The Dirt on Newsmax, WorldNewsDaily and Judicial Watch

This is a story that has everything, sex, lies, suicide, conspiracies, politicians, racists, journalists, billionaires and drug trafficking. This story involves many characters and institutions. The story spans through three presidencies and several decades. This is the story of the right-wing propaganda machine.

The story begins with R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., editor in chief of the American Spectator. In a fall of ’93 fishing trip he decided he wanted to investigate the Clintons. David Brock, a writer for the American Spectator, brought the stories of alleged sexual misbehavior by Bill and Hillary Clinton into the public notice in late 1993.

David Brock was "summoned" to a meeting with Rex Armistead in Miami, Florida at an airport hotel.

There Armistead explained an elaborate "Vince Foster murder scenario", a scenario that Brock thought to be implausible. David Brock, then of the American Spectator (and previously of the Heritage Foundation), explained Armistead was paid $350,000 to work with Arkansas Project reporters by the American Spectator.

Rex Armistead was a “leader of white resistance to the civil rights movement" as he was working as a police officer, according to David Brock.

So you’ve heard the name American Spectator a few times already, who are they?

The American Spectator was founded as The Alternativein 1967 by Tyrrell and other students at Indiana University. It was meant to be an alternative to the counter culture of the 1960s. A counter counter culture.

Their fame reached a peak in the 1990s. They called Anita Hill “a bit nutty and a bit slutty". And as mentioned previously, they investigated the Clinton sex scandals and spread conspiracies about the murder of Vincent Foster, a Clinton aide that committed suicide.

A conspiracy created by Armistead, spread by Tymel, Brock and the American Spectator was filled with absurdities and backed by conservative billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife.

Scaife is a billionaire heir of an oil, aluminum and newspaper family. Scaife also funds Judicial Watch and Sarah Scaife Foundation, Carthage Foundation, and Allegheny Foundation.

With Scaife as publisher, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review was a major influence on the spreading claims that then United States President Bill Clinton and then First Lady Hillary Clinton were responsible for the death of Deputy White House counsel Vincent Foster.

Scaife paid freelancer Christopher W. Ruddy to write about the Foster case for the Tribune-Review and other right-leaning media. Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr, appointed to investigate Clinton, concluded that Foster committed suicide and the murder accusations were untrue. Ruddy will go on to start the uber-conservative site Newsmax.com. But not before releasing a book on his conspiracy theory.

Wikipedia says “The [Arkansas] project not only accused Clinton of financial and sexual indiscretions (some later verified, others not), but also gave root to hyperbolic conspiracistnotions that the Clintons collaborated with the CIA to run a drug smuggling operation out of the town of Mena, Arkansas and that Clinton had arranged for the murder of White House aide Vince Fosteras part of a coverup of the Whitewater scandal.”

Scaife, the billionaire, has also publically donated to organizations like the RNC, Free Congress PAC and Western Journalism Center, headed by Joseph Farah, to name a few. Farah will later go on to start WorldNewsDaily.

Scaife became a major, early supporter of the Heritage Foundation, which has since become one of Washington's most influential public policy research institutes. He currently serves as vice-chairman of the Heritage Foundation board of trustees.

Back to Wikipedia:

“Later, he supported such varied conservative and libertarian organizations as:

• American Enterprise Institute
• Atlas Economic Research Foundation
• David Horowitz Freedom Center
• Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, which advocates for free-market solutions to environmental issues and dissent on anthropogenic global warming
• Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy Alternatives - a Harrisburg-based libertarian think tank.
• Federalist Society
• Foundation for Economic Education
• Free Congress Foundation (headed by Paul Weyrich)
• Freedom House
• GOPAC (headed by Newt Gingrich)
• Independent Women's Forum
• Intercollegiate Studies Institute (which operates the Collegiate Network)
• Judicial Watch
• Landmark Legal Foundation
• Media Research Center (headed by Brent Bozell)
• Pacific Legal Foundation
• World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh
• Reason Foundation

By 1998 his foundations were listed among donors to over 100 such groups, to which he had disbursed some $340 million by 2002.”

