How times change.

Newsmax started life in 1997 under the editorship of Christopher Ruddy and the funding of Richard Mellon Scaife with the express purpose of attacking the Clinton presidency and cheerleading for his impeachment. But Ruddy and Scaife began changing their tune about President Clinton a few years back, with Ruddy even admitting that "Clinton wasn’t such a bad president."

That detente has now moved to a whole new level: Ruddy has accompanied Clinton on a trip to Africa, and is blogging about it at the Clinton Foundation's website.

No, really. A July 18 Newsmax article explains it:

Newsmax's CEO Christopher Ruddy has joined former President Bill Clinton on his current mission to Africa.

Last week, President Clinton and his delegation arrived in Johannesburg, South Africa, as part of a 10-day, five-nation tour across the African continent.

The Clinton Foundation sponsors programs that support sustainable development, education, and healthcare working with individuals, private business, and local government.

"President Clinton and his foundation have made a huge difference in their private-public programs," Ruddy said. "These programs have helped millions, have been extremely cost-effective and help build bridges between the United States and emerging countries."

Ruddy's Clinton Foundation blog post is the kind of fluffy promotion that is the last thing you'd expect from Ruddy on the subject of Clinton:

The Clinton Foundation demonstrates that public-private partnerships and strategic engagement of private citizens, community members, and local governments can achieve great results in health care. And as I saw firsthand today in Mozambique, this work is innovative in its scope and in its purpose – which is to ensure governments can own and maintain their own health care systems without further reliance on aid. I applaud the Clinton Foundation for bringing together groups and individuals from all sides of the political spectrum to build a world that’s more equal, more sustainable, and that benefits us all.

Quite the stunning turnaround.

Posted by Terry K. at 10:33 PM EDT

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Mychal Massie uses his July 16 WorldNetDaily column as an opportunity to work his thesaurus with impunity.

In addition to referencing old favorites like Erebus and Barmecide, Massie throws in another highfalutin word: "hebephrenic." This references "a form of schizophrenia characterized by foolish mannerisms and senseless laughter along with delusions and regressive behavior." Needless to say, that word was directed at President Obama.

Also needless to say, Massie's column is yet another spewing of Obama derangement. He again repeats the discredited lie that Michelle Obama "spent $50,000 on exotic underwear in one store on a New York shopping trip with the Queen of Qatar," as well as the discredited lie that she "fraudulently represent[ed] your children as senior staff to either avoid paying for them or to give them salaries." He adds the discredited lie that President Obama targeted auto dealers for closure in the bankruptcies of General Motors and Chrysler because they donated to conservatives.

Between the lies and the thesaurus-diving, Massie still manages to work in a fit of the whacked-out brand of Obama derangement only Massie can do:

Everything you have said and done has told us a story – and it is a story with which we massively disagree. Yours is one continuing story of how to disparage America to foreign despots and how to reduce the White House to Cabrini Green on a hot weekend summer night. Your story is one that tells us you and your wife had no idea of the protocol and espirit de corps of the office you hold – and the dress and public behavior of your wife punctuates it.

Now we have another reminder of a story that has haunted you since you assumed office as you have the audacity to raise the specter of Romney’s legal standing. Do you think we have forgotten the stories surrounding your eligibility, your relationships with known Chicago mobsters, your relationships with unrepentant domestic terrorists and that you are the only leader in history to hide his past?

As I said, Barry, you have told a story – many of them, as a matter of fact. And they’ve all been nightmarish for those of us who have always loved America and who have not spent our lives cringing in shame of this nation as your wife told us she did.

There is one story you haven’t told that I know the majority of Americans would love to hear you tell, and that is the story of your affinity for Islam. That, you mendacious megalomaniac, is a story We the People would like to hear you tell the truth about.

If Massie didn't fill his column with discredited lies, would he still be allowed to write for WND, which has similar factual standards when it comes to Obama?

Posted by Terry K. at 4:56 PM EDT

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Terry Jeffrey keeps his personal grudge against President Obama going via his anti-Obama propanganda mill -- masquerading as the "news" operation CNSNews.com -- in full effect with a July 16 article attacking White House press secretary Jay Carney for saying that the stimulus bill “widely recognized to have broken the back of the recession.”

Note Jeffrey's selective use of statistics to try to undermine Carney's claim:

In January 2009, the month before Obama signed his stimulus, the national unemployment rate was 7.8 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It has not dropped below 8 percent in any month since then. In February 2009, it hit 8.3 percent. In June 2012, it was 8.2 percent.

In January 2009, there were 12,049,000 unemployed people in the country, meaning there were that many people age 16 and older who wanted a job, had actively sought one in the previous four weeks, but had not been able to find one. In June 2012, there were 12,749,000 unemployed people—or 700,000 more than there were the month before Obama signed the stimulus.

The percentage of the American population actually holding jobs and the percentage of the population participating in the labor force (those either holding a job or actively looking for one) have both declined since January 2009. In that month, 60.6 percent of Americans 16 or older were working. In June 2012, 58.6 percent of Americans 16 or older were working. In January 2009, 65.7 percent of Americans 16 or older either held a job or were looking for one—and thus were participating in the labor force. By June 2012, that had dropped to 63.8 percent.

In January 2009, 142,187,000 Americans had jobs. In June 2012, 142,415,000 Americans had jobs—an increase of just 228,000 in the number of employed Americans.

But January 2009 was not the bottom of the recession -- October 2009 was. According to the same BLS statistics Jeffrey is using, the number of people who had jobs hit a low of 138,401,000 in October 2009. The number of unemployed peaked that same month with 15,421,000 without jobs, as did the unemployment rate, at 10.0 percent.

Jeffrey is making a dishonest comparision. Who's surprised?

Posted by Terry K. at 12:01 PM EDT

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WorldNetDaily once again demