WND Can't Stop Hiding Truth About Esquire Lawsuit Dismissal Topic: WorldNetDaily
Lest we give WorldNetDaily too much credit for commiting a rare act of actual journalism, it's important to remember that the vast majority of the original "news" WND publishes is biased, misleading or incomplete (or even completely false).
A (sadly) much more typical example of WND's journalism is a Jan. 11 article about the latest filing by failed lawyer Larry Klayman in WND's defamation lawsuit against Esquire magazine for a parody article claiming that WND had decided to recall and pulp Jerome Corsi's birther book.
As they have repeatedly done, WND and Klayman rail against Esquire and the judge that dismissed the lawsuit while not only refusing to tell the full story or quote from any legal brief filed by the defendants, they also fail to tell their readers the reason the lawsuit was dismissed.
And it's a pretty damning reason: WND editor Joseph Farah admitted at the time the Esquire blog post was published that he knew it was a parody. As the ruling states, Farah "immediately recognized" that the Esquire article was satire -- telling the Daily Caller that the post was “a very poorly executed parody” -- until it became "inconvenient" for him to do so. The judge added: "Political satire can be, and often is, uncomfortable to its targets, but that does not render it any less satiric or any less an expression on a topic of public concern."
That truth remains inconvenient for Farah, Klayman and WND. And that sort of thing is why nobody believes WND.
CNS Disappears Disputed Claim About Walmart Suspending Ammo Sales Topic: CNSNews.com
A Jan. 14 CNSNews.com blog post by Gregory Gwyn-Williams Jr. claimed that Walmart "will no longer place new ammunition orders pending “the upcoming decision on the Second Amendment.'" Gwyn-Williams cited a blog post at InvestmentWatch citing questionably verified claims and declared, "AMMO RATIONING IMMINENT!!!"
The CNS post got picked up at numerous right-wing places, including WorldNetDaily and the Right Scoop.
But it seems that there's some dispute over the claim -- so much so that CNS removed Gwyn-Williams' without explanation or apology. The link to his blog post now redirects to the main CNS blog page, and his CNS archive makes no mention of the post.
The shocking reason why? WND did something completely out of character given its history of shoddy and false reporting: it contacted Walmart headquarters.
A follow-up WND article by Chelsea Schilling -- who has her own lengthy history of shoddy reporting -- quoted a Walmart spokesperson as saying that the claim is "inaccurate" and that the retailer is not cutting back on ammo orders.But Schilling also quoted alleged "WND readers" who claimed that their local Walmart stores were not ordering any more.
Much as we can't believe we're saying this, WND performed some actual journalism for once, though it appears the story is not settled. CNS, meanwhile, needs to explain to its readers why it pulled Gwyn-Williams' blog post without telling its readers why.
Yes, there are obvious risks such an individual calling Obama out as a communist and a would-be dictator, knowing that the press would circle the wagons and do their best to make such a person the laughingstock of the century. Need I say that the gravity of our situation should outweigh personal risk?
The political theater we have witnessed over the last weeks was not simply varying degrees of cowardice on the part of GOP lawmakers. We didn’t get to the brink of communism over several decades without their knowledge. Over the last year or so, I posed questions in this space as to whether Republican leaders might have been planning to lose to Obama in the 2012 election, and if they might indeed be merely posturing for the benefit of the electorate in their efforts to oppose him.
I am asked every day by frustrated and often enraged people why Republican leaders are not pursuing any number of issues – some criminal in nature – that might serve to politically defang this president. The only answer I have left is complicity.
Which brings me to the radical community organizer who now occupies the White House. Though I give Barack Obama an “A” for what he has managed to accomplish during his first four years in office – moving the country toward Marxism and dictatorial rule at Mach speed – it has been a two-edged sword for him. He has moved so swiftly that he has also awakened millions of snoozing serfs who had heretofore been quietly and obediently marching in lockstep toward their enslavement.