Out of that long list of organizations supported by the conservative billionaire, please take note of Judicial Watch.

That site, along with Newsmax and WorldNewsDaily, are leaders in falsely accusing Democrats of anything they can think of. And are very much responsible for creating the kind of sleaze and smear we expect from the modern day Republican party.

Larry Klaymanis the founder of Judicial Watch. And as state previously, Joe Farah is the founder of WorldNewsDaily and Cristopher Ruddy is the founder of Newsmax.

Judicial Watch is a group that calls itself, “a conservative, non-partisan American educational foundation that promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law.”

I don’t understand how you can be conservative and non-partisan, but apparently they are.

Judicial Watch had brought against Bill Clinton and his administration 18 different lawsuits, hoping one of them would succeed.

Larry Klayman is a lawyer that has sued his mom. A colleague of his once said that Klayman is the kind of person that would sue you for the bad mouthing his tie. After leaving Judicial Watch in 2003, he sued them in 2006.

Wikipedia again:

“In 2002, Judicial Watch received $1.1 million from The Carthage Foundation and a further $400,000 from the Sarah Scaife Foundation. Both foundations are managed by Richard Mellon Scaife. The year before the Scaife Foundation gave $1.35 million and Carthage $500,000.

“In all, between 1997 and 2002 Judicial Watch received $7,069,500 (unadjusted for inflation) in 19 grants from a handful of foundations. The bulk of this funding came from just three foundations – the Sarah Scaife Foundation, The Carthage Foundation and the John M. Olin Foundation, Inc. According to MediaTransparency, "Judicial Watch is essentially a tool of Richard Mellon Scaife, who provides almost all its funding."

Among other things, Judicial Watch has been cited numerously accusing Valerie Jarrett and other Obama advisers and friends.

Newsmax has become the “most influential Republican-leaning media outlet" in the nation.

A company that started with the wild Clinton killed Vincent Foster story, is now considered the shining beacon of hope for the Republican Party’s rise to power, post-Obama.

This is what wikipedia had on Newsmax:

• “After the mysterious disappearance of Chandra Levy in 2001, contributor John LeBoutillierallegedly posted a speculative column on the site about the sex life of Representative Gary Condit, with whom Levy had an affair. The column quickly circulated among media members, even though Newsmax editors pulled it from the site.

• On May 26, 2000, Newsmax published an article claiming Hillary Clinton refused to meet with the Gold Star Mothers. According to the Gold Star Mothers organization, this was false and "Senator Clintongreeted us graciously on Gold Star Mothers Sunday, 2005. This story was also debunked at other websites and eventually led to a retraction by NewsMax.

• A 2005 NewsMax.com report about Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, claiming he was "teaming up" with rock band U2for a fund raiser, gained considerable attention. Santorum had actually purchased 66 tickets to a sold-out show and was reselling these to campaign supporters at $1,000 per seat. The band issued a statement denying it was involved in the practice, saying, "U2 concerts are categorically not fund-raisers for any politician; they are rock concerts for U2 fans." Rather than admitting the error and issuing a correction, Newsmax simply changed its article about the fund-raiser without telling readers it had been changed, stating that the story was misinterpreted.

• During the debate over the failed 2007 Immigration Bill, Newsmax popularized opposition to an alleged "North American Union," a dystopianvision of a future America where "NAU citizens no longer spend dollars or salute Old Glory. They spend 'ameros'."

