Terry Jeffrey writes in an April 23 CNSNews.com article:
The acreage the federal Bureau of Land Management currently owns in the state of Nevada is more than all the land in all of the states of New England combined, according to data published by the Congressional Research Service.
By contrast, the BLM does not own a single acre of land in any New England state.
Meanwhile, as of this writing, CNS has published no original coverage of Cliven Bundy's racist remarks, and it has refused to place wirearticles about the remarks on its front page so that readers are aware of them.
Damage Control: WND Tries To Clean Up After Lawless Rancher's Racist Remarks Topic: WorldNetDaily
Just two days after WorldNetDaily proclaimed scofflaw rancher Cliven Bundy to be "America's newest hero," WND went into full damage-control mode after Bundy proved himself to be less than heroic.
An unbylined April 24 article tried to suggest that Bundy's statement in a press conference that "I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro" -- that "I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy?" -- was less than accurate by crediting "the reporting of Adam Nagourney in the New York Times" for the quote. WND added, "Questions or other comments preceding the quotes were not available, leaving unknown the context of Bundy’s response."
When a video surfaced quoting Bundy in all his racially charged glory -- and showing that Bundy was, in fact, accurately quoted -- WND had to change tactics. An article by Bob Unruh features an interview with Bundy's son Ammon in which he baselessly asserts that his father was "taken out of context" and ludicriously claims that he was actually "trying to reach out to the black and Hispanic communities."
Shockingly, Unruh quotes criticism of Bundy's remarks, but they are buried far down in the article.
Meanwhile, in an article posted before Bundy's racist statements were revealed, Richard Viguerie used an April 23 WND column to defend Bundy with a misleading claim:
The BLM claims the Bundys owe the feds more than $1 million in fees and penalties.
Bundy notes that these fees were never authorized by Congress or passed into law. The BLM just started charging them on its own, without congressional statute. According to the U.S. Constitution, Congress makes the laws in America, not the BLM.
In fact, the BLM did just start charging grazing fees willy-nilly; they were authorizedin a 1986 executive order signed by -- wait for it -- President Reagan.
Viguerie goes on to rant that "the GOP so desperately needs new leadership," without mentioning that the sainted Ronald Reagan -- whose style of GOP leadership is what Viguerie would most like to see -- who created the fees that Bundy has refused to pay.
UPDATE: Unruh scrounges up a "prominent black leader" to claim that Bundy's remarks weren't racist, but it turns out it's just Alan Keyes, who's not prominent and isn't leading anyone of note.
In that spirit, Ken Shepherd devotes an April 23 NewsBusters post to having a fit over the Associated Press "betraying the news wire's devotion to absurd political correctness over an obligation to report that which is objectively true" by identifying Manning by her preferred gender:
According to the 2013 AP Stylebook, AP reporters are to "[u]se the pronoun preferred by the individuals who have acquired the physical characteristics of the opposite sex or present themselves in a way that does not correspond with their sex at birth." Of course, "If that preference is not expressed, use the pronoun consistent with the way the individuals live publicly."
None of those stated conditions is met in Pfc. Manning's case. Bradley Manning may have privately dabbled in cross-dressing, but throughout his military career and court martial he presented himself as a man. It was only after his conviction that he announced his desire for gender reassignment therapy and for a legal name change to Chelsea. Manning has obviously not "acquired the physical characteristics of the opposite sex" seeing as he's in military custody and the military is not providing hormone therapy nor allowing him to "present" himself as a female by the wearing of female inmate clothing.
The Associated Press has sacrificed its obligation to report the truth in order to not run afoul of the language police on the Left. This is a grave disservice to the average news consumer as well as to the quest for truth that should mark general news journalism.
Shepherd's post claiming Manning only "privately dabbled in cross-dressing" is illustrated with a photo of, yes, Manning dressed as a female. That would seem to take away the "privately dabbled" argument.
And really, who better to call out "the language police on the Left" than the homophobic, transphobic language police on the right?
WND's Corsi Latches Onto Another Crazy Birther Because Of Course He Would Topic: WorldNetDaily
Apparently, WorldNetDaily sent Jerome Corsi to cover the upcoming trial of a conspiracy theorist who has a new twist on the birther conspiracies Corsi and WND love so much. Corsi writes in an April 20 WND article:
In a nearly empty courtroom at the Southwark Crown Court by the historic London Bridge, a hearing took place in a criminal case that not only has national security implications for the United Kingdom, but, curiously, is woven into the increasingly bizarre fabric of the controversy over Barack Obama’s presidential eligibility.
When it came his time to speak, defendant Michael Shrimpton, a middle-aged London barrister by profession and self-proclaimed intelligence expert, politely issued to the judge a series of interrogatories that made clear he plans to launch a vigorous defense, representing himself before the court. The criminal charges brought by the British government against Shrimpton under Section 51(2) of the Criminal Law Act 1977 accuse him of falsely notifying the British government to prepare for a terrorist nuclear attack on the 2012 Olympics in London that the British government claims had no basis in reality.
It’s the same Michael Shrimpton who appears in a 2008 video that began re-circulating earlier this year on the Internet in which he claims to have been privy to shocking intelligence information on Obama’s origins. Shrimpton contends to this day that the CIA collected DNA from then-Sen. Obama and a grandparent, establishing that Stanley Ann Dunham was not Obama’s biological mother.
The video naturally has raised questions about Shrimpton’s credibility and his qualifications to make such an extraordinary claim.
Surprisingly, even Corsi doesn't sound terribly convinced by Shrimpton's claims, which makes you wonder why he's even bothering with this when he has never written about the numerous birther debunkings and wouldn't even have to leave the country to do so. Yet Corsi devoted two more articles to Shrimpton.
Richard Bartholomew notes that "Shrimpton has also submitted a defence filing. It’s a remarkable document, in which he lays out his credentials and expounds conspiracies on subjects ranging from the fate of Madeline McCann to the supposed Vatican origins of the Koran." Alrighty then.
Conspiracy theorists are known by the company they keep, so we not only have Corsi devoting three articles to Shrimpton, birther Christopher Monckton comes to Shrimpton's defense in an April 22 WND column that starts off with the grandiose insistence that he's so important that British Prime Minister David Cameron reads it:
No doubt Mr. Cameron reads my WND column avidly every week, as every well-informed and discriminating statesman does. So my advice, Dave, baby, is to watch out before you take on Mr. Shrimpton, who faces perhaps the least well-founded and certainly the most bizarre criminal charge of the century.
[...]
Her Majesty’s Government (not yet a Shrimpton government) now finds itself in a pickle. If Mr. Shrimpton is of unsound mind, as they think he is or they would not have demanded a psychiatric examination, then the prosecution is bound to fail, at colossal cost to taxpayers.
If Mr. Shrimpton is sane, then HMG will find it has has bitten off more than it can chew. For Shrimpton will exercise every right of the defense to call secret intelligence evidence, such as reports from the network of nuclear-monitoring military satellites, and even a report of a supposed DNA test establishing that Mr. Obama was born in Kenya. Don’t ask me what that has to do with a plot to blow up the London Olympics. Mr. Shrimpton may or may not have all his marbles in the right place, but the prosecution is plainly out to lunch.
So, in short: Yes, birtherism -- and censorship of any fact contradicting it -- is alive and well at WND.
No, CNS, 'The Ten Commandments' Did Not 'Win Nielsen Ratings' Topic: CNSNews.com
An April 22 CNSNews.com article by Michael Chapman declares, "'Ten Commandments'--Made in 1956--Wins Nielsen Ratings." But that's not quite what happened, which is clear once you start reading Chapman's story:
“The Ten Commandments,” a movie made 58 years ago starring the conservative Charlton Heston as “Moses,” and which is broadcast by ABC every year at Easter, won the Nielsen ratings for adult viewers ages 18-49 and for total viewers on Saturday, April 19, pulling in 5.87 million viewers and beating NBC, FOX and CBS.
