Not So Breitbart: Obama Golfs While Rome Seeks Congressional Approval

Several news agencies reported the fact that, after announcing his decision to have Congress weigh in on the matter of a response to Syria’s chemical weapons attack, President Obama dashed off to get in a few holes of golf. It wasn’t a particularly newsworthy observation considering that the key disclosure in the announcement was that nothing substantive would be happening until Congress returned from vacation next week (which, by the way, none of these news vultures seemed to think was frivolous on the part of congress). It was perhaps a mildly interesting factlet, but hardly the stuff of national emergencies.

Nevertheless, that is precisely how Breitbart News framed the story with a headline blaring “Obama Hits Golf Course After Announcing National Emergency.”

Breitbart Obama Golf
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The numbskull dishonesty of the article begins with the fact that Obama did not announce a national emergency. But it gets worse. BreitBrat Mike Flynn, in a moment of lucid self-awareness, says that “I’m not an expert in foreign policy.” That confession is made more obvious when he continues with his suggestions for what the President might have done instead of golfing.

Flynn: There are probably some Congressional leaders who ought to be briefed. There are likely one or two world leaders who would appreciate a chat about the US plans. No doubt generals in the military would have a thought or two about how things should proceed.

Flynn must have ignored the President’s speech entirely and switched from Honey Boo Boo to Fox News just as the network’s scandalous details about Obama’s golf outing were exposed. Had he listened to the speech he would have known that Obama had spoken to all of the congressional leadership prior to making this announcement. Likewise, he spoke explicitly about his discussions with both the civilian and military national security chiefs before venturing out to the Rose Garden to brief the press and the American people.

Obviously the BreitBrats are so consumed with disparaging Obama that they can’t be bothered with actually paying attention to what he says. And if they were so concerned about presidential golf trips, why didn’t they ever complain about this:

In that video, George W. Bush did not scurry off to a tee time after making remarks about looming terror threats. No, he made them directly from the golf course, and then immediately trivialized the serious nature of his words by comically drawing attention to his alleged athletic prowess.

On the other hand, Obama conducted himself with the dignity that his office implies and the gravity that the circumstances demand. Then he went about his personal business which he is entitled to do. Maybe Flynn should spend more time researching his stories than rerunning videos of Mylie Cyrus twerking.

Media By Ass: Breitbart Editor Launches TruthRevolt Site To Counter Media Matters

The diseased minds at Breitbart News and David Horowitz’s Freedom Center are joining together to fill what they perceive as a void in media criticism. Not satisfied with the efforts by richly financed conservative operations like the Lie Factory of Fox Nation, the Media Research Center’s NewsBusters, the Washington Free Beacon, or Breitbart’s own BigJournalism, this new cabal is forming with the unmistakeably hostile mission to…

“…unmask leftists in the media for who they are, destroy their credibility with the American public, and devastate their funding bases.”

Oh my. That’s sounds ominous. But if anyone is capable of venturing down such a repugnant path, it’s BreitBrat Ben Shapiro, the editor-at-large of Breitbart News. Shapiro’s record of keeping the media in check includes falling for a fake story about Chuck Hagel; bashing fact-checkers; whining when Republicans are vetted; and exposing the socialist propaganda of Sesame Street.

As for BreitBrat Ben’s partner, David Horowitz, he is a notoriously racist fringe conservative who believes that slave labor has benefited contemporary African-Americans. He also publishes “Jihad Watch,” which has labeled President Obama a “practicing Muslim.”

The new TruthRevolt project describes itself as “a conservative counterpunch to Media Matters, the Obama-linked organization that focuses on silencing conservatives in the media.” Of course, there is no Media Matters link to Obama offered by the BreitBrats, nor any evidence that they have ever silenced any conservative. What right-wingers regard as silencing is really just getting caught saying what they actually believe. That’s all that Media Matters does.