Today, and as just one example among an ever-expanding array of disgraceful illegal acts by our judges on a daily basis, the refusal of courts to hear eligibility challenges concerning the status of Barack Hussein Obama as a “natural born citizen” reinforces the reality that we no longer have a functional legal system. Notwithstanding that the result is a black-Muslim, anti-white, anti-Semitic and anti-Christian “Manchurian candidate” fraudster socialist tyrant in the Oval Office – bent on tearing down and destroying the pillars of our formerly capitalist society – “We the People” have been left defenseless, legally, by the judges who have taken an oath to obey the U.S. Constitution, the law and mete out justice.
The man who is president has taken hold of the survival of the United States and the Constitution and the media while other elected officials seemingly ignore what’s happening right before their eyes.
There was an election, but what does that mean? What’s the impact on the future for me, my children and their children?
Any thinking person, and there are too few of them, knows there will be an enormous impact. Unfortunately, the average American citizen who re-elected this administration is totally unaware of the destruction that awaits them.
In the same way that whoever is elected president in 2016 will be fortunate because he or she will be compared to Barack Obama, the worst person who has ever disgraced the office, 2013 will only need to be better than 2012. And considering that we suffered through 10 months of non-stop electioneering only to re-elect Obama, 2013 should have a pretty easy time of it.
Hey, folks, remember the good old days when candidate Barack Obama at least pretended to be bipartisan and conciliatory? Now it’s as if he’s on a mission to prove he was faking it.
Obama is behaving like a bitter ex-spouse who knows all our hot buttons and delights in pushing them. He is governing by crisis, fear, alienation, cronyism and anti-constitutional fiat. He is openly flaunting his militant radicalism, as if he’s trying to provoke us – and his second term hasn’t even begun.
I was disgusted – physically sickened, in fact – when Barack Obama, president of these Divided States of America, shamelessly exploited the Sandy Hook memorial service to lay the groundwork for his unconstitutional gun-confiscation scheme. It was slimy to the extreme.
I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. That’s what liberals do. Every time some evil nutjob – pumped full of psychotropic drugs by NEA members who don’t want to deal with them – shoots-up the place, the left’s collective mouth begins to water.
[...]
I really, really hope this president and his authoritarian cohorts in Congress will slow down, take a deep breath and realize that, right now, they’re playing a very dangerous game of chicken. If they try what I think they might, but hope they don’t, I fear this nation – already on the precipice of widespread civil unrest and economic disaster – might finally spiral into to utter chaos, into a second civil war.
But then again, that may be exactly what they have in mind.
Since the fraudulent re-election of Barack Hussein Obama as president – the “mullah in chief” not eligible to be president as he is not a natural born citizen – he has thrown his weight around as if he were our king.
In my last column, I made the historical connection between presidents Wilson and Obama, characterizing Obama as “Wilson reborn.” In other words, if the radical legislation Wilson signed 100 years ago in 1913 was what I call “the birth of a Tragedy,” then America is collectively living through the ghoulish resurrection of Wilson through Obama.
NewsBusters' Sheffield: 'David Gregory Is Above The Law' Topic: NewsBusters
Matthew Sheffield ludicrously starts his Jan. 11 NewsBusters post on NBC's David Gregory not being charged for violating District of Columbia law by possessing a high-capacity gun magazine that he displayed on "Meet the Press" this way: "It's now official: David Gregory is above the law."
Now, the normal, non-crazy definition of "above the law" typically involves the idea of sovereigns not being bound by the same law as those who rule, or who otherwise have the money and power to avoid legal troubles. That's not what happened here.
Still, Sheffield is offended because Gregory used the magazine to show his viewers what a high-capacity magazine looks like. And he's even more offended that the D.C. attorney general's decided not to prosecute Gregory in part because "the intent of the temporary possession and short display of the magazine was to promote the First Amendment purpose of informing an ongoing public debate about firearms policy in the United States."
Sheffield doesn't want that kind of debate. He wants to shut that whole thing down (to coin a phrase):
The decision is interesting and disturbing for two reasons: 1) the prosecutors believe that Gregory (and his producers) were guilty of the crime, and 2) they seem to think that it is ok to use the rights granted by the First Amendment to attack the rights granted by the Second.
[...]
In other words, it is ok for someone to violate our anti-Second Amendment law because he is within his rights provided by the First Amendment.
Statist "logic" at its finest.
In other words, Sheffield wants to persecute Gregory for allegedly expressing opinions contrary to his own, though he doesn't explain how merely displaying a high-capacity magazine on TV equals an attack on the Second Amendment.