[...]
In 2013, “The Ten Commandments” on ABC drew 5.9 million viewers, and in 2012 it garnered 6.9 million viewers. This year, with an audience of 5.87 million, the movie easily beat NBC’s Dateline Saturday Mystery (4.49 million viewers), FOX’s UFC: Werdum vs. Browne (1.99 million watchers), and CBS’s Mike & Molly show (2.2 million).
As the evening continued, “The Ten Commandments” still garnered the largest total audience, beating out CBS’s Criminal Minds (2.86 million viewers), CBS’s 48 Hours (5.49 million), and NBC’s Saturday Night Live (2.79 million).
So, no, "The Ten Commandments did not "win" the "Nielsen ratings" -- it won its time slot. As USA Today reports, the film was not even among the top 20 programs of the week, it drew only about one-third the viewers of the top-rated program, "NCIS," and it drew fewer viewers than the latest episode of "Game of Thrones," which does not even air on broadcast TV.
Nevertheless, Chapman goes on to promote how "Ten Commandments" star Charlton Heston "was a liberal early in his career but became more conservative in the 1980s." He doesn't explain the obvious -- that Heston was a liberal at the time "The Ten Commandments" was released in 1956.
Sarah Kupelian lays it on thick in the opening of her April 22 WorldNetDaily article:
Cliven Bundy doesn’t normally do interviews on Sundays. But this Easter Sunday, the 67-year-old Nevada cattle rancher stepped out of his church, leaned up against the side wall and talked to America about what really matters to him deep down, revealing a side to him not normally seen in media interviews.
This appears under the headline "America's newest hero: The real Cliven Bundy."
Because this is a puff piece, you won't see Kupelian contrasting Bundy's statement that “I do respect the United States government. I pledge allegiance to that flag and honor it very much" with his earlier assertions that he doesn't recognize the existence of the federal government.
While the interview with Bundy is identified in the article as being taken from "radio talker Dianne Linderman on Talk Radio Network’s nationally syndicated 'Everything That Matters' show," it's not until the end-of-article bio that Kupelian is a producer on that show.
And even then, the disclosure isn't complete: Nowhere is it mentioned that Sarah Kupelian is the daughter of WND managing editor David Kupelian. So, lots of self-promotion and nepotism to go around.
Newsmax Boosts Dick Morris' Fight Against Electoral College Plan Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax's on-again, off-again rehabilitation of the perpetually wrong Dick Morris is apparently back on again, with Newsmax devoting attention to Morris' latest outrage.
An April 15 column by Morris attacked a plan to move away from the Electoral College and toward a popular vote to elect the president as a scheme to elect Republicans:
Why are Democrats pushing this plan?
Democrats usually see a smaller percentage of their people go to the polls than Republicans do.
Under the electoral vote system, they figure why beat the drums to get a high turnout in New York City when the state will go Democrat anyway? But, if its the popular vote that matters, the big city machines can do their thing -- with devastating impact.
And think of the chances for voter fraud! Right now, the biggest cities, the ones most firmly in Democratic control (e.g. Washington DC, New York, Detroit, Chicago, San Francisco, etc.) are all solidly in blue states. Not only does this make it unnecessary to maximize turnouts there, but it also makes it unnecessary to promote double voting, fraudulent voting, and all the other tricks of the trade at which Democrats excel.
But if the popular vote determines who will be the next president, we can bet that the machines will be out in force lining up voters, real and phony, to pad their statistics.
This was followed by an April 20 article by Todd Beamon touting how "Conservatives and leading liberals slammed the campaign to effectively end the Electoral College's role in presidential elections, saying that the National Popular Vote Compact Law circumvents the Constitution, saying it resembled President Barack Obama's abuse of the law through his extensive use of executive orders." Beamon added that Morris "charged in an exclusive Newsmax column that the effort is ripe for voter fraud and would guarantee that Democrats win the White House every four years."
But we don't recall Morris having anything to say about a Republican attempt to change the Electoral College. Last year, Republicans in Pennsylvania tried to change the electoral vote there from a winner-take-all system to one apportioned by the vote in congressional districts, which would create more Republican electoral votes.
