I'm not sure how many of you have seen these ads, but with monitoring cable news for the site, I see them constantly on MSNBC and CNN. I just have to ask if they're so hard up for advertising dollars that they need to be running ads from an Alex Jones promoted scam artist who's been fined a million and a half dollars by the SEC? And better yet, he's also apparently World Net Daily's financial columnist as well.

WorldNetDaily's financial columnist faces $1.5 million SEC sanction:

Yesterday, we highlighted how WorldNetDaily financial columnist Porter Stansberry bragged that he's ready to flee the country at a moment's notice with most of his wealth to a locale "that doesn't have any ties to America." We did some looking into Stansberry's background and found a large sanction against him from the Securities & Exchange Commission. [...]

In 2007, the SEC ordered Stansberry and his company to pay $1.5 million in restitution and civil penalties, stating that, according to an August 10, 2007, Baltimore Sun article (retrieved from Nexis), Stansberry's company "acted in reckless disregard for regulations when it published Stansberry's unbelievable claims without a shred of confirmation." The parent company, Agora, was not held liable. [...]

In September 2009, the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Stansberry's SEC sanction, stating that securities fraud is not protected speech and "[p]unishing fraud, whether it be common law fraud or securities fraud, simply does not violate the First Amendment."

Stansberry has popped up on occasion in more mainstream news outlets. Barron's touted him as "highly regarded" and "remarkably prescient" in July 2008; a February 2009 Associated Press article cited Stansberry, as did a separate February 2009 USA Today article.

None of these articles mentioned Stansberry's SEC fine. Unsurprisingly, WorldNetDaily hasn't either. Quite the contrary: When his column began in December 2009, WND claimed it was "introducing readers looking for sound, reality-based investment information to the respected financial research outfit Stansberry & Associates."

How does "sound, reality-based investment information" mesh with a $1.5 million SEC sanction for selling "unbelievable claims without a shred of confirmation" to investors? That's something WND (and Stansberry) should explain.

Maybe MSNBC and CNN can explain why they're promoting him as well.