Wash. Post Exposes WND's Financial Meltdown, Shenanigans Topic: WorldNetDaily
A new Washington Post article provides new details about the dire financial situation at WorldNetDaily, and it's even worse than we thought.
WND has been notoriously opaque about its finances, including lack of transparency about the money editor Joseph Farah claims it raised and where it was spent. The Post reports that not only have employees and contractors not received money they are owed, authors of books published by WND haven't been paid royalties they are due -- indeed, WND has for years been behind on payments to employees and vendors, to the point that Farah effectively bragged about that as being standard WND business practice. On top of that, it appears that WND's finances have gone to support a swanky office in the Washington, D.C., suburbs and Farah's nearby house, and Farah's wife, Elizabeth, is accused of buying personal items on a company credit card. Ex-WND employees and board members have questioned its finances, the Post reported, and WND refused to let them see even basic accounting statements.
WND was not even living up to promises it made to writers to paid to have their books published by WND. We've detailed the story of Patricia Fiejo, whose story and book WND promoted but did not disclose to readers it was paid by Fiejo (to the tune of nearly $10,000) to promote it; Fiejo told the Post that WND failed to deliver on promises it would provide audio versions of her book.
The Post repeated statements for a Farah-penned book taht WND got started on "a 250-acre ranch in a stretch of rural southern Oregon known as 'the imaginary state of Jefferson.' ... They invited staffers to move there with them and called their ranch, with its cabins converted into offices, 'the compound.' The Farahs lived across the road in a log cabin." But as we've pointed out, that ranch was owned by a group called the Foundation of Human Understanding, which some have accused of being a cult. It was run by Roy Masters, an evangelist and radio host. WND managing editor David Kupelian used to run a magazine operated by Masters' FHU, and that served as the template for WND's sparsely read Whistleblower magazine.
The Post also highlighted Farah's embrace last year of a bitcoin derivative as a way to save WND. We documented just how shady that deal was. And it has not been a moneymaker for any of its holders so far: We never saw that particular cryptocurrency valued very high at all; as of this writing, it's trading at about 14 cents.
Perhaps most interesting, is how WND first responded to a Post reporter who contacted it seeking a response to all these allegations:
Reached by phone last week, Farah’s wife, Elizabeth — the site’s co-founder with her husband — declined to discuss the accusations in detail, but added that “the angst of a former employee does not impress me as to the legitimacy of complaints.”“It’s a he-said, she-said,” Elizabeth Farah said.
Less than two hours after she was contacted by The Washington Post, WND posted a story saying Joseph Farah had recently suffered a serious, previously undisclosed stroke.
It's probably telling of the how solid the Post story is that WND has yet to publish a response to it as of this writing on its website.
Things are undeniably a mess at WND, and now it's clear they have been for years. But if Farah is out of commission with a severe health issue, that bodes even worse for WND's future. Seeing this sort of mismanagement laid bare doesn't bode well for attracting any investors to it or even its tax-deductible nonprofit WND News Center, which has the goal of financing WND's reporting. The force-of-nature Farah juggled things (and stiffed his employees and authors) to keep the thing afloat, and no other WND bigwig seems likely to step into that role.
A few months back, WND managing editor David Kupelian wrote the story of his heart attack a couple years earlier, in which he seemed to learn the wrong lessons God was purportedly imparting to him by allowing him to suffer one -- he did not apologize to, and seek forgiveness from, all the people whom WND has smeared and libeled over the years. If one believes Farah's stroke is a message from God as well, it may be that the message He is sending is that WND doesn't deserve to live.
Newsmax Hides That It Published Horowitz Book It's Promoting Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax is heavily promoting the new book by right-winger David Horowitz:
A March 17 article by Jason Devaney touted how Horowitz's book accuses " the 'anti-religious, anti-American left' of conducting an ongoing effort to erase God from American society dating back six decades."
A March 18 article by Bill Hoffmann gushed: "A New York Times bestselling author is warning that Christians are in real danger of persecution — in America. And this warning comes from a surprising source, a prominent secular Jew."
A March 23 article by Devaney promoted a Horowitz interview, in which he "compared Democrats to Satan ... saying they have the same "arrogance" as the serpent did in the Garden of Eden.
A March 30 article by Hoffmann further gushed: "Glenn Beck is praising David Horowitz’s new book Dark Agenda: The War to Destroy Christianity in America. David was just on Glenn’s national radio show this week, and the top-rated host told his audience that “this is a very critical book” and warned Americans of the growing attacks on Christians.
What none of these articles mention: Horowitz's book is published by Newsmax -- specifically, Humanix Books, Newsmax's book division. That explains why Hoffmann took the time to boldface every instance of the book title in his Beck article.
This undisclosed conflict of interest hurts Newsmax's efforts to be taken seriously as a news organization.
WND Hoaxsters Devote Magazine To Hoaxes (Not Their Own, Of Course) Topic: WorldNetDaily
The current issue of WorldNetDaily's sparsely read Whistoleblower magazine is themed "AGE OF THE HOAX: How the progressive left creates, promotes and celebrates fake crimes." It apparently argues that Jussie Smollett's alleged hate-crime hoax isn't "any different from what today’s hard-left Democratic Party does every day from morning until night." WND managing editor David Kupelian went on to complain that "we are expected to embrace their favorite hoaxes – ‘the world will end in 12 years’ – as existential threats, while obviously real crises – like the radically intensifying invasion across our southern border – they mock as ‘hoaxes’ and ‘manufactured crises.'"
Ironic, since WND was the perpetrator of two of the biggest political hoaxes in recent years: the Obama birther hoax and and the Seth Rich hoax. WND has never apologized for the lies it spread about Obama, nor about the fact that it knew or should have known that its Seth Rich conspiracy theory was bogus even as it continued to spread it. WND bigwigs like Kupelian and Joseph Farah demanded that we embrace these hoaxes that, if they actually cared about truth and honesty, they knew were false.
But we know they don't. And that brings us to another bit of irony: One of the contributors to this particular issue of Whistleblower is Dinesh D'Souza, wdho is best known these days for spreading false claims about history, then getting repeatedly dunked on by actual historians like Kevin Kruse who actually know what they're talking about.
Refusal to address that gaping hole in WND's logic doesn't help to rebuild its long-lost credibility, which is a big reason WND is in perpetual financial trouble.
MRC Kaepernick Derangement Syndrome Topic: Media Research Center
If there's a Media Research Center trigger-warning relationship to rival Curtis Houck and Jim Acosta, it's they mysterious Jay Maxson and Colin Kaepernick. Let's review just how much Maxson has been triggered by Kaepernick over the past couple months, shall we?
On Feb. 3, Maxson huffed that Kaepernick got a mention at Super Bowl-related activities: "The most controversial football player in the world hasn’t played in the NFL in two years, but Colin Kaepernick was figuratively 'at"' the Super Bowl." He ranted further by calling Kaepernick "the social media-sniping hater of cops, former National Anthem kneeler, lover of communist Cuba and American freedom-denier."
When a newspaper columnist asked that an NFL team sign Kaepernick, Maxson justified blackballing him by declaring that "no owner has an obligation to employ any athlete who has crossed a line of incivility" (even as NFL teams continue to employ players accused of domestic violence), declaring that "The cop-hating, anti-American, Cuba-loving Kaepernick would be a detriment to the reputation of the NFL or any of its teams." Maxson didn't explain exactly what was "incivil" about kneeling during the National Anthem.
When Kaepernick and another player who protested during the National Anthem settled their collusion grievance against the NFL, Maxson was unsurprisingly disappointed, whining that "Media sentiment has overwhelming [sic] favored the social justice warriors and accused the NFL of blackballing them." Maxson was also unhappy that Kaepernick was seen as the winner, getting mad at a sportswriter who was "suggesting the two players who infuriated Americans for kneeling during the Star Spangled Banner may have had a case." At no point does Maxson offer any evidence that NFL was the winner. Maxson finally found a right-wing sportswriter who hates Kaepernick as much as he does, touting how he attacked Kaepernick "for essentially spoiling the pro football experience for so many Americans."
On March 13, Maxson got huffy at the idea that Kaepernick was expressing free speech through his protest, insisting that anyone who agreed with that was "incorrectly assuming employees at private companies have free speech rights."