That's vote-rigging at least as egregious as what he claims the popular-vote plan does. What's his position on it?
WND's Unruh Trades Being A Reporter For Being A Scott Lively Fanboy Topic: WorldNetDaily
Is Bob Unruh evencapable of fair and honest reporting anymore? Or has he become so corrupted by WorldNetDaily's shoddy and dishonest journalism that he simply doesn't care?
What could be more boring to Americans than the latest news about a lawsuit brought by a group of political activists in Uganda? Especially since the case is currently in the mind-numbingly boring stage of endless interrogatories and depositions?
But this is no ordinary case.
The defendant, Pastor Scott Lively of Abiding Truth Ministries, says Americans need to be paying very close attention, because the outcome could well set a new precedent – that an international agenda based on anti-biblical standards could trump the U.S. Constitution’s freedom of speech and religion.
This article is just another excuse to mislead about the lawsuit against Lively by Sexual Minorities Uganda, or SMUG.
As he did in an August 2013 article, Unruh lies by asserting that "SMUG alleges Lively must be punished for criticizing homosexuality, calling his speech a 'crime against humanity' in violation of 'international law.'" In fact, SMUG has stated that "none of Plaintiff’s claims are predicated on any speech or writing of the Defendant, odious and ignorant as they may be. His speech is merely circumstantial evidence of the discriminatory intent and motive behind his campaign to deprive LGBTI persons of fundamental rights and thus admissible to help prove the elements of the conspiracy to persecute." Unruh doesn't mention that, of course.
Much of the article is devoted to repeating the case according to Lively's defense attorney. Unruh does not allow SMUG to rebut the claims, nor does he mention any of the things SMUG says Lively has said.
If Unruh wants Americans to be "paying very close attention" to this lawsuit, he is doing his readers no favors by telling only one side of the story and implicitly declaring that the other side has no merit by mischaracterizing their case.
Reporters are supposed to tell the full truth without fear or favor. Unruh apparently fears homosexuals and clearly favors Lively.
CNS Readers Spew Hate At Hillary Topic: CNSNews.com
It's been a while since we dipped into the cesspool that is the CNSNews.com comment threads. So let's check out the sheer hate and misogyny that CNS commenters spewed on an April 11 article about a shoe thrown at Hillary Clinton:
These are CNS' readers, folks. These are the people CNS want to read their website. Sad, isn't it?
WND Laments Lack of Black Italians To Race-Bait Over Topic: WorldNetDaily
An unbylined April 17 WorldNetDaily article tells the story of a restaurant waiter of Bangladeshi descent who "died after being punched in the head while walking in the city center in Pisa, not far from the famed Leaning Tower."
After several paragraphs, WND gets around to describing the suspect, "described as Italian with a 'hefty' physique."
That's right -- the suspect is not black. You can almost sense the disappointment at WND in having to admit that. You might have heard Colin Flaherty sigh at the development.
But WND gets back into the race-baitingswing of things by informing us that knockout game-style attacks are perpetrated "mostly by black youth against whites," and fills out the rest of the article with alleged incidents involving "black individuals" or a "black mob."
After all, white criminals don't draw eyeballs to WND.
MRC Loves Sharyl Attkisson, Buries Her History of Shoddy Reporting Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center is unsurprisingly promoting former CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson's media tour in which shse claims that she was being too critical of the Obama administration:
Tim Graham promoted Attkisson's appearance on Fox News, in which she and Hhoward Kurtz commisserated about "liberal bias leading to soft coverage of Obama." Graham touted Attkisson's CNN interview as well, in which she discussed how "CBS lost interest in investigative journalism to favor Obama." NewsBusters' Tom Johnson attacked TPM's Josh Marshall for being critical of Attkisson's unsupported claims of being targeted by Media Matters (disclosure: my employer); Johnson didn't mention that Media Matters has denied the claim and pointed out that it targeted Attkisson solely for her shoddy reporting.
What you won't read at the MRC, however, is any new criticism of Attkisson's embrace of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, even though it has criticized other anti-vaxxers like Jenny McCarthy.
As author Seth Mnookin reports, Attkisson has "parroted anti-vaccine rhetoric long past the point that it’s been decisively disproved," repeatedly pushing the discredited idea that vaccines cause autism.
And the MRC certainly won't tell you that it criticized Attkisson's reporting on vaccines in the past:
A 2005 item criticized an Attkisson report for lending credence to claims linking vaccines to autism. A 2005 column by Dan Gainor repeated the criticism.
A 2008 MRC item criticized how "Attkisson reported on the plight of the parents of an autistic child and their fight to win money from a federal fund for 'vaccine damages.'"
Another 2008 item noted that CBS' newfound reporting that there is no link between vaccines and autism contradicts Attkisson's earlier reporting.
In one of his posts, Graham references "people who questioned [Attkisson's] reporting on autism and vaccines," but he didn't mention that one of those critics has been the MRC.
If the MRC didn't trust Attkisson when she peddled faulty reporting on vaccines, why does it trust her now on her victimhood, even though her reporting on Benghazi and other Obama administration issues is just as untrustworthy?
Because Attkisson is now portraying herself as a victim of liberal bias, which aligns perfectly with the MRC's anti-media agenda.
WND Columnists Rack Up The Accolades For Rancher, Militia Thugs Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily columnists are continuing to show their love for lawless rancher Cliven Bundy and the militia thugs that defended him. Larry Klayman serves up a very Klayman-esque rant:
If the events in Nevada over the last week or so are any indication, where brave patriots, exercising their Second Amendment rights, stood down the tyranny of Obama’s Bureau of Land Management on behalf of the Bundy family and their cattle ranch, then indeed full-scale revolution is now in full swing in both the courts and through armed men on horseback. Here, militias from throughout the nation converged, along with other brave citizens, to show the government that we simply will not take their “horse manure” anymore. As in the years leading up to 1776, when King George III had his redcoats break into our homes, steal our weapons of self-defense and other property, and rape and pillage the colonies in general, We the People will not stand by and submit to this modern-day despotism. Here, Obama’s henchmen at the BLM, without court order, sent in government goons to seize cattle that were legally grazing on state and not federal lands. But when these goons saw that the people meant business, they threw in the towel and fled the scene of their crime as the cowards they are.
But as later forecast by the ultra leftist, corrupt, pro-Obama Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the government will be back. Indeed, this was no idle threat and no coincidence; Reid and his lawyer son have an interest in kicking the Bundys off of their Nevada ranch , as they have been involved in using this land for their own ends.
Before these government goons do come back, let this message go forth. Barack Hussein Obama, Harry Reid and the gutless Republican establishment leaders in Congress who roll over to and further this continued government tyranny, We the People have now risen up and we intend to remove you legally from office. This country belongs to us, not you. This land is our land! And, we will fight you will all legal means, including exercising our legitimate Second Amendment rights of self-defense, to end your tyranny and restore freedom to our shores!
Klayman apparently missed the fact that the militia thugs are the goons here.
Tom Tancredo declares that the law doesn't matter in proclaiming Bundy his new Martin Luther King:
The narrow legal issue in the Bundy ranch controversy is his refusal to pay grazing fees to the Bureau of Land Management over the past 21 years. There is a court order telling him he must pay the fees, and many conservative commentators say he has no legal leg to stand on in that defiance. In terms of “settled case law,” they are probably right. But, is that a good enough reason to abandon Cliven Bundy and his family?
Martin Luther King heard the same arguments when he protested segregated lunch counters in Birmingham, Ala. King chose to go to jail to challenge those “settled laws,” and those laws were overturned by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Barbara Simpson is unhappy with Harry Reid for calling those militia thugs the domestic terrorists they are:
The armed men backed off, but Reid didn’t. He quickly spoke up from the safety of his offices that the people who objected to what happened, and the Bundy family in particular, are “domestic terrorists” and that this incident “isn’t over.”
