WorldNetDaily has long served as a mouthpiece anti-gay activist Scott Lively and whitewashed just how virulent and Draconian his gay-bashing views are. It does so again in a Sept. 16 article by Bob Unruh on the latest developments in a lawsuit against Lively for his anti-gay activism.
Unruh follows in his employer's footsteps by misleadingly portraying Lively's actions in Uganda as merely engaging in "biblical preaching ... against homosexual behavior." In fact, as we've documented, Lively has been accused of working with anti-gay Ugandans to propose a law that would permit the death penalty for mere homosexuality.
Unruh is reporting a judge's ruling that a lawsuit against Lively from Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) can proceed. It's telling that Unruh does not provide a link to the ruling, which gives him free rein to mischaracterize and even lie what it says.
Right off the bat, Unruh tells a lie by writing, "SMUG alleges Lively must be punished for criticizing homosexuality, calling his speech a 'crime against humanity' in violation of 'international law.'" In fact, SMUG has stated that "none of Plaintiff’s claims are predicated on any speech or writing of the Defendant, odious and ignorant as they may be. His speech is merely circumstantial evidence of the discriminatory intent and motive behind his campaign to deprive LGBTI persons of fundamental rights and thus admissible to help prove the elements of the conspiracy to persecute."
Unruh also claims that the judge in the case "sided with the 'gays' in his first paragraph, explaining that while SMUG is made up of groups “that advocate for the fair and equal treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people,' Lively is an 'American citizen residing in Springfield, Mass., who, according to the complaint, holds himself out to be an expert on what he terms the ‘gay movement.’” Unruh does not explain how an accurate description of both parties in the lawsuit constitues having "sided with the 'gays'" (WND traditionally and illogically puts "gays" in scare quotes).
Unruh writes that "Lively sought to have the complaint dismissed recently when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Alien Tort Statute doesn’t apply to foreign territory. The court said the law cannot be used to challenge foreign conduct in courts in the United States. The ruling came down in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum." But Unruh doesn't explain the judge's finding that Kiobel does not apply to Lively:
Two facts alleged in this case distinguish it from Kiobel. First, unlike the British and Dutch corporations, Defendant is an American citizen residing within the venue of this court in Springfield, Massachusetts. Second, read fairly, the Amended Complaint alleges that the tortious acts committed by Defendant took place to a substantial degree within the United States, over many years, with only infrequent actual visits to Uganda.
The fact that the impact of Defendant’s conduct was felt in Uganda cannot deprive Plaintiff of a claim. Defendant’s alleged actions in planning and managing a campaign of repression in Uganda from the United States are analogous to a terrorist designing and manufacturing a bomb in this country, which he then mails to Uganda with the intent that it explode there.
The rest of Unruh's article uncritically rehashes Lively's defense without any mention of claims by SMUG that rebut them.
MRC Mocks Transgenders In Video Topic: Media Research Center
Media Research Center videographer Dan Joseph apparently thought that his employer's anti-gay agenda wasn't being pushed hard enough lately, so he got it into his head to mock transgender teens.
And he put it all on video, of course.
In a Aug. 15 video he posted at CNSNews.com -- proudly labeled "MRCTV Original Programming" -- Joseph starts off by explaining what he thinks is the impact of the recently approved student transgender rights law in California: "So if a teenage boy says he feels like a girl on the inside, he can now go and use the girls' locker room to shower, change, whatever. Now, most people would say this idea is, you know, insane."
So the sneering, derogatory tone is there from the get-go. Joseph then went to "a college campus where everybody's tolerant and open-minded" to gauge reaction. Actually, he went to Virginia's George Mason University, famed for its rightward-skewed economics department, so the school is probably not as "tolerant and open-minded" as Joseph wants you to think. Also, the fall semester hasn't started yet -- and won't for a couple more weeks -- so what students he was able to stumble across on an August day probably aren't representative of the student body at large.
After gathering his non-representative sample of people walking on the George Mason campus, Joseph then chooses to embarrass himself by filming himself pretending to be a transgender student who wants to use the girls' locker room.
To pull off this cunning deception, Joseph dresses in gym shorts and a tank top. Oh, and he speaks with a lisp, because, you know, transgender.
