Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's long history of defying reality and fudging facts in its annual list of "underreported stories" continues with its offerings for 2009.
On first place on WND's list is "Overwhelming evidence the Fort Hood mass murderer was an Islamic terrorist acting as part of a larger, radical Islamic movement bent on infiltrating, subverting and ultimately conquering the U.S." In fact, WND offers no "overwhelming evidence," citing only a relationship with a radical former imam at a Virginia mosque.
Of course, "Obama's constitutional eligibility to be president" is on the list, despite WND's history of fraudulent reporting on the issue. "WND has reported dozens of legal challenges," it continues, even though WND could win one of its own "Operation Spike" awards for its longtime suppression of birther lawyer Orly Taitz's shoddy work.
WND also repeats a misleading claim that "Obama has spent at least $1.7 million to ward off all requests for his documentation." In fact, that money was paid to a law firm, and WND, in the documentation it has provided to back up the claim, offers no evidence that all of the money went to "ward off all requests for his documentation."
In its entry on "The true impact on the U.S. and world economies of cap-and-trade, should it become law," WND noted "the opinion of 31,478 scientists, including more than 9,000 Ph.D.s, who agree humans have nothing to do with any "global warming," if such even exists." But as we've noted, many of the "scientists" and "Ph.D.s" on the list are not trained in disciplines related to climate science, making the value of such a petition dubious at best.
Under the entry of "The true cause of the subprime meltdown that led to the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression," WND writes:
ACORN has a long history of urging lenders to extend home mortgages to subprime borrowers. In the 1980s, the group pushed charges that the home lending practices of banks amounted to "red-lining" in violation of the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act.
In 1994, Obama, a graduate of Harvard Law School then fresh from his Project Vote! experience, represented ACORN in a case in which the organization pressured Citibank to make more loans to marginally qualified African-American applicants "in a race neutral way."
Infact, most of the subprime lending over the past decade was done by institutions not subject to the Community Reinvestment Act. Further, regarding the Citibank lawsuit, Obama was a junior member of an eight-lawyer team that worked on the case. The lawsuit did not "pressure Citibank to make more loans to marginally qualified African-American applicants"; according to the lawsuit, it charged that Citibank "rejected loan applications of minority applicants while approving loan applications filed by white applicants with similar financial characteristics and credit histories."
WND also referenced "The exposure of ACORN's criminality by a freelance undercover probe," citing "Two young enterprising journalists, Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe." Unmentioned : the fact that many of the claims of "criminality" made by O'Keefe and Giles and their handler, Andrew Breitbart, simply aren't supported by the selectively edited videos they have released.
