Talk:Judicial Watch

Old uncategorized discussions

They're supposed to have put the video on their web site, but the site's totally down. Anyone aware of mirrors that would be suitable to put in External Links? Mbac 17:38, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, before someone makes the edit to the factual statements on the page, has any one actually seen this video?, I know I certainly have not..... (66.65.153.248 19:32, 16 May 2006 (UTC))

BBC has the video on their website [1]. Edwin Stearns | Talk 19:50, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. I'm changing the description in the article. I dhave no clue what that video shows. All it is is the Pentagon security camera footage from the morning of 9/11. It is leading to state what occurs in the video in the description. (ImagoDei 20:18, 16 May 2006 (UTC))

I've watched both videos. They are apparently the two cameras at a drive-through security gate. You can even see a security car pass through. One camera is closer, but is partially blinded by lens flare from the sun. The second camera presumably includes the "housing" for the closer camera in its wider view. Since these are both security cameras, they apparently only record a few frames (if not ONE frame) per second, which is unfortunate. The "object" appears in both videos for ONE frame. Frame (01:26 / 03:11) in Video 1 and frame (00:24 / 03:22) in Video 2. It appears to be white. It appears to be nearly touching the ground. That's about all I can say about the two videos. Not very convincing. Judicial Watch's goal was to dispel conspiracy theories about what hit the Pentagon, but these videos really do not help their cause. I have serious doubts this is the best video the Pentagon has. --LPsiPhi 04:38, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

On reviewing (12/26/2006) Judicial Watch submissions on YouTube.com regarding the Pentagon 9/11 Flight 77 impact, I was struck by the fact that this group which espouses "openness of information" would disable the ability of other users to submit comments, as per usual YouTube practice, either to support or to question Judicial Watch conclusions and inferences. In the larger context of alleged US government infiltration by New World Order factions, I strongly urge all USA and international viewers to closely scrutinize all so-called "think tanks" for the ways in which they distribute information and/or disinformation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Codevictim (talk • contribs) 03:32, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Wording

My editorial change was to conform introductory description to Judicial Watch's own mission statement. Undoing it as an act in retaliation to my edit work on the ACLU is a violation of WP:POINT. You can make your case here without doing so. If the ACLU's self-described purpose is good enough for the ACLU article, so too the Judicial Watch self-described purpose is sufficient for this article on Judicial Watch. C08040804 (talk) 21:23, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Accusing me of the same thing you did on the ACLU article won't get you anywhere. What you did was rip out an entire section. What I did was restore a citation you deleted and incorporate your changes in the intro while fixing them to insure proper reference formatting and copyright compliance. That's proper Wikipedia editing, and accusing me of malfeasances for fixing your mistakes is a non-starter. Gamaliel (talk) 21:38, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you restored a citation, but it is a citation to the Nation, a publication that does not have a neutral point of view and is hostile to Judicial Watch. What you did was restore the introductory sentence of this article offering the Nation's description of Judicial Watch. If I changed the introductory sentence of the ACLU article to offer the National Review's description of the ACLU and then cited to a National Review article, you'd be all over me for non-neutral point of view. Your claim of a copyright problem is also a non-starter. Rather than have a continual battle, why don't we agree to put the introductory paragraph of Judicial Watch on the same playing field as the ACLU--that is, just as the intro paragraph of the ACLU describes the ACLU in accordance with the ACLU's web page, so to the Judicial Watch's introductory paragraph should describe Judicial Watch in accordane with the Judicial Watch's webpage. Why is this not reasonable? C08040804 (talk) 02:39, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

You may find it amusing to parrot phrases I use back at me, but you might want to first make sure what you are saying actually makes sense. I clearly identified the copyright problem to you. When you take words from other sources, you must put them in quotation marks, otherwise you are passing it off as your own writing and thus it is plagiarism and a copyright violation. I took the time to fix the mess you made and there was no need for you to remove the work I did (as well as the references I corrected) other than blind, thoughtless reverting. We take such policy violations very seriously on Wikipedia, and if you continue to make these sorts of edits, you will be reverted, and if you persist, you will be blocked. While I think I've pretty clearly pointed out to you what the problem was, if you really don't understand, ask instead of insisting there is no problem, and I will assist you. Gamaliel (talk) 14:38, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the content of the article, I've made a minor change which I think will satisfy your concerns. Gamaliel (talk) 14:38, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

The changes that you made still leave the very opening phrase of the article describing Judicial Watch according to an editorial in the Nation, a publication that does not have a neutral point of view and is hostile to Judicial Watch. Accordingly, I have removed the reference. C08040804 (talk) 15:28, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

You initially complained about the placement in the initial sentence and the initial paragraph. I moved the reference from both of those locations. Now you want to delete it entirely. This is not acceptable. The Nation qualifies as a reliable source under Wikipedia policies and what is taken from the source is a simple statement of fact, cooberated by other statements and sources in the article, and not an ideological judgment. Also, note that you've by removing the reference and making no effort to fix the <ref> tags dependent on that reference, you've broken reference links later in the article. See Wikipedia:Footnotes before you remove references in this or other articles again. Gamaliel (talk) 15:48, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

The issue is neutral point of view, not reliable source. A critical liberal editorial in The Nation does not qualify as a Neutral Point of View in describing Judicial Watch any more than National Review would qualify as a Neutral Point of View in describing the ACLU. It is not a simple statement of fact just because the Nation said it. The phrase "American government watchdog organization" ideologically implies that the organization is somehow connected to the government. Using the Wikipedia:Footnotes policy to justify inclusion of information in the very first paragraph that comes from a non neutral point of view goes against the very heart of what Wikipedia is all about. If you continue to make these sorts of edits, I will definitely report you and take you to arbitration if necessary. C08040804 (talk) 16:05, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Okay, if your problem has been with the phrase "American government watchdog organization", then why didn't you say so earlier. I have no problem altering that phrase, and I think it's kind of awkwardly phrased anyway. I am not using the footnotes policy to "justify" anything, I'm telling you that you are breaking the footnotes and you need to fix them or you need to stop breaking them. Gamaliel (talk) 16:12, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

My problem is not simply the phrase "American government watchdog organization", but all references to the Nation's non-neutral point of view in the basic portions of the article describing the organization and its personnel. I am working on some changes and will endeavor to fix the footnotes in doing so. This will also involve editing the personnel and/or creating a policy section so it is described according to Judicial Watch's website--similar to how the introduction and policy sections of the ACLU is described in the ACLU's own words, not the words of its critics. Of course, I do not have a problem with putting separate criticism sections in the Judicial Watch article citing to the Nation editorial, provided they are labeled as such and cite reliable sources, just as I think a criticism section in the ACLU article would also be appropriate. C08040804 (talk) 16:27, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

That's fine, but the statement sourced to The Nation is not "criticism", but a simple statement of fact. Gamaliel (talk) 16:36, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Again, the statements attributed to the Nation are not simple statements of fact just because you and the Nation say so. C08040804 (talk) 17:07, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

"Klayman founded Judicial Watch in 1994.", which you removed from the article, is not a simple statement of fact? The Nation is a reliable source according to Wikipedia policies. You must come up with a similarly reliable source to dispute this information, you simply can't declare I don't like it. I agree with some of the changes (we don't need the key personnel bios, for example), but you have removed too much and I'm going to restore some of it in a different fashion. Gamaliel (talk) 18:09, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

There is no reason for you to deploy inapplicable warning templates or revert my edits. My edits contained factual information from a reliable source. There is no justification for removing them. I have made every effort to accommodate your wishes and suggestions, many of which were reasonable, but you simply can't delete information because you don't like it. Gamaliel (talk) 18:56, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

After reviewing the circumstance, I'm inclined to agree with Gamaliel. It appears that C08040804 is more bothered by The Nation, not the content of the article itself. Every time his concern is addressed, it morphs into something else. I don't see the discussion moving forward from here... just seems more disruptive than productive. /Blaxthos ( t / c ) 21:01, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

funding

Its mentioned in both the lead in a subsection and is all attributed to one less than neutral source. Could this be combined, or could the entire funding section be eliminated or at least rewritten? CENSEI (talk) 20:13, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Since the first funding mention is directly tied to the specific project the group remains best known for, it makes sense to leave it there, as well as have a funding section. However, funding probably should come after activities, and those should be chronological. Carol Moore 11:47, 19 August 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc {talk}

Removing

Obviously not NPOV statement "It should be noted that the Judicial Watch does not present facts, but uses inductive reasoning. The website does not always give sources for quotes, and is obviously not bipartisan."

Gtbob12 (talk) 02:26, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Nonpartisan?

