WND Already Pushing Conspiracy Theories In San Bernardino Shooting
Topic: WorldNetDaily

There are few things WorldNetDaily loves more than a good conspiracy theory, and it's going full conspiracy mode on the San Bernadino shootings.

WND was already conspiracy-mongering just a couple of days after the shooting in a Dec. 4 column by Stu Tarlowe (italics in original):

Are we now a nation of the arithmetically challenged?

Anyone who’s ever owned a dog will concur with this: If you think a dog can’t count, try putting three dog biscuits in your pocket, and give him only two.

Apparently, even a dog can count better than the Obama regime, its “authorities,” its sycophant media and all but a teeny-tiny percentage of the American public.

Because, after almost a full day, Wednesday, of reports (including those from eyewitnesses) of three perpetrators in the attack in San Bernardino, plus hours of reports of police searching for three suspects in a black SUV and then, having dispatched two of them in a gun battle, still searching for the third (including reports that a third individual was being “detained”), suddenly Thursday came and went with nary a mention of any suspect other than Sayed Farook and Tashfeen Malik.

Overnight, three had become merely two.

Who is Stu Tarlowe? We have no idea, though he appears to have an extensive archive of articles at the far-right-fringe American Thinker website. WND's end-of-column bio for Tarlowe describes him only as "a native New Yorker living in the Heart of America" whose "pantheon of heroes and role models" includes not only domestic terrorist G. Gordon Liddy but domestic terrorist Meir Kahane, whose Kach movement and its successor, Kahane Chai, are banned in Israel for inciting racism and violence and considered terrorist organizations in the U.S.

With such an impeccable source to go on, WND executive news editor Joe Kovacs devoted a Dec. 9 article to pushing the third-shooter conspiracy:

A week after the terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California, that killed 14 people and left 21 injured, some are wondering whatever happened to the supposed third shooter that witnesses say shot up the Inland Regional Center.

The two Muslim suspects who were killed in a police shootout have been identified as Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, who were reportedly planning the deadly assault a year in advance.

But witnesses on the day of the Dec. 2 massacre insisted there were three shooters.

Kovacs goes on to cite Rush Limbaugh, among other right-wingers, approvingly pushing this conspiracy.

Leo Hohmann piled on in a Dec. 10 article, invoking not only the third-shooter conspiracy but also other "lingering questions about how the incident occurred and the way it is being handled by the FBI." Hohmann wants to know "why there has been no video footage" of the shooting released, why reporters were allowed to go "traipsing through the apartment" of shooters Syed Farook and his "jihadist wife" so soon after investigators were done with it, and why the Council for American-Islamic Relations held a press conference denouncing the shooting "before the FBI even ruled the crime to be an act of terrorism."

Needless to say, the whole third-shooter conspiracy has been debunked; the San Bernardino Sun reports that the so-caled third shooter sought immediately after the shooting was actually someone fleeing the area of the final gun battle, possibly for his own safety. He was caught and detained, but was determined to not have been involved. Since the man did nothing wrong (but was booked on an outstanding misdemeanor warrant), authorities aren't releasing his name.

Don't expect WND to tell you any of this or, if it does, to present it at face value. Those conspiracy theories, discredited as they may be, are what keeps the rubes coming to the website.

Oops: Anti-Muslim Activists Fall For Fake Story
Topic: Accuracy in Media

A story at the Free Wood Post, claiming that "The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has officially designated Donald Trump and his campaign as a hate group," has captured the attention of anti-Muslim activist (and member of the Accuracy in Media's increasingly discredited "Citizens' Commission on Benghazi") Clare Lopez:

Lopez's tweet was approvingly quoted by another anti-Muslim activist and right-wing favorite, Frank Gaffney:

Just one problem with the story: it's a fake.

The first clue is the banner on the Free Wood Post website, which proclaims "news that's almost reliable." There's also a prominent link to a "satire disclaimer" at the top of the page, which states: "Free Wood Post is a news and political satire web publication, which may or may not use real names, often in semi-real or mostly fictitious ways. All news articles contained within FreeWoodPost.com are fiction, and presumably fake news. Any resemblance to the truth is purely coincidental, except for all references to politicians and/or celebrities, in which case they are based on real people, but still based almost entirely in fiction."

We found nothing on the SPLC website designating the Trump campaign as a hate group, though it has criticized the "extreme, anti-Muslim rhetoric" peddled by Trump and Gaffney, among others.

If Lopez and Gaffney fall so easily for fake stories, that doesn't say much about their supposed expertise in bashing Muslims.

WND's Farah Rants About Rape At Colleges, Ignores The Right-Wing School His Daughter Attended
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Joseph Farah rants in a Dec. 1 column:

The latest study shows that 15 percent female freshmen are raped their first year at college or university.

It’s a shocking statistic.

But it gets worse.

These freshman women are raped, according to the study, while they are incapacitated by drug or alcohol use.

But still it gets worse.

Do you realize that many colleges and universities don’t require – and even discourage – that local police departments investigate rapes, preferring that reports are merely filed with campus police?

Still it gets worse.

Do you realize the federal government spends tens of millions of your hard-earned tax dollars on programs telling students how to reduce sexual assaults but never mentions even once that excessive drinking is the leading factor in campus rapes?

How is this possible?

The answer is “political correctness.”

[...]

If the statistics are right, then college campuses, run by the most “progressive” minds in the country, are the least safe place for young women in America. To me, any parent who believes the statistics would be out of his or her mind sending his or her daughter off to college.

What Farah won't tell you: Rape and alcohol are also problems at private Christian schools, including the one to which Farah sent at least one of his daughters.

The New Republic reported last year about issues of rape at Patrick Henry College, a homeschooler-friendly right-wing Christian school in exurban Washington D.C. -- close enough to Farah's home in wealthy Fairfax County, Va., that at least one of his daughters, Alyssa, attended college there. According to the New Republic, Patrick Henry has a rather callous attitude toward female students who have been sexually assaulted, tending to blame the victim, especially if she had been drinking, and failing to hold of the alleged male perpetrators accountable for their actions.

An independent review of the allegations conducted by the school's alumni association found that the school officials had stonewalled the investigation and misled about the number of sexual assaults involving students, and that half of Patrick Henry students don't understand that nonconsensual behavior is a key component of sexual assault.

This investigation may or may not have played a role in the abrupt resignation of college president Graham Walker a couple months after the independent review came out. (Walker's rampant homophobia that stood out at a place already notoriously unfriendly to gays and an overall authoritarian attitude that included threatening journalism students out of reporting an unflattering story about a professor at the school probably didn't help matters either.)

But as we noted, you didn't read about this story at WND. Why? Farah is a huge booster of the school -- he even devoted a column to begging readers to donate to it -- and its founder and chancellor, Michael Farris, is close enough to Farah that at one point he had his own WND column. One WND article touted how the school has "Ivy League-caliber scholastics paired with a distinctly Christian worldview." The author of that article? Alyssa Farah.

Are parents equally out of their minds to send their daughters to a school with as callous an attitude toward victims of sexual assault as Patrick Henry College has been demonstrated to have? Farah doesn't seem to want to answer that question.

CNS Obama Word Obsession Watch
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNSNews.com has long had an obsession with specific words President Obama says, or doesn't say. Thus, we get things like this Dec. 6 blog post by Lauretta Brown and Katie Yoder:

President Obama showed solidarity with the nation’s No. 1 abortion provider this weekend by expressing that America is “a people who stand up for the rights of women to make their own decisions about their health,” according to a statement that never once mentioned "abortion."

In case you were wondering, Yoder doesn't work for CNS proper; she's technically an employee of its parent organization, the Media Research Center. Which tells us that CNS is ceasing to be an actual "news" organization (if it ever was one) and is now becoming more than the MRC in journalese.

WND Movie Reviewer: Pixar Short Promotes 'Demonic' Hindu Religion
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily movie reviewer Drew Zahn didn't like the new Pixar film "The Good Dinosaur," though for reasons a lot of reviewers didn't like it: "The characters are shallow, the writing simplistic, the humor too sparse, the action too heavy … and the story is just not up to par." He wasn't even that bothered by the film's "evolutionary premise."

The short that preceded the film, on the other hand, Zahn found much more problematic:

Even more troublesome, is the animated short that immediately precedes the film, “Sinjay’s Superteam.” The story takes place in a Hindu household, where the father kneels before his prayer box, but his son resists joining him. But then the boy has a vision of the Hindu gods coming to life and battling a Hindu demon, thus seeing the gods like his new, favorite superheroes.

On one hand, it’s a touching story of a son adopting his father’s faith. On the other hand, my Christian faith teaches these Hindu gods are not only pagan, but demonic. And no review on the worldview of a film would be complete without caution over glamorizing a pagan religion.

Zahn didn't mention that director Sanjay Patel based the short on his own experiences growing up, or that the film ends with real-life photos of Patel and his father.Will Zahn tell them that their religion is "demonic"?

Of course, Zahn also criticized the Disney film "Tangled" for committing the offense of teaching adolescents that the can think for themselves, because "nowhere does God prescribe rebellion and defiance as a proper path to adulthood." So maybe Zahn's worldview, and not the film, is the real issue here.

CNS' Starr Whitewashes Anti-Gay, Anti-Abortion Activist Brothers
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNSNews.com has been pushing to the right for some time, trying to mainstream fringe figures like Franklin Graham and Rafael Cruz. Now a couple of fringe-right brothers are benefiting from the CNS whitewash treatment.

Penny Starr -- who uses her position at CNS to serve as an anti-abortion activist despite ostensibly being a "reporter" -- is now promoting Jason and David Benham, who are best known around these parts as WorldNetDaily columnists. Starr writes lovingly in a Dec. 2 article about how the Benhams insist that a true pro-lifer wouldnot have committed the Colorado Planned Parenthood massacre and, in fact, "would have felt called to have taken the bullet on the behalf of those three people that lost their lives." Starr then adds benignly: "The Benham brothers, the sons of an evangelical pastor, said they grew up in a 'pro-life family.' The reporter said the brothers have taken part in protests at Planned Parenthood clinics."

There's a lot more to the Benham story than Starr will tell you. The brothers' father is Flip Benham, one of the more notorious anti-abortion extremists. Right Wing Watch notes that in 2011, Flip Benham was found guilty of stalking an abortion provider after passing out hundreds of "wanted" posters with the physician’s name and photo on it. He's also virulently anti-gay.

And Starr is definitely not going to tell you the nature of the brothers anti-abortion protests: David Benham is on video praising his fellow demonstrators for taking a stand at “the gates of hell” and confronting the “altars of Moloch.” 

Starr serves as the Benham's public relations agents again in on Dec. 7, getting an entire blog post of a single tweet:

In a tweet posted on Sunday, Jason Benham said his 11-year-old son was concerned that expressing one’s belief in Jesus Christ could put one in danger.

“So my 11 yr old says, ‘daddy, please stop talking about Jesus - I don't want someone to kill you.’ Yes, it's time for that conversation,” Benham tweeted.

Aww. Starr then does some more whitewashing:

The brothers first gained national recognition for being tapped by HGTV to host the “Flip it Forward” show focused on their real estate dealings, but the cable network canceled the show after a liberal media outlet reported that they are opposed to same-sex marriage and abortion.

The truth -- which Starr will not tell you -- is that the Benhams are not merely opposed to abortion, they rant about the "altars of Moloch." And they are not merely "opposed to same-sex marriage," they are virulently anti-gay.

Right Wing Watch -- the "liberal media outlet" Starr is blaming for the loss of the Benhams' TV show -- has documented the Benhams calling homosexuals "destructive," "vile," and controlled by "demonic forces." And since Right Wing Watch's claims are fully documented, including audio and video, and the Benhams have never questioned the accuracy of what it documented, it's irrelevant whether the outlet is "liberal" or not, except for Starr to indulge the Benhams by letting them play victim (which they love to do).

A real media outlet wouldn't let a reporter get away with such massaging of the facts, not to mention all the obsequious fawning, but that's CNS for you.

Yes, WND, Muslims Do Denounce Terrorist Attacks
Topic: WorldNetDaily

The idea that moderate Muslims never denounce terrorism has never been true, but WorldNetDaily loves to promote it anyway, especially after the Paris attacks.

For instance, David Limbaugh huffed in his Nov. 16 WND column:

Well, if 95 percent of Muslims are peaceful wouldn’t they join us in condemning these murders by Islamists? Do they think for a second that rational people aren’t associating global terrorism with their religion? Isn’t the burden on peaceful Muslims to demonstrate to us how much they abhor what is going on in the name of their religion?

Gina Loudon sneered in her Nov. 22 WorldNetDaily column:

We ask this question after every terror attack and one or two may appear on the scene, but is anyone else beginning to wonder if those moderates are really the ones who are wrong about Islam? Are the moderates the ones who are skewing the teachings of the Quran and ignoring the teachings of their imams, who call for the destruction of Western civilization?

And Ben Kinchlow really hammered on it in his Dec. 6 WND column:

Moderate Muslims have proclaimed with real, or feigned, anger that these extremists have hijacked the real Islam – the “religion of peace.” If the moderate Muslims – “the good people” – trulybelieve their “religion of peace” has been hijacked by extremist elements that do not represent the teachings of the prophet and of Islam, why don’t they step forward and speak up?

[...]

Why don’t we hear impassioned speeches or see massive protests in the street by Muslims – who claim it is a “religion of peace” – speaking out against these acts of terrorism? Why don’t they call out terrorists as “terrorists”? Why don’t they?!

Ask yourself: When was the last time you saw a moderate Muslim nation, group or even an individual Muslim speak out vigorously and publicly to condemn these radical extremists’ terrorist activities?

If only 15-20 percent (or fewer) of Muslims are radical extremists, then why won’t the other 80-85 percent (or more) stand up and publicly condemn these rogue hijackers and the nations or individuals that sponsor or commit acts of terrorism? Why won’t they?

Hey, guys, guess what? Numerous Muslim groups around the world did, in fact, denounce the Paris attacks. And Muslim groups also condemned the San Bernardino attack.

Yet Loudon, Limbaugh and Kinchlow don't want you to know that. Nor do we recall WND telling its readers this.

It suits their anti-Muslim agenda better if Muslims aren't portrayed as  less than human, as monolithic terrorists and terrorist sympathizers -- never mind that it's a lie.

But what else would you expect from the most dishonest news organization in America?

Yes, Tim Graham, The MRC Does Conflate Opinion With News
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center's Tim Graham devotes a Dec. 7 NewsBusters post to whining that a Washington Post reporter has called out conservatives' repeated bleating about "liberal media bias" as usually "unfounded or greatly exaggerated" because "What they often fail to recognize -- or deliberately ignore -- is the separation of news and opinion."

