WND Columnist Bashes Gays, National Monuments, Gay National Monuments Topic: WorldNetDaily
Brent Smith starts off his June 27 WorldNetDaily column with some anti-gay sneering:
Congratulations, America – we now have our first homosexual national monument. While America and the world are all caught in the drama that is Brexit, Obama has declared a gay bar in Greenwich Village, NYC, a national monument under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service.
Yep – tearing down our society one brick at a time.
The Stonewall Inn was a homosexual hangout in the ’60s. In 1969 police raided the joint, and riots ensued. From then on it has become known as the birthplace of the homosexual movement – as there was no LGBTQ back then. They were just cross-dressers and didn’t spend their time “questioning.”
Smith then expands his attack to the Antiquities Act under which the president is authorized to make such national monument declarations. He rants that the federal government has no authority to do much of anything in the U.S.:
All of this was and is unconstitutional. The president can’t be granted the authority to declare national monuments “in his discretion” because the legislative branch has no constitutional authority to grant it.
Whether you and I are big fans of national parks and historic preservation or not is completely irrelevant. Nowhere in the Constitution is authority granted to anyone in the national (federal) government to create national parks. In fact, the federal government has no authority to make any internal improvements in the United States – of any kind – not parks, roads and bridges – not even the interstate highway system. Yes, the interstate is unconstitutional. These functions were to be left to the states.
But those days are long gone, and there appears to be no way to get that genie back in the bottle.
Smith ignores the fact that challenges to the Antiquities Act on constitutional rounds have generally been upheld.
Smith then makes the weirdly specific claim: "Eight acres of land in New York City now off-limits to development of any kind. Brilliant!" Given that New York City encompasses 300,000 acres, there's hardly a dearth of developable land.
But it appears that Smith was referring to the size of the Stonewall National Monument, which includes part of the street the Stonewall In was on as well as a small park that was already spared from development. And, of course, the reason one protects the area around an historic site is to preserve the character of the area in a way that enhances said site.
But then, Smith thinks the federal government has no role to preserve anything, and he probably wouldn't mind if the Grand Canyon was plowed under like he apparently hopes the Stonewall Inn would be.
WND Reporter Proves Himself A Liar Topic: WorldNetDaily
Bob Unruh begins a July 12 WorldNetDaily article by asserting:
A new report released by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations concludes the Obama administration funded an effort to overthrow Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, one of America’s closest and most ardent allies.
The investigation concerned about $350,000 in grants given by the United States to a group called OneVoice to “support peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine.”
The organization pursued that goal but later used the grant money to campaign against Netanyahu, with whom President Obama had been at odds.
But the rest of Unruh's article disproves that assertion. Unruh quotes the report as saying the following:
"The subcommittee found no evidence that OneVoice spent grant funds to influence the 2015 Israeli elections."
"OneVoice Israel fully complied with the terms of its State Department grants."
"OneVoice’s use of government-funded resources for political purposes was not prohibited by the grant agreement because the State Department placed no limitations on the post-grant use of those resources."
That's right -- two assertions by Unruh are lies: the Obama administration did not fund OneVoice's campaign against Netanyahu, and OneVoice did not use grant money to do so.
Unruh is mad that OneVoice used the infrastructure paid for with the grant money for its anti-Netanyahu campaign -- which, by the way, was not an "overthrow" attempt. It was part of the 2015 Israeli election process, as we pointed out when WND editor Joseph Farah told these exact same lies when the election was going on.
Even the headline of Unruh's article -- "Obama funded secret strategy to oust Netanyahu" -- is a lie. It was so "secret," apparently, that it didn't even happen.
The fact that WND will tell lies about a report detailing the exact opposite of what it's claiming is just another reason WND has no credibility.
WND's Farah Tries to Rewrite Birther History Again Topic: WorldNetDaily
It's taken more than a week, but Joseph Farah has finally responded in his July 11 column to the New York Times article about how he advised Donald Trump during his birther phase in 2011 -- in his usual thin-skinned way, of course. First, he takes exception to being described as being "on the fringes of political life, publishing a six-part series claiming that soybeans caused homosexuality and fretting that ‘cultural Marxists’ were plotting to destroy the country":
For the record, I have never been in “political life” – either on the fringes or laboring. The “six-part series” was not a series at all, but the personal obsession of one of WND’s 45 weekly columnists. That columnist died a number of years ago, so that will give you an idea of how far back the Times had to look for embarrassing stuff to write. (By the way, unlike the Times or practically any other significant newspaper or news site, these days, WND actually publishes the opinions of columnists from across the political spectrum. What a concept!)
So working in the 1990s trying to destroy the Clintons and for the past eight years trying to destroy Obama had no political motivation whatsoever? Please. And as we point out every time Farah makes this claim, only two of those 45 columnists on WND's "spectrum," Bill Press and Ellen Ratner, are actually liberal, while almost every single one of the rest are on the conservative/libertarian end. That's not much of a "spectrum."
Farah continues complaining:
The story goes on to say that I spoke to Trump on the phone a few times because he wanted to take one of my theories “mainstream.”
“That developer, Donald J. Trump, told Mr. Farah that he shared his suspicion that President Obama might have been born outside the United States and that he was looking for a way to prove it,” the article said.
There are just three problems with that statement:
I never believed, said or wrote that Obama was born outside the U.S.;
I explained that to the one and only reporter who interviewed me several times – giving her my full cooperation;
Trump didn’t say he believed Obama was born outside the U.S. either, nor did he say he was looking for a way to prove it.
From there the article descends into ideological insults – from “the birther idea – long debunked, and until then confined to right-wing conspiracy theorists” to playing the old race card against Trump.
In fact, Farah has on at least two occasions repeated the (completely false) claim that Obama's grandmother has said that Obama was born in Kenya. And if Farah wasn't questioning whether Obama is a citizen, he wouldn't have published a supposed "Kenyan birth certificate" without first trying to verify if it was authentic (it wasn't).
Then, Farahr writes this:
Through the entire eligibility issue that lasted from 2008 until late 2011, the New York Times apparently never thought it was strange that Obama wouldn’t release his birth certificate – or practically any other information about his life, from academic records to Harvard Law School writings to passport records to health reports. Apparently, it still has not occurred to the Old York Times that it was unusual. Of course, it could only be racism that would cause anyone to ask for such things.
For me, this was always an issue of transparency.
Oh, bull. It was never about transparency for Farah; otherwise, he would have accepted the birth certificate Obama released during the 2008 campaign. The only thing Farah cared about was turning the birth certificate into Obama's Vince Foster. If Farah really cared about transparency, he would have told his readers that all of WND's birther conspiracy theories have been discredited (oh, and that he worked with Trump on the birther stuff in 2011, which he has never admitted at WND until now).
Also: The "eligibility issue" ended in "late 2011"? Really? According to who? Farah has apparently forgotten that late 2011 was when WND's Jerome Corsi was working with Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio to sleaze the incompetent and dishonest "cold case posse" into existence.
Is Farah so desperate to distance WND from its extensive involvement in the cold case posse that he's now trying to erase it from the birther timeline? Does this mean that he now accepts Obama's long-form birth certificate as legitimate after spending years trying to discredit it? If so, wow.
Then again, this is not the first time Farah has tried to rewrite the birther timeline.
Farah then writes something we shockingly agree with:
And, as for me, I can honestly say that all of the garbage they wrote about me was simply drudged up from old reports in Media Matters. You’d think with five reporters on the story, they could have come up with something really embarrassing from 20 years of publishing WND and 20 years of personally written daily columns!
We're disappointed that the Times didn't check out ConWebWatch for background on WND's lack of credibility. Farah's continued telling of falsehoods and trying to rewrite history, however, isn't helping the whole credibility thing.
Self-Proclaimed Ex-Clinton Mistress Speculates on Hillary's Health (At WND, Of Course) Topic: WorldNetDaily
Remember earlier this year, when WorldNetDaily was spreadingrumors about Hillary Clinton's supposedly precarious health, based on doctors who have never examined her? Well, they never really stopped ... and they've looped another conspiracy-monger into the mix.
We've already noted how Dolly Kyle, the self-proclaimed former Bill Clinton mistress and WND author, dutifully regurgitated WND's obsession with Hillary Clinton's purported health issues, suggesting that she's "cognitively impaired" and medically unfit to be president. But she's not a doctor, and presumably has had no contact with her in at least 20 years, if ever (we haven't read her book, and WND has not seen fit to send a review copy to us so we could see whether she claims ever having any personal contact with Hillary).
WND gave Kyle a chance to regurgitate more dubious speculation about Clinton's health in a July 10 article:
The author of “Hillary The Other Woman” said Hillary Clinton is characterized by a combination of carelessness, ignorance and entitlement.
“Hillary’s lack of the most minimal technological knowledge not only illustrates her increasing cognitive impairment, but it also illustrates her lifelong above-it-all arrogance,” she said. “Hillary does not need to know what the little details mean because none of those details apply to her and none of the requirements of the law apply to her, as we have seen for the past 30 years.”
In “Hillary The Other Woman,” Kyle assembles a formidable case Hillary Clinton’s mental ability is beginning to deteriorate, as the candidate has shown emotional instability, memory loss and difficulty planning and carrying out tasks. Kyle also details how Hillary Clinton’s troublesome temperament has manifested over the years, including her long history of what Kyle calls a “pathological” tendency to lie, even where there is nothing to be gained.
More importantly, Kyle alleges Hillary Clinton has an inability to handle situations spontaneously and without a script.
“Note her irate response about Benghazi, when she yelled, ‘What difference does it make?'” said Kyle. “Hillary Clinton has not had a press conference since December 4, 2015. She’s terrified to have a press conference because she is unable to listen attentively to a question and formulate an answer under pressure. Don’t forget, she recently even read the word ‘sigh’ when reading off the teleprompter!
“She has now told so many lies on so many topics on so many different occasions that even if she were playing with a full deck, she would have trouble pulling out the right card.”
Regardless, Kyle said the American people cannot allow someone who she believes may be mentally incapable of handling responsibility to become commander in chief.
“Hillary has already proven that she is incapable of playing with matches after the disasters she set in motion in Libya and throughout the Middle East,” Kyle said. “She is too cognitively impaired to recognize and appreciate the potential consequences of her actions. We cannot let the cognitively impaired Hillary Clinton escalate from playing with matches as secretary of state to controlling the nuclear arsenal of the United States of America as commander in chief. Clinton’s Muslim aide Huma Abedin, with her Muslim Brotherhood family, would become the shadowy figure in control.
“Anyone who cannot see the danger there is probably on the way to cognitive impairment as well.”
Kyle (or whichever WND employee wrote this in her name) managed to use "cognitively impaired" or a variation of it five times in her remarks. She she's complaining about Hillary being a slave to a script?
WND Now Trying to Blame Obama for Dallas Shooting Topic: WorldNetDaily
Having falsely linked Dallas police shooting perpetrator Micah Johnson to Black Lives Matter, WorldNetDaily continued on its fact-free way and tried to blame President Obama for the massacre as well.
Right-wing ambulance-chasing terrible attorney Larry Klayman spewed in his July 7 column:
In the wake of the massacre of five Dallas, Texas, policemen, with seven shot and wounded, President Barack Hussein Obama, as he has with his Muslim brothers, refused to refer to this heinous crime as a “hate crime” – despite the fact the shooter had admitted that he wanted to kill whites and in particular white cops, motivated by the hateful anti-white rhetoric spewed forth by Black Lives Matter and thus by extension the support this insidious group has gotten from Obama himself.
Not only does Obama have blood on his hands as having encouraged if not furthered this hate crime against whites and white cops, but so too does his “soul brothers,” the virulent anti-white, anti-Semitic and anti-Christian so-called Rev. Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, and his co-enablers like another so-called reverend, Al Sharpton, a charlatan and white hater. Indeed, Obama has, as usual, chosen to associate himself with these lowlifes in his quest to ram his latent hatred of whites, Jews and Christians down everyone’s throats. When the leader of the United States and supposedly the Western world, who was born to a Muslim father, schooled in Muslim schools, and has close ties to black-Muslim leaders like Farrakhan seeks to incite violence by virtue of his running interference for Muslims and blacks who are not even representative of African-Americans generally, it’s no wonder Obama-inspired massacres like Dallas happen. In two words, “Obama Happens!”
Klayman then showed off his ambulance-chasing ways:
I am filing in the next day a lawsuit, with myself as the initial plaintiff, against Obama, Black Lives Matter, Farrakhan and Sharpton for endangering not just my life, as a white law enforcement person of Jewish origin, but also for all Americans, white, black, yellow or brown, no matter what their race or religion. Someone has to take the first step, and I have concluded it has to be me.
Bercause Klayman is just that narcissistic and delusional.
The same day, WND editor Joseph Farah declared that "Obama himself provided plenty of excuses beyond his inclination to enflame racial strife and deter racial reconciliation. He has done everything a president of the United States could do to bring us such a tragedy – with potentially more on the way."
Farah then lists several bullet points to attempt to prove his point, such as the tired, irrelevant claim that "Obama will not use the term 'Islamic terrorism.'" But it's a sign of WND's overall lack of credibility that two of Farah's bullet points reference "FBI counter-terror specialist John Guandolo."
Why? Guandolo is actually a former FBI counter-terror specialist (which Farah concedes in his second reference to Guandolo), and the reason he's a former FBI counter-terror specialist is because he's a serial philanderer and adulterer who jeopardized a federal investigation by having sex with a witness and trying to get her to donate money to a right-wing "anti-terrorism" organization.
Still, WNDinsists Guandolo is actually credible. Which is just one more reason people think WND isn't.
So apparently there's a Google Chrome app called Nazi Detector that claims to single out right-wing pro-white extremists by putting swastikas next to their names in that browser -- a response to the "Coincidence Detector" app created by neo-Nazis that highlighted Jews on the internet. The Nazi Detector app apparently flagged WND as a organization that deserved this treatment. Cue the outrage from WND:
WND itself is also identified as a “Nazi” group. WND founder Joseph Farah reacted with outrage.
“The left loves to label its opposition as Nazis,” he said scornfully. “It’s disgusting in so many ways – from trivializing the unique horror that Nazis inflicted on their innocent victims to scapegoating and criminalizing political differences just as the Nazis themselves did.
“Nazism was a form of socialism, which I oppose. It’s a form of totalitarianism, which I oppose. It’s a form of state terror, which I oppose. How many of those things do leftists actually oppose?”
