WND Changes Chobani-Bashing Article Months After Publication
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Earlier this week, Chobani yogurt sued far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones for promoting false claims about refugees that work for its plant in Twin Falls, Idaho. But WorldNetDaily reporter Leo Hohmann has also attacked Chobani as well over doings in Idaho. Why isn't he being sued?

The short answer: WND corrected his false attacks.

We've already noted that Snopes debunked Hohmann's unsubstantiated claim in a January 2016 WND article that the Chobani plant in Idaho "is in line to receive about 300 refugees this year, many of them Muslims from Syria. But there were other issues with that article as well.

It started with the way WND promoted it, with the headline "American yogurt tycoon vows to choke U.S. with Muslims." Numerous media outlets that documented the right-wing war against Chobani and founder Hamdi Ulukaya for encouraging refugees to work in his facilities claimed that this was the original headline on Hohmann's article. We could find no evidence of that; the article was, however, promoted in the carousel on WND's front page with that headline (an screenshot of which is above).

That's not to say the original headline on Hohmann's article -- "American yogurt billionaire: 'Hire more Muslim refugees'" with the subhead "Calls on biggest U.S. companies to join Islamic surge" -- didn't have issues. The chief one is that at no point does Hohmann quote Ulukaya saying "Hire more Muslim refugees," and he doesn't even quote Ulukaya explicitly calling for the hiring of Muslim refugees over other refugees.

Hohmann also wrote that refugees in Idaho are "sent there, many of them, to work in the world's largest yogurt factory" and that Ulukaya "has stepped up efforts to hire as many refugees as he can at his yogurt plants, where they currently account for 30 percent of the total workforce."

But sometime between March 29 and April 3, 2016, the  main headline of Hohmann's article was changed to "U.S. Yogurt billionaire asks businesses to hire more foreign refugees." And between June 7 and and June 29, other changes were made:

• The subhead became "Calls on major American companies to 'step up and do more'."
• Hohmann's assertion that refugees are "sent there, many of them, to work in the world's largest yogurt factory" was changed to "Many of them end up working in the worlds largest yogurt factory."
• HOhmann's assertion that Ulukaya "has stepped up efforts to hire as many refugees as he can at his yogurt plants, where they currently account for 30 percent of the total workforce" was changed to read "Currently refugees account for about 30 percent of the total workforce at Ulukayas yogurt plants."
• The article also gained an "editor's note" stating that "This story has been updated since the original posting to clarify certain parts."

WND didn't tell its reader that these updates were made six months after Hohmann's article was first published. And, thus, there's no mention at all of the only logical reason why one would even bother making such significant updates to an article six months after publication: WND heard from Chobani's lawyers.

Hohmann's and WND's walkback seems to have saved WND from a lawsuit from Chobani. It also apparently made WND much more sensitive about pushing dubious claims about Chobani and refugees. A June, 30, 2016, article by Hohmann now states: "Editor’s note: Originally this story indicated Chobani was going to increase hiring of refugees above the already high 30-percent level, based on a report by Bloomberg News.  Bloomberg later scrubbed all references to additional Chobani hiring of refugees."

Unfortunately, a lawsuit threat is usually the only way to get WND to correct a false or malicious story on its website.But Chobani knows that and -- good for them -- is not afraid to go there. Now if only WND were capable of being more honest about having to make those corrections...

MRC Bashes Anyone Attacking Ivanka Trump ... Except Fox News
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center started off the week in full Ivanka Trump defense mode:

Nicholas Fondacaro complained that media outlets "hype[d]" -- read: reported on -- Ivanka getting booed during an appearance in Germany, further whining: They had the option to simply note the heckling and move on to what else she said about women in business. But they chose to hyper-focus on the most sensational and inconsequential moment."

Dawn Slusher grumbled about an Ivanka joke on the new TV show "Great News," huffing that "the left" would never do such a thing about Chelsea Clinton. "So much for children of presidents being off-limits," Slusher added, apparently unaware that Chelsea never worked in the White House as a senior presidential adviser to anyone, let alone her mother.

But when Fox News' Jesse Watters made the creepy comment that Ivanka was in Germany, "I really liked how she was speaking into that microphone," the MRC couldn't be moved to express any outrage. Indeed, it tok the MRC nearly two full days to respond -- and it sought to distract from the incident.

In an April 27 post, Kristine Marsh declared Watters' comment to be "offhanded" and "innocuous" and blamed the media for covering it:

That offhanded comment has thrown the media in a tailspin of ridiculous accusations of oral sex innuendo, riding on the heels of O’Reilly’s departure from the network.For example last night on CNN, host Don Lemon hosted a whole panel segment on the throw-away comment as if it were an actually newsworthy controversy. 

[...]

Watters explained shortly afterwards that the comment was about how Ivanka’s cadence reminded the panel of how smooth jazz radio hosts crooned, and was in no way a blow-job joke, as the media has spun it.