In a March 19 post, Maxson was angry that Kaepernick wasn't being seen as hateful, but, rather, "the fans who disagreed with his disgusting behavior during the 2016 season when he first sat, then knelt during the pre-game playing of the national anthem." When a sportswriter suggested that allowing Kaepernick to play would give haters their due because it would give them a legitimate excuse to hate him if he fails to deliver Hall of Fame numbers, Maxson huffed: With Kaepernick's compliant media cheerleaders, it's never a matter of disrespecting veterans and the flag, hurting the NFL's business (remember all the NFL's negatives from the 2017 season when the rebellion Kaepernick started torched TV and favorability ratings?). Precious few among the media care about those negatives!" Maxson also insisted that Kaepernick hadn't been punished enough for expressing his opinion:
It would provide an opening for Kaepernick all right. He would be playing again without being held accountable for his protests, which turned many a long-time fan away from the NFL. No apology. No mea culpa. Most likely more radical, Black Lives Matter-type activism, though.
Maxson concluded by huffing: "Just put Kaepernick back in an NFL lineup and watch the media gush over him while more fans write off the NFL." It would give Maxson more opportunities to be triggered by the mere presence of Kaepernick as well -- not that Maxson was going to concede that.
WND's Peterson Plays The White-Nationalist-Black-Guy Schtick Again Topic: WorldNetDaily
Count on Jesse Lee Peterson to resort to his schtick of invoking his black-conservative privilege to sound like a white nationalist.
Peterson's first instinct after the New Zealand mosque massacre in his March 17 WorldNetDaily column was to defend President Trump from a mention in the shooter's manifesto:
In a manifesto posted online, the New Zealand shooter reportedly expressed support for Trump as “a symbol of renewed white identity,” but he strongly disapproved of Trump as a policy maker and leader. Yet the liberal media picked the one line that mentions Trump and are using it to push a false narrative, while omitting extensive quotes which show that the shooter is not a conservative, not a Trump supporter, not a Christian, and not a capitalist. In fact, he has far more in common with the likes of Obama and Clinton than with Trump.
Well, not exactly: On the one issue that counts -- hatred of Muslims -- the shooter's rhetoric echoes that of the website that publishes Peterson's column.
Peterson then plays the white-nationalist card, among other of his greatest hits:
If you are white – especially a conservative Christian straight male – leftists will call you everything but a child of God to silence you. There is no such thing as “racism,” “sexism,” “islamophobia-ism,” or “deadbeatdad-ism.” These are labels created by the children of the lie to intimidate and control. We can’t adopt their language. Stop using their words, and drop your resentment (anger) so words and name-calling will cease to control you.
Our battle is spiritual: right vs. wrong, good vs. evil. President Trump understands this better than any president or public figure that I have seen in my lifetime.
The media and the Democrats are relentless in their efforts to destroy Trump and enslave us by taking away our freedoms. The children of the lie serve their father the devil, and it’s their nature to lie and destroy good. Christians must understand this and be bold in speech and action in defense of freedom and support for this president.
That's getting a bit stale -- as is the whole idea of a black right-winger thinking he can get away with saying things that would be racist if he were white.
MRC Touts Bogus Proposed Cost for Green New Deal Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center will happily scare you by promoting someone's proposed astronomical cost for the New Green Deal:
"How much would a Green New Deal cost? That’s the $93 trillion question some media outlets won’t ask."-- Julia A. Seymour, Feb. 28
"[Meghan] McCain jumped in to grill the 2020 Democrat more specifically on what his party’s Green Deal actually costs and requires of average Americans. ... 'It would cost $93 trillion or to every person in this room, $600,000 for each of your households.'" -- Kristine March, March 4
"Colbert’s opening segment took a spin on Kermit the Frog’s legendary musical performance of “It’s Not Easy Being Green,” with a new version called, 'It’s Not Easy Being The Green New Deal.' The song features the legendary puppet defending Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez’s wingnut, multi-trillion dollar, socialist pipe dream." -- Gabriel Hays, March 13
"The price of the Green New deal is estimated to cost in the “tens of trillions.” Shouldn’t that be a discussion point?" -- Scott Whitlock, March 16
"The plan could cost $93 trillion, according to estimates from the American Action Forum run by former Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Holtz-Eakin." -- Seymour, March 19
Just one problem with that $93 trillion that the MRC is touting: it's a bogus number.
As Media Matters documents, the American Action Forum -- the organization that orginiated the figure -- is funded by fossil-fuel interests, who stand to lose under the Green New Deal and have a vested interest in denigrating it. And Politico notes that even AAF leader Holtz-Eakin, whom Seymour portrays as an authoritative figure and thus a reason the number should be believed as credible, admits the number is bogus because any precision in that great of a number is "illusory." Further, much of that number is "based on assumptions about universal health care and jobs programs rather than the costs of transitioning to carbon-free electricity and transportation," Politico writes. Further, even if one insists the number has value, it's contrasted by a a United Nations estimate that even a modest rise in global temperatures could have a global cost of as much as $69 trillion from.