Once again, Graham complains about the sincerity issue, huffing that the Post writer "cheaply tagged Republicans as insincere exploiters of media bias accusations" while suggesting, as he has before, that his own intentions are completely sincere despite getting paid very well to promote them and inculcate them into other conservatives. Remember, Graham's boss, Brent Bozell, proclaimed that hearing Republicans talk about media bias was "better than sex." Conservatives usually don't talk like that in a sincere way.

While Graham goes on to rant that "Republicans think many news reports in the Times (and the Post) are loaded with opinion and “news analysis” that blurs whatever divide they think they are maintaining," the point remains -- and Graham never counters it -- that conservatives conflate opinion with reporting to press their "media bias" case. The MRC frequently criticizes liberals who are being paid to express liberal opinions for the mere act of expressing that opinion -- or for simply appearing on TV at all -- which cheapens their case.

Case in point: A Dec. 1 NewsBusters post by Kristine Marsh is headlined "Journalists Freak Out on Twitter: Pro-Life 'Extremists 'Want to Kill' Women." She goes on to cite what she called "the worst examples of journalists blaming pro-lifers for the violence that ensued last week."

But all of the people she cited are columnists or bloggers or employees of opinion journals; none of them are reporters for major media outlets, as Marsh's use of "journalists" suggests.

That's how conservatives (and the MRC)  fail to recognize "the separation of news and opinion" in making their "media bias" claims. Graham doesn't counter that, because he knows it's true -- and that the right's whole "liberal media bias" argument rests on a shaky foundation.

WND's Loudon Pushes Ridiculous Conspiracy Behind Obama's Use Of 'ISIL'
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily believes President Obama has a sinister motive for referring to ISIS as ISIL. WND columnist Gina Loudon is the latest to buy into the conspiracy:

Am I the only one shocked that the only people in the world who use the term “ISIL” rather than ISIS are the Obama administration officials and a few Republican senators who share Obama’s zeal for removing Assad? ISIS describes lands it holds in Iraq and Syria and accurately represents who it is. The Levant refers to a Syrian and Palestinian territory, land it does not hold, and ignores the existence of Israel all together. Why give ISIS that propaganda boost[?]

In fact, ISIL more accurately reflects the name of the Islamic State group and its ambitions describing the region it wants to establish an Islamist caliphate in, which would emcompass much more than Iraq and Syria. And as we've noted, the Obama administration says it uses ISIL in part because it doesn't share the name with a Greek goddess and those named after her, as ISIS does.

Loudon is so committed to her conspiracy theory that she failed to mention that Obama and other administration officials are on the record referring to the Islamic State as Daesh, which the group considers a derogatory name despite being based on the group's acronym in Arabic.

CNS Unemployment Numbers Distortion Watch
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNSNews.com's pattern of distortion of the latest unemployment numbers follows what it has been doing for the past several months by obsessing over the labor participation rate, as Susan Jones does this time around:

The number of Americans not in the labor force last month totaled 94,446,000--a slight improvement from the 94,513,000 not in the labor force in October--and the labor force participation rate increased a tenth of a point, with 62.5 percent of the civilian noninstitutional population either holding a job or actively seeking one.

(The labor force participation rate of 62.4 percent in September and October was the lowest in 38 years.)

CNS won't tell you that the labor participation rate is pretty misleading if you're suggesting, as Jones and CNS clearly are, that there are 90 milion Americans who can't find a job. Even the conservative American Enterprise Institute agrees, pointing out that 41 million of them are retired, and an additional 15 million are not looking for work because they are in school.

We don't recall CNS ever providing a breakdown of thenot-in-labor-force for its readers -- presumably because it wants to make the unemployment numbers look as bad as possible for Obama, even when they are not.

Jones' article is joined by one from CNS managing editor Michael W. Chapman with the headline "9.4%: Black Unemployment More Than Double White Unemployment." Needless to say, Chapman can't be bothered to explain that black unemployment has always been double white unemployment, or at least since the Labor Department began tracking unemployment for blacks in 1972.

Obama Derangement Syndrome Watch, Supersize WorldNetDaily Edition
Topic: WorldNetDaily

When I wrote the syndicated Nov. 16, 2004, column, “Darth Democrat” exposing Obama’s reprobate commitment to the systematic extermination of the most defenseless among us – I knew he was evil and godless. When I wrote “Nero in the White House” Aug. 8, 2011, I detailed his unmitigated disregard and dishonesty for the American people. And when I wrote “Why I do not like the Obamas,” Feb. 23, 2012, I provided specific details pursuant to why I felt as I did.

From the beginning I was not fooled by Obama nor was my objectivity blinded by his skin color. But of all the heinous things Obama (and his wife) has done since he was elected in 2008, I am stunned at his unbridled commitment to place the American public at the mercy of those sworn to destroy us.

[...]

