Topic: WorldNetDaily
When we last checked in on WorldNetDaily reporter Leo Hohmann, he was pretending that WND had never reported anything false about in incident in which a group of children in Idaho -- who Hohmann and WND want to make sure you know are "Muslim migrants" -- allegedly molested a 5-year-old girl, even though his own story had been significantly changed from its original and a WND-pubnlished story stolen from the conspiracy site Infowars has been deleted.
Hohmann has been fanning the anti-Muslim flames since then. First, he complained that the alleged perpetrators, ages 7, 10, and 14, "were released into the custody of their parents following a hearing Thursday afternoon," despite the fact that it's probably standard procedure in cases involving juveniles.He also whined that "The case has been sealed by the prosecutor," though he did concede this is also "standard procedure in juvenile offenses."
Hohmann also asserted that "WND was the first to interview eyewitness Jolene Payne and give a fully accurate report on what happened at the Fawnbrook Apartments." That's simply not true.
Then, he got incensed that a prosecutor is trying to crack down on right-wing media lies about the incident: "The Obama-appointed U.S. attorney for Idaho has taken the highly unusual step of intervening in a local criminal case involving an alleged sexual assault by juvenile Muslim migrants and threatened the community and media with federal prosecution if they 'spread false information or inflammatory statements about the perpetrators.'" Hohmann again asserted that "WND was the first to report a set of facts about the Twin Falls assault," which, again, is simply not true.
And how does Hohmann respond to being told not to tell lies about Muslims? By quoting s anti-Muslim activist whining that she can't lie about Muslims:
Ann Corcoran, the author of the Refugee Resettlement Watch blog and the book “Refugee Resettlement and the Hijra to America,” said Olson’s statement is reminiscent of Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s warning the day after the San Bernardino jihad massacre in which Lynch said she would take “aggressive action” to prosecute “anti-Muslim” rhetoric that “edges toward violence.” Lynch was forced to walk back those comments after outrage from free speech advocates.
“This is threatening free speech,” Corcoran said of Olson’s statement. “It’s the federal government trying to intimidate into silence those citizens who don’t have resources or connections. This must mean we have hit a nerve with this administration."
Hohmann followed up that with another article quoting "First amendment attorneys" -- again, mostly right-wing anti-Muslim activists -- complaining that they, too, are bneing deprived of their First Amendment right to lie about Muslims. It also includes WND's own (apparently terrible) lawyer:
Daniel Horowitz, who represents WND on First Amendment issues, went one step further. He suggested Olson’s words, insinuated that “false or inflammatory” speech could get an American citizen arrested, consisted of a terroristic threat.
“Wendy Olson should be arrested for making terrorist threats against American citizens,” Horowitz said. “She has abused her position and threatened to use the power of the United States government to punish citizens in the exercise of their constitutional rights.
“She is a criminal terrorist who silences Americans through threats of arrest just as violent terrorists seek to silence us by threats of murder. She should lose her job and be jailed and when Trump builds his wall, her prison work gang should help build it.”
A later article updating the case hinted at Hohmann's next target: "The world’s largest yogurt plant is operated in Twin Falls by Chobani, and approximately 30 percent of the staff there are foreign refugees, WND previously reported."
And indeed, Hohmann's next article attacked Chobani for hiring refugees, and even went after the Idaho mayor who helped recruit the Chobani to his town, grumbling that he "now plays a dual role of elected official and president/CEO of the local Chamber of Commerce."
Of course, Hohmann makes sure to include his favorite Muslim-hater:
Ann Corcoran, author of the Refugee Resettlement Watch blog, said the potential conflict of interest is disturbing and should be questioned by Twin Falls residents.
“Twin Falls is really a microcosm of what we find going on in so many of the refugee communities across the U.S., where you have people moving in and out of government and the Chamber of Commerce with a vested interest in making sure a meatpacking plant or some other industry has continuous access to refugee labor,” said Corcoran. “Only in this case we have a blatant example of conflicts of interest by an elected official who is also the head of the Chamber enticing companies to come in and make use of the steady influx of cheap, overseas labor.
“These are jobs that Americans would be happy to fill but they are forced to compete now with someone from Sudan or Iraq who is used to working for a dollar a week.”
Oh, and that claim from Hohmann about refugee employment at the Chobani plant, which comes from a January article he wrote?
The myth-busters at Snopes took apart that article, finding Hohmann's assertion that "Twin Falls is in line to receive about 300 refugees this year, many of them Muslims from Syria" to be highly questionable, noting that Hohmann's numbers come from "a confusing number of metrics and purported statistics," adding that "None of that mish-mash of numbers appeared directly related in any way to Chobani's founder, or to his company's hiring practices." After going over the numbers Hohmann apparently used, Snopes concluded that contrary to what he wrote, "the vast majority of people asking for asylum in Idaho were not from Muslim countries," and only 2 percent of them were from Syria.
Apparently, Hohmann doesn't care about getting facts right after all, despite how much he (falsely) insists he did on the alleged assault in Twin Falls. The only thing that matters to him is making Muslims look bad -- and that's just one more reason why WND has no credibility.