It’s no surprise that CNN would want to continue the Fox News sex scandal storyline as long as they can after O’Reilly and Ailes ousting. But to read something sexual in Watters’ comment is just plain grasping at straws.

Marsh offers no reason why we should take Watters' denial of malicious sexual intent in his Ivanka comment at face value -- and she also didn't mention the hand gesture he made while saying it. (Nor did Marsh feel the need to embed a video clip of Watters' comment so we could judge for ourselves.)

Instead, Marsh rants about "faux-outrage from the left" and offered "small sampling of actually misogynistic comments made on-air by liberal tv hosts about Ivanka Trump" and others. Marsh labels a couple clips "incest joke about Trump and Ivanka," failing to mention that Donald Trump's own comments about his daughter invited such a response.

It seems that the MRC's Fox News-shaped blind spot is current coalescing into the shape of Jesse Watters. Is the guarantee of talking-head time on Fox worth all this hypocrisy?

WND Has Mixed Feelings On O'Reilly's Departure From Fox News
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily, it appears, can't quite figure out how to feel about Bill O'Reilly's firing from Fox News and the allegations of sexual harassment that caused it.

WND did dutifully serve up a list of "all 12 leer, stare, grunt and grab claims against O'Reilly," and editor Joseph Farah's first column on O'Reilly after his departure was a typically self-aggrandizing account of "My recollections of the late, great Bill O'Reilly" reminding us that O'Reilly's syndicated column was started at WND.

For his next column, though, Farah decided he wasn't ready to throw O'Reilly under the bus after all, with a rant in which he rather stupidly likens sexually harassing women to ... being gay:

However, let’s think about this in the context of leftist ideology. It generally insists that people are who they are sexually and there is generally nothing they can do about it. Someone who is “gay” can’t change. Someone who is bisexual can’t change. Someone who was born anatomically a male could really believe he is a female, and we should all understand his need to live out that fantasy.

They can’t help being what they are – and sex drives and predilections are impossible to change, the left tells us.

Do I have this right so far?

If so, what if Bill O’Reilly can’t help himself?

Aren’t there lots of men and women prone to adultery?

Aren’t there lots of men and women prone to sleeping around?

Should there not be some consideration and tolerance for men and women who are simply being who they are sexually?

Or is it only homosexuals, bisexuals, lesbians and “transgenders” who have the right to be who they are? What about the poor male slob who just can’t stop hitting on women?

Jesse Lee Peterson joined in the bluster, asserting: "O’Reilly’s departure from Fox News had little to do with sexual harassment. The firing of O’Reilly is about silencing a straight, white, powerful, Christian man who had the backbone and decency to treat Donald Trump fairly."

Peterson added that "I don't believe" O'Reilly is guilty of the allegations against him, and that even if he was, the punishment doesn't fit the crime and blamed it all on "man-hating feminists." Recall that Peterson said pretty much the same thing about Bill Cosby.

Mychal Massie followed by asking, "what makes Bill O’Reilly worse than Bill Clinton?" adding, "O’Reilly should be a lesson to all men, especially those in the political arena. The adulterous leftists use sex to buy and own politicians, and they also use it to destroy those they hate."

The so-called news side of WND flipped as well. On April 23, Art Moore expressed concern that Rupert Murdoch's "politically progressive son" James was looking to create a global news brand that would make Fox News look more like --gasp! -- CNN. And an April 26 article by Chelsea Schilling fretted that Fox News employees were being ordered to attend sensitivity training.

Looks like WND is having trouble trying to thread the needle of protecting O'Reilly while also trying not to be too hypocritical about it.

CNS Columnist Blames Victim's 'Culture of Entitlement' In Airplane Incident
Topic: CNSNews.com

WorldNetDaily columnist Sean Harshey isn't the only ConWeb writer who wants to blame that guy for choosing to be dragged off that United Airlines plane.

CNSNews.com columnist Lynn Wardle joins the victim-blaming in his April 18 column with a lot of complaining about a "culture of entitlement":

His behavior seemed to be deliberately intended to maximize the stress and trauma for everyone – including not just the United employees and airport police but also all of the other passengers on the plane.

He succeeded in doing that.  Somehow he got back on the plane and had to be removed a second time. 

Apparently that passenger claimed to be a doctor who had patients to see the next day.  Certainly that is a relevant consideration.  But is it really dispositive?  Are doctors really so much more (that much more) important than other passengers?

Are doctors somehow morally superior to other passengers who are teachers, students, public employees, and business men and women who are working hard to provide for their families?  Are they more important than moms and dads who are trying to get back to their families, to help their children get off to school the next morning?

The passenger was described as a 69-year-old man.  Perhaps his age had something to do with his behavior.  Older people sometimes can be grumpy and difficult. (I say that sheepishly as an older person myself.)

[...]

