who will be able to supply the money necessary to begin production and filming." The GoFundMe page for the project states: 'The math is simple. If 2% of our WND audience of 6-8 million monthly visitors each donates $10 (that's less than two cappuccinos, or lattes, or mochas from Starbucks), we'll reach our film investor package goal of $120,000." That argument would seem to be less than persuasive, given that the typical WND reader likely doesn't frequent Starbucks and that WND despises the latte purveyor. For instance, columnist Rita Dunaway urged WND readers to boycott Starbucks over its support for Planned Parenthood, and WND cheered another boycott attempt over Starbucks' failure to hate gays like right-wingers do. Another WND promo tried to steal a little glory from a much more successful film than anything WND has ever produced, pushing the idea that this film project would be just like the film "Dunkirk":
Actually, if you don't have a $100 million budget and Christopher Nolan as director, you're probalbly not going to end up with another "Dunkirk." And it's pretty clear that won't be happening anytime soon. WND's GoFundMe campaign has raised just $5,273 as of this writing a full month into the campaign.
Posted by Terry K.
at 5:33 PM EDT
Saturday, September 9, 2017
Newsmax Helps Gorka Overcompensate
Topic: Newsmax We've noted how Accuracy in Media likes to help former White House adviser Sebastian Gorka overcompensate by insisting on calling him "Dr. Sebastian Gorka," despite the fact that he's not a medical doctor (giving only medical doctors the "Dr." honorific is standard journalistic style) and his academic credentials (his doctorate is from a Hungarian school) have been question. Now Newsmax is helping Gorka overcompensate as well. During an appearance by Gorka on the Aug. 31 edition of Newsmax TV's "The Joe Pags Show," host Joe Paglliarulo repeatedly privileges Gorka with the "Dr." moniker. This is mostly repeated on the Sept. 4 edition of Newsmax TV's "America Talks Live," in which host Miranda Khan similarly gives Gorka the "Dr." moniker, though on-screen text more correctly identifies him as "Sebastian Gorka, PhD." Newsmax also referred to "Dr." Gorka in articles on April 4 and Aug. 31 -- interestingly, both are about the right-wing Jewish group Zionist Organization of America running to Gorka's defense. Newsmax also continues to privilege anti-abortion activist Alveda King with the "Dr." honorific, but this case is even more egregious because King's doctorate is honorary, not earned.
Posted by Terry K.
at 10:32 AM EDT
Fake News: WND Repeats Bogus Voter Fraud Claim
Topic: WorldNetDaily Art Moore writes in a Sept. 7 WorldNetDaily article:
But as actual news outlets have pointed out after Kris Kobach, head of the White House's voter fraud commision, repeated the claim, there's no there there. There are these things called college students -- Dartmouth, for instance, is located in New Hampshire -- that have out-of-state driver's licenses and no need to get one in the state, or who don't have driver's licenses at all. New Hampshire does not require voters to have in-state driver's licenses. Further, as the Washington Times article (which Moore curious fails to link to) points out, the numbers being presented are raw and have not been analyzed to see if college students make up most of them. In other words, this is fake news, something WND is sadly proficient at.
Posted by Terry K.
at 2:06 AM EDT
Friday, September 8, 2017
CNS Attempts A Slightly Less Lame Right-Wing Attack on SPLC
Topic: CNSNews.com An anonymously written Aug. 25 CNSNews.com "news" article highlights how "Roman Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia criticized the Southern Poverty Law Center for falsely labeling the Alliance Defending Freedom as a 'hate group,'" specifically defending anti-gay group Alliance Defending Freedom. In addition to the usual boilerplate defense of ADF, the anonynous CNS writer surprisingly goes beyond previous ConWeb attacks on the SPLC -- though it presents ADF's description of itself as fact instead of opinion -- and actually cites the SPLC document that makes the group's case against ADF:
Of course, CNS is cherry-picking the more benign examples from SPLC's timeline. No mention of, say, the assertion by former ADF leader Alan Sears that the campaign for gay rights is "a war of propaganda, just as Hitler did so masterfully in Nazi Germany," its pushing of the discredited link between homosexuality and pedophilia, or Sears' saying of gays that "there is no room for compromise with those who would call evil 'good.'" The anonymous CNS writer went on to cite "a blog posted on the ADF website" that "hit back at the SPLC," but did not mention that the blog post does not refute any of the evidence the SPLC cites against it.
Posted by Terry K.
at 3:15 PM EDT
WND Proves Fake News Is Part Of Its 'Path to Greatness'
Topic: WorldNetDaily This year marks WorldNetDaily's 20th anniversary, and one of the things it's doing is a daily on-this-day-in-history thing that purports to highlight a "milestone" in WND's "path to greatness." So far, WND's "path to greatness" has included promoting Vince Foster conspiracy theories, repeating never-verified rumors, promoting birther conspiracies, cheering the deaths of Israeli prime ministers they didn't like, and smearing undocumented immigrants as disease-ridden filth. Now, WND is proudly proclaiming that fake news is a part of its "path to greatness." From a Sept. 6 article:
As we documented when WND first published this a year ago, it's a pack of lies; WND perpetuated the story by deliberately ignoring all the established facts that proved it wrong. Later updates further confused things, but the bottom line is that WND published a lie, knew it was a lie when it was published, and tried -- and is continuing to try -- to con its readers into believing that lie. This fake-news story is what WND considers a "milestone" on its "path to greatness." That's why it doesn't understand why it's on the path to oblivion.
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:57 AM EDT
Thursday, September 7, 2017
MRC's Graham Loves Fox News Poll Question Equating Media, White Supremacists
Topic: Media Research Center You could almost hear the Media Research Center's Tim Graham grinning as he wrote in a Sept. 3 post:
This from a guy who helps run an organization that is incredibly quick to whine about any slight to the reputation of conservatives -- i.e., calling them "far right" and pointing out that they're hostile to facts. Then again, Graham thinks the mere act of a journalist asking questions is inherently liberal and he basically cheered a GOP candidate's physical assault of a reporter -- and employs a researcher who is incapable of telling the difference between journalists and "the left" -- so equating the media to white supremacists is only a tiny mental leap for him.
Posted by Terry K.
at 5:06 PM EDT
Farah Brings Back WND's Favorite Zombie Lie
Topic: WorldNetDaily Aside from the birther stuff, the biggest bit of fake news WorldNetDaily has perpetuation over the past decade is that Barack Obama's 2008 reference to a "civilian national security force" was something sinister, an allusion to creation of a police state. Despite us having debunked it at the time -- Obama was actually referring to a beefed-up diplomatic corps -- WND claimed it again and again and again. Since the predicted police state never surfaced during Obama's presidency, WND ould have exhibited a sense of shame and admitted they were wrong and were simply pushing a bogus talking point in order to smear Obama. But then, WND never corrects anything unless there's a threat of a lawsuit, so the only obvious choice for WND was to double down. Which brings us to WND editor Joseph Farah's Sept. 4 column. He began this way:
Farah is lying. We caught him in this lie nine years and two months ago. He knows Obama was never talking about establishing a police state, but he pretended otherwise as part of WND's failed scorched-earth campaign against Obama. It was a lie then, and it's a lie now. And like any shameless, inveterate liar, Farah won't admit he was wrong, and he expands on his zombie lie, inventing a new, bogus interpretation of what "civilian national security force" means:
Lies, all of it. This is why nobody believes WND.
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:12 AM EDT
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