Jerome Corsi and WND's 'Trusted Kenyan Professionals' Topic: WorldNetDaily
So WorldNetDaily put a Band-Aid of an editor's note on its plagiarism-laden Jerome Corsi article, putting the blame on the "trusted Kenyan professionals" who put the research together:
Editor's note: The following article is based on a paid, 8,000-word report by Kenyan researchers commissioned by WND. Unknown to WND, the report included unattributed references to a July 25, 2008, story by the Evening Standard of London. WND included a link to the 2008 story to back up the claims of the report, which WND believed was original. WND regrets the error.
As we noted, this only scratches the surface of the problems with Corsi's article, The editor's note fails to address the other issues Loren Collins identified with Corsi's article -- the AFP article that was also apparently plagiarized and the copyrighted photo that was presented without attribution.
WND's explanation of the Evening Standard link is also suspect. If the link was already there, that means Corsi read the article and, thus, should have known that the exact same information was in that "8,000-word report" WND commissioned from those "trusted Kenyan professionals." As Collins pointed out, sections of Corsi's article are directly copied-and-pasted from the Evening Standard article. Did nobody at WND really notice this before Collins reported on it? This raises serious questions about the competency of both Corsi and the WND editing staff.
Speaking of competency questions, there's Corsi's sources in Kenya, which have a long history of supplying Corsi with bum information. We've already detailed the cases of two memos Corsi touted in 2008, both of which are clearly fraudulent.
There's another fake document Corsi has been touting. In a Dec. 19 article, Corsi describes the "secret Memorandum of Understanding" then-Kenyan presidential candidate Raila Odinga -- the guy whom Corsi has falsely accused then-Sen. Barack Obama of campaigning for during a 2006 trip to Kenya -- made with Muslim Sheik Abdullah Abdi, the chief of the National Muslim Leaders Forum of Kenya. In the memo, according to Corsi, "Odinga promised to rewrite the Kenyan constitution to install Shariah as law in "Muslim declared regions," elevate Islam as "the only true religion" and give Islamic leaders 'oversight' over other religions, establish Shariah courts and ban Christian proselytism."
Just one problem: That appears to be a fake too. From a Nov. 28, 2007, IHS Global Insight article (via Nexis):
After weeks of speculation and negative publicity, yesterday Kenyan Muslim leaders finally revealed the contents of the so-called memorandum of understanding (MoU) they signed with leading opposition candidate Raila Odinga in August, denying that the agreement was designed to promote their religion at the expense of others in the event of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) presidential candidate's victory in the upcoming election. The National Muslim Leaders Forum (NAMLEF), which signed the MoU on behalf of the country's Muslim constituents, said it had decided to make the contents of the deal public after a fake document circulated on the Internet claimed that Odinga's ODM had pledged to introduce shari'a in parts of Kenya where Muslims are the majority. "There was a fear that Muslims will force their faith on other people, Islam does not allow suppression of other religions and we will be the last to advocate for this," NAMLEF Chairman Sheikh Abdullahi Abdi said.
According to the MoU released yesterday, Odinga has pledged to defend Muslims against harassment and victimisation by state security forces that claim to be fighting terrorism. He has also promised to set up a commission to investigate renditions of Muslims to Somalia, Ethiopia, and the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay on the island of Cuba. The document also commits Odinga to initiate policies to redress the present marginalisation of Muslims living in the Coast and North-East provinces.
The fake document -- which he apparently obtained from anti-Odinga sources -- is the one Corsi is citing as the "secret" memorandum.
As far as we can recall, Corsi has used no named sources in a reporting on claims that originate from Kenya -- and that includes the "a former Kenyan Parliament member with whom WND has worked confidentially since 2008" and the "trusted Kenyan professionals" who put out the plagiarized "research" Corsi used.
Perhaps Corsi could explain how he came to trust these "trusted Kenyan professionals"and how they became so trustworthy. Perhaps WND editor JOseph Farah should explain why Corsi should remain on his payroll after such an embarrassing incident that gave yet another body blow to what little credibility WND has.
After all, if Corsi and WND found these folks to be "trusted," they obviously have an extremely low bar for such things. Real news organizations have much higher standards.
Here's an idea: Why doesn't WND post this "paid, 8,000-word report by Kenyan researchers" on its website so the rest of us can check it out? After all, WND paid handsomely for this piece of crap, so it shouldn't feel that bad about throwing these "trusted Kenyan professionals" under the bus, right?