Now, we wouldn't go so far as to label WND as Nazi sympathizers. But it's undeniable that WND has gone partly in that direction with its promotion of white nationalist views.
As we documented following Dylann Roof's massacre of several black churchgoers, the white-supremacist views in his manifesto closely tracked WND's editorial agenda over the past few years, with its obsession with black-on-white crime (particularly in the George Zimmerman case) and writers who pine for the days of apartheid in South Africa.WND has never challenged our pointing out of these views, though a few months ago it dropped its chief apartheid-lamenter, Ilana Mercer, as a columnist.
And while WND has been a staunch supporter of Israel -- solicitations masquerading as "news" articles begging readers to shell out to join Farah on his apparently annual trip to the Holy Land havebeenomnipresent in recent days -- it also has a regular columnist Pat Buchanan, who has fretted that there are too many Jews on the Supreme Court.
But then, WND weirdly soft-pedals the racist nature of the Coincidence Detector app:
The “Nazi Detector” is based on the “Coincidence Detector,” another app for Google Chrome which automatically put parentheses around Jewish names designed to represent “echoes.” The “echo” meme was created by the blog The Right Stuff in an attempt to draw attention to what the blog’s authors said was disproportionate Jewish involvement in left-wing movements and causes.
After several Jewish reporters said they were “targeted” with the parentheses online, a spate of articles revealed the supposedly “secret symbol” used to “identify and target Jews.” The “Coincidence Detector” was promptly removed from the Chrome App marketplace, though the “Nazi Detector” remains available.
Some Jewish writers expressed discomfort about the “creepy” and anti-Semitic “Coincidence Detector” because of the “dark, murderous history to the practice of maintaining lists of Jews.”
Actually, the folks at The Right Stuff specifically stated their anti-Semitic intent with the app to serve as a critique of "Jewish power":
"The inner parenthesis represent the Jews' subversion of the home [and] destruction of the family through mass-media degeneracy. The next [parenthesis] represents the destruction of the nation through mass immigration, and the outer [parenthesis] represents international Jewry and world Zionism."
So, no, WND, Coincidence Detector is not a commentary on liberal Jewry.
Both of these apps are blunt instruments designed to make a political statement -- Nazi Detector, for example also flags Pamela Geller, and much of WND's article is dedicated to quoting her screeching about it, but she's merely a xenophobic Muslim-hater, not a Nazi.
So how is it that WND is incredibly offended by Nazi Detector, but it hides the anti-Semitism behind Coincidence Detector? Maybe WND really deserves that swastika after all.
WND Already Trying to Falsely Race-Bait Over Dallas Shooting Topic: WorldNetDaily
Never let a crisis go to waste, they say, and WorldNetDaily is trying to do exactly that over the sniper shootings of police officers in Dallas.
The cover of this week's WND Weekly -- a digital compilation of free WND articles that WND is trying to make people buy -- screams "BLACK LIVES MASSACRE."
This was joined by that old WND standby, stenography of whatever Rush Limbaugh is saying. This time, Garth Kant gets the honors:
One of the nation’s leading experts on law enforcement and race sees a cause and effect relationship between the president’s rhetoric and the murder of five police officers in Dallas.
“President Obama lied to the nation last night, and he embraced the Black Lives Matter myth that there is a racist war by white officers against black civilians in this country. And we see the results,” Heather McDonald told Rush Limbaugh on his radio program Friday.
“It is simply not the case that the police are disproportionately shooting black males when you take violent crime into account,” she asserted. “And for President Obama to give that movement any credibility when it is now threatening law and order itself, we are at risk of attacking the very foundation of civilization if this type of hatred continues.”
Obama welcomed leaders of Black Lives Matter to the White House in February. Limbaugh recalled how the president praised them and their efforts, saying they were “much better organizers than I was when I was their age.”
“And Black Lives Matter was exactly who they are then as who they are today,” Limbaugh observed. “They’re a terrorist group. They’re quickly becoming a terrorist group committing hate crimes. And the attorney general today is saying that she’s going to look into this, investigate this as a hate crime.”
Just one problem with all of this fearmongering over Black Lives Matter in the Dallas shootings: it's not true.
Newsreports state that the shooter, Micah Johnson, has no affiliation whatsoever with Black Lives Matter or any other organized group; he was a loner who followed black militant groups (of which Black Lives Matter is not one) on social media and amassed an arsenal of weapons in his home.
But then, when has the truth ever mattered to WND? No wonder it has no credibility.
WND Redefines 'Birther' To Bash Hillary Topic: WorldNetDaily
Last time we checked, WorldNetDaily was running as fast from the birther issue as it could to avoid having to avoid having to apply the standards it applied to non-foreign-born Barack Obama to definitely-foreign-born Ted Cruz.
Now, WND is apparently comfortable enough with birtherism to actually redefine what a birther is. A July 5 WND article by Joe Kovacs carries the headline "Hillary goes birther, shouts out Obama's 'birthplace'."