And here's what he said to one girl he tries to badger into letting him into the girls' locker room (captured on a hidden camera, as the awkwardly angled image above shows):
Excuse me, are you going into the locker room? My name is Dan, I'm a transgender, so that means I have the man parts but, you know, inside I feel more like a woman. I was just wondering, is it OK if I go in there, with you in there to change and shower and stuff? Because I don't feel comfortable in the men's area, you know. It's just weird. Is that OK with you?
Apparently, this is how Joseph thinks transgenders act.
Meanwhile, in real life outside of Joseph's right-wing fantasies, the California law merely affirms existing protections, there have been no reported problems, and similar laws have had the effect of reduced bulling and enhanced school performance.
But Joseph won't tell you about this, because he's being paid to mock transgenders, not to tell the truth about them.
WND's Massie Spews More Dishonest Obama-Hate Topic: WorldNetDaily
Mychal Massie's Aug. 12 WorldNetDaily column is largely a greatest hits collection of his dishonest, seething hatred of President Obama. But he has somehow managed to embrace a few new dishonesties in the process.
Massie writes:
John C. Drew, Ph.D., the award-winning political scientist, met Obama in 1980. In 2011 Drew wrote: “[Obama] believed that the economic stresses of the Carter years meant revolution was still imminent. The election of Reagan was simply a minor set-back in terms of the coming revolution. … Obama was blindly sticking to the simple Marxist theory … ‘there’s going to be a revolution.’ Obama said, ‘we need to be organized and grow the movement.’ In Obama’s view, our role must be to educate others so that we might usher in more quickly this inevitable revolution.”
But Drew didn’t stop there. Drew was at that time a Marxist himself and disagreed with Obama on how to bring about a revolution. Drew supported Barrington Moore’s theory that “a Russian or Chinese style revolution – leading to communism – was only possible in an agrarian society with a weak or non-existent middle-class or bourgeoisie.”
Drew ended his article by saying, “I know something about what Obama believed in 1980. At that time, the future president was a doctrinaire Marxist revolutionary.”
As we've documented, Drew met Obama only twice in his life, both during social occasions, making it highly unlikely that he could have made such sweeping conclusions of Obama's purported nature based on a pair of brief, casual encounters. Further, some of Drew's details about Obama have been discredited by actual college friends of Obama.
Further, Massie's depiction of Drew as an "award-winning political scientist" is taking straight from Drew own self-depiction, of which there is scant evidence to support.
Massie goes on to write:
In 2011, Obama gave a speech that at Osawatomie High School in Osawatomie, Kan. The highlight of the speech, as I wrote at the time, was it was there that he uttered the now infamous words “limited government and rugged individualism [don't] work and [have] never worked.” But what goes unaddressed pursuant to that speech was that communists from every corner of America praised his speech. That Osawatomie was the name of the revolutionary newspaper published by the domestic terrorist group Weather Underground, which was headed by Obama’s good friends Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, is of note and provides further proof of Obama’s propensity to engage in code-speak with his Neo-Leninist comrades.
But Massie is dishonestly taking Obama out of context and cobbled together to form a quote that doesn't exist in reality. Here's what Massie left out (with the brief out-of-context parts inb old):
Now, just as there was in Teddy Roosevelt’s time, there is a certain crowd in Washington who, for the last few decades, have said, let’s respond to this economic challenge with the same old tune. “The market will take care of everything,” they tell us. If we just cut more regulations and cut more taxes -- especially for the wealthy -- our economy will grow stronger. Sure, they say, there will be winners and losers. But if the winners do really well, then jobs and prosperity will eventually trickle down to everybody else. And, they argue, even if prosperity doesn’t trickle down, well, that’s the price of liberty.
Now, it’s a simple theory. And we have to admit, it’s one that speaks to our rugged individualism and our healthy skepticism of too much government. That’s in America’s DNA. And that theory fits well on a bumper sticker. (Laughter.) But here’s the problem: It doesn’t work. It has never worked. (Applause.) It didn’t work when it was tried in the decade before the Great Depression. It’s not what led to the incredible postwar booms of the ‘50s and ‘60s. And it didn’t work when we tried it during the last decade. (Applause.) I mean, understand, it’s not as if we haven’t tried this theory.
Remember in those years, in 2001 and 2003, Congress passed two of the most expensive tax cuts for the wealthy in history. And what did it get us? The slowest job growth in half a century. Massive deficits that have made it much harder to pay for the investments that built this country and provided the basic security that helped millions of Americans reach and stay in the middle class -- things like education and infrastructure, science and technology, Medicare and Social Security.
