Joseph Farah

It’s Official! Donald Trump Is Dumber Than A Tree Stump

Posted by on April 17, 2011 at 2:59 pm. 8 Comments :

As he pursues his egomaniacal quest for attention and comb-over-exposure, Donald Trump is conclusively demonstrating that you can be a billionaire and an idiot at the same time. Like Henry Ford, who revolutionized manufacturing while supporting Hitler, Trump might be able to get an office building erected, but he can’t think past a third grade level on politics or social affairs.


It was recently revealed that Trump’s Birther obsession has been fueled by the wackiest wingnut publisher on the Internet, WorldNetDaily. WND’s editor-in-chief, Joseph Farah, says that he talks with The Donald “quite a bit.” That’s painfully obvious in that Trump has now adopted one of the most ludicrous, and easily debunked, schizoid rumors that WND has been promoting for years.

WND’s conspiracy nutjob, Jack Cashill, has been asserting for almost three years that Barack Obama’s book, “Dreams From My Father,” was ghostwritten by Bill Ayers. He concluded this by conducting a hare-brained study on the style of language used in the book. Unfortunately, even researchers he contacted would not endorse this nonsense.

Nevertheless, Trump paid a visit to the Hannity program on Fox News and announced that he believes the Cashill ghostwriting fable:

Trump: I heard he [Obama] had terrible marks, and he ends up in Harvard. He wrote a book that was better than Ernest Hemingway, but the second book was written by an average person.
Hannity: You suspect Bill Ayers?
Trump: I said, Bill Ayers wrote the book. […] He was best friends with Bill Ayers. Bill Ayers was a super-genius. And a lot of people have said he wrote the book. Well recently, as you know last week, Bill Ayers came out and said he did write the book.

Where to begin? There is so much about this that is just plain moronic. Let’s begin with the fact that Trump has no idea what Obama’s grades were, and he even admits it by saying it was something he “heard” (voices in his head?). The truth is that Obama earned an academic scholarship to Harvard and, while there, proved his worthiness by becoming the editor of the Harvard Law Review and graduating with honors.

Next, Trump’s assertion that Obama and Ayers were “best friends” is contrary to every factual account of their relationship which has always been at most an acquaintanceship.

Then Trump says that Ayers admitted to writing the book. Can Trump really be this monumentally stupid? He is referring to a speech Ayers gave wherein he was obviously mocking claims in the conservative press that he was the author. Ayers joked that it was true and therefore he wanted his share of the royalties. The audience got it and laughed appropriately. Trump is just regurgitating the take that WND had at the time.

So with no evidence whatsoever, Trump jumped aboard another runaway conspiracy train engineered by WorldNetDaily. He is embracing delusions that some of the most insane stalwarts of the right have rejected. For a supposedly serious GOP candidate to align himself with the crackpottery of WND says a lot about how seriously we can take today’s Republican Party.

Even Glenn Beck has gotten sick of the Birther craze saying “Stop With The Damn Birth Certificate!” [Note: As is typical with Beck’s proclivity for hypocrisy, last night he told an audience in Albany that “I don’t know where [Obama is from] I don’t think he’s from where they issue birth certificates – I think he’s from Hell.” So Beck has gone even further by asserting that Obama is from a place even worse than Kenya].

Perhaps the mind-numbingly idiotic moment of the Hannity interview was when Trump said this:

“Look, he was born ‘Barry Soetero.’ Somewhere along the line, he changed his name.”

Not exactly, Donald. Obama was the son of, and namesake to, Barack Obama Sr. His step-father Lolo Soetoro married Obama’s mother when Obama was four years old. Is Trump’s derangement so severe that he has completely lost his grasp of reality?

Some recent polls have shown Trump rising in popularity. It should be noted that these are polls of Republican primary voters, not the general public. This shows how frighteningly extremist the GOP base has become. They just adore paranoid conspiracies and mutilated facts. And they are oblivious to coherent arguments and objective truths. They happily ignore the fact that Trump once supported universal health care and was an advocate of gay rights. And imagine the rash of head explosions if the Tea Party crowd ever got wind of this quote from Trump’s book:

“I would impose a one-time, 14.25% tax on individuals and trusts with a net worth over $10 million. For individuals, net worth would be calculated minus the value of their principal residence. That would raise $5.7 trillion in new revenue, which we would use to pay off the entire national debt. […] Some will say that my plan is unfair to the extremely wealthy. I say it is only reasonable to shift the burden to those most able to pay. The wealthy actually would not suffer severe repercussions.”

Needless to say, Trump disavows these positions today in favor of Tea Party propaganda. He now believes that we should appropriate billions of dollars from other countries to pay down our debt (he doesn’t say how). He believes we should just take the oil from Libya and Iraq. And he favors military action against Iran and North Korea. And the Tea Party Republicans just love this guy.

Me too. I am now completely behind the Trump candidacy for the GOP nomination. I don’t think there could be any better nominee – for the Democrats. While Palin, Huckabee, or Gingrich, would lose to Obama by historic margins, Trump would not only lose, but he would so embarrass anyone from admitting an affinity for the Republican Party that it would ensure a Democratic majority for a couple of generations. So…..

Go Trump/Bachmann 2012!

Donald Trump Gets His Birther Material From WorldNetDaily

Posted by on April 16, 2011 at 10:10 am. 10 Comments :

The next time you hear Donald Trump spouting off nonsense about President Obama’s citizenship you should know from where he is acquiring his information.

Kendra Marr of Politico reports that Joseph Farah has been “on the phone with Donald Trump every day this week.” Farah is the publisher of WorldNetDaily, a fantastical compendium of demented disinformation and conspiracy theories. They are major sponsors of the Birther movement. They believe that Obama’s biography was ghostwritten by Bill Ayers. If there is a crazy story that reflects poorly on the President you can bet that WND is behind it. And if you question their journalistic credentials Farah will forthrightly declare that…

“Admittedly, we publish some misinformation by columnists, as does your publication and every other journal that contains opinion.”

Nice of him to be so honest. He is actually right about the fact that many news organizations publish opinions that are not factually vetted. However, most publications do not regard misinformation as an acceptable part of the news business, and the reputable ones will endeavor to make necessary corrections.

Farah seems to think it’s just business as usual. In his defense, if he had to correct every mistake or lie that appears on his site he wouldn’t have time to invent any new ones.

Trump is rapidly rising in my GOP presidential hopes primary. I have been rooting for a Palin/Steele ticket for quite a while, but now I think that Trump deserves some serious consideration.

Fox Nation Scare Tactics: Armed IRS Agents To Enforce Obamacare

Posted by on March 23, 2010 at 3:53 pm. 16 Comments :

Fox Nation IRS ArmyIn a fit of psychotic bluster, the folks at Fox Nation have posted an article with a headline that was manufactured from whole cloth. There is nothing in their reporting, or the column to which they linked, that remotely implied the message in this headline:

“IRS Hiring Thousands of Armed Tax Agents to Enforce Obamacare.”

The source for the Fox Nationalists is a column in Tucker Carlson’s right-wing Daily Caller. You might expect that Fox could rely on Carlson to support their hallucinatory journalism. After all, Carlson is a Fox News employee. But the article in the Caller, while misleading on it’s own, doesn’t go anywhere near the Fox misinterpretation.

The Caller’s headline was somewhat less dishonest: “IRS looking to hire thousands of tax agents to enforce health care laws.” It does not make a declaration of fact that agents are actually being hired, only that the IRS is looking into it. But more importantly, there is no mention of these agents being armed. In all likelihood, any new hires are going to be accountants with calculators, not mercenaries with machine guns. That, however, didn’t stop the Caller from posting an accompanying photo of heavily armed soldiers in combat gear who have nothing whatsoever to do with the story. And, of course, Fox Nation re-posted the same photo.

The Caller’s article is filled with falsehoods. Anyone who actually bothers to read the article will notice that there is no substantiation of its claim that Democrats are working with the IRS to hire new agents. The only confirmation comes from Republicans supplying their own speculation as to staffing requirements.

It is fair to assume that expanding efforts to collect revenue would require additional personnel. However, the article notes that the new hiring is aimed at collecting taxes unrelated to the health care bill. So are Republicans and the Fox Nationalists taking the position that tax cheats should not be pursued or held accountable? Should law abiding Americans have to shoulder the burden for these deadbeats? Yes, that’s exactly their position. Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee even issued a report that criticized the administration for proposing $8 billion to fund tax compliance measures. It seems to me that an $8 billion allocation to recover an estimated $300 billion in delinquent taxes is a pretty good return on investment and an effective way to reduce budget deficits.

The content of the article in the Caller is misleading in many respects, but the Fox Nation version is delusional. It states flatly that the IRS is hiring “armed” tax agents. It states flatly that these new agents will be dispatched to “enforce Obamacare.” Neither of those statements are substantiated and they aren’t even in the linked article. Yet the Fox Nationalists post the photo of soldiers in combat attire, weapons at the ready, deployed in a search and destroy posture.