Breitbart has been after Media Matters for a long time. They have challenged the tax-exempt status of Media Matters; accused them being anti-Christian and anti-American; charged that they get their marching orders from the White House, George Soros, or any other convenient rightist bogeyman. Even their hallowed leader, St. Andrew, has taken cheap shots at Media Matters and its founder, David Brock. He published an absurd article alleging some sort of conspiracy by the media to hide an old photograph of Brock that he characterized as narcissistic and homoerotic. But he could have been talking about himself and the photos he posed for in Time Magazine:

Andrew Breitbart

Breitbart’s destructive tendencies are well documented. He once swore to “bring down the institutional left” in three weeks. He’s more than four years overdue. Now his successors are nursing the same obsessions. And as usual they are incapable of providing a single example of anything that Media Matters has done that was incorrect or deserving of criticism. Their unambiguous goal (as they admitted above) is to tear down an organization that does nothing more than document the conservative bias in the media. It is a plainly articulated, well-financed, censorious revolt against truth – hence their name.

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ObamaCars: The Latest Loony Fox News Conspiracy Theory

What do you do when you are the national mouthpiece for vile propaganda against a political party and a president that you were created to destroy, but all of your efforts have collapsed into a pile of bullshit due to the complete lack of evidence or even common sense? Well, just ask Fox News who have seen their every attempt to manufacture scandal blow up in their lying faces.

From Benghazi to the IRS, Fox News has struck out in their efforts to hang a juicy controversy around President Obama’s neck. So their answer to the question above is to trot out a brand new conspiracy theory that they invented from scratch: ObamaCars.

Fox News

For more made-up Fox-aganda, get the acclaimed ebook:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Community’s Assault on Truth

On Fox & Friends, the curvy couch potatoes were joined by radio shrew Laura Ingraham, Bush’s former press secretary, Dana Perino, and Rupert Murdoch’s personal lawyer, Peter Johnson, Jr. (the man with three names that are all synonyms for penis). In the course of their conversation they introduced a budding scandalette that they clearly believe will rip the heart out of their beastly foe in the White House.

What the Foxies are alleging is that, in the words of Steve Doocy, “there’s a provision in the Immigration bill that could be used to give free cars, motorcycles, scooters, and other vehicles, to young people.” Oh my. That would troubling – if there were even a scintilla of truth to it which, of course, there is not. This laughably ridiculous claim seems to have originated at the Official Birthplace of Laughably Ridiculous Claims, Breitbart News, where they extrapolated a nonsensical analysis of an amendment attached to the bill to allocate funding for youth job programs. The language that Breitbart and Fox found so offensive simply described that the funds were to be used…

“…to provide summer employment opportunities for low-income youth, with direct linkages to academic and occupational learning, and may be used to provide supportive services, such as transportation or child care, that is necessary to enable the participation of such youth in the opportunities.”

“Supportive services,” as regards transportation, are nothing more ominous than bus fare. They are certainly not promises to purchase vehicles for kids looking for work. Yet that is precisely what the conspiracy theorists at Fox have alleged. This delusion was directly refuted by Sen. Bernie Sanders, the author of the amendment, who said that…

“…the program has the option of providing funding for bus fare or subway tickets or other means of transportation. It is only the wild imagination that we have come to expect from Fox TV that would come up with this preposterous idea that we are buying automobiles for young people.”

This Fox fantasy was also refuted by Tea-publican Sen. Marco Rubio and was given a “Pants-on-Fire” designation as a lie by PolitiFact.

Where does the dementia end with these people? It would be one thing if this were a fringe newsletter published by radicals in robes and hoods, pretending to defend liberty from their wilderness camp in Idaho. But is this Fox News, the most-watched cable news network, and their leading anchors and contributors. The next thing we can expect to hear from Fox is that Obama supporters were found to be using their ObamaPhones while driving their ObamaCars which led to their need for emergency ObamaCare. Don’t laugh. I’m sure they are working on this story right now.

Breitbart Execs Furiously Fluffing Fox News And Roger Ailes

Breitbart News has suffered a dramatic decline in the “quality” (if you can call it that) of their yellow journalism since the sudden demise of their guiding blight, Andrew Breitbart. They embarrassed themselves by falling for a hoax from the same satirical site they previously blasted the Washington Post for believing. They published a “scoop” claiming that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel took donations from a group that, as it turns out, didn’t exist. Their practice of “vetting” President Obama yielded dud after dud. And their attempt to cinematically canonize their namesake bellyflopped at the box office. The magnitude of their collapse is almost too painful to watch.

Consequently, they seem to have grabbed a life line from Fox News to prevent any further shrinkage. Their web site now features a section where they post headlines from their “partners,” but the only partner listed is Fox News. They have posted adoring homages to Fox personalities like Kirsten Powers who pretend to be liberals while bashing everything to the left of Attila the Hun. And for their sycophancy, they now get regular promotions of their articles on Fox News.

Breitbart - Fox News
Have you got your copy of “Fox Nation vs. Reality” yet?

But this week revealed the most blatant Fox fluffing yet between the two conservative lie factories. On June 5, Breitbart published an article defending Fox News CEO Roger Ailes from disclosures contained in a new book by reporter Jonathan Alter: The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies. For some reason it took the the three biggest cheeses at Breitbart News to compose this syrupy ode to Ailes: Stephen Bannon, Executive Chairman; Larry Solov, President; and Alexander Marlow, Managing Editor. And just last week the same three stooges penned a fawning tribute to Ailes titled “The Ailes Manifesto: America Rallies Around Roger Ailes and Fox News.” Of course, America did no such thing, but the Breitbart executive sweets sure exposed their deep infatuation.

This week, Breitbart’s sensationalistic headline called Alter an “MSM Tool in the War Against Roger Ailes and Fox News,” and dismissed him for being employed by a news enterprise owned by a partisan billionaire (Michael Bloomberg). Amazingly, the BreitBrats displayed no sense of irony considering they themselves are busy licking the boots of their own partisan billionaire (Rupert Murdoch).

After several paragraphs of self-righteous and predictable carping over their delusional perception of the media as hopelessly liberal, the BreitBrats think they have nailed Alter with this assertion: “Breitbart News did some checking, and according to authoritative Fox and News Corporation sources, Ailes never talked to Alter for this book.” Well, they didn’t have to check with Fox for that because Alter never claimed to have talked to Ailes for the book. Then, after that criticism that failed to cite any Fox Newser by name, the BreitBrats complained that Alter failed to cite “any inside Fox or News Corp. sources” by name.” Then they followed that up with another quote from “one Fox source.” In fact, the rebuttal to nearly every criticism the BreitBrats made of Alter’s book was based on either an unnamed source, or had no attribution at all. There were thirteen itemized passages from Alter’s book with which Breitbart took exception. They were all summarily dismissed with ambiguous notations like…

  • “…declared a high-placed figure…”
  • “…security sources at Fox…”
  • “…according to a longtime hand at News Corp…”
  • “…According to our reporting…”
  • “…Says a News Corp. building source…”
  • “…according to Fox sources…”
  • “…Sources tell Fox that…”

So after castigating Alter for deigning to employ unnamed sources, the BreitBrats rely almost entirely on unnamed sources for their rebuttal. But even worse, they tally up the results of their own missive and report that six of Alter’s thirteen allegations were false. That means, of course, that 7 were true or partly true.

Someone may need to inform the BreitBrats that if you’re trying to refute a list of assertions in a critical book, you are not making much headway if a majority of them, by your own reckoning, are true. And that doesn’t even take into account the likelihood that the ones Breitbart tagged as false may still be true, despite their objections. After all, as Alter said in response to an article in Politico where Ailes rebuffed his book, “The question is, do you believe me or Roger Ailes?”

Setting aside for the moment that Ailes is a professional liar, for the BreitBrats the answer to alter’s question is obvious. They believe their corrupt and corpulent sweetheart, Roger Ailes. And they would follow him anywhere, as long as he continues to plug their pitiful blog. Romantic, aint it?

Fox Nation vs. Reality: Who’s The IRS Targeting Now?

When a dishonest “news” enterprise is so determined to disseminate misleading information to disparage their enemies, they often get careless and wind up hitting themselves with a sort of journalistic friendly fire. That’s what happened as the editors of Fox Nation rushed to republish a petulant little hit piece from Breitbart News.

Fox Nation / Breitbart

The article by Matthew Boyle (known for his discredited smears that falsely alleged improprieties by Sen. Bob Menendez), took aim at an attorney who represented the United Church of Christ (UCC) when it was being investigated by the IRS for potential violations of its tax-exempt status. The inquiry was prompted by a speech made by then-candidate Barack Obama in 2008.

The Fox Nationalists plastered a lurid headline atop their posting that said “Chief IRS Counsel Bailed Jeremiah Wright’s Church Out of IRS Probe in 2008.” The only thing wrong with that headline is…well, everything. First of all, the attorney, William Wilkins, did not work for the IRS in any capacity at the time. He was in private practice with a firm that specialized in tax matters. Secondly, his client was the UCC, not Rev. Wright’s Trinity United, which was just an affiliate of the denomination. Thirdly, he had no power to bail anyone out. What he did was represent them in the investigation, which he did in a manner that produced a favorable outcome.

This was a thoroughly hollow assault that was contrived by unethical partisans to hurt the President. But how can you blame them? This barrel of lies touched on so many of the phony components of their smear machine, it was just too good to pass up. After all, it had Obama, the IRS, and an old fave, Rev. Wright.

What both the BreitBrats and the Fox Nationalists missed in their haste to bash Obama was the fact that this investigation was another example of the Bush administration deploying the IRS to harass organizations they perceived as unfriendly (i.e. Greenpeace, NAACP, et al). In this case it was a liberal church that invited a Democratic presidential candidate to deliver a speech on faith.

So not only has the right-wing media cabal missed their target by a mile, they inadvertently weakened their case that the IRS is a rogue outfit that exclusively harasses conservatives. Nice work, kiddies.

Hating Breitbart: Now Easier Than Ever

Following in the footsteps of “Atlas Shrugged” and “Sarah Palin Undefeated,” the new documentary “Hating Breitbart,” about the late Andrew Breitbart, made a beeline for the bargain bins at your local video store. It was a dismal flop at the box office despite massive marketing to the Tea Party crowd that producers thought would eat it up.

Hating BreitbartIn their desperation the producers have initiated a unique marketing plan that illustrates just how delusional they are in believing that they can salvage their investment and/or integrity. The plan involves persuading their most mentally-deficient followers to buy copies of the DVD for various liberals in what they describe as a “sponsorship” in the vein of those late-night television appeals for starving third-world children. From the Hating Breitbart web site:

“At Hating Breitbart, we believe liberalism is an illness that is best treated with a healthy diet of being exposed to different points of view. We’re offering fans of our movie the chance to “sponsor” an intellectually malnourished member of the mainstream establishment by ordering a copy of the film to be sent to them to help overcome years of indoctrination by the liberal elite.”

Pleasse forghive me. It is mush hard er to type whil laughing hystrically than I thoght. OK, let me try this again.

The BreitBrats think that it’s a good idea to convince people to buy extra copies of their DVD (at 15 bucks a pop) for liberal politicians, journalists, entertainers, etc. The producers must be stuck with a warehouse of these paperweights and believe that their fans are dumb enough to bail them out by buying more. Of course, the intended recipients (i.e. Michael Moore, Rachel Maddow, Nancy Pelosi) are only going to deposit the DVDs in the trash.

Since there is no chance whatsoever that they will waste their time watching this dreck, the only real purpose for this campaign is to separate the flock from more of their cash and to enrich the incompetent producers. Wouldn’t it just be easier to double the price and tell them the proceeds are going to Jesus? But a bigger problem is that these conservative Randians are abandoning the pretense that they actually believe in the primacy of the free market. The people have spoken with their wallets. For God’s sake, let it go.

