It's a "bombshell" claim from Dan Bongino, former Secret Service agent and current WorldNetDaily author, as articulated in a Nov. 18 WND article:

Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service agent and author of the brand-new book “Life Inside the Bubble: Why a Top-Ranked Secret Service Agent Walked Away From It All,” is rebutting claims President Obama has received more security threats than any other U.S. president, due to his race.

“It’s not true, it’s been refuted over and over again, yet people continue to propagate this media meme to make America feel like it’s a racist country,” Bongino told WND.

He noted his assessment is “based on my direct, first-hand experience doing lead advances for the president and what the head of the Secret Service said himself in a sworn testimony.”

[...]

In Bongino’s opinion, the false assertion that threats against a sitting president are at an all-time high because of his race undermines the security of the president and causes time and resources to be wasted on frivolous claims.

“This isn’t a harmless exercise, it’s not just a political statement,” Bongino said. “The left wants us to believe that we’re a racist country to create division for political gain.”

As that distorted image of America permeates the culture, he said, the Secret Service “starts getting reports like ‘my white neighbor said he doesn’t like Obamacare,’ and they start calling this in as a threat.”

Order your copy of “Life Inside the Bubble.”

“This has a real tangible effect on allocated assets – it’s a zero-sum game,  he explained.

That's it? That's the big "bombshell" claim in Bongino's book?

It's such a "bombshell," in fact, that PolitiFact came to the same conclusion months ago.

If the best "bombshell" that WND can come up with is something that was reported months ago, the rest of Bongino's book must be really boring (in that it contains nothing but the standard right-wing Obama-bashing).

Posted by Terry K. at 2:10 PM EST

Updated: Thursday, November 21, 2013 2:11 PM EST

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Susan Jones really did write this in a Nov. 20 CNSNews.com blog post:

One hundred fifty years after President Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address, President Obama penned a handwritten tribute to President Lincoln's historic remarks, the White House blogged on Wednesday.

Notably, Obama's 276-word essay is seven words longer than Lincoln's memorable speech, based on the 269-word version transmitted by the Associated Press 150 years ago.

That's right -- Jones is complaining that Obama's tribute to Lincoln is longer than the Gettysburg Address.

Has Jones nothing better to do with her life -- and hates Obama so much -- that she has time to write such a petty, mincing criticism of the president? Has Jones no pride in journalism, or is she so slavishly devoted to right-wing ideology that she eagerly pawns off partisan attacks as "news"?

Even for an Obama-deranged right-wing outlet like CNS, this is pretty pathetic.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:08 PM EST

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Jack Cashill is making it clearer than ever that George Zimmerman has a free pass to do anything and Cashill will not find any fault with him.

Following up on his earlier book-sales-driven absolution of Zimmerman's latest crime, Cashill doubles down in a Nov. 20 WorldNetDaily column, blaming not only the media but also Zimmerman's now-estranged wife and soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend for his current condition:

Between April 2012 and July 2013, Zimmerman’s life fell apart. He showed up at the trial dead-eyed, grossly overweight, and financially and emotionally bankrupt.

The local NAACP, with which he had worked on a civil rights case a year earlier, had betrayed him. The state of Florida had sacrificed him to the mob.

His president denied him. The media had rendered the mid-Florida ether so poisonous he could scarcely leave the house. His wife no longer loved him and was eager to tell the world about it.

Zimmerman’s acquittal settled nothing. The death threats amplified. The attorney general continued to hound him despite full clearance by the FBI more than a year prior. And the media cried “Injustice!”

“I still see sadness in his eyes,” said his brother Robert soon after the acquittal. “He was definitely not the same person I had seen a few days before the incident.”

In the last two years, Zimmerman has experienced more betrayal on more levels than most of us will in a lifetime.

Now, it appears that his latest “victim,” girlfriend Samantha Scheibe, was soliciting national media interviews weeks before their well-publicized dust-up.

Regardless of the circumstances, each misstep Zimmerman has made post-trial has left the media giddy. They seem to think it vindicates their utterly subversive rush to judgment.

The fact is that the Zimmerman they now happily trash is the Zimmerman they helped create. Whatever happens going forward, the blood is on their hands.

Apparently, Zimmerman has no responsibility for his own behavior. 

But then, Cashill has always had a soft spot for murderers. he penned a seven-part series at WND asserting that anti-abortion activist James Kopp was being framed for the 1998 death of New York abortion doctor Barnett Slepian -- a conspiracy inconvenienced by the fact that Kopp eventually pleaded guilty to the murder. He also falsely suggested that Eric Rudolph was similarly being framed for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics bombing and another bombing at an abortion clinic.

More recently, Cashill championed the cause of a Navy sailor convicted of killing a man who paid him to perform oral sex on him, insisting the sailor killed in self-defense while ignoring the fact that the sailor lied to police and admitted he choked his victim for five minutes.

In Zimmerman, Cashill has found another killer whose only supposed crime is killing someone who deserved it. As before, it's blowing back on him.

This time, however, the publisher of his pro-Zimmerman, anti-Trayvon Martin book, WND, is feeling the pain as nobody wants to buy a book about someone with serious anger management problems (at the very least) being portrayed as a civil rights martyr. Indeed, at this writing Cashill's book is at a miserable No. 35,910 on Amazon's sales list -- pretty low for a book on a hot-button subject that came out less than a month ago.

Cashill is clearly misguided on many things, but he's wrong about this: If Cashill continues to make excuses for Zimmerman's behavior and makes no effort to get him the help he obviously needs, Cashill will be the one with blood on his hands.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:53 AM EST

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Brent Bozell's Nov. 20 column is a massive fit of Heathering directed at MSNBC's Joe Scarborough for being insufficiently right-wing.

More to the point, Bozell is upset that Scarborough told the truth about Mitt Romney's faltering prospects during the 2012 presidential campaign:

Let's take just a few samples of evidence from 2012, when Republicans nominated Mitt Romney.

—On March 31, Scarborough mocked Romney for mutilating himself (rhetorically) — "He is a cutter, a political cutter" — and then ridiculed a poll result showing the GOP losing by 25 to Obama among women. "I guess that idea of chaining women to a radiator in the kitchen, that the Republicans wanted to put on platform, not going over."

—On April 4, Joe "Damn Tired of Losing" Scarborough announced on his show: "I've yet to meet a single person in the Republican establishment that thinks Mitt Romney is going to win the general election this year. They won't say it on TV because they've got to go on TV, and they don't want people writing them nasty emails.  I obviously don't care."

—On Sept. 8, Scarborough appeared on "Today" to trash Romney's chances. "This is one of the worst weeks for any presidential candidate in a general election that any of us can remember ... Unemployment is still 8 percent-plus, the economy is still in tatters, and Mitt Romney is blowing this race." At the end of the segment, he added, "I'm going to go put a bag over my head now, so I will talk to you soon."

—On Sept. 14, Scarborough lashed into Romney for a "horrific, irresponsible press conference" after the attacks in Benghazi. (Romney spoke before word came of four Americans dying.) "If Mitt Romney had kept his mouth shut, if he had not acted like a rank amateur, if he had not embarrassed himself — and by the way internally the campaign understands they screwed up, he's moved on, they know that. So no conservative can say, `Oh, the mainstream media, blah, blah.' ... Romney got in the way of the media looking at the president."

—On Sept. 28, Obama-loving CBS late-night host David Letterman publicized "Morning Joe" with the title "Joe Scarborough: Sweet Jesus." CBS then played an MSNBC clip that began with an incredibly standard campaign event where Romney encouraged the crowd to chant "Romney-Ryan." It ended when the camera switched back to the set showing Scarborough with his hands covering his face in shame as he said, "Sweet Jesus!" The Letterman audience roared.

—On Oct. 29, Scarborough appeared on "Today" to insist Hurricane Sandy would help elect Obama. "Mitt Romney had momentum ... This was Mitt Romney's best weekend, and it stops. The momentum stops."

If Scarborough were really "damn tired" of losing, he might wonder why he's crushed daily in the ratings by "Fox & Friends." It's not just ideologically indulgent Republicans he's tried to defeat; it's all Republicans. Please, Joe, no more lectures about your conservative credentials.

Bozell offers no evidence that anything Scarborough said was incorrect -- he's mad that it was said at all. In Bozell's media bubble, conservatives and Republicans must be praised even if they're wrong, must be touted as winners even if they're losing. He's essentially saying that Scarborough should have lied about Romney in order to prove his conservative bona fides.

Bozell is also hacked off that Scarborough's new book will be "reviewed by The New York Times, while Mark Levin's truly important, best-selling books are not." He doesn't mention that his Media Research Center is paying Levin to promote it on Levin's radio show.

Bozell demands ideological loyalty over the truth when it comes to conservatives -- the opposite of what he expects from the "liberal media." Double standard much?

Posted by Terry K. at 3:11 PM EST

Updated: Wednesday, November 20, 2013 3:12 PM EST

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When WorldNetDaily punted and cribbed another media outlet's report on George Zimmerman's latest arrest, we predicted that Jack Cashill -- the WND columnist who wrote a book lionizing Zimmerman as a civil rights martyr -- was hard at work figuring out a way to blame anyone but Zimmerman for his actions.

Hoo boy, were we right. In a Nov. 19 WND article, Cashill pushes the idea that Zimmerman has post-traumatic stress caused not by, you know, killing a teenager, but by being held accountable for it:

Journalist and author Jack Cashill, who covers the Zimmerman case in his new book, “If I Had a Son: Race, Guns, and the Railroading of George Zimmerman,” believes that the Florida man’s latest actions are uncharacteristic of the person Zimmerman was before the Trayvon shooting and may be a sign that he is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD

“I’ve talked to his father and his brother and they said he’s just not the same person. I would say PTSD is probably a pretty good description of what’s going on,” Cashill told WND. “They took his job, took his marriage, the whole thing cost him tremendously and the media gloried in his screw-ups.”

[...]

Cashill said believes Zimmerman exhibited the thousand-yard stare, the limp, unfocused glaze of a battle-weary soldier that is often a symptom of PTSD.

“He had the thousand-yard stare. You saw it during the trial. He didn’t look sane when he was in that trial – he was utterly disengaged,” he explained. “That he is suffering from some total breakdown seems totally obvious at this point.”

[...]

Cashill said he believes the media and federal government’s relentless pursuit of Zimmerman drove the man to ruin his own life.

“Soon as the verdict came in, everything changed,” he said. “There’s a weekend of hubbub, but then they didn’t want to talk about it anymore. They didn’t want to revisit it because they know how guilty they are. His life is ruined by what they’ve done to him.”

Gee, we thought conservatives like Cashill were all about personal responsibility. Well, apparently not when it conflicts with Cashill's ideological agenda -- and he's written a book whose sales are being jeopardized by Zimmerman's increasingly criminal behavior.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:21 PM EST

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Barbara Hollingsworth writes in a Nov. 18 CNSNews.com article:

The cumulative effect of three “economically significant government regulations” is a 20 percent reduction in employment in the targeted industry, according to a new study by the American Action Forum (AAF).

“Economically significant” regulations are defined by federal agencies as those having a net annual effect on the U.S. economy of $100 million or more.

Unlike past studies, which tended to focus on how individual regulations affected specific industries or particular geographic areas, “we looked at the cumulative effects of many regulations over time,” Sam Batkins, AAF’s director of regulatory policy and author of the study, told CNSNews.com. (See AAF research regulations and jobs.pdf)

Curiously, Hollingsworth never tells us what the American Action Forum is. Turns out it's a group headed by conservative economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin.

A real reporter would have disclosed the AAF's ideology. Hollingsworth apparently isn't into that.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:57 PM EST

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Media Research Center director of media analysis Tim Graham dutifully regurgitates right-wing propaganda in a Nov. 19 NewsBusters post:

Chris Plante at WMAL Radio in Washington reported on his show Tuesday that President Obama joined a cast of 61 "noted lawmakers, politicians, news anchors and celebrities, including every living President, in reciting the Gettysburg Address" for PBS star Ken Burns, who made "The Civil War" documentary series.

Everyone else delivered the address as Lincoln had written it, including the phrase, "that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom." But in his version of the address, President Obama omitted the words "under God." (Video below, at about 1:35.) Will the networks notice this gaffe?

WorldNetDaily, meanwhile, cut out the middleman and simply copy-and-pasted the WMAL article.

Just one little problem with this narrative: It's not exactly true.

In fact, Obama was reading the first draft (out of five) of the Gettysburg Address -- known as the Nicolay version -- which omits "under God." Documentarian Ken Burns, who put together the project of Obama and others reading the address, requested that Obama read that version, as the website for the project states.

The real question is not whether "the networks" will "notice this gaffe" -- it's whether Graham and WND (and WMAL) will correct their posts.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:05 AM EST

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Jim Meyers writes in a Nov. 19 Newsmax article, under the headline "Who Really Killed JFK? Newsmax Looks Into the Story":

Fifty years after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, his murder continues to mystify and intrigue.

Now Newsmax TV presents a new video documentary, "The Assassination of JFK: Case Closed?" which takes an extraordinary look at some of the conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination and introduces viewers to the researchers who have been dedicated to finding the truth.

We also talk with experts who back up the Warren Commission’s report that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

The compelling documentary debuts on Wednesday, a half-century after the Nov. 22, 1963 assassination of America's 35th president.