Or is WND going to continue to protect their identities in the hope of getting more "research" from them?
Newsmax's Root Confused About His Religion, But He Loves Tebow Topic: Newsmax
Wayne Allyn Root can't seem to decide whether he's a Christian or a Jew. But he knows he likes Tim Tebow.
In his Dec. 19 Newsmax column, Root rushes to the defense of of Tebow against all the haters, including a Jewish rabbi, declaring that "Tim Tebow is a symbol of the role faith plays in our country." He recounts his and his family's religious history:
I am a Jew turned born-again Christian. I married into a family of devout Christian ministers and missionaries. My wife Debra and I have been happily married for over 20 years. We have four beautiful children ranging in age from three to 19. All four have been raised as both Jewish and Christian. All four have been raised to celebrate both Christmas and Hanukah. My oldest child Dakota, now a scholar/athlete at Harvard, attended church throughout her youth, and was also Bat Mitzvah. She leaves the day after Christmas for her birthright trip to Israel. It is the honor of her lifetime.
We might be wrong here, but if you're a born-again Christian, doesn't it mean you stop being a Jew? You can't be both Christian and a Jew at the same time, can you?
Yet this self-proclaimed "born-again Christian" concludes his column by writing, "I am a Jew for Tebow."
WND's Corsi Busted for Plagiarism Topic: WorldNetDaily
A Dec. 19 WorldNetDaily article purports to depict how "A school named for Barack Obama in Kenya has abandoned hope that the U.S. president will honor a pledge he made as senator to finance it." Corsi attributes the reporting to "a report in Kenya commissioned by WND," compiled by "a former Kenyan Parliament member with whom WND has worked confidentially since 2008." Corsi added, "The research was assigned to trusted Kenyan professionals who conducted the field work and reported their findings in writing."
As so frequentlyhappens at WND, Corsi's "researchers" are anonymous, meaning that there is no way to independently verify what they report. As it turns out, though, these supposedly "trusted Kenyan professionals" can't be trusted at all.
Loren Collins at Barackryphal looked into Corsi's story and found that large parts of it are taken directly -- and, in many cases, nearly word-for-word -- from two previous articles, a 2008 article in the London Evening Standard and a May 2011 AFP article. Collins concludes: "In short, every single quote or finding specifically attributed to Corsi's unnamed 'researchers' was lifted from an earlier publication by another news agency."
Collins has documented line by line how Corsi's article directly lifted from those two articles.
On top of that, Collins writes, at least one of the photos that accompanies Corsi's article is a copyrighted image used without attribution -- and, presumably, permission.
As of this writing, Corsi's article is still live at WND. We've made a PDF copy, though, and will post it if/when WND deletes its version without explanation.
So, will Joseph Farah fire Corsi over this blatant plagiarism? Well, he didn't fire Aaron Klein when he falsely accused an Islamic charity of funding terrorism and raising money for nonexistent orphans, so we doubt Farah has the integrity to do the right thing here.
UPDATE: This anonymity-laden method is the way Corsi has always operated when reporting anti-Obama dirt from Kenya -- with much the same fraudulent results. In 2008, Corsi claimed that "an insider in Kenya" gave him a copy of an email purporting to document that Obama "designated a personal aide as his direct contact for the 2007 Kenyan presidential campaign of Raila Odinga." In fact, as we documented, that document was obviously fraudulent as it was clearly written by someone for whom English was a second language.
Corsi peddled another document from Kenya purporting to document that Obama donated $1 million to Odinga's campaign, claiming that "several highly credible ex-ODM sources WND interviewed in Kenya" verified it. In fact, that document is most likely a fraud as well -- PolitiFact had debunked it six months earlier. (The discredited nature of that allegation, though, hasn't kept Corsi from repeatedly asserting it.)
UPDATE 2: WND has added an editor's note to Corsi's article:
Editor's note: The following article is based on a paid, 8,000-word report by Kenyan researchers commissioned by WND. Unknown to WND, the report included unattributed references to a July 25, 2008, story by the Evening Standard of London. WND included a link to the 2008 story to back up the claims of the report, which WND believed was original. WND regrets the error.
This doesn't address the main issue here: If this report from "Kenyan researchers" is so heavily plagiarized, why should anyone trust it? And given Corsi's history of obtaining fraudulent documents from Kenya, why should anyone trust anything Corsi reports that involves Kenya?
The editor's note also fails to address the other issues Collins identified with Corsi's article -- the AFP article that was also apparently plagiarized and the copyrighted photo that was presented without attribution.
WND has much more it needs to express "regret" for.
Terry Jeffrey's Latest Anti-Obama Hit Job Involves The Capitol's Christmas Tree Topic: CNSNews.com
Being editor-in-chief of CNSNews.com must be a really easy job -- at least, that's how Terry Jeffrey appears to be portraying. Not only does he have ample time to devise ways to mislead his readers about President Obama and rootthrough Gallup polls for statistics to cherry-pick, he can spend spend company time taking in the holiday sights of Washington D.C.
Jeffrey apparently spent hours wandering around the Christmas tree at the Capitol snapping pictures of ornaments, eventually resulting in this story:
The 63-foot Sierra White Fir lighted at the U.S. Capitol Grounds on Dec. 6 as the official 2011 Capitol Christmas Tree includes a prominently displayed ornament paying homage to President Barack Obama, but includes no ornament readily visible to a person standing near the tree's base that uses the word “Christmas,” or includes an image of the Nativity, or bears the name or image of Jesus Christ.
On the north side of the tree--at a height of about 4 feet and easily visible to people standing near it---there is an ornament that says: “I ♥ President Obama.”
When asked whether the tree included any ornaments that mention or depict Christmas or the birth of Jesus, the office of the Architect of the Capitol, which is responsible for the tree, told CNSNews.com that it “does not have a policy nor any restrictions concerning the themes for the ornaments” that go on the tree. The office could not say, however, whether or not this year’s Christmas tree does in fact include even a single ornament that directly references or depicts Christmas or Christ.
Of course, the White House has no control whatsoever over the Capitol's Christmas tree, making Jeffrey's putative attack on the Obama administration even more specious. It did, however, make for good link bait, and the Drudge Report complied.
Maybe the Drudge traffic was worth Jeffrey spending hours wandering around a Christmas tree taking pictures of ornaments. But that only highlights the fact that Jeffrey is a political partisan out for a hit job and link bait, not a journalist trying to report relevant facts.
Noel Sheppard Is Happy 'Glee's' Ratings Are Dropping Topic: NewsBusters
Noel Sheppard appears to be rooting for the demise of "Glee."
In a Dec. 14 NewsBusters post, he proudly touts how the show's ratings "plummet[ed] 23 percent," which he attributes to its "intentionally stretching the boundaries of broadcast television decency." He then asks, "What might be one of the reasons? Could it be the program's expressed intention to more aggressively target conservatives this year?" He also raises the idea that the show's "excessive display of teen sex" might be the reason, and that "it is also possible the illusion of teen talent has been destroyed."
But Sheppard eventually gets to the heart of his argument: It's all about the gayness.
Others might think the subject of homosexuality has taken on too much focus this season.
When lead character Kurt's struggles with this and his relationship with his father as a result were the focus in previous seasons, it was handled with greater discretion.
Gay co-creator Ryan Murphy said that he wanted to stretch this envelope further. This included an on-air kiss between lead characters Kurt and Blain.
Maybe much of America isn't yet ready for such a thing on prime time broadcast television.
That seems to sum up Sheppard's argument. After all, he does need to adhere to the MRC's anti-gay agenda.
Newsmax's Kessler Unleashes Heathering on David Frum Topic: Newsmax
Ronald Kessler's Dec. 15 Newsmax column throws a big ol' Heathering fit at David Frum for supposedly not being a real conservative. Kessler is particularly put out that Frum criticized Fox News, something a real, orders-following cosnervative like Kessler would never do:
The latest example came on Sunday when Frum took a shot at Fox News viewers. Frum told Howard Kurtz on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” that “people who watch a lot of Fox come away knowing a lot less about important world events.”
In a recent New York magazine column, Frum accused the conservative media of running an “alternative knowledge system” of “pseudo-facts and pretend information.”
Frum offered no specifics on CNN to back up his claim, and Kurtz, a solid media reporter, said, “You’re tarring with an awfully broad brush there.”
As noted in my story 'The Five' Spotlights Why Fox News Is a Success,” there are good reasons why Fox News blows away the other cable networks in ratings and is more trusted as a news source, according to polls, than any other television network. One is Fox News’ rule that in any political discussion, both Democrats and Republicans must be represented. In interviewing Republicans, anchors constantly play devil’s advocate and confront them with Democrats’ rebuttals.