Perhaps other factors contributed to his disturbing behavior.  The incident exemplified what could be called a “culture of entitlement.”  While it can be found in many (probably all) nations and cultures, it seems to be in abundant supply in the United States today.

It is a “pound-your-fist-on-the-table-and-stand-on-your-rights” mentality.  It says: “I paid for this service so I am entitled to have it without any disruptions or inconveniences.” 

Sadly, this incident contributes to a public perception that doctors consider themselves to be better than other people.  It fosters the perception that doctors are arrogant, superior, and think that they are above the common inconveniences of life that other people have to experience from time to time.

Wardle does aver that "it also could be argued that the United employees and the airport police displayed a “culture of entitlement” in the way they dealt with the situation." But much of his ire is directed at the doctor, and he's weirdly oblivious to the fact that, yes, there is something of an entitlement to paying for an airline ticket and going through all of the hoops necessary to actually get seated on the plane -- one has paid for a service and one does not expect to be randomly kicked off the plane after one has been seated on it, for no reason other than the airline wanted to put its own employees on instead.

Wardle claims to be a law professor, and he doesn't seem to know about any of the legal ramifications of any of all this, which go beyond questions of "entitlement"?

New WND Columnist Has An Identity Problem
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily's newest columnist seems to be having a bit of an identity crisis.

When he joined WND last month, he was presented as "entrepreneur, speaker, author and commentator Mason Weaver." But his personal website calls him Clarence A. Mason. And some of his books -- one of which is titled "It's OK To Leave the Plantation: The New Underground Railroad" -- carry the oddly quoted name Clarence Mason "Weaver." We could find no expanation on his website for the multiplicity of names. But unquoted Weaver he is at WND, apparently.

WND also curiously omits that Mason -- er, Weaver claims to be something right-wingers love: a black liberal turned conservative. A 2016 Daily Caller article portrays Weaver as a "formerly hate-filled, Berkeley Black Panther liberal" who was "so filled with hatred towards white people in America, that he broke up with a girlfriend who had a white dog" but now insists that "Barack Obama hates America" and that people who don't agree with him "have a vested interest in staying stupid."

In other words, he's a Jesse Lee Peterson type. WND already has one of those, so perhaps it was trying to forge a separate identity for Weaver.

However, Weaver goes full Jesse in his April 20 WND column, in which he asks, "What happened to you white people?"

All they have to do is call you a name and you apologize for being white. Can you imagine the names I am called for being a black conservative? Get over your guilt; it is killing us.

They forced affirmative action down your throats, and you sat silently. They forced your children out of jobs and gave them to others, and you thought it was noble to pay for your fathers’ sins.

Maybe there is something else going on with you. Maybe some of you really consider yourselves having “white privilege.” Wake up! White privilege does not exist. Stop apologizing for having a culture. Start proclaiming that what works for you will work for anyone.

[...]

So, white folks! What happen to you Vikings? Where are the Roman Legions? And please go find the heart of the British Empire. Yes, I am a black man living in America, and I know the history of white folks. But the changes in America and the world never would have happened without the help of those same white people. White people manned the Underground Railroad, opened to doors at the safe houses and help escaped slaves when they reached the North.

Now you allow the enemy to look you in the eye and announce that illegals will not only have sanctuary cities but will also have welfare, housing and less-expensive college tuition than your out-of-state child. And your response is SILENCE? You accept the term “metrosexual” and actually watch as society tries to get you to question what a male is. Every commercial, talk show, movie or comedy act portrays white men as stupid, weak, racist and needing women to tell them how to be men. Aren’t you tired of that?

Now we must stand together as we face new and more powerful opponents. Black conservatives cannot withstand this new onslaught while you guys are apologizing for white privilege. It is difficult for us to have a united front if you cannot get over that slavery thing.

Weaver, or whoever, seems to know a lot about white identity for a guy who can't even give a consistent name to his own.

MRC Bashes 'Girls' From Its Right-Wing Media Bubble
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center loves to indulge in the logical fallacy that a TV show that is not massively popular cannot possibly be very good. The latest is Sarah Stites, qwho spends her April 18 post bashing the TV show "Girls" upon the end of that series:

The media love to analyze Girls. Somehow, despite its low viewership, Lena Dunham’s raunchy show about four millennial women finding their way in New York City captured the fancy of the journalistic world – from Jezebel to the New York Times. Now, in the wake of the final episode, writers and critics are “mourning the end of an era” with the loss of the “influential” HBO series.

But, amidst all the ruminations on the show’s legacy, no one is asking: what does the journalist-hype for Girls say about the media?

[...]

The final season’s debut was watched by only 519,000 viewers, Hibbard noted, with a poor Nielsen rating of .2 among adults ages 18-49.

But the writers who loved it, really loved it. And even if they didn’t love it, they wrote extensively about it. In other words, ratings didn’t seem to mean much.

[...]

The media has promoted the idea that Girls is a reflection of our culture today. In reality, it’s more a reflection of a distinct segment of society: the bubble of liberal, feminist writers.

“I'm sure there are people who watched this show who didn't see a reflection of them or their lifestyle,” HBO CEO Richard Plepler conceded, “but there were millions and millions of people who did.”

What kind of people? The young, New York-based writers working for feminist outlets? The liberal journalists immersed in the progressive culture Girls promotes? 

Of course, Stites would never admit that she's bashing "Girls" from her own bubble: that of right-wing activist media critics.

She would never admit that films that pleased people like Stites and her MRC co-workers for conforming to their political agenda -- such as "For Greater Glory," "13 Hours" and the "Ben-Hur" remake -- were low-quality films because they were box-office failures. To the contrary: they would somehow blame the "liberal media" for the films' failures. Heck, the MRC never even admitted that the films were unpopular.

That bubble is just as real as the one Stites accuses the "liberal, feminist writers" of being in.

Stites makes her contempt for "Girls" more than clear:

Let’s be clear. Girls normalized avoidable messiness. It promoted free sex and wild living. It encouraged irresponsibility by suggesting that it’s just a phase, instead of encouraging young women to strive for better.

So to Girls I say: good riddance.

Let's be clear: Just because Stites didn't like the plot doesn't mean it's a bad show or an artistic failure.

WND's Kupelian Rants Others Are Doing To Trump What WND Did To Obama
Topic: WorldNetDaily

One has to admire, sorta, the strategic lack of self-awareness at WorldNetDaily. WND managing editor David Kupelian writes in an April 13 column:

Yet, ever since Trump emerged the surprise victor in Nov. 8’s historic election, it has been the Democrats who have refused to accept the electorate’s choice, with over 60 Democrat members of Congress boycotting the Inauguration and multitudes of demonstrators marching in the streets carrying “Not My President” signs. Since then, Trump opponents have tried in every conceivable way to undermine – and if possible, reverse – the results of the election:

• First there was Green Party candidate Jill Stein’s demand for a vote recount. Though she won only 1 percent of the popular vote and zero electoral votes, nevertheless Stein asked for – and the Clinton campaign backed – a full vote recount in several states. This pointless and expensive exercise was completed in early December and accomplished little beyond giving Trump even more votes in Wisconsin;
• Later that month, Democrats pursued a campaign to persuade Electoral College delegates to betray the voters they were entrusted to represent and vote against Trump, denying the president-elect the office he won fair and square. But only two Trump electors (from Texas) ended up heeding the siren call to go “faithless”;
• Next was the suggestion that Trump didn’t really win the election because he prevailed only in the Electoral College and not in the popular vote. At the very least, congressional Democrats and the big media insisted, since he didn’t win the popular vote. This despite the fact that the Electoral College has been Americans’ system for electing presidents since 1787, spelled out in the Constitution;
• Then there have been all the calls for Trump’s impeachment. That’s right – even before Inauguration Day some Democrats, including Rep. Maxine Waters, were demanding his removal from office. On what grounds? The California congresswoman told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews that if it turned out the Russians had fed Trump his favored nickname for Hillary Clinton (“Crooked Hillary”) or had influenced him to mention her health problems (“she’s ill, something’s wrong with her energy”), then such “collusion” would constitute impeachable offenses. Yes, she really said that.” So, you think you can commit an impeachable offense before you take office?” Matthews asked Waters.”Well, I think that at the point that investigations discover and confirm and can document any of [the Russians’] role in helping to strategize – they had a role in attempting to determine the outcome [of the election],” Waters said, before veering off into even more incomprehensible territory. “What I have learned or heard about the dossier,” continued Waters, referring to the universally discredited intelligence “dossier” that Matthews himself conceded was total “misinformation”: “It’s about his involvement with women. It’s probably prostitutes that are involved and those kinds of things. And he has sounded that way. He has acted that way, and it gives you reason to think maybe something is to this and we need to find out more.”

In short – from excruciatingly unhinged members of Congress like Maxine Waters, Nancy Pelosi and Elizabeth Warren, to the George Soros-funded “Women’s March” right after Inauguration Day, featuring large numbers of women wearing costumes resembling female sexual organs, to the media's hypnotic fixation with fake news about Russian collusion – Democrats and the establishment press continue to demonstrate openly pathological responses to the election and presidency of Donald Trump.

What Kupelian won't tell you: WND had many of these exact same "openly pathological" responses to, and "hypnotic fixation" with, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Kupelian has appareently forgotten that, as we've documented, the website he runs lobbied Electoral College members in 2008 to betray the voters they were entrusted to represent and not vote for Obama. Or that his boss, Joseph Farah, was the original "Not My President" guy, declaring that "Obama has never been my president. I have steadfastly refused to acknowledge him as such." Or that WND was not only touting the impeachment of Hillary Clinton before the election took place, it was doing so before she even started running.

