Fake News At WND, Zombies and Trolls Edition

WorldNetDaily keeps zombie lies alive long after they've been discredited. It also fell for a Russian troll pro-Trump Twitter account and profiled a pro-Trump merchandiser who doesn't appear to actually exist.

By Terry Krepel
Posted 12/28/2017

Let's review how badly WND performed in these categories, shall we?

Fake news from Russian trolls

Bob Unruh fawningly wrote in a May 14 WND article:

Nicole Mincey is black, comes from a liberal Democrat background and watched closely what Barack Obama did for blacks during his presidency.

So why is she now running the online ProTrump45 store featuring “Adorable Deplorable” shirts, “Make America Great Again” caps, “Deplorable Lives Matter” slogans and more?

Because she’s black, comes from a liberal Democrat background and watched closely what Barack Obama did for blacks during his presidency.

“Honestly, the reason I switched to being a Republican was I realized Obama didn’t necessarily help black people during his presidency like he promised,” she told WND.

[...]

She told WND her background made her ideally suited to be a Democrat.

“I am from Newark, New Jersey. I was raised in a bad neighborhood,” she said.

But she became an ex-Democrat because of the party’s refusal to adopt “self-responsibility.”

“Everyone is a victim in their eyes and you can’t succeed unless the government helps you on someone else’s expense. I went to a charter high school where we constantly received threats to [be] shut down by Democratic politicians. We had to always do fundraisers to stay afloat.”

She said she was motivated by a desire to break liberal stereotypes.

“The media has painted Republican conservatives as old, white people that are racist. I’m a young black ... college student that is female. Liberals see me and don’t know what to say because they can’t throw the racist card at me.”

While she used to be a regular college student with a job, now she’s “a college student with a small business and a job.”

It appears none of that stuff about Mincey's background is true, because "Nicole Mincey" as profiled by Unruh apparently doesn't exist.

Writer Bob Schooley looked into Mincey after Trump retweeted a post from the ProTrump45 Twitter account, and he found that "Mincey" appears to be nothing more than a Twitter bot designed to promote the retail store, and the pictures on the account claiming to be of her are nothing more than repurposed stock photos. It's unclear from where the picture WND is representing as Mincey that WND used in Unruh's article came.

Further, while there is an actual Nicole Mincey who is a college student from New Jersey, it appears that, according to Heavy, she's the victim of identity theft -- her name and Facebook account were used without her permission to create pro-Trump websites.

After the fake Mincey was exposed, the content of the @ProTrump45 Twitter account was moved to an account named @AlexandriaM0ra (with the same stock photo), and the @ProTrump45 account claimed to be "available for purchase" (a violation of Twitter terms of service). Twitter shut down both accounts after the fraud was exposed.

It's obvious that Unruh never actually talked to the Minsey of ProTrump45 in person -- they probably just exchanged emails -- and he certainly never made no attempt to verify the person's identity. Unruh and his WND editors simply decided that the story of "liberal black Democrat becomes Trump supporter" was too good to fact-check.

And more than four months after the Mincey ruse was exposed, the article is still live and uncorrected on WND's website.

This was not WND's only promotion of a fake person. In November, a Twitter account popular among conservatives and Trump supporters, under the name Pamela Moore, was revealed to be the creation of the Internet Research Agency, a "troll farm" funded by the Russian government that also operated thousands of other fake Twitter accounts. According to Philly.com, the "@Pamela_Moore13" account heavily promoted Trump's presidential campaign and was retweeted by Trump administration officials.

WND also forwarded a "Pamela Moore" tweet. In a June 16 article, Alicia Powe embedded several tweets attacking CNN for a tweet containing incorrect information. One of those was from "@Pamela_Moore13" screaming "CNN IS SO BIAS." The formatting on"Moore's" tweet has disappeared because the account was deactivated after it was exposed as a troll-farm production, but the content of the tweet and a now-dead link to the original is still there.

While it's unlikely that WND could have known at the time that "Pamela Moore" was a fake and a Russian troll, it doesn't look good for WND to have promoted her, since it rails against the idea that the Russian government tried to help Trump get elected.

Zombie fake news

Aside from the birther stuff, the biggest bit of fake news WorldNetDaily has perpetuation over the past decade is that Barack Obama's 2008 reference to a "civilian national security force" was something sinister, an allusion to creation of a police state. Despite ConWebWatch having debunked it at the time -- Obama was actually referring to a beefed-up diplomatic corps -- WND claimed it again and again.

Since the predicted police state never surfaced during Obama's presidency, WND should have exhibited a sense of shame and admitted they were wrong and were simply pushing a bogus talking point in order to smear Obama. But then, WND never corrects anything unless there's a threat of a lawsuit, so the only obvious choice for WND was to double down.

Which brings us to WND editor Joseph Farah's Sept. 4 column. He began this way:

Way back on July 2, 2008, Barack Obama issued a declaration that made my head spin, yet no one, and I mean no one, took notice until I wrote about it several days later.

Then it caught fire. That fire has never been quenched.

In a long campaign speech, he dropped this little bomb: “We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”

Over the years, I’ve wondered what became of that idea – a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded as the U.S. military.

Farah is lying. He knows he's lying because we caught him in this lie more than nine years ago. He knows Obama was never talking about establishing a police state, but he pretended otherwise as part of WND's failed scorched-earth campaign against Obama. It was a lie then, and it's a lie now.

And like any shameless, inveterate liar, Farah won't admit he was wrong, and he expanded on his zombie lie, inventing a new, bogus interpretation of what "civilian national security force" means:

Lately, I’ve been getting inquiries from readers about whether we’re now seeing the realization of Obama’s concept in the streets of America – from Berkeley to Charlottesville.

Could the antifa thugs, anti-Semite leftists and Black Lives Matter racists represent what Obama had in mind? There’s little question these groups are being paid, though not necessarily with our tax dollars. Don’t be surprised, however, if we find out years from now that government transfers of wealth have actually found their way into some of these group’s coffers. But we know some of George Soros’ billions have.

We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded as the U.S. military, Obama said.

Could it be this monstrosity of violent chaos and disruption is what he had in mind?

True, Obama is out of power. But let’s keep in mind his new job is national community organizer in chief. He’s the counter-president. He’s the leader of the opposition to the new president. And we know about his closeness to Soros – and their shared goals.

And it started early – like the day of the inauguration.

A month later, tens of thousands of agitators trained by an Obama-tied activist group to protest Trump’s policies hit Republican lawmakers supporting those policies when they returned home for the congressional recess and held town hall meetings and other functions. Remember that?

Organizing for Action, a group founded by Obama and featured prominently on his new post-presidency website, began distributing a training manuals to anti-Trump activists that advised them to bully GOP lawmakers into backing off support for repealing Obamacare, curbing immigration from high-risk Islamic nations and building a border wall, reporter supreme Paul Sperry reported.

[...]

Keep in mind, Obama’s OFA boasts more than 250 offices nationwide and more than 32,000 organizers, with another 25,000 actively under training. And that’s just Obama’s command center. I suggest the shock troops, the “Marines,” the special forces, the infantry are antifa, BLM and the leftist anti-Semites.

It’s right out of the pages of Obama’s hero (and Hillary’s) Saul Alinsky, “the father of community organizing” and the author of “Rules for Radicals,” originally dedicated to Lucifer – the ultimate radical. Michelle Obama quoted from the book when she helped launch OFA.

“Understand that I’m going to be constrained in what I do with all of you until I am again a private citizen, but that’s not so far off,” Barack Obama said last year. “You’re going to see me early next year, and we’re going to be in a position where we can start cooking up all kinds of great stuff.” (Emphasis added.) “I promise you that next year Michelle and I are going to be right there with you, and the clouds are going to start parting, and we’re going to be busy. I’ve got all kinds of thoughts and ideas about it, but this isn’t the best time to share them. Point is, I’m still fired up and ready to go, and I hope that all of you are, as well.”

So, we haven’t heard the last of Obama. We may still find out if this new “civilian national security force” is what he had in mind all the time.

Lies, all of it. This is why nobody believes WND.

It's not the only zombie lie Farah has tried to resurrect. In his Dec. 15 column, he declared that Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger " very enthusiastically supported infanticide." It's unclear where Farah got this ridiculous notion; it's not even among WND's usual slanders of Sanger. This may be a reference to a Sanger statement that "The most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it" -- which, when taken in context, is a reference to the research of the time highlighting that large, poor families later children have a higher risk of death.

Taking Sanger's words out of context, as Farah ham-handedly did here, is nothing more than fake news with a malicious intent.

Zombie 'body count'

Another bit of fake news WND has promoted over the years is the "Clinton body count," a completely discredited accounting of people peripheral to the Clintons who have died over the years whose deaths are attributed to the Clintons themselves. An anonymously written July 16 article tried to add a new name to the list:

Klaus Eberwein, a former Haitian government official who was expected to testify against alleged Clinton Foundation corruption and malpractice next week, has been found dead in Miami via gunshot wound to the head.

The death was ruled a suicide. Eberwein was 50 and reportedly told acquaintances he feared for his life for his fierce criticism of the Clinton Foundation.

Eberwein was due to appear next Tuesday before the Haitian Senate Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission where he was widely expected to testify that the Clinton Foundation misappropriated Haiti earthquake donations from international donors.

WND made sure to push the angle that the Clintons are somehow responsible for his death by including this promotional line between the second and third paragraphs: "How many people do YOU know who have died mysteriously? Not as many as the Clintons! Check out WND’s explosive report, '‘Clinton death list’: 33 spine-tingling cases.'"

But as blogger Richard Bartholomew pointed out, the BBC attributed that quote to Dahoud Andre, a protest group leader. Bartholomew also couldn't find any independently sourced on-the-record statements Eberwein made about the Clintons, which makes WND's other statements about what Eberwein purportedly claimed -- i.e., "According to Eberwein, a paltry 0.6 percent of donations granted by international donors to the Clinton Foundation with the express purpose of directly assisting Haitians actually ended up in the hands of Haitian organizations' -- factually suspect as well.