Thus, if Frum is right that Fox serves up “pseudo-facts and pretend information,” it comes from the mouths of Republicans and Democrats alike.
As we've previously detailed, Kessler is simply wrong about Fox News having any hard-and-fast "rule" about fairly representing both conservative and lilberal views. It unmistakably leans to the right -- which Kessler presumably prefers.
Kessler also demonstrates his hypocrisy in attacking Frum as "pretends to be a conservative but makes a habit of bashing them." This is something that Newsmax does on a regular basis, except from the other ideological end:
We've documented how Newsmax repeatedly gave space to Jerry Zeifman, who repeatedly insists he's a Democrat but regularly bashed Democrats. Similarly, Newsmax hasgiven a regular column to former New York City mayor Ed Koch, another self-proclaimed Democrat who attacks Dems.
Newsmax also lovestopromote the musings of Doug Schoen, regularly presented as a "Democratic pollster" but who does nothing but attack Obama. Schoen's musings is occasionallypromoted with his fellow pseudo-Democratic partner, Pat Caddell.
If Kessler thinks the media should not identify Frum as a conservative but instead as "a centrist who is usually wrong," shouldn't he prevail upon his employer to honestly label Schoen and Caddell?
The rest of Kessler's column is catty sniping at Frum, most notably complaining that Frum dared to contradict Kessler's hagiographic portrayal of President Bush by calling the former president "uncurious and as a result ill-informed."Kessler dismissed Frum as nothing but a "low-level speechwriter" who "hardly knew Bush" and was consistently "wrong" about the president.
Equality Matters catches the Media Research Center's Tim Graham whining in a NewsBusters post that news stories about gay teens who commit suicide are too sympathetic toward the victim and aren't balanced by anti-gay activists.
WND's Farah Pretends He's Not a Hater Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joseph Farah plays the Christian-victim card in his Dec. 19 WorldNetDaily column, outraged that Ron Paul would say that Michele Bachmann hates Muslims:
If it were an attempt at humor, it failed miserably. It was certainly unpresidential and unbecoming a Republican candidate for the presidency, especially one who has any thought of supporting a nominee other than himself.
Michele Bachmann doesn't hate Muslims any more than I do. She is, like me, a born-again believer in Jesus as the messiah, the redeemer, our Lord and our king.
Jesus taught His followers to pray even for their enemies, so when you call a Christian a "hater" you are characterizing him or her as someone who betrays one of the very principles of the faith. In other words, he or she is a phony, a fake Christian. It's about the meanest, nastiest thing you could ever say about someone who loves and reveres and worships Jesus.
Hey, if the shoe fits...
If Farah is not a hater, as he proclaims himself to be, why is his website filled with some of the most vile hatred of people he clearly doesn't like, including gays, Muslims and PresidentObama?
Farah has a flexible enough conscience that he will publishlieafterlie about Obama without it apparently keeping him up at night. Is that what a Christian does? Not that we're aware of. Maybe Farah subscribes to some different breed of Christianity that pretends hatred isn't hatred and that lies are the truth.
Ask yourself: Would someone who truly "reveres and worships Jesus" behave like Farah does or operate a factually challenged "news" organization like WND?
MRC Thinks Hitchens' Biggest Achievement Is Flipping Off Bill Maher's Audience Topic: Media Research Center
You'd think that at the top of any writings by the Media Research Center upon the death of Christopher Hitchens would be his withering attack on Mother Teresa. You would be wrong.
A Dec. 16 NewsBusters post by John Nolte contradictorily praised Hitchens for being a "truth-teller" but also stating that "Hitchens could be infuriating and even wrong" and adding that "he wasn’t always right (especially when it came to Mother Teresa)." If you're a "truth-teller," how can you be wrong?
Nolte headlined his post "A Warm Memory: Chris Hitchens Flips Off Maher's Audience: 'None of You Is Smarter Than' George W. Bush," and also embedded a YouTube video titled "Hitchens flips off Maher's morons." Weirdly, he doesn't reference the incident itself anywhere in his post.
One of his fellow NewsBusters filled that vacuum. The MRC's Brent Baker wrote in a post the next day that Hitchens' death "reminded me of one of his finest moments, which occurred on a Friday night five-and-a-half years ago when he gave the finger to the pretentious, left-wing Los Angeles studio audience of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher." Baker didn't mention Mother Teresa at all.
This was followed by a post by Jill Stanek, who praised Hitchens as a "lucky abortion survivor" who became "pro-life." No mention of Mother Teresa here, either.
Finally, Tim Graham stepped in to fill the vacuum with his misguided rage. In a Dec. 18 rant, Graham whined that NPR's reporting on "atheist author" and "scabrous nun-basher" Hitchens "didn't shrink from noticing that Hitchens viciously bashed the globally beloved nun Mother Teresa of Calcutta." Graham further huffed, "Everyone who insists that the media's obituaries should be kind and generous never met the NPR people who wanted to make sure Hitchens was slinging mud from their taxpayer-supported mudpit at Mother Teresa when she died."
Um, Tim, aren't news organizations supposed to note that sort of thing when someone dies? Hitchens' Mother Teresa piece was, and remains, quite notorious, so why wouldn't have NPR mentioned it?
And if the piece was so offensive, why did three previous NewsBusters writers largely fail to address it in their eulogies of Hitchens, apparently believing that Hitchens' flipping off Bill Maher's audience was more important?
Graham goes on to be bizarrely offended that NPR didn't feel the need to trash Hitchens upon his death:
It should be acknowledged that NPR would insist it's fair and balanced because it brought in his Christian debating partner, Dinesh D'Souza. But again notice how they did not bring D'Souza on NPR's air to do to Hitchens what he did to nuns.
Does Graham have so little Christian charity for Hitchens that he wants to see the guy trashed after his death? What a jerk.
But Graham wasn't done abusing Hitchens' corpse. Another Dec. 18 post is dedicated to complaining that an NPR anchor "celebrated him as non-doctrinaire." Graham then tried to snark: "As if NPR was utterly non-doctrinaire!"
WND Can't Stop Peddling Falsehood That Obama Campaigned for Odinga Topic: WorldNetDaily
For years, WorldNetDaily's Jerome Corsi has been peddling the falsehood that Barack Obama entangled himself in Kenya's presidential election during a visit to that country in 2006. He does so again in a Nov. 19 WND article:
WND reported the existence of a strategy document developed by Obama and Odinga during Obama's 2006 senatorial "fact-finding" trip to Kenya. It called for Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement, or ODM, to exploit tribal tensions should Odinga lose the 2007 presidential challenge, as a means of keeping alive his aspiration to be Kenyan head of state.
During the 2006 trip, Obama campaigned so openly for Odinga that Kenyan government spokesman Alfred Mutua went on Kenyan television on behalf of Kenyan President Kibaki to object that Obama was meddling inappropriately in Kenyan politics, as WND reported.
As we documented over at Media Matters, PolitiFact reported that while Obama met with Odinga during his trip, Obama did not campaign for him and took no side in that election. Corsi has never challenged these findings, so his continued insistence that Obama did campaign for Odinga can only mean that he's lying.
Corsi also wrote:
WND further reported documentary evidence that Obama contributed nearly $1 million to the ODM in support of Odinga's 2007 presidential campaign, recorded in an ODM campaign accounting document that listed the contribution as coming from "Friends of Senator BO."
As we pointed out in 2008, when Corsi returned from Kenya with this "documentary evidence," the document he's relying on to make this claim is most likely a fake. Further, as Snopes notes, there was no legal entity called "Friends of Barack Obama" in existence at the time Corsi claims.
Sadly, Corsi's lies are infecting other WND reporters. Michael Carl channels Corsi in another Dec. 19 article:
The fire bombing was part of post election violence following President Mwai Kbeki's defeat of President Barack Obama's Kenyan friend, Raila Odinga, in the race for the nation's presidency.
WND previously reported Obama traveled to Kenya to campaign for Odinga.
Obama appeared with Odinga at campaign stops and gave speeches accusing the sitting Kenyan president of being corrupt and oppressive.
Odinga lost, despite attracting Muslim votes through a secret Memorandum of Understanding with Muslim Sheik Abdullah Abdi, the chief of the National Muslim Leaders Forum of Kenya.
Carl is simply regurgitating a lie. He offers no evidence to back up his assertions, not even links to other WND articles. There's also nothing to back up Carl's assertion that Odinga is Obama's "friend."
This is the state of reporting at WorldNetDaily -- lies are passed off as truth, and even their own reporters are too lazy to uncover the facts.