Kupelian also devoted part of his column to trying to distract readers from the growing links between Russia and the Trump campaign, insisting dagainst all evidence that the evidence is "unfounded" and that the real story is that HIllary Clinton "agreed to give control of one-fifth of America’s uranium reserves to Russia in return for millions of dollars going to the Clinton Foundation and directly to her husband Bill" -- a quid pro quo that has never been proven.

MRC Suggests Birth Control Is Eugenics
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center's Sarah Stites devotes an April 19 post to complaining that the National Geographic channel is producing a documentary about birth control.Despite the program still being in production -- meaning she can't possibly have seen it yet -- Stites was quick to assert that "a biased perspective is likely" from the documentary.

One of the people to be featured, Stites writes, is "Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, a noted advocate of eugenics."

Huh? Is Stites suggesting that birth control is a form of eugenics? She provides no other reason from mentioning that otherwise-irrelevant claim. While the MRC loves to lie about Sanger, she was an advocate of eugenics, though Stites conveniently omits the fact that it was a popular view in America during her early lifetime.

To equate birth contol with eugenics, as Stites is apparently doing, is malicious and counterhistorical since nobody is forcing women to take it. Is that the standard at the MRC these days?

NEW ARTICLE: Religious Freedom For Me, But Not For Thee
Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily loves it when Christians invoke a federal law designed to stop zoning discrimination against religious institutions. It's much less happy, however, when Muslims make use of the very same law. Read more >>

MRC Tries to Spin Away Dem Nearly Winning Seat In GOP Congressional District
Topic: Media Research Center

Jon Ossoff came very close to winning a majority of the vote in a multi-candidate race for the seat in Georgia's 6th Congressional District formerly held by Rep. Tom Price, now President Trump's Health and Human Services secretary. But the Media Research Center wants to make sure it's perceived by its right-wing readership as nothing more than a loss.

Kristine Marsh complained that ABC "used the race’s closeness as a reason to bash Trump while political analyst John Avlon spun that Democrats had 'an emotional victory.'" Marsh added: "Ironically, the ABC chyron was more accurate than what was actually said during the report. It read: 'Democrat fails to win after Trump endorsement.'" But Trump didn't endorse any of the 11 GOP candidates; he merely encouraged Republicans to vot and attacck Ossoff.

Kyle Drennen huffed: "Despite acknowledging that the media’s chosen candidate in Georgia’s special congressional election on Tuesday, Democrat Jon Ossoff, had fallen short of the 50% threshold necessary to avoid a runoff, on Wednesday, NBC’s Today touted the failed liberal effort as a near win that would send an 'ominous sign' to Republicans."

Scott Whitlock grumbled that MSNBC "hyp[ed] John Ossoff’s failed effort to win outright against 11 Republicans" and "have been doing their best to salvage the non-win." LIke the MRC isn't doing its best to salvage the near-loss.

Drennen then promoted White House press secretary Sean Spicer's spin on the race insisting that "They said on the record that their goal was to win this race. They lost. And the reaction has somewhat been, you know, that they almost won. No, they lost."

Randy Hall was also in propaganda mode, cheering a CNN appearance by Ossoff's runoff opponent, Republican Karen Handel. Hall put in boldface type Handel's assertion that Ossoff doesn't live in the district, but failed to mention that it's not a requirement that he do so and that numerous members of Congress don't live in the districts they represent.

Brad Wilmouth dissembled when CNN portrayed the district as solidly Republican: "While it is true that the seat could be accurately described as 'traditionally Republican' since there is a history of Republican presidential candidates performing well there through 2012, districts can change, and it is at least debatable whether the district should still be considered 'deeply Republican.'"

Nicholas Fondacaro, meanwhile, fretted that "the Republican vote was dangerously split between 11 different candidates" and whined that "NBC embarrassed themselves the night of the election with how much they gushed over" Ossoff.

Clay Waters complained that Ossoff "may have failed to take advantage of glowing media coverage and huge out-of-state donations by falling short in a special election to fill a congressional seat," but the New York Times "hyped Ossoff optimism even after he failed to win on Tuesday." Waters made sure to add that Ossoff, "despite great publicity and enormous spending outlay failed to attain the 50% mark necessary to avoid a runoff."

Finally, apparently oblivious to the his own right-wing spin and that of his employer, Curtis Houck groused that USA Today "continued the liberal spin about the Georgia congressional special election" and called the race a "non-win" for Ossoff.

That's nine posts by eight different MRC writers to spin this race the way conservatives want it spun. Talk about an all-hands-on-deck effort.

WND: Only Acceptable Form of Christianity Is 'Evangelical Protestant'
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily has been promoting itself lately as "the largest Christian website in the world" (while never explaining how "the largest Christian website in the world" can lie so brazenly to its readers). But, really, there's only one form of Christianity WND cares about.

