A Jan. 3 WorldNetDaily article tries to take a victory lap on Jerome Corsi's 2005 WND-published book "Black Gold Stranglehold," which promoted the fringe theory that oil is continuously generated from within the Earth, or abiotic, rather than a finite biomass. WND's big claim is that Corsi's book accurately predicted rising crude oil prices:

The book, which was ridiculed by many industry analysts, argues against the “peak-oil theory” that predicted peak oil production had already been reached as the world was facing a diminishing quantity of oil available in the earth.

Corsi and Smith also predicted that oil, then trading below $50 a barrel, would trade at $100 a barrel, which has become an industry standard in recent years.

Oil expert Darren Wolfberg of BNP Paribas projected on Thursday that oil will trade in the $93 to $100 a barrel range in 2014.

Given the fact of continual instability in the Middle East, including an Iraq war that was going on at the time Corsi's book was published, that was hardly a risky prediction. WND then tries to give Corsi credit for shale oil:

Despite strong pushback from oil industry analysts, Corsi followed up the publication of “Black Gold Stranglehold” with a series of WND stories based on data predicting shale oil could be at the heart of a U.S. oil boom.

At the time, oil experts were going the opposite direction, predicting U.S. oil depletion was proceeding at an irreversible pace.

But the article to which WND links to prove this contains no mention of shale oil. And WND fails to mention that shale oil production is feasible only because of higher oil prices -- shale oil costs more to extract than crude, and Forbes reports that crude oil needs to be at least $80 a barrel in order for shale production to be profitable.

And late last year, Royal Dutch Shell took a $2.1 billion writedown on its $24 billion investment in shale in the U.S. because it has not generated a profit.

Of course, shale oil has nothing whatsoever to do with Corsi's abiotic oil theory since, like crude oil, it's already in the ground.

Posted by Terry K. at 2:02 PM EST

Updated: Thursday, January 9, 2014 2:03 PM EST

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Last month, Newsmax published an article by Melanie Batley complaining that "The bridge closure controversy that has dogged New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for weeks is threatening to go national as Democrats see a possible chink in the armor of the GOP's potential 2016 presidential nominee." Batley further complained that "Democrats have also created a politically-charged YouTube video with a narrative designed to raise the profile of the issue and link it to questions about Christie's character and integrity."

Now, with the release of emails showing that Christie aides directly ordered the bridge lane closure, Newsmax is essentially flip-flopping by devoting the top of its front page to the scandal:

Posted by Terry K. at 12:44 PM EST

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Joseph Farah is not giving up on trying to separate you from your money.

Farah's Jan. 7 WorldNetDaily column considers how "Republicans in the House need to be convinced" that "they can defund Obamacare and dozens of other wasteful programs by denying any more hikes in the debt limit." And surprise, surprise, it involves sending your hard-earned money to Farah:

How do we do it?

This isn’t a new idea. It’s one I have been pushing since January 2011. It’s called “The No More Red Ink Campaign.” It’s a plan to deluge House Republicans with the demand to say no to any future hikes in the debt limit – the amount the government is permitted to borrow.

[...]

Those Republicans need your support.

I’ve devised an easy and inexpensive way for you to reach all of them – every single House Republican – with an urgent message, guaranteed to be delivered to their individual offices by FedEx, that demands they stop the borrowing the next chance they get.

So far, more than 1.5 million such messages have been spent. More and more House Republicans are getting the message. If the deluge continues, even the leadership will get the message.

If you’ve got a better idea, let me know.

Otherwise, give this one a try.

Go to “The No More Red Ink Campaign” website. It will take you no more than a minute to send the message to every House Republican. It’s fast and it’s inexpensive.

As we've pointed out, Farah has provided zero evidence that his scheme -- one of many letter-for-hire scams WND has promoted over the years -- that spamming members of Congress with his bulk letters accomplishes anything beyond lining Farah's pockets.

January is traditionally a slow business month, and Farah's solicitation should probably be examined from a financial standpoint, rather than any desire to send a political message.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:30 AM EST

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A Jan. 7 Newsmax article by Amy Woods touts how Rush Limbaugh claimed that "the polar vortex is 'a hoax' perpetuated by the liberal media to further its agenda of climate change and global warming." What Woods didn't mention: Limbaugh is wrong.

AccuWeather senior meteorologist Bernie Rayno points out that the polar vortex is, in fact, a real thing: "We've been using the name in this field for — I've been in this field for 25 years, this isn't anything new. ... Usually meteorologists would never even use that term because people wouldn't understand it."

It seems that Newsmax is just as scared as CNSNews.com to tell its readers that Limbaugh was spreading a lie.

Posted by Terry K. at 3:14 PM EST

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A Jan. 6 WorldNetDaily article on Barack Obama having a Jewish half-brother actually comes from a publication called Israel Today. The article contains a link to the WND online store for a subscription offer to Israel Today, stating that "Israel Today’s mission is to be the definitive source for a truthful and balanced perspective on Israel and to provide timely news directly from Jerusalem."

But the description of the magazine  at WND's online store promises something other than balance. It states that "Israel Today is a Jerusalem-based news agency providing a biblical and objective perspective on local news" and also claims to be "the only Israeli magazine providing a Messianic perspective on events in the region."

Israel Today's declaration of a "Messianic perspective" seems at odds with its claim to also be "balanced" and "objective." Also at odds is the fact that Israel Today appears to be unabashedly pro-Israel; a graphic on the website's front page states, "Please help us in the online media war against Israel!" which links to a registration page for the site.

The fact that Israel Today has specifically declared pro-Israel and pro-Messianic biases means that, by defintion, it cannot be "balanced" and "objective." It makes sense that Israel Today is hooking up with WND, which claims in its mission statement that it seeks "truth and justice" despite publishing numerous falsehoods.

Regardless of its agenda, the fact that Israel Today has hooked with such a mendacious publication as WND does not make Israel Today look good.

Posted by Terry K. at 2:11 PM EST

Updated: Wednesday, January 8, 2014 2:15 PM EST

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A Dec. 17 CNSNews.com article by Susan Jones touts how "Former Democratic pollster Patrick Caddell says the midterm election could be a 'rolling disaster' for Democrats."

Jones doesn't stop to wonder why someone who is so eager to cling to an identity as a "Democrat" would be so disparaging of those in the same party. Indeed, Caddell hasn't done anything for Democrats in years -- he's frequently seen on right-leaning Fox News where, as Salon's Alex Pareene notes, "he’ll reliably repeat every idiotic right-wing talking point that comes down the pike." Caddell also served as a consultant on an anti-Obama film made by right-wing group Citizens United. 

Does that sound like someone who should be identified as a Democrat? It does to Jones, which tells you all you need to know about CNS' journalistic standards.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:03 PM EST

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Gina Loudon writes in her Jan. 5 WorldNetDaily column:

Politicians and their consultants are like amateur sociologists and psychologists. Politicians spend each election season trying to figure out what constituencies want and get into the mind of the voter. The 2014 midterms will be no different.

The political bullies hit the playground every two years and do the same thing they did in elementary school (which is exactly why I homeschool my children). Dr. Dathan Paterno and I called this “Playground Politics” in our book, “Ladies and Gentlemen,” and I believe we could lose our country based upon our gut reaction to political games and our childish reaction to the head games they play on the political playground.

Loudon then lists those playground tactics, pretending that only liberals engage in them and failing to note that her employer does the very same thing. Let's help her out, shall we?

Fear the rich kid

WND -- and Aaron Klein in particular -- loves to fearmonger about George Soros, as if no right-wing billionaire ever sunk lots of money into politics.

Fear the new kid (he is extreme)

That's pretty much the underlying theme of WND's mendacious coverage of President Obama for the past five years.

Fear the unknown

That's the underlying theme of WND's birther obsession. There's a reason why WND never reports that birther conspiracy theories have been discredited.

Fear the fear

FEMA camps, anyone? On top of that, WND is ratcheting up the fear of Obama to foment a military coup and make it palatable to its readers.

Sadly, Loudon is too busy ranting against "most vacationing, golfing, tyrannical president in the history of the republic who has never even held a job in the private sector, met a payroll or successfully built an empire based on his own merit" to hold her employer accountable for the very same behavior she's criticizing.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:59 AM EST

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James Beattie serves as CNSNews.com's dutiful transcriber of the pearls of so-called wisdom that fall from the mouths of right-wing radio hosts. He's so dutiful, in fact, that he can't be bothered to fact-check anything he transcribes.

Beattie performs another bit of stenography in a  Jan. 6 CNS blog post:

Rush Limbaugh said "the truth and left never intersect, anymore" when discussing a Daily Beast article with a headline reading: "Thank Global Warming for Freezing You Right Now."

The article claims that this year's weather could be the coldest in history due to a "polar vortex," a term used to discuss a persistent, large-scale cyclone.  Included in the article is a warning from the National Weather Service to Twin-Cities, Minnesota residents stating that "ANYONE STUCK OUTSIDE FOR ANY LENGTH OF TIME WILL BE AT SERIOUS RISK FOR INJURY OR DEATH."

