Fired IG Runs to WND, Spins Misleading Conspiracy Topic: WorldNetDaily
A June 13 WorldNetDaily article by Drew Zahn features claims by Gerald Walpin, a former inspector general for the Corporation for National and Community Service, the federal office that oversees AmeriCorps, that he was fired by the Obama administration because he "filed two reports exposing gross misappropriation of federal AmeriCorps funds by a prominent Barack Obama supporter." Zahn, however, does not appear to have any interest whatsoever in telling the full story, even though such information was available prior to the publication of his article.
Zahn states that Walpin "Walpin dared to push for action against the St. HOPE Academy program – run by Obama supporter and former NBA star Kevin Johnson – which had misappropriated hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal AmeriCorps funds." But there's more to the story that Zahn doesn't tell. According to Talking Points Memo:
- Later that month, Walpin, on behalf of CNCS, released the findings of the federal probe, which it appears he had led. Walpin found that St. HOPE had improperly used hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant money, by using AmeriCorps volunteers to run errands for Johnson, wash his car, and do political work relating to a local school board race. Saying he had found "potential criminal violations," Walpin recommended that while the US attorney's office's investigation was ongoing, Johnson and another St. HOPE official be barred from receiving federal money. But as the Bee would later note in an editorial, "Walpin decided to act before any legal body determined whether irregularities in the administration of grants from 2004-2007 reflected inadvertent errors and ignorance of regulations or actual fraud."
- Nonetheless, days later, a "debarment official" at CNCS followed up on Walpin's recommendation, taking the rare step of issuing a letter suspending Johnson and the other official from receiving federal funds. Walpin touted the news in "huge red headlines" on his IG website, according to the Bee.
- The Bee would later find that, since its inception in 1994, the NCSC had suspended only two other organizations and three other people, and that the irregularities at St. HOPE were similar to those found at other nonprofits that were not suspended.
- Johnson's camp called the findings "relatively minor issues," and called Walpin, who was appointed to his post by President Bush, a "right-wing Republican." Johnson's campaign cited a 2005 incident in which Walpin had introduced Mitt Romney at a meeting of the conservative Federalist Society -- on whose board Walpin sits -- by saying that Romney served as governor of a state, Massachusetts, run by the "modern-day KKK ... the Kennedy-Kerry Klan."
[...]
So here's what it sounds like: Johnson and his non-profit ran a very loose operation, which deserved some kind of sanction. But Walpin's action -- in publicly suggesting, without much apparent evidence, that Johnson might have committed a crime, and having Johnson barred from receiving federal funds, ultimately jeopardizing the fortunes of the city as a whole after Johnson became mayor -- was out of all proportion to the wrongdoing.
ABC's Jake Tapper further reports that the U.S. Attorney's office through which Walpin's charges would have been filed found that Walpin withheld exculapory information from the office -- in the office's words, Walpin "overstepped his authority by electing to provide my office with selective information and withholding other potentially significant information at the expense of determining the truth" -- and made pronouncements in the media before discussing them with the office, thus "hindering our investigation and handling of this matter."
Walpin's actions, Tapper reports, "repeatedly offended officials of the US Attorney's office, to the point that the Republican-appointee in the US Attorney's office filed an official complain[t] aginst the Republican-appointed Inspector General."
Zahn does not tell his readers the details of the U.S. attorney's complaints, but he wrote that Walpin "pointed out that the inspector general has not been found guilty of any misconduct, and the charges are disputed." Nor does Zahn report the important fact that Walpin is a Republican, as is the U.S. attorney who complained about him.
Remember that WND has a history of lying and misleading about Obama, so expect Zahn to behave just like Walpin and withhold exculpatory information.
WND Ignores Birther's Prayer for Obama's Death Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily has already dismissed the alleged shooter of George Tiller as mentally ill and the alleged shooter of a guard at the Holocaust Museum as a liberal. How will it address the issue of someone praying for the death of President Obama?
Former Southern Baptist Convention official Wiley Drake told radio host Alan Colmes last week that he's using "imprecatory prayer" to pray for the death of the "usurper that is in the White House," Barack Obama.
WND loves Wiley Drake -- he's one of the people involved in the Obama birth certificate conspiracy as a plaintiff with Alan Keyes in one lawsuit on the issue. He has also endorsed preacher David Wilkerson's prediction of an "earth-shattering calamity" -- "riots and blazing fires" in New York City and across the East Coast -- in the near future. WND has also endorsed Drake's call of "imprecatory prayer" in begging God to rain on Obama's acceptance speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. (It didn't work.)
But curiously, WND has not reported Drake's death threat on Obama. Why?