Obama never said "limited government" during the speech, making Massie's fabrication even more dishonest and depraved.
AIM's Kincaid: S.E. Cupp Isn't A Real Conservative Because She Doesn't Hate Gays Topic: Accuracy in Media
Cliff Kincaid writes in an Aug. 14 Accuracy in Media column:
As a veteran of CNN’s Crossfire in the 1980s, I am intrigued by the channel’s decision to bring back the liberal-conservative debate format show. When I was on the program, the motto was, “Don’t talk while I’m interrupting.” The “liberals” on the show this time around are partisan Obama Democrats. In fact, one of them, Van Jones, is possibly to the left of Obama.
Former Speaker of the House and GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, one of the announced conservative co-hosts, can easily take on the liberals and hold his own. His back-up, Sarah Elizabeth “S.E.” Cupp, is a former MSNBC host and intellectual lightweight. She is a self-declared atheist who has been campaigning for homosexual marriage. She is a member of “Young Conservatives for the Freedom to Marry,” a gay-rights front group.
Cupp may be “on the right” on many issues, but on homosexuality, a major controversy that can only get hotter in the months ahead, she is on the liberal side.
[...]
For her part, earlier this year, on her MSNBC show, Cupp stated that she would no longer speak at CPAC, despite being listed in the program. She objected to the new CPAC policy of refusing gay groups such as GOProud and Log Cabin Republicans from sponsoring the conservative gathering.
“In Cupp’s version of conservative femininity,” writes Amanda Hess, “a woman need not even experience marriage, motherhood, and religious piety in order to promote these values as the most authentic way of living.” Clearly, Cupp is not a traditional conservative with traditional conservative views on marriage and sexuality. She thinks conservatives and Republicans should just move beyond homosexual issues and accept homosexuals and “gay marriage” as legitimate. On the other hand, Gingrich is a solid conservative, from social to economic to foreign policy issues.
By hiring Cupp, whose views are well-known, CNN is also trying to “redefine” the word “conservative.” She also calls herself a Republican, but identifies more completely with the term “Log Cabin Republican,” a reference to the pro-homosexual group. She has been quite open about this, from her perch as a commentator on Glenn Beck’s network.
Kincaid adds:
If CNN wanted a female conservative with solid credentials on social issues, an excellent selection would have been Cathy Ruse of the Family Research Council. If youth alone was the criterion, Ryan Sorba, a young conservative who has traditional views on social issues like homosexuality, would also have been a good pick.
Sorba is best known for using his 2010 CPAC speech to rail against the convention for allowing a gay group to take part. Ruse was last seen calling for a boycott of Girl Scout cookies because "the Girl Scouts decided to admit boys who dress as girls" and issued "a guidebook that tells girls to check with the leftist, George Soros-funded Media Matters before believing what they read in the news."
This is who Kincaid thinks would make wonderful spokespeople for the conservative movement.
Joseph Farah's Descent Into Depravity Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joseph Farah writes in his Aug. 14 WorldNetDaily column:
This column is inspired by a commentary by Rush Limbaugh last week.
I’ve written columns like this frequently over the last 20 years, but Rush coined a phrase last week, probably without even realizing it, that says it all: “The descent into depravity.”
He didn’t actually string those words together, but he came close. So I’m going to do it for him today.
[...]
Rush used the word “depraved.” He also described the news item as an example of the way “the descent our culture is taking [us] toward the sewer.” All of this is very accurate.
But we should recognize it for what it is: “The descent into depravity.” Of course ugly, sinful, immoral and repugnant behavior has been going on since Genesis. But today, it’s normal. It’s not even news.
And that’s how a nation, a culture, a society descends into depravity.
Of course, Farah will never tell you about his own descent into depravity. That's because, like any good depraved person, he portrays his depravity as virtue.
For the past five years, Farah and his website have been engaged in the attempted personal destruction of Barack Obama by any means necessary. Farah doesn't care whether what he publishes about Obama is true -- he cares only that it takes down the president. All he has achieved thus far is turning his own website into a laughingstock that no sentient person believes, catering only to an extremely narrow audience of Obama-haters and conspiracy theorists.
Later this month, WND Books is releasing the new anti-Obama book from Aaron Klein, which purports to make a case for impeaching Obama. If it's anything like WND's previous attempt at such a book, it will be slipshod, ridiculously biased, and factually inaccurate.
