Cliff Kincaid is still peddling his financial crisis conspiracytheory in a Nov. 24 Accuracy in Media column:
This is America today―a country that is losing its ability to manufacture things but has to continue to pander to rich Arabs and the Chinese Communists for money just to survive. In addition to our jobs, savings and investments, it looks like our sovereignty and national pride are being sacrificed as part of this process.
Whether the financial meltdown has been engineered or not―and there are major questions about its timing, just six weeks before the national elections―it will be up to President Obama to manage America’s transition into this New Global Order. With his background in Marxism and extensive Wall Street contacts and associations, he seems perfectly suited for the task.
Media Matters details how Dick Morris' shilling for the National Republican Trust PAC -- which includes his columns at Newsmax -- failed to mention that the PAC has advertised on Morris' blog and emails, paying Morris thousands of dollars in the process.
Also, a Morris column in which he describes Barack Obama's reported nomination of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state as "the blonde leading the blind" also appears at Newsmax.
Wash. Examiner's Right-Wing Bias Spreading to Sports Page Topic: Washington Examiner
The Washington Examiner already has a dogmatically right-wing editorial page. Its news pages have included fawning profiles of conservatives such as Brit Hume, Dana Perino and John Boehner. It keepsadding right-wingers to its staff.
The bias is now apparently spreading to the sports page. A Nov. 23 column by Rick Snider ostensibly criticizing Obama for supporting a college football playoff system descended into gratuitous Obama- (and Clinton-) bashing:
Worry about getting a puppy first. Golden retrievers are nice. But, solve the world’s ills before spending even five minutes on a college championship series.
In other words, mind your own business.
[...]
Sorry, Mr. President-elect, but we need your eyes on other balls. Like tax breaks for sports writers. Health care paying for hair plugs and liposuction. Early retirement for 48-year-olds.
But a college playoff system? Listen to your wife’s chuckle. She’s the smart one in the family.
Uh oh, the Clintons must be back.
What does name-checking the Clintons have to do with a college football system? Somehow we suspect Mark Tapscott approves.
Who Appointed the MRC to Speak for Left-Wing Bloggers? Topic: NewsBusters
A Nov. 24 appearance on "Fox & Friends" by the MRC's Seton Motley to discuss "left-wing bloggers critical of President-elect Obama for choosing center-left, rather than far-left staffers for his presidential transition team" follows the template: Motley appears solo and is not identified as a conservative.
How about having, you know, a left-wing blogger on the show to discuss left-wing bloggers? Or would that violate the MRC's apparent deal with Fox News that its representatives must never be contradicted on air?
Farah Freeps His Own Petition Topic: WorldNetDaily
To "freep" something means to pad an opt-in online poll by encouraging like-minded folks to vote in order to skew results, as demonstrated by the denizens of Free Republic. Such "freeping" can also apply to other online activities like petitions.
Thus, in his Nov. 24 WorldNetDaily column, Joseph Farah engages in what can only be described as freeping the WND petition demanding release of Barack Obama's birth certificate (never mind that Farah's own employees have previously declared it to be "authentic"):
It appears to me that about 1,000 people per hour are signing this petition. I would say that is evidence indicating public interest, wouldn't you?
I tell you this because there are other judges who will be ruling in the days ahead. Even the U.S. Supreme Court is going to review this issue soon. That's why it is imperative that the public makes its voice heard.
You now have that opportunity on this petition.
I urge you to e-mail it to all your friends.
Do you know people concerned about this birth-certificate issue?
Do you know Americans who still care about little matters like constitutional eligibility for presidents?
Do you know others who will put their names to this petition and pass it along?
Then put your name to it and e-mail it to your entire Christmas card list.
[...]
At the current rate, before the end of December, we'll have 1 million signed up on this petition. We can get there faster if you can help me circulate it beyond WND readers.
I would think a petition of 1 million names would be sufficient evidence of public interest for nearly any judge.
Of course, Farah fails to note that opt-in online petitions with no apparent mechanism to prevent duplicate or fradulent names -- Farah or WND have not indicated that such measures are in place on this petition -- are virtually meaningless, to judges or anyone else -- except perhaps Farah and anyone else desperate to keep this false meme alive for no other reason than to smear Obama.