If the MRC was honest with its readers, it would inform them that the Green New Deal cost it's been touting has no basis in reality. But we know it has no interest in correcting the record after it spreads fake news.
Yes, CNS Is Still Obsessed With Tim Tebow Topic: CNSNews.com
Among the fans of pro football player-turned-minor league baseball player Tim Tebow at the Media Research Center, CNSNews.com commentary editor Michael Morris is positivelyobsessed with him, mainly due to his ostentatiously Christian faith and not the fact that he's, you know, a failed NFL player who changed sports and can't quite break into the majors there.
Thus, Morris penned a March 5 CNS post gushing over Tebow's first hit in spring training:
During a Spring Training game against the Boston Red Sox, New York Mets outfielder and former NFL quarterback Tim Tebow recorded his first hit of Spring Training 2019.
Tebow, “who hit a dribbler to the pitcher his first time up,” took the first pitch of his second at-bat to the outfield, hitting a single off of Red Sox pitcher #91 Mike Shawaryn. Shawaryn was drafted by the Boston Red Sox in the 5th round in 2016.
Mets #15 Tim Tebow has had nine at-bats so far in Spring Training 2019, according to the MLB website, and he currently has an average of .222 and an OPS of .522. On his career during Spring Training, Tebow has had 54 at-bats with an average of .130 and an OPS of .319.
That's right -- a baseball player who got his first spring training hit in his ninth at-bat was news, according to Morris.
As it turned out, Tebow didn't do much better: He got only four hits in 15 at-bats and began his season in the minors again. And Morris is definitely not going to tell his readers that professional baseball scouts believe it's unlikely he'll ever play in the majors.
That's not the only sports-related thing Morris thinks CNS readers -- who aren't there for sports -- need to know. He actually devoted a March 18 post to non-sports guy Kevin Sorbo -- an actor whose political opinions CNS thinks are newsworthy despite its long history of denigrating entertainers who express political opinions -- going even further afield from his area of expertise by complaining that ESPN's "SportsCenter" didn't rank a golfer's hole-in-one high enough.
MRC Buries Steyer's Jewish Heritage To Justify Attacks On Him Topic: Media Research Center
We've noted how the Media Research Center is offended that conservative criticism of liberals of Jewish heritage who support liberal causes with their money -- specifically, from Mouse Minority Kevin McCarthy -- might be considered anti-Semitic, and has sought to reassure conservatives that George Soros is a Jew you're allowed to hate without the threat of religious stigma.
Well, they're still going on about that. In its continuing attempt to brand Rep. Ilhan Omar as an anti-Semite for criticizing Israel, a March 11 post by Alex Christy wades into this again. He complained of MSNBC host Joe Scarborough:
Scarborough went into his usual list of purported anti-Semitic controversies involving Republicans. He again falsely accused Kevin McCarthy of warning about "Jew money" in the lead up to 2018 in attacks on George Soros, Tom Steyer, and Michael Bloomberg and went after Rep. Jim Jordan for replacing the 'S' in Steyer with a dollar sign, something "he's never done with a gentile." Tom Steyer is an Episcopalian.
Christy is not telling the whole truth about Steyer's religious heritage. While he is currently a practicing Episcopalian, according to Wikipedia, Steyer's father is Jewish, and Steyer's marriage waspresided over by a rabbi as well as an Episcopalian minister.
Is Christy saying that Steyer isn't a real Jew because he's only half-Jewish? That's a strange argument from a conservative organizaion that considers criticism of Ivanka Trump to be anti-Semitic because she married a Jew.
WND Dog-Whistles The Idea That The Clintons Killed Another Person Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joe Kovacs' March 19 article on the death by suicide of former Obama and Clinton economic adviser Alan Krueger plays it surprisingly straight, sticking to the fact about his life. But that wasn't the point of the article: It was a dog whistle to WND's readers that it was OK to speculate whether the Clintons played a role in Krueger's death. After all, WND remains one of the biggestpromoters of the discredited "Clinton Body Count."