It is criminal negligence for this presidential family to have Michelle Obama shuffling and staggering around in the White House dancing the conga, as Americans outside their taxpayer-secured confines are placed in peril because of her husband’s contumacious dismissiveness.

-- Mychal Massie, Nov. 23 WorldNetDaily column

How could America have twice elected a president who not only can’t stand America but also won’t perform his constitutional duty of defending it?

[...]

It will be a sheer joy when we have a new president, God willing, who genuinely loves this nation and sees it as a force for good throughout the world and begins to return it to that path. No, this nation is not over, but it needs to turn back to its founding principles and believe in itself again.

-- David Limbuagh, Nov. 23 WND column

I have noticed that whenever Barack Obama approaches a microphone for a press conference or other speech he sounds like a programmed, unfeeling college professor bored with his job. His lack of passion or anger is apparent whenever he is forced to talk about things he feels he must address in order to appease the American people. However, his anger, disgust and passion do emerge every time he speaks about the Republican Party, when he can’t hide the vitriolic sarcasm and contempt he feels.

[...]

It has become obvious that Obama and the Democratic Party do not want competition or opposition anymore, so they are risking the safety of America to wipe out their most hated adversary – the Republican Party.

-- Morgan Brittany, Nov. 24 WND column

It is widely known among those who do not get their news from the alphabet TV networks that Obama has been clandestinely importing Muslims from Syria, Iraq, Somalia and other destabilized Muslim nations for several years. Now, on the pretext of humanitarianism, he intends to prey upon Americans’ sympathy to import tens of thousands more.

-- Eric Rush, Nov. 25 WND column

In the 50 or so years the left has been dictating the rules of racial etiquette, the life chances of the average black person have cratered, and race relations, if recent campus rumbles are any indication, have collapsed.

Seven years ago, millions of white Americans voted for Barack Obama in the hope of reversing this trend, but by design Obama has only aggravated it. Progressives, after all, progress. It’s in their nature.

-- Jack Cashill, Nov. 25 WND column

The important lesson here is that America has moved closer to tyrannical dictatorship through the last seven years. I fully expect that to be even more true during Obama’s last year in office. In other words, there will be a lot of work to do beginning January 2017 to get our Constitution back.

-- Joseph Farah, Nov. 25 WND column

While the presidential race is well under way and all of the candidates are promising what they will do when, and if, they become the president of the United States, not one of them has stated that he will right all of the wrongs concerning the past and present administrations.

If you look and listen closely (Jeremiah 5:21-23) to what these candidates say and contrast what they do, you will see that things just do not line up. Instead, they simply stand in direct contradiction (Matthew 23:3).

There is not one of the candidates, not one, who has drawn up Articles of Impeachment (Article II, Sections 4, of the United States Constitution; Jeremiah 5:1). Nor have any of them stated they would seek to prosecute the current occupant of the White House for his treason and crimes. Not one! Yet, they would have you believe that they are going to right the wrongs when they become the president – but not in their current position!

-- Bradlee Dean, Nov. 26 WND column

It’s also part of Obama’s agenda to “fundamentally transform America” before he leaves office in January 2017 by bringing in as many likely Democratic voters as possible.

But, also, you need to understand that Obama doesn’t care about the national security threat and the risks to public safety that his plan, in conjunction with the United Nations, spells for America. He doesn’t even consider it. It’s simply collateral damage as he sees it. If you want to make an omelet, as Josef Stalin explained, you have to break a few eggs.

Obama wants to make an omelet out of the greatest and freest nation in the history of the planet – a really bad, poisonous omelet.

-- Joseph Farah, Nov. 26 WND column

First, there are the cases I (and others) brought challenging the eligibility of Barack Hussein Obama to run for and be elected president of the United States. Despite the strong election laws in Florida, my home state, where any taxpayer or voter can challenge a candidate on the basis of fraud or misconduct, the courts there, in three successive cases going all the way to the Florida Supreme Court, dismissed all challenges without nary writing a coherent word explaining why. A similar result occurred in Alabama, although the chief judge there, Roy Moore, had the integrity to write a dissenting opinion agreeing with me. The hard fact: No judge in this country, other than Moore, would make such a ruling against an African-American president like Obama, who has spent his career, a la Al Sharpton playing and using the race card to destroy anyone of a different color who gets in his way. While judges are supposed to adjudicate cases and controversies regardless of political, economic and social pressures, it is revolting at best that they have bent over to this despot and his black and white leftist racist allies and apologists in the media. The result: The country has been sold out to foreign and Muslim interests, including the terrorists Obama refuses to even call Islamic, lest he offend his own bloodline.

[...]

The Founding Fathers clearly inserted this [eligibility] requirement into the Constitution to avoid a president being too close to foreign influences – a tragedy if not a disaster we have seen played out and foisted upon us by one President Barack Hussein Obama, our first and hopefully only “Muslim president,” born to a Muslim father, educated in Islamic schools in Indonesia, and likely birthed in Kenya and not Hawaii. 