WND's Art Moore makes that clear in an April 13 article attacking a Bible scholar for purportedly ceasing to be Christian enough:

Known as the “Bible Answer Man,” Hank Hanegraaff’s daily radio show aims to “equip Christians to pursue sound doctrine to discern truth and error.”

Faithful listeners have presumed that to mean the evangelical Protestant interpretation of the Scriptures and the church, which is why more than a few sat up when they heard Hanegraaff confirm to a caller Monday a rumor that he had gone through a formal rite, known as chrismation (“the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit”), to become a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church on Palm Sunday, April 9.

Moore then quotes numerous people attacking Hanegraaff in one form or another, including one blogger for a "Christian apologetics site" who ranted, "The Orthodox Church is a false expression of Christianity, much like the Roman Catholic Church, that is highly driven by graven images and denies the biblical doctrine of salvation by grace alone through faith alone, and instead, trusts in meritorious works and a sacramental system for salvation."

As per usual for WND, Moore did not give Hanegraaff any real opportunity to defend himself, noting only that "Hanegraaff’s office did not reply Wednesday to a WND interview request." Moore has not touched the subject since, meaning all this Hanegraaff-bashing stands unchallenged.

This isn't the first time WND has attacked Hanegraaff. In 2015 it gave Joel Richardson -- perhaps best known for likening Obama to the Antichrist while laughably denying he was doing so -- a platform to bash Hanegraaff for failing to conform to his particular vision of "replacement theology."

CNS Now Shilling for the Pizza Industry
Topic: CNSNews.com

The fossil-fuel industry is not the only conservative-leaning business lobby for which CNSNews.com will serve as a loyal stenographer. Craig Bannister writes in an April 17 CNS blog post:

Food chains like pizza retailers are warning that an Obamacare regulation set to kick in on May 5 will overwhelm customers, raise prices and bankrupt businesses.

A costly and burdensome 400-page regulation in the Affordable Care Act (Section 4205) is set to go into effect on May 5 requiring any “restaurant” with 20 or more locations to post in-store menu boards with separate nutrition information for every food item and combination served.

Bannister regurgitates talking points from industry lobbying groups the American Pizza Community, "which represents pizza companies like Pizza Hut, Papa John’s and Dominos," and the Food Marketing Institute, "whose members operate 37,000 supermarkets." Bannister helpfully and editorializes -- something the "mainstream media" Bannister loves to criticize would never do -- by putting in underlined bold type key PR phrases "locally-produced products will be dropped" and "estimates the first-year cost of compliance at more than $1 billion."

Bannister fails to report, however, that the rules have been in the works for years, takeout-oriented chains like Domino's don't have to post calorie counts in-store, temporary items are exempt from disclosure, and other restaurant chains already comply with the standards.

Further, Bannister misstates the compliance costs. He uncritically repeats the FMI's claim that "the first-year cost of compliance at more than $1 billion"; in fact, as Media Matters notes, the Food and Drug Administration found that the $1 billion cost would actually be spread out over a 20-year period.

Bannister quotes nobody in support of the calorie disclosure rules, so slavishly is his devotion to being a stenographer to food industry interests.

WND's Klayman Remains A Birther Dead-Ender
Topic: WorldNetDaily

The Obama derangement refuses to die at WorldNetDaily. Larry Klayman spends his April 19 WND column reminding us that he's a birther dead-ender:

For over the last eight years, during President Barack Obama’s tenure, he steadfastly refused to release the original of his birth certificate when repeatedly questioned by many about his status as a “natural born citizen,” the constitutional criterion to be eligible to run for and be sworn in as president – and when he finally posted a “scanned version” a few years ago on the White House website, many forensic experts found it to be fraudulent.

As just one example, notwithstanding forensic analysis by other experts, my client Dennis Montgomery, a “computer wizard” and NSA/CIA whistleblower (see www.freedomwatchusa.org), found that the one posted by Obama’s White House was not genuine.

To this day, Obama has never released an original of his alleged Hawaiian birth certificate for further analysis. Leftist claims that this so-called “birther issue” is simply the result of “alt right racists,” of which President Trump, according to them, is a charter member (having early on questioned Obama’s place of birth), is empty and itself reverse racist rhetoric. The bottom line: The issue of the authenticity of Obama’s birth certificate and status as a “natural born citizen,” ironically first raised by 2008 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, was and remains, at least for the history books, a legitimate and unanswered issue, no matter how the left has played the race card by spinning it as a conspiracy by white racists.

Note that Klayman moved the goalposts to claim Obama never released "the original of his birth certificate." Of course, Obama released two birth certificates, but no evidence would have been good enough for die-hard birthers like Klayman. Hhis claim that "many forensic experts found it to be fraudulent" goes to a December WND article about the incompetent investigation by Joe Arpaio and his "cold case posse" chief Mike Zullo.