Breitbart Article Debunks Previous Breitbart Articles On Gun Control Conspiracies

The notoriously dimwitted hacks at Breitbart News practice a form of pseudo-journalism that reeks of ultra-rightist propaganda (or just plain reeks). They rarely bother to fact check their stories as was demonstrated recently when they published a false item about Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel receiving donations from an organization that, it turns out, doesn’t exist. Likewise, they posted a story as “news” that they sourced to site that produces satirical articles. And to make matters worse, they had previously mocked the Washington Post for falling for an article from the same site.

Today, however, the BreitBrats deserve credit for an article that accurately and comprehensively takes apart a collection of conspiracy theories revolving around a perfectly ordinary transaction by the Department of Homeland Security. The DHS has provided a reasonable and verifiable explanation for a purchase order that allows the department to buy ammunition at discounted prices over a five year period:

“Federal solicitations to buy the bullets are known as ‘strategic sourcing contracts,’ which help the government get a low price for a big purchase, says Peggy Dixon, spokeswoman for the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Ga . The training center and others like it run by the Homeland Security Department use as many as 15 million rounds every year, mostly on shooting ranges and in training exercises.”

Breitbart’s debunking methodically stepped through eight components of the myths that have been circulating in the right-wing media about this paranoid fantasy, and countered it with facts to offset them. What they didn’t disclose is that they were among the most flagrant disseminators of the phony horror stories in the first place.

Breitbart

On at least four prior occasions, the BreitBrats posted apocalyptic warnings of a federal government intent on massacring its own citizens. But in this new piece they begin by saying…

“There are dozens of articles hyping government purchases of ammunition over the last nine months. After spending weeks researching this topic, this is a collection of commonly held myths that are based more on panic than fact.

“With the recent release of a letter from the Department of Homeland Security to Senator Coburn, the numbers we calculated independently seem to corroborate the narrative coming from DHS. The concerns surrounding DHS stockpiling ammunition are nothing but more fear-mongering and largely unwarranted.”

So all of a sudden the frightful government plot that the BreitBrats have been pushing is dismissed with a wave of the hand. How convenient. For good measure, Fox News re-posted the Breitbart debunking, and similarly neglected to note their role in creating the faux panic.

Fox News

This is rather atypical behavior for right-wing media that generally avoids ever admitting they were wrong. In this case they have shot down their prior implausible claims because they have been shown to be the ravings of lunatics. Then they steadfastly refuse to acknowledge their previous support and just hope that nobody notices the spine-jostling flipping and flopping that has taken place. While it’s good to see them recognize that the fear mongering about tyrannical government agencies plotting genocide is the product of sheer delusion, it would be even better if they confessed that the delusion was of their own making and apologized. And for the record, Sarah Palin has not yet corrected her statements regarding Ammo-Gate.

Srah Palin

Breitbart Bear Hugs Fake Democrat Kirsten Powers Of Fox News

This weekend the Fox News farce “News Watch” featured its customary panel of four slobbering ultra-rightists and one alleged Democrat. This week’s lefty lamb was Kirsten Powers, who did her job of pretending to be a liberal while denigrating everything liberals stand for.

In a segment about an NPR story on wasteful spending for disability programs, the discussion suddenly veered off course to attack Media Matters with the program’s host, Jon Scott, calling it “that liberal media watchdog group funded by George Soros.” Scott complained that Media Matters had “a problem” with NPR’s report because “it has become fodder for the right wing.”

Right off the bat it should be noted that Jon Scott, whom Fox inexplicably installed as host of a media analysis show, is the Republican Party’s man at Fox News. He was caught red-handed (by Media Matters) reading “news” copy that had been cribbed, word for word, from an RNC press release.