As we've noted, WND has a habit of refusing to tell its readers facts that confict with its right-wing agenda. It's not good for right-wingers to be so overt about their hatred as Drake, so WND will send this down the memory hole, just as it did any evidence that Tiller's alleged killer, Scott Roeder, had closer ties to Operation Rescue that WND wants to admit, or any of Randall Terry's less-than-concilatory statements on Tiller's death.
Because Drake went beyond WND's agenda, it seems WND will pretend he never said it at all.
Noel Sheppard, in defending Rush Limbaugh against a claim that he once portrayed Chelsea Clinton as the "White House dog," used a June 12 NewsBusters post to repeat another blog post that purports to depict the incident as a mistake and a misunderstanding and insisting that Limbaugh profusely apologized at the time.
What's lacking, though, is any actual evidence to support the claim.
The blog Sheppard cited is called Lying Liar, which ought to be a warning sign (it largely centers on attacking Al Franken). It is anonymously written. The post Sheppard cited provides no outside links to back up the claims it makes.
Indeed, actual physical evidence to support Sheppard's version of events is sorely lacking -- even NewsBusters' parent organization, the Media Research Center, has never ventured to defend Limbaugh in such a way. The only direct reference to the incident that we could find in the MRC archive came in a 2003 CyberAlert; that reference came in the course of quoting someone else, and no effort is made to highlight or correct the claim. That indicates to us that it believes the claim is true.
Limbaugh presumably has access to copies of the original broadcasts of his '90s TV show, on which the incident reportedly took place. All he has to do is post the video of the incident and the subsequent purported apologies, and that would clear his name.
The latest anti-Obama WorldNetDaily rant from Jackie Mason, in a June 11 video:
Every time a new president comes into office, he tries to tell you how he's going to settle the problem of Israel, and now it's Barack Obama's chance to let you know how he's going to solve this problem. But all of the other presidents who wanted to solve this problem were constantly evenhanded or that everybody thought they were evenhanded or at least they attempted to be evenhanded. Barack Obama, obviously, through all the statesmanship and the flowery phrases and the fancy dialogue, he's not even attempting to be evenhanded. He's giving orders to Israel: "Give up your settlements. I want to make sure that one more person doesn't [unintelligible] into that settlement and they don't extend the living room or kitchen or toilet and you're very closely organized in exactly that spot and you shouldn't move from that spot for a second and a half because somehow that's causing all the trouble all over the world. Iran would never start a war and peace on earth would reign all over the universe if Israel just didn't build another kitchen or toilet or they didn't add another person nobody drank a glass of water and an extra foot of land.
Now, do believe this nonsense? This is the biggest piece of fakery in the world and this man with all the flowery phrases, if you listen carefully, is defrauding America because Israel is in no way any problem in this situation.
[...]
Besides, why should the settlements be considered a problem in the first place? Is it even fair to suggest it? Right now, over a million and a half -- almost -- closer to two million Arabs live on Israeli land. Not only do they live there, but they're equal citizens with Israeli in almost every way. Health care benefits, unemployment benefits, they have the same opportunities as Israelis to get ahead in life and to get the same equal democratic principles and problems and they live the same democratic life that every Israeli does, on equal terms in every way. They're equal citizens. How come the Israelis don't complain: "Look at this, There's only a million and a half Arabs here, there better not be one more, they better not build another toilet or another kitchen." A million and a half Arabs who are a threat to Israel every day, commiting suicide bombings every day. And they take their chance with their very lives to keep a million and a half Arabs in their country every day, and it doesn't bother them. But three extra Jews who are mostly religious Jews walking around with a shawl and a prayer book, they are the greatest menace to society when there's only a couple hundred of them or maybe a couple thousand? How did they become such a menace to the Arabs when a million and a half Arabs who are threatening to kill Jews every day are not considered a threat?
There are no such thing as Israeli suicide bombers -- it never existed, it never happened, they're not engangering anybody's life. They're living a peaceful life. Most of them are very religious, humble Jews minding their own business. Why are they such a terrible threat with an extra kitchen? This is the biggest fraud in the world. We are endangering our lives every day, and we keep them there as equal citizens. But let one Jew build a toilet, and it's called an extension of a settlement, and they're the biggest threat in the world to the Arabs.
Suicide bombers is not a threat but an extra toilet is? This is a fraud and chicanery and deception, and your president ought to be ashamed of himself to make an issue out of it.
1) The population of Israeli settlements in the West Back is much more than "maybe a couple thousand"; as of 2006, it was more than 267,000. And they're not all "living a peaceful life"; some are engaged in vigilante violence against Palestinians.
