About WND
WND, formerly WorldNetDaily, can best be explained by its mission
statement: “WND is an independent news company dedicated to
uncompromising journalism, seeking truth and justice and revitalizing
the role of the free press as a guardian of liberty. We remain faithful
to the traditional and central role of a free press in a free society –
as a light exposing wrongdoing, corruption and abuse of power.
“We also seek to stimulate a free-and-open debate about the great moral and political ideas facing the world and to promote freedom and self-government by encouraging personal virtue and good character.”
Indeed, WND is a fiercely independent news site committed to hard-hitting investigative reporting of government waste, fraud and abuse.
Founded by Joseph and Elizabeth Farah in May 1997, it is now a leading Internet news site in both traffic and influence.
WND has broken some of the biggest, most significant and most notable investigative and enterprising stories in recent years. See “WND Scoops” for a comprehensive list of major WND exclusive reports that first saw the light of day in these pages.
WND’s unique and aggressive reporting style has captured a large and growing audience on the Internet:
WND was voted the most popular website on the Internet every week for nearly two years running between 1999 and 2001 on the independent, European-based Global100.com.
WND consistently ranks as the “stickiest” news site on the Internet, meaning readers spent more time on it than on any other – including giants CNN, MSNBC and ESPN.
WND often ranks at the top of the news pack in number of pageviews per user and minutes per page – two other important categories measured by Internet ratings agencies.
It is a Top 500 website, according to Alexa.com, the search and ratings agency affiliate of Amazon.com, and the No. 1 independent news site. WND currently attracts nearly 5 million unique visitors a month and more than 40 million pageviews, according to its own internal monitoring software.
WND’s editorial policy reflects the old-fashioned notion that the principal role of the free press in a free society is to serve as a watchdog on government – to expose corruption, fraud, waste and abuse wherever and whenever it is found.
Why is it the fastest-growing news service on the Internet? Founder Joseph Farah believes it is directly due to WND’s editorial formula – “credible, fearless, independent.”
Joseph Farah brings more than 25 years of newspaper experience, including stints as editor in chief of major market dailies, to WND. Elizabeth Farah brings years of marketing, strategic planning, design and technology experience to the project. Now, teamed with a lean but growing full-time staff of 25, WND is poised to spark a media revolution.
Why? “Because,” as Joseph Farah says, “the world has a right to know.”
http://www.wnd.com/about-wnd/
“We also seek to stimulate a free-and-open debate about the great moral and political ideas facing the world and to promote freedom and self-government by encouraging personal virtue and good character.”
Indeed, WND is a fiercely independent news site committed to hard-hitting investigative reporting of government waste, fraud and abuse.
Founded by Joseph and Elizabeth Farah in May 1997, it is now a leading Internet news site in both traffic and influence.
WND has broken some of the biggest, most significant and most notable investigative and enterprising stories in recent years. See “WND Scoops” for a comprehensive list of major WND exclusive reports that first saw the light of day in these pages.
WND’s unique and aggressive reporting style has captured a large and growing audience on the Internet:
WND was voted the most popular website on the Internet every week for nearly two years running between 1999 and 2001 on the independent, European-based Global100.com.
WND consistently ranks as the “stickiest” news site on the Internet, meaning readers spent more time on it than on any other – including giants CNN, MSNBC and ESPN.
WND often ranks at the top of the news pack in number of pageviews per user and minutes per page – two other important categories measured by Internet ratings agencies.
It is a Top 500 website, according to Alexa.com, the search and ratings agency affiliate of Amazon.com, and the No. 1 independent news site. WND currently attracts nearly 5 million unique visitors a month and more than 40 million pageviews, according to its own internal monitoring software.
WND’s editorial policy reflects the old-fashioned notion that the principal role of the free press in a free society is to serve as a watchdog on government – to expose corruption, fraud, waste and abuse wherever and whenever it is found.
Why is it the fastest-growing news service on the Internet? Founder Joseph Farah believes it is directly due to WND’s editorial formula – “credible, fearless, independent.”
Joseph Farah brings more than 25 years of newspaper experience, including stints as editor in chief of major market dailies, to WND. Elizabeth Farah brings years of marketing, strategic planning, design and technology experience to the project. Now, teamed with a lean but growing full-time staff of 25, WND is poised to spark a media revolution.
Why? “Because,” as Joseph Farah says, “the world has a right to know.”
http://www.wnd.com/about-wnd/
Audit Obama
Joseph FarahI predicted this would happen in a column in March 2010.