Wait -- is Hillary challenging Obama's eligibility to be president? No, quite the opposite, according to Kovacs:
uring a campaign appearance Tuesday with Barack Obama in Charlotte, North Carolina, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton intentionally re-opened the contested issue of where the president was born, firing a Twitter shot against her Republican opponent Donald Trump.
As part of her remarks about Obama, Mrs. Clinton tweeted out: “Someone who has never forgotten where he came from. And Donald, if you’re out there tweeting: It’s Hawaii.” –Hillary on @POTUS
No, Joe, "going birther" is what WND did pretty much every day for the eight years before Cruz ran for president. What Hillary did is what Kovacs and WND have refused to do on birther issues: tell the truth.
But Kovacs goes on to demonstrate the behavior actual birthers engage in:
Her comment refers to Trump’s push during Obama’s first term for the president to release his long-form birth certificate amid questions of his natural-born citizenship and constitutional eligibility to serve.
While the president claims he was born in Honolulu, there have been numerous questions, especially since a law-enforcement investigation by Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona, found “probable cause” that the birth certificate released by Obama was forged. Also, Obama mysteriously has a Connecticut-based Social Security Number, when neither he nor his parents ever lived there.
Ironically, it was Hillary Clinton herself who started the birther movement in 2008, according to numerous news agencies.
Kovacs doesn't mention that Arpaio's so-called investigation -- which included WND writer Jerome Corsi as a member -- is a discredited joke. And Kovacs' sole proof that "it was Hillary Clinton herself who started the birther movement" is a Breitbart article claiming that the Washington Post confirmed this,citing a strategy memo by Mark Penn, a strategist for Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign.
But as the Post has also pointed out, the memo never questioned Obama's citizenship or elligibility to be president -- two pillars of the birther movement led by WND -- and not only did her campaign never act on the part of the Penn memo suggesting she play up Obama's "otherness," staffers who did bring it up were admonished.
So Kovacs is the birther here by doing what birthers do -- promoted false and discredited claims about Obama's eligibility and citizenship. All the Orwellian redefining in the world doesn't change that.
WND's Chumley Has A Vendetta Against Michelle Fields, For Some Reason Topic: WorldNetDaily
Cheryl Chumley really, really doesn't like Michelle Fields for some reason.
Back in March, we noted how the WorldNetDaily reporter helped Breitbart throw then-employee Fields under the bus after she claimed then-Donald Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski forcefully grabbed her and left a bruise. Chumley suggested Fields as a liar by, among other things, uncritically repeating a tweet from Lewandowski calling Fields an "attention seeker."
Chumley was less ambiguous about her disdain for Fields in a May 23 WND article noting Fields' new employment at the Huffington Post. Chumley sneered that Fields "became an American household name in part because of her widely reported assault accusations against Corey Lewandowski, manager for the Republican Party’s Donald Trump," going on to assert that "Video and investigation later revealed Fields’ claims were wildly exaggerated."
In fact, according to the Florida police department that investigated Fields' claim, video did show Lewandowski grab Fields, and the investigator wrote there was "probable cause" to charge Lewandowski with simple battery. The fact thatthe state attorney declined to prosecute the case does not mean there was no evidence to do so -- which we're sure Chumley and her fellow WND employees are more than happy to point out in the case of Hillary Clinton's email server.
But Chumley wasn't done slagging Fields. She devoted an entire June 28 article to gloating that "Amazon reviews haven’t been kind" to Fields' new book, filling much of the article with excerpts of said negative reviews (with one positive one, for balance, apparently).Chumley again falsely asserted that Fields' claims against Lewandowski were "debunked by video, as WND previously reported."
There's really no reason for this article to exist other than for Chumley to take out a personal vendetta against Fields. Was her book outselling Chumley's book or something? Is Chumley envious that Fields because "an American household name" for a brief moment? Is she mad that Fields exposed the thuggish tactics of the Trump campaign for what they were? We don't know.
The fact that Chumley would act in such a petty, unprofessional manner is just another reason why WND has no credibility.
WND Reporter Still Obsessing Over (And Getting Facts Wrong About) Muslims in Idaho 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.
WND's Farah Silent About Friend's Denouncing of Evangelicals Who Support Trump Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily editor is more than happy to tell you that he attended the evangelical summit with Donald Trump a couple weeks back -- remember, he's a bigwig in the secretive right-wing Council for National Policy, and was looking for an opportunity to flaunt his bona fides in the right-wing political sphere.
So happy, in fact, that Farah wrote two columns about it.
In the first, he admitted "the contents of the meeting were off the record" -- shades of the CMP at work? -- but he could say he read Trump's mind: "Trump hit all the right chords. He was sincere about his plans to fight for religious liberty and name judges who stick to the Constitution – he even shocked many in the audience by suggesting it was time to lift the political gag order placed on pastors getting involved in politics by President Lyndon Johnson so many years ago." He added: "Politically speaking, it was never clearer to me how stark is the choice we face in the 2016 presidential election."