-- Larry Klayman, Nov. 29 WND column

Here’s what Obama actually said: “Groups like ISIL cannot defeat us on the battlefield, so they try to terrorize us at home – against soft targets, against civilians, against innocent people. Even as we’re vigilant, we cannot, and we will not, subcumb (sic) to fear. Nor can we allow fear to divide us – for that’s how terrorists win. We cannot give them the victory of changing how we go about living our lives.”

I don’t know if the “subcumb” was a Teleprompter glitch or a Freudian slip.

Was he about to say “we cannot submit to fear” and switched verbal gears in a split second? Is succumb not in his vocabulary? Did he misread the word and place the “b” in the wrong place?

I don’t know. I do know that the actual meaning of the word “Islam” is submission. Is that significant? Or am I reading too much into a simple verbal gaffe?

-- Joseph Farah, Nov. 29 WND column

Nothing has ever happened to the United States that is worse than the presidency of Barack Hussein Obama. A committed Marxist collectivist, he has stood throughout his presidency against that very principle of individual rights that made America great. In abandoning our allies and aligning with the Muslim Brotherhood and other sinister groups, he has aligned with the most evil forces of the 21st century and overturned the order of the world. In abandoning and even actively turning against our allies (most notably Israel), he has made the United States of America, for so long the beacon of freedom in the world, into an untrustworthy ally, a nation that cannot be taken at its word.

We will be paying for Obama’s presidency for decades to come. The full dimensions of the damage he has caused – the gutting of the economy, the new polarization of the races, the Iran nuclear deal and more – is likely only to be known once he is out of office. And America may never recover from this catastrophe.

-- Pamela Geller, Nov. 29 WND column

Newsmax Advertiser Uses Marco Rubio To Sell Dubious Supplement Pills
Topic: Newsmax

Last month, in the wake of questions about Ben Carson's involvement with the shady nutritional supplement maker Mannatech, the Washington Post's David Weigel reported on how conservatives are a key constituency for supplement makers. He notes that Newsmax is a major purveyor of such supplements and "features links to miraculous-sounding products next to original reporting." He then quotes Newsmax editor Christopher Ruddy saying, “When I saw Mannatech being discussed at the debate, I looked up the company and said, ‘Reach out to them, they should be advertising this product on Newsmax.’ ”

That would explain the extremely low caliber of supplement firms that advertise on Newsmax.

Newsmax's "Top Stories" sidebar is a "feed network" that is also syndicated to numerous other websites with the promise of revenue-sharing. It used to contain headlines from Newsmax articles, but now is almost exclusively advertising for various and dubious products.

The other day, amid the other cheesy come-ons, we caught this headline on it: "Marco Rubio Shocks Country and Media With Latest Campaign News."

Like the sucker Newsmax believes us to be, we clicked on it. Which took us to this incredibly fake-looking "news" page under the fake-looking domain name "com--news.co" (we swear we saw an earlier version of this made to look like an equally fake-looking Fox News page).

As an apparent artifact to that fake Fox News page, the "news" article claims that "Marco Rubio shocks Bill O'Reilly by revealing his secret to working longer and more productive hours." IT goes on to serve up this terribly written "news" copy:

As a senator, Rubio is a big fan of reading books, the news, and doing puzzles but according to O'Reilly, he also credits his success to an IQ boosting, brain pill that helped him with memory, cognition and recall. This is the real magic says Rubio, referring to Accelerin Rubio wouldn't comment but when billionaire pal Warren Buffett said, "I had to tell Marco about (product name) I mean, this is something that I've used for years, it is in fact kind of a secret because you know, it's not heavily advertised but that's what's great about it, Accelerin puts all their money into finding the most organic, pure all natural ingredients and that it, it all goes into the formula, so you kind of have to be "in the know" to get your hands on it, but I tell everyone I meet my "secret" so I guess it's not really a secret anymore. 

So Accelerin is the product being shilled here. It's presented as a  and claims to be "the inspiration for the movie ‘Limitless'" and a "safe alternataive" to Adderall.

The article goes on to claim endorsements by Denzel Washington, Bradley Cooper and Dr. Oz, and includes a sidebar with fake covers of National Geographic and Time magazines, the latter accompanied by a fake endorsement from Tiger Woods, saying things like "I feel like I have opened up extra space in my brain."

(Oddly, those fake magazine covers reference a completely different product, "Brain Storm Elite," which may or may not be the same thing as Accelerin.)

It also claims "MIT scientist Peter Molnar" said, "We tested Accelerin Vs. Adderall with 1000 subjects, over a 10 day period and the results were shocking... Accelerin - out performed Adderall and we concluded that it was 600% more effective and subjects doubled their IQ while taking Accelerin." There is a Peter Molnar who's a scientist, but he's an geological scientist who likely wouldn't be conducting research on nutritional supplements, and he left MIT in 2001.