• On August 9, 2007, Newsmax freelance reporter, Jim Davis, reported that Barack Obama was in attendance on July 22, 2007 during a controversial sermon giving by Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr.at Trinity United Church of Christ in South Chicago, Obama's place of worship. The claim that Obama was in attendance for this particular sermon was repeated by Newsmax as fact again on March 16, 2008. A July 22, 2007 speaking schedule for the National Council for La Raza in Miami, Florida shows Obama as a scheduled speaker for 1:30pm. Video confirms he attended the conference and spoke during his allotted time. New York Times op-ed author, William Kristol, who relied upon the erroneous Newsmax articles in an op-ed article in the New York Times on March 17, 2008, provided the following retraction and apology later in the day, "In this column, I cite a report that Sen. Obamahad attended services at Trinity Church on July 22, 2007. The Obama campaign has provided information showing that Sen. ObamaSen. Obama did not attend Trinity that day. I regret the error." However, Davis later explained that Obama had attended the early morning service at Trinity United at 7:30 a.m., leaving sufficient time for him to travel by private jet to Miami; and the La Raza website confirms that Obama did not arrive until 1:50 p.m. Eastern time. Newsmax reports receiving confirmation from the Obama campaign that the candidate's private jet did not leave Chicago until 8:50 a.m. A Washington Post fact checker has reported that the issue has not been resolved to his satisfaction one way or the other.

• Newsmax claimed that Barack Obama's Vaticanambassador had been rejected several times for being "insufficiently pro-life." The Catholic News Service and Time magazine confirmed on April 9, 2009 that Newsmax's story was false.

• On September 29, 2009, in a column at Newsmax.com, John L. Perry described the possibility of a military coup against President Barack Obamato resolve what Perry calls the "Obama problem". After Media Mattersand others criticized the column, Newsmax rescinded it though Media Matters has archived it, along with its critique.”

Newsmax reporter are the who’s who of conservatism, everyone from O’Reilly to Pat Boone to Wall Street Journal and Washington Post reporters.

If you thought Newsmax had a problem with lying, you should read up on WorldNewsdaily.

WorldNewsDailyhas been criticized as unreliable, "false" and "far-right." Notably, WND columnist Jerome Corsi was criticized for his book The Obama Nation, and Farah defended him. Farah claimed Corsi was the victim of an "attempted media lynching", and urged sympathizers to purchase extra copies of the book to boost sales, and to give those copies to friends.

Wikipedia again:

“In early 2005, WND hired Aaron Klein to run a Jerusalem bureau. ConWebWatch, a website critical of conservative new media, in early 2006 alleged that Klein's articles promoted the causes of Israeli settlers in the West Bank and Gaza who opposed Israel's unilateral disengagement plan from those areas. The group also argued that Klein did not disclose the ties of Israeli activists tied to the far-right Kach and Kahane Chai movement. When Eden Natan-Zadashot and killed four people on a bus in Gaza on August 4, 2005, he was beaten to death afterwards by a crowd that witnessed the shooting. Klein wrote an article for WND claiming that Zada was "murdered" by a "mob of Palestinians" after the shooting, although he also mentioned that police called the shooting a "Jewish terror attack." Klein has also written numerous articles critical of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.”

“On December 3, 2006 a WND article said that: "Reports that KGB defector Alexander Litvinenkoconverted to Islam before his mysterious poisoning with radioactive polonium 210 is raising suspicions that he may have been involved in a plot to smuggle the deadly substance to terrorist groups." According to an article in The Times, apparently mentioning the WND article, the evidence for these suspicions was "gossip from his Muslim next-door neighbour."

“A commentary by Canadian evangelical Tristan Emmanuel decried so called "Anglo-Saxon self-hatred" in Canada and the United States, and used "warring factions" of third world immigrants as a base against multiculturalism in order to suggest a whites-only immigration policy for North America.

An article by Ilana Mercer, published concurrently in the white nationalist publication VDARE, presents the Declaration of Independence and its authorship by Thomas Jefferson as evidence of the supremacy of the Anglo-Saxon racial "stock".

