Conspiracy website WND teams up with House Republicans at the Capitol

Written by Eric Hananoki

Published

We've noted that conservatives such as Jon Henke have called for a boycott of WorldNetDaily because it traffics “in the paranoid conspiracy theories that take away from our ability to discuss more important issues.” Yesterday at the Capitol, four House Republicans found no more important issue than promoting and legitimizing the conspiracy website.

As the Washington Independent's David Weigel noted, actual GOP members of Congress appeared at a press conference to endorse and promote the efforts of WorldNetDaily to deliver 5 million “pink slips” of paper to Congress. The press conference featured WND CEO Joseph Farah and columnist and campaign organizer Janet Porter, along with “U.S. Reps. Michelle Bachmann, R-Minn.; Louie Gohmert, R-Texas; Steve King, R-Iowa; and Trent Franks, R-Ariz., [who] hailed the effort as an innovative new vehicle for the American people to express themselves to members of Congress.”

How is WND helping Americans “express themselves?” By graciously allowing us to buy pink slips of paper at the “WND SUPERSTORE” for the “Discount Price” of $29.95.

So not only is WND receiving congressional praise, it's also getting help making money.

Here are some of the WND conspiracy theories and smears those pink slip profits can help pay for:

  • “Where's The Birth Certificate?” WND is one of the leaders in the birther movement. In addition to selling pink slips, WND's “Superstore” sells “Where's The Birth Certificate” bumper stickers, magnets and yard signs. WND also sponsors birther billboards, petitions, and a reward fund. WND has frequently pushed theories that Obama was born in Kenya.
  • The “exclusive” that Obama “had homo sex” with Larry Sinclair. WND repeatedly promoted charges by Larry Sinclair that he “took drugs [and] had homo sex with Obama.” WND later noted that Sinclair “reportedly failed two polygraph tests,” but nonetheless published a column the next day in which columnist Vox Day criticized the “media silence ... about the specific charges” and added, "[T]his isn't a rumor; it's an easily verifiable matter of public record, complete with a YouTube video and United States District Court filing."
  • Obama actually delayed Somali pirate rescue. After the U.S. Navy's successful rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips from Somali pirates in the spring, WND ran an article - based on Farah's purported reporting - that Obama “actually delayed [the] pirate rescue.” Nearly all of WND's article echoes elements of a false anti-Obama chain email.
  • Name-calling. Media Matters has noted that WND columnists have referred to or characterized Obama as a “closet communist,” “pathological liar,” “cellblock rapist,” spousal abuser, mobster, and Manchurian candidate.
  • Obama's internment camps for enemies. Janet Porter and WND have pushed the conspiracy theory that Obama is building internment camps for his opponents. Porter wrote on WND: “Internment/confinement/correction camps for American civilians? Maybe there's something to all those rumors of FEMA concentration camps ... Internment and confinement are for criminals ... for terrorists. And terrorists, according to DHS, are ... us ... We must stop this evil now. The alternative is unthinkable.”

Porter has also warned that voting for Obama would send you to hell; passed on the rumor that Obama's a secret soviet mole; said that “this movement toward a global currency is a sign that the last days are coming”; claimed that “Pushing away an unwelcome advance of a homosexual, transgendered, cross-dresser or exhibitionist could make you a felon under this [hate crimes] law”; and warned that if we don't stop the Obama “dictatorship ... we'll lose our lives” (good thing we have the pink slips!).

Noted serious people Farah and Porter with members of Congress: