Media Matters Daily Summary

Here are today's news items from Media Matters for America, click on the title or 'read more' to read the entirety of each story. WND's Hentoff drums up bogus controversy over Kagan's First Amendment views In a WorldNetDaily column, Nat Hentoff advanced numerous falsehoods in order to suggest Elena Kagan is anti-free speech, including the false claims that Kagan has argued that the government could ban pamphlets such as Thomas Paine's Common Sense and could "redistribute" or "unskew" speech on talk radio. Read More Wash. Times reports debunked "Climategate" myth as fact A Washington Times article falsely claimed that the reportedly hacked emails from the University of East Anglia "seemed to suggest scientists manipulated data" and that they called "into question" "the science underpinning claims of global warming." In fact, official inquiries into the scientists' conduct found that they did not manipulate data, and despite months of false accusations from right-wing media, the content of the emails did not undermine global warming science. Read More Beck falsely claims Kagan supports holding suspected terrorists "without due process" Glenn Beck falsely claimed that Elena Kagan supports detaining suspected terrorists indefinitely without due process. In fact, Kagan testified that, when detaining terrorist suspects indefinitely as enemy combatants during a time of war, a transparent legal procedure that included "substantial due process" has to be used. Read More Fox launches spurious attack that Obama smeared police by criticizing AZ law Fox & Friends responded to President Obama's statement that the Arizona immigration law "has the potential of being applied in a discriminatory fashion" by accusing Obama of maligning police officers. However, numerous law enforcement officers and legal experts have also expressed concerns that the law places officers in "an untenable position" where it's "very difficult not to profile." Read More Media conservatives enraged that Brennan used the Arabic word for Jerusalem Right-wing media figures have freaked out over a video of White House adviser John Brennan mentioning his love for "Al Quds -- Jerusalem," with some asserting that Brennan had used the "Islamist name" to refer to Jerusalem. In fact, "Al Quds" is simply the Arabic word for Jerusalem, which other prominent political leaders have also used. Read More You can help support our work; become a volunteer media monitor, or donate to Media Matters for America.