2) Far from being "not considered a threat," right-wing Israeli politicans, including the far-right Kach/Kahane Chai, advocate removal (by various means) of all Arabs rom Israel.
3) Obama is not "giving orders" to Israel; Obama cannot order another sovereign nation to do anything. He has, however, requested that settlement activity stop as part of a peace process with the Palestinians.
The worst, however, and the most atrocious lie our president has told – or is likely to tell – is the one that follows:
I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.
That would be the oath of office he took on Jan. 20, 2009. Instead of supporting and defending the Constitution, he perforated it. You can guess what he's been doing with the pieces – every day since he was sworn in.
WND Again Neglects To Mention Its Shared Interests With Von Brunn Topic: WorldNetDaily
A June 11 WorldNetDaily article by Bob Unruh asserts that accused Holocaust Museum shooter James von Brunn "was a Darwin-lover who hated the Bible and Christians, and defies media efforts to classify him as a stereotypical 'right-winger.'"
Unruh fails to mention that von Brunn is also a birther who hated the Federal Reserve -- interests von Brunn shareswith WorldNetDaily.
The list of related WND links at the end of Unruh's article, however, is largely comprised ofarticles related to WND's obsession of Barack Obama's birth certificate -- which suggests that WND is quite aware of this connection but has chosen to censor it.
As we've noted, WND has criticized Fox News anchor Shepard Smith for ridiculing the obsession over Obama's birth certificate but neglected to report the context of Smith's criticism that von Brunn is a birther.
ConWeb Misleads on Mirandizing Detainees Topic: The ConWeb
A June 10 WorldNetDaily article by Chelsea Schilling regurgitates a Weekly Standard report claiming "the Obama Justice Department has quietly ordered FBI agents to read Miranda rights to high value detainees captured and held at U.S. detention facilities in Afghanistan, according a senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee." Since Schilling made no apparent effort to verify anything on her own, she has written an article that is dubious at best.
By contrast, the Washington Independent quoted Gen. David Petraeus as saying, "The real rumor yesterday is whether our forces were reading Miranda rights to detainees and the answer to that is no." And the Washington Post's Greg Sargent contacted a Justice Department spokesman, who said: "There has been no policy change and nor blanket instruction issued for FBI agents to Mirandize detainees overseas. While there have been specific cases in which FBI agents have Mirandized suspects overseas, at both Bagram and in other situations, in order to preserve the quality of evidence obtained, there has been no overall policy change with respect to detainees."
In other words, if there is indeed a policy to Mirandize detainees, it appears to have begun in the Bush administration. Indeed, the author of that Weekly Standard report, Stephen Hayes, said himself that "There are reports that this was happening on specific bases as going back as early as July 2008."'
The rest of the ConWeb behaved only slightly better on this story, reporting the claim but not the full truth.
A June 11 Newsmax article by Dave Eberhart repeats the claim and includes the Justice Department statement, but Eberhart ignores Hayes' statement that the Mirandizing began under the Bush administration.
David Limbaugh, in a June 12 column that appears at WorldNetDaily and Newsmax, asserted that "There are reports that [Obama's] Justice Department has quietly ordered the FBI to give Miranda warnings to enemy combatants captured at war in Afghanistan" without noting reports that it apparently started under the Bush administration.
Rich Galen, in his June 12 CNSNews.com column, also repeated the claim without noting that it apparently started under the Bush administration.
I don't know about you, but I find it troubling that the "oh, so tolerant leftists" who elected their illegal alien messiah have abandoned the Nazi theme in their political discussions.
That must mean the left is happy with the new government.
[...]
I'm sure you will be pleased – as I am – to know that America's brief flirtation with the Bush-Hitler Nazis has cooled, the jack-booted, Democrat prestitutes have made the world safe for dissent, and tolerance is once again the law of the land.
McMillan curiously fails to mention that his fellow WND columnists have filled the void with repeatedly likening President Obama to Nazis. If likening President Bush to Hitler was so terrible, why does McMillan tolerate likening Obama to Hitler?
Richard Bartholomew catches WorldNetDaily essentially using someone else's paid on the WND website to attack President Obama -- this time, essentially blaming him for the swine flu epidemic. The website to which the ad links, which sells a self-proclaimed "Flu Survival Kit," doesn't mention Obama directly, but it does claim:
The Globalists dug up frozen 1918 flu death cadavers in Siberia, extracted the DNA of the deadly Spanish flu and combined it with the very deadly Bird Flu (H5N1), mixed it with Swine Flu (H1N1) and merged it with a “carrier agent” of the highly contagious generic flu we all get to trigger certain and rapid human-to-human transmission.
This isn't the first time that WND has twisted an ad on its website into an attack on Obama.
I started writing about Obama's religious Muslim background in January 2007, and throughout 2007 and 2008 I presented evidence of Obama's identification as a Muslim when he was a child, his extremist Muslim family and his Islamic schooling. In December 2007, I wrote, "Barack Obama went to a madrassa in Jakarta. A madrassa in a Muslim country. Whether he was devout or secular, he knows what was taught. He knows what is in the Quran. Even if he is ambiguous, he knows the stakes involved. His father was a Muslim who took three wives (without divorcing). His stepfather and close members of his family are devout Muslims. Not an unimportant influence."
[...]
And so now we have our first Muslim presidency, just eight years after 9/11. The media can spin their subjugation and adulation a million different ways, but America did not vote for a "Muslim presidency," which is what this is. Everything this president has done so far has helped foster America's submission to Islam.
The Cairo speech was just the beginning. Imagine what the next three and a half years will bring to what Obama has called "one of the largest Muslim countries in the world."
WND, Von Brunn Also Share Hatred of Federal Reserve Topic: WorldNetDaily
Turns out that an affinity for questions about Barack Obama's birth certificate is not the only thing WorldNetDaily shares with alleged Holocaust Memorial Museum shooter James von Brunn. They both despise the Federal Reserve as well.
In 1981, as TPM describes it, von Brunn "pulled out a sawed-off shotgun at the Federal Reserve Board headquarters, claiming to have planted a bomb and threatening to take members of the Board hostage." He has also written:
The FED is a private corporation whose stock is owned by International Bankers. It is not an agency of the United States Government. It is one of many parasitical Rothschild Central Banks infesting the world stage. Its power ascends over every U.S. citizen from cradle to grave. Every dollar in your wallet is a note issued by the FED. The U.S. Government redeems that note (principal and interest) with your taxes. Through its enormous resources and power the FED controls the machinery of the U.S. Government.
WND's hatred of the Fed appears to be as virulent, if not as violent. WND's store sells numerous books and videos attacking the Fed. Compare the language used by WND to promote them with von Brunn's own statement above:
"Web of Debt: The Shocking Truth About Our Money System and How We Can Break Free," which claims the following: "Except for coins, all of our money is now created as loans advanced by private banking institutions—including the private Federal Reserve. Banks create the principal but not the interest to service their loans. To find the interest, new loans must continually be taken out, expanding the money supply, inflating prices—and robbing you of the value of your money. Web of Debt unravels the deception and presents a crystal clear picture of the financial abyss towards which we are heading."
"The Money Masters: How Banks Create the World's Money," which WND has promoted thusly: "With the U.S. and global economies looking more disastrous every day, more Americans than ever are asking whether the Federal Reserve really is what they've long been told – the protector of America's money policy and financial well-being – or, as critics allege, an unaccountable, private banking cartel siphoning off citizens' wealth and manipulating America's economy for the benefit of a hidden elite."
"The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve": "Banking and the Federal Reserve ... a dry and boring subject? Don't believe it! Once you pick up this book you'll be hooked in five minutes. This book reads like a detective story — which it really is; but it's all true. "The Creature from Jekyll Island" is about the most blatant scam of all history. You'll find it all here: the cause of wars, boom-bust cycles, inflation, depression, prosperity and more."
WND Whistleblower magazine, July 2006, "THE FEDERAL RESERVE: FRAUD OF THE CENTURY": "Whistleblower documents authoritatively and with uncommon clarity how the "Federal Reserve" – which is neither part of the federal government, nor does it rely on monetary reserves – is an unconstitutional, unelected cartel that literally creates the devastating problems it was supposed to prevent."
Wanna bet von Brunn owns some, if not all, of these titles? We have to wonder if he bought his copies from WND.
WND editor Joseph Farah, in a 2001 column, called the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913 "a coup in which a small group of bankers got a blank check to set monetary policy, and, thus, all policy, for the entire nation. No watchdogs. No guardrails. No accountability. Nada. Zip. Zilch."
WND has also promoted an effort led by Ron Paul to audit the Federal Reserve. A June 11 article by Bob Unruh states:
Paul long has opposed the power held by the Federal Reserve and its ability to manipulate the nation's economy and over the years has launched multiple proposals to get rid of the quasi-governmental agency, without significant support.
That language -- as well as Farah's -- again is not far from von Brunn's writings (though lacking the overt anti-Semitism).
Just has WND disappeared facts that make the anti-abortion movement look bad regarding the killing of George Tiller, WND has so far refused to admit its shared interest with von Brunn in Obama's birth certificate. Don't expect WND to admit this shared Fed obsession either.