What's wrong with saying that Judicial Watch is nonpartisan? It's supported by the CNN source and not contradicted by any other sources. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 21:33, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Probably because its sole focus is on "watching" what the Democratic Party does while virtually ignoring the Republicans. Can't get more partisan than that --108.0.215.194 (talk) 02:47, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

This article is a train wreck. There is nothing neutral about the very first sentence, which fails to acknowledge the character of the group, which is in no way nonpartisan. In fact, as the article attempts to yoke together 'nonpartisan' and 'politically conservative,' we have a chimera, or if you prefer an oxymoron. The section titled Positions is also a joke. I guess this is another one of those articles that is unsalvageable because of permanent policing of the language by those supposed "nonpartisans." Disappointing. Actio (talk) 04:45, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Judicial Watch is nonpartisan both technically (registered with IRS as 501c3) and in practice by suing both Republicans & Democrats - as well as corporations. ResearchAmerica (talk) 21:53, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

References

That's a ludicrous assertion. Yes they sued Cheney at one point. They have also sued Hillary Clinton 20 times in the last year alone! They are pretty much the definition of partisan. Ff11 (talk) 01:43, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Yeah they sued Cheney ONCE... 15 years ago. Registering as 501c3 doesn't make it a non-partisan (it has nothing to do with that), 501c3 is a tax status for non-profits. Zzsignup (talk) 23:57, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Judicial Watch is highly partisan in every sense except its tax status. http://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2016/8/30/meet-the-tax-exempt-nonprofit-behind-the-corrupt-hillary-nar.html http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/10/02/meet-judicial-watch-a-driving-force-behind-the/205941 I am therefore deleting the word "nonpartisan" from the opening paragraph. I'm leaving the rest of the article alone, even though it is a one-sided promotion that was probably edited by surrogates. Cerberus (talk) 18:23, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Neither of those sources is RS. See: Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources and Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard. James J. Lambden (talk) 18:45, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

The issue here is equivocation. In ordinary speech "partisan" means "in favor of one party rather than the other". Which JW is. But in the specific context of non-profits "non-partisan" means "not directly affiliated with with either political party". The ACLU is non-partisan in that sense. The problem is that the two meanings can be easily confused.Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:22, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Volunteer Marek Exactly right. There is no ordinary meaning in which JW can be considered nonpartisan. Using the term nonpartisan misleads the ordinary reader. To quote the Wikipedian entry on [nonpartisanism]: "Some organizations claiming to be nonpartisan are truly such; others are nominally nonpartisan (for reasons of law or public perception) but closely follow the policies of a political party." Instead of removing the incorrect adjective "nonpartisan" from the introduction, as I believe should be done since it is very misleading, I will follow the usage in the Wikipedia entry and change it to "nominally nonpartisan". However, I believe it would be bettter to simply remove the adjective "nonpartisan" as misleading. Perhaps a discussion of the controversy over its nonpartisan status would be appropriate later in the article. Cerberus (talk) 02:03, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Cerberus, an organization can be both nonparisan (not aligning itself with any political party) and ideologically conservative at the same time. Citing sources that say JW is conservative doesn't show any conflict among the sources about the group's partisan/nonpartisan alignment. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:27, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Dr. Fleischman Please read the Wikipedia entry on [nonpartisanism]. To quote: "Some organizations claiming to be nonpartisan are truly such; others are nominally nonpartisan (for reasons of law or public perception) but closely follow the policies of a political party." The sources do not simply say that JW is "conservative". To quote Inside Philanthropy: 'If there ever was a “vast right-wing conspiracy,” Judicial Watch is a card-carrying member.' Cerberus (talk) 00:58, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Fine, but CNN says JW is nonpartisan, and no reliable source says otherwise, including Inside Philanthropy. No source says JW is "nominally" nonpartisan (which is why I've reverted that addition). That's how our policies on verifiability and neutrality work. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 07:10, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

There are sources which called them "conservative" [2] [3] though, which as far as providing a service to our readers goes, is more accurate because it avoids the equivocation explained above.Volunteer Marek (talk) 13:03, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Right, that's why our article says JW is a conservative, nonpartisan organization. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 15:55, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

True. I'm just thinking if there's a better way of doing it without having to explain what "nonpartisan" really means in this context.Volunteer Marek (talk) 16:08, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

It does seem to come up over and over again in various articles about non-profits and think tanks. But I don't think there's much that can be done, what with the available sources. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:38, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Dr. Fleischman and Volunteer Marek I am finding this discussion to approach the absurd. JW cannot considered nonpartisan by any ordinary understanding of the word. Many sources attest to that. Calling it nonpartisan is therefore simply a misleading promotion of its inaccurate self description. That this self-description is controversial is common knowledge, attested to e.g by http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/13/us/politics/judicial-watch-hillary-clinton.html . A single CNN quote (which relied on JW's inaccurate self-description) is being used to revert edits that acknowledge the obvious. This feels like bullying. The use of the term "nominally" was a concession and in accord with the article on partisanship; better is simply to remove the term nonpartisan altogether. So I will do that. The attempt to hide the ties to the birther founder Klayman by calling that description "not neutral" is similarly bizarre. What is "not neutral" about it? It is a documented fact, with citation included. If you don't like the fact, that does not make it not neutral. Not only is it accurate, it is particularly relevant in a paragraph that addresses issues of partisanship. I plan to revert that deletion as well, but I will await further discussion. For now, I am removing the inaccurate and misleading claim of nonpartisanship.

My position on "nonpartisan," which I've taken on many different organizations' articles, both on the left and the right, only sounds absurd if you ignore our policies and guidelines as well as the critical difference between ideology and party affiliation. In this case, no one denies that JW is a politically conservative organization, which is why the article says as much. However we have a reliable, fact-checked and reputable source saying that JW is nonpartisan, and no reliable source that says otherwise. I agree that this was a questionable call to make, as essentially pointed out by the NY Times article, but it's still a decision that CNN's newsroom made and so we must abide by it, as we're not here to second-guess reliable sources. If you wish to pursue this further you're welcome to seek dispute resolution, but in the meantime I'm going to revert with an appropriate tag to reflect this dispute. Please do not edit war. (I'll address the birther stuff in a separate thread.) --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:18, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Dr. Fleischman Please describe the Wikipedia policy that requires that a controversial claim (as demonstrated by the NYT article) need be asserted as fact because a single source (no more credible) makes the claim *not* as part of its research but simply in citing the self-description of the organization. I do not believe such a policy exists. As the NYT article demonstrates, this is a *controversial* claim, not a simple statement of fact. Also, please explain why your repeated reversion of my edit does not constitute an "edit war", which you accuse me of. My edit is correct. Your reversion asserts as fact a controversial (and incorrect) claim in the lead paragraph. (Although this is softened by the tag you added. Thank you for that.) Cerberus (talk) 04:03, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

The relevant content policy is WP:V, which requires only a single, un-contradicted reliable source. My most recent re-addition of "non-partisan" wasn't edit warring because it wasn't a revert. I included the {{dubious}} tag to reflect that we have a good faith dispute. I think my choice of tag was rather charitable, in fact. I could have chosen {{disputed-inline}}, which actually would have been slightly more neutral. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:09, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Dr. Fleischman Your response does not satisfy me. A lot turns on the meaning you give to "uncontradicted". The entire NYT piece (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/13/us/politics/judicial-watch-hillary-clinton.html) can be viewed as laying out the case that calling JW "nonpartisan" is *at best* controversial. Your position seems to be that there is no "contradiction" unless a news source explicitly calls JW partisan. It does not take a lawyer to understand why a news organization is not going to do that with JW. As the NYT article demonstrates, JW is not perceived as nonpartisan. And as common sense indicates -- common sense that can be backed by any minimal knowledge of Klayman and Fitton -- calling JW "nonpartisan" is not an ordinary use of the word. I remain puzzled: how in your view is the article improved by including the disputed (and in fact inaccurate) descriptor "nonpartisan"?? Cerberus (talk) 21:11, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

It's improved by including valuable and verifiable information about the subject. Removal might be seen as whitewashing in violation of our policies and guidelines. You have to look at things from the other side of the political fence as well. A credible argument could be made that JW is non-partisan, since it investigated the Bush administration as well. The New York Times absolutely could have come out and said explicitly that JW is partisan, but it clearly didn't. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 21:45, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

I'm going to boldly remove the weasel words because, to me, it looks like plagiarism direct from their site's about page. I'll re-read this discussion in the morning. :-) Bookbrad (talk) 04:36, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Actually the content you removed came from a CNN story, as the citation indicated. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 05:58, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, good point! But since the content was directly quoted from a CNN blog, shouldn't it be attributed as a quoted opinion instead of being listed as a fact? I'm still pretty new to bolder editing, as I've usually stuck to simple grammatical corrections and punctuation usually - but it's not a government agency as the quote implies - and I don't believe a CNN blog counts as a reputable source. I'll just do a quick grammatical correction to avoid misinterpretation and direct plagiarism from the blog, and go back to reading the pillars of wiki. This article should shape up nicely after a little more input :-) Bookbrad (talk) 07:52, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

It's a reliable source - see WP:NEWSBLOG. No need for in-text attribution since it's a factual statement. I don't think a few works like that is plagiarism. I don't think folks would misunderstand "government watchdog group" as some sort of governmental organization, but that's fine with me. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 09:00, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

The CNN source for "non-partisan" is a blog, not an article, and the writer seems to have taken the description, including the uncommon hyphenation, straight off JW's website. Here is an actual article refuting their self-professed non-bias: half-hearted attempts at bipartisan "watchdog" activity.

... During the Bush administration they made a couple of half-hearted attempts at bipartisan “watchdog” activity by submitting Freedom of Information Act requests for Dick Cheney’s energy task force members and the White House guest logs for lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
The Obama presidency proved to be more fertile ground. Judicial Watch has accused the administration of creating dozens of “czars” that don’t exist, and has made a fetish out of lying about the Obamas’ travel expenses. This so-called watchdog group has engaged in some truly weird conspiracy-mongering. ...

That should be sufficient reason to remove the contentious adjective as well as "watchdog", which is another adjective JW is applying to itself (it's right there in the article underneath their logo). Neutral wording is "conservative group". Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 14:13, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

If you read WP:NEWSBLOG, the point is that regardless of whether it's called a "blog," it's fact-checked and published by an established, reputable news outlet. And no reliable source has directly contradicted it. The Salon article you quote is an opinion source and isn't factually reliable. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:46, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

The writer of the Salon article is Heather Digby Parton, winner of the 2014 Hillman Prize for Opinion and Analysis Journalism; she links to the sources she bases her article on. I disagree with your opinion that the article is an opinion source and not factually reliable. Here's a (hopefully more acceptable) source. Last paragraph:

Judicial Watch describes itself as “a conservative, non-partisan educational foundation” which has as its mission the promotion of “transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law.”

And quoting current ref #2 (Jonathan Mahler's NY Times article):

Judicial Watch’s claims of nonpartisanship will be tested if Republicans win the White House next month. For now, anyway, Trump seems safe from the group’s scrutiny.

Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 07:40, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

An opinion source such as the one in Salon is generally unreliable because it typically hasn't been fact-checked by someone other than the author, such as an editor. It doesn't matter how established or reputable the author is as a journalist. As for the Forbes article you link to, it doesn't contradict CNN's assessment that JW is nonpartisan. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 21:46, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

The CNN source for "non-partisan" is a blog, not an article. This has been noted previously. I challenge anyone to look at the JW Twitter feed and honestly claim that "nonpartisan" is descriptive. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cerberus0 (talk • contribs) 15:36, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

I think you forgot our subsequent conversation (in this thread, above) about our verifiability policy and about how news blogs such CNN's are reliable sources. I am restoring the "nonpartisan" label, along with the {{dubious}} tag, to bring us back to where we were before (no consensus). The tag was removed by 71.179.27.243 without explanation on March 23. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:32, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

I've reintroduced the line with an AP/Boston Globe piece stating it since CNN source appears to be insufficient for some--with more available if required to assuage. -- dsprc ^[talk] 19:39, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

The author is not an AP reporter. She is a business investment consultant.

From http://www.salon.com/2016/08/22/judicial-watch-vs-hillary-the-conservative-group-has-a-long-history-of-spreading-clinton-lies/

 The history of this group is very clear. The first time it waged its campaign of character assassination against Bill and Hillary Clinton, it’s perhaps understandable that the press failed to recognize they were being manipulated by political operatives. The trumped-up Obama scandals added up to nothing as well. There’s no excuse for the media to fall for it again.

What is the excuse for Wikipedia to promote this same deception? Cerberus (talk) 01:03, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

"The author is not an AP reporter"; Boston Globe byline says they are.

Try to find her. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cerberus0 (talk • contribs)

Salon isn't a reliable source; neither is this opinion-piece from contributing blogger Digby, nor their upstream-source of Media Matters. Doesn't say they're partisan either, and Klayman (chief-focus of this hit-piece) is no longer with the organization.

Our excuse is two five reliable sources explicitly and verifiably make the claim; which is firmer bedrock than your bollocks opinion and shit sources. -- dsprc ^[talk] 21:46, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

As Dr. Fleischman has noted, the Salon piece was previously presented and found to be unreliable. Unless new evidence supported by reliable sources is provided, I'm inclined to remove this "badge of shame" yet again. -- dsprc ^[talk] 01:03, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Few more in sandbox here--including NBC Nightly News. -- dsprc ^[talk] 03:03, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm not as confident as dsprc that the Salon source isn't reliable, but it doesn't matter, since it doesn't say that JW is not nonpartisan. Thanks to dsprc, we have four reliable sources all saying that JW is nonpartisan, and none saying it is not. I certainly understand other editors' concerns, but removing the "nonpartisan" label given the extensive sourcing would violate our core policies, which say: follow the reliable sources. It is not our job to stop the promotion of "deceptions" by established, reputable news outlets. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:21, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Just trying to understand your claim that the Salon source "doesn't say the JW is not nonpartisan". So ... your view is that Digby may mean that JW are nonpartisan political operatives? (Are we really going to play with words that way?) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cerberus0 (talk • contribs) 05:48, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

No, I'm saying Digby doesn't expressly say whether JW is partisan or nonpartisan. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 20:37, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

That is not clarifying. I agree that the word 'partisan' is not used. What in your view is the conceptual content of the article? What in your view is the meaning of the phrase 'political operative' in this context? Cerberus (talk) 12:36, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

I hear what you're saying, but see WP:SYNTH--the source must state something expressly before we can rely on it. This is a bedrock, bright line principle. Without it, every source is subject to reinterpretation. (E.g. "Where does the source say that?" "It doesn't say that, but that's what the author meant, at least by my reading." "Well not by my reading." That's the very sort of debate our verifiability policy is designed to avoid.) If Digby wanted to say that JW was partisan, then she easily could have said that explicitly--but she didn't. She didn't even explicitly say JW was biased toward Republicans or treated the two parties differently. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 16:42, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

So if I understand you, you agree that any reasonable reader of the article is will conclude that JW is partisan (according to Digby), but since she did not say it explicitly, this entry cannot say it. But the request is not that the article say that JW is partisan. It is that it not say that it is nonpartisan. Cerberus (talk) 14:28, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

No, that is not what I'm saying, and I don't think I could be any clearer: We have several reliable sources all explicitly saying that JW is nonpartisan, and no reliable sources explicitly contradicting that. From a policy perspective that should settle the debate. I have nothing more to add. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 16:18, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

For assertion that Sara Lepro is not an AP journalist and that one should try to find her: I did, and they are a prolific author for both AP wire service and numerous publications printing the wires. (In the future, properly thread replies instead of interjecting in middle of other's comments.) If JW is partisan one should present multiple reliable sources which state as much, and reliance upon a single opinion-blogger (Digby) becomes moot. Arguing Digby for over five months(!) is a dead horse at this point; let us not pound that horse into soap just so there is a box to stand on. -- dsprc ^[talk] 23:26, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Your view of Digby is disputed. See above. And to restate the obvious: the reason you are finding statements that JW is nonpartisan is that reporters are simply taking the description from their page. The only piece that actually investigates their purported nonpartisanship concludes that they are "political operatives" who have bamboozled the media. (Thanks however for finding Lepro; I tried and failed.) Cerberus (talk) 14:28, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

Digby is an opinion-blogger; that's what won their award from a progressive advocacy group. Calling hackery an "investigation" is generous, to say the least. Ten examples have been provided demonstrating a broad-spectrum of media labeling JW non-partisan for nearly two decades now.[4] Ignoring that consensus and repeating the same position over again isn't going to change it. (But your edit-warring will swing the ban-hammer.) Your "obvious" wild guess for why that consensus may be isn't reliable. Come back with evidence that isn't Digby parroting Media Matters, which explicitly states the party and in what manner JW is affiliated, then you might have something. -- dsprc ^[talk] 16:59, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

• We are getting nowhere. Arguments are being recycled, and we are entrenched in our positions. There is no consensus at this time to remove the "nonpartisan" label and the supporting sources. I suggest that anyone seeking to establish such a consensus do so via dispute resolution. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 16:20, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

User:DrFleischman, I thought we had agreed that the dubious label would nevertheless remain because of this disagreement. Note that Dsprc has repeatedly removed it without justification (in this context). I am also curious about the basis on which Dsprc threatens to ban me for reverting his change, which does not reflect consensus on this list. That aggression seems abusive to me. I would think that the expression of doubt in the community would have editorial priority over his desire to enforce his view. Thanks in advance for your insights. Cerberus (talk) 20:18, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

My feelings about {{dubious}} changed when Dsprc identified several reliable sources beyond CNN that described JW as nonpartisan. At this point I believe that insistence on the tag is no longer justifiable. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 20:21, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Are you forgetting the NYT article that expressed doubt about JW's nonpartisanship? (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/13/us/politics/judicial-watch-hillary-clinton.html). The claim of nonpartisanship is evidently dubious. I find it out and out bizarre. None of the articles cited *investigate* the nonpartisanship of JW; they just rely on JW's self-description (or possibly this now misleading Wikipedia article, which now contributes to the media failures identified by Digby.) How will these doubts be reflected in the article? Will you propose some other more appropriate tag? Cerberus (talk) 20:42, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

No I am not forgetting it, and no I will not propose another tag because I don't think a tag would be appropriate. Please either pursue DR or drop the stick. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 20:53, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Please use "they" and "their" not "he" and "his" when referring to myself.

Justification is RS overwhelmingly saying for decades; with zero presented directly contradicting. Aforementioned NYT piece merely said non-partisanship would "be tested" if Trumpians won White House. When reviewing Digby, NYT et al, they fail to back claims made on talk page, and is why explicit evidence was requested; providing that, not only can 'non-partisan' be removed from lede but conflicting positions can be written into article body if reliably sourced and passing verification.

Blocks are different from bans; I've neither power[5] nor desire for either but they remain possible remedies for disruption. Should one find such remedies undesirable: seek DR as suggested or simply let it go before coming to that. -- dsprc ^[talk] 02:22, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Whew. That was a long thread. Dr. Fleischman, with all due respect, why does it matter to you so much that this group be labeled the way they advertise themselves? Isn't it like calling FOX NEWS "Fair and Balanced"? It's pretty clear to me that the consensus opinion here, excepting yourself, is that Judicial Watch is an advocacy group. Dispute Resolution seems rather drastic for something that you could simply drop. Would you consider doing that, please? If not, please let us know why you are so invested in this one word. Thank you. Ben (talk) 03:06, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

[P.S. Just to be clear, I presume Dr. Fleischman is writing in good faith. I want to understand his motivation, not impugn his character, when I ask why he feels so strongly.]] Ben (talk) 03:15, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

No, I am not the only person taking that position. Why do you want to know why it matters to me? Perhaps we should take it to user talk, as "why it matters to me" is an editor issue, not an article issue. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 04:15, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

• There is a clear consensus that Judicial Watch is a partisan organization, that there is no such thing as a "conservative non-partisan" organization, and that Dr. Fleischman is being willfully obtuse in his defense of the non-partisanship of Judicial Watch. They aren't ashamed of their partisanship, you shouldn't be either. Mugsywwiii (talk) 08:56, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

No, there is no such consensus, let alone a “clear” one. Let’s focus on Wikipedia community standards. We have some editors who want to follow the reliable sources, and some who don’t because obviously how could JW be partisan. That basically sums up our predicament. Now if you want to ‘’obtain’’ a consensus, I’m all for that. Feel free to set up an RfC. —Dr. Fleischman (talk) 16:10, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

It seems there's at least a consensus that they are "nominally" nonpartisan. I have edited article as such. ChrisBrown (talk) 01:32, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

No there isn't. "Nominally nonpartisan" hasn't even been mentioned, so there's no way it could have consensus. "Nominally nonpartisan" simply not verifiable, it's as simple as that. --04:20, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

"Judicial Watch is an American conservative non-partisan" Fix this nonsense. This is contradictory and your argument here makes a joke out of WP. Pick ONE of these or leave out both of them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.91.168.72 (talk) 21:00, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Only a joke to those who don't understand our community standards or the various meanings of "non-partisan." --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 22:11, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Yup. They are just as happy to go after a Republican who fails their ideological purity test as after a Democrat, all of whom of course fail it by definition. 23:21, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

I'm going to stick with what the reliable sources say so I'm not even going to touch that. . --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 23:58, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

There is no way that this org is non-partisan. It's a misnomer to call it "conservative non-partisan". That makes zero sense. Would it make sense to call it "liberal non-partisan?" not at all. I would like to remove "non-partisan" reference. It is clearly a partisan conservative propaganda arm and should be labeled as such and not try to masquerade as some kind of neutral party which is certainly is not. Someone ask an admin for an arbitration if this is going to turn into an edit war. Anyone who is editing this article with a conservative bias should recuse themselves from the discussion as you're not editing objectively and in the spirit of Wikipedia.Techimo (talk) 20:10, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

I oppose for the reasons already given. Please gain consensus before making your proposed change. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 21:20, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

Shouldn't this be in quotes?

These documents show the talking points used by the White House were misleading and were an attempt to blame the attack a video rather than administration policy. Specifically, an email from White House Deputy Strategic Communications Adviser Ben Rhodes which was sent on sent on Friday, September 14, 2012, at 8:09PM shows an orchestrated a campaign to mislead. The email “prep” was for Rice’s Sunday news show appearances to discuss the Benghazi attack.[30]

Your link is to an article BY JW. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.204.79.148 (talk) 16:44, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Many violations of NPOV

This article contains many instances which violate the neutral point of view Wikipedia guideline. On example, the subsection "Commerce department trade mission scandal" begins "The scandal involved a scheme by Clinton administration officials ...". Titling the subsection as a scandal and then stating that it was a scandal that involved a scheme implies wrongdoing was found as a result of legal action(s). No wrongdoing was found. Many other examples of blatant bias can be found in almost every section. How could this article have gotten to be in such a horrid state ? Ronald Joe Record (talk) 22:00, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

In addition, I think the extensive citing of material from the Judicial Watch website is problematic. This reads like a piece of marketing material for Judicial Watch. Tagging NPOV. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.139.9.64 (talk) 04:02, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

The Benghazi section is especially bad. And too much detail as well. 2600:1002:B112:D094:48A2:7422:3595:68FF (talk) 18:37, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

I've cut down much of this crud. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 00:15, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Why not cut out the entire first paragraph of the Benghazi section. Or, better yet, cut it out entirely. JW has made hundreds of FOIA requests in its history. Adding a section specific to Benghazi highlights its conservative agenda, even though many editors try to hide the fact that it's a partisan organization. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.127.133.254 (talk) 11:16, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

It's impossible to cut the first paragraph and still give sufficient background to make the second paragraph intelligible. The second paragraph is noteworthy, as evidenced by articles such as this one from the Tampa Bay Times. If we're giving undue emphasis to this part of JW's agenda--a concern I share--then the solution is to tighten it up/and or add additional content about other parts of JW's agenda. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 16:06, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

No, it's not "impossible" to cut out the first paragraph. In fact, the first two words of the second paragraph ("In response") is speculation, since it's not even clear that the video referenced in the first paragraph is at all the reason that JW made the FOIA request. Even the citation of the findings from JW on Benghazi in the second paragraph is to a "Press Release" that isn't even linked.

The events of Benghazi that occurred on 9/11/12 has it's own page, and it's unnecessary to have another version of the events in this page, especially when they're not even properly sourced. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.127.133.254 (talk) 12:12, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Use of Judicial Watch press releases as citations

Several of the citations used in this article are press releases put out by Judicial Watch. I do not believe those are legitimate citations. They should be removed and the statements they provide citation for either revised or removed. Ronald Joe Record (talk) 22:00, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

I've removed most of these references, though there are probably more to go. Some of these press releases may be appropriate per WP:ABOUTSELF. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 00:15, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

NYT article

There was a NYT article on this outfit a few days ago, in case it might help with sourcing: [6]. -Darouet (talk) 01:05, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Klayman birtherism

Cerberus0 contends:

"The attempt to hide the ties to the birther founder Klayman by calling that description "not neutral" is similarly bizarre. What is "not neutral" about it? It is a documented fact, with citation included. If you don't like the fact, that does not make it not neutral. Not only is it accurate, it is particularly relevant in a paragraph that addresses issues of partisanship. I plan to revert that deletion as well, but I will await further discussion. For now, I am removing the inaccurate and misleading claim of nonpartisanship."