Kincaid Still Pushing Financial Crisis Conspiracy Topic: Accuracy in Media
Cliff Kincaid uses his Nov. 20 "AIM Report" to rehash his conspiracytheory that the financial crisis was created to elect Barack Obama:
If you examine the polling trend, McCain was moving ahead of Obama by mid-September. One poll, the Rasmussen poll, had McCain over Obama every day from September 12-17. McCain evened up the race again on September 23, after Obama had taken a lead, but it was Obama all the way after that.
The crisis, which is continuing and could get far worse, was man-made. It was not a natural disaster like an earthquake or a hurricane. And it is a fact that President Bush’s Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who worked for a Democratic firm, Goldman Sachs, and has very close ties to Communist China, is the one who convinced Bush on September 18 to publicly demand hundreds of billions of bailout dollars from Congress.
This is when McCain began falling in the polls. That’s apparently because McCain, like Bush, is a Republican, and he was blamed by Obama and the Democrats for the Republican policies that were said by the media to have produced this crisis.
[...]
A hedge fund operator such as George Soros, who was convicted of insider trading in France, is known to make money from the collapse of national economies and currencies. He was labeled “The Man who broke the Bank of England” because of his financial activities against the British currency. Did he break the U.S. economy?
In addition to the usual suspects -- Paulson, Soros -- Kincaid adds economist and Obama supporter Joseph Stiglitz: "Stiglitz, a financial contributor to Obama’s presidential campaign and major backer of the national Democratic Party, is in a perfect position to guide the transition into a global socialist economy."
Kincaid once again repeated the discredited claim that "Obama’s Global Poverty Act" obligates the U.S. to spending $845 billion to fight global poverty. As we've repeatedlypointedout whenever Kincaid makes this claim, the bill has no funding mechanism, doesn't commit the U.S. to a targeted level of spending, and doesn't give the United Nations the power to impose a tax on the U.S.
In another section of the report, Kincaid served as self-appointed arbiter of who is and isn't right-wing enough:
I find that the media are populated by many “conservatives” who are not really so conservative. This category includes the Fox News cheerleaders for the Wall Street bailout, such as Bill Kristol, Fred Barnes, Charles Krauthammer and Bill O’Reilly, and columnists David Brooks (New York Times), Peggy Noonan (Wall Street Journal) and Kathleen Parker (Washington Post Writers Group), who ridiculed Sarah Palin because she doesn’t read the New York Times. As we strive to correct the liberal media bias, we have to keep the conservative media honest as well. We need new conservative media voices.
On the other hand, Kincaid is pretty much unique among right-wingers in criticizing Karl Rove: "It’s true that he helped elect Bush two times, but considering what happened on November 4, isn’t it about time for somebody in the media to ask him some pointed questions about what he built and why it didn’t last."
Will WND Expose African Press International and Apologize? Topic: WorldNetDaily
We've previouslydocumented how WorldNetDaily has chosen to be suckered by the claims of a previously unknown website called African Press International that it has an audiotape of Michelle Obama purportedly haranguing it, despite copious evidence of the website's dubious nature. Even Jerome Corsi was begging API for a copy of the (likely nonexistent) tape.
After days of uncritically promoting API's claim, an Oct. 22 article struck a skeptical tone for the first time by reporting Fox News' denial of API's claim that it had struck a deal with Fox to air the tape. This was the last article WND did on it.
Meanwhile, others have done the investigative work into API that WND wouldn't. The Mountain Sage blog dug into the background of API's "Chief Editor Korir" and found that Korir has had a hand in previous false claims and runs an alleged charity that appears to be somewhat interchangable with API. As a result, Korir has posted a lengthy bio to try and refute the claims. Mountain Sage has more on API here.
WND, meanwhile, accepted "Chief Editor Korir" at face value, asking no questions whatsoever.
With this new information surfacing -- and yet another promised appearance of the purported audiotape apparently come and gone -- will WND tell its readers the full truth about API? Will it retract API's claims and admit that it chose to be bamboozled by the promise of an Obama smear?
Yeah, right. Lying about Obama is a matter of course for WND -- why would it bother to tell the truth now?
Graham Still Confusing News, Opinion Topic: NewsBusters
Tim Graham often confuses news reports with the opinion of the organization reporting them. He does so again in a Nov. 22 NewsBusters post in which he writes of a CBS News report about a school that was renamed for Barack Obama: "CBS News is starting the next wave of Obama intoxication. Rename your school for our Historic Leader."
There is no evidence whatsoever in the report, attributed to CBS and the Associated Press -- nor does Graham offer any other evidence -- that CBS initiated the effort to rename the school, or anything else, after Obama, as Graham claims.