And even if it's not, Klein's book will carry no weight in the marketplace because it is a product of a WND reporter that is published by WND -- in essence, a vanity publication.
That is the result of Farah's descent into depravity. But Farah will tell you that this is not only virtuous, it's patriotic. And he will tell you that he's the one person who's qualified to lead a "national day of prayer and repentance," all while acting like he has nothing to repent.
Jeffrey also wrote an article about how Levin's book "skyrocketed to No. 1 on the Amazon.com bestseller list for books today, the first day it was available for sale."
MRC chief Brent Bozell wrote a fawning column on Levin and his book: "Levin is a Constitutional scholar — and he shines." Bozell adds, "Levin is a consequential man, and this is a consequential book."
NewsBusters promoted David Limbaugh's column on Levin's book -- fawning, of course -- to its main blog feed.
What the MRC doesn't mention is that for the past several months, it has been paying an undisclosed amount of money to promote the MRC's anti-media initiatives on his radio show.
Is all this promotion for Levin's book a quid pro quo for Levin's promotion of the MRC on the radio? Don't expect the MRC to answer that question.
WND Sidesteps Question of Cruz's Eligibility To Be President Topic: WorldNetDaily
You'd think that with all it has written about Barack Obama's eligibility to be president, WorldNetDaily would be able to make a declarative snap judgment about the eligibility of Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. But it seems WND will punt on the question for now.
An unbylined Aug. 14 WND article highlights how CNN "suddenly is concerned about whether Republican Sen. Ted Cruz would qualify for the Oval Office." After noting that Cruz "was born in Canada to a U.S. citizen mother and a Cuban father," WND adds:
Cruz himself says he qualifies as a natural-born citizen because he’s a citizen by birth.
But those opinions assume that the authors of the Constitution used the terms citizen and natural-born citizen interchangeably.
But rather than further examining the question of Cruz's eligibility, WND spends the rest of the lengthy article rehashing discredited claims about Obama's "eligibility" -- even though that's not what the story's about.
Is WND going to apply a different standard to Cruz's eligibility than it has to Obama's? It seems that way.
Noel Sheppard heartily approves of a Missouri rodeo clown mocking President Obama, using an Aug. 14 NewsBusters post to denounce criticism of the clown as a "phony scandal" and touting Rush Limbaugh's "marvelous" commentary on the subject, in which he said, "He's the president of the United States! They get made fun of! They get laughed at all the time!"
But wait -- wasn't Sheppard just a few short days ago saying that elected officials are "deserving of respect," which mocking from a rodeo clown probably doesn't qualify as? Yes, yes he did.
Apparently, in Sheppard's world only conservative politicians are deemed worthy of respect. The rest deserve the rodeo-clown treatment. Some people might call that ridiculous double standard rodeo-clown behavior.
WND Roots For Muslim Brotherhood to Take Out Obama Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily has normally despised the Muslim Brotherhood and regularlysought to portray President Obama as having some sort of sympathy toward or outright ties with it. But apparently the Muslim Brotherhood hates Obama almost as much as WND does, so WND is changing its tune.
In an email promotion for an Aug. 14 article, WND is positively giddy at the prospect of the Muslim Brotherhood taking down Obama, saying, "Finally! There may be something good in connection with the Muslim Brotherhood after all."
The article itself, by Jerome Corsi citing shady self-proclaimed ex-terrorist Walid Shoebat, is not quite as giddy but still seems to push the idea of the Muslim Brotherhood taking out Obama as a good thing.
NEW ARTICLE -- CNS: Spending Money on Gays Is A Waste Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com's effort to uncover supposedly wasteful spending has disproportionately focused on LGBT-related issues -- and, strangely, preventing cancer. Read more >>
WND's Unruh Misleads on Anti-Evolution Video Topic: WorldNetDaily
Surprisingly, Bob Unruh essentially concedes in an Aug. 10 WorldNetDaily article that that evangelist Ray Comfort misleadingly edited interviews with evolutionists in a new anti-evolution video. How so? By depicting Comfort's refusal to release unedited footage of the interviews unless some nebulous goal is reached:
“They are worried, and they’ve got a right to be,” commented Comfort.
