Is WND Working With Trump White House to Push Seth Rich Conspiracies?
Topic: WorldNetDaily

The lawsuit Rod Wheeler filed against benefactor Ed Butowsky regarding a discredited Fox News story on the death of Seth Rich is a bombshell, but as we've documented, you wouldn't know that from WorldNetDaily's treatment of it in misleading about and burying the story.

A key allegation in Wheeler's lawsuit is that Butowsky worked with the Trump White House to get that story out -- an angle WND has heavily downplayed. That treatment, though, seems to beg the question: Did WND also work with the Trump White House to push the story?

Remember, there's an existing relationhip between WND and Trump. In 2012, WND editor Joseph Farah and then-reporter Jerome Crosi were advising Trump behind the scenes in pushing Obama birther conspiracy theories. Thereis no reason not to believe that WND has continued to maintain a relationship with Trump, and that the Trump White House sees WND as a valuable (and compliant) outlet to promote such fringe conspiracy-mongering. Indeed, as a loyal Trump supporter, WND would have the same alleged motivation as Trump and Fox News in pushing the story: as a distration from stories about alleged collusion between Trump and Russia during the 2016 election.

WND has been conspicuously silent about whether it has contacts within the Trump camp to push the Rich story -- which tells us that it's likely trying to hide something.

It's the elephant in the room, and WND is desperately trying to step around it. Rather, it's still trying to push the conspracy: An Aug. 8 article by Alicia Powe stays on the fringe by pushing a demand by politically motivated lawyer Jack Burkman (whom Powe allows without challenged to claim is leading an "independent, nonpartisan" investigation into Rich's death) for special counsel Robert Mueller to look into Rich's death because of the "confidential, verifiable information" he purports to have (and which Powe doesn't bother pressing Burkman on).

Powe references Wheeler's lawsuit and lamens that "Family spokesman Brad Bauman and the Rich family declined to respond to WND’s requests for comment on the lawsuit." Shouldn't she be asking her boss about the lawsuit and its implications for WND instead?

CNS Misleads, Cherry-Picks on Detroit Unemployment
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNSNews.com editor in chief Terry Jeffrey cheerfully writes in an Aug. 2 article:

The unemployment rate plummeted in the Detroit metropolitan area over the past year, dropping more in the period from June 2016 to June 2017 than in any other large metropolitan area in the United States, according to data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Last June, the Detroit metro area had an unemployment rate of 5.7 percent, according to BLS. This June, it was 3.7 percent--even as the local labor force increased.

As a consequence, the Detroit metropolitan area now has a lower unemployment rate than the Los Angeles, New York and Boston metropolitan areas.

The implication here, of course, is that President Trump is somehow responsible for all of this. Jeffrey, however, is cherry-picking his data.

The BLS data from which he he cherry-picked shows that the Detroit metro area's employment numbers are highly variable. While Jeffrey compares numbers fromJune 2016 and June 2017, which shows the most dramatic change, he conveniently omits the numbers from May 2017 -- when unemployment was slightly lower (3.6 percent) and the labor force was slightly bigger than in June.

Jeffrey also evades any mention of long-term employment trends in Detroit. An actual news organization reported that only about half of adults in the city are part of the active work force, the lowest of any big city in the U.S. Further, according to another actual news organization: "The Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a free-market-oriented research group in Midland, has said federal data also show that about two-thirds of the jobless drop in Detroit can be attributed to a smaller labor force -- that is, fewer Detroiters looking for jobs."

Further, Jeffrey's implicit praise for Trump for an unemployment drop over one year ignores that President Obama arguably deserves the same implicit credit for reducing Detroit's unemployment from well over 25 percent in 2009.

Jeffrey would never do that, of course, given his website's history of playing up negative jobless numbers throughout Obama's presidency.

WND's Hohmann Suggests Mosque Deserved To Be Bombed
Topic: WorldNetDaily

In an Aug. 6 article, WorldNetDaily is upset that authorities aren't jumping to conclusions after a crime by making declarations without conducting an investigation first: "A Mauritanian-born French citizen brandished a knife at an Eiffel Tower security checkpoint and shouted 'Allahu akbar,' but police are investigating the incident as a non-terrorist attack, just a common crime."

