The Real Sun Myung Moon

Must Read

2011-12-29T08:24:00.000-08:00

Report by Media Matters for America: "The Washington Times' Year Of Obama Derangement Syndrome"

The Anti-Union Robocall from Pat Boone (Ohio Issue 2)

2011-11-07T10:52:00.000-08:00

A relative of mine in Ohio received a robocall from Pat Boone urging a yes vote on the anti-union Issue 2 ballot referendum. Boone has been an advocate of Amway and has emceed events for the Reverend Sun Myung Moon.

What's wrong with This Picture?

2011-09-30T13:29:00.000-07:00

Pictured here is Washington Times editor emeritus Wesley Pruden who previously wrote that Barack Obama lacks "blood impulse" for what America "is about" due to "Kenyan father,"and a "mother attracted to men of the Third World." Pruden shouldn't be one to discuss lineage considering his own father. Now, Pruden is, without irony, accusing the "desperate friends of Barack Obama" of "playing the race card" on the pages of the Washington Times.

Best Posts from this Blog

2011-09-17T09:51:00.000-07:00

1. Warren Jeffs versus Sun Myung Moon
2. The theocratic chain of misery
3. Hillary Clinton and the Moonies here and here
4. ACORN Versus The Unification Church
5. Senator Orrin Hatch and the Moonies
6. How the Moonie media bought Chris Matthews' soul
7. William Bennett and Sun Myung Moon
8. Moon's alliance with another cult
9. The Internet as the bane of destructive cults
10. Amway and Moon's Unification Movement: hierachies of misery
11. My YouTube Video: "The World's Most Powerful Cult"
12. The Bush family and Moon here, here, here, and here.
13. Moon and Regnery Publishing.
14. Notes on the movie Inchon Ronald Reagan's positive review here.
15. Barack Obama Versus Sun Myung Moon
16. A brief history of the "America" brand
17. The ancester liberation scam
18. Wash. Times Employee calls Obama fans "zombies"
19. Private vice versus public vice
20. The Washington media establishment and Sun Myung Moon
21. The Moonie media and the Obama/Madrassa smear. also here
22. The True Believer Versus the Cynic: Why Hyun Jin "Preston" Moon May Be More Dangerous than his Father
23. Racism and the Washington Times.
24. Is opposition to Reverend Moon religious bigotry?

Sun Myung Moon's Washington Times Spreads Michelle Obama Flag Smear

2011-09-16T09:20:00.000-07:00

Elspeth Reeve writes, "On Tuesday, the Washington Times' James S. Robbins claimed video with no audio proves that during a solemn ceremony commemorating 9/11, Michelle Obama dismissively whispered to her husband, "All that for a flag." It was a reference to "the American flag -- you know the one brave men died for," Media Matters for America has more.

This is from a newspsper owned by a man who claimed that Americans' individualism (i.e., their rejection of him as Messiah) is evidence that "America has become the kingdom of Satan" and that the United States is "Satan's Harvest."

Unintentional Irony Alert

2011-08-26T09:29:00.000-07:00

Last year I pointed out (here and here) the irony of Moon's Washington Times contributor Jason Mattera writing a book calling young supposrters of President Obama "zombies."

Well, believe it or not, Marybeth Hicks has topped Mattera. Hicks is the weekly "cultural columnist" for Sun Myung Moon's Times and she has just written a book titled, Don't Let the Kids Drink the Kool-Aid--alluding to the cyanide/Kool-Aid mixture served by cult leader Jim Jones to his devotees.

Article on Race-baiting at Sun Myung Moon's Washington Times

2011-08-22T10:04:00.000-07:00

Media Matters for America has an article on recent race-baiting at The Washington Times. Here is a previous post about racism at the Times.

New Video on the Unification Movement

2011-07-08T08:28:00.000-07:00

Former Moonie Steven Hassan has a video on Vimeo.

Media Matters for America on The Wash. Times' Opposition to "Hateful Bile"

2011-01-15T10:28:00.000-08:00

Read it here

Moon Flunky Danny Davis Withdrew from the Chicago Mayoral Race

2011-01-03T09:16:00.000-08:00

Chicago can count its lucky stars that Moon's "crowner" Davis won't be the next mayor; the city's politics are embarrassing enough.

Sun Myung Moon Coronation Flunky Danny Davis Running for Mayor of Chicago

2010-12-17T10:12:00.000-08:00

Danny Davis, who obsequiously presented a crown to Messiah wannabe Sun Myung Moon in a notorious 2004 coronation ceremony in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, is running for mayor of Chicago. In an early poll, Davis is currently tied for a distant second with 9 percent behind Rahm Emanuel who is favored by 32 percent of voters.

Must Read

2010-09-22T10:20:00.001-07:00

Steven Hassan on the sale of the Washington Times.

The Washington Post's Sloppy Reporting on Moon

2010-09-07T07:58:00.000-07:00

Ian Shapira has a Washington Post article on the rocky finances of Sun Myung Moon's Washington Times. Nothing new--the article chronicles how the paper has been one big money pit. One huge problem is how Shapira ignores the misery that bankrolled the paper. Shapira writes:

In summer 2009, the Times' future turned rocky. In July, church donations from Japan, long a key source of subsidies, stopped flowing to the paper, according to a memo by Victor Walters, treasurer of the Times' parent company.

Donations? This whitewashes the "spiritual sales" mega-scam that Unification used to bilk hundreds of millions--possibly billions--from distraught Japanese widows. Essentially, it was the selling of indulgences to vulnerable women who has just lost their husbands; they were told to buy religious relics at extremely high markups in order to prevent suffering of their husbands in the afterlife. It worked remarkably well, enabling Moon to bankroll the Times and live like a king.

One other note about the article: it mentions a financial arrangement that the Times has with The Talk Radio Network which is run by the son of fringe religious leader Roy Masters.

Reverend Moon Buys Back The Washington Times

2010-09-01T08:17:00.000-07:00

For one dollar! Story here.

The Washington Times, The Neo-Confederate Movement, and the Out-Of-Touch Right

2010-07-08T10:27:00.000-07:00

As I have pointed out on this and my video blog, Reverend Moon's Washington Times has been a notorious repository for neo-Confederate and racist kooks. Don't ask me why a South Korean national would have white supremicists on the staff of his newspaper; if you try to make sense out of Moon and his operations, you will only cause yourself grief.

A while ago, I pointed out the irony and absurdity of Jason Mattera, a contributor to Moon's Washington Times, who recently had a book published that claimed that young Obama voters were out-of-touch "zombies." Mattera was recently named editor of the right-wing journal Human Events. As it turns out, Human Events recent sent out an e-mail with a special offer for the historically revisionist book The Politically Correct Guide to the Civil War. The cover of the book has a picture of notorious war criminal and Ku Klux Klan founder Nathan Bedford Forrest. I got a chance to look at the book and the book glosses over Forrest's atrocities at the Fort Pillow Massacre.

Wash. Times' Jeffrey Kuhner is Unhinged

2010-06-15T14:09:00.000-07:00

Media Matters for America has the story.

Crooked U.S. Congressman Rangel Calls Moon Critic "Deranged"

2010-06-14T13:45:00.000-07:00

Representative Charles Rangel (D-NY), a corrupt politician and longtime friend of Sun Myung Moon, referred to a Farifax, Virginia pastor as "deranged" after calling Moon "the Antichrist" and a North Korean sympathizer. The Washington City Paper also has a story on the controversy.

Listen to This

2010-05-10T14:56:00.000-07:00

John Gorenfeld and Robert Parry on the near-dead Moon-owned Washington Times.

Unification Movement to Sell Washington Times

2010-05-02T14:25:00.001-07:00

The story is here.

Washington Times Publisher Jonathan Slevin OUSTED

2010-04-26T12:09:00.001-07:00

Details here

Moon's Washington Times Get Punked

2010-04-22T11:40:00.000-07:00

Read Karl Frisch's short but hilarious post on the pushback against the Times' conspiracy-mongering.

Washington Times Gives a Platform to Lunatic Randall Terry

2010-04-07T11:29:00.000-07:00

Terry was given a column on the Times' op-ed page.

Irony of Ironies: Moon Employee Writes Book Calling Obama Fans "Zombies"

2010-04-01T16:04:00.000-07:00

Prominent wing-nut and Washington Times operative Jason Mattera has a new book titled Obama Zombies: How the Liberal Machine Brainwashed My Generation. Here are some priceless comments from an Amazon.com reviewer:

This is one of the more mind blowingly ironic books I've encountered on the right, and that's saying a lot! (As I've read some Michael Savage) You'd hope that a guy who proudly notes working for the Washington Times would be a little bit careful about throwing around the term "zombie"! The Washington Times are owned by the Unification Church, popularly known as the Moonies, and usually considered a rather insidious cult. (Google them or check out their wiki page) So, yes, you have a guy who writes for a foreign owned mind control cult lecturing liberals about being "zombies" for Obama!!! Apparently with a straight face! Then again conservatives truly have no scruples that I am aware of. They are currently screaming about the budget deficit for instance, one that they created from the surplus Clinton left. Or listen to them lecture about national security despite not defending the country on 9/11 and then not defending the constitution afterwards...not to mention two poorly planned wars on their watch...but I digress, back to the book. To be honest this was so sloppily put together and so lacking in historical context or any sort of proportion that I was left with the feeling that this book isn't meant to be read. Its really more a symobl, something someone who lives in a Fox News bubble can send to their nephew in college who hasn't drank the Kool Aid...

So basically a worthless book but one for the ages in terms of irony! In that regard, congrats Jason, you have broken new ground!

George W. Bush Presidential Center Using Wash. Times E-mail list

2010-04-01T11:37:00.000-07:00

I received the following email from the Washington Times:

Please add member@washingtontimesmail.com to your Safe Senders List to enable images and ensure delivery to your inbox.

Below, please find a message from one of our advertisers. Periodically, we receive opportunities we believe you may want to learn about. Please note that the following message does not necessarily reflect the positions of The Washington Times. If you would prefer not to receive these messages in the future, please use the unsubscribe link listed at the bottom of this email.
The George W. Bush Presidential Center
Help President and Mrs. Bush advance the principles of freedom, opportunity, responsibility and compassion. Become a Charter Member of the George W. Bush Presidential Center today!

Become a Charter Member Today!

Dear Friend,

I don't have to remind you how America was tested time and again—at home and abroad—during the eight defining years of the George W. Bush presidency.

The difficult decisions President Bush made in the face of each challenge were rooted in the core principles he held throughout his years of public service—the fundamental values that have guided America since her founding: Freedom . . . Opportunity . . . Responsibility . . . Compassion.

Now President and Mrs. Bush—with the support of many patriotic Americans like you—are taking on a new challenge. They are continuing their personal commitment to advancing these enduring principles through the George W. Bush Presidential Center.

The Center will uniquely integrate the records of a national archive, the thematic exhibits of a presidential museum, and the intellectual capital of a research-based policy institute to transform ideas into action.

The George W. Bush Presidential Center will continue to advance the ideals and core principles that shaped his presidency during a defining period in America's history.

Please accept this invitation to become a Charter Member of the George W. Bush Presidential Center.

Thank you for your support.

Sincerely,

Mark Langdale

Hon. Mark Langdale
President
George W. Bush Foundation

Two Unificationists Running for Office

2010-03-30T16:11:00.001-07:00

Richard Urban for the Washington, DC City Council and Mark Anderson, whom this blog has covered, for a justice of the peace position in Arizona.

New Steve Hassan Videos

2010-01-05T13:00:00.000-08:00

Along with my blogs devoted to exposing the Unification movement, I have blogs (here and here) that look at the insidious influence of Amway Global. The Unification Movement and Amway, though very different, are inextricably linked in that they have support the same reactionary causes. Cult expert and former Moonie Steve Hassan discusses Amway Global with Eric Scheibeler. Watch the videos here.

Moon's Wash. Times is About to Die

2009-12-30T12:57:00.001-08:00

The story is here.

R.I.P. The Washington Times

2009-12-08T13:32:00.000-08:00

Eric Boehlert has the full story:

You'd think that somebody with a direct line to the Almighty, and tapped by Jesus to save mankind on Earth, would be able to come up with a better business plan for running a daily newspaper. But, alas, after nearly three decades of unrelenting financial losses, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, a federal tax cheat, accused cult leader, and founder of the Unification Church, has decided to pull out. Actually, according to news reports, it's more like Moon's U.S. college-educated sons, as part of an internal family power struggle, have decided to finally cut off the endless stream of Asian church cash that's kept The Washington Times afloat. . .With the announcement that 40 percent of the Times' staff is getting pink-slipped, and that the daily's no longer even going to bother with traditional who/what/where/when/why reporting, instead publishing an opinion-heavy publication that will be free of charge at a diminished number of local outlets, Times owners look like they're angling to be a Weekly Standard wannabe, churning out lots of predictable GOP Noise Machine opinion prattle. . .The messianic Moon, who has referred to himself as "humanity's Savior," never cared about journalism in the traditional, American, free-marketplace sense of the word. Yes, he launched a product that looked like a newspaper, but its central goal was never really to inform its readers. Its goal seemed more often to misinform and to enhance Moon's reputation outside the United States. Moon and Unification Church leaders used the newspaper as a symbol, most often in Asia, to suggest that Moon moved freely among world leaders. That the newspaper in 2009 had a modest circulation roughly matching that of the Chattanooga Times Free Press was irrelevant to the paper's publishers, although the newspaper's evaporating readership probably was not lost on the Times' shrinking band of local advertisers. . .

Moon's Wash. Times is Imploding!

2009-12-02T14:02:00.000-08:00

Forty percent of the paper's staff is being laid off.

Googlebomb of Former Wash. Times Operative Bill Sammon

2009-12-01T17:14:00.000-08:00

Read about it on the Google Bomb Blog.

Article on Sun Myung Moon and his Washington Strategy

2009-12-01T09:45:00.000-08:00

Part Two of Rory O'Connor's Media, Money and Sun Myung Moon (hat tip to politickybitch)

Affidavit: Wash Times Receives $40 Million Yearly From Moon

2009-11-23T14:26:00.000-08:00

In an affidavit for a lawsuit against his former employer, former Washington Times editorial page editor Richard Miniter disclosed that Sun Myung Moon's Unification movement spends $40 million each year subsidizing the paper. Also, Miniter felt that then-Times publisher Tom McDevitt pressured him to attend a Moonie mass wedding:

21. McDevitt told me that "It would be good for you to go." I took this to mean that if I didn't go, it would count negatively against my prospects at The Washington Times and of being offered permanent executive employment there.

22. I knew that McDevitt was a member of the Unification Church and that his religion was important to him. A large, Mao-like portrait of Rev. Moon hung above his desk and a billboard-sized Korean-language calligraphy, written by Rev. Moon, hung in the executive conference room. While these Moon relics were only seen by senior executives, I knew they had personal significance to McDevitt. At first, I considered this artwork to be a sign of personal and private religious devotion, like an Advent calendar tacked to someone's cubicle, and not a sign that the Church would interfere in the "editorial independence" that editors were promised.

A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words

2009-11-17T19:45:00.000-08:00

Washington Times editor emeritus Wesley Pruden: Obama lacks "blood impulse" for what America "is about" due to "Kenyan father,"and a "mother attracted to men of the Third World."

Also, I address Pruden and other WT white supremacists in the video "The World's Most Powerful Cult."

Comprehensive Coverage of the Turmoil in Moon's Wash. Times

2009-11-15T13:32:00.000-08:00

Talking Points Memo has a long article:

When Washington Times Publisher Thomas McDevitt was fired last Sunday, his successor Jonathan Slevin and two security guards escorted him from the Times headquarters to his car and confiscated his cell phone and computer, according to an internal Unification Church memo provided to TPM by multiple church members.

Issued Friday and addressed to "District Directors, State Leaders, all Blessed Central Families and Members," the memo appears to be the first official statement from the church that addresses the turmoil at the Times which has threatened the very future of the newspaper founded by church leader Rev. Sun Myung Moon in the early 1980s and long subsidized by the church's business empire.

The conservative Washington Times is controlled by Preston Moon, son of Rev. Moon and chair of the Times' parent company, News World Communications. TPM has reported that Preston's feud with the rest of his family -- rooted in his displeasure at the way the elderly Rev. Moon divvied up the church and its business empire -- is driving the chaos at the Times. . .

Read the rest of the article here.

Wash Times Announces Resignation Of Executive Editor John Solomon

2009-11-12T15:47:00.000-08:00

Read the story.

Must Read

2009-11-12T13:49:00.000-08:00

"Media, Money and Sun Myung Moon" by Rory O'Connor (Thanks to politickybitch for the link).

Beefed-Up Security at Moonie Times

2009-11-10T21:29:00.000-08:00

Here is the story.

The Washington Times' Anti-Gay War on Kevin Jennings

2009-10-26T17:24:00.001-07:00

Surprised about The Washington Times' jihad against Department of Education official Kevin Jennings? It comes to know surprise from those who know about Sun Myung Moon's thoughts about gays, namely that they are "dung-eating dogs" who will be "eliminated" by God.

Settlement Reached in Stallings Case

2009-10-26T13:36:00.000-07:00

According to the Washington Post, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington has reached a settlement with a man who said he was sexually abused as a teenager by a former priest, George A. Stallings Jr., who is now a prominent member of Moon's Unification movement.

AP: Sun Myung Moon Turning Over Unification Movement to Sons

2009-10-12T19:55:00.000-07:00

Here is the Associated Press story:

SEOUL, South Korea - The Rev. Sun Myung Moon, now approaching 90 and still one of the world's most controversial religious figures, is handing over day-to-day control of his Unification Church to three U.S.-educated sons.

There are some changes afoot in fundraising and boosting membership, the sons say. But Moon — who will preside over another series of his trademark mass weddings on Wednesday — remains in charge as the church's self-proclaimed "Messiah."

Read the full story.

George H.W. Bush and other World Leaders Puff Up Moon

2009-10-09T16:52:00.000-07:00

Bush and other prominent current and former world leaders recently congratulated Moon on his autobiography. Bush wrote (6:37 of the video), "I salute Rev. Moon, and all of you, for your work and your service to the world. I believe that public service of all kinds is an honorable calling. Yes, there are great challenges, but our will and determination are, and must be, greater."

Watch the video:

Sun Myung Moon to Kick the Bucket on January 13, 2013?

2009-10-01T21:10:00.000-07:00

In two recent speeches, Sun Myung Moon has claimed that January 13, 2013 will be an auspicious day. Two years, ago Moon told followers the following:

I have just six years until January 13, 2013. If I give the order, will you be able to move all the people below you? A great migration will occur. This is not just a dream; this can actually happen. Can a bird carry a lot of luggage to migrate? No. You yourselves should not have things that will burden you down; you must be able to migrate

Last year, Moon told his followers:

Today is the 13th of February. Thirteen is very important. There are five years from now until January 13, 2013. The 13th of every month should be marked as important days on our march to 2013. This is the ssang hap time of connecting the 7th and 8th jubilee years. We will expand the jubilee of God’s forgiveness every year through 2012.

In other Moon news, a Washington Times review of Moon's autobiography, "As a Peace-Loving Global Citizen" (to no surprise, it is a positive review) notes that the book is now in English. I previously noted that the book was a bestseller in South Korea.

Andrew Breitbart Throws Stones At ACORN from Sun Myung Moon's Glass House

2009-09-29T17:54:00.001-07:00

(Updated below)
The right has been in a feeding frenzy since some hidden-camera tapes from right-wing operatives (don't call them journalists) were aired on Fox News. Clearly, the operatives cast a wide net, hoping that lower-level ACORN workers in field offices would make incriminating statements (here's an article on the nature of these sting operations and how people get caught up in them).

The operatives are now in the employ of Andrew Breitbart, a commentator for Sun Myung Moon's Washington Times. Breitbart was so outraged by alleged "deep corruption and unspeakable immorality at the ACORN housing division" that he wrote about it in The Washington Times. As an employee of the Washington Times, whether he knows it or not, Breitbart is contributing to Moon's attempt to legitimize his worldview to the world; Moon said, "That is why Father [Moon referring to himself in the third person] has been combining and organizing scholars from all over the world, and also newspaper organizations, in order to make propaganda." Since Breitbart used the pages of a paper devoted to promoting the Unification Movement's worldview to slam ACORN, I thought a comparison of ACORN and the Unification movement would be in order:

ACORN Versus The Unification Movement
Movement	ACORN	Unification Movement
Purpose	The empowerment of poor and disenfranchised through voter registration, affordable housing, health-care, and neighborhood safety.	The aggrandizement of Sun Myung Moon, who, according to Unification dogma, is "humanity's Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent"
Does the leadership compel members to engage in degrading, unhygienic sexual acts?	No	Yes
Has the Movement Scammed Japanese Widows?	No	To the tune of hundreds of millions, possibly billions, of dollars
View of neo-Confederate groups	Strongly opposes efforts by neo-Confederates and anti-civil rights groups from denying the vote to the poor and minorities	Moon's Washington Times has had several prominent editors who were neo-Confederates or who supported white supremacy
Rapes Committed by Leadership	None	Moon procured an underage girl for his drug-addled, adult son
Actual Importing of Underage Girls	No	Yes
Supported Apartheid and Salvadorean death squads?	No.	Yes, Moon was a huge supporter of the WCAL

UPDATE: True to form, Moon's Washington Times has been prominent in spreading the smear that Department of Education official Kevin Jennings had covered up sexual abuse in a school where he had been a teacher.

Irony is Dead

2009-09-21T14:44:00.000-07:00

Fox News managing editor (and former Washington Times operative) Bill Sammon writes a memo to Fox News staffers about the need to be impartial. To fully appreciate the irony of the memo, read my article about Sammon (written when he also worked for Moon).

Must Read Article on Moon's Ties to Nazis

2009-08-17T09:53:00.000-07:00

(Updated below)
Robert Parry on Sun Myung Moon's Nazi ties:

One of the ugly ironies in the Right’s depiction of President Barack Obama as Hitler and health reform as a plan for Nazi-style euthanasia is that the owner of the Washington Times, which has pushed this line of attack, has had longstanding ties with World War II-era Nazis, neo-Nazis and rightist “death squads.”

Indeed, the Washington Times founder and funder, Sun Myung Moon, built his international religious-business-media empire in collaboration with Japanese fascist war criminals and with operational assistance from ex-Nazi SS officer Klaus Barbie, the so-called “Butcher of Lyon.”

The 89-year-old Moon also has had close ties to later generations of neo-Nazis and right-wing murderers, especially in Latin America where Moon-related organizations threw in their lot with brutal military dictators including some involved in cocaine trafficking.

UPDATE: Regarding the Nazi analogy used by the Washington Times, there was an apology; from the New York Times to the Washington Times for its assertion that the Moonie Times is an "outlet ... decidedly opposed to Mr. Obama." (Thanks to JG for the link).

UPDATE II: Media Matters for America asks: Do Wash. Times news pages really have "no agenda"? and discusses the Times' defense of its "fact-based" editorials comparing Obama to Nazis

Interesting and Revealing Post on the Washington Times

2009-08-10T15:25:00.000-07:00

Matt Gertz of Media Matters for America:

Politico reports that Philadelphia Inquirer columnist and former Republican Senator Rick Santorum has written a fundraising email for the RNC – which was sent to the Washington Times’ subscriber list. In the email – addressed “Dear Fellow Conservative” – Santorum waxes sentimental about how “a great tide of conservative Republicans swept to victory in races all across America,” and claims that “we are facing a very similar opportunity today.”

This follows fundraising emails sent to the Times’ list on behalf of House Republican Leader John Boehner and the right-wing Judicial Confirmation Network. Perhaps John Solomon's promise that the Washington Times would maintain a "neutral, civil voice" kicks in next month?

The Ulitmate Irony?

2009-07-21T10:47:00.000-07:00

On Sun Myung Moon's Washington Times' America's Morning News radio program, L. Brent Bozell appeared and said the following about Barack Obama: "He is the Messiah; he is The One. . . "

Click here is you don't see the irony of this.

I have previously written about the Bozell family.

Moon's Washington Times on Sotomayor

2009-07-13T12:43:00.000-07:00

Media Matters for America: "Wash. Times changes word in Sotomayor statement to call for her defeat"

UPDATE: I just found out that the Washington Times is selling a limited edition book W. The Legacy of President George W. Bush. The e-mail promoting the book has the following text:

You have stood with former President Bush through some of our nation's most turbulent times. That is why we are making this special edition with personal remembrances by Vice President Cheney, Laura Bush and many others available to you now. "W" is packed with gripping pictures and stories all beautifully presented in this historical keepsake presentation of all eight years of the Presidency of George W. Bush.

From the Man Who Gave Us the Capitol Hill Moon Coronation

2009-07-09T20:45:00.000-07:00

Joe Conason's recent article on Sarah Palin has some interesting information about Charlie Black, the Republican operative who arranged the 2004 coronation ceremony for Sun Myung Moon and his wife. Black had a big hand in John McCain's ill-fated decision to tap Palin as his running mate:

[McCain strategist Steve]Schmidt had collaborated with [lobbyist Rick] Davis and [speechwriter Mark] Salter to promote Palin over several more qualified candidates -- after a cursory background investigation that revealed almost nothing about her lack of knowledge, bizarre official conduct, and narcissistic temperament. When the three insiders presented her to a smitten, impetuous McCain, he accepted their judgment, ratified by Charlie Black, one of the most experienced Republican operatives in Washington, who told him that if he chose her, he might win -- and otherwise he would surely lose.

Exclusive: Sun Myung Moon's Alliance with Another Cult-Run Media Group

2009-07-08T18:06:00.000-07:00

(Updated below)
Sun Myung Moon's media empire has branched out to right-wing talk radio with the recent establishment of the Washington Times America's Morning News program. The co-hosts of the radio program are John McCaslin, a columnist and a former editor of the Washington Times, and veteran right-wing talker Melanie Morgan.

The program is due to an alliance with Moon's Washington Times and another media outlet founded by a cult leader, the Talk Radio Network (TRN). TRN was founded by zany cult leader and radio talk show host Roy Masters and is currently run by Masters' son Mark. Having listened to Masters' radio program, I can confirm that Michael Savage (whose radio show is syndicated by TRN) is the embodiment of sanity compared to Masters (ConWebWatch has a succinct primer on Masters and TRN).