“‘Evolution vs. God’ shows that there’s no evidence for Darwinian evolution – that it rests on nothing but blind faith,” he said. “So they are hoping to find some ‘silver bullet’ in what wasn’t used that will discredit the movie. They know that millions are going to end up seeing evolutionary scientists from USC and UCLA gasping like fish out of water, as they try to think of scientific evidence for Darwinian evolution.”
He responded: “American Atheists, Inc. Want to see all the interview footage? Let’s go on TV. Convince me with a good reason to, and I will release it.”
An honest filmmaker would have released the unedited interviews with no quesitons asked, so at least we now know where Comfort lies. If Comfort is so honest, why is he playing games?
But lest anyone think Unruh has suddenly developed enough of a conscience to devote himself to fair and balanced journalism -- trust us, he hasn't -- he threw in this:
Other scientists interviewed are Peter Nonacs of UCLA and Craig Stanford of USC.
Said Nonacs: “I am one of the evolutionary biologists interviewed by Ray Comfort for his new DVD. First, Ray is a charming fellow and I greatly enjoy interacting with him. I do not expect that my words will be edited out of context or that I’ll find myself somehow saying on camera that ‘All of evolutionary biology is a hoax perpetuated in order to justify atheism.’ In short, I expect that everything in the DVD will be an accurate reflection of my words.”
Unruh apparently copied that off a website promoting Comfort's film. But he won't tell that isn't the way Nonacs feels about it now. Nonacs writes in a comment on the American Atheists Facebook page:
Hey, it's me, Peter Nonacs, - one of the stars of Ray's movie although to my great disappointment, I get about 30 seconds of air time, total. But I want to defend Ray from all the abuse being poured on his head. Ray is smart, incredibly funny, unfailingly polite and civil in person. I take him at his word that he is sincere in his beliefs. Maybe. A few years back he actually interviewed me for well over an hour. It was a ton of fun with a lot of great back and forth between us. I think if Ray released that tape, plus the entirety of the interviews he did for this movie, it would actually make for a far better argument for his point of view than what he has done. Like I said, he is smart and a very sharp debater. It is therefore mind-boggling to me that he makes these God awful products instead (oops, there I go blaspheming again. It's off to hell for me, next to Hitler, after I die!). They are so slanted with such ridiculous questions and such clearly biased editing, that they have no chance of making "converts". Thus, I have come to form a new hypothesis. Ray Comfort is a cryptic evolutionary biologist, who's plan is to take down Creationism and ID from within. He will keep making more and more absurd movies that the evolution deniers will trot forth as their best evidence - hastening their ideological death spiral to irrelevance. So, whenever Ray asks, I'll be there to help him with this effort!
Unruh also fails to mention that Comfort himself has admitted he "selectively edited" the interviews in his film, which would seem to discredit him further. As PZ Myers, one of Comfort's interview subjects, points out:
Comfort came to me asking for the evidence for evolution. The way it went is that he would a) ask for evidence, b) I would give him an example (like the research on sticklebacks or bacteria), c) Comfort would raise an irrelevant objection (they’re still fish! They’re still bacteria!), and d) I would explain why his objection was invalid, and how his expectations of the nature of the evidence were wrong. Somehow, though, in the movie (d) always ended up on the cutting room floor, so that he could announce in all of his promotional materials and in the movie itself that I was unable to provide any evidence for evolution.
Unruh may have the occasional spasm of honest reporting, but he's not so honest as to tell the full truth. That's not what WND is paying him to do.
Newsmax, CNS Swallow Dubious Claim of Missile Theft Topic: Newsmax
The ConWeb is pouncing on a story seemingly designed to make the Obama administration look bad over the Benghazi attack:
A May 12 Newsmax article by Cathy Burke repeats how "Beltway lawyer Joe diGenova" said in a radio interview that "400 surface-to-air missiles were 'diverted to Libya' during the attack and fell into 'the hands of some very ugly people.'"
An Aug. 13 CNSNews.com article by Susan Jones echoed diGenova claim that "the real scandal in Benghazi is the theft of 400 surface-to-air missiles" that could be "used to shoot down an airplane or blow up one of our embassies."
Both Newsmax and CNS merely repeated diGenova's claims uncritically. Newsmax followed upwith an Aug. 13 article by Jim Meyers and Kathleen Walter that allowed former congressman Allen West to opine on the subject.
But there are good reasons to question diGenova's story. First, he and his wife, Victoria Toensing, are partisan Republican activists. Second, diGenova himself admitted during the radio interview he had no evidence to back up his claim and some of the evidence isn't "verifiable."