Aaron Klein Desperate Obama Smear Watch Topic: WorldNetDaily
In a June 10 WorldNetDaily article, Aaron Klein trots out his terrorist buddies once again for a little Obama-smearing, giving them voice to claim that a photo of President Obama with his feet up on a desk while allegedly talking to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the phone was insulting to Israelis because showing the soles of one's shoes is considered an insult in the Arab world.
But Klein also writes that "flashing shoe soles is not usually viewed as an insult in Judaism." If Israelis don't generally consider it an insult, why does it matter if Israel's enemies do?
This just demonstrates once again howdesperate Klein is to do everything possible to smear Obama-- and why he has so little credibility as a journalist as a result.
There's also the question -- as there was with the endorsement of Obama's candidacy by a Hamas official in an interview with Klein -- whether the terrorists Klein interviewed were knowingly taking part in advancing Klein's anti-Obama agenda.
Newsmax Publishes Rabbi Who Blames Obama for Von Brunn Shooting Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax achieved new heights in Obama-hate by publishing a June 10 column by Rabbi Morton H. Pomerantz essentially blaming President Obama for "creating a climate of hate" that led to James von Brunn's shooting at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington:
Our new president did not tell a virulent anti-Semite to travel to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington to kill Jews, but he is most certainly creating a climate of hate against us.
It is no coincidence that we are witnessing this level of hatred toward Jews as President Barack Obama positions America against the Jewish state.
In the midst of his anti-Obama right-wing screed, Pomerantz falsely claims that Obama's speech in Cairo "praises — unconditionally — a religion and culture that has a long history of being antithetical to the very values that have made America a great nation." In fact, Obama repeatedly criticized violent extremism in the Islamic world and vociferiously criticized those who defend the events of 9/11: "But let us be clear: Al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 people on that day. The victims were innocent men, women and children from America and many other nations who had done nothing to harm anybody. And yet al Qaeda chose to ruthlessly murder these people, claimed credit for the attack, and even now states their determination to kill on a massive scale. They have affiliates in many countries and are trying to expand their reach. These are not opinions to be debated; these are facts to be dealt with."
WND Personally Attacks Fox News Anchor (And Repeats A Birther Lie) Topic: WorldNetDaily
As we know all too well, when WorldNetDaily and its editors are confronted by facts that make them look bad, they respond with personal attacks against their accusers.
Fox News' Shepard Smith is the latest to learn that lesson. A June 10 WND article by Joe Kovacs repeats Smith's statement during coverage of the shooting of a security guard at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington that "there is no truth whatsoever – zero" to claims that Obama is "not a citizen of the United States." Kovacs responded to Smith's statement by devoting five paragraphs to rehashing a 2000 incident in which a car driven by Shepard allegedly clipped another reporter who was saving a parking space for a friend -- despite its irrelevance to anything going on today.
At no point, however, does Kovacs mention the reason that Smith brought up the subject: The accused shooter, James von Brunn, is a white supremacist who also believes in the WND-promoted conspiracy that Obama is hiding evidence that he's not a "natural-born citizen" and, thus, ineligible to be president. As we've noted, von Brunn's name is on an Internet posting of a list of Obama-related documents that have supposedly not been released to the public; the day before the Holocaust Museum shooting, WND published an article that appears to have been inspired by von Brunn's list.
Meanwhle, in defending WND's pursuit of the birth certificate conspiracy, Kovacs repeats a false claim about it: that "the woman the president says is his paternal grandmother, Sarah Obama, claimed to have been present at her grandson's birth in Mombasa, Kenya."
As we noted in our compilation of lies told by WND about Obama, David Wiegel of Slate reported that the claim is based on an edited transcript and a muddled translation.
A June 10 NewsBusters post by P.J. Gladnick indulges in the Depiction-Equals-Approval Fallacy, baselessly asserting that by writing about Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's vulgar language, Reuters reporter Charlie Devereux is saying that "a foul mouth in a nation's leader is something to be lauded if that leader happens to be Hugo Chavez of Venezuela." Gladnick's evidence: "Devereux even cites Chavez's foul mouth as a key to his success."
In fact, despite Gladnick's suggestions to the contrary, at no point in his article does Devereux praise Chavez's language -- he merely describes it and explains it by putting it into the context of the larger Venezuelan culture. And despite the suggestion of bias in the article, even Gladnick concedes that Devereux quotes a Venezuelan who isn't enamored byChavez's vulgarities.
Gladnick seems to be unclear as to the purpose of reporting. Gladnick is, quite simply, lying when he claims that Devereux supports Chavez based on this article alone.