Exclusive: Joseph Farah calls on White House
to come clean about Nobel award, gold medal
The White House has announced that Barack Obama has donated the $1.4 million given to him for winning the Nobel Peace Prize to 10 charities.For many, that may end all questions about the propriety, legality and tax consequences of Obama’s acceptance of a $1.4 million gift from a foreign state.
But not for me.
I want you to walk through this mental exercise with me: Let’s say a foreign government offered me $1.4 million because it liked my work here at WND. Now, for starters, as a private American citizen, there is no legal prohibition against my acceptance of that award. But there most definitely is one on the president of the United States accepting it. It’s no minor technicality. It’s called the emolument clause of the Constitution, and I have written about this before.
Article I, Section 9, of the Constitution, known as the emolument clause, states: “And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State. …
”
Most Americans may not realize, as I did not until very recently, that the Nobel commission is elected by the parliament of Norway. That means the peace prize is made by a commission representing the legislature of a foreign state. There’s little question the award amounts to an emolument – at nearly $1.4 million and a priceless gold medal.
Back in 1902, the U.S. attorney general advised that even “a simple remembrance” qualified as an emolument – “any present of any kind whatever.” In 1993, President Bill Clinton’s legal counsel affirmed that finding and explained that the text of the clause does not limit “its application solely to foreign governments acting as sovereigns” – but even when foreign governments work through other devices and organizations.
There’s little question that if I accepted money from a foreign state, I would face serious tax consequences – even though I hold no public office in the U.S.
So, I might choose to do what Barack Obama did. Instead of actually touching the money, I might instruct the foreign donor, in this case the Nobel commission, to dole out the money directly to my favorite charities.
Do you think that would end questions about my involvement with a foreign government by federal authorities?
I sure don’t.
Nor should it.
This would likely be seen as a way for a foreign government to be empowering an American citizen to play Santa Claus.
I suspect I would be audited for directing the way foreign funds would be spent.
And that’s why I am calling for Barack Obama to be audited this tax season.
Not only did he accept a $1.4 million award from a foreign state, but he clearly orchestrated a clever attempt to avoid paying any taxes on it. He didn’t just tell the Nobel commission that he couldn’t accept the money under the law of the land. He accepted it conditionally – that he be permitted to direct its use.
This way Obama got to have his cake and eat it, too. His White House, the people’s house, announced to the world that Obama had donated $1.4 million to 10 charities. But, in fact, he merely directed how that money would be spent.
If you or I did that, believe me, there would be multiple federal investigations of our actions – and rightfully so.
But Obama does this right out in the open and no one questions it. In fact, he gets accolades for being generous, as if he were giving away his own money.
Do you see my problem here?
But it gets worse.
What about the priceless gold medal?
Where is that?
Why haven’t we seen any mention of it in the press? Where are the White House announcements of what happened to it? Where was that donated? Who is the recipient?
The president of the United States is the top executive of the law. He’s supposed to be a good example to the rest of us mere peons – the people who employ him.
Where’s the gold medal?
How does Obama get away with directing how foreign money is being spent and taking the credit for it?
The Obama administration will be directing tax audits this year for the first time. I have no doubts that it will follow the blatantly illegal pattern of the Bill Clinton administration and use tax audits against its political enemies.
If we are all equal under the eyes of the law, it would be Obama who got the first audit notice this year. He’d be asked to explain how and why he arranged personally to direct the spending of $1.4 million in foreign funds. He’d be asked to explain who got the priceless gold medal from the Nobel commission. He’d be asked to explain why he accepted a prestigious prize from a foreign government when the Constitution expressly forbids it.
But I won’t hold my breath.
Because in Obama’s USA we are hardly all equal under the eyes of the law.
Obama audits me. Who will audit him?Exclusive: Joseph Farah challenges BHOover his 'emolument' from a foreign power
As I predicted would be the case early on in Barack Obama’s administration, I got my audit notice from the Internal Revenue Service last week.
That’s just the way it works in recent Democratic Party administrations – the IRS is used as a political attack dog against its “enemies.”
During Bill Clinton’s administration, my news organization was
singled out for a nine-month-long IRS proctological investigation
suggested in a memo from the White House, signed by Clinton personally.
The agent who conducted the investigation admitted it was “political”
and asked matter-of-factly in one meeting before witnesses, “What do you
expect to happen when you go after the president of the United States
in an election year?”
This time, the IRS is coming after me personally with a demand for a review of my 2009 tax filing.
Think about this.
We have a treasury secretary who is a known tax cheat.