Just a day later, WND was complaining the exact opposite. WND's resident Muslim-hater Leo Hohmann not only complains that the bombing of a Minnesota mosque is being investigated as a hate crime, he seems to justify the bombing by calling the mosque "notorious":

One day after someone threw an explosive device into the window of a mosque in Bloomington, Minnesota, the state’s vast array of Muslim advocacy groups joined its governor in condemning the bombing as an “act of terrorism,” and they are demanding the FBI investigate it as a hate crime.

“It’s an act of terrorism, a criminal act of terrorism,” said Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton on Sunday during a visit to the mosque, Dar Al Farooq. “I hope and pray the perpetrator will be caught and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

[...]

Before any suspects have been named or factual evidence presented by authorities, Dayton joined a chorus of Muslim advocates including Muslim Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Muslim-American Society in condemning Saturday’s attack as motivated by anti-Muslim bigotry.

The blast early Saturday morning targeted the notorious Dar al-Farooq Islamic Center, headed by imam Walid Idrus al-Maneesey, who has preached hatred against Jews, quoting from the sayings of Muhammad as recorded in the hadiths.As WND has previously reported, at least six Somali refugees known to have engaged in terrorist-related activities have attended Dar al-Farooq at one time or another.

In April 2016, the Investigative Project on Terrorism described the mosque as “a hotbed of extremism.”

Asad Zaman, the executive director of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, called the attack an “unprovoked hate crime” during the news conference with the governor Sunday. He thanked elected officials and police for responding quickly to “repudiate” the attack.

While the claims of a hate crime against the mosque may yet turn out to be accurate, attorneys, activists and law enforcement experts contacted by WND say there’s a 50-50 chance that the blast may not have been a hate crime at all.

It could have been someone who attended the mosque, or it could have been someone from another mosque who had an issue with the imam. The device landed in the imam’s office, causing minor damage. Nobody was present in the office at the time, and nobody was injured.

It wouldn’t be the first time a Muslim attacked a mosque. It happens all the time in the Middle East.

Hohmann even called on disgraced, discredited philanderer John Guandolo for his opinion on the issue, which was largely limited to spewing that  whatever the governor "utters about this is sure to be cow dung."

Hohmann also huffed that "The mosque is already seeking to capitalize financially on the explosion by launching a GoFundMe campaign." Does that mean WND's failing crowdfunding campaign to perpetuate Seth Rich conspiracy theories is a similar attempt to "capitalize financially"? Not that Hohmann would say so, of course.

Kill the Messenger: MRC's Graham Bashes NY Times For Reporting Facts He Doesn't Like About Pence
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media ResearchCenter demonstrates just how reflexively pro-Trump it is with an Aug. 7 post by Tim Graham, who uncritically treats Vice President Mike Pence's denial of political activity to position himself in case Donald Trump does not run for re-election in 2020 for whatever reason as trustworthy and uses it to launch another lame attack on on the New York Times for running a story to that effect:

If a conservative news outlet in 1993 had trotted out the idea that after an uncertain first six months for Bill Clinton, Vice President Gore was “acting like” he wanted to run for president in 1996, the liberal media elite would have denounced it as  crackpot conspiracy-theory material. But since Trump is guilty of what the Times calls “sheer disarray” in the wake of all the liberal media's Russia-may-have-colluded coverage, this Times exercise is treated as “news” reporting.

The Times knows that Trump doesn’t like disloyalty or anyone stealing his spotlight, so they are making trouble for Pence, plain and simple. “Chaos” and “disarray” and Republican in-fighting is exactly what they want as badly disguised Democrats.

Graham presents no evidence that 1) the early Clinton White House was as chaotic as Trump's is, or 2) Gore ever did the same things Pence has been documented as doing. Further, though huffing that the Times calls (italics his) the Trump White House is "sheer disarray," he doesn't disprove the claim.

While Graham accuses the Times of engaging in "unintential knee-slappers" in its article, Graham has one of his own. His response to the Times article's statement that it's based on "interviews with more than 75 Republicans at every level of the party" was to claim, "The Times reporters insist that the sheer volume of their phone calls makes their guesswork 'news.'" Of course, that number is at least 75 more people than Graham talked to to fill out his ill-informed screed.

But as the Washington Post's Erik Wemple points out, Pence (and, thus, Graham) never denies the salient facts of the article: "the Pence people cannot deny that the Republican Party is riven with concern about the president’s viability; they cannot deny the on-the-record quote from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in the New York Times story: 'They see weakness in this president. Look, it’s not a nice business we’re in'; they cannot deny the concerted fundraising activities of the vice president."

The Post's Jennifer Rubin hammers home the point further:

The problem, however, is that Pence has been meeting with donors, has been creating an independent power base (as the Times reported), has hired a politically combatant chief of staff and has been the main channel of communication between Trump and Republicans on the Hill. The only real question is whether he is doing these things on behalf of Trump — or his own political ambition. (Very likely, it is some combination of the two.)

Graham is basically asking the question: Who are you going to believe, the political official who denies something is happening or the literally dozens of other informed people who are pretty sure it is but can't go on the record for fear of displeasing their on-the-record boss?

Because Graham can't prove any of this wrong, he's simply trying to destroy the messenger.

Graham's partisan hackery is made even more ridiculous by the fact that the "Editor's Picks" of the MRC's NewsBusters blog -- of which Graham is executive editor -- has an article from the pro-Trump Washington Examiner claiming "CNN insiders" are saying CNN correspondent Jim Acosta's "antics" as White House correspondent are a bid to get his own CNN show.

How many of those Acosta-bashers are on the record? None.

If Graham is really so upset about the use of anonymous sources, why does he give it a pass when the results please him? Hypocrisy at its worst. (Plus, he's a terrible media critic.)

WND Stays Silent on 'Nicole Minsey' Fiasco While Farah Insists WND Is Trustworthy
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Joseph Farah spends his Aug. 8 column complaining about a poll purportedly dominated by "ultra-liberals" that "put most of their trust in “news agencies” supported by big government – public television, the BBC, NPR and PBS, four of the six highest rated for credibility." He went on to sneer that "I guess that’s what one should expect when a graduate school of journalism does the research, with a professor in charge."

Farah then implied his own website was more trustworthy than any of them because it's allegedly popular: "Wouldn’t it make sense that the real standard of “most trusted” news sources would have something to do with traffic? Do people general go to news sources they don’t trust? And how do they know what they don’t trust if they don’t go there?"

The irony here, of course, is not only that WND has published reams of fake news, it's remained silent about its latest fake-news scandal.

As we documented, WND's Bob Unruh conducted a purported interview in May with "Nicole Minsey," who claimed to be an Obama Democrat-turned-Trump Republican who opened a website selling pro-Trump merchandise. It's become increasingly clear that "Minsey" doesn't exist at all and appears to be either a stolen or made-up identity to promote the store (which apparently didn't even fulfill its orders).

Unruh either got fooled badly by taking "Minsey" at her word and not even bothering to verify her identity because her story was too good to fact-check, or he and WND did the article as a promotion for the (bogus) store in some sort of monetary exchange -- a payment up front or a cut of the revenue generated by the article.

Wouldn't a trustworthy news operation move quickly to clear the air over this issue and admit any mistakes it made? Instead, WND has gone totally silent, and Unruh's bogus article remains live and unaltered.

Farah concluded his column by making his usual self-aggrandizing claim that WND is "seeking truth no matter what the cost." That's never been true, of course, and it gets even less true each day Farah, Unruh and WND let their "Minsey" fiasco fester.

Bozell Using His MRC To Rant About Personal Grievances
Topic: Media Research Center

If ever there was any doubt that the Media Research Center is first and foremost a vehicle for Brent Bozell's right-wing activism, he erased it by using the MRC to go on a tirade against Republican Sen. Jeff Flake.

Bozell gave himself space at NewsBusters to personally attack Flake over his new book:

On behalf of my late father and my family, I am denouncing Senator Jeff Flake and his new book, dishonestly titled, Conscience of a Conservative.