The alliance between Moon's Washington Times and the Masters' Talk Radio Network is, in Unification Church terminology, a "perfect marriage."

UPDATE I: Welcome readers of Crooks and Liars, American Politics Journal, and Oliver Willis' blog. Check out the articles on my main blog (the sidebar of hilarious transcripts of on-air conversations I've had with Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, etc.). also, check out the front page of the Sun Myung Moon blog and watch the YouTube video "The World's Most Powerful Cult."

UPDATE II: Lanny Davis is a regular guest on the show. Davis performs the same thing on the Washington Times radio program that he does for Fox News (and did on G. Gordon Liddy's radio show)--he acts as an on-air punching bag.

UPDATE III: When the news media focused on missing governor or South Carolina Mark Sanford (who it later turned out was having an affair with a woman in Argentina), the Washington Times let Sanford know that they were on his side. A WT staffer sent an e-mail to Sanford's office with the following message: "If you all want to speak on this publicly, you're welcome to Washington Times Radio. You know that you will be on friendly ground here!"

The Washington Times and Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), joined at the hip

2009-07-05T13:23:00.000-07:00

Media Matters for America has the full story.

Must Read

2009-06-18T19:22:00.001-07:00

Joe Conason on the attempt by wingnuts, lead by the Moonie Times, to invent a "Walpin-gate" scandal revolving around the firing of Americorps inspector general Gerald Walpin.

UPDATE: Media Matters for America has more.

Paul Krugman mentions Wash. Times in his Column on Right-Wing Extremism

2009-06-11T21:28:00.000-07:00

Read the entire column, "The Big Hate," here. Krugman on Moon's Washington Times:

But let’s not neglect the print news media. In the Bush years, The Washington Times became an important media player because it was widely regarded as the Bush administration’s house organ. Earlier this week, the newspaper saw fit to run an opinion piece declaring that President Obama “not only identifies with Muslims, but actually may still be one himself,” and that in any case he has “aligned himself” with the radical Muslim Brotherhood.

Frank Gaffney Spreads Obama-is-a-Muslim Rumor in the Pages of the Washington Times

2009-06-09T14:35:00.000-07:00

One of the biggest urban legends of the past few years is the rumor that Barack Obama was raised as a Muslim (variants of this smear are the claims that Obama is Arab and that he was born outside the United States). This canard was first publicized in the Sun Myung Moon-owned (and now-defunct) Insight magazine.

Today in the Moon-owned Washington Times, Frank Gaffney wrote an op-ed in which he make the jaw-dropping claim that "[t]here is mounting evidence that the president not only identifies with Muslims, but actually may still be one himself." Media Matters for America is one of the media watchdogs that have debunked Gaffney's claim (MMFA also cited Gaffney's baseless claims made during the 2008 election about Obama's birth certificate and Gaffney's attempts to link Obama to a "convert to radical Islam" named Khalid al-Mansour).

Tamron Hall of MSNBC addresses the issue:

Wish I Said It

2009-05-29T10:29:00.000-07:00

Last night on Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Keith cited the conservative Washington Examiner and said that it's just like the Washington Times except that it has "fewer Moonies."

Addendum: Both the Washington Times and Washington Examiner have the dubious distinction of having had the notorious Bill Sammon in their employ.

FiveThirtyEight.com on the Washington Times' Obtuseness

2009-05-27T11:48:00.000-07:00

Nate Silver on the right's meme about Sonia Sotomayor's 60 percent reversal rate by the Supreme Court.

Sun Myung Moon's Washington Times

2009-05-13T16:14:00.000-07:00

Media Matters for America reports that Sun Myung Moon's Washington Times used photos of the Obama children for a news article about schoolchildren being murdered in Chicago.

UPDATE: Rachel Maddow addresses the Times' article. Here is the video.

Really Ironic

2009-05-12T14:03:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, I noted the irony of someone on would-be messiah Sun Myung Moon's Washington Times discussing political messianism. The headline of a column by Wes Pruden in today's Times referencing President Obama: "Even a messiah loses his training wheels."

For further reading on the right's mocking use of messianic rhetoric to describe Barack Obama, check out my comparison chart of Sun Myung Moon and Obama.

Ironic

2009-05-06T21:34:00.000-07:00

"Political messianism--the impulse to realize perfection on Earth by whatever means necessary--marks a common thread, along with the struggle between religion and secular ideologies that mimic it." --William Anthony, review in the Washington Times May 6, 2009

The Washington Times' Jeffrey Kuhner on Condoms

2009-05-06T16:56:00.000-07:00

I have written about Kuhner previously (here, here, and here). I found this YouTube video in which Kuhner appeared on Michael Savage's radio show and excoriated birth control. My favorite gem in Kuhner's unhinged diatribe: "The Pill and the condom have been the hammer and sickle of cultural Marxism."

What DoYou Expect from a Newspaper that was Home to White Supemacists?

2009-05-05T13:45:00.000-07:00

Media Matters reports that the Washington Times didn't give the reasons Senator Sessions' own judicial nomination was blocked.

Frank Rich's Latest Column and the Cults

2009-05-02T18:20:00.000-07:00

I enjoyed Frank Rich's Sunday column "Enough With the 100 Days Already." One criticism, a small violation of Occam's Razor--there is a needless complication in a description of the contemporary Republican Party: ". . . [T]he former party of Lincoln and liberty has now melted down to a fundamentalist core of aging, rural Dixiecrats and intrusive scolds-—as small as 20 percent of the populace in the latest polls. Its position on the American spectrum of ideas is somewhere between a doomsday cult and Scientology."

Why bring Scientology in the discussion when there is a real-life cult--Moon's Unification movement--that is a core component of the regional rump that the GOP has become?

Joseph Curl's Homophobic "Joke" in the Washington Times

2009-05-01T17:13:00.001-07:00

It doesn't surprise me that Joseph Curl would use a homophobic double entrendre in yesterday's Washington Times. This is a guy who, right after 9/11, twisted Bill Clinton's words to make it appear as if the former president had placed the blame for the attack on America.

Revealing Article about Moon's Washington Times

2009-04-29T15:17:00.000-07:00

Eric Boehlert, "The Washington Times vs. reality"

The Theocratic Chain of Misery

2009-04-23T15:18:00.000-07:00

I have previously discussed the concept of what I have dubbed "the hierarchy of misery." The term refers to organizations or movements in which a tiny parasitic elite benefits on the backs of a large mass of people. I discussed how Amway and the Unification movement embody this category. In this post, I will show that one thing that makes these groups particularly pernicious is that many of them often have a mutually beneficial relationship with other hierarchies of misery. It is a synergistic relationship in which the overall pathology becomes greater than the sum of its component parts.

In the diagram, I have charted how this insidious mutualism has taken place in recent American history with groups that have a theocratic orientation. Let me discuss the players:
1) Amway/Kingpin IBOs. This refers to Amway Global network marketing company as well as some of the more reactionary distributor organizations headed by wealthy reactionary "kingpin" distributors (known in Amway as Independent Business Owners-or IBOs). Here is a newspaper story on the exploitative nature of many of the top Amway kingpin IBOs.
2) The Falwell Organization. This pertains to the various organizations run by Jerry Falwell (1933-2007).
3) Sun Myung Moon Groups. This includes the Family Federation for World Peace, 1000 front groups, and media organizations, notably the Washington Times and the UPI wire service.
4) The Right-Wing Governmental Apparatus. Prominent members of the right who exercise governmental power.
5) The Neo-Confederate Movement. This refers to the white supremacist movement in the United States that usually poses as a movement to preserve "Southern heritage." In fact, this heritage is largely one in which a small oligarchy kept itself in power in the American South for over a hundred years by pitting poor white against poor black--to keep both groups oppressed.

