Topic: WorldNetDaily
For WorldNetDaily, flamboyant and prolific trump factual every time. Which brings us to this Sept. 20 WND article by Jerome Corsi:
Now, flamboyant and prolific Haitian human-rights lawyer, playwright and poet Marguerite Laurent, who goes by the nom-de-plume Ezili Dantó – a pseudonym taken after Ezili Dantor, the spirit in Haitian Voodoo for motherhood, commonly represented by the Black Madonna of Częstochowa – is using her considerable influence in the Haitian community both in the United States and in Haiti to endorse Donald Trump for president.
“Hillary Clinton preyed on Haiti,” Dantó, writing from her position as leader in both the Free Haiti Movement and the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network, HLLN, noted on her blog Sept. 7.[...]
“The earthquake [that hit Haiti on Jan. 12, 2010] weakened the victims and she used her power to crush them some more,” she said. “Dressed as ‘savior’ at the Obama State Department, Hillary Clinton betrayed innocent Americans who desired to help with recovery. If we are scientifically and objectively balancing facts, then Donald Trump, arguably a bigot and perhaps a sexist, still clearly has less of a record of lies, looting, lawlessness and implementing systemic governmental/institutional racism than Hillary Clinton.”
A lot of hate there, but very little substance. That comes sometime later:
“Addressing Haiti is a debacle for [Bill and Hillary Clinton],” she continued. “It brings up the 2010, Michel Martelly presidential election that Hillary Clinton and, her longtime consigliore, Cheryl Mills, help to doctor. It brings up their association with the convicted fraudster Claudio Osorio, who never built any of the 10,000 housing units in Haiti that the U.S. government put in a $10 million grant for him to build, and which the Clinton team heavily facilitated.”
She continued: “It brings up the pay-to-play, money laundering scheme they call the ‘Clinton Foundation.’ The Clintons cannot justify why they prey on hurt quake victims and poor Haitians to put money in their Foundation – a slush fund where 85 percent of the money collected goes to salaries, travel, luxury hotels, dinners and overhead, all tax free.”
Yes, Osorio is a fraudster who wormed his way into the Clinton circle and did use the grant money to pay off investors in his other schemes, but there's no evidence that anyone at the Clinton Foundation who helped Osorio get the grant knew he was not going to follow through. And, yes, Martelly did turn out to be the latest in a long line of terrible Haitian leaders. But it's a giant leap from that to accusing the entire foundation of being corrupt.
And Danto shows she doesn't care about the facts with her assertion that the foundation is "a slush fund where 85 percent of the money collected goes to salaries, travel, luxury hotels, dinners and overhead, all tax free." That claim has been proven false -- PolitiFact explains that at least 80 percent ofthe foundation's money goes to programs. And Corsi shows how little he cares about the facts by uncritically regurgitating her lie.
But Laurent/Danto is saying nasty things about Clinton and willing to be a shill for Trump, so that's good enough for Corsi -- inedeed, he quotes her at length touting Trump as a "non-establishment politician" who could help free Haiti from "Hillary Clinton and her promiscuous, politicians-for-sale, Clintonite team."
Corsi's article was followed the next day with an unbylined article that found a former Haitian politician to make more unsubstantiated attacks on Clinton (who just so happened to be at a "pro-Trump rally"). So dedicated to falsehoods is the article that it simply copied-and-pasted Laurent/Danto's lie about the Clinton Foundation being a "slush fund."
Oh, and by the way, Corsi's Clinton-bashing book continues to be a major flop despite WND's plea for its readers to buy it in bulk; it's currently ranked at No. 16,201 at Amazon. Looks like nobody else is buying his BS either.