I have no problem with the established fact that Klayman is an established birther. What I do have a problem with is describing him simply as "conservative attorney and birther Larry Klayman," which puts far too much emphasis on only one controversial aspect of his career of many, and doesn't reflect the lead section of his article, which makes no mention of his birtherism. From a neutrality perspective I'd be much more comfortable describing him as "conservative attorney and conspiracy theorist Larry Klayman," or "conservative attorney and wingnut Larry Klayman," provided we have reliable sources that support these descriptors. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:29, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

IRS controversity.

You have said here [[7]] that the IRS targeted conservative groups. You restate that several times. However, it was eventually revealed that right-wing groups were not alone. In the Wikipedia article IRS targeting controversy, other organizations are mentioned, too - ones that also include such terms as "progressive", "occupy", "open source software", "medical marijuana", and "occupied territory advocacy" in their names. The IRS section here needs to be amended to state that political groups of both sides were targeted.

Here are the sources for that inclusion as used by the main article:

• http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-06-24/irs-screened-applications-using-progressive-israel-
• http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/the_irs_scandal_narrative_unwi.php

Thank you, Wordreader (talk) 05:36, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

 Done Thank you. By the way, no single person writes articles here (there is no "you") and you are free to make changes, provided of course that you try to follow our policies and guidelines. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 08:02, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Rated as a Fake news website

See rating of the group as a fake news website: http://www.politifact.com/personalities/judicial-watch/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.106.103.56 (talk) 21:02, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

I don't see anything there rating JW as a fake news website. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 21:58, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

It has 2 ratings, 1 is false on ISIS camp set up close to Texas, 1 is mostly False about Trayvon Martin. Why is wikipedia allowing this not to be mentioned? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.106.103.55 (talk) 21:17, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

That Politicfact ranked one of Judicial Watch's statements as "false" and another one as "mostly false" is not particularly noteworthy; it did not state that Judicial Watch was a "fake news website". --Weazie (talk) 23:16, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

False and fake are two very different things. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 05:17, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

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"Non-partisan"

I just made a change to the introduction (sorry, wasn't logged in) to try to balance the first article which makes a brash claim that Judicial Watch is "non-partisan". While I know that that is how Judicial Watch labels themselves, it seemed unlikely that anyone else would. A quick look at some of the bazillion articles (okay, actually five) used as citations for that one word showed newspapers that were simply mentioning the group, not making any claims about partisanship. There was one citation that might have been relevant (WaPo: Chairman Polishes Non-partisan Credentials), but the link goes to the Star Tribune, so I'm not sure what the article actually says.

For now, I've left the claim that they're "non-partisan" in the intro, but made it more clear that this is a claim by the group itself and that it is not universally held. I also left in all five citations even though they have dubious value. I think it will be much cleaner to delete them all and just link directly to where Judicial Watch claims to be non-partisan instead of trying to reference newspapers that are just referencing Judicial Watch's claims. Ben (talk) 02:49, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

This issue was discussed somewhere - "non-partisan" is actually a tax status designation (iirc), it really has nothing to do with "non-partisan" as commonly understood.Volunteer Marek (talk) 04:26, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Ben, I'm sorry, I don't understand. CNN, The Boston Globe, the Star Tribute, CNSNews, and The Washington Post all call JW non-partisan. What do you mean these reliable sources were "not making any claims about partisanship?" When they say the organization is non-partisan, it seems to me they are making a claim about partisanship. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 05:03, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Ten sources, not five.[8] (reason for not citing is pure apathy.) Evidence shows, in practice, others do label JW as such, contrary to baseless assertions otherwise. Reliable sources say it, as do we. If reliable sources disagree, they may be worked into a section covering differing views; properly attributed, of course. -- dsprc ^[talk] 10:18, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

They are equally happy to attack anyone who does not meet their fundamentalist libertarian purity test, regardless of party. They are not aligned to a party, much as Mercer and the Koch brothers are not aligned to a party - this view of nonpartisanship might, of course, change over time, as the hostile takeover of the Republican Party by the Kochtopus brings the two ideologies more closely into alignment. Guy (Help!) 13:13, 9 February 2018 (UTC).

That's a pretty good summary. The New York Times explains how JW's self-description as non-partisan is controversial. Nevertheless reliable sources consistently call JW non-partisan, as pointed out by dsprc. Our job is simply to pass that on to our readers. If/when a reliable source says that JW has crossed the line into partisanship, then we can and should include that per our neutrality policy. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:40, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

what about trump?

so what has this "non-partisan" organisation done about trump's increasingly dubious legal track record?

& did they have anything to say about the arpaio pardon?

did they have anything to say about ANYTHING in trump's record?

did they even bother TRYING to get info about the multitude of lawsuits he's been in, & mostly settled, mostly on closed terms?

Lx 121 (talk) 19:50, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

undoing collapse of my comment by a user who didn't even bother to comment.

"not a forum" rationale in no way invalidates my points that:

1. the article needs updating re: activities during the trump administation

&

2. the claims of "non partisanship" are looking increasingly dubious.

respectfully,

Lx 121 (talk) 07:52, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying. Your first comment didn't say anything about our article, so I thought you were just ranting about JW. Please try to focus your comments on improvements to the article, as you did in your second comment. So, as to your second comment:

1. If you find reliably sourced content about JW's activities during the Trump administration, by all means be bold and add them!
2. Whether JW is or is not non-partisan isn't our call to make. It's make by the independent reliable sources, which at this point all say that JW is non-partisan. Perhaps someday there will be sources saying that JW is partisan, at which time we can adjust our article to reflect them. If you find such sources by all means provide links to them here!

--Dr. Fleischman (talk) 16:32, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

New section for Controversial, False, or Misleading comments

Hello, I had created a new section that was partly combined with another and partly removed. When I responded I was encouraged to discuss it here-the wisdom of which I can see as there are multiple people discussing various things. So here is a copy and paste of my response to what happened to the section I added. Thoughts?

I noticed you did 2 major things to a relatively well referenced section I added. I read the reasons for each action and have 2 questions about that.

1. How many false statements are required to provide a section noting that this organization has generated "Controversial, False, and Misleading" statements?

2. And this is more complex so I'll go into greater depth. The only place source you cited as contradicting me was Politifact (which I am familiar with and often read). I believe I found the article in Politifact which you are referring to and would point out that there are different implications in the different statements Scott Walker made in 2013 (which it evaluated in that article) and Judicial Watch in 2011.

Specifically the 2013 statement was that FDR "felt there wasn’t a need in the public sector to have collective bargaining because the government is the people."

The Politifact article that rated this as true noted FDR's feelings on public unions may be debated this is more in terms of the range of things a public union could do (not on if they existed) and at the time there was not much of a public sector union tradition while private sector unions already had been building for several years.

While the 2011 Judicial Watch statement said FDR "opposed" public unions. This is on if they may exist and therefor advocate for public workers on any of the issues unions typically do.

Additionally Large numbers of public workers had not yet been unionized so that was a decision of someone before this time.

Moreover his administration's actions (as mentioned in the Politifact article) did not "oppose" the formation of public unions or public worker membership within them. The article referred to unions of workers associated with the Tennessee Valley Authority. Also it noted FDR said that federal workers were "free to join 'any union they want'" and that "managers should listen to worker concerns, whether raised by union representatives or not".

Since Governor Walker refused to even meet with union members or representatives during the time Act 10 was being debated and protested this arguably was a violation of the spirit of FDR's views on how to interact with public workers and their treatment.

Judicial Watch exaggerated, at best, FDR's views on public workers and their unions and did so during a time of political unease over an unexpected change in several decades of traditional and legal recognition of public sector unions in Wisconsin. This was misleading.

What was also misleading in the Judicial watch statement was the claim that this was done for fiscal reasons when statewide unions had offered to take every fiscal cut he requested-meaning this was not over fiscal matters.

Perhaps I should have added that to my explanation of how the Judicial Watch commentary was misleading but this does qualify as misleading commentary. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pplr (talk • contribs) 13:48, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for writing. To answer your first question, there is no hard and fast rule, but the relevant standard is WP:UNDUE. I'd think you'd need several falsehoods or misleading statements at a minimum before they warranted their own section. As for your second question, the problem with the content as you wrote it is that it was classic original research. We need a reliable source that explicitly says something is false before we can say it's false, or a reliable source that explicitly says something is misleading before we can say it's misleading. So, you need to cite a source that explicitly says JW's statement about FDR was false or misleading before we can add this content. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 23:11, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Ok, I'll take "several" as the equal to seven for a minimum. And thank you for defining what is both "original research" and a "reliable source". Though this leads me to a different question relating to one of the other parts of the talk page.