Sheffield also failed to mention that even the president of the National Rifle Association said Gregory shouldn't be prosecuted. That seems to prove even more that Sheffield wants authorities to engage in a malicious prosecution of Gregory.
Sheffield is not the only NewsBuster that endorses persecuting their political opposition. Noel Sheppard enthusiastically touted a petition to deport CNN host Piers Morgan for criticizing the Second Amendment. As with Sheffield, Sheppard complains that Morgan commits the offense of being "arrogant," even though "his opinion is protected under the First Amendment."
We weren't aware that arrogance was a deportable offense. Does that mean we can ship Brent Bozell off to somewhere as well?
WND's Erik Rush Cranks Up the Crazy (But Not At WND) Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily has been ratcheting up the anti-Obama and anti-liberal derangement as of late. For instance, in his Jan. 10 WND column, he blames liberals for the rise of "true supernatural evil, that which the spiritual and religious readily acknowledge but which many Americans have difficulty reconciling with the material world and current events." Rush even approvingly cites Fox News' Keith Ablow, a dealer of misinformation, rabid gay-bashing and Erik Rush-level Obama derangement.
But Rush has been denying WND his primo insanity. That's been showing up at far-right website Canada Free Press:
He suggests that the Founders would have hanged President Obama, who has become a "veritable dictator," and that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid “deserves” to be dragged behind a truck.
He argues that Obama is part of a communist government-media-law school conspiracy that is bringing about the End Times.
He blames the death of Keith Ratliff, a gun enthusiast known for his YouTube videos who was found dead last week, on Obama: "Although I have no proof, my inclination is to suspect that the Obama administration or one of its surrogates is responsible for Ratliff’s death, the first of many such executions that will take place in order to silence individuals whom the government deems a threat to their oligarchical collectivist agenda."
That is some serious weapons-grade crazy. Why won't he let his readers at WND revel in it?
Or, perhaps, it could be that WND, in a rare show of restraint, has decided that even this is too crazy for them.
One wonders how Rush keeps his job as vice president of administration and strategic alliances with the charity group Pink Pagoda Girls. Does his boss, Jim Garrow, approve of Rush's increasingly deranged rants? Apparently so -- they have written columns together at Canada Free Press, one of which calls Obama "America’s Girly Man President."
That's too bad, because Pink Pagoda Girls has an arguably noble purpose of "rescuing baby girls from gendercide in China." Such extremism by its principals runs counter to any good the group might be doing.
CNSNews.com has long been obsessed with military body counts in Afghanistan in order to blame President Obama for their deaths. But CNS' lead body-count guy, Edwin Mora, appears to have left the "news" organization last August, leaving a hole in body-count coverage.
But never fear -- CNS has a reporter back on the body-count beat. A Jan. 11 CNS article by Patrick Burke carries the headline "72% of U.S. Casualities in Afghan War Under Obama's Watch."
Keeping up Mora's shoddy tradition, Burke refused to use the words "Bush" and "Iraq," thus depriving his readers of a direct comparison of the war record of the two presidents, and even though the remaining 28 percent of U.S. casualties in Afghanistan occurred under Bush's watch.
WND Panders To Its Readers With Deceptive Story Topic: WorldNetDaily
The last time WorldNetDaily wrote about an effort to repeal the constitutional amendment limiting presidential terms, it carried the absurd headline "Hail King Obama: President For Life."
WND is back on the case again, with a headline -- "Democrat plan lets Obama run for 3rd term" -- that again falsely suggesting that Obama is the only beneficiary of the effort.
The unbylined article notes that the bill's sponsor, Rep. Jose Serrano, "has introduced the bill before, in 2003, 2009 and 2011 with no success." But that's a deliberate downplaying of the issue. In fact, as FactCheck.org has detailed, Serrano has introduced a bill to repeal the 22nd Amendment in every Congress since 1997, a period that covers George W. Bush's presidency.
It seems that WND published this article for spite as part of its agenda of Obama derangement, as well as to gain some traffic for its reader forums. Indeed, at this writing, there are nearly 500 comments on the article despite its deception.