The diagram shows what each groups gives and receives from other groups
1.Amway to Falwell. Falwell's ministry has been receiving significant financial support from Amway kingpin IBO Dexter Yager (more on Yager here).
2. Falwell to Amway. In turn, Falwell spoke out in defense of Amway against critics who were trying to expose unethical practices by Amway and various kingpin organizations.
3. Moon to Falwell. In the early 1990's, Sun Myung Moon funneled $3.5 million to bail out Falwell's floundering diploma mill, Liberty University (quick note: a Brown University student went undercover at Liberty U. and is writing a book about his experiences). Also, when Moon was facing legal problems in the 1980's, he freely gave to various sectarian right groups.
4. Falwell to Moon. Jerry Falwell was not a big fan of Moon when the would-be Messiah was converting young Americans to the Unification Church in the 1970's, Falwell said, "Reverend Sun Myung Moon is like the plague: he exploits boys and girls, and he should be exported [sic]." Falwell changed his tune in a big hurry when Falwell had a chance to line his pockets with Moon's ill-gotten cash. Falwell lavishly praised Moon, giving Moon further legitimacy with the American conservative movement.
5. Moon to the right-wing governmental apparatus. Moon has been the biggest contributor to the American right. Moon has dumped over $3 billion into the right-wing newspaper the Washington Times and has provided workers and funds to right-wing causes. Moon has given lucrative speaking fees to prominent GOP politicians, notable former president George H. W. Bush.
6. The right-wing governmental apparatus to Moon. Prominent GOP politicians, such as Orrin Hatch and former President Bush have given Moon the legitimacy he craves. This culminated in the disgraceful coronation ceremony in the Dirksen Senate Office Building in 2004. In addition, the videos of prominent politicians heaping fulsome praise on Moon have allowed Moon to gain converts and bilk money from gullible people.
7. The Falwell groups to the right-wing governmental apparatus. Falwell has devoted massive resources to electing right-wing politicians and causes. Falwell bragged that once a person entered his church the new convert was registered to vote (as a Republican, of course).
8. The right-wing governmental apparatus to Falwell. Falwell has been given legitimacy by every Republican president since Reagan. When Falwell died, Republican presidential candidates tried to outdo each other in praising Falwell.
9. Amway has been one of the largest contributors to the GOP and right-wing causes. In 1994, Amway gave to then what was the largest corporate contribution to the Republicans--$2.5 million. Most of the kingpin IBOs are on the hard right (a recent post on my main blog has a lot of information about the warped ideology of Amway's biggest IBO Dexter Yager). In addition, at Amway rallies, prominent right-wing politicians are paid huge speaking fees to extol the virtues of Amway to distributors; GOP politicians who have spoken at Amway rallies include "former Presidents George Bush, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford and former Vice Presidents Bob Dole and Dan Quayle, along with other GOP heavyweights like Gingrich, Oliver North, Senator Rick Santorum and even the latest SE Regional Chairman for the Bush-Cheney '04 campaign, Ralph Reed."
10. These de facto contributions to prominent Republicans have been lucrative for Amway. The late Molly Ivins reported that then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich inserted a special tax break in a bill that created a $283 million for Amway's parent corporation Aliticor. It is also worth noting that during the Bush years, nothing was done by governmental regulatory bodies like the FTC regarding the illegal but highly lucrative tools pyramid scheme (YouTube has the Dateline NBC segment here and here that has undercover footage of how the tools scam works--the segment also shows the bizarre cult-like atmosphere of the Amway/Quixtar rallies; quick note: for more of the fucked up shit that goes on at Amway rallies, watch Dexter Yager's wife Birdie speak at a rally here).
11. & 12. I put these two grouping together because, unfortunately, much of the right's governmental apparatus is comprised of neo-Confederates or people sympathetic to the neo-Confederate movement.
13. The neo-Confederate movement has filled the Washington Times' editorial page. I have written about this on my Moon blog. The Southern Poverty Law Center and The Nation's Max Blumenthal have addressed this phenomenon.
14. The Washington Times' editorial page appears to be the last quasi-respectable refuge for white supremacist crackpots. Having white supremacists working for a newspaper in the nation's capital has accorded the neo-Confederate movement a great deal of undeserved legitimacy. A quick note on Moon and white supremacists: I'm not sure what Moon's deal is with white supremacists. Although Moon is Korean, like the white supremacists, he is an anti-Semite and an anti-black racist. I recently asked a prominent academician about this and she told me that she had asked some people and they didn't have a clue).

Who loses?
Humanity in general loses when these reactionary and benighted ideologies prosper. However, there are specific victims:
1) New and prospective Amway distributors. Despite claims by Amway kingpins that Amway is the best way to get rich, only one person per 100,000 who joined Amway/Quixtar in 1999-2000 attained an income over $90,000 a year.
2) Moonie converts. These people waste their lives in the belief that a demented megalomaniac is the Messiah. It is very sad.
3) Victims of Moon scams. This category includes not only those who contributed to Moon canvassers claiming to represent charities and youth groups (this practice is know as "heavenly deception" in Moonie circles) but more seriously it includes the "spiritual sales" scandal in which widows in Japan were swindles out of their life savings by church operatives.
4) American journalism. It's bad enough that Moon scammed many people out of their life savings. It's worse when he uses $3 billion of this ill-gotten money to create a rag like the Washington Times. The Washington Times constitutes an assault on journalism.
5) Jerry Falwell's victims. This includes not only those members of Falwell's flock who were scammed by paying huge amounts for Falwell's tapes that purportedly showed evidence that Bill and Hillary Clinton were involved in murder and drug-running but the American people in general. Falwell poisoned American political discourse and he will not be missed.

Biography of Sun Myung Moon a Bestseller in Korea

2009-04-16T19:19:00.000-07:00

A biography of Sun Myung Moon, Becoming a World Figure through the Love of Peace, was released in South Korea last month and has become a bestseller. The book was published by a respectable publishing house, GimmYoungSa. From what I have gleaned from the Internet, prominent Christians in South Korea have denounced the book. The fact that this book is selling well shouldn't be an indicator that even a significant plurality of South Koreans embrace Moon's worldview. Take for example the case in the United States; the current number one book on the New York Times' best-seller list is Liberty and Tyranny by Mark Levin, a right-wing nut. A few years ago, Michael Savage's The Savage Nation was on the top of the best-seller list (I have written about the lunacy of both Levin and Savage here--also read my previous posts about Savage and Washington Times operative Jeffrey Kuhner, here and here).

Addendum: Before my anti-Moon activism became prominent, Robert Stacy McCain, Dixie dick, quoted my assessment of Savage's book in an article about Savage: "The Savage Nation is a scabrous book by a man who is a nutcase, a quack and a virulent hatemonger."

Exclusive: Washington Times Commentator on President Obama: "You are a traitor to your country."

2009-04-14T21:01:00.000-07:00

Today Jeffrey Kuhner, commentator for Sun Myung Moon's Washington Times, gave his weekly "special report" on Michael Savage's radio show and discussed President Obama's recent speech before the Turkish parliament. Like some others on the American right, Kuhner accused Obama for apologizing for America to the parliament. Throughout his report, Kuhner referred to the president as "Barack Hussein Obama" and ended his report by saying to President Obama: "You are a traitor to your country."

This is not unusual for Kuhner. When he was editor of Moon's now-defunct online magazine Insight, Kuhner first propagated the myth that Obama had been raised as a Muslim and was educated in a madrassa (On Sean Hannity's radio program, Kuhner encouraged Muslim extremists to view Obama as an apostate). Having Kuhner making these inflammatory comments to the audience of an unhinged nut like Savage is scary. Kuhner's rhetoric supports the report by the Department of Homeland Security that warns about the potential for violence by the American right.

New Videos on the Sun Myung Moon Video Blog

2009-04-12T20:48:00.000-07:00

Click here

Moon's Washington Times Distorts Obama's Position on Iraq war Funding Bills

2009-04-10T12:51:00.000-07:00

Media Matters for America has the story.

Must See Video: Heartbreak and Rage: : Ten Years Under Sun Myung Moon, A Cult Survivor's Memoir

2009-04-02T16:19:00.000-07:00

K. Gordon Neufeld, author of Heartbreak and Rage: Ten Years Under Sun Myung Moon, A Cult Survivor's Memoir, has a YouTube video that summarizes his ordeal in the Unification Church:

Must Read

2009-03-30T12:48:00.000-07:00

Salon.com's Alex Koppelman on a Washington Times editorial by Drudge Report editor Andrew Breitbart who is bemoaning the level of discourse in American politics. More on the Washington Times editorial page on my YouTube video and more on the Drudge Report's standard of discourse here.

Sun Myung Moon and 1970's Pop Culture

2009-03-27T18:58:00.000-07:00

If you ask someone younger than 30 about Sun Myung Moon and the Unification movement, more likely than not, you'll receive a blank stare. Moon is more influential than ever but he keeps a relatively low public profile than during the 1970's. As I have pointed out previously, Moon and the Unification movement had a very high public profile in the 1970's. It remained somewhat high during the first half of the 1980's with Moon's establishment of the Washington Times and his highly-publicized conviction for tax fraud and conspiracy.

During the 1970's, Moon and the Unification movement had a high public profile. This is largely due to several phenomena: 1) Moon had highly publicized rallies and mass marriage ceremonies at Yankee Stadium, Madison Square Garden, etc.; 2) The Unifcation movement had a big presence on U.S. college campuses which led to modest recruitment to the Moonies (and visible recruits hawking flowers and candy on American streets); The "cult" controversies involving Moon, the Peoples' Temple, and various Eastern gurus.

Moon was mercilessly skewered by Mad magazine in 1977 in a 4-page story titled "Mad's 'Religious Cult Leader' of the Year." in which "Mike Malice", a character clearly based on Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes, interviewed "The Reverend Sun Set Loony." Today I scanned a panel from the story (quick note: click on the illustrations to enlarge them). The art is by George Woodbridge and the writer is Lou Silverstone. Someday I will try to post the entire story online. Silverston was thorough--he even mentioned Moon's sexual exploitation of females converts in the guise of sexual "purification ceremonies." It's a devastating satire.