And speculate they did: the article attracted 145 comments, many of them advancing the bogus "Clinton Body Count" conspiracy theory.
In case Kovacs' article was too subtle, the point was made clear with the front-page promotional headline: "Top Obama-Clinton adviser 'commits suicide.'"
Note the scare quotes around "commits suicide." WND can't claim it's a direct quote from a source in Kovacs' article because it doesn't exist. Kovacs wrote that Krueger "committed suicide" (without the scare quotes), and he quotes a family statement that Krueger "took his own life."
Wasn't WND managing editor insisting just the other day in Joseph Farah's stead that WND is a "truth-oriented" website? Yeah, not so much.
Yet Another MRC Study Fail Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center is already known for its shoddy "studies" of the media, which are designed to advance its right-wing anti-media agenda at the expense of objective research. Here's another example, in which Bill D'Agostino writes in a March 11 post:
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer has spent the past week using his evening show The Situation Room as a platform for Democratic lawmakers to plug their numerous investigations of President Trump. Blitzer, a veteran reporter and host on the network, is not a name that immediately springs to mind when one thinks of biased or outlandish statements from CNN journalists. However, the many interviews he has conducted with politicians on the Hill — a staple of his show — tell a story of bias through careful and deliberate framing of facts.
MRC analysts looked at the 10 interviews Blitzer conducted with lawmakers (all Democrats) on his show during the week spanning Monday, March 3 to Friday, March 8. Throughout those ten interviews, the CNN host asked only three questions (3%) that suggested the numerous House investigations into the President might be partisan or politically motivated. The remaining 86 investigation-related questions (97%) either accepted at face value the importance of these inquiries, or else pressed Democrats to go even further in their oversight role.
Blitzer framed his paltry three challenges to Democrats as party-line criticism coming from Republicans (“as Republican are alleging…”, “Republicans say…”). In each case he asked no follow-up questions regardless of what answer he received.
The point of this "study" is to complain that Blitzer isn't advancing the MRC's agenda by automatically assuming that Democratic investigations into Trump are partisan witch hunts. As usual, the MRC does not share the entire list of 86 questions, though it does cite a select few it claims proves its point. But D'Agostino is such a rabid Democrat and CNN hater -- as one must be to get a job at the MRC -- that even neutral and objective questions from Blitzer are offensive to him.
The point is that D'Agostino and the MRC don't want objectivity and neutrality in their media -- they want it to be as biased as their own "news" division, CNSNews.com.
We suspected something was amiss when Joseph Farah's WorldNetDaily column went into reruns for the past couple weeks without explanation -- the first time we can recall that happening. Whatever else one can say about Farah, we know he was proud of writing six original columns a week.
WND managing editor David Kupelian revealed the full story in a March 28 letter to readers -- that Farah has suffered a "serious stroke":
Recently, adversity hit hard when our company’s founder and CEO, Joseph Farah, suffered a serious stroke. After spending several days in the hospital undergoing extensive testing and evaluation, he is now home, resting comfortably and recovering.
Although no one can say with certainty how long he will be away from WND, what I can say with certainty is that Joseph and his family are extremely appreciative of your prayers, as are all of us at WND.
Joseph’s medical crisis, in addition to being a difficult trial for the Farah family, is likewise tough for those of us staffing the news organization he founded and has led for 22 years. I’ve known Joseph Farah for three decades, and for 20 years have worked closely with this pioneering journalist as a colleague, good friend and fellow Christian. I know him as a man of enormous talents, integrity and genuine faith.
Farah's stroke comes at a very bad time for WND as it continues to battle financial problems. Kupelian wrote that Farah's health issues shouldn't affect operations: "With God’s help we are not going anywhere except forward." Then Kupelian couldn't help getting political:
We’re all living through a period of unprecedented turmoil, wherein one political party has somehow become totally disconnected from reality – promoting insane, catastrophic “solutions” to nonexistent crises while denying obviously real crises and slandering or censoring all who disagree with them. I can honestly say, having personally spent more than 35 years in the news media, I’ve never seen a greater need than right now for genuinely truth-oriented, pro-Constitution, pro-Judeo-Christian journalism. That’s the niche WND has striven mightily to fill since its founding back in 1997 as America’s first online news organization. And with the Good Lord’s help, that vital work will continue.
MRC Still Bashing CNN's Parkland Town Hall, Still Won't Apologize For Pushing Hoax About It Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Nicholas Fondacaro spent a March 19 post being triggered by the fact that a CNN town hall after the Parkland school shooting received an award:
You probably remember CNN’s town hall to promote gun control and gun grabbing in Parkland, Florida last year. It’s hard to forget such a disgraceful display of exploitation, naked partisanship, and vile hatred. Oh, and let’s not overlook the fact that host Jake Tapper was the ring leader enabling the circus.
On Tuesday, the Norman Lear Center bestowed their Walter Cronkite Award“ for excellence in television political journalism” on CNN and Tapper for their efforts:
CNN Parkland Town Hall, a two-hour special, aired only seven days after 17 students and teachers were murdered by a gunman at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. In this “compelling and powerful” forum, moderator Jake Tapper deftly gave generous space to speak to gun control advocates, politicians, Parkland students, parents and a representative from the NRA. The program helped “advance the national conversation on gun control and violence,” the jury said.
“Advance the national conversation?” That’s code for: advancing the liberal agenda (gun control in this case) under the facade of legitimate reporting.
What Fondacaro didn't do, however, is express any remorse -- let alone apologize -- for the MRC's key role in spreading an anti-CNN hoax involving that town hall.
As we documented, Fondacaro gave major play to the claims of Colton Haab, a shooting survivor, that CNN tried to script his questions for the town hall. Even when CNN released the email exchange between it and Haab, which proved that Haab and his family doctored the record to fraudulently support the "scripted" narrative, Fondacaro continued to insist CNN was the one who was lying and couldn't be bothered to tell the full truth to MRC readers -- even after Haab's father admitted he doctored things and even when others who promoted the false narrative did correct the record. Further, Fondacaro's original posts are unaltered and still promote the hoax.
Fondacaro promoted a hoax about the CNN town hall, still refuses to tell the truth about it -- and yet he's still raging that it wasn't fair to his right-wing agenda. If that's not a classic definition of cognitive dissonance, we don't know what is. And he degrades any credibility the MRC might have when it demands that false claims be corrected.
WND Obama Derangement Syndrome, Malik Obama Edition Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's lingering obsession with smearing President Obama and his wife with any desperate thing they can scrounge from right-wing sewers is beyond pathetic at this point. An anonymously written March 18 article states:
Malik Obama, a half-brother to Barack Obama, has been known to throw verbal bombs.
He’s at it again.
This time he’s wondering about Michelle Obama, Barack’s wife.
Malik Obama, who once posted an image purporting to show a Kenyan birth certificate for his brother, asked “Is Michelle Michael?”
The American Mirror blog said it recalled a “conspiracy theory” that the former first lady is a man.
Needless to say, WND offers no proof to back up this conspiracy theory -- nor does it mention that Malik Obama apparently has a personal grudge against Barack and Michelle. As we've noted, Malik has previously teamed up with (or agreed to be exploited by) anti-Obama liar and charlatan filmmaker Joel Gilbert and "the world's worst journalist" Charles Johnson in an attempt to smear the former president. So Malik is more than just a bomb-thrower -- he's so filled with hate that he can't be trusted.
(Or he could just be trolling right-wing outlets like WND and the American Mirror because he knows they'll publish any Obama-bashing dreck he spews out.)
The fact that WND is also relying on the far-right American Mirror -- an untrustworthy source -- is another red flag as to just how desperate it is to smear. The article also noted the American Mirror's claim that "In 2017, Malik Obama tweeted an image of what appears to be Barack’s birth certificate. Except it’s not from Hawaii, but rather Kenya," but it didn't tell readers that the certificate was so obviously a fraud that eveb WND itself said so at the time (though it portrayed it as authentic when it first surfaced in 2009).
WND still doesn't seem to understand that its obsessive hatred of Obama destroyed what little trustworthiness it could claim, and pushing fake news and conspiracy theories -- many about Obama -- is one big reason why nobody believes WND and it remains close to going out of business.
Do As We Say, Not As We Do: MRC's Standards For 'Liberal Media' Don't Apply To Its Own 'News' Division Topic: CNSNews.com
A while back, we noted how the Media Research Center complained that the media hyped President Trump misspeaking when ignoring what he had to say about "important topics" -- never mind that the MRC had no problem obsessing over President Obama when he misspoke and ignored his overall message. Well, the hypocrisy is even deeper than that: The MRC's "news" division, CNSNews.com, has similarly focused attention on the missteps of Democratic politicians.