Indeed, there's no on-the-record evidence that Eberwein was to testify about the Clinton Foundation. As the Miami Herald noted: "Eberwein was scheduled to appear Tuesday before the Haitian Senate’s Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, the head of the commission, Sen. Evalière Beauplan confirmed. The commission is investigating the management of PetroCaribe funds, the money Haiti receives from Venezuela’s discounted oil program." No mention of anything Clinton-related was made.

Zombie-lie business news

ConWebWatch detailed how WorldNetDaily loves to push the fake-news story that financial woes at Macy's are somehow directly tied to the department store chain discontinuing Donald Trump's clothing line. But WND is bizarrely trying to keep the false story alive, with another attempt coming in a June 27 article by Liam Clancy:

Nearly two years after phasing out its Donald Trump line of menswear, Macy’s stock has plummeted to its lowest levels in years.

Macy’s dumped Trump merchandise in July 2015 after the then-Republican presidential candidate made “derogatory” comments about Mexican immigrants.

“Macy’s is a company that stands for diversity and inclusion,” the company said at the time. “We are disappointed and distressed by recent remarks about immigrants from Mexico.”

Trump responded by calling for a boycott of the store, tweeting: “Those who believe in tight border security, stopping illegal immigration, [and] SMART trade deals [with] other countries should boycott Macy’s.”

The boycott by Trump supporters has taken a toll, according to Fortune magazine.

Macy’s now plans to close up to 100 stores and lay off 10,000 workers as sales plummet.

As usual, Clancy ignores the actual reasons Macy's is in trouble: customers moving away from traditional department stores and shopping malls to online, fast-fashion and off-price retailers.

Zombie Obama smear

WND reporter Bob Unruh thought he has a scoop, according to a July 28 article:

The Obama administration repeatedly fudged on the issue of Islam.

Barack Obama himself said Muslims were a key to the founding of the nation and after all, the U.S. wasn’t a Christian nation.

Muslim advocates, including some fairly radical, were installed in influential positions in Washington.

Never were the words “Muslim” and “terrorist” to be used together, it seemed.

Now, a report is confirming that those left in the government, and there are many, from Obama’s tenure are busy trying to erase the references to ISIS’ “genocide” of Christians in the Middle East.

It is the American Center for Law and Justice that is, well, a little upset.

“In a startling revelation, news is breaking this week that Obama holdovers within the State Department are actively attempting to scrub its records to remove any mention of the ISIS genocide against Christians,” the organization reported.

“This is outrageous and the ACLJ has had enough, so we are preparing a new set of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to find out why – and to expose deep state operatives who would use the delay of confirming new State Department officials as cover to strip legal protections from Christians facing genocide.”

Unruh's introduction includes at least one blatant lie, that Obama said "the U.S. wasn’t a Christian nation." He did no such thing.

But it appears Unruh's larger claim -- that "Obama holdovers" at State are eliminating any reference to genocide by ISIS -- is, shall we say, fake news. He's simply regurgitating press releases from the right-wing ACLJ, who apparently does not name any of the alleged "Obama holdovers" purportedly doing this.

How do we know? Even the Obama-haters at Breitbart wouldn't back up the story. Former CNSNews.com reporter Penny Starr, now at Breitbart, writes that the State Department said the claim was "categorically false," adding:

There is no evidence on the State Department website suggesting the removal of references to genocide. One report titled “The Global Coalition – Working to Defeat ISIS” does mention genocide and explicitly states that holding the Islamic State accountable for genocide remains a priority for the department.

“Internationally, coalition partners are exploring ways to also hold ISIS members accountable for international crimes such as genocide and crimes against humanity with international investigative mechanisms,” the document states.

Unruh repeated his zombie lie in a Sept. 19 article, falsely writing that "the former president claimed that the United States never was a “Christian nation.”

90-year-old fake news

WND's penchant for publishing fake news is clearly not limited to recent events. In his Oct. 11 column, Erik Rush recited the history of "Hollywood excess" that allegedly resulted in the Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment scandal. His first example of this: "silent film actor Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle killing Virginia Rappe with a wine bottle in 1921 (he did not beat her to death with it)."

In fact, the available evidence is that he didn't do either.

Actual historians at the Smithsonian recounted the case. Witnesses reportedly corroborated Arbuckle's claim that he was never alone with Rappe, and he claimed that she tore off her own clothes complaining she couldn't breathe. As far as Rush's implication that Arbuckle killed her by raping her with a wine bottle (she died of a ruptured bladder, and medical evidence introduced at trial showed she had a chronic bladder condition) even the National Enquirer doesn't buy it.

Arbuckle was tried three times; the first two ended in hung juries, and the third returned an innocent verdict in five minutes, four of which were reportedly used to prepare a statement apologizing to Arbuckle for the injustice he had suffered. Alas, Arbuckle's career and life were ruined beyond repair by this point, driven by sensationalized media coverage of the case, and he died in 1933.

Old fake news, alas, is still fake news.