Moon and the Unification movement were also fodder for the adult satire magazine, National Lampoon. In the February 1980 issue (which was a retrospective of the 1970's), there was a piece titled "Weird Beliefs of the Seventies," in which the core belief of the Unification Church is listed as "[t]here is no god but the CIA, and Reverend Moon is its prophet." Also, in the gallery of people who defined the seventies were the "Kult Kids," smiling, clean-cut automatons selling trinkets and copies of Moon's now-defunct New York City Tribune.

One final note on 1970's parodies of Moon, Saturday Night Live's skit "Night of the Moonies" is no longer available on youTube due to copyright issues. Bummer.

Reverend Moon's Media and the Saddam/Oklahoma City Bombing "Connection"

2009-03-14T12:05:00.000-07:00

Frank Gaffney, a prominent neo-conservative who writes for the Washington Times, was recently on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews and revived the discredited neo-con talking point that Saddam Hussein was involved in the Oklahoma City bombing (Crooks and Liars has the video and transcript). As sane people know, the ghastly crime was concocted and executed by two American right-wing fanatics, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols) and not a shred of evidence has linked them to Saddam or his regime. This has not stopped people like Gaffney from spreading this misinformation not only on Hardball but on the pages of Moon's Washington Times.

UPDATE: (via Roger Ailes) Richard Miniter has been named
editor of the editorial pages and vice president of opinion of the Washington Times.

Congresswoman Scrubbed from Upcoming Moonie Event

2009-03-12T18:12:00.001-07:00

A few days ago, the Moon Tribune reported that an upcoming conference co-sponsored by two Unification front groups had Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson listed as one of the speakers. This is no longer the case (here is the official invitation). It is my hope that Johnson backed out when she realized that it was a Moon-related event.

Moon Co-Sponsored Event at U.S. Capitol, Rayburn House Office Building Features Croatian Ambassador

2009-03-03T17:09:00.000-08:00

(Updated below)
The online Moon Tribune reported that two Sun Myung Moon affiliated groups, the Universal Peace Federation (UPF) and the Women's Federation for World Peace (WFWP)are sponsoring a conference devoted to "women as peacemakers" on Capitol Hill along with a Peace X Peace, a women's peace group not affiliated with Moon. The event will be held March 12, 2009 in Room B339 of U.S. Capitol's Rayburn House Office Building. Featured speakers of the Croatian ambassador to the United States, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović as well as yet-to-be-named "congresswomen." Here is the official announcement for the event. [Update: The Moon Tribune reports that invitation now lists Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) as one of the speakers]

The Moon Tribune article discusses some of the implications of this event (as well as other Moon-sponsored events such as the 2004 "coronation" in the Dirksen Senate Office Buildling--namely that Moon uses these events to gain power and legitimacy. More later.

UPDATE: The Moon Tribune is on top of this: the invitation now lists Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX) as one of the speakers.

Breaking News: Moonie Capitol Hill Gathering

2009-03-03T16:46:00.001-08:00

Breaking
Organization run by Sun Myung Moon to hold gathering on Capitol Hill involving yet-to-be named U.S. congresswomen.

Article that Mentions Sun Myung Moon and the Washington Times

2009-02-28T17:30:00.001-08:00

From Robert Parry's article "The US Media & Democracy in Crisis":

The right-wing media infrastructure continued to grow with the influx of mysterious money from the likes of Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the Korean theocrat who launched the Washington Times in 1982. Later, Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch got into the act with purchases of U.S. newspapers and eventually the founding of the neoconservative Weekly Standard and right-wing Fox News.

By the late years of the Reagan-Bush-41 era, right-wing talk radio was taking off with Rush Limbaugh and other angry white men filling the AM dial with venomous attacks on liberals. When Bill Clinton managed to eke out a victory in 1992, he immediately came under sustained attack from this potent right-wing media machine.

Must Read

2009-02-26T21:22:00.000-08:00

Joan Walsh on the Washington Times versus Ty'Sheoma Bethea

Moon's Wash. Times and the Obama Citizenship Urban Legend

2009-02-25T13:52:00.000-08:00

On my personal blog, I have a long post on how the right has put forth paranoid conspiracy theories against both the Clinton and Obama administrations. To no surprise, Sun Myung Moon's Washington Times has been a major part of these media campaigns (one thing I didn't mention in the post was how the Moonie media was instrumental in starting the rumor that Obama was raised as a Muslim). One more thing, here's another article on how Moon's media apparatus has attempted to poison the well of American political discourse during the Clinton administration and the Clinton administration's inept response.

Sun Myung Moon's Washington Times Attacks on the Obama Administration

2009-02-18T16:46:00.000-08:00

I noticed that in the past several days, Media Matters for America has documented several attempts by the Washington Times to sully the Obama administration (MMFA also documented the attempt by former Washington Times operative Bill Sammon to disseminate misinformation about the stimulus).

Here are the recent posts on Moon's Washington Times: Media Matters documented how a Times editorial invoked Hitler in falsely suggesting that a provision in a House bill would lead to the cutting off of medical treatment to the elderly and the disabled; The Times adopted the GOP's inflated cost-per-job calculation for recovery bill; The Times falsely claimed CBO "estimated that the full cost of" recovery bill "will reach $3.2 trillion by 2019"; Wash. Times article revives Obama flag smears, including inflammatory rants from radio shock jock Michael Savage. I had recently posted about the relationship between Savage (née Weiner) and the Times.

Lanny Davis: Glutton for Punishment and Ridicule

2009-02-03T20:44:00.000-08:00

When I was doing research for a post on my main blog about why taking on Rush Limbaugh is a winning strategy for the Obama administration, I found some interesting information about former Clinton adviser Lanny Davis. The reason I was doing research on Davis was that early in the Clinton administration, when Limbaugh and other talk radio jocks were running roughshod over the truth and concocting lunatic conspiracy theories about Bill and Hillary being behind the death of Vince Foster, instead of an strategy of aggressively exposing the lies of Limbaugh, Falwell, Liddy and others, the Clinton administration sent out Lanny Davis to appear on G. Gordon Liddy's radio show. Liddy was one of the top proponents of the various Vince Foster conspiracy theories. He should have been easy to discredit. For one thing, the man is an unrepentant terrorist who had planned to bomb the Brookings Institution. He had Nazi sympathies and was one of the Watergate conspirators. I defy anyone to read Liddy's autobiography Will without concluding that the man is a complete nutcase.

Instead of taking the fight to Liddy, Davis appeared on Liddy's radio show and took the role of the liberal punching bag (good practice for Davis' later role as a Fox News Democrat). Liddy and Davis became fast friends. What a clueless pussy.

Davis is a masochist. He loves being abused by the right. Davis was in George W. Bush's fraternity at Yale and being an underclassman to Dubya, Davis was hazed by the future president. In addition to being an on-air punching bag on Fox News, Davis provides legitimacy to Sun Myung Moon's Washington Times by writing a column for the rag.

One hilarious thing I recently found out, Davis was a victim of the right-wing scam-business Amway (for more information on the Amway Global scam, read my blog devoted to Amway). That's right: Lanny Davis used to be an Amway salesman. This is the nadir of humiliation. Not only was Davis a victim of a scam that helped to fund the radical right but Davis acted like a typical Amway drone. I busted a gut when I read this excerpt from a 1997 Washington Post article by Lloyd Grove on Davis:

After he narrowly lost a 1976 House race, Davis, 51, began evangelizing for the motivational door-to-door distribution company, which markets everything from toothpaste to telephone service. A prominent Maryland lawyer-lobbyist, who refused to speak for attribution, recalled that Davis once invited him to lunch to discuss a "business opportunity."

"We didn't order yet when he started talking, and it was like a switch went on," the lobbyist recounted. "He asked, `Are you interested in making more money?' Well, what lawyer isn't? `Do you want to be in control of your destiny?' And I go, `Wait a minute, Lanny -- is this an Amway pitch?'

"And he says, `Can I finish? I've got these wonderful products to show you.' So he opens this box from the front to reveal a beautiful array of multicolored bottles and packages of toothpaste, dishwashing soap and other stuff. And I said, `No, Lanny. Please. No demonstrations. Thank you and good luck.' I had to virtually push myself away from him, but I got up and left."

This guy is a piece of work. It's just sad that the Clintons trusted him to deal with the right's media.

Addendum: Grove's Washington Post article is not available online so I posted it on the archives of my main blog.

Jeffrey Kuhner and Michael Savage: Birds of a Feather

2009-02-03T18:29:00.000-08:00

I was flipping through radio stations today and tuned into Michael Savage's radio program. For those of you not familiar with Savage and his radio show, the guy is a complete loon. I wrote a review blog of his book Savage Nation that gives some examples of Savage's lunacy and racism (I also have a more recent post on my main blog about Savage and racism). What is scary about Savage is the fact that he has a radio audience of 8 million people.

Today when I was listening, I discovered that Washington Times operative Jeffrey T. Kuhner provides a weekly "special report" for Savage's radio program. Kuhner, when he wrote for Moon's Insight magazine, started the rumor that Barack Obama was a Muslim who went to school in a madrassa. I transcribed a radio conversation of Kuhner with Sean Hannity in which Kuhner makes a veiled call for Obama to be assassinated by Muslim extremists (I have another post that mentions Kuhner). True to form on Savage's program, Kuhner had a special message to members of the American military. Kuhner told the troops: "You have a commander-in-chief who no longer believes in you." This from a drone who gets his paycheck from a megalomaniac who believes America is "Satan's harvest."

UPDATE I: I almost forgot: before Kuhner was on, Savage's guest was right-wing activist Daniel Flynn. A few years ago, when Flynn was on a radio program in LA, I confronted him about Sun Myung Moon.

UPDATE II: On April 14, 2009, Kuhner appeared on Savage's radio program and called President Obama "a traitor."

The Washington Times Caught Re-writing the GOP Script on Stimulus Bill

2009-02-02T16:50:00.000-08:00

No big surprise. Media Matters for America has the scoop.

Søren Kierkegaard, Sun Myung Moon, and Liberation

2009-01-23T15:53:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite philosophers is Søren Kierkegaard who, along with one of my other favorite philosophers Albert Camus, developed the theory of philosophical absurdism--the belief that "the efforts of humanity to find meaning in the universe ultimately fail (and, hence, are absurd) because no such meaning exists, at least in relation to humanity." I'm not an orthodox absurdist but one of the things that leads me to give credence to the tenets of absurdism is the fact that a complete nutjob like Moon has become a power player in the capital of the most powerful nation in the world and how the Washington media has relinquished its role of watchdog regarding Moon (apparently, if you are good enough of a thief to be able to buy a printing press and subsidize it for a quarter of a century from the proceeds of a scam that wiped out the life savings of many bereaved widows, then somehow in the logic of many DC journalists, then you're one of the gang.

Martin Herbst, a former head of the Moonies in Slovenia, who according to this rough translation of a Danish journal, decided to leave Moon's sphere of influence after he read Kierkegaard. Perhaps I can send some of Kierkegaard's writings to members of the Washington press corps.

Coincidence? Don't count on it

2009-01-23T13:29:00.000-08:00

I addressed sun Myung Moon's role in the fascistic World Anti-Communist League (WACL) in my YouTube video "The World's Most Powerful Cult" as well as in this post. Richard Bartholomew reports that a conference co-sponsored by Moonie front groups such as the Women's Federation for World Peace and the Universal Peace Federation took place at the same location as a WACL conference held earlier this year.

Will George W. Bush Pardon Sun Myung Moon?

2009-01-08T09:15:00.000-08:00

I don't know but it wouldn't surprise me.

1/23/09 UPDATE: Bush is out of office and no pardon for Moon.

Who is the Real Knave?

2009-01-04T14:38:00.000-08:00

The Moonie Times has its list of Nobles and Knaves of the year 2008. Not surprisingly, the political people list of knaves includes only Democrats or people left-of-center (Hillary Clinton, ACORN, Sandra Bernhard, Harry Reid) while the political poeple listed as nobles are Republicans or right-of-center (Governor Bobby "The Exorcist" Jindal and the late Tony Snow). I found it more than a bit interesting that a list of knaves would be concocted by an alleged newspaper whose only reason for existence is due to the grandiose vision of a predatory megalomaniac whose goal is to gain power in the nation's capital and who paid over $3 billion to operate this rag through cleaning out Japanese widows of their life savings.

UPDATE: On the subject of knaves, also in today's Times is an op-ed by Jeffrey Kuhner, the Moonie operative who started the Obama-is-a-Muslim rumor and appeared on Sean Hannity's radio program and all but called for radical Muslims to assassinate Obama for being "an apostate." Kuhner calls 2008 a year of infamy because it was the year that Obama was elected. Kuhner blames the US news media:

An honest and serious media would have exposed all of these issues - and the dangerous pitfalls of an Obama presidency. Instead, the 2008 campaign represented the final culmination of a low, dishonest decade. A sycophantic press corps suppressed damaging information about Mr. Obama and effectively carried him into the White House. They have thus carried America's Neville Chamberlain on their shoulders, in a massive delusion that the problem was George W. Bush when, in fact, the problem we face are the evil forces aligned against us.

Kuhner doesn't mention the supposedly damaging information that the media suppressed. Was he referring the rumor that Kuhner started about Obama being a closet Muslim?

Danny Davis Does the Right Thing (at long last)

2008-12-31T15:01:00.000-08:00

Readers of this blog know that I'm no fan of U.S. Representative Danny Davis (D-IL) for his part in the deranged Moon coronation ceremony and his pathetic apologia for his participation (according to Davis, Moon declaring himself the Messiah "was similar to a baseball team owner telling team members that 'we are the greatest team on earth'" prior to a baseball game).

Davis is the right thing by turning down disgraced Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich's offer to appoint him to Barack Obama's seat in the U.S. Senate.

Have a happy 2009!

My Fitzmas: The Indictment of Danny Davis

2008-12-11T20:44:00.000-08:00

Of course, only if Davis did something illegal in his lobbying for Barack Obama's Senate seat. I am hoping and praying that Davis did something illegal and gets caught up in the Blagojevich investigation. We already know that Davis has no soul: this is the guy who presented the crown to Moon and his wife at the demented coronation ceremony in the Dirksen Senate Office Building in 2004 and gave a completely lame excuse when pressed about it. I just hope he did something illegal and U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald finds a smoking gun.

Remembering Gary Webb

2008-12-10T10:41:00.000-08:00

On the forth anniversary of the tragic suicide death of journalist Gary Webb, Robert Parry wrote a great article in Consortium News on how Webb, who uncovered the contra-cocaine connection, was hounded out of the journalistic profession and notes how the lion's share of the credit goes to operatives for Reverend Moon's Washington Times.

The Hell with Danny Davis--He doesn't Deserve Obama's Senate Seat

2008-11-29T22:31:00.000-08:00

(Updated below)
Appointing a clown like Representative Danny Davis to serve out Barack Obama's term in the U.S. Senate would be a slap in the face to those victims of Sun Myung Moon's predatory reign as head of the Unification Church. Moon is a criminal and sexual predator who has used billions stolen from Japanese widows and others to buy legitimacy in Washington. This led to the bizarre 2004 coronation ceremony in the Dirksen Senate Office Building in which Representative Davis presented a crown to the demented would-be Messiah. More on this is on Crooks and Liars and Firedoglake.

UPDATE I:Another Moon-related item: in Moon's Washington Times, rightly called the Bush administration's "house organ" by Paul Krugman, I just read the following words, written without irony, in an editorial by Alan Nathan:

What chance do arguments have to rise and fall on their merits if they're framed by a seemingly party-owned press? And once that party comes to power, won't its lackey journalists constitute a type of state-owned press? In other words (after Inauguration Day), how can the blushing news media keep from sharing President-elect Barack Obama's political bed - given they have already serviced his electoral needs?

The news reporting world must recognize that responsible journalism requires universal standards of neutrality, and that this can only occur when facts are presented in their self-evident form. When they're not, the public naturally becomes more propagandized than informed. Punditry from all political perspectives is wonderfully helpful and perfectly legitimate - until it masquerades as news.

For information on how the Washington Times is a force of reaction and racial bigotry, check out my YouTube video "The World's Most Powerful Cult."

UPDATE II: Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune thinks that Davis should gives some answers about his participation in the Moon Coronation.

Three Cheers for the Solomon Islands Clergy

2008-11-26T14:20:00.000-08:00

(via The Moon Tribune)an article in the Solomon Times newspaper: "Boycott "Moonie" Festival: Church Leaders":

Christian ministries and organizations are unanimous in their call for a boycott of the Global Peace Festival and their description of Reverend Moon as the "Devil and the Anti-Christ, the end time figure spoken off in the Book of Revelation" . . . The Church leader stated that the Reverend Moon Movement has succeeded in brain washing such young Christians, and Moon is now using them to fill up his own pockets, "he has also been making a mockery of the institution of marriage as part of his strategy to win followers" . . .
The Church leader said that Mr. and Mrs. Moon have been using words and ideas that are familiar, attractive including their constant talking about family; "but it is not God' family that Mr. and Mrs. Moon are talking about, it is all about unity under the leadership of Reverend Moon."

Sun Myung Moon and the Right's Media Apparatus

2008-11-20T11:11:00.000-08:00

Robert Parry on the media's asymmetry:

Despite Barack Obama’s election victory, this media asymmetry will not go away. Indeed, it is almost certain to limit his ability to bring about significant change and could tilt the country back in the direction of the Republicans in the not-too-distant future.