Why is Newsmax bothering to do this? This may be one clue:

Legendary political consultant Roger Stone, author of the new bestselling book "The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ," argues that there is "overwhelming evidence" Vice President Lyndon Johnson masterminded the assassination.

Stone, once a top aide to Richard Nixon, cites the former president as telling him that LBJ was the mastermind behind the death. In his book, Stone claims at the time JFK arrived in Dallas, Johnson was under several congressional and press investigations that could easily have led to his imprisonment.

No mention of Jerome Corsi's book on the JFK assassination, though, so there's that. (Newsmax did interview Corsi in September about it, however.)

Posted by Terry K. at 9:14 PM EST

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We couldn't resist going to Larry Klayman's coup kickoff in Washington's Lafayette Square earlier today. Approximately 100 people showed up -- including speakers Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily, Roger Aronoff of Accuracy in Media, and Bradlee Dean (who attended but did not speak) -- and they didn't say anything you haven't already heard from them before or read at WND.

We attempted to tell some truth at the event, in the form of a flyer about Klayman that we posted around the periphery of the crowd. (Print off a copy for yourself right here.) Everything in the flyer is factual and protected under the First Amendment.

Klayman didn't seeit that way, however. I noticed that my flyers kept being removed as soon as they were posted. In trying to repost them, I was confronted by someone who identified herself as Klayman's chief of staff. (Wait -- Klayman has a staff, let alone enough of one to require a "chief"? Wasn't it just two short years ago that Klayman was claiming that his "financial situation continues to be dire" and that "I cannot afford bankruptcy counsel, having been asked for a $5000.00 retainer which I cannot afford"?)

The woman asked us to refrain from posting the flyer, suggesting unspecified consequences if I continued to do so. I pointed out that the flyer contained the truth, to which she responded by bandying about words like "libel" and "slander."  I continued to disagree with her -- the truth cannot be libel, after all -- to which she responded by asking if I was a lawyer. I said that I was not, but that I used to work in journalism, which gave me a very good grounding in libel law, and that my flyer, because it was truth, was not libel. 

She then went over to chat with Klayman, who then came over to talk to me. He asked me my name, which I told him. He then asked me to spell it, to which I responded that it was on this website. He then said something to the effect that he would sue me for distributing the flyer.

The last time that Klayman tried to sue someone for telling the truth about his past, it was the Minneapolis alternative weekly CityPages. In his lawsuit against them (which was just dismissed for Klayman's refusal to follow court procedure), Klayman provided no substantive evidence that he was ever cleared of an Ohio magistrate's finding that -- as stated on my flyer -- Klayman inappropriately touched his children and invoked his Fifth Amendment rights when asked if he had. Klayman simply claims that he "has never been found by any legal entity or agencay to have sexually abused his children," despite the fact that this is not what he was accused of doing.

Meanwhile, Klayman feels he can libel President Obama with impunity, calling him a "mullah-in-chief" and worse.

The truth is on our side' it is not on Klayman's. Any attempt to sue us should be considered a nuisance lawsuit by a vexatioius litigant. He will fail in court, as he so frequently does.

By the way, all the speakers at the event -- which also included former Rep. Bob Barr and retired Adm. James Lyons, a member of AIM's kangaroo court posing as a "citizen's commission on Benghazi" -- had gushing praise for Klayman. They are apparently unaware of who exactly they've crawled into bed with.

Posted by Terry K. at 3:18 PM EST

Updated: Tuesday, November 19, 2013 4:50 PM EST

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Mark Levin is sure making its way to CNSNews.com a lot lately:

• A Nov. 15 blog post by Craig Bannister touted an appearance by Sen. Ted Cruz on Levin's radio show.
• A Nov. 18 article by James Beattie promoted an anti-Obama rant by Levin.

Neither article discloses that CNS, through its Media Research Center parent, has a financial relationship in which Levin promotes the MRC on his radio show and the MRC uses Levin's endorsement on its network of websites. In fact, CNS has prominently placed on its front page an offer featuring Levin's picture in which one can obtain a "Free Bumper Sticker!" The signup page includes quotes from Levin praising CNS: "The left-wing media in this country are so out-of-control. That’s why I read CNSNews.com every day for news that I can trust."

That's a textbook example of a conflict of interest. Journalistic ethics demands that CNS properly disclose its relationship with Levin in articles about him.

UPDATE: Beattie faithfully transcribes another Levin rant in a Nov. 19 post, which also fails to disclose Levin's business relationship with the MRC.

Posted by Terry K. at 2:06 PM EST

Updated: Tuesday, December 3, 2013 9:40 PM EST

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WorldNetDaily has a lot to lose by George Zimmerman's extralegal shenanigans -- after all, it just published a book by WND columnist Jack Cashill portraying Zimmerman as a civil rights martyr. But WND pretends to be a news source, so it can't simply ignore what Zimmerman does.

With Zimmerman's latest arrest on domestic violence charges, WND chose to punt -- well, to steal the work of the Orlando Sentinel and repost it.

We're sure Cashill is hard at work right now pounding out a column that will blame anyone but Zimmerman for his actions.

Posted by Terry K. at 2:13 AM EST

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Todd Beamon seems quite proud of repeating Ben Stein's words in a Nov. 14 Newsmax article:

Commentator Ben Stein said on Thursday that President Barack Obama's "deeply naïve" premise that Iran would suddenly end its nuclear activities in exchange for an easing of sanctions that have crippled its economy for five years would make the "annihilation" of Jews possible.

"Iran is the world’s leading state sponsor of terror," Stein said in The American Spectator.  "The Iranians in the recent past have pledged to destroy the Jewish people in the Middle East.

"Some of their leaders have boasted that if Iran gets nuclear weapons, Iran will have 'a holocaust in an afternoon' by rocketing a few nuclear weapons into Israel," Stein added. "Naturally, the Israelis are desperately worried."

[...]

"This is no time to reduce the sanctions," he added. "If Iran actually destroys its nuclear factories and labs, that’s a better bet. But just for a promise of a freeze to stop the sanctions that can be reversed in hours?

"Have we learned absolutely nothing from Hitler? Will we have the most-wicked stain possible on the human race again within one lifetime?

"Obviously, Mr. Obama is willing to take the chance — with the lives of seven million Jews," Stein said. "Maybe Congress will have more heart."

Beamon repeats Stein's words uncritically, failing to identify them as the Obama derangement they are.

Posted by Terry K. at 2:55 PM EST

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WorldNetDaily's Michael Maloof is expanding his unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that President Obama is systematically firing top military officers for the heck of it to blame him for pilots leaving the Air Force to take jobs in the private sector. Maloof writes in a Nov. 17 WND article:

Sequestration, those mandatory percentage cuts set up by President Obama and implemented when Congress failed to address cuts in other areas, has not only cut back operations, but necessary investment in new-generation aircraft.

[...]

The cutbacks come as the Navy continues to operate under 2012 budget levels because of a congressional continuing resolution. Like the other services, the Navy hasn’t received its 2013 funding, where it had hoped for a $4.6 billion increase.

More than half of Obama’s $1 trillion sequestration cuts were imposed on the military.

In fact, Republicans also endorsed the 2011 Budget Control Act , which included the sequester cuts, and it was the result of a bipartisan agreement between Democrats and Republicans. The sequester could not have been approved without Republican support.

But Maloof won't mention that because it conflicts with his WND mandate to demonize Obama.

Posted by Terry K. at 2:02 PM EST

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Jeffrey Meyer brings the Heathering to Joe Scarborough in a Nov. 12 NewsBusters post:

MSNBC’s quasi-conservative darling Joe Scarborough seemed right at home as he guest-hosted ABC’s The View on November 12, walking on set arm-in-arm with Barbara Walters before taking aim squarely at folks who dare to be further on the right than he.

Meyer, of course, is denigrating Scarborough because he dares to be slightly to the left of Meyer.

Meyer goes on to complain that Scarborough said “people that would judge Chris Christie because he hugged Barack Obama, first of all, they're too obsessed on hating Barack Obama," insisting that for conservatives, "hugging Barack Obama was merely a symbol for the Republican’s failure to confront President Obama’s failed first term as president. Instead, Scarborough’s misguided views caused him to believe that it’s all about 'hating Barack Obama.'" Is Meyer denying that conservatives hate Obama? 

Echoing earlier complaints from the Media Research Center, Meyer gets further upset that Scarborough accurately blamed conservatives for forcing the government shutdown in October:

Once again, Scarborough buys into and furthers the liberal media's fallacious narratives rather than challenging the conventional wisdom. After all, the Republican House passed numerous bills up to the Democratic Senate which leaders failed to act on. What's more, President Obama threatened vetoes on pretty much every Republican proposal, yet those actions were overlooked by the media or accepted as legitimate rather than obstructive.

Meyer doesn't mention that Republicans had been planning this tactic for months, or that attempting to fund the government piecemeal by issuing numerous bills to fund everything but Obamacare deviated from standard, longstanding congressional practice.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:54 PM EST

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