The obvious intent of Fox is to frighten their congregation of Psycho-chicken Littles into believing that the “revenuers” are advancing on them to take their money and send them to FEMA camps where they will be forced to have abortions and marry gay socialists.

After struggling for fourteen months to derail the President’s agenda, and failing, Fox is upping the ante. They want people to be so afraid that they will fortify their bunkers, stockpile weapons, hoard rations, buy gold (brought to you by Glenn Beck), and prepare for Armageddon. And the way they advance that goal is by disseminating lies like this story from the scare-meisters at Fox Nation.

Boob BombsUpdate: Fox News continues to pour on the fear mongering. They are now reprising a story originally posted at Fox Nation almost two months: Boob Bombs! Terrorists Could Use Explosives in Breast Implants to Crash Planes.

Back in February the story was sourced to the ultra-wingnut WorldNetDaily web site. This time Fox is sourcing it to The Sun, Rupert Murdoch’s UK tabloid, but, hilariously, the article quotes “terrorist expert Joseph Farah.” In fact, Farah is no terrorist expert, he is the publisher of WorldNetDaily. The propaganda comes full circle.

It seems that they are just going to repeat this story every few months until either people are sufficiently terrified of titties, or until Al Qaeda decides to give it a try. I maintain my position that this could have a devastating impact on air travel. As I said in February:

We would need to start including Scarlett Johansson in our profiling criteria. And because the same explosive devices could be inserted in the buttocks, Jennifer Lopez would have to be added to the no-fly list.

Update II: All of this is reminiscent of the hysteria Glenn Beck tried to trump up over what he said was a civilian national security force that Obama was supposedly amassing to assault him and his congregation. As it turns out it was just an initiative to expand the peace corps and similar organizations.

[Also…] FactChect.org debunked the claim of IRS hiring thousands of agents.

Stay scared America.

The Tea Party Nation Is [Still] Revolting

Posted by on February 5, 2010 at 3:24 pm. 4 Comments :

…Have you ever eaten with one?

The assembly of Tea Baggers kicked off with a surprising omission in their Patriopathic™ zeal to commence the festivities. They neglected to praise the Lord with an opening prayer. They also decided to forego the Pledge of Allegiance. In one fell swoop they dissed both God and country. And that’s not all. There were no American flags flying in the convention hall. The organizers blamed the hotel staff for the absence of flags. I wonder if the hotel staff also kept the prayer and the pledge from taking place. Those Opryland hospitality associates are well known socialist sympathizers.

And speaking of socialists, the convention’s opening keynote was delivered by former congressman Tom Tancredo who declared that…

President Obama was elected because “we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country.” [And] “People who could not spell the word vote or say it in English put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House — name is Barack Hussein Obama”

The Bagger community regards itself as a movement of “regular” folks. Yet they received Tancredo enthusiastically despite his pronouncement that voters are stupid and shouldn’t be permitted to participate in the electoral process without passing an exam (that most Baggers would fail). And they may have missed a history lesson or two if they think it’s a good idea to advocate a return to Jim Crow-era policies.

Voter registration is a big issue with the Baggers. A recent poll showed that 52% of GOP voters think that ACORN stole the election in 2008. So the Baggers are preparing a counterattack. Bridget Geegan Blanton of Smart Girl Politics led a convention seminar on how to avoid registering Democrats. She said in her state of California, she’s required by law to give a voter registration form to anyone who asks, even a Democrat. But she added that she’s not obligated to mail it in for them. In her remarks she was careful to say that she would give the form back to the voter who could then mail it in on his own. But I wonder how many people in her audience left with the impression that Democratic registration forms collected during Tea Party voter drives need not be submitted?

David Weigel, of the Washington Independent reports that there are more than 150 credentialed reporters at the convention. Since there are about 600 registered attendees, that’s one reporter for every four Baggers. But the the most bizarre news about the news media is that Joseph Basel is one of the credentialed reporters. Basel, you may recall, is one of James O’Keefe’s accomplices arrested in the notorious Landrieu Sting fiasco. So Basel impersonated a telephone repairman in New Orleans, and is now impersonating a journalist in Nashville.