WND certainly knows its readers well, correctly surmising that an article like this would set off yet another round of frothing at the mouth over Obama. That's a rather cynical exploitation of one's readership, don't you think?
Noel Sheppard's Hypocritical Outrage At Political Insults Topic: NewsBusters
Noel Sheppard sheds some crocodile tears in a Jan. 10 NewsBusters post complaining thatStephen Colbert called the National Rifle Association's Wayne LaPierre Wednesday, "f--ked in the head":
Honestly, is this really the level of political discourse in America today?
Are the left free to say any disgraceful thing they want about their opponents - on national television - with total impunity?
Why isn't it ever possible for our nation to have a civilized discussion about controversial issues without liberal media members personally attacking those they don't agree with?
Can such people ever just debate the issue without the vitriol and invective much as California Governor Jerry Brown and conservative talk radio host Larry Elder did Wednesday?
For over a decade, the left and their media minions have regularly complained about the toxic political tone in our nation.
Why is it they're all oblivious to their role in the toxicity?
Speaking of being oblivious to their role: Sheppard should know this is the level of political discourse in the country because he aids and abets it.
Just last week, to cite just one example, Sheppard wrote approvingly of a comedian insulting Democrat Harry Reid, saying, "it's nice to see someone in the media go after Reid."
And his Media ResearchCenter boss, Brent Bozell, likened President Obama to a "skinny ghetto crackhead" -- something Sheppard is not on record as denouncing.
If Sheppard is so offended by the level of political discourse, perhaps he should work to clean up his own house first.
UPDATE: Two days after his post decrying lack of civility, Sheppard approvingly cited the ugly insult by the Catholic League's Bill Donohue that "Given Obama’s ideology, perhaps it would make more sense for him to swear on Das Kapital."
WND Hides Monckton's Deception And Dishonesty Topic: WorldNetDaily
John Griffing begins a Jan. 6 WorldNetDaily article this way:
The attendees at the recent global “climate” conference in Doha, Qatar, most of them highly influential and powerful in their home countries, were treated to a special address recently.
“There has been no global warming for 16 years (actually 18 or 19 years, on closer examination),” the speaker said. “Even if warming were to occur at the predicted rate this century, it would be many times cheaper to adapt … than to attempt, futilely, to mitigate it today. An independent scientific enquiry would be a good idea, to make sure that the conferences on the climate were still heading in the right direction.”
Those words are what Christopher Monckton of Brenchley, described as the high priest of climate skepticism and a regular columnist for WND, recalls telling the stunned crowd of affluent attendees.
He addressed the conference, which had just finished hours of consultation and discussion of how to prepare for the catastrophe long predicted by Al Gore, that of global warming.
But Griffing failed to tell his readers the real circumstances around Monckton's "special address."
As the Guardian reported, Monckton impersonated a delegate from Burma, and he was ejected from the Doha conference about a minute into his speech after his deception was discovered. Monckton had been seen at the conference dressed in a traditional Arab attire while distributing leaflets on his anti-global warming views. This video show Monckton's stunts at the conference.
In addition, Monckton's claim that there has been no global warming for 16 years is just as dishonest as his behavior at the conference. As Discovery News explains:
The key point here is in the arbitrary starting point. Climate scientists note that while the underlying long-term trend is unmistakable, it can be masked by short-term natural variations. And 1998 was an exceptionally hot year as a result of a very strong El Niño that created a lot of atmospheric warming. (In fact, it currently occupies the bronze medal position, behind 2005 and the race-leading 2010.) Move the starting point to 1999, and the picture changes considerably.
And that picture shows that if you include more years, the overall trend is one of increasing temperatures.
Since nobody believes WND, the default mode for any original article it publishes is to figure out where the deception is. As we've demonstrated, it's usually not hard to find.
Meanwhile ... Topic: NewsBusters Wonkette does a fine job of deconstructing a Jan. 10 NewsBusters post by Noel Sheppard expressing pleasure that right-wing radio host Larry Elder told California Gov. Jerry Brown, “You’re unhappy because I’m not kissing your butt. I’m not going to do it." Wonkette even outlines Sheppard's tips for constructive political debate, which all manage to involve a liberal interviewee kowtowing to a conservative interviewer.