In the second, Farah denied that the conclave's failure to issue an endorsement of Trump meant anything, insisting that "The intention of the gathering was never to elicit political endorsements. ... It was put together by the evangelical leaders themselves – specifically and exclusively for the purpose of getting to know and understand the candidate better." Farah also wrot, "So let me categorically say, again, as someone present in the meeting, I wholeheartedly agree with Trump – and I know many, many others present at the gathering did as well."
But Farah has been silent about one close friend who attened that gathering who has chosen not to endorse Trump.
Michael Farris is a longtime homeschooling activist frequently quoted by WND, where he has published the occasional op-ed. He's also the founder and chancellor of Patrick Henry College, a school located not too far from Farah's home in surburban Washington, D.C., and which at least one of Farah's children has attended. In a piece for the Christian Post, Farris tells a story about the Trump-evangellical meeting that diverges from Farah's telling:
Today an estimated 1,000 evangelical leaders are making a pilgrimage to Trump Tower to "listen" to Donald Trump.
The organizer of this meeting came to my office to tell me in person why I wasn't being invited. I had been too vocal in my anti-Trump views.
I appreciated his courtesy in coming to me and he agreed that the obvious implication of the meeting was to rally support for Trump.
While I don't question the motives of those who are trekking to the Tower, I strongly dissent from the wisdom of their chosen path.
This meeting marks the end of the Christian Right.
The premise of the meeting in 1980 was that only candidates that reflected a biblical worldview and good character would gain our support.
Today, a candidate whose worldview is greed and whose god is his appetites (Philippians 3) is being tacitly endorsed by this throng.
They are saying we are Republicans no matter what the candidate believes and no matter how vile and unrepentant his character.
They are not a phalanx of God's prophets confronting a wicked leader, this is a parade of elephants.
Farris repeated his concerns in a Washington Post op-ed:
Over the years, I’ve worked closely with many of the hundreds of faith leaders who trekked to Trump Tower on Tuesday to meet with presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump. I’ve opposed Trump, and wasn’t invited. But even if I had been, I wouldn’t have gone. I believe these pilgrims meant well, but I think their judgment about associating with Trump is troubling and unwise. In embracing this brazen man — whether tacitly or overtly — they appear to have forgotten the very premises on which the Moral Majority and the social conservative movement was founded.
His candidacy is the antithesis of everything we set out to achieve.
[...]
The leaders in attendance at Trump’s event know the Bible. It says we are to love God first and then our neighbor. (Matthew 22:37-39) Yet they seemingly ignore the childish ridicule that Trump heaps on many of our neighbors: the disabled, Hispanics and women just for starters. The Bible says a leader should not consider himself better than his brothers. But Trump’s arrogance — he said at one point that he’s “the most successful person ever to run for the presidency” — is the stuff of legend, and not the hallmark of a godly individual. He’s not seen as a man of his word — hundreds of vendors report that his companies have stiffed them after services were rendered. He has dragged our political discourse into the gutter. Even an implicit endorsement of Trump stains the character of the endorser more than it elevates Trump’s standing. So if my colleagues who met with him this week don’t want to leave this impression, I hope they speak up promptly and clearly.
Apparently Farah has not spoken up to Farris, because not only has Farah not written a thing about Farris' comments, they have not been reported anywhere else on the WND website.
So, have Farah and WND completely cut off Farris for his refusal to support Trump and his calling out evangelicals like Farah who have? We shall see.
No, WND, Trump Is Not Why Macy's Is Slumping (And His Clothing Line Didn't Move To Amazon) Topic: WorldNetDaily
The unidentified writer of this June 28 WorldNetDaily article seems quite giddy:
Corporate America is learning a lesson: Don’t cross Donald Trump.
One year ago, Trump upended American politics when he declared he was a candidate for president.
Macy’s promptly declared it was cutting ties and dumping Trump’s clothing line because of “disparaging” remarks about Mexicans.
Trump fired back, declaring the company supports illegal immigration. His supporters even shredded their Macy’s credit cards and tens of thousands called to complain about the company’s cave to political correctness.
Trump himself also called for a boycott of the company.
From the vantage of June 2016, it appears Trump has had the last laugh.
The onetime reality television star is now the presumptive Republican candidate for president of the United States. Meanwhile, Macy’s stock price has plummeted.
When Trump first called for the boycott on July 1, 2015, Macy’s stock price stood at $67.82 per share. In less than a year, the stock has lost more than half its value, now standing at just over $31 a share.
Of course, despite this tone and the article's headline -- "MACY'S STOCK IN FREE FALL SINCE DISSING TRUMP" -- the problems Macy's currently faces have nothing whatsoever to do with Macy's dropping the Trump clothing line, as even our anonymous writer concedes:
And the company’s problems go beyond its stock price.