Responding his radio program today, Limbaugh said:

"There's an article - I referenced this a moment ago - it's in The Daily Beast, which is a Tina Brown website, so it means the leftists love this site, 'Global Warming is Freezing You' is the headline.  It's journalistic malpractice.  I'm telling you, the truth and the left never intersect, anymore.  It's stunning how everything, their entire agenda, is based on one lie after another.

"'Global Warming is Freezing You' and the article claims that manmade global warming is slowing down the jetstream, and that's why the cold air is coming down.  They don't explain how, they just say 'it must be,' because, see, they've bought it.  They have bought hook, line, and sinker manmade global warming.  They believe it.

"I've told you, I read the tech blogs.  Stunning, folks.  They believe it.  There's no questioning it.  In a lot of sectors, particularly millennials, young people, those who think they're experts in science.  There's no doubt.  They just believe it.  And so there has to be an explanation.  And whatever man is doing has caused the jetstream to slow down, and that is permitting the polar vortex, cold arctic air."

Beattie didn't mention that Limbaugh, in that same segment, also claimed that the polar vortex is a  "hoax" perpetrated by global warming activists and the media -- which Beattie surely knows is wrong, given how he used part of his post to define the term.

If Beattie really is the aspiring journalist he claims to be, shouldn't he tell the truth about Limbaugh's false claim instead of selectively quoting around it in order to hide the falsehood? Then again, CNS is not paying Beattie to tell the truth about Limbaugh.

Posted by Terry K. at 4:41 PM EST

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We've noted how WorldNetDaily apparently has a quid pro quo deal going with Texas Rep. Steve Stockman -- WND gave Stockman copies of Aaron Klein's slow-selling impeachment book to give away to members of Congress, and Stockman gave WND the scoop on his run for John Cornyn's Senate seat.

Now, WND is trying to help Stockman's campaign with a Jan. 5 article by John Griffing trying to claim Cornyn isn't a real conservative because he purportedly is "not standing up to President Obama’s agenda to move the nation toward more socialism." Griffing declares that "Stockman’s assessment that Cornyn hasn’t lived up to his billing as a conservative is correct."

Griffing's article reads like an oppo-research document -- for all we know, Griffing worked with Stockman's campaign to put it together. Last time we checked, such blatant shilling for a candidate does not qualify as journalism under any reasonable standard.

Further, as conservative Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin points out, the fact remains that Cornyn "is no squishy RINO" and is "the second most conservative senator, according to one ranking."

WND loves to blather about how it has "no sacred cows." That has always been a baldfaced lie. And it's clear that Stockman is a very sacred cow for WND.

Posted by Terry K. at 2:21 PM EST

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Mike Ciandella whines in a Jan. 6 Media Research Center Business & Media Institute item:

The Washington Post slammed Charles and David Koch  for their “political network” on the paper’s front page Jan. 6, but they partnered with a group funded by George Soros to get their information.

The Post proudly stated its partnership with the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), a group they labeled “nonpartisan.” Nowhere in their 2,457-word hit job on the Kochs, did the Post mention CRP’s Soros funding or Soros’ similar network of organizations and media outlets he uses to influence politics and the economy.

Apparently blind to the hypocrisy, the Center for Responsive Politics has received $725,000 from liberal billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Foundations since 2000. To the Post, the CRP was merely “a nonpartisan group that tracks money in politics.”

The Post attacked the Koch brothers, as well as a number of right-leaning groups, including the NRA, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and Americans for Tax Reform. 

At no point does Ciandella dispute any of the information in the Post article -- only where the information came from, and only because that place has taken money from Soros.

Despite his bandying around terms like "attack" and "hit piece," Ciandella offers no evidence that the Post article deviates from standard journalistic practice. Nor does he disclose that his employer has received money from Koch interests.

Posted by Terry K. at 11:47 AM EST

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Last year, WorldNetDaily's Jerome Corsi tried to cash in on the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination by rehashing conspiracy theories about his death (parts of which were apparently plagiarized). Now, Corsi is doing the same for Adolf Hitler.

Corsi's new book, "Hunting Hitler," actually takes the opposite approach -- he tries to prove that Hitler didn't die in a Berlin bunker but escaped to South America. As a WND article tells it:

Everyone knows Adolf Hitler committed suicide by gunshot in his underground bunker on April 30, 1945.

At least, that has been the conventional wisdom.

Now comes WND senior staff reporter Jerome R. Corsi’s new book, “Hunting Hitler: New Scientific Evidence That Hitler Escaped Germany.”