According to Harry Reid, disagreeing with the feds and standing up for your rights makes you a terrorist, and because of that, the feds have the right to blow you and your family away.
Sorry, Harry, that’s not America and despite what you say, Americans don’t use the military to enforce laws.
[...]
If I were the Bundy family, I’d chain the fences, lock the doors and lock and load.
They might need all the protection they can muster.
Mychal Massie also bashes Reid, and for good measure, throws in some trademark borderline-libelous Obama derangement as well:
When Reid speaks of domestic terrorists and involvement with same he need look no further than those in his party. Let’s start with the pernicious one he calls the leader of his party. Does Reid want us to forget that Barack Obama’s good friend, confidant and ghost writer of his books “Dreams From My Father” and Obama’s memoirs is none other than Bill Ayers? That’s Bill Ayers the avowed communist and leader of the domestic terrorist group Students for a Democratic Society who went on to co-found the Weather Underground, a self-described communist revolutionary group that planned and carried out a campaign of bombings of police stations and government and public buildings through the 1960s into the 1970s.
Does Reid want us to forget that Obama’s good friend Bill Ayers openly lamented, while Obama was in office, that his only regret was his bombings did not cause more harm and destruction? Would Reid have us forget that the wife of Obama’s good buddy William Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, was a hunted fugitive on the FBI Ten Most Wanted List for her role in a bombing that resulted in the murder of a police officer? Would Reid have us forget that Bill Ayers, the good friend and financial supporter of his president, co-authored a book in 1973 titled “Prairie Fire,” which was dedicated to, among others, Sirhan Sirhan, the domestic terrorist who assassinated Robert Kennedy?
Do We the People who support the Bundy family descend to that level of behavior? Absolutely not.
Massie loves to lie about all things Obama, and he does so here too. Ayers first said he regrets he "didn't do enough" to stop the Vietnam War -- not that he regrets the Westher Underground's bombs didn't do "more harm and destruction" -- in 2001, not "while Obama was in office."b And Massie is exactly the kind of unhinged Obama-hater who would believe Jack Cashill's conspiracy theory that Ayers ghost-wrote Obama's first book.
As far as the level of behavior Massie descends to: In addition to the aforementioned depraved lies, he loves to call Michelle Obama "Buttzilla" and rooting for Obama to be assassinated. Apparently that's the level of filth Massie is most comfortable with.
Newsmax publisher Christopher Ruddy has become a good buddy of former President Clinton, so it became a bit of an issue when Newsmax radio host Steve Malzberg went on a tirade about Chelsea Clinton's pregnancy on his April 17 show:
Pardon the skeptic in me ... but what great timing! I mean, purely accidental, purely an act of nature, purely just left up to God. And God answered Hillary Clinton's prayers and she going to have the prop of being a new grandma while she runs for president. It just warms the heart. It brings a tear to my eye. It really does. Wow!
It was enough of an issue that Newsmax distanced itself from the words of its employee in a statement to Mediaite: "Steve Malzberg’s comments were intended to be humorous not hurtful. They were clearly inappropriate and do not reflect the views of Newsmax."
Strangely, there's no mention of the Malzberg controversy on the Newsmax website, even though it did publish a clip of the Media Research Center's Tim Graham complaining that "Chelsea Clinton's pregnancy proves Democrats get royal treatment while Republicans are snubbed."
WND's Matt Barber Fails Satire Topic: WorldNetDaily
Professional gay-basher Matt Barber devoted his April 18 WorldNetDaily column to ranting about a Slate column by William Saletan facetiously claiming that, in the wake of Brendan Eich leaving Mozilla after the firestorm raised by his donation to an anti-gay marriage campaign, we should go after all donors to the campaign. Just one problem -- Barber took it seriously:
No, this is not parody. It is not a bad joke. It is not Mr. Saletan satirically assuming the role of Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler’s Nazi propaganda minister, in an effort to underscore how utterly out of control his own “progressive” movement has become and, in the spirit of argumentum ad absurdum, gently coax his fellow bohemians from madness.