It reportedly is suffering a year-over-year operating income decline of 40 percent, a 4.4 percent drop in revenue, and a comparable-sales decline of 3.2 percent. Experts claim the company’s decline is as dire as anything suffered during the economic crisis of 2009.
Macy’s recently avoided a strike, though many of its issues with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union remain to be settled.
And last week, Terry Lundgren, who has been CEO for 13 years, announced he will step down from the top job as Macy’s struggles to adjust.
His replacement as CEO, Jeff Gennette, is the current president of the company, leading to accusations from some critics that Macy’s is too cautious to make the kinds of adjustments it needs recover from its current decline.
The company also is struggling to compete with online retailer Amazon.com, which now controls 41.2 percent of the e-commerce market compared to Macy’s 1.5 percent.
WND's anonymous writer then goes on to sneer: "Not coincidentally, Trump’s 'Signature Collection' clothing line is now available for sale through Amazon."
Well, not exactly. Macy's was the exclusive retailer of the Trump clothing line, and nobody else has picked it up. The clothing conglomerate that made the clothes for Macy's, PVH, also wound down its involvement in the licensing deal.This means nobody is currently selling first-run Trump clothing.
Tellingly, WND doesn't link to Amazon.com to prove that Trump's clothing line "is now available for sale through Amazon." Rather, it linked to Trump's website, which in turn links to Amazon for the categories of neckwear, dress shirts, suits and accessories. But Amazon itself is not selling those items.
For instance a Trump dress shirt states that it's "Sold by Retail Trunk and Fulfilled by Amazon." A set of Trump cufflinks says, "Ships from and sold by J&P Universal." And a Trump suit says it's "Sold by Suits Empire and Fulfilled by Amazon."
In other words, most -- if not all -- of the Trump clothing at Amazon is being sold by third-party sellers who probably bought it on clearance from Macy's and are simply using Amazon as a selling platform to resell it.
The Trump clothing on Amazon is effectively secondhand, even if it may be "new" and in the original packaging. Don't expect that anonymous WND writer to explain that to readers, though.
WND's Chumley Cites Scientology Front Group To Bash Psychiatric Drugs Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily -- mostly in the person of managing editor David Kupelian -- has a thing for falsely smearing psychiatric drugs by directly blaming them for mass murder events, despite the fact that no direct link has ever been established.
WND reporter Cheryl Chumley joins in the smearing in her July 29 column:
But deceptions run deeper when it comes to gun control. For instance: The anti-Second Amendment crowd may slide this under the radar, but according to Linda Lagemann, a former licensed clinical psychologist with 23 years of experience who presently serves as a commissioner with the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, dozens of recent cases of high-profile shooters have shared more than an affinity for guns – they’ve shared a pill-popping background that included the taking of psychotropic drugs, some at least which were medically and legally prescribed.
As we noted when CNSNews.com's Barbara Hollingsworth did it, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights was created by the Church of Scientology with the goal of attacking the field of psychiatry. Despite the name, as Stephen Wiseman points out, it's not a human rights organization at all.
Chumley goes on to rant about other purported links between psychiatric drugs and mass killings, citing such impeccable sources as a rant-filled blog called DC Clothesline and the Western Journalism Center, which was founded by Chumley's WND boss, Joseph Farah, and which collaborated with WND on a error-ridden book demanding President Obama's impeachment just a year into his first term.
And Chumley, like Kupelian, cite no direct link between the drug that were taken and the acts they committed -- remember, correlation does not equal causation. Nevertheless, Chumley concludes by declaring, "But guns are the problem? Seems like pill control might be the better argument."
Chumley might have a better argument if wasn't engaging in logical fallacies or using fringe sources to back them up.
It’s probably the most important document of the 2016 election – and now you can get it for free.
The internal research file compiled by the Democratic Party on Republican nominee Donald Trump was recently hacked, reportedly by Russian intelligence. More than 200 pages were stolen, detailing the exact lines of attack Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party plan to unleash on the Republican nominee.
However, even this tale of international intrigue may be less explosive than the real truth. Donald Trump recently accused the Democratic National Committee of deliberately leaking the document. The real-estate tycoon and television star noted the Democratic Party has not apologized for allowing this secret data to be accessed and suggested they should.
Get the secret report rocking the 2016 election. “The Secret Democrat Playbook Against Trump” is available free. Sign up here!
The Russian government has denied any involvement in the leak. They even mocked the Democrats, suggesting “someone forgot the password or set the sample password 123456.”
“Well, it’s always simpler to explain this away as the intrigues of enemies, rather than one’s own incompetence,” said German Klimenko, President Vladimir Putin’s top Internet adviser.
[...]
The document contains a detailed examination of Donald Trump’s business record, political positions, and personal relationships. Going back decades, it’s an exhaustive analysis of those items Hillary Clinton believes will allow her to destroy the populist standard bearer of the Republican Party.