“During the debate over the failed 2007 Immigration Bill, WND popularized opposition to an alleged "North American Union(NAU)", a dystopian vision of a future America politically and economically merged with Canada and Mexico, in a fashion similar to the European Union. WND blames a "shadow government" in the form of the Council on Foreign Relations(CFR) for the alleged NAU plot. CFR Conspiracy theories are not a new phenomenon. Jerome Corsi, a popular WND columnist, has penned a book about the alleged plot called The Late, Great USA, which was promoted by the website. The "North American Union" is considered a conspiracy theory by popular social conservatives such as Michael Medved and Kimberley Strassel, and has been disputed in the mainstream media.

“During the closing days of the 2008 presidential campaign, and in the weeks following Barack Obama's election as president of the United States, WorldNetDaily posted numerous articles questioning Obama's citizenship statusand consequent eligibility to be president. WND frequently posted articles on its homepage giving updates on numerous lawsuits that questioned Obama's citizenship status and were aimed at postponing the election and, later, the inauguration. These articles featured interviews with the plaintiffs, which included former New Jersey lawyer Leo Donofrio, 9/11 Truth attorney Philip J. Berg, and former Republican presidential candidate Alan Keyes. WND and Joseph Farah also touted The Obama Nation, a book critical of Obama written by WND staff reporter Jerome Corsi, which claimed that Obama was born in Kenya. Such claims were disputed by Obama's campaign, progressivebloggers, news outlets, and Hawaii's state health department.

“WND also began an online petition to have Obama's Hawaiian birth certificate released to the public. The website also unsuccessfully urged Supreme Courtjustices to hear the Donofrio, Berg and Keyes lawsuits. In May 2009, WND began collecting money to erect billboards asking, "Where's the Birth Certificate?", the first three of which appeared in Louisiana, Pennsylvania, and Los Angeles. Several WND commentators have written columns demanding that the birth certificate be released, including Farah; Corsi; Christian television host Hal Lindsey; Faith and Values Coalition co-chair Janet Porter and talk radio host Barbara Simpson.

“In an August 23, 2008, article about Berg's lawsuit, WND claimed it had investigated Obama's Hawaiian birth certificate utilizing forgery experts and, "found the document to be authentic," contradicting claims made in other WND articles and in Corsi's book.[citation needed] However, on December 20, after numerous liberal websites, politicians and media personalities touted WND's findings, Joseph Farah claimed in a WND column that the forgery experts had not actually concluded it was authentic and that, "None of them could report conclusively that the electronic image [of the birth certificate on Obama's campaign website] was authentic or that it was a forgery." After MSNBC's Keith Olbermann named Farah the "Worst Person in the World" on his show, Countdown, for his apparent reversal, Farah defended himself, claiming, "the veracity of that image was never the major issue of contention. Rather, the major issue is where is the rest of the birth certificate – the part that explains where the baby was born, who the delivery doctor was, etc...I can tell you WND has done its part to find out the truth."

“On August 2, 2009, WorldNetDaily published an article claiming that a certified copy of registration of Obama's birth had been obtained and produced by Orly Taitz, a leading ctitizenship conspiracy theorist. The document purportedly proved that Barack Obama had been born at a hospital in Mombasa, Kenya. The document has almost immediately proven to be a fake. On September 6, Taitz released another birth certificate supposedly proving Obama's Kenyan birth; this was also debunked as a fake, this time by WND reporter Jerome Corsi.”

“WorldNetDaily has argued against health care reform in the United States, in one article stating that the reforms appear designed "to create the type of detention centre" that people "fear" could be used as "concentration camps for political dissidents, such as occurred in Nazi Germany".

The people that run Newsmax, WorldNewsDaily and Judicial Watch were all at one time working together on destroying the Clinton presidency. They are now working together to destroy the Obama presidency.

Very often they quote each others articles and statements to gain an appearance of false consensus. Very often Fox News treats them as if they were rational dissidents.

Their tactics are the same, their goals are the same. Their backers are the same, primarily Richard Mellon Scaife. The only thing different is that it’s not the 90s any longer, and it’s not the Clintons in office.