Neither was Slate joking. They were not joining in on Saletan’s fun, pretending, for a day, to be “Nationalsozialistischen Briefe,” Goebbels’ parallel publication, in a clever endeavor to use the power of metaphor as a scrub brush to wash away the stench of totalitarianism from an American left bathed in it.
No, these ruthless cultural Marxists are as serious as Josef Stalin's heart attack.
As Right Wing Watch detailed, after Barber finally got the message that Saletan's column was satire, he rewrote the column while blaming Saletan for for his own inability to recognize satire. Barber's WND column now begins with an author's note stating that Saletan "contacted me claiming that his piece was intended as satire. I have given him the benefit of the doubt." In the column, he now huffs, "Satire is traditionally somewhat clever, witty and fairly easy to recognize as such. Mr. Saletan’s piece was none of these things."
The version of Barber's column at CNSNews.com fails to mention that he originally failed to understand Saletan's satire.
Three U.S. oil companies paid a total of $289.7 billion in corporate income taxes between 2007 and 2012, the biggest portion of corporate taxes in absolute terms, according to analysis by Standard & Poor’s Capital IQ.
The data show, as reported in the New York Times on May 25, 2013, that when it came to corporate income taxes -- federal, state, local, and foreign – between 2007 to 2012 the three major oil companies paid the following: ExxonMobil, $146 billion; Chevron, $85.5 billion; and ConocoPhillips, $58.2 billion.
That totals $289.7 billion.
In addition, a 2013 report (p. 7) by the oil and natural gas trade group American Petroleum Institute (API), using S&P Research Insight and S&P 1500 by GICS Industry Code data, shows that the oil and gas industry had the highest effective tax rate during that time period (averaged over 2007-2012) of any U.S. business: 44.6%.
That compares, according to S&P Capital IQ, to Apple -- the largest market capital company at $400 billion – which had an effective tax rate of 14% over the same timeframe. Oil and gas firms are paying more than three times the tax rate of Apple.
Because Starr can't be bothered to go beyond PR flacks for the API, readers don't know that this amount is in dispute because of how the tax figures are computed. Reuters reports:
The difference between the effective tax rate cited by Exxon and lower rates cited by groups such as Citizens for Tax Justice, a left-leaning tax activist group, has several causes.
One is that the company counts foreign taxes paid, while Citizens for Tax Justice does not. Another is that Exxon counts deferred taxes, as well, but the consumer group does not. Still another is which profits are counted by the company and critics.
There are other technical variations shaping the calculations of effective tax rates, but these subtleties are often lost in the sound bites of the ongoing tax policy debate.
[...]
Citizens for Tax Justice considers U.S. profits and U.S. taxes paid only. By that measure, Exxon Mobil paid 13 percent of its U.S. income in taxes after deductions and benefits in 2011, according to a Reuters calculation of securities filings.
Chevron paid about 19 percent by that method, near CTJ's average for all industries.
It is a far cry from the 35 percent top corporate tax rate.
But, again, since the only person Starr apparently actually talked to for this article was a "spokesperson for API," she's not reporting the full truth.
Terry Jeffrey writes in an April 23 CNSNews.com article:
Just two days after WorldNetDaily proclaimed scofflaw rancher Cliven Bundy to be "
The Media Research Center 
Apparently, WorldNetDaily sent Jerome Corsi to cover the upcoming trial of a conspiracy theorist who has a new twist on the birther conspiracies Corsi and WND love so much. Corsi writes in an April 20 WND 
An April 22 CNSNews.com 
Newsmax's 
Is Bob Unruh 
An unbylined April 17 WorldNetDaily 
The Media Research Center is unsurprisingly promoting former CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson's media tour in which shse claims that she was being too critical of the Obama administration:
WorldNetDaily columnists are continuing to show their love for lawless rancher Cliven Bundy and the militia thugs that defended him. Larry Klayman serves up a very 
Newsmax publisher Christopher Ruddy has become a 
Professional gay-basher 
Penny Starr 