Scott also suffers from a malady that has infected most of Fox News that could be called “Soros Tourettes Syndrome.” Its primary symptom is the uncontrollable shouting out of the name George Soros whenever some organization is mentioned that he might have made a donation to in the past five decades. Given that he is a well known billionaire philanthropist, that’s a pretty long list. In this case. Soros did make a donation to Media Matters exactly one time two years ago, which hardly puts the organization in his pocket. What Scott failed to report was that NPR, whom Scott is alleging was attacked by the Soros-funded Media Matters, also received a hefty donation from Soros. In fact, it was nearly twice what he gave to Media Matters. So Scott seems to think that Soros is attacking one of his front groups with another.

Which brings us to fake Democrat Kirsten Powers. When asked about the NPR affair, she detoured to make this baseless observation: “I just want to say first of all, Media Matters is not a legitimate organization. And they do not exist to be a media watchdog group.” She provided no support whatsoever for her allegation, however, it was enough to attract the adoring gaze of Breitbart’s John Nolte. He posted a short item fawning over Powers for her “honesty” and gushed “I disagree with Powers on almost everything, but she’s good people.”

The assertion that BreitBrat John had substantive disagreements with Powers struck me as peculiar given her overt conservative leanings. So I looked up some previous references to her on the Breitbart web site for evidence of how starkly their opinions differed. This is what I found:

  • Liberal Kirsten Powers Fights Back Against Obama’s War on Fox News
  • Kirsten Powers: Obama Nominating Rice As Secretary Of State ‘Would Be His Undoing’
  • Kirsten Powers: Obama’s ‘You Didn’t Build That” Comments Offended Me Too
  • Kirsten Powers: What Did Obama Know and When Did He Know It?
  • Kirsten Powers: ‘Obviously, There’s A Bias Behind’ Cable News Not Covering Catholic Lawsuit Against Obama
  • Liberal Pundit Powers: Obama Removing Work Requirement From Welfare Huge Issue For Romney
  • Liberal Columnist: Double Standard In Media’s Attack On Rush

These were just the articles that referenced Powers in the headlines. There were many more plaudits for her on the site within various articles. So all of this admiration and accord raises an obvious question. When Nolte says that he disagrees with Powers on “almost everything,” what the hell is he talking about?

Kirsten Powers

Powers is plainly another right-wing plant in the Fox News garden. She consistently rips the President and other Democrats and rarely offers enthusiastic praise or defense for progressive policy or people. She is only on Fox representing the left because Fox couldn’t get Ann Coulter to do it believably. But Powers is in the same conservative bag as Coulter, even going so far as to outrageously accuse Obama of sympathizing with terrorists. No wonder BreitBrat John is so infatuated.

The Anti-Constitutional, Christo-cratic Case Against Marriage Equality

With the Supreme Court’s deliberations on a pair of marriage equality cases last week, more and more right-wing “Christo-crats” are affirming their faith-based opposition to the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law. And increasingly, those affirmations are taking the form of inadvertent admissions that marriage is not within the purview of the state to decide. It is constitutionally impermissible for courts to rule for or against specific religious dogma.

God's Law

Nevertheless, That is exactly what the martinets of virtue on the right are advocating. For example, former CNN contributor Dana Loesch wrote an editorial that appeared on both RedState and the lie-riddled Fox Nation that sought to refute the notion that marriage equality is a conservative position. She insists that it is not, and that…

“Marriage is a covenant between a man, woman, and God before God on His terms. It is a religious civil liberty, not a right granted by government. […] In suing over “marriage” itself one is demanding that God change His definition of the union between a man and a woman.”

Loesch does not bother to reveal where in God’s Dictionary the definition of marriage occurs, nor does she reveal where one can pick up a copy of God’s Dictionary. If she is referencing passages in the Bible, then she is conveniently excluding from God’s definition those pious Biblical figures who maintained multiple (sometimes hundreds of) wives. Likewise she leaves out God’s mandate that rapists be forced to marry their victims. But more to the point, she is admitting that marriage is a construct of religion and, therefore, it is unconstitutional for the state to have a hand in it – except, in her view, so far as Christian-approved nuptials are concerned.