For those wondering, the convention web site says there are still tickets available for Sarah Palin’s speech tomorrow night. The Queen Tea Bagger was not able to sell out the hall. If anyone thinks that 600 Baggers is an impressive showing, please note that two weeks from now the National Wild Turkey Federation is gathering at the same venue. They are expecting 40,000 attendees. And this isn’t a blowout of bourbon drinkers (Aside: Did I note that the Tea Bagger affair is “dry”?). It’s a national organization representing wild turkey conservationists and hunters. Do you wonder why Palin is so badly underperforming the turkey enthusiasts? Maybe it has something to do with this:

Or maybe they just think there are already enough turkeys in politics. The Tea Baggers are currently enjoying a significant over-representation in the public discussion. I wrote about Tea Party Delusion last December. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll revealed that almost half (48%) of the country either never heard of the Baggers or had no opinion. A new CNN poll confirms those results, as does this one from CBS (pdf), and even this one from Fox (pdf).

Rest up Tea Baggers. Tomorrow is another busy day.

[Update] Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily closed the day with his patented obsession over Obama’s birth certificate:

“The media, the politicians – all say, no, it’s all been settled. I say, if it’s been settled show us the birth certificate. Simple.”

Followed by a declaration of WAR!

“…take over not only the political institutions, but the cultural institutions, like the press, the entertainment industry, the universities, and yes the churches.”

“Are you ready to engage in a cultural war after we take back Congress?”

“Yes!” the crowd yelled back.

Has It Really Come To This: Boob Bombs?

Posted by on February 2, 2010 at 3:39 pm. 3 Comments :

Boob BombsThe Fox family of propagandists has long been a partner of the world’s terrorists. They vigorously strive to exacerbate anxieties about security, mostly sensationalized and irrational, via their many media platforms. This promotion of dread is the stuff upon which terrorism relies to be effective. Al Qaeda owes Fox News a debt.

Today on Fox Nation, the war to produce evermore trepidation escalated with a featured link to an article on WorldNetDaily warning that the British spy agency, MI5 is “Hunting Breast Implants of Death.”

“Agents for Britain’s MI5 intelligence service have discovered that Muslim doctors trained at some of Britain’s leading teaching hospitals have returned to their own countries to fit surgical implants filled with explosives. […] Women suicide bombers recruited by al-Qaida are known to have had the explosives inserted in their breasts under techniques similar to breast enhancing surgery.”

WND is not reporting this as hypothetical, but as a plot already in progress with armed breasts at the ready. And all of this is according to…well, the subscription-only bulletin of WND’s own editor, Joseph Farah. In fact, there are five solicitations for his $10.00/month G2 bulletin in the brief excerpt posted on WND.

Were we to take these warnings seriously, it would require some adjustment to our transportation security procedures. We would need to start including Scarlett Johansson in our profiling criteria. And because the same explosive devices could be inserted in the buttocks, Jennifer Lopez would have to be added to the no-fly list. New guidelines will have to be written for airport screeners. If you look anything like Johansson or Lopez, you better allow extra time for boarding (and groping).

I, for one, am pretty upset about this. It’s one thing to be nervous about young Middle-Eastern guy with a long beard in the seat next to me. But if I have to be afraid of sitting next to a hot chick with an awesome rack, I don’t think I want to fly anymore. And who’s to say these well-endowed suicide bombers won’t also show up in shopping malls or sporting events? I think I may have spotted more than a few potential terrorists at the Grammys a couple of days ago.

The consequences of this new threat will weigh heavily on the bosom of the national security infrastructure. What new measures will they need to bust the terror plotters who embrace this tactic? And as we jiggle with our defense strategies, will the terrorists just play a game of tit-for-tat? The whole scenario is udderly unpredictable. There will be those who will attempt to knock down these warnings, but the knockers must not be allowed to cleave our resolve. The only way to respond may be to nip it in the bud. But one thing is for sure, we will need keep abreast of the new developments.

Thanks to Fox Nation for opening our eyes to the naked truth (and my apologies for the foregoing).

Sarah Palin And The Birth Of The Tea Party Media

Posted by on January 14, 2010 at 3:20 pm. 4 Comments :

It’s official. America’s most ludicrous, harebrained, unbalanced, politically naive collection of cantankerous, hateful, rightist zealots (Tea Baggers), has spawned its own media association to bring to journalism the same type of biased, counter-factual, willfully ignorant, propaganda pioneered by the AstroTurf lobbyists, evangelists, and politicos who brewed up the Tea Parties in the first place.