As far as Klayman's client, the "'computer wizard' and NSA/CIA whistleblower" (and alleged fraudster, but Klayman won't tell you that) Dennis Montgomery, goes, actual news outlets reported that Montgomery's birth certificate probe did not turn up "anything of value."

But Klayman is not done with his conspiracy theories:

Second, also during the 2008 presidential election period and throughout the eight years of his presidency, Obama refused to release medical records about his health. What could be more important for the American people to know than whether or not their commander in chief, the leader of the nation and the free world, is healthy and able to do his constitutional duty to defend and protect the Constitution of the United States, and the American people as a whole?

Actually, FactCheck.org reports:

During the 2008 campaign, Obama released summary medical information from his personal physician, who pronounced him to be in “excellent health” with routine test results for such things as cholesterol all within normal levels. (McCain, who is a cancer survivor and was 71 at the time, let reporters see his records for three hours to show he was cancer-free.)

Since taking office, Obama has followed the practice of earlier presidents. He released results of his first “periodic” physical exam on Feb. 28, 2010. Results of his second “periodic” exam were released Oct. 31, 2011. His physician described him as being “in excellent health and ‘fit for duty.'”

This appears to be much more than Donald Trump has released -- to date, just a one-page summary -- but Klayman won't tell you that either.

Klayman also reminds us that his continued Obama conspiracy-mongering is in service to distract us from the fact that Trump has refused to release his tax returns:

Whatever the reason for the president’s refusal, it is likely based on his real and documented perception that the leftist media would use his tax returns to continue to lie and divert attention from affairs of state and his Making America Great Again.

[...]

So when you turn on cable news and see these leftists continuing to riot – hopefully you will not find yourself in the middle of one – remember that this is not because they are genuinely concerned about the release of President Trump’s tax returns, no more than they were about Obama’s failure to disclose his original birth certificate or medical records. Instead, they have and will continue to look for any bogus pretext to destabilize the Trump presidency and to discredit conservatives, people of faith, libertarians and others who voted for and continue to support his quest to restore the 1776 vision of our Founding Fathers: freedom and not tyrannical socialism!

Needless to say (though Klayman won't), the whole point of the birther conspiracy was never about the Constitution and was always about trying to delegitimize and destabilize the Obama presidency.

Hypocrisy At The MRC Over O'Reilly's Sexual Harassment
Topic: Media Research Center

Tim Graham and Brent Bozell begin their April 21 column this way:

Fox News took Bill O'Reilly off the air after a heavy campaign to fire him led by CNN's media unit and The New York Times. If all the charges of sexual harassment are true, his case is indefensible. That said, it's time for his media critics to stand down. They are guilty of rank hypocrisy.

Hold it right there. Two guys who couldn't be bothered to say anything publicly about the accusations against O'Reilly until Fox News had safely fired him -- and after Graham had appeared on the final episode of O'Reilly's old show, renamed "The Factor" after O'Reilly's official departure, where even then he couldn't be moved to say a word about O'Reilly -- are accusing others of hypocrisy? It's as if Bozell and Graham care more about ensuring they continue to appear on Fox News in the future than speaking truth to power.

Graham and Bozell go on to play the Clinton Equivocation card, complaining about a Times editorial that "noted that Hillary Clinton had told a New Hampshire town hall questioner a month earlier that Juanita Broaddrick's tale of rape was not to be believed." Well, that's not exactly what happened; the Times editorial did note that Clinton responded to a question about whether Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey and Paula Jones should also be believed -- but added that "Mrs. Clinton’s response was odd, and unhelpful."

The two also fail to mention that there's a good reason why Broaddrick's accusation has believability issues: she spent nearly two decades denying that any rape had taken place.

Graham and Bozell huffed that the Times editorial was in service of bashing Trump as "sexist and beyond the pale" for bringing up old Clinton stuff -- but then, they went even harder on the Clinton Equivocation when tales of sexual harassment against Trump began to surface late in the 2016 campaign. Bozell whined that "you did not get as much coverage of Juanita Broaddrick as you got on Donald Trump in 48 hours."

That's hypocrisy.

Speaking of which, Graham and Bozell weren't done with their hypocritical ranting:

On April 2, 2017, the Times published a 3,148-word front-page article lamenting "O'Reilly Thrives as Settlements Add Up." Reporters Emily Steel and Michael Schmidt declared that their investigation found five women who received payouts from either O'Reilly or Fox "in exchange for agreeing to not pursue litigation or speak about their accusations against him. The agreements totaled about $13 million."

As they noted, the lion's share of that total came in a $9 million settlement from 2004. That was 13 years ago, but it didn't qualify as a "tired subject" or some "ancient scandal."

CNN relentlessly pushed for O'Reilly's dismissal, calling up advertisers and pressuring them to take commercials off their competition. Bashing O'Reilly dominated their Sunday show "Reliable Sources" for weeks and their "news" programming after their victory.