Examining declassified FBI and U.S. military intelligence files, Corsi makes a compelling case that U.S. investigators suspected from the beginning Hitler had escaped. For political purposes, the evidence indicates, they were willing to go along with the cover story that in the final days of World War II, Hitler married his mistress, Eva Braun, and the two took their lives in a joint-suicide ritual just before the Soviet army entered Berlin.

But the truth is, no one actually saw Hitler commit suicide. There are no photographs documenting a joint suicide of Hitler and Eva Braun, and the bodies of the two were never recovered or preserved for positive identification.

[...]

In “Hunting Hitler,” Corsi posits Hitler made his way to Argentina with the help of U.S. intelligence agents that had been secretly working with the Nazis since 1943. Allen Dulles, then an agent of the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS, the predecessor agency to the CIA, was communicating secretly with top Nazis from his office in Bern, Switzerland, Corsi said.

Interestingly, Corsi's employer apparently thought so little of this book that it passed on publishing it -- it bears the imprint of something called Skyhorse Publishing, whose other titles include a JFK conspiracy book by Jesse Ventura and a novel by porn star Jenna Jameson.

Given that Corsi remains such a committed birther that he has yet to acknowledge that Mike Zullo and his buddies in the Cold Case Posse have been utterly discredited -- as well as his propensity for failing to do even basic research -- it seems prudent to treat this book with the same hands-off policy his previous work has earned.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:57 AM EST

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Barbara Hollingsworth devoted a Jan. 3 CNSNews.com article to the views of Faith2Action's Janet Porter on the "Duck Dynasty" imbroglio. Hollingsworth didn't mention Porter's history of hate and lies.

As we've documented, Porter has been a promoter of conspiracy theories about Barack Obama's birth certificate, even showing up in WorldNetDaily's factually challenged birther documentary. In addition, Porter has used her public platforms -- most notably her now-discontinued WND column -- to promote numerous falsehoods about Obama and others.

It says something about CNS that it considers such a mendacious hater like Porter to be a quotable source for a "news" article.

Posted by Terry K. at 3:18 PM EST

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WorldNetDaily sure loves folks who are essentially calling for a military coup against President Obama.

WND finds another one in former Army colonel Harry G. Riley, and Bob Unruh devotes a Jan. 4 article to his coup attempt:

“There is not much time and the only planning necessary is to select a starting date, which we have done, and then show up in Washington, D.C., on that date, and plan to stay for the duration. The goal is restoring the U.S. Constitution as the law of the land, removing the lawless leadership,” Riley explained.

“Will this be a cake-walk? No, it will be painful, and some people may die because the government will not be non-violent; some of us will end up in a cell, and some may be injured. If that’s what it will take to save our nation, do we have any choice? Freedom loving Americans will say there is no choice, we must begin the second American Revolution. Not with guns, but with millions of Americans demanding a return to constitutional government and the resignation of Obama, Biden, Reid, McConnell, Boehner, Pelosi, and Holder as a start…then the constitutional restoration process can begin.”

He urged “all organizations, groups, particularly veterans and military retirees, [to] begin planning to visit Washington, D.C., beginning May 16, 2014.”

His plans seems to align mostly with what another retired military leader, Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely, has advocated.

You'd think that  WND would be more wary of military power, given that it has latched onto the death of Miriam Carey as an example of police excess. But it appears WND hates Obama more than it fears the military.

Posted by Terry K. at 2:20 PM EST

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In a Jan. 3 Accuracy in Media column, Cliff Kincaid follows WorldNetDaily in taking post-mortem shots at Nelson Mandela that have the effect of whitewashing apartheid:

Referring to Nelson Mandela, Rove says he “spent 26 years in prison before emerging to end apartheid and serve as the first president of a multiracial South African democracy.” However, Mandela’s debt to Soviet communism, which armed his movement, went unmentioned in Rove’s Wall Street Journal column. Rove also failed to note that the communists who run South Africa today counted Mandela as one of their own. The “democratic” South Africa of today is effectively a one-party state, and the white minority is under siege and facing genocide.

Rove writes that Mandela went “on trial for his life,” neglecting to mention that he was convicted of terrorism and could have been hanged for his crimes. Instead, Mandela received a prison sentence. The white government was actually quite lenient and offered to release him if he would renounce violence and terrorism. He never did. His terrorism cost innocent lives.

So apartheid wasn't so bad because Mandela wasn't immediately executed? Is that what Kincaid is saying?

As WND did, Kincaid ignores what Mandela actually said in response to offers to free him if he renounced violence: that his freedom was meaningless if apartheid was still legal. While Kincaid laments the "innocent lives" taken by Mandela's "terrorism," he's silent on on the innocent lives taken as a result of South Africa's apartheid regime.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:59 PM EST

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