That same doctrine was addressed by Breitbart’s John Nolte in a column accusing the media of trying to destroy religion. That’s the same media that just completed endless hours of blanket coverage of the selection of a new Pope; the same media whose Christmas specials preempt everything else on the air. Nolte argues that recognition of the right for same-sex couples to marry would improperly impose on the right to religious freedom for Christians who regard such behavior as sinful. But if the religious freedom of Christians is violated every time something they regard as a sin is allowed under the law, that would make premarital sex unconstitutional [not to mention lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride. By that measure, the Constitution would require the dissolution of Congress] Nolte says that he is in favor of civil unions, but…

“I oppose same-sex marriage because marriage is a sacrament, and there is a big difference between asking one to be tolerant, and demanding one condone.”

Once again we have an evangelical conservative admitting that his opposition is based on spiritual grounds. And once again, that would make it an invalid argument so far as the Constitution is concerned. They simply cannot assert that something is subject to legal prohibition because it conflicts with their religious beliefs. Were that the case, Jews could seek a Supreme Court judgment mandating that all food in America be produced in accordance with the laws of Kosher. What’s more, no one is demanding that any particular behavior be condoned, merely that it not be discriminated against. That’s a distinction that conservatives have trouble comprehending, or perhaps they just enjoy being bigots.

RedState’s Erick Erickson chimed in with an article asserting that “‘Gay Marriage’ and Religious Freedom Are Not Compatible.” He hinges his argument on the Bible passage, Matthew 19:4-6, wherein Christ says…

“…He which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”

Erickson acknowledges that in this passage Christ is answering a question about whether it is permissible to divorce one’s wife. It was not a question about who is allowed to marry. But he dismisses that fact and focuses only on what he interprets as a definition of marriage, rather than as a direct response to a specific question. Likewise, he dismisses the part about divorce being against God’s law. This is an example of the convenient piety of so many sanctimonious religious zealots that permits them to pick and chose which principles they will honor. If Erickson wants to make a federal case of the definition of marriage as expressed by Matthew 19:4-6, then he should be consistent and call for a constitutional prohibition of divorce. Instead he impugns the sincerity of his ideological foes by calling them “a bunch of progressive Christians who have no use for the Bible,” even though he’s the one twisting it to fit his political prejudices.

Like Loesch and Nolte, Erickson is admitting that he sees gay marriage as “a legal encroachment of God’s intent.” Therefore, without realizing it, he is admitting that it is not a valid argument in a nation whose Constitution says that it “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” Even Bill O’Reilly has noticed that the anti-marriage equality crowd is obsessed with religious justifications, rather than sound legal arguments. He praises gay advocates for saying that…

“‘We’re Americans. We just want to be treated like everybody else.’ That’s a compelling argument, and to deny that, you have got to have a very strong argument on the other side. The argument on the other side hasn’t been able to do anything but thump the Bible.”

Indeed, Bible thumping is not generally viewed in legal circles as a basis for constitutional findings. Yet, as the issue winds through the maze of judicial debate, the Tea-vangelical’s arguments continue to devolve into nothing but sanctimonious sermonizing. It is evermore apparent that their bigotry has no justification under America’s law, so they fall back on God’s law and attempt to ram their beliefs down the nation’s throat. They clearly have no respect for the Constitution or the freedom it guarantees for religious liberty nor, of course, for the equal protection of the law that forbids the state from discriminating against same-sex couples who seek to marry.

Media Matters Enters The Liars Den At CPAC – Gets Ambushed By Breitbart

Yesterday a panel at CPAC (which I believe stands for Conniving Propagandists And Crooks) was held following the screening of “Hating Breitbart,” a crockumentary glorifying the late Andrew Breitbart. The topic of the event was “The Uninvited,” a reference to fringe conservatives who are allegedly kept from appearing in the mainstream media. Participating on the panel were several Breitbart-affiliated folks, including the disgraced video mangler, James O’Keefe, and a lone representative of Media Matters, Ari Rabin-Havt.