Just before Barack Obama named Timothy Geithner to be his treasury secretary, the then-president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank quickly and quietly paid $26,000 in back taxes and interest due since 2001 and 2002.
Asked about the propriety of nominating a treasury secretary who was a major tax scofflaw, Obama characterized the eight-year tax evasion as “an innocent mistake.”
Geithner’s tax evasion can be called many things – grand larceny, highway robbery, white-collar crime, racketeering, thievery, swindling, cheating, defrauding, plundering the public treasury, fleecing, looting.
However, to call it “an innocent mistake,” as I wrote back then, “gives us an idea of just how perverted Obama’s standard’s of justice will be for the next four years.”
I also asked, “Will Geithner and Obama be as forgiving of ordinary American citizens who make such ‘innocent mistakes’?”
{$evsignupform}
I also mused that “the silver lining beneath this dark cloud is that for the next four years we can all count on mercy from the IRS. If we fail to pay our taxes and we’re caught, I suppose we can all count on getting the Geithner treatment. I’m sure he will give us all the kind of grace he got. Right? Yeah, right.”
Of course, audits can be a good thing when they are applied fairly and without the motive of political vengeance. But you and I both know that’s not the case in America – not any more. Nobody is auditing Obama.
You might recall how the White House announced last year that Barack Obama donated the $1.4 million given to him for winning the Nobel Peace Prize to 10 charities.
For the smitten media, that ended all questions about the propriety, legality and tax consequences of Obama’s acceptance of a $1.4 million gift from a foreign state.
Should it have?
Article I, Section 9, of the Constitution, known as the emolument clause, states: “And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State. …”
Most Americans may not realize, as I did not until very recently, that the Nobel commission is elected by the parliament of Norway. That means the peace prize is made by a commission representing the legislature of a foreign state. There’s little question the award amounts to an emolument – at nearly $1.4 million and a priceless gold medal.
Back in 1902, the U.S. attorney general advised that even “a simple remembrance” qualified as an emolument – “any present of any kind whatever.” In 1993, President Bill Clinton’s legal counsel affirmed that finding and explained that the text of the clause does not limit “its application solely to foreign governments acting as sovereigns” – but even when foreign governments work through other devices and organizations.
There’s little question that if I accepted money from a foreign state, I would face serious tax consequences – even though I hold no public office in the U.S.
So, I might choose to do what Barack Obama did. Instead of actually touching the money, I might instruct the foreign donor, in this case the Nobel commission, to dole out the money directly to my favorite charities.
Do you think that would end questions about my involvement with a foreign government by federal authorities?
I sure don’t.
Nor should it.
This would likely be seen as a way for a foreign government to be empowering an American citizen to play Santa Claus.
I suspect I would be audited for directing the way foreign funds would be spent.
And that’s why it is Barack Obama who should be the first one audited this year, not me – not a guy who accepts no public money from the U.S. government or any foreign government, not a small-business owner who has created private-sector jobs while Obama was destroying them, not a member of the group labeled derisively by Obama’s “occupation” agents as “the 1 percenters” actually responsible for filling the government’s coffers with tax revenue to pay for so many extra-constitutional programs.
Where’s Obama’s audit for the $1.4 million he got from a foreign government last year?
Not only did he accept a $1.4 million award from a foreign state, but he clearly orchestrated a clever attempt to avoid paying any taxes on it. He didn’t just tell the Nobel commission that he couldn’t accept the money under the law of the land. He accepted it conditionally – that he be permitted to direct its use.
If I did that – and didn’t pay any taxes on the money – I would likely be headed to jail.
But Obama got to have his cake and eat it, too. His White House, the people’s house, announced to the world that Obama had donated $1.4 million to 10 charities. But, in fact, he merely directed how that money would be spent.
If you or I or Herman Cain did that, believe me, there would be multiple federal investigations of our actions. Yet Obama does this right out in the open and no one questions it. In fact, he gets accolades for being generous, as if he were giving away his own money.
Do you see my problem here?
But it gets worse.
What about the priceless gold medal?
Where is that?
Why haven’t we seen any mention of it in the press? Where are the White House announcements of what happened to it? Where was that donated? Who is the recipient?
The president of the United States is the top executive of the law. He’s supposed to be a good example to the rest of us mere peons – the people who employ him.
Where’s the gold medal?
Maybe it’s stashed with the real birth certificate.
How does Obama get away with directing how foreign money is being spent and taking the credit for it?
And now the Obama administration is directing tax audits. As I predicted long ago, I have no doubts that it will follow the blatantly illegal pattern of the Bill Clinton administration and use tax audits against its political enemies – real and perceived.