The web page also asserts that Accelerin is "clinically proven" to:

• Sky-rocket Concentration by 32%
• Improve Creative Thinking
• Boost Energy
• Enhance Memory Recall
• Increase IQ Scores by 47% 

The website concludes with an obviously bogus "verified real" comments section:

What is in Accelerin? We have no idea; the actual sales page for it linked in the fake "news" page claims it has "100% Pure Phosphatidylserine Complex," whatever that is. It also admits (in small type at the bottom of the page) that "The statements made on our websites have not been evaluated by the FDA."

So, we have an ad for a questionable product using wild, unproven (and unprovable) claims and almost certainly made-up celebrity and politician endorsements. (If the makes of Accelerin have proof to back up any of this, they are free to share it with us and the world.) It may sell some pills, but this and other shady supplement sellers that also peddle their pills on Newsmax -- which apparently has no advertiser standards it's interested in enforcing -- sure doesn't make Newsmax look like a credible place to get information from.

WND's Flip-Flop On Crime Motive Speculation Flips Again
Topic: WorldNetDaily

It was literally earlier this week that WorldNetDaily exposed its flip-flopping double standard on presuming a motive in a horrific crime: We weren't supposed to presume that the guy who killed three people at a Planned Parenthood clinic while ranting "no more baby parts" is a right-wing nutjob, but we must presume that a black guy who killed two white women during a rampage in which he also randomly fired shots into a house and a municipal bus was obviously a racist.

Well, WND is demanding we presume that -- despite the investigation only beginning and no firm conclusions being made -- the shooters in the San Bernardino massacre must be "Islamic terrorists." WND reporter Douglas Ernst is mad that President Obama just won't jump to his pre-determined conclusions:

The California massacre on Wednesday was carried out by a devout Muslim with an “IED factory” in his garage, but President Obama still thinks an Islamic terrorism designation is premature.

[...]

“At this stage, we do not yet know why this terrible event occurred. We’ll get to the bottom of this and be vigilant getting the facts before we issue decisive judgments on how this occurred,” Obama said Thursday during an address from the White House.

Assistant Regional FBI Director David Bowdich said the same thing late Wednesday.

“It’s possible it goes down that road. It’s possible it does not,” Bowdich said, WND reported.

Did Ernst not read what his own website published on speculating motive just a few days before? Or did he just skip over it and go a couple days further back for the point of view that jibes with the WND narrative of the day?

MRC's Bozell: Admitting Prayer Hasn't Stopped Gun Violence Causes Terrorism
Topic: Media Research Center

The New York Daily News' provocative front-page headline after the San Bernardino mass shootings -- "God Isn't Fixing This," pointing out Republicans calling for prayers for the victims of the shooting are just offering "meaningless platitudes" in the absence of any GOP effort to address the issue of gun violence -- was sure to get some reaction. And Media Research Center chief Brent Bozell offers some of the dumbest.

Bozell rushed out a ranting statement denouncing the cover, complete with list of demands:

“The cover of today’s New York Daily News is offensive and disgraceful. For a major city newspaper to use their front page to mock people who are praying after what happened yesterday is unconscionable and unbefitting a publication that purports to be a serious media outlet.

“I am calling on the publisher of the New York Daily News to publicly do three things today: 

1) Apologize not just to the GOP presidential candidates and Speaker of the House but every person of faith it offended; 

2) Fire the person who is responsible for approving the front page story immediately; and 

3) Launch an investigation into the personnel and policies that allowed this to happen so that it never happens again.

If the news media want to be atheists, that's their business. But how dare they now ridicule people of faith. This kind of anti-religious bigotry is precisely what fuels Islamic terrorists' hatred toward Americans."

Wait, what? First, it's not "anti-religious" (or, in the words of the MRC's Scott Whitlock, "anti-prayer") at all; it's pointing out the lack of deeds behind that religion.

Second, it's laughable that Bozell is demanding that the Daily News "fire the person who is responsible for approving the front page story immediately" when he himself lied for 15 years about having a ghostwriter for his syndicated column and never faced any consequences for it.

Third: Is Bozell really claiming that pointing out how Republicans are offering nothing but platitudes on gun violence is causing terrorist attacks? That's odd, since Bozell (and Tim Graham, the now-exposed ghostwriter of his columns) used his column the day before to mock the idea that the anti-abortion movement's rhetoric inspired Colorado Planned Parenthood shooter Robert Dear, despite the fact he ranted "no more baby parts" during his rampage, something he obviously heard in right-wing media coverage of the anti-abortion Center for Medical Progress' dishonestly edited undercover videos targeting Planned Parenthood officials.

Bozell doubled down on that silly criticizing-prayer-causes-terrorism  meme in an appearance on Fox Business (keeping their mutual admiration society going):

BOZELL: This may rattle some people. But it is precisely this kind of behavior that is fueling the terrorism against America. It is not deliberate by any stretch of the imagination, but they see America as the Great Satan, as godless. And here is the New York Daily News insulting people of faith. This only gives them more impetus to come after us.

Bozell went on to rant that reason the Daily News comes up with the media is full of atheists and sneered that President Obama "is not a commander in chief. You see a community organizer." 