It is a pattern I have seen often since 1977 when I arrived in Washington as a reporter for the Associated Press.

During that time, while the American Left has been largely absent from the national media landscape, wealthy right-wingers (from foundations like Olin and Scaife to media moguls like Sun Myung Moon and Rupert Murdoch) have poured tens of billions of dollars into media.

Over those years, the Right built a towering – and vertically integrated – media structure reaching from newspapers, magazines and books to talk radio, cable TV and the Internet, an apparatus concentrated in the power centers of New York and Washington.

The Right also invested money in attack groups to go after mainstream journalists who dared dig up information that put right-wing policies or politicians in a negative light. Offending journalists were accused of “liberal bias” and often found themselves hounded from the national press corps.

Over time, this imbalance had a spillover effect. Many right-wing and neoconservative pundits landed prime spots on mainstream TV news shows and the Op-Ed pages of leading newspapers, such as the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Even the most dangerous of right-wing ideas – such as free-market absolutism at home and neoconservative imperialism abroad – got respectful if not reverential treatment across the mainstream-to-right-wing media spectrum, the news outlets that most Americans read, heard and watched.

Obama Campaign Boots Sun Myung Moon's Washington Times from its Press Plane

2008-11-01T13:49:00.000-07:00

(Updated below)
Last night I heard about the Obama campaign's to get expel the "reporter" for the Washington Times (as well as reporters from the New York Post and the Dallas Morning News). Why did it take so long? Just because a Messiah wannabe buys a printing press doesn't mean that what is produced is a legitimate journalistic entity. In fact, the Moonie Times has a long history of engaging in political dirty tricks against Democratic presidential candidates (e.g., see my video "The World's Most Powerful Cult" for more information).

It's interesting how the right's media is spinning it. To no surprise, Fox News is suggesting that the reason was that all three of the papers endorsed McCain. The Times' editor-in-chief John Solomon appeared on right-wing talk radio show hosted by Mark Levin, a former Reagan Justice Department official and former (?) recipient of wing-nut welfare from Richard Mellon Scaife. Solomon (whom Levin described as a good friend) and said pretty much what he said to the Washington Post. Here is today's Times story on the expulsion.

UPDATE: Fox News Democrat Kirsten Powers is slightly less critical than her Fox News colleagues:

All three papers endorsed McCain - was the Obama move retaliation? It seems unlikely. More likely, the campaign wanted to make room for fawning coverage - and who better to get rid of than papers that cover you critically?

The GOP's "FBI-Is-Investigating" Smear and Moon's Washington Times

2008-10-20T10:17:00.000-07:00

Robert Parry has written about the the Times' role in the Clinton passport scandal of the 1992 election before. In his latest article, Parry puts in in context with the current FBI investigation of ACORN.

John McCain, The U.S. Council for World Freedom, the World Anti-Communist League, and Sun Myung Moon

2008-10-05T13:03:00.000-07:00

This morning on Meet the Press, when the topic of the discussion was the attempts by the McCain campaign and the right's media to link Barack Obama to former Weather Underground member William Ayers, Democratic strategist Paul Begala noted that McCain has his own problem with consorting with extremists considering his membership of the board of the U.S. Council for World Freedom, an affiliate of the World Anti-Communist League (WACL). Begala noted that the Anti=Defamation League has documented how the WACL (now known as the World League for Freedom and Democracy) “has increasingly become a gathering place, a forum, a point of contact for extremists, racists and anti-Semites.”

That's putting it lightly. I did some research on the WACL for my Sun Myung Moon blog when I heard that Moon had been a major financial supporter of the League in the 1970's and 1980's. The definitive book on the League is Scott and Jon Lee Anderson's Inside the League: The Shocking Expose of How Terrorists, Nazis, and Latin American Death Squads Have Infiltrated the World Anti-Communist League (I used information culled from the book for my YouTube video "The World's Most Powerful Cult"). What the book documents is shocking. The League has served as a resource for neo-Nazis (former chairman of the WACL was expelled when it was discovered that he been in various neo-Nazi organizations). The League did what it could to prop up undemocratic regimes and aided Salvadorian terrorist death squad leader Roberto D'Aubuisson whose nickname "Blowtorch Bob" was coined because of his favorite instrument of torture (quick aside: D'Aubuisson had also received support from figures beloved by "values voters": Jesse Helms and Jerry Falwell).

The big difference between Obama and McCain: Obama did some educational reform projects with William Ayers decades after his Weather Underground activities. McCain was affiliated with the WACL at the time in which it was a nest of neo-Nazis and was openly supporting terrorist like D'Aubuisson. How come I didn't know about McCain's affiliation with the group until today?

The Washington Media Establishment and Sun Myung Moon

2008-10-04T15:13:00.000-07:00

Today I spoke with NPR's Juan Williams after he gave a talk at the 3rd Annual San Diego City College International Book Fair. I asked him about Moon and his media apparatus. While Williams was familiar with the Times and Insightmag.com, he confessed that he knew little about the massive amounts of money that the Moon was sinking into the Times and his other media projects to keep them afloat. More important, Williams didn't know about the schemes that Moon and his operatives have used to fund these white elephants.

Sadly, Williams is typical of the DC journalistic community. Moon and his operation warrant scrutiny from Washington journalists. I'm an optimist but I'm not holding my breath.

The Media Landscape 2008

2008-09-24T08:43:00.000-07:00

Washington Times' Tony Blankley Excoriates Media for Not Swiftboating Obama
Read Blankley's column here. Blankley was a promoter of the Swift Boat lies during the 2004 campaign.

Blankley's two columns are revealing. During the 2004 campaign, the Kerry campaign was run by vacillating people like Bob Shrum who didn't want to take on these operatives head on--their lack of action was an unmitigated disaster. Also, Media Matters for America had just been established. The mainstream media took a he-said-she-said approach to the lies put forth by the Swift Boat operatives.

Although the hard right's media apparatus is still dominant, the media landscape has changed significantly in the last four years. Media Matters has gained a significant audience. Keith Olbermann is on the air and holding the media's feet to the fire. The Huffington Post is providing stiff competition for Drudge. Fox News is rightfully becoming marginalized by increasing numbers of Americans.

A good example of these changes are the way that the media have responded to fringe writer Jerome Corsi, the co-author of the Swift Boat book, Unfit for Command, and who in 2008, wrote an anti-Obama book. This year, Corsi has received the scrutiny he deserved and his lies were not allowed to be recycled through Fox News to the mainstream media.

There's a lot of work to be done but we've come a long way in four years.

The Moonie Media, Sean Hannity, Fox News, and the "Obama is a Muslim" Meme

2008-09-14T05:58:00.001-07:00

Last weekend in Reverend Moon's Washington Times, Jeffrey Kuhner expressed concern that "[t]he liberal media are determined to tarnish the reputation of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin." Kuhner was the one who started the rumor that Barack Obama was a closet Muslim. In January 2007 edition Kuhner made the claim in the online Moonie publication, InsightMag.com, that the Clinton campaign was spreading the rumor that Obama was a closet Muslim and had attended a madrassa (here's a brief overview of Kuhner's debunked claims). As I reported in my personal blog, Kuhner went on Sean Hannity's radio program and made inflammatory statements about Obama and Islam that included a veiled call for Muslim extremists to assassinate Obama (Hannity, of course, ate it up). Last week, Sean Hannity--against all evidence--claimed that nobody on Fox News claimed that Obama is a Muslim.

My thoughts: It's ironic that Obama's Americanism would be challenged by publications owned by an America-hating theocratic criminal (though this is hardly unique: some of the voices on the right that accuse the left of hating America have a soft spot of the old Confederacy). This is an illustration of how fringe Moonie publications can lead to a disinformation campaign that reaches tens of millions (I previously explained how this media food chain operated--though for more info, check out David Brock's book The Republican Noise Machine).

Final Thought: The "Obama is a Muslim" Spam E-mails"
The fact that dirty tricks operatives use spam e-mails to spread the Obama/Muslim rumor is proof that a small but significant number of Americans are morons. I have had e-mail for the last 14 years and the only thing in my spam folder have been solicitations for prescription drugs, Nigerian 419 scams, skanks wanting me to check out their webcams, people selling Rolex watch knock-offs, and people selling concoctions to enlarge penises. For fuck's sake, why would anyone read an anonymous spam e-mail and believe it, especially when a quick Google search will find that the rumor in question is false?

Bad Education: Moon's University of Bridgeport Named "Worst College in America"

2008-09-03T10:46:00.000-07:00

Radar magazine has the scoop.

Previously, Radar listed the Univeristy of Bridgeport and another insititution with financial ties to Moon, the late Jerry Falwell's Liberty Univerity on its annual list of worst colleges.

Quick note: Radar featured me in its article on crashing the Oscars.