However, it also previews the attack lines the Democrats are likely to use in the campaign. For example, it denounces Trump’s “divisive and offensive campaign” and provides the exact quotes the Democrats believe supports this narrative.
For investigative reporters, armchair strategists or even just anyone interested in American politics, this is an invaluable document. Think of what an advantage a football team has if it had its opponent’s playbook. Now, Donald Trump and the Republicans have the exact battle plan the Democrats are going to be using in the 2016 campaign. Every time Hillary Clinton recites her lines, it will sound like an actor reading off a script.
Now, you too can see the Democrats secret plan, the playbook to destroy Donald Trump.
Simply fill out the form and you can receive this explosive report. It’s an opportunity political junkies in any other election cycle would have payed thousands for – but you can get it within seconds, absolutely free.
That's right -- WND is giving away stolen property, even if WND did not commit the original theft (as far as we know). "Hacked" files are stolen property; WND would not be feeling so benevolent if someone hacked its internal computer systems and gave away that information.
Is that really the way a responsible news organization behaves? Nope.
And lest you think that WND is acting with any shred of benevolence in giving away stolen property, it's all for its usual purpose: building its mailing list. The form to get the stolen property states, "You will also be signed up for news and special offers from WND via email." Which means recipients are also condemned to several emails a day from WND filling their inboxes.
One more thing WND won't tell you: the stolen property it claims is an "exclusive offer" is freely available elsewhere -- here, here and here, for starters.
WND's Farah Falsely Denies Christian Countries Criminalize Homosexuality Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joseph Farah devotes his June 21 WorldNetDaily column to complaining that people are waiting for all the evidence to come in on the Orlando massacre and aren't rushing to solely blame Muslims for it. Farah rants:
I’ve never seen one Big Media story suggesting that Christians should not be coerced into celebrating what they consider to be sinful behavior. Apparently, that’s not a “complicated” or “nuanced” matter at all.
To its credit, the NBC story does point out: “No fewer than 40 out of 57 Muslim-majority countries or territories have laws that criminalize homosexuality, prescribing punishments ranging from fines and short jail sentences to whippings.”
Is there even one Jewish or Christian country in the world that does this?
No. The story left out that little factoid.
Farah is wrong -- numerous Christian countries have legal punishments for being gay. And if he read his own website, he would know that.
Farah's friend, virulently anti-gay activist Scott Lively, reportedly influenced the good Christian people of Uganda -- a Christian-dominated country where homosexuality is already illegal -- to propose a law that would punish it further, even permitting the death penalty for homosexuality. WNBD has given Lively a platform to smear gays as "murderers" who have "fixed their malevolent gaze on Christian Uganda." Is it any wonder that Ugandan officials wanted the death penalty for gays after hearing such rhetoric? And that's just what Lively has said in public; we don't know viciously he has slandered gays in Uganda behind closed doors, though he's facing a lawsuit for his role in helping to incite violence against gays there.
WND has tried to distance Lively from his Uganda work, giving him an unchallenged platform to assert that he had no influence on Uganda officials whatsoever and merely urged Uganda "to become the first government in the world to develop a state-sponsored recovery system for homosexuality on the model we have in the United States for alcoholism," since he (dubiously) believes that homosexuality is "a treatable behavioral disorder."
WND also gave space for Lively to endorse a less severe anti-gay law in Uganda, who was not terribly botheredby the fact that it "retains jail terms for offenders" and stating that the U.S. should "criminalize" homosexuality in order to "prevent sex activists from advocating their lifestyles to children in the public schools or to flaunt their sins in 'pride' parades through the city streets."
Meanwhile, a commenter on Farah's column had his own way of calling out Farah's falsehood:
Why yes, glad you asked. Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Russia, Belize, Guyana, 9 Caribbean countries. Many states in the U.S. until 2003. Ireland until 1993. Germany until 1969. UK until 1967. Christian adherents have never, to put it politely, been in the forefront of decriminalizing homosexuality in any country.
Remember, Farah is weirdly proud of the fact that his website publishes misinformation, so don't expect him to issue a correction anytime soon.
Brent Smith starts off his June 27 WorldNetDaily column with some anti-gay sneering:
Bob Unruh begins a July 12 WorldNetDaily 
It's taken more than a week, but Joseph Farah has finally responded in his July 11 
Remember earlier this year, when WorldNetDaily was 
Having 
So apparently there's a Google Chrome app called Nazi Detector that 
Last time we checked, WorldNetDaily was 
Cheryl Chumley really, really doesn't like Michelle Fields for some reason.
When we last checked in on WorldNetDaily reporter Leo Hohmann, he was 
WorldNetDaily editor is more than happy to tell you that he attended the evangelical summit with Donald Trump a couple weeks back -- remember, he's a 
The unidentified writer of this June 28 WorldNetDaily 
WorldNetDaily -- mostly in the person of managing editor David Kupelian -- has a thing for 
WorldNetDaily worked up 