Since entering the Senate in 2013, Jeff Flake has, time and again, proven he is part of the indulgent hypocrisy in Washington. While he waxes poetically about conservative principles, his Conservative Review Liberty score is an abysmal 53%, also known as: “F”. In 2013, I watched first-hand as Flake refused to sign a letter pledging to defund ObamaCare, among his many betrayals to conservatism. Jeff Flake is neither a conservative nor does he have a conscience.

As every conservative leader knows, my father, L. Brent Bozell, Jr., ghost-wrote Conscience of a Conservative for Barry Goldwater. While the Goldwater Institute may own the rights to the book’s title, neither the organization nor Senator Flake have the right to unjustifiably trade on my father’s work. Conscience of a Conservative is the greatest selling polemic in history, and Senator Flake is trading on its reputation to shamelessly promote himself and disguise his own conservative deficiencies. My father would be appalled to see this fraud as the author of the so-called “sequel,” which it most certainly is not.

The media need to know, when reporting on Senator Flake and his “book,” that the author is a deceiver out for personal and financial gain. I also call on my conservative brethren to denounce this impostor, who dishonorably claims to speak for conservatism, in the strongest possible terms.

(Increasingly lackey-ish blogger Craig Bannister dutifully repeats Bozell's rant at his "news" division, CNSNews.com.)

First: Who is Bozell to judge who is conservative and who is not? Remember that Bozell loudly insisted that Donald Trump was no conservative, until he suddenly decided otherwise (perhaps influenced the MRC's biggest donor, who is also a big Trump supporter). If Bozell can be turned that easily, he's obviously no stalwart of bedrock conservative principles.

Second: Bozell sets up Flake as a RINO strawman to attack. Flake's conservative credentials are much more solid than Bozell portrays them; he simply cherry-picked a score from the website operated by his buddy, Mark Levin, that curiously fails to explain how those scores come about beyond a video vaguely stating that they are computed from "50 votes over a six-year period." And as the Wsahington Post points out (and Bozell omits), "Flake has a 93 percent lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union, 95 percent from FreedomWorks, 100 percent from National Right to Life and an 'A' from the National Rifle Association."

Third: That Bozell is rushing to the defense of his father in this way tells us he's still trying to ride the coattails of his father's achievements, and that he would never have gone as far in the conservative movement as he has if his father hadn't ghost-wrote Goldwater's book.

The fact that Bozell is so willing to smear and lie about Flake -- and treat his nonprofit organization as an angsty personal blog in order to do so -- is a pretty clear sign that he's afraid of the anti-Trump message in Flake's book that indicts people like him for abandoning self-professed conservative principles to align with Trump.

Transgender Derangement Syndrome, Linda Harvey Edition
Topic: WorldNetDaily

As with smokers, the gender make-believers in our military could adjust as well – to reality. Hopefully, our president’s sudden but wise policy change will be fully implemented and obeyed in all branches of the armed forces.

After all, hasn’t the rallying cry for decades been to allow people to “be who they are”?

So it makes no sense that America is being blackmailed in our schools, our workplaces and in the military (before Trump’s promising new order) to permit gender-defiant people to be … who they are not.

Consider Charmaine, a sergeant in the U.S. Army. Sobbing to fellow soldiers and to a sympathetic reporter, Charmaine believes Donald Trump is the devil incarnate.

“He’s banning transgender people from serving their country!” And Charmaine, whose real name is Charles, has a dog in this fight, believing “she” will now be prevented from serving “her” country.

And Charles will be unable to take advantage of the generous benefit of taxpayer-funded cosmetic and deconstructive treatment (aka, surgical mutilation) as ordained by the Obama administration.

[...]

Hopefully, military leaders will soon receive a formal Trump order to end gender pretense in the troops, and then they will put an end to this extremist nonsense. The Army has already conducted indoctrination sessions for females to accommodate biological males in their showers.

Back to Charmaine – let’s call him Charles, since that’s who he is. Charles is wrong.

He is not barred from service. His current bizarre behavior is banned but, like smokers, behavior can change.

Just lose the lipstick and wig, and if no other personnel issues surface (like possibly, insubordination), Charles would be welcome to stay.

Charles is a fictional character, but you get the point. There is no ban on “people.”

These same individuals can serve faithfully, if they are willing to end the nonsensical, anti-biology masquerade.

Rebels have a choice. I’m not minimizing the struggle that may ensue, but an honest self-assessment needs to take place. Do they really want to serve their country? Or themselves and their unstable perceptions? What matters most?

[...]

You can’t fool Father God, the Creator of two sexes from the beginning of time.

And the military is not a social experiment. The armed forces’ mission is to protect our country. But no soldier or sailor can be ready to protect America while consumed by a foundational discomfort about sexual identity. This ought to come naturally.

When it doesn’t, counseling and possibly a new choice of vocation are the logical next steps.

But every current or future enlisted person has a choice, because no one is born in the “wrong sex body.”

You can serve America, or serve your own demons. America and biology would be the better options.

-- Linda Harvey, Aug. 1 WorldnetDaily column

NEW ARTICLE -- Out There, Exhibit 68: Denial of Reality Attack
Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Brad Wilmouth keeps insisting that GOP Rep. Steve Scalise didn't give a speech to a David Duke-led white nationalist group -- despite the fact that Scalise apologized for giving it. Read more >>

WND Hides Fact That Mom's Court Case Against Transgender Teen Is Moot
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily has long misled about a Minnesota case in which a mother is trying to establish that her transgender child is not emancipated from her, despite not living with her for two years and despite allegations of abuse.

Joe Wilson picks up the misleading baton for an August 3 WND article:

A Minnesota mother is trying to deal with the fallout of a violation of her parental rights that led to her son being pushed through sex-change treatments without her knowledge.

Anmarie Calgaro is appealing District Judge Paul Magnuson’s decision to dismiss her lawsuit over the actions by the local county, school district and health officials.

The Thomas More Society said Magnuson “admitted that the boy was not legally emancipated by a court order and agreed that Calgaro’s parental rights ‘remained intact.'”

Just one problem with all of this, which either WND nor the Thomas More Society (whose press release Wilson is rewriting) admit: The child is no longer a minor. As a filing that's part of Thomas More's appellant's appendix for the appeal notes, the child in question was born in July 6, 1999, which means she has turned 18.

Which also means that the teen is now legally considered an adult, and parental control has ceased to be an issue. Which also means this whole case probably isn't about the case itself -- it's a vehicle a right-wing legal group to push its agenda through the courts.

Of course, WND won't tell you that either.

CNS Unemployment Coverage Distortion Watch
Topic: CNSNews.com

The Trump flip on unemployment reporting at CNSNews.com continues in a big way with the newly announced numbers for July.

The main story by Susan Jones began by touting the number of jobs created, as expected. She did surprisingly acknowledge in the third paragraph the low labor force participation rate, but unlike her reporting on this during the Obama years she quickly dismisses its importance by claiming it was being "held down in part by a wave of Baby Boomer retirements." It was during the Obama years too, but Jones rarely bothered to explain it, and never so far up in a Obama-era jobless numbers article.

CNS editor in chief Terry Jeffrey contributed his usual article on manufacturing jobs under the headline "Manufacturing Jobs Hit Highest Level Since Obama’s Inauguration." Jeffrey omits the relevant fact that the economy was in free fall at the time of Obama's inauguration and gives Obama no credit for the fact that manufacturing jobs are up about 1 million from the depth of the recession.

Then -- as if he read our article noting that he hadn't written about black unemployment since Trump took office, presumably because he now had to make Trump look good -- managing editor Michael W. Chapman wrote about it for the first time during the Trump presidency, making sure to figure out a pro-Trump spin:

Although the national unemployment rate for July was 4.3%, the unemployment rate for black workers was nearly double that of white workers, but it was also at a rate for blacks not seen since December 2000, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

In addition, the June unemployment rate for blacks of 7.1% was nearly at a level only seen once in the last 45 years -- 7.0% in April 2000.

Needless to say, Chapman gives Obama no credit whatsoever for cutting the black unemployment rate by more than half from the depths of the recession (and, like Jeffrey, fails to mention there even was a recession that hindered employment).

As has been a staple in recent months, CNS also published an op-ed by the Heritage Foundation's Timothy Doescher touting the low unempolyment rate -- claiming without evidence that "gains have likely come from reductions in harmful regulations that make it easier to run businesses in the U.S." -- and cheerleading for Trump policies that would purportedly cut the unemployment rate even further 

WND Fakishly Calls Stories on Ark Encounter Tax Issues 'Fake News'
Topic: WorldNetDaily

One of WorldNetDaily's favorite things to write about is the Ark Encounter, Ken Ham's attempt to indoctrinate people into creationism by building a museum in the shape of a full-sized ark. Last month, for example, WND touted (in an anonymously written article, of course) Ham's declaration that he would "take back the rainbow" from the gays by lighting the Ark Encounter in the colors of the rainbow.

In a July 29 article, WND's anonymous writer strikes again for the Ark Encounter, under the headline "As it was in the days of Noah ... Ark Encounter fights fake news":

A columnist who writes for Forbes has ridiculed a recent series headlines purporting to address a tax liability issue for the Christian Ark Encounter tourist attraction in Kentucky that features of replica, built according to biblical dimensions, of the Ark.

In fact, he notes that the Ark Encounter’s complaint of unfair treatment in the media “might have some merit.”

One headline cited by Forbes’ columnist Peter J. Reilly said, “Ken Ham Sells Ark Encounter Land To Himself for $10 To Avoid Paying Taxes.”

But Reilly said, “I don’t see that as a fair characterization as to what happened.”

At no point does the article itself repeat the headline's contention that the stories about the Ark Encounter were "fake news" -- perhaps because they weren't. The article admits that the basic facts are true: the Ark Encounter did sell itself to a related entity for $10 in an apparent attempt to excape paying a 50-cent-per-ticket safety tax in the town where the museum is located, then sold itself back when the tax stopped being an issue.

What's going on here is spin. Forbes columnist Reilly -- whose column WND curiously does not link to --  relies heavily on repeating the Ark Encounter's side of the story, going so far as to reprint its entire statement on the issue. Reilly didn't talk to any city offical, and neither did WND.

In other words, there's no "fake news" going on here, just WND serving as compliant stenographers for a favored source. Pretty ironic considering how much actual fake news WND publishes.

What LGBT Stuff Is The MRC Freaking Out About Now? Transgender Freakout Edition
Topic: Media Research Center

-- Mysterious sports blogger Jay Maxson was upset that a columnist who defended Maxson's bete noire, Colin Kaepernick, is transgender, callously mocking the writer for having "Jennered" over to "womanhood":

Douglas Goetsch was once a single, cross-dressing poet and a teacher at the University of Iowa, New York University and Western Kentucky. Battling depression and craving femininity, he broke up with his girlfriend and "Jennered" over to "womanhood." Douglas is now "Diana" and "she" just penned a vicious attack on America and much more, all in the name of Colin Kaepernick.

Only at the MRC could defending freedom of expression be a "vicious attack on America." And as he has before, Maxson cheer's Kaepernick's current state of unemployment as a NFL quarterback.

-- Alex Nitzberg ranted in a July 17 post:

As major media organizations actively advance the normalization and celebration of the LGBTQ agenda, NBCNews.com’s pro-LGBTQ propaganda arm “NBC OUT” recently published a list of LGBTQ book recommendations.

The July 14 piece titled “15 Recently Released LGBTQ Books for Your Summer Reading List,” contained both fiction and non-fiction reading suggestions. The lead paragraph explained: “From light beach reads to educational nonfiction, here are summer reading recommendations from NBC Out’s contributors and social followers.”

Nitzberg, of course, is part of the MRC's anti-LGBTQ propaganda division.

-- Karen Townsend raged that "For the first time to my knowledge, a network television show has brought in a sexual relationship between a transgender woman and a man," on the CBS show "Doubt." She further raged, "This is Hollywood continuing to force regular America into believing sexuality is fluid and gender change is normal, no matter if it includes surgical procedures to make it so, as in the case of transgenders." Shockingly, though, Townsend refers to actor Laverne Cox by her preferred pronoun of she (though we suspect that was just an editing mistake).

-- Brad Wilmouth takes a stab at justifying President Trump's proposed ban on transgenders in the military by making an economies-of-scale argument in favor of treating erectile dysfunction:

Beck's $50 million number was a reference to reports that the military spends $41.6 million a year on Viagra, $22.8 million on Cialis, and $8.4 million on sex change treatments.

It did not seem to occur to ether Cabrera or her guest that the amount spent on erectile dysfunction treatment may be more economically spread out over many more servicemen as opposed to sex treatments for transgenders who only make up less than 0.5 percent of service members.

-- Clay Waters bashed a New York Times reporter for daring to tell the stories of transgender service members:

The New York Times’ Pentagon reporter Helene Cooper evidently finds the personal stories of transgender military service members much more compelling than all that boring stuff about national defense and fighting terrorism.

[...]

Cooper’s emotional, supportive tone was quite different from her dry, almost dismissive mentions of what the military is actually designed to do: Sending soldiers into war zones, and killing terrorists[.]

Fake News: WND Profiles Twitter Bot As Actual Trump Supporter
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Bob Unruh fawningly wrote in a May 14 WorldNetDaily article:

Nicole Mincey is black, comes from a liberal Democrat background and watched closely what Barack Obama did for blacks during his presidency.

So why is she now running the online ProTrump45 store featuring “Adorable Deplorable” shirts, “Make America Great Again” caps, “Deplorable Lives Matter” slogans and more?

Because she’s black, comes from a liberal Democrat background and watched closely what Barack Obama did for blacks during his presidency.

“Honestly, the reason I switched to being a Republican was I realized Obama didn’t necessarily help black people during his presidency like he promised,” she told WND.

[...]

She told WND her background made her ideally suited to be a Democrat.

“I am from Newark, New Jersey. I was raised in a bad neighborhood,” she said.

But she became an ex-Democrat because of the party’s refusal to adopt “self-responsibility.”

“Everyone is a victim in their eyes and you can’t succeed unless the government helps you on someone else’s expense. I went to a charter high school where we constantly received threats to [be] shut down by Democratic politicians. We had to always do fundraisers to stay afloat.”

She said she was motivated by a desire to break liberal stereotypes.

“The media has painted Republican conservatives as old, white people that are racist. I’m a young black … college student that is female. Liberals see me and don’t know what to say because they can’t throw the racist card at me.”

While she used to be a regular college student with a job, now she’s “a college student with a small business and a job.”

It appears none of that stuff about Mincey's background is true, because "Nicole Mincey" as profiled by Unruh apparently doesn't exist.

Writer Bob Schooley looked into Mincey after Trump retweeted a post from the ProTrump45 Twitter account, and he found that "Mincey" appears to be nothing more than a Twitter bot designed to promote the retail store, and the pictures on the account claiming to be of her are nothing more than repurposed stock photos. It's unclear from where the picture WND is representing as Mincey that WND used in Unruh's article came.

Further, while there is an actual Nicole Mincey who is a college student from New Jersey, it appears that, according to Heavy, she's the victim of identity theft -- her name and Facebook account were used without her permission to create pro-Trump websites.

After the fake Mincey was exposed, the content of the @ProTrump45 Twitter account was moved to an account named @AlexandriaM0ra (with the same stock photo), and the @ProTrump45 account now claims to be "available for purchase" (a violation of Twitter terms of service).

It's obvious that Unruh never actually talked to the Minsey of ProTrump45 in person -- probably just exchanged emails -- and certainly never made no attempt to verify the person's identity. He and his WND editors simply decided that the story of "liberal black Democrat becomes Trump supporter" was too good to fact-check.

Which makes this yet another instance of fake news published by WND. And, no, don't expect WND to correct the record and admit its error -- the story was in line with WND's pro-Trump editorial agenda, and it makes no apologies for being so biased that it publishes fake news.

CNS Op-Ed Writer: Donald Jr.'s Get-Together With Russian Lawyer Just A 'Silly Little Meeting'
Topic: CNSNews.com

How in the tank is CNSNews.com for the Trump administration? It's even publishing op-eds seeking to exonerate Donald Trump Jr. for meeting with a Kremin-lnnked Russian lawyer who reportedly promised dirt on Hillary Clinton.

A July 21 CNS op-ed by Republican author Craig Shirley is headlined "How Could a Meeting Like Trump Jr.’s Happen? Easy: Campaigns Are Circuses," in which Shirley gives a pass to Donald Jr. because weird things happen during politcal campaigns:

What seems inexplicable on the outside looks like just the usual chaos to insiders.

Many years ago, a friend of mine — let’s call him Ed — was managing a congressional race. He was interviewing a young woman for a job with the campaign. While perusing her resume, Ed asked her if she had any special skills. Unhesitatingly, she replied, “Yes. I’m clairvoyant.”

Taken aback, Ed asked if she could give him a demonstration, and again she replied yes, and, as a demonstration of her talents, she said, “I see the two of us in that motel down the street making love this afternoon.”

Ed later told me, “And you know what? She was right!”

When I heard of the meeting Trump campaign staffers had with a Russian lawyer last year, like many of my brethren who have worked in campaigns, I was not surprised.

Weirdos and politics go together like peas and carrots: Strange, bizarre meetings. Strange, bizarre people. Clandestine operations. Inexplicable decisions. Things that in the light of day look strange, but in the heat of the moment seem perfectly rational. People often do things in politics that later can’t be explained. At least not always reasonably.

[...]

To paraphrase an old educator and philosopher, “Those who can, do, those who can’t, become over-the-top bell ringers.” Many will never know how fun it really is. Or how a silly little meeting with a Russian lawyer could possibly be just that — a silly little meeting and nothing more. The bystanders and alarmists scream the sky is falling, it seems, to give a little excitement to their otherwise mundane and limiting lives.

Stu Spencer, a longtime political adviser to Reagan, once said, “Working in politics is like running away and joining the circus.” And indeed, it is. It’s just not for everybody.

So the Trump campaign hands should pay these critics no mind. They will never know how much fun it is to be in the crazy arena, to know victory and defeat.

What would old educators and philosophers say about people who try to dismiss a get-together with a representative of an American adversary promising dirt on an opponent as a "silly little meeting"?

Obama Still Lives Rent-Free Inside Joseph Farah's Head
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Obama says his birthday is tomorrow, Aug. 4.

Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t. I just don’t know. To me, the jury is still out.

Obama says he was born in Hawaii in 1961. Maybe he was. Maybe he wasn’t. I just don’t know. To me, the jury is still out.

Why am I so stubborn on this point?

Two reasons:

1. The actual evidence is thin, and Obama did everything humanly possible to avoid proving his constitutional eligibility and human authenticity through the first three years of his presidency by producing a legitimate birth certificate.
2. Obama and his supporters have a lot of trouble being honest – telling the truth and knowing right from wrong.

[...]

I don’t believe a word that has ever come out of the mouth of Barack Obama.

I don’t believe a word he has ever written or was ghostwritten on his behalf.

I don’t believe any of the self-aggrandizement. I don’t believe a word of the hype.

Even if I believed his birthday is tomorrow, I wouldn’t send him a card, I wouldn’t wish him well, and I wouldn’t acknowledge any of his so-called accomplishments. For me, it will take a miracle to undo eight years of damage he inflicted on a great country.

Birthday shmirth-day.

I don’t wish him ill. I just don’t have any respect for him or his ideas. What he has decided to do in his post-presidency is even more contemptible than what he did with the reins of illegitimate power – serving, as he does, as a “shadow president,” intentionally undermining, at every turn, his duly elected successor.

I don’t think you can point to another U.S. president who ever did that.

It’s like he doesn’t know what else to do with himself except for being a national community organizer.

Pathetic.

Am I bitter?

You bet.

I like the United States of America. I like the idea of it. I like the concept – a nation under the rule of law, not the rule of men. I never liked the notion of a “fundamental transformation” of our country. Only someone who hates America could even hatch such a nightmarish thought. And his only notable accomplishment in life was coming very close to carrying it out.

Happy birthday?

Not from me.

Not this year, not next year nor the year after that.

No regrets from here on challenging everything Obama ever uttered, enacted or planned.

-- Joseph Farah, Aug. 2 WorldNetDaily column