Obama Derangement Syndrome Watch, Larry Klayman Edition Topic: WorldNetDaily
Barack Hussein Obama, our president, is a traitor. Finally, his hatred for our nation and his plan to destroy it are crystal clear. He must be forced from office – legally – before our entire country goes down the drain for the final count!
Much has gone on in the last three years to show Obama's true colors, sympathetic not to Judeo-Christians values and culture, but Islam and its surrogate-controlled states.
First there was his canceling the White House National Day of Prayer and instead feasting the Muslim holiday of Ramadan – using the latter as an occasion to to endorse the building of a mosque at Ground Zero in New York City. Then he refused to allow Jewish and Christian clergy to speak and give prayer at the 10th anniversary of September 11! He did this with the help of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who I believe is a self-hating Jew who also endorsed the mosque at Ground Zero and its terrorist-linked Imam Feisal Rauf.
Then, and second, there was Obama's disrespect and disdain for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Natanyahu, when BHO abruptly left a meeting in the White House to have dinner with Michelle Obama, his socialist and far-leftist wife. If this were not bad enough, Obama has done everything he can to harm Israel, the home of Jesus and Moses and our only ally in the Middle East. Notwithstanding the spirituality of the Holy Land is the simple fact that Israel safeguards the West's oil supply. If this oil falls into the wrong hands, our economy – however bad it is – will tank and go right through the floor along with the rest of the free world.
Third, Obama and his socialist if not communist comrades in the administration, coupled with anti- Christian and anti-Semitic atheists, undermined pro-American governments in Egypt and throughout the Middle East. Now the Middle East, save for Israel, is controlled almost exclusively by radical Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, which not only want to destroy the Jewish state, kill all Jews and Christians eventually, but also take over the world with their inhuman brand of Shariah law. The Middle East now looks like a small version of the Roman empire, only the Romans are not in charge; radical Islam is.
Fourth, Obama is literally in bed with the neo-Nazi radical Islamic mullahs in Iran, who are close to developing nuclear weapons not only to destroy Israel, but us as well.
[...]
Obama must go now! We cannot wait until an election in 2012, as more damage will irreparably harm our nation. He must be legally forced to leave office now, plain and simple.
NewsBusters, WND Lie About Obama Topic: NewsBusters
When it comes to President Obama, the ConWeb is so ethically challenged that it will eagerly spread lies in order to further their anti-Obama agenda.
A prime example is a Dec. 16 NewsBusters post in which P.J. Gladnick asserts that Obama proclaimed himself the "4th Best President."
Gladnick is lying. Obama said no such thing. Here's what Obama actually said in a "60 Minutes" interview with Steve Kroft:
The issue here is not gonna be a list of accomplishments. As you said yourself, Steve, you know, I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president -- with the possible exceptions of Johnson, F.D.R., and Lincoln -- just in terms of what we've gotten done in modern history. But, you know, but when it comes to the economy, we've got a lot more work to do. And we're gonna keep on at it.
Obama is speaking only in terms of legislative accomplishments in the first two years of a modern presidency, not overall. But Gladnick doesn't care about the facts. He devolves into factually challenged snark mode:
Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your Obama. That's because in his not so humble opinion, he ranks even higher than John F. Kennedy. Don't feel so bad, President Kennedy. Obama also feels that his administration is better than that of Presidents Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan to name a few.
Hey, Woodrow Wilson! You failed to get the U.S. Senate to vote for a treaty to join the League of Nations. That's because you lacked the up close and personal political skills of our Obama who is renown for shmoozing politicians. The administration of Harry Truman brought about NATO and the Marshall Plan that saved Europe? Boring! Obama used his incredible diplomatic skills to bring the Olympics to Chicago. Okay, he came sort of close to doing it but, hey, he bagged a Nobel Peace Prize for basically existing. Beat that, Harry!
Oh. You say the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration gave us the Interstate Highway System? Big deal, Ike! Barack Obama could have Interstate Highwayed this country in his sleep.
So kneel, all you presidential peons, before the greatness that is Obama. His radiance shines so bright that it dazzled Steve Kroft to the extent that he didn't even bother to ask an obvious followup question.
Wilson didn't begin campaigning for the League of Nations until 1919, in the seventh year of his presidency. And the Interstate Highway system was authorized in 1956, the third year of Eisenhower's presidency.
You get the idea. Gladnick cares nothing about the facts -- he only wants to ridicule Obama to advance the MRC's right-wing agenda.
Of course, Gladnick's lie is so bold that it was inevitable that it would be picked up by WorldNetDaily. And that's exactly what Bob Unruh does in a Dec. 19 article headlined "Obama boasts to CBS: I'm 4th best president":
Better than George Washington. Better than James Madison. Better than Theodore Roosevelt. Better than John F. Kennedy. Better than Ronald Reagan.
That's Barack Obama's opinion of his accomplishments during the first couple years of the eight years he plans to be president.
Of course, WND doesn't care much about the truth, either. Maybe Gladnick can get a job there.
NEW ARTICLE: Trumped And Dumped Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax teams up with Donald Trump to host a GOP presidential debate, only to get burned when most candidates refuse to take part and Trump bails out. Read more >>
WND Proud Molotov Mitchell's Gay-Bashing Is Being Spread Topic: WorldNetDaily
Not many news organizations would express pride that its message of hate is being spread far and wide, but WorldNetDaily is not just any news organization.
A Dec. 16 WND article by Chelsea Schilling begins:
An Iowa tea-party group founder is endorsing former senator and GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum to win the 2012 Iowa Caucuses and today is delivering a pro-Santorum text-messaged video blast starring WND's Molotov Mitchell to every registered Republican voter in Iowa with a cell phone on record.
"The tea-party movement started with Chicago's famous 'Santelli rant,'" said Judd Saul of Cedar Falls, "and it's time for us to launch a 'Santorum rant' against Rick's nasty Chicago detractors."
Schilling takes care to directly quote as little as possible of what Mitchell actually said in his video, which is less an endorsement of Santorum than it is a rant against sex columnist Dan Savage. Indeed, the only direct quote Schilling uses is Mitchell's description of Savage as "a hate-monger posing as a guy who fights hate-mongers."
Schilling most definitely doesn't mention that ol' Molotov called Savage a "walking STD" and that he really did buy www.dansavageisawalkingstd.com, which redirects to Rick Santorum’s campaign website.
OF course, this is all in line with Mitchell's rabid homophobia, which Schilling also takes care not to mention. After all, Mitchell advocates the "abolition of homosexuality" and endorsed the proposed anti-gay law in Uganda that would permit the death penalty for being gay.
Schilling uncritically repeats Saul's rather laughable assertion that Mitchell's hateful screed is on a par with the rant by CNBC's Rick Santelli that help spark the tea party movement. But unlike Mitchell, Santelli didn't want to have the people he ranted against executed.
P.S. This article, by the way, appears to be marking the return of Schilling -- who has a prodigious record of false and misleading claims -- as a full-time WND writer. She has written only sporadically since July 2010, despite retaining a staff writer position on the WND masthead.
Wayne Allyn Root writes in his Dec. 14 Newsmax column:
First, we now know that since Obama’s stimulus started, America has actually lost about 2 million jobs. So for Obama to be telling the “technical” truth, it must be true that 3 million new jobs were created, while 5 million jobs were lost — for a net loss of 2 million jobs. Technically, Obama could be telling the truth, the kind of truth told only by lawyers.
Secondly, this awful math sounds remarkably similar to the math of leftist environmentalist politicians in Spain. Millions of “green jobs” have been created in Spain, the environmentalists claim. Yet unemployment in Spain is over 20 percent.
A recent scientific study unearthed the true reason for this disparity. It proved that for every “green job” created, 3 regular jobs in the traditional economy were lost. Gotta love the “new math” devised by Kool-Aid drinking liberals the world over, huh?
In fact, the study in question was not terribly "scientific" -- the study's author has been criticized for his lack of transparency, his "non rigorous methodology," and his ties to think tanks funded by the oil industry.
Root continued:
Third, let’s assume Obama is 100 percent correct in his belief that his masterful economic plan created 3 million jobs. We know that his stimulus package spent about $750 billion dollars of taxpayer money. Let’s do the simple math. Three million jobs divided into $750 billion dollars equals a cost of about $250,000 per job. Yes, I said $250,000 per job.
While FDR created the “New Deal,” President Obama has created a really “Bad Deal.” By spending $250,000 per job, this is the worst deal in taxpayer history. And that’s only if you believe 3 million jobs were actually created. They weren’t.
In fact, PolitiFact states that such simplistic per-job calculations are misleading because the stimulus money went toward a range of projects and programs including tax breaks, not just for salaries.