Is mediamatters considered a "reliable source"? Someone claimed it did not, but if it does not match what is a "reliable source" then other organizations like Judicial Watch and watchdog.org don't as they do not fit the definition of a "reliable source" and thus should not be used as sources either. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pplr (talk • contribs) 23:32, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Some sources are borderline and consensus could come out either way on them. MediaMatters might be one of those. You can dig through the WP:RSN archives to see if the issue has come up one way or the other on that one. I don't know about watchdog.org either. As for JW itself, no JW is an activist organization and is generally unreliable; however see WP:ABOUTSELF--organizations that are otherwise unreliable may be reliable for information about themselves, depending on the content. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 23:41, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

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No longer a ‘lonely battle’: How the campaign against the Mueller probe has taken hold

Tom Fitton, president of the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, said “our concerns about Mueller are beginning to take hold.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/no-longer-a-lonely-battle-how-the-campaign-against-the-mueller-probe-has-taken-hold/2017/12/24/441fc726-e5cb-11e7-a65d-1ac0fd7f097e_story.html?utm_term=.11b6e8a48fb7

Wikipietime (talk) 18:22, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Mass-removal of reliably sourced text

In mass-removing reliably sourced text[9], one user asserts that (1) the text violates WP:DE, (2) content was removed without explanation and (3) that text was unsourced. All these assertions are complete and utter nonsense. #2 is at the very least a bold-faced lie. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 16:49, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

user:VirgilGilmour, I have not been "banned or blocked" from editing this page or any other page. I've been banned from copy-pasting the same content (more or less) to more than two pages. As you've now only provided incorrect (if we assume good faith) or deceptive (if we assume bad faith) edit summaries and crossed WP:3RR, I encourage you to self-revert. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 17:21, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Fully support Snooganssnoogans' position on this. VirgilGilmour please do not engage in this sort of disruption. If you want to delete reliably sourced content you'd better explain yourself here first. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 19:07, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Apologies if I've gotten something wrong here, but I've been trying to stop the disruption, not engage in it. Upon looking at this page I immediately noticed that there was a ton of biased content, and after looking at viewing the history I noticed that most of that content came recently from Snooganssnoogans. For example, user removed part of the first paragraph where it referenced that Judicial Watch had sued the Bush administration. I then noticed that Snooganssnoogans had been banned from mass edits, which was defined as making similar edits to more than one page. Snoog had already made similar edits to Tom Fitton's page, so this seems like a clear violation of that ban. To clear things up I reported this matter to Dennis Brown - 2¢) the administrator who banned Snooganssnoogans. Dennis had previously warned Snoog as follows, 'You need to remember how we got here. There were serious concerns about your editing and WP:NPOV as it seems you were focusing solely on adding material to many politicians of a single party, material that could be seen as reflecting negatively on them. That isn't allowed. Doing it en mass compounded the problem. We collectively decided to give you the opportunity to correct that error yourself by only limiting the mass contributions. If your editing continues to be biased when taken as a whole, I would expect more sanctions. You need to take these concerns to heart, and take them seriously as you are already under Arb sanction now. By only limiting the mass postings, we have shown a tremendous amount of good faith that you will "get it".' Given all that, I thought it would be most appropriate to revert the page back to the way it was before Snoog's edits, pending either a consensus or a determination by Dennis Brown - 2¢. VirgilGilmour (talk) 19:57, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Who made you enforcer of Snooganssnoogans' sanction? If you really want to take that approach, then report Snoog to an administrator. But mass-reverting content on this basis is hogwash frankly. If you believe the content is non-neutral then please explain why. All I see is reliably sourced factual content. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 20:15, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Take a deep breath, doc. I DID report Snoog. And I never tried to enforce anything...just deleted clearly biased content from a user known (and banned) for biased content. If you honestly think this page passes the giggle test with regard to objectivity, then fine by me. VirgilGilmour (talk) 20:31, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Like I said, if you want content removed on the basis of neutrality, then you have to explain why. Simply saying it doesn't pass the giggle test isn't enough. Identify which content doesn't fairly reflect which sources. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 20:40, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

• Again, you need a diff to that exact sanction, and DrFleischman is correct. That looks like that wasn't imposed by me, that looks like that was a close by me at ANI, which means I merely summarized and closed a discussion. ie: it wasn't a unilateral sanction. If it was done at ANI, then file a complaint at ANI. If it was done at AE, then file a complaint at AE. What you don't do is go all vigilante and interpret the close by yourself. That is is disruptive, as in WP:DE kind of disruptive. Let admin do their jobs by taking it to the appropriate admin board. Otherwise, you risk getting blocked yourself. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 02:09, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Vince Foster

Removed section that stated the Judicial Watch had sired controversy over Vince Foster Suicide. Source is 2016 article making passing non-cited references to Klayman in 1993 before Judaical Watch was founded. If supported it could should be on Klayman's bio not Judical Watch. Attributing it to Judaical Watch before Judicial Watch was founded is patently false. Bigred58 (talk) 08:01, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

No, the source doesn't say that Klayman stirred the conspiracy theory in 1993. It doesn't say when he stirred the theory, but what is known is that the theory heated up after Klayman founded JW. Read Vince Foster for more details. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 09:00, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Lede

Phmoreno, would you mind proposing your edits here before making them? I'm not trying to be obstructionist, just compliant with our community standards. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 21:46, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Which citation states that most of Judicial Watch's lawsuits have been dismissed? The reference cited made no such claim.Phmoreno (talk) 21:54, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

This one: "Judicial Watch’s strategy is simple: Carpet-bomb the federal courts with Freedom of Information Act lawsuits. A vast majority are dismissed." --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 23:03, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

The lede is biased POV and needs to reflect some of the notable accomplishments of Judicial Watch. Right now it is a discrediting hit job. It is highly significant that Judicial Watch uncovered Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server, as well as the conspiracy between the FBI and IRS to try to prosecute donors to Tea Party organizations.Phmoreno (talk) 22:01, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

While I think the lead is fairly neutral, I'd be fine with adding a brief (perhaps 1-2 sentence) summary of JW's most noteworthy activities. The tricky thing is that it's hard to summarize JW's successes succinctly since they require a lot of backstory. Also, we shouldn't be focusing on just one project to the exclusion of all others, as you did here. And we definitely shouldn't be using JW's website to decide what's noteworthy. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 23:13, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Clinton's private email server is one of the most noteworthy events in recent political history. Though Judicial Watch didn't discover it themselves, their FOIA lawsuit led to the discovery. The IRS colluding with the FBI evidence is fairly recent. The FBI had 1.5 million IRS documents in it's possession. Perhaps we will hear more about that from Inspector General Horowitz. My edit clearly attributed this as a quote by Fitton, which you can read on the Judicial Watch website. I am not using that source to veryify Fitton's claim, only that he he made it tn the J.W. website.Phmoreno (talk) 00:02, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Fitton's claims aren't significant. What belongs in the lead are the most important verifiable facts about JW. This means that they have to be supported by reliable independent sources. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 00:20, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

C-SPAN is a secondary source on one reference.Phmoreno (talk) 00:26, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

No, the C-SPAN source isn't independent or reliable. It's just an interview of Fitton. No one has fact-checked Fitton's statements. We need independent sources that have been fact-checked, like newspaper articles. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 01:25, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Also, I don't think you're going to be able to obtain consensus that HRC's e-mail server is "one of the most noteworthy events in recent political history." Perhaps try a different argument that's not so blatantly polarizing? Many editors (myself) tend to focus on what has received the most media coverage. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 01:24, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Also, Judicial Watch's activities are cherry picked. J.W. has a long list of significant information gained from FOIA lawsuits.Phmoreno (talk) 00:07, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

I believe they're cherry picked based on what has received coverage in reliable independent secondary sources, which is how they should be picked. If you find an activity that you think we're missing, you can note it here along with the relevant sources. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 01:26, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Judicial Watch's success stories have received extensive media coverage, but this article is not my main focus. I came here looking for some specific information and found a very slanted article. At the very least the lede should be improved.Phmoreno (talk) 01:31, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

That's fine. Your help identifying the activities that have been covered by the reliable media would be helpful, but of course we're all volunteers. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 01:34, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

• The Washington Free Beacon and the ACLJ aren't reliable sources. Can you please post your proposed changes here before implementing them? --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 01:33, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Not RS, according to you, but they are according to Wikipedia guidelines.Phmoreno (talk) 01:46, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

"Because I said so" is not the most convincing argument to use here. How about pointing out why you think it's true? --Calton | Talk 04:23, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

50 Top Conservative Web Sites Phmoreno (talk) 13:10, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

References

And just what the HELL does a conservative website's popularity contest about its little walled garden have to do with WP:RELIABLESOURCE? --Calton | Talk 15:48, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Just to point out the blindingly obvious, the less likely a source s to appear on a list of sources preferred by one ideology or another, the more likely it is to be usable on Wikipedia. we prefer objective fact from analytical sources, ideally ones that don't have a strong ideological commitment to a specific point of view. Also the idea of "bias" against conservative websites is a stable trope of the far right, but not backed by objective evidence. I think I understand the reason behind it though. The right is dominated by thought leaders from the fields of religion and economics, two areas where rhetoric, not evidence, is the test of Truth™. That's fine until they start entering areas where empirical fact comes into play. Thus, it is fine to argue, philosophically, that climate change is not real or tax cuts cause everyone to become richer via trickle-down, but the observed facts show these to be incorrect views, and that will tend to lead to friction between those who consider that rhetoric is sufficient to establish truth, and those who consider objective evidence to be important. It's a rehashing of the 17th Century debate between philosophy and natural philosophy, which became science. Guy (Help!) 14:34, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Off topic.Phmoreno (talk) 14:52, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

It is not "off topic" to explain why biased sources are unlikely to successfully offset reality-based commentary on Wikipedia. Wikipedia follows empirical reality, not rhetorical reality. That's the point. Guy (Help!) 15:48, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Given your inability to realize the importance of facts and the unimportance of rhetorical games in deciding what goes into Wikipedia articles, I'm going to say that it's perfectly on-topic. --Calton | Talk 15:48, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Arbitration DS

This article is clearly under the scope of Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/American politics 2. Due to revert warring and the politically charged nature of the topic, I have added standard discretionary sanctions. Guy (Help!) 11:06, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Thank Guy. While I’m totally in line with you on the goal, perhaps you’d reconsider the editing restrictions or at least tone them down? This article really hasn’t seen much long-term disruption. Isolated problems can be dealt with in other ways that don’t inhibit productive editing quite so much. Personally I think bare DS without the editing restrictions is more appropriate when there’s little or no edit warring. —Dr. Fleischman (talk) 16:35, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

I am happy to review in a month, but there are live news stories on Fox referencing Judicial Watch and I don't think the recent edit war is necessarily a coincidence. Guy (Help!) 17:28, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. Not my first choice but I'm okay with that. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:30, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

The N-word

There's a lot of noise above about the word nonpartisan. Although this is supported by sources, I see the confusion: "conservative nonpartisan" is pretty close to an oxymoron in 2018. Given that conservative and Republican are actually different words but with almost indistinguishable meaning right now, is there any reason we should not move this lower down? It's a technical point: Yes, they have no party alignment. They agree with many Republicans, a few independents, and pretty much no Democrats.

I'm not saying remove it ,just move it down. "Conservative nonpartisan" in the opening sentence of the lede on such an obviously political organisation violates the principle of minimum astonishment. If you sue for White House access records in 2009 and not in 2017, when they stopped being provided, you may not be technically party aligned, but you're sure as hell partisan. Guy (Help!) 23:45, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

Regarding whether JW is nonpartisan, we've been over this a million times: you can believe they're partisan, and that's a reasonable personal belief, but it can't be reflected in our article the sources are unanimous that JW is nonpartisan. I am okay with bumping "nonpartisan" down in a vacuum. However I think that "conservative" definitely belongs at the top of the first paragraph. It's an intrinsic part of who they are and leaving it out is doing a disservice to readers. And shouldn't "nonpartisan" be alongside "conservative?" --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 04:00, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

Yes, conservative stays right up front, because it is their defining characteristic. Nonpartisan is a thing they have to claim to be in order to qualify for 501(c)(3). It would be interesting to see if it survived a challenge from the IRS, but under the current regime that's not going to happen. As per the opening statement: it's in sources, we're not going to exclude it, but "conservative nonpartisan" is a "WTF?", especially for this organisation, given its history. Guy (Help!) 10:19, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

Interesting conversation. Most convincing to me is the fact that they must claim to be nonpartisan to hold their 501(c)(3) status, but do we need to say that in the opening sentence? I'm in agreement with placing it farther down in the lead, assuming that there is agreement that it must be in the lead besides the body. Gandydancer (talk) 16:20, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

Are we misleading readers by saying they're conservative without also saying nearby that they're also nonpartisan? It seems like the two concepts are closely tied in that they're two important aspects of JW's political positioning. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 01:58, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

Er, no. They are a fundamentalist libertarian organisation whose agenda overlaps almost entirely with the Republican Party. While they are not affiliated, their points of disagreement with the GOP are arund areas where JW thinks the GOP is too left-wing. JW has close to zero overlap with the Democratic Party. Guy (Help!) 18:27, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

Recent edits by ResearchApproach

ResearchApproach, can you please discuss your major changes here before implementing them? I'd personally like to understand a more about your approach. Regarding the note you left on my user talk, I generally try to avoid criticism ghettos for the reasons articulated in WP:CRITICISM. There may be a way to address your concerns without creating a criticism ghetto. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 22:28, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Hey - I'm not trying to remove negative information about Judicial Watch. I want the page to be clean, organized, and fair. I don't think it makes sense to have many random claims of falsehood (and other criticism) listed in the "major investigations and lawsuits" section. That section should explain what activity Judicial Watch does, not be merely a list of complaints about the group. Is that fair? ResearchApproach (talk) 17:39, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

For a specific example, the "Trump Nazi Billboard" reference, by all means feel free to keep that in, but it is really a "major investigation or lawsuit"? I think it would be fair to list that somewhere else, such as a "disputed claims" section. I'm just trying to be fair here. ResearchApproach (talk) 17:46, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

We're merely including the activities that have been covered by independent reliable sources. It would be great to have an overview at the top of the section - perhaps you can add one? In the meantime, I agree that "major" is problematic. We don't have verification that these activities are "major." I'm going to change this to "notable," which is more consistent with other similar articles. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 01:02, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Fair point. Nothing about these loons is "major" - they generally lose, after all. Ed Brayton refers to Klayman as "the dumbest lawyer in America not named Mat Staver", and vice-versa. Guy (Help!) 09:26, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Undue to mention lawsuits against Republicans in the lede

The organization occasionally files lawsuits against Republicans. This does not belong in the lede, and gives a misleading appearance of non-partisanship. RS do not describe Judicial Watch as an organization that goes after both Democrats and Republians, and it's ludicrous to suggest that this is the case given the near-singular focus on attacking Democrats through all kinds of smears and BS. This is how WaPo describes Judicial Watch: "Judicial Watch’s main targets have been Democrats, particularly the Clintons and the administration of President Obama."[10] The only ones saying that JW goes after Republicans is JW itself. JW is not a RS about itself. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 14:08, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

• Well, it would be easy enough to establish of this is WP:UNDUE: can you provide counts of lawsuits targeting Republican vs. Democratic administrations? Guy (Help!) 14:11, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

WaPo: "Judicial Watch’s main targets have been Democrats, particularly the Clintons and the administration of President Obama."[11] Snooganssnoogans (talk) 14:14, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Well, duh, but in order for the complained-of text to qualify as WP:UNDUE we need more than just it not being the main target. After all, that source actually supports the claim tat they have targeted Republican administrations. Guy (Help!) 15:19, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

The only thing that the source says is that JW claims to be bipartisan in its investigations. WaPo did not opt for a description of "oh, they go after both GOP and Dems". That's only what Fitton, a serial liar and conspiracy theorist, says. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 15:24, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

So we have a claim of bipartisan targeting backed by at least one example. And what was your counter-evidence, again? Counts would settle it. If it's 300:1, easy. 10:1? Maybe. 5:1? Tricky. Guy (Help!) 20:21, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

That's why I used the qualifier "although" before mentioning George W. Bush. Judicial Watch has sued Republicans and I feel it is fair to note that. They even have an anti-Trump blogger now. A few citations are below. Thank you! ResearchApproach (talk) 17:42, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

In July 2003 Judicial Watch joined the environmental organization Sierra Club in suing the George W. Bush administration for access to minutes of Vice President Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force. Judicial Watch was involved in a similar legal dispute with Vice President Dick Cheney in 2002 when the group filed a shareholder lawsuit against Halliburton. The lawsuit, which accused Halliburton of accounting fraud, alleged that "when Mr. Cheney was chief executive of Halliburton, he and other directors inflated revenue reports, boosting Halliburton's share price." As reported by the Wall Street Journal the court filing claims the oil-field-services concern overstated revenue by a total of $445 million from 1999 through the end of 2001.