In the course of the discussion (video below) O’Keefe protested that he felt he was “held to a higher standard than any Pulitzer Prize winner.” Whereupon, BreitBrat editor Larry O’Conner defended O’Keefe by rejecting the notion that just because O’Keefe’s videos were found to have been deceptively edited that “everything O’Keefe does should be considered a fraud.” Actually, that’s precisely what should be done when someone has proven he’s a fraud on multiple occasions.

The discussion eventually veered off into an attack on Media Matters with O’Conner questioning the veracity of their content. When Rabin-Havt began to defend himself, in what seemed to be a transparently staged tossing of the baton, O’Conner recognized Breitbart’s Editor in Chief Joel Pollak in the audience and asked him to weigh in on the subject.

Pollak was visibly upset at what he characterized as a smear directed at him by Media Matters. He cited an article that he claimed accused him of being a birther. Standing in the audience he pointed his finger at Rabin-Havt and arrogantly insisted that “The next word out of your mouth should be ‘Sorry.'” But that was just a small portion of the generalized indictment he made of Media Matters:

Pollak: There’s a Media Matters method, it’s this: You make a statement in the headline that is not proven in the article. The lefties to whom you sell your material, or distribute your material, don’t care about the proof, they care about the headline. So you put in that headline that I’m a birther even though you admit I’m not a birther.

Alright, let’s break this down. First of all, Pollak’s assertion that Media Matters makes unproven statements in their headlines is itself unproven. Media Matters is meticulous about documenting what they publish, and the “lefties” and others who read it care very much that thoroughness. As for the article Pollak referenced, it was posted on Media Matters on March 13, with the title “What The Media Need To Know About CPAC 2013.” Notice that there is nothing in the headline about anyone being birther and that Pollak isn’t in it at all. So much for his thesis that Media Matters composes false headlines and fails to back them up.

Ironically, Pollak’s complaint applies perfectly to his own article on Breitbart News that Media Matters was writing about in the first place. That article’s headline was “The Vetting – Exclusive – Obama’s Literary Agent in 1991 Booklet: ‘Born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii'”

Breitbart News

From the wording of that headline it would not be much of a stretch to conclude that the article was advancing birtherism by questioning Obama’s birthplace. Pollak said that he only intended to make a point that Obama, or his representatives, altered his biography when it suited him. However, that was not the inference in his headline. And it could be said of Breitbart what they said of Media Matters – that they “don’t care about the proof, they care about the headline.” What’s more, the first paragraph of the article began by affirming the birtherism in the headline:

“Breitbart News has obtained a promotional booklet produced in 1991 by Barack Obama’s then-literary agency, Acton & Dystel, which touts Obama as ‘born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii.'”

To be fair, there was a “Note from Senior Management” appended to the top of Pollak’s article that asserted that “Andrew Breitbart was never a ‘Birther,’ and Breitbart News is a site that has never advocated the narrative of ‘Birtherism.'” The fact that that note was necessary is telling in itself. But it’s a rather hollow disclaimer when the headline and the opening paragraph seemingly contradict it. Pollak also wrote that “The errant Obama biography in the Acton & Dystel booklet does not contradict the authenticity of Obama’s birth certificate.” That’s true, but as Rabin-Havt pointed out, he had not called Pollak a birther. He had simply asserted that Pollak and Breitbart were still responsible for advancing the birther theme even if they themselves did not subscribe to it. And they did that by publishing articles with misleading headlines and expecting to absolve themselves of the birther taint by rejecting it several paragraphs later.

This bit of theatrics staged by the BreitBrats fits nicely into their modus operandi. It is the sort of ambush that Breitbart himself would have enjoyed pulling off. And it even starred Breitbart’s budding video propagandist, little Jimmy O’Keefe. But once again, when the facts are revealed in full, their deceit is all too apparent. The Media Matters article did not call Pollak a birther in the headline. Although Breitbart’s article did question Obama’s birthplace in their headline.

So the BreitBrats got together and conspired to ambush Rabin-Havt with a false accusation that he had done what the BreitBrats actually did do. And then they complain when nobody will take them seriously, and they wonder why they are “The Uninvited” and why everyone hates Breitbart.