But two days after the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke in 1998, CNN aired a town hall meeting titled "Investigating the President: Media Madness?"

[...]

Back then, it was "media madness" to investigate whether then-President Bill Clinton might be assaulting women in the workplace — the Oval Office. There was zero concern about a "culture of abuse" inside the White House. For good measure, CNN moved on to specials attacking special prosecutor Ken Starr for prudishly investigating where CNN and the rest of the press never wanted to go.

[...]

Women deserve a workplace where men don't harass them for sex. But that's not what these sanctimonious liberal journalists care about. It just doesn't matter how brutal the alleged rape of Juanita Broaddrick was. What matters is that Bill O'Reilly had to go.

Bill Clinton is laughing.

Probably because he, like the rest of us, can see through the sanctimonious load of horsepuckey Graham and Bozell are serving up here.

Bozell and Graham have no problem with sexual harassment if a conservative or a Republican does it, and they cannot criticize a conservative's harassment on its own. They rant at length about Clinton's sex life at the slightest provocation, but they offer only a token one-word criticism about the terrible behavior of O'Reilly and Trump -- then rant about Clinton some more. Their outrage is driven by partisan politics, not by any sense of morality they claim to hold, which is why they give O'Reilly and Trump a pass. They're more mad that the media exposed O'Reilly's bad behavior than by the behavior itself.

And that is the biggest hypocrisy of all.

Dubious WND Doc Goes Godwin on Obamacare
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Dubious WorldNetDaily doc Lee Hieb goes there in her April 14 column, stretching really hard to play the Nazi card on Obamacare:

But all this has lead me to ask: Apart from atrocity experimentation on inmates, what was the Nazi health program?

For an in depth review there is no better source than “National Health Care: Medicine in Germany 1918-1945” by Marc Micozzi, M.D., written for the November 1993 Freeman magazine. Socialized medicine was inaugurated by Otto Von Bismarck to keep the German populace from voting for an even more socialist government. After World War I, the German government’s health-care system purposely discouraged private practice, for the express purpose of instituting universal coverage and standardization. Prevention of disease was emphasized over the treatment of disease, and doctors made a significant philosophic shift – from working solely for and in the interest of their patients, to working for the government and the collective good. Although they may not have realized the significance of this at the time, this shift was necessary for what followed under the Nazis. As Dr. Micozzi puts it, “Politicized medicine is not a sufficient cause of the mass extermination of human beings, but is seems to be a necessary cause.”

In the Weimar Republic, preventive medicine was successful in improving the overall health of the “volk.” But, as economic troubles began, predictably, the state-run health system was gutted until it provided little care, but lots of regulation. Efficiency and cost containment became the order of the day. When given a choice of treating the young producers or the non-productive elderly, imbeciles and disabled children, the government (using expert panels) chose care for the most productive.

Hieb is apparently referring to this article. She skips the part where Micozzi wrote that the Weimar health reforms "resulted in clearly improved public health," and that it was the Great Depression in the early 1930s that caused Weimar health care to go awry as well as pave the way for the rise of Hitler and the Nazis. But because Weimar-era health care dabbled in eugenics, this is somehow directly linked to the Nazi takeover, under which things went to lengths presumably never envisioned by Weimar officials -- never mind that that socialized medicine was introduced under Bismarck a full 50 years earlier.

Hieb then tries to pretend she's not going Godwln here by insisting, "No one is saying that Obama is Hitler ... but Obamacare is right out of the Weimar Republic." Hieb doesn't seem to understand the difference between the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany.

That's just ignorance. She also asserted that Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger "believed in racial purification through abortion, segregation and forced sterilization" -- something for which there is little evidence (she was anti-abortion, was not particularly racist and the idea that the "feeble-minded" should be sterilized was a widespread belief of her era).

Hieb then wrote that "Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg echoed Margaret Sanger when she said, 'Frankly, I thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations we don’t want too many of.' (Italics mine, scary words hers.)" That statement is taken out of context; in fact, Ginsburg was attributing that sentiment to others, not herself.

Hieb also claims that "In the Netherlands today, the No. 1 cause of death of children under 10 years old is euthanasia by a physician." She cites no evidence to back up this claim, a surprising one given that euthanasia is not permitted there for children under 12.She may be referring to claims that hundreds of babies are killed each year in the country, which have not been substantiated.

Hieb finally offers a closing rant:

Government medicine is evil. It makes citizens into dependent children, and it turns once-honorable doctors into tools of the state. Just ask yourself this: When you are in your sick bed, whom do you trust at your bedside – a private physician you have hired or a doctor sent from the government?

If the government doctor understands history (i.e., the difference between the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany) and prefers telling the truth to peddling malicious, politically motivated lies, then yes, we'd take the government doc.