Finally, Bozell declared: "This is not a terrorist attack, folks. This is an act of war. We are at war with these people." Is he talking about the media?

UPDATE: Bozell's not done ranting: He has a new press release out criticizing a couple TV people -- whom he has conflated into the entire news media -- who didn't obediently follow Bozell by denouncing the Daily News cover:

“The leftists 'news' media have unapologetically adopted the left’s anti-Second Amendment, anti-faith agenda and it has been on full display since this horrific attack. America is under attack and they want us disarmed. America offers prayerful comfort to the victims and the media ridicule it.

The news media’s solutions are as ridiculous as their values are repulsive.”

More or less repulsive than spending 15 years lying about writing your own column, Brent?

And Bozell appeared again on Fox Business in which he rehashed his anti-media and anti-Obama attacks and his deliberate misinterpretation of the Daily News front page.

Meanwhile, Bozell's "news" outlet, CNSNews.com, has a column by Alex McFarland saying that the victims of the shooting deserved to die because America has "turned its back" on God: "Well, what do we expect? God is just and his justice prevails, along with His love and mercy. But God is not weak or soft, and in a nation that has turned its back on Him, suffering will occur as a consequence."

AIM's Kincaid Twists Planned Parenthood Shooting To His Own Right-Wing Obsessions
Topic: Accuracy in Media

We know the ConWeb loves to distract from right-wingers who commit massacres, but leave it to Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid to take it to the next level by twisting the Colorado Planned Parenthood shooting to focus on his own obsessions.

in a Nov. 30 AIM column, Kincaid dismissed alleged Planned Parenthood shooter Robert Dear as a "crazy nut living in a shack" and rants about ... Bill Ayers:

We don’t remember any outrage from the media over the alleged roles played by Obama associates Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn in the 1970 bombing murder of San Francisco police officer Brian V. McDonnell. In fact, the media peddled the nonsense that Ayers and Dohrn, who helped launch Barack Obama’s political career, were “anti-war activists” who bombed a few buildings and never hurt anyone.

Since “domestic terrorism” is now a topic of concern for the media, in the wake of the attack on the Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado, can we expect the media to pressure Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch to gather new evidence in the McDonnell case? It’s not likely.

The claim that Ayers and Dohrn are linked to to McDonnell's death comes from Kincaid buddy and former FBI information Larry Gratwohl, who only came forward with this alleged link in 2008 in an apparent attempt to sabotage Obama's presidential bid. (Kincaid cited this 2008 article in claiming that "For more than seven years Accuracy in Media has been calling on the media to join the campaign to get justice for McDonnell’s family.")

By contrast, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that "investigators have found no evidence that links the Weather Underground to the bombing" that killed McDonnell.

Kincaid goes on to rant: "This is why the left-wing rhetoric from the media about protecting women’s health and women’s lives in the wake of the Colorado killings cannot be taken seriously. They see this violence as a political opportunity to smear conservatives. They don’t care a whit about 'domestic terrorism,' except when it serves their political purposes." Given that Kincaid is a rabid Obama-hater who has served a conduit for the utterly discredited Joel Gilbert, Kincaid cannot be taken seriously on this or, really, any other subject -- after all, he doesn't care a whit about 'domestic terrorism,' except when it serves his political purposes.

Two days later, Kincaid was back with a column titled "Planned Parenthood Killer Was a Deranged Pothead." And -- we are not making this up -- this is all somehow Obama's rault (oh, and George Soros too):

The liberals were quick to blame conservative Christians, Republicans, and others on the right for the carnage in the Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic. It turns out the killer was a paranoid pothead who probably moved to Colorado because it offered him plenty of legal weed. The murders were just the latest example of President Obama’s pro-pot policies causing “active shooter” cases in which innocent people get maimed and killed.

[...]

While President Obama blames easy access to guns for these acts of madness and death, it appears that easy access to high-potency marijuana is really to blame in the Colorado case. Marijuana is legal in Colorado, which passed a marijuana legalization measure on the state level in 2012, thanks to “progressive” groups funded by pro-drug billionaire George Soros.

Under Obama, a heavy marijuana user in his youth, the Justice Department has refused to enforce federal laws and treaties against the use and cultivation of marijuana. So the Colorado legalization “experiment” has continued.

Hence, Obama’s pro-pot policies may have cost the lives of those in the Planned Parenthood clinic. No wonder Obama wants to blame guns.

Obama was a member of the Choom Gang, a group of heavy marijuana users. Speculation has mounted that Robert Lewis Dear was on “Obama choom,” as it’s known on the street, or “speed weed,” a high potency form of marijuana perhaps mixed with other drugs.

Kincaid didn't mention that Dear ranted "no more baby parts" during his rampage, was described by neighbors as a Kincaid-level Obama-hater, and believed that anti-abortion extremists like the Army of God were doing "God's work."

Leave it to Kincaid to do anything he can to distract from the fact that extreme anti-abortion rhetoric now has a (larger) body count.