[inhale…exhale]

The National Tea Party Convention, where it will cost “average” citizen activists $549.00 to attend and to witness yet another vapid lecture by keynote speaker Sarah Palin, has released a list of those who will be issued press credentials to cover the affair. It is an admirably diverse group that spans the political spectrum from ultra-conservatism to uber-cultist, Patriopathic™ dementia:

  • Fox News
  • The Wall Street Journal
  • Breitbart.com
  • Townhall.com
  • WorldNetDaily.com

And that’s it. This coalition of partisan blowhards forms the cornerstone of what I will henceforth call the Tea Party Media Association. The founding members include two Rupert Murdoch mouthpieces. Murdoch, of course, also employs Palin, the confab’s star attraction. The other three credentialed news manglers are notorious purveyors of right-wing disinformation. And WND’s boss, Joseph Farah, is also a speaker at the convention.

The event was originally off limits to the media, but with the addition of Palin as the celebrity draw, the conventioneers have reconsidered. It may have something to do with Palin’s insatiable lust for self-promotion. Or perhaps they just need to find ways to recoup the reported $100,000.00 speaking fee Palin gouged from them.

The rise of the Tea Party Media is not entirely unexpected. It isn’t much more than an extension of the Conventional Media. Whenever there is an exploitable incident the press reverts to its native pack mentality and relies on its basest instincts rather than reason, which is more difficult to convey in sound bites. So whether it involves a celebrity death, a high-speed police chase, or a political dust-up, the media will behave with precision predictability and flood the zone with shallow reporting and analysis.

But the Tea Party Media takes this behavior to new extremes. It is a closed loop of directed storytelling wherein the various participants borrow from, and feed to, one another. What shows up as wild speculation on Breitbart.com is regurgitated as an outrage by Glenn Beck. Then the Wall Street Journal reports that “some” in the media are saying it. Thereafter, the rest of the press sources the Wall Street Journal without doing any research of their own. Finally, Breitbart uses the these media references to certify his original fabrication.

In order to sustain this process it is critical to control media access. That is why the Tea Baggers convention is only permitting the most reliably partisan hacks to cover it. They are palpably afraid of honest observers gaining access. The Tea Party movement itself is cracking from within as rival factions battle for control and authenticity. The Tea Party Express hate the Tea Party Patriots who hate the Tea Party Nation. While most of these groups hate the Democrats, some also hate the Republicans, and everybody seems to hate RNC Chair, Michael Steele. Part of the effort to limit press availability is to suppress reporting of these squabbles and present a united front.

Fox Tea Party

Without a doubt, Fox News is the dominant presence in the Tea Party Media. They brazenly promoted the Tax Day Tea Parties and last fall’s 9/12 rally in Washington, DC. They even re-branded them as FNC events. They already had the Tea Bag King (Glenn Back) on the payroll and now they have hired the Queen Tea Bagger as a commentator. Fox will have to compete for Palin’s time as she continues on her book tour and makes room in her schedule for any speaking engagement that will shell out the big bucks.

Amongst Palin’s upcoming engagements is an appearance at the annual meeting of the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers Association. It apparently didn’t matter whether their keynoter had any knowledge of the beverage industry. It could also make for some confusion as reports are sure surface that Palin is speaking at a “Whine” convention and people will automatically assume it’s the Tea Baggers. Not to worry, though. The Tea Party Media will set everything straight for the audience of delusional malcontents it serves and everyone will arrive safely at their appointed indoctrination destination.

Bill O’Reilly Books, Then Bumps, WorldNetDaily Birther

Posted by on August 3, 2009 at 12:57 pm. 7 Comments :

Joseph Farah is the editor of the uber-conservative WorldNetDaily. He is also one of the chief proponents of the Birther Conspiracy that holds that Barack Obama is not eligible to be president because, they hysterically allege, he isn’t a U.S. citizen. This thoroughly caramelized nut case for reversing last November’s election has been debunked repeatedly, but continues to be peddled by dogged rightist reality deniers.

Now, the WorldNetDaily is reporting that their leader, Mr. Farrah, was all set to appear on The O’Reilly Factor until his list of demands was rejected by Bill O’Reilly himself. Here is the list as printed at WND:

  • Though a sober and civil discourse is always welcome, shouting is not;
  • No other guests on during the segment with Mr. Farah;
  • Discussion to be limited to the facts of the story;
  • Accurate, approved description of Mr. Farah and news organization he represents;
  • Screen ID chyron to be approved by Mr. Farah.

If this account is true, then O’Reilly retracted his invitation to Farrah because he objected to constraints on his freedom to shout at people and distort facts. But just the fact that a right wing web editor felt it necessary to itemize a list of criteria that included no shouting, stick with the facts, and chyron approval, for a right wing TV host, is pretty delicious irony. Even O’Reilly’s natural allies don’t trust him.