Obama Derangement Syndrome, Larry Klayman Edition Topic: WorldNetDaily
The fact that Larry Klayman titled his Aug. 12 WorldNetDaily column "Obama's Mein Kampf" suggests that the level of Obama derangement contained within would reach toxic levels. And boy, does he deliver, with a side trip to "Clinton death list" nonsense:
Having been caught with his hand in the NSA cookie jar, the “spymaster in chief,” Barack Hussein Obama, shamelessly and deceitfully used his press conference of last Friday to effectively appear to embrace the so-called leaks of whistleblower Edward Snowden – who he obviously would like to see disappear – and conjure up what is not only an opportunistic but also a faux review of the spook agency’s surveillance on over 300 million Americans.
And, after having committed a number of “phony scandals” from Fast and Furious, to Benghazi-gate, to Navy SEAL-gate, to IRS-gate, to Birth Certificate/Eligibility-gate, to now NSA-gate, all of a sudden the neo-national socialist Führer develops a newfound appreciation for the rule of law and respect for our Constitution. How convenient given the boiling caldron of criticism, even from some elements of the left, that Obama now finds himself. In effect, Obama’s subterfuge is nothing more than a clever ruse, taking a page from Hitler prior to his rise to power, to fool the citizenry that it is safe at the hands of his corrupt administration.
[...]
Indeed, during the Clinton years, while Bill and Hillary vociferously disclaimed any role in the deaths of more than 80 key witnesses and others with some involvement in their myriad of scandals, they were happy to have their henchmen leave a list of these dead persons on the office chairs of inconveniently “alive” witnesses like Linda Tripp and other White House whistleblowers, who had the goods on their various crimes. On a smaller scale than Obama’s unbridled massive abuse of government power, this was a not-too-subtle attempt to intimidate and silence them from spilling the beans and providing evidence to send the Clintons to prison, which is where they belong. Outrageously, today, 13 years since the Clintons left the White House, we, the more than 300 million Americans whose confidential communications have been violated by this Muslim megalomaniac, are now the hands-on witnesses of Obama’s attempt to rule and transform the nation as he alone sees fit – by fear. And, we, the American people, are in danger.
[...]
In this regard, perhaps it was Obama’s bigoted remarks after the George Zimmerman trial – where he effectively rejected the jury’s verdict of not guilty with a statement that he could have been Trayvon Martin 35 years ago – that truly unmasked his hateful intentions to make “whitey” and the others pay back “his people” for prior discrimination. And, indeed, this is what is at the heart of NSA-gate; a means to keep whitey and whitey’s allies down as Obama dismantles and deconstructs the nation by having them pay their “fair share” in reparations.
Given these stakes and Obama’s master plan, it is no wonder that the privacy and intimate communications of all of us are now in government hands. Obama and his comrades have made it clear that if we object to and fight against his agenda, we will then pay the price, no matter what disingenuous and deceptive propaganda he attempts to spew to the contrary to lull us again into submission.
With all of the Obama derangement Klayman has spewed over the years, it's a wonder all that bile hasn't killed him yet. Fortunately, between his undisguised hate and his incompetent lawyering, most sentient beings not connected with WND don't take him seriously.
Newsmax's Walsh Fearmongers About Disease-Ridden Immigrants Topic: Newsmax
Immigrant-basher James Walsh is at it again in his Aug. 9 Newsmax column, warning against allegedly filthy illegal immigrants and the alleged "need for medical examinations of illegal aliens applying for 'legalization.'" He goes on to write:
A Kaiser Health News report in 2013 states that although illegal aliens are allegedly denied access to Medicaid, they are receiving medical benefits costing $2 billion a year, and illegal aliens have health problems. For instance, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advise that the rate of tuberculosis (TB) in foreign-born persons in the United States, legally or illegally, is 11.5 times higher than in U.S.-born persons.
On July 22, 2013, The Washington Post reported on the need for TB tests for the students and staff at Robert E. Lee High School in Fairfax County, Virginia. Three cases of TB were reported during the last school year, and pupils and faculty may have been exposed.
Walsh is playing guilt-by-association here. The three cases of TB at the Fairfax County high school have never been publicly identified, so Walsh has no idea whether illegal immigrants are involved.