Graham's sneering at this single renaming is particularly hypocritical given the right's efforts to name as many public landmarks as possible after their own favorite Historic Leader, Ronald Reagan.
Massie's Defense of Obama Lacks Sincerity Topic: WorldNetDaily
Project 21's Mychal Massie issued a quasi-defense of Barack Obama over remarks by al Qaeda deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri: "While no fan of Barack Obama, I am a proud American. I find this terrorist's remarks directed at our nation's incoming leader to be highly offensive."
Did Massie really mean that? Apparently not; by the end of the press release Massie quickly reverted to his old Obama-bashing ways:
Projcet 21's Massie notes: "Liberals fail to grasp the reality that Muslim extremists such as al-Zawahiri hate them just as much as they hate the rest of America. At the very least, his crazed diatribe should prove this very point. I hope it jolts the incoming administration into reality. Being President isn't like playing senator or being a community organizer - it is about protecting the American people. That cannot be done without a strong military and the backbone to make decisions that might be unpopular among his friends."
Massie's little conciliatory statement means little, given that he contradicts it almost immediately. It also contradicts his outbursts of ObamaDerangementSyndrome throughout the campaign.Indeed, Massie was eager to use Obama's purported associations with so-called "terrorists" against him, as he did in an Oct. 7 column, so it's a little disingenuous for Massie to rush to Obama's defense now, however tepidly.
Massie's Obama derangement has continued since Obama's victory; Massie wrote in his Nov. 11 WorldNetDaily column: "I personally couldn't care less that Barack Obama is black. I wasn't moved with waves of emotion that a black man had been elected president or that same was proof that America had somehow, overnight, purged itself of its remaining vestiges of racial inequality in the weeks leading up to the election."
Which tells us that Massie doesn't mean a word of his tepid defense of Obama and apparently made it only to get Project 21 some press coverage. It worked -- CNSNews.com picked it up without noting Massie's history of virulent Obama-bashing.
Farah Raises the Stakes on His Lie Topic: WorldNetDaily
Declaring that he's "raising the stakes" in the manufactured controversy over Barack Obama's birth certificate, Joseph Farah claims in his Nov. 21 WorldNetDaily column that he is "personally sponsoring a petition campaign right here at this Internet news source, to all controlling legal authorities to determine Barack Obama's eligibility for the presidency under Article 2, Section 1, of the Constitution and to use all of their persuasive powers to make this information freely available to the rulers of this country – we the people." Farah writes:
I tell you all this because despite the shroud of secrecy over the birth certificate issue, there are some organizations out there insisting it is all a tempest in a teapot – that the issue is settled, that the birth certificate has been released, that Obama has been determined to be eligible by some mystery authority.
One such organization, Factcheck.org, characterizes any who question its assertion that this matter is settled as conspiracy mongers. But, as for me, when it comes to matters as important as the Constitution of the United States, I do not accept the opinion of armchair researchers.
Of course, Farah does not mention that one of the "mystery authorities" that has previously determined Obama's birth certificate to be authentic and that lawsuits claiming that Obama wasn't born in the United States "rel[y] on discredited claims" is ... WorldNetDaily.
Farah claims his goal is to "demand accountability," but who will demand accountability from Farah for repeated making claims he knows are false because his own website contradicts them?
NewsBusters Still Has Tunnel Vision on Newspaper Woes Topic: NewsBusters
The Media Research Center continues its tunnel-vision interpretation of the state of the newspaper industry with a Nov. 21 NewsBusters post by Tom Blumer, who chortles at the declining value of New York Times Co. stock (he denigrates the Times as "Manhattan's quaint little alternative newspaper"), accuses the Times of "insufferable bias," then claims: "Yours truly and many others saw deep trouble ahead for the Times as early as the summer of 2005 if the paper didn't stop its Bush-deranged, standards-compromised march towards the cliff."
What "yours truly" is referring to is a post by Blumer on his BizzyBlog in which he rants against the Times for covering the leak of Valerie Plame's identity by Bush administration officials, which Blumer designated as "Nadagate," "non-scandal about which I refuse to blog in detail" with "main players, whose full names I refuse to type. It appears obstruction of justice and lying to a grand jury is "nada," as far as Blumer is concerned.
Nowhere in either post note what actual media analysts do when discussing declining newspaper circulation: the paradigm shift from print to online and the growing commoditization of news.
Blumer's suggestion that the Times' problems are solely attributable to its alleged liberal bias is a politically motivated interpretation unsupported by the facts.