If we were all equal under the eyes of the law, it would be Obama who got the first audit notice this year. He’d be asked to explain how and why he arranged personally to direct the spending of $1.4 million in foreign funds. He’d be asked to explain who got the priceless gold medal from the Nobel commission. He’d be asked to explain why he accepted a prestigious prize from a foreign government when the Constitution expressly forbids it.But that’s not the way things work in America any more.
So I, like so many other law-abiding American citizens working in the private sector and exercising my First Amendment rights, will just bend over in preparation for the coming proctological exam.
This time, the IRS is coming after me personally with a demand for a review of my 2009 tax filing.
Think about this.
We have a treasury secretary who is a known tax cheat.
Just before Barack Obama named Timothy Geithner to be his treasury secretary, the then-president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank quickly and quietly paid $26,000 in back taxes and interest due since 2001 and 2002.
Asked about the propriety of nominating a treasury secretary who was a major tax scofflaw, Obama characterized the eight-year tax evasion as “an innocent mistake.”
Geithner’s tax evasion can be called many things – grand larceny, highway robbery, white-collar crime, racketeering, thievery, swindling, cheating, defrauding, plundering the public treasury, fleecing, looting.
However, to call it “an innocent mistake,” as I wrote back then, “gives us an idea of just how perverted Obama’s standard’s of justice will be for the next four years.”
I also asked, “Will Geithner and Obama be as forgiving of ordinary American citizens who make such ‘innocent mistakes’?”
{$evsignupform}
I also mused that “the silver lining beneath this dark cloud is that for the next four years we can all count on mercy from the IRS. If we fail to pay our taxes and we’re caught, I suppose we can all count on getting the Geithner treatment. I’m sure he will give us all the kind of grace he got. Right? Yeah, right.”
Of course, audits can be a good thing when they are applied fairly and without the motive of political vengeance. But you and I both know that’s not the case in America – not any more. Nobody is auditing Obama.
You might recall how the White House announced last year that Barack Obama donated the $1.4 million given to him for winning the Nobel Peace Prize to 10 charities.
For the smitten media, that ended all questions about the propriety, legality and tax consequences of Obama’s acceptance of a $1.4 million gift from a foreign state.
Should it have?
Article I, Section 9, of the Constitution, known as the emolument clause, states: “And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State. …”
Most Americans may not realize, as I did not until very recently, that the Nobel commission is elected by the parliament of Norway. That means the peace prize is made by a commission representing the legislature of a foreign state. There’s little question the award amounts to an emolument – at nearly $1.4 million and a priceless gold medal.
Back in 1902, the U.S. attorney general advised that even “a simple remembrance” qualified as an emolument – “any present of any kind whatever.” In 1993, President Bill Clinton’s legal counsel affirmed that finding and explained that the text of the clause does not limit “its application solely to foreign governments acting as sovereigns” – but even when foreign governments work through other devices and organizations.
There’s little question that if I accepted money from a foreign state, I would face serious tax consequences – even though I hold no public office in the U.S.
So, I might choose to do what Barack Obama did. Instead of actually touching the money, I might instruct the foreign donor, in this case the Nobel commission, to dole out the money directly to my favorite charities.
Do you think that would end questions about my involvement with a foreign government by federal authorities?
I sure don’t.
Nor should it.
This would likely be seen as a way for a foreign government to be empowering an American citizen to play Santa Claus.
I suspect I would be audited for directing the way foreign funds would be spent.
And that’s why it is Barack Obama who should be the first one audited this year, not me – not a guy who accepts no public money from the U.S. government or any foreign government, not a small-business owner who has created private-sector jobs while Obama was destroying them, not a member of the group labeled derisively by Obama’s “occupation” agents as “the 1 percenters” actually responsible for filling the government’s coffers with tax revenue to pay for so many extra-constitutional programs.
Where’s Obama’s audit for the $1.4 million he got from a foreign government last year?
Not only did he accept a $1.4 million award from a foreign state, but he clearly orchestrated a clever attempt to avoid paying any taxes on it. He didn’t just tell the Nobel commission that he couldn’t accept the money under the law of the land. He accepted it conditionally – that he be permitted to direct its use.
If I did that – and didn’t pay any taxes on the money – I would likely be headed to jail.
But Obama got to have his cake and eat it, too. His White House, the people’s house, announced to the world that Obama had donated $1.4 million to 10 charities. But, in fact, he merely directed how that money would be spent.