Further, while Walsh fearmongers about the rate of TB infection in "foreign-born persons," the number of TB cases in the U.S. has been declining for years, falling 40 percent since 2000 and declining last year to its lowest number since the 1950s.
Walsh also ignores the fact that while TB once rendered an immigrant "inadmissible" to the U.S., vaccines and antibiotics have largely neutralized the threat of TB infections.
'The Newsroom' Is Right: WND Makes Up Stuff Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joe Kovacs uses an Aug. 12 WorldNetDaily article to channel his employer's displeasure at being depicted in HBO's "The Newsroom" as having published a fabricated story. It includes the usual thin-skinned response from WND chief Joseph Farah:
WND’s real-life CEO Joseph Farah commented on HBO’s targeting of his news agency, saying:
“I don’t watch HBO or subscribe to it because of the way it exploits women with pornographic content and corrupts minds with salacious programming. But I’ve read the description of this episode of ‘The Newsroom,’ and have the following comments based on that: Too many Americans are getting their news and opinions from purely entertainment shows today. And HBO is apparently attempting to jaundice people’s opinions of the first and largest independent Internet news agency with episode 5 of the second season of ‘The Newsroom,’ which mischaracterizes WND in a subplot that dominates a third of the show.
“But here’s the irony of ironies: Here’s a TV show about a fake newsroom accusing a real newsroom of making up stories. Hello? I’ve spent my entire life actually working in real newsrooms, leading them, directing them, doing actual reporting – not playing a reporter or editor on TV. WND’s actual newsroom is comprised of actual journalists who have worked in actual newsrooms for most of their lives. They don’t make up stories.
“I’ll have more comment when I have a chance to watch the episode. First, I will make sure no innocent children are around, as is necessary with most HBO programming. But this is clearly an attempt to smear our work. Why? Presumably the motive has to do with our effectiveness. We must be hitting a nerve in the corporate boardrooms of HBO or in the fertile imaginations of the morally bankrupt writers of ‘The Newsroom.’
“I suggest people read WND and make up their own minds about it.”
But "The Newsroom" is right -- WND has fabricated stories. Farah's own admission that WND publishes "misinformation" -- a notable portion of which is generated by Farah himself -- is just the beginning. Here's a sample of WND's bogus reporting over the years:
In 2001, WND was sued for defamation by a Tennessee auto dealer whom WND accused of being a "suspected drug dealer" in a series of articles in 2000 designed to smear Al Gore's presidential run. After fighting the lawsuit for seven years -- during which time it admitted that it did not fact-check the claims made in the articles before publishing them -- WND abruptly settled out of court a few weeks before the case was to go to trial, finally admitting that "no witness verifies the truth of what the witnesses are reported by authors to have stated" and "no document has been discovered that provides any verification that the statements written were true.
In 2005, WND treated as real an April Fool's story on the website Gawker that CBS was rushing into production a TV movie about the Terri Schiavo case after buying the rights to the story from her husband.
WND was forced to retract a 2004 article by Aaron Klein that falsely linked the charity Islamic Relief to terrorism and suggested that it was raising money for orphans that don't exist.
WND hyped a "Kenyan birth certificate" for Barack Obama, claiming that "WND was able to obtain other birth certificates from Kenya for purposes of comparison, and the form of the documents appear to be identical" but making no other apparent effort at verification. Nevertheless, WND defended the document's veracity for a few days -- until admitting that the certificate is "probably not authentic," according to "WND's investigative operatives in Africa."
Last year, WND's Jerome Corsi reported -- citing discredited filmmaker Joel Gilbert -- that a ring Obama wears says "There is no god except Allah" in Arabic. Even Corsi's fellow birthers rushed to discredit that claim.
WND went on to claim that "more dirt was thrown on WND" when one character on "The Newsroom" noted, “Keeping in mind that WorldNetDaily reported that Obama murdered his gay lover.” But WND has done that by indulging in (anonymous, unsubstantiated) rumors that Obama is gay and that "three Trinity United Church openly professed homosexuals [were] brutally killed in yet-unsolved murders that occurred within a 40-day time span between November and December 2007, as Obama's handlers were preparing to take his presidential campaign to the national stage" -- essentially suggesting that Obama played a role in having them killed.
It seems that if Farah and WND were planning to sue HBO and the producers of "The Newsroom" for libel or defamation, they really don't have a case since enough of what the show portrayed is true.