Brennan Misleads About Global Warming Again Topic: Newsmax
We've noted that Phil Brennan's Nov. 19 Newsmax column falsely claimed that the earth has cooled over the past decade. Turns out he misled in another way too.
As part of his argument that "Global warming is a fraud," Brennan quoted a Nov. 13 London Daily Mail article featuring a claim that global warming might be blamed on "falling -- rather than climbing -- levels of greenhouse gases," featuring the statement: "Lead author Thomas Crowley from the University of Edinburgh and Canadian colleague William Hyde say that currently vilified greenhouse gases -- such as carbon dioxide -- could actually be the key to averting the chill." But Brennan didn't quote the part of the Dail Mail article that warned against using the study to dismiss the threat posed by global warming: (h/t Media Matters):
Professor Crowley said the stark findings do not mean we should stop fighting warming.
But he urged: ‘Don’t push the panic button.’
‘There’s no excuse for saying “we’ve got to keep pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere,”’ he told Reuters.
‘Geologically it’s tomorrow, but we have lots of time to argue about the appropriate level of greenhouse gases.’
Further, the Wired Science blog reported that Crowley said that by continuing to emit greenhouse gases at the current levels, "[w]e're creating a situation at least as dangerous, only going in the opposite direction." Agence France-Presse and National Geographic News also quote Crowley warning against using the study to claim that greenhouse gases aren't a danger.
WorldNetDaily held a phone-in teleseminar on Nov. 19, featuring Joseph Farah, David Kupelian and Jerome Corsi. They're still clinging to their various misleading and/or discredited stories -- Corsi and Farah on Obama's birth certificate, Kupelian on how gays are evil.
Corsi repeated his claim that "Obama brought Odinga to the United States three times, and through his donors raised a million dollars for Odinga." In fact, as we've detailed, the documents Corsi has offered as evidence of such a donation are obviously reproductions of a document discredited by PolitiFact months ago.
Corsi also rehashes another baseless smear -- that Obama was responsible for halting his press conference in Kenya where he was to announce his purportedly blockbuster claims against Obama: "It was no surprise I was giving the press conference. The government in favor of it. Odinga and Obama were not in favor of it."
Corsi then moved on to the non-controversy about Obama's birth certificate:
And I was dispatched twice to Hawaii. We've hired some very, very top private investigators. And again, these birth certificate documents are sealed. So you simply cannot get the original documents.
In Kenya, I was regularly told by people who knew, even as they witnessed Obama's birth in Kenya. They've given testimony and affidavits to that effect, but I wasn't permitted to see any. And the original documents the Kenyan government is not releasing.
[...]
My conclusion is the documents are being hidden. They are not being released. And I think that's something the American people ought to be dramatically concerned ... before the inauguration.
That's a sentiment echoed by Farah:
It is amazing to me -- think about this, folks -- that the biggest scoop any news organzation could have had during this campaign and after this campaign prior to this inauguration wouldbe to get a legitimate copy of Obama's real birth certificate. This is a man who pledged to come into the presidency and bring a new openness to government, and the biggest state secret in the United States today is where was this guy born.
Of course, neither of them noted that WND found Obama's birth certificate to be authentic and that lawsuits claiming that Obama wasn't born in the United States "rel[y] on discredited claims."
Kupelian noted that he "wrote this book about evil and about how evil is sold to America. You know, in my opinion we bought a whole truckload of it by electing Obama."
He continued in an anti-gay rant:
So atheism is -- has been becoming more and more militant and just -- as I say, a week after the election you have these ads going up. The gay-rights folks are just going wild now because they had one loss in California with the Proposition 8 over same-sex marriage. They're so emboldened by having, you know, the wind at their back with Obama and you have Pelosi and Reid in Congress that they're just going nuts now. They're in this sort of the new era of intolerance. We have them, you know, attacking and intimidating little old Chrisitan ladies with crosses and breaking into that church in, where was it, Wisconsin. And you know, it was reminiscent of what they used to do years ago before they really got in their -- I talk about in The Marketing of Evil, is they said, "We can't do these wild and crazy antic type of demostrations like ACT-UP used to do back in the '80s," where they'd go into St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City and throw condoms up in the air and grab the consecrated hosts, you know, the wafers and throw them to the ground and stem on them and just terrorize these parishoners in this major Catholic church in New York City. They figure that's bad for their image, so they cleaned up their image -- the whole book "After the Ball" was written to say, "Look, knock that stuff off. Put on a three-piece suit, get on TV, be mainstream, talk about your cause, and you will get homosexuality mainstreamed."
Well, now, it seems like almost they're regressing because, you know, when the -- you know, when the Republicans were in power, when they feel -- to whatever degree is true, there's a conservatism, you know, there's a certain amount of power to that, that they have to be careful. But now, it's almost like it's been unleashed, the dark side of these people has been unleashed, and they're -- I mean, if you've seen if some of the YouTube videos, they're really -- this doesn't seem like America. It seems like some of the videos -- to me, if you look at these old '50s biblical movies where you have Sodom and Gomorrah, and they're taunting and terrorizing these, you know, the righteous people. And that's what it looks like what's walking through the streets of San Francisco and other cities. There were protests in all 50 states over this, you know, the passage of Proposition 8. So we've got all this kind of stuff.
Farah also added:
I'd also like to say hello to all my friends on this call from the George Soros-backed Media Matters organziation and other similar groups that are listening in without any doubt, and I can't wait to see my remarks transcribed tomorrow on your websites.
Well, Mr. Farah, we're glad to oblige (even though we're not doing this for our employer). After all, we wouldn't want you to think you and your employees wouldn't be held accountable for the lies you peddle as truth -- yet another of them being the suggestion that George Soros funds Media Matters.
Parker Gets Heathered Again Topic: Media Research Center
Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker has been a previous target of heathering by the folks at the Media Research Center for not strictly adhering to right-wing ideology. They're not done withher yet.
A Nov. 19 column by Brent Bozell rips her writing for the National Review, baselessly claiming that Parker criticized Sarah Palin in order to get on TV:
Another victim of the alleged decline of civility at NR was columnist Kathleen Parker, who we’re told received 11,000 nasty e-mails, “one of which lamented that her mother did not abort her.” Were NR readers upset with Parker, who spent the autumn months building a career in commentary on MSNBC by beating Palin like a pinata at a grade-school birthday party? You betchum.
What [New York Times reporter Tim] Arango did not document was the “erudition” in Parker’s salvos against Palin. She first earned brickbats with sentences like "If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself." Then when people criticized her, she penned a column comparing her conservative critics to Soviet thugs: “Anyone who dares express an opinion that runs counter to the party line will be silenced. That doesn't sound American to me, but Stalin would approve.” Parker also wrote a column suggesting McCain picked Palin because he was dazzled and/or aroused by her beauty, and compared the ticket to Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.
By making a big deal out of Parker's deviation from the "party line" -- where it is verboten to say anything bad about Palin -- Bozell is proving Parker right.
P.J. Gladnick picked up the thread in a Nov. 19 NewsBusters post:
Suddenly popular Kathleen Parker is continuing on her new shtick: pretending to be conservative while bashing conservatives. Her latest effort in this gig is this Washington Post column titled, "Giving Up on God." As you can see, it resembles the fake "advice" that liberals often give to Republicans but in this case it is coming from somebody supposedly conservative. So let us now watch Parker with her latest bid to remain popular with the Georgetown party set[.]
[...]
Yes, sacrilege will earn you plaudits from your newfound liberal friends but don't expect to continue fooling people into thinking that you are conservative. That ship sailed weeks ago.
[...]
Does anybody else out there picture Parker giggling to herself as she thinks up the latest snarky shots to earn her brownie points from her liberal audience?
[...]
The liberals are sure to show you the door if you ever write like an authentic conservative again.
Who appointed Gladnick -- or anyone else at the MRC -- to be the arbiter of who is an "authentic conservative"?
John Ziegler's Newest Project (And His Potty Mouth) Topic: The ConWeb
We've previouslyreported on John Ziegler's film purporting to prove that the ABC miniseries "The Path to 9/11" is being censored by "the left," and its false claim that the miniseries told the "real history" of events leading up to 9/11.
It appears that Ziegler is embarking on a new project: portraying Obama supporters as uninformed idiots. Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com detailed how a Zogby poll commissioned by Ziegler contains misleading statements and is, for all intents and purposes, a push poll. Ziegler didn't take too kindly to the criticism -- "I should not have expected much from the followers of a false Messiah virtually installed by an adoring media" -- and demanded an interview with Silver.
Which Silver did. He then posted the transcript of it, which shows Ziegler to be a foul-mouthed thug. Not to mention discrediting his own "documentary" with his hostile anti-Obama bias.