If you or I or Herman Cain did that, believe me, there would be multiple federal investigations of our actions. Yet Obama does this right out in the open and no one questions it. In fact, he gets accolades for being generous, as if he were giving away his own money.
Do you see my problem here?
But it gets worse.
What about the priceless gold medal?
Where is that?
Why haven’t we seen any mention of it in the press? Where are the White House announcements of what happened to it? Where was that donated? Who is the recipient?
The president of the United States is the top executive of the law. He’s supposed to be a good example to the rest of us mere peons – the people who employ him.
Where’s the gold medal?
Maybe it’s stashed with the real birth certificate.
How does Obama get away with directing how foreign money is being spent and taking the credit for it?
And now the Obama administration is directing tax audits. As I predicted long ago, I have no doubts that it will follow the blatantly illegal pattern of the Bill Clinton administration and use tax audits against its political enemies – real and perceived.
If we were all equal under the eyes of the law, it would be Obama who got the first audit notice this year. He’d be asked to explain how and why he arranged personally to direct the spending of $1.4 million in foreign funds. He’d be asked to explain who got the priceless gold medal from the Nobel commission. He’d be asked to explain why he accepted a prestigious prize from a foreign government when the Constitution expressly forbids it.But that’s not the way things work in America any more.
So I, like so many other law-abiding American citizens working in the private sector and exercising my First Amendment rights, will just bend over in preparation for the coming proctological exam.
| ||||
I have some experience with politically motivated tax audits.I also have some experience with the tea-party movement.
I predicted this would happen in a column in March 2010.
I wrote about it when it came to pass in November 2011.
I don’t claim the gift of prophecy.
I just know the nature of people like Barack Obama and those he places in positions of authority. I know this because I was just like him. I even had some of the same friends and acquaintances as a misguided youth – people like Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.
But my experience with politically motivated tax audits goes back long before the Obama administration.
I was a prominent target of Bill Clinton’s reign of Internal Revenue Service hell on individuals and tax-exempt organizations. And I was the guy who broke the story about it – long before there was a WND. Back then, I had to get the help of the Wall Street Journal, which, to its credit, gave me commentary space to lay out the whole story and turned the sordid tale into an 11-part series of editorials.
But in this day of historical forgetfulness, no one in the media seems to remember how Bill Clinton used the IRS to terrorize Paula Jones and many other women who had the misfortune of crossing his path along with a virtual who’s who of those who made his “enemies list” like me.
In my case, we finally got the evidence from the Treasury Department years later that showed it wasn’t some “rogue agent” who instigated the audit. It was Bill Clinton personally who dispatched a letter to the head of the IRS tax-exempt division.
Bill Clinton was allowed to skate for that kind of abuse.
And that’s why I knew, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that it would happen again under the watch of Barack Obama.
It’s been three years now that Obama has gotten away with targeting his enemies using the IRS. I’ve heard the horror stories from many friends – most of whom don’t want the limelight. Tax-exempt organizations hate to admit they are being audited because it tends to dry up donations. That was the problem telling the story in the 1990s, and it’s a problem now.
You will hear many horror stories about politically motivated audits now because people and organizations are starting to see it as a badge of honor to be audited by Obama – now that the story has legs.
Some will be tempted to discount these stories. Don’t make that mistake. They’re true. The abuse is far more than anyone can imagine. That’s why Obama publicly dispatched a sacrificial lamb, his IRS commissioner, so quickly. He thinks he may be able to cut his losses by finding a scapegoat.
Whether he’s right remains an open question.
Sadly, it depends primarily on two institutions that have a less-than-stellar track record in holding him accountable – the Republican Party and the media establishment.
I’m not holding my breath.
But I can say this without any equivocation: If Obama serves out his second term by merely blaming others beneath him, this will not be the last administration that uses the IRS to target its enemies. It will become a matter of course for leaders without scruples and integrity to continue the harassment and abuse Obama ensured would happen.
I’m not suggesting we will find any written authorization from Obama to do this – as we did with Clinton. As Rush Limbaugh so aptly pointed out, Obama didn’t need to do that. In politics and government, personnel is policy.
He hired people who would do his bidding. They didn’t need to be told by Obama to do it. All they needed to do was listen to what he said publicly about his enemies in the tea-party movement, the patriot movement and all those who crossed him.
Lastly, let me say this: Not only does Obama have to be chased from the Oval Office to ensure the IRS doesn’t victimize others in the future, but the IRS also has to go. It has proven once again to be the U.S. version of the Gestapo – there for future would-be fuehrers to abuse.
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