References

But this was already known. What's needed are statistics or (better) independent commentary on the proportion of their activism that goes red versus blue. Guy (Help!) 20:21, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Lawsuit against Larry Klayman

It would appear JW's long-running lawsuit against Klayman has resulted in a substantial verdict in JW's favor. Unfortunately, I presently cannot find a WP:RS. --Weazie (talk) 20:26, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Activist/watchdog

The article currently says JW is an activist group, and doesn't say it's a watchdog group. I'm not suggesting that these two things are mutually exclusive. There are a number of reliable sources calling it a watchdog group (ex: [12] [13]) and a number calling it an activist group (ex: [14] [15] [16] [17]). So what do we call this thing? A conservative activist watchdog group? --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:41, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

"conservative activist group and watchdog group"? Snooganssnoogans (talk) 18:50, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Maybe because activist and watchdog are mutually exclusive. A watchdog is implicitly neutral and holds a body to objective standards, JW prefers to measure against conformance to its extremist agenda. Which is why its lawsuits mainly fail. Guy (Help!) 11:24, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

If they're mutually exclusive, then we must describe the contradiction among the sources with appropriate weight. This probably would mean we'd have to exclude both descriptors from the first sentence. But, in my view they aren't mutually exclusive. I don't think it's true that watchdogs have to be neutral or hold any body to an objective standard. An organization like JW clearly watchdogs some government activity and also has an activist agenda. Other watchdog groups are similar. It's hard to argue that an organization like Common Cause isn't both a watchdog group and an activist group. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 16:30, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

There is no need for us to do so. We can call them activist (which they unashamedly are) and leave it at that. Guy (Help!) 12:17, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

I'm not getting a justification from you for suppressing verifiable and noteworthy information supported by multiple reliable sources. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:14, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

NPOV issues

I just was watching a video with Judaical Watch and googled to find more information about it then I came across this article. Which had numerous problems first of all it misattributes a quote from the NYT to indicate that it loses most of FOIA lawsuits. Maybe it does or doesn't but the article is specifically mentioning the lawsuits related to Clinton.

"Judicial Watch’s strategy is simple: Carpet-bomb the federal courts with Freedom of Information Act lawsuits. A vast majority are dismissed. But Judicial Watch caught a break last year, when revelations about Mrs. Clinton’s private email server prompted two judges to reopen two of the group’s cases connected to her tenure as secretary of state

The lawsuits have since led to the release of hundreds of Mrs. Clinton’s emails — which have, in turn, spurred dozens of news releases and fund-raising letters from Judicial Watch that hype the significance of these documents, while putting them in the least flattering light possible for Mrs. Clinton."

Also if they do lose a majority of their cases the information should be cited not linked to a single source liberal newspaper where they don't cite the information either. Writing an article on a conservative subject using NYT viewpoint as a basis is akin to using foxnews to define a liberal group like Moveon.Org. It's fundamentally unfair.

I also find it curious no mention was made when the Obama administration improperly stripped it of it's media credentials and then was forced to try to limit and impose higher fees on their requests. They were sued, lost the lawsuit, and were forced to settle for damages with Judicial Watch. Yet no mention anywhere in the article strange. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/sep/29/obama-operatives-stripped-judical-watch-of-media-s/ 13:02, 19 April 2018 (UTC)72.139.199.117 (talk)

So you saw a video on the internet and believed it. Good for you. If you want to propose any additions please feel free to make specific proposals, not forgetting to identify reliable independent secondary sources to support them. Guy (Help!) 13:58, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

I just made two first revise or remove the misleading and false opening statement which is not verifiable and defamatory. Two, include the controversy regarding the Obama administration improperly classifying Judaical Watch then being forced to properly reclassify them after being sued.

Other problems I noticed via a quick scan of the article was the "Vince Foster" section the link is not attributable to Judicial Watch. It's attributable to Klayman.

The article is full of lies and half truths. It needs an entire rewrite with it sources investigated to make sure what the source claims is attributed properly. I found two in just a 15 minute scan I can only imagine what someone would do in a deep dig. I made changes earlier (that were reverted) but I am not a wikipedian. I have a life I'm not going to engage in edit warring and spend hours fixing this article only to have it reverted 72.139.199.117 (talk) 14:19, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Another example but not as egregious is the others is the portion about ISIS operating at the border. The reality is none of the sources prove it to be false. What they do mention is they were unable to verify JW claims there is major difference.

It is important to note that JW stands by reporting and reference Hendricks as further evidence of their claims being true. https://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2016/08/isis-terrorist-tells-feds-jihadist-brothers-mexico-confirming-jw-reports/

"Though a number of high-level law enforcement, intelligence and military sources on both sides of the border have provided Judicial Watch with evidence that Islamic terrorist cells are operating in Mexico, the Obama administration has publicly denied it, both to Judicial Watch and in mainstream media outlets. Now we have a terrorism suspect in custody proudly affirming it. His name is Erick Jamal Hendricks and the U.S. has charged him with conspiring to provide ISIS and ISIL material support. Hendricks created a sleeper cell with at least ten members, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ), and claims that some of his jihadist “brothers” are just south of the U.S. border in Mexico. The 35-year-old lived for a short time in Charlotte, North Carolina and was arrested and charged in Ohio last week. Hendricks tried to “recruit people to train together and conduct terrorist attacks in the United States,” according to the government’s criminal complaint."

Who is Hendricks and what are they referring to?

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/north-carolina-man-convicted-attempting-and-conspiring-provide-material-support-isis

Hendricks had contacted Al-Ghazi over social media to recruit him in the spring of 2015. Hendricks allegedly told Al-Ghazi that he “needed people” and wanted to meet in person; that there were several “brothers” located in Texas and Mexico; that he was attempting to “get brothers to meet face to face;” and that he wanted “to get brothers to train together,” according to court documents and trial testimony

Al-Ghazi believed that Hendricks and the “brothers in Texas and Mexico” may have been responsible for a thwarted terrorist attack in Garland, Texas, on May 3, 2015, and therefore he decided to stay away from social media for a period following the attack to minimize detection by law enforcement.

That section should be rewrote something to the effect:

In 2014 and 2015, Judicial Watch claimed that ISIS had set up camp in Mexico; Judicial Watch's claims were picked up by several news outlets but were unable to be verified and also denied by the Obama Administration.

However, JW stood by their claims and in 2016 Erick Jamal Hendricks was arrested for providing material support to ISIS. Hendricks claimed to have brothers Mexico he was attempting to get across the border and may have been responsible for the thwarted attack on Garland, Texas, on May 2015.

JW uses this recent arrest as further evidence of their claims being true 72.139.199.117 (talk) 15:58, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

You've raised a bunch of issues. I'll take a look, but a few comments first. First, you'll get more traction is you stop talking about lies and defamation. It's inflammatory and counterproductive. Keep the focus on "such-and-such content does not agree with such-and-such source." Second, you'll get more traction by backing up your assertions with independent reliable sources, which in this context usually means stories by reputable news outlets. Alleged political biases of reputable news outlets is generally ignored, so it's not helpful to say for example that we shouldn't rely on the liberal New York Times. Third, if this discussion goes much longer then I suggest we break it out into subsections so that no one gets their wires crossed. It's hard to respond to a whole bunch of unrelated issues in the same discussion. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:07, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

I addressed your concern about the Vince Foster content. The cited source was a bit ambiguous, so I added two more that make clear that JW (and not just Klayman) promoted the Vince Foster theory. I disagree with your reading of the New York Times source about the dismissal of most of JW's complaints. The source wasn't just talking about Clinton. Regarding the Hendricks stuff, this appears to be impermissible original research; please provide reliable independent sources.

Regarding the GSA report on the Obama administration stripping JW of its media status, that's a tough one. The issue there is whether this is sufficiently noteworthy for inclusion given that the only reliable source that appears to have covered it was the Washington Times. That's a tough one and I'd appreciate other editors' input. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:24, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

I think the WT is borderline reliable and I'd say the wrong side of the border. Certainly if we can't find several mainstream sources we shouldn't use it. Doug Weller talk 17:54, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

The WT story was picked up by the conservative blogosphere (of course), including prominent unreliable sites like Breitbart and The Daily Wire. The most reputable of these sites appears to be the Weekly Standard, which I understand has some support at RSN. Further thoughts? --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:30, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

ISIS in Mexico fringe nonsense

An IP number has added WP:OR and JW content to suggest that ISIS camps in Mexico are a true thing. RS say they are not. If RS say they are a true thing, then those RS need to be cited. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 16:55, 19 April 2018 (UTC)