Inauguration Prayer Breakfast Backs Away From Farah Topic: WorldNetDaily
A Jan. 7 WorldNetDaily article by Drew Zahn touted WND editor Joseph Farah as a "distinguished guest" at an upcoming Presidential Inaugural Prayer Breakfast in Washington, which will be "sounding a powerful warning to Washington, D.C., to – in the words of its keynote speaker – turn from its prideful ways or face the judgment of God."
Well, not so fast.
Media Matters reports that prayer breakfast organizer Rev. Merrie Turner now says Farah was incorrectly listed as a featured guest. After being informed of Farah's rabid anti-Obama derangement, Turner said he was not aware of Farah's work, adding, "He was not invited to be involved. He had permission to write an article about it and it's gone much further than that. That was the initial intent, I never met him before and I didn't know anything about his effort."
Turner also said, "This is not going to by any means be an event for anything being said negative about the president, that will not be allowed."
Farah apparently glommed onto the event because Jonathan Cahn, the actual keynote speaker, is Farah's friend. Farah and WND have aggressively promoted Cahn's prophecy book "The Harbinger," and WND has made a companion film for it.
This event rapidly backing away from Farah is just one of the consequences he and WND will face for the anti-Obama hate and lies it has peddled for the past four years. There are good reasons why nobody believes WND, after all.
MRC's Double Standard on Outrageous Comparisons Topic: Media Research Center
Scott Whitlock huffs in a Jan. 9 Media Research Center item that MSNBC's Martin Bashir "outrageously compared another conservative to a brutal dictator."
As far as we can tell, Whitlock has been silent about his outrage level regarding his boss, Brent Bozell, comparing President Obama to a "skinny ghetto crackhead."
Perhaps the MRC should publicly discuss why Bozell would make such a comparison before attacking others for making "outrageous" comparisons.
WND's Fake-Name Reporter Makes Another Unverifiable Claim Topic: WorldNetDaily
"Reza Kahlili" has another impossible-to-verify scoop for WorldNetDaily:
Iran successfully has built a nuclear bomb with the help of Russia and North Korea and has enough weapons-grade uranium and plutonium for more, according to a source in the Revolutionary Guards intelligence unit.
The source, who has access to Iran’s nuclear program, said the Islamic regime is working out of seven nuclear sites, most unknown to the IAEA, and that its nuclear bomb program is complete.
[...]
The source, who revealed the existence of the regime’s microbial plant and its effort on biological weapons as published on Jan. 1 by WND exclusively, now has provided information on two of the seven secret sites.
Uh, yeah. If you'll recall, we pointed out that one of the biological weapons Kahlili's source has claimed that Iran has "genetically altered" is smallpox, which can't possibly be true because naturally occuring smallpox was eradicated in 1977 and the only place the disease exists is in two highly secure laboratories in the U.S. and Russia.
Since we have a reporter hiding behind a fake name citing an anonymous source, there's simply no reason to trust anything "Kahlili" writes -- and yet another reason not to believe WND.
CNS' Staff Keeps Up Dishonest Planned Parenthood Reporting Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com repeatedly engages in the journalistic malpractice of reporting the number of abortions Planned Parenthood performs, followed by the amount of federal money Planned Parenthood receives, without informing readers of the fact that none of that federal money pays for abortions.
It does so again in a Jan. 7 CNS article by Penny Starr, which reports that Planned Parenthood clinics "performed 333,964 abortions in fiscal 2011" and that it received $542.4 million in "government health services grants and reimbursements." Keeping with dishonest practice, Starr refuses to report that none of that federal money paid for abortions.
WND Libels Obama As A 'Psychopath' Topic: WorldNetDaily
A photo on WorldNetDaily's front page promoting a Jan. 9 article by Joe Kovacs headlined "Top 10 jobs that attract most psychopaths" contains a particularly evil-lookng picture of President Obama:
That picture is repeated in the article.
The funny thing is, Kovacs' article doesn't even mention Obama or list president of the United States as a job that attracts psychopaths.
Given WND's dismissive attitude toward the truth, it's unlikely that it can prove in a court of law that Obama is a "psychopath," which is being presented as fact, not opinion, and thus makes WND open to a libel lawsuit by the president should he feel inclined to file one.