In a March 7 post, Craig Bannister gleefully wrote:
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) struggled to find the right words on Wednesday, when she tried to reassure supporters that she’ll soon begin efforts to impeach President Donald Trump.
Tlaib gathered with fellow protesters outside of the office of House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), where she blanked out while trying to remember how impeachment works:
“Later on this month, I will be joining folks and advocates across the country to file the impeachment, um, ah, um, oh, my God, what is the expression?
“The resolution – I’m sorry, I’m not in the Michigan legislature, ah, impeachment resolution to start the impeachment proceedings.”
CNS then did this twice to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. An anonymously written March 15 article stated:
At her weekly press briefing on Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) mistakenly suggested that a reporter who was asking her a question had already asked her a question at that press briefing.
In fact, the reporter had not—although he said he had asked her two questions the week before.
CNS has apparently since deleted this article (though it still resides in Google Cache as of this writing.)
Another snide attack on Pelosi the same day, this time by Bannister, is still live:
House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) twice misnamed Democrats’ “Green New Deal” at her Thursday press briefing, despite being told the climate change proposal’s correct name by the reporter questioning her.
Pelosi was asked to respond to Republicans “talking about the Green New Deal.” Pelosi appeared to struggle to recall the name of the proposal – first calling it “the Green Deal,” then the “New Green Deal,” before continuing with her reaction to Republicans’ criticism of the New Green Deal, without correctly titling the proposal[.]
It doesn't help the MRC's credibility when it can't be bothered to hold its own "news" division to the same standards it demands "liberal media" outlets adhere to.
AIM Writer Denounces Armchair Mental Health Judgments, Though AIM Has Published Many Topic: Accuracy in Media
Carrie Sheffield complained in a March 18 Accuracy in Media item:
CNN allowed George Conway, the husband of White House adviser Kellyanne Conway, to accuse President Trump of mental illness, with the network refusing to acknowledge that George Conway is not a mental health professional. Even as liberal outlets like CNN claim to be pro-science, its coverage of George Conway’s tweets failed to provide any credible scientific analysis of the explosive claims.
“His condition is getting worse,” George Conway tweeted Sunday, also attaching screen captures of the medical definitions of narcissistic personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
First: CNN didn't "allow" Conway to make that claim -- it simply reported on him making them. Second: Sheffield might want to check her employer's archive, since it contains numerous examples of AIM writers -- none of whom, as far as we know, are mental health professionals -- making the same exact claim about president Obama.
Spencer Irvine, son of AIM president Don Irvine, wrote twoposts counting the number of times Obama allegedly referred to himself in speeches, both of which ended with the statement "Narcissist, much?"
A 2016 column by James Zumwalt -- now a WorldNetDaily columnist -- declared that "bama is a grandiose narcissist" who is "self-absorbed with an overwhelming sense of superiority." Zumwalt echoed Conway by linking to an article describing narcissistic personalities.
A 2015 column by Lawrence Sellin asserted that "Obama behaves like a dictator not just because he is a narcissist, but because his political beliefs are, at their core, authoritarian."
It pays to check the archives in order not to come off as a hypocrite.
A new Washington Post article provides new details about the dire financial situation at WorldNetDaily, and it's even worse than we thought. 
Newsmax is heavily promoting the new book by right-winger David Horowitz:
The 
If there's a Media Research Center trigger-warning relationship to rival Curtis Houck and Jim Acosta, it's they mysterious 
Count on Jesse Lee Peterson to resort to his schtick of invoking his black-conservative privilege to 
The Media Research Center will happily scare you by promoting someone's proposed astronomical cost for the New Green Deal:
Among the fans of pro football player-turned-minor league baseball player Tim Tebow at the Media Research Center, CNSNews.com commentary editor Michael Morris is 
We've 
The Media Research Center is 
We suspected something was amiss when Joseph Farah's WorldNetDaily column went into reruns for the past couple weeks without explanation -- the first time we can recall that happening. Whatever else one can say about Farah, we know he was proud of writing six original columns a week.
The Media Research Center's Nicholas Fondacaro spent a March 19 
WorldNetDaily's lingering obsession with smearing President Obama and his wife with any desperate thing they can scrounge from right-wing sewers is beyond pathetic at this point. An anonymously written March 18 
A while back, we 
Carrie Sheffield complained in a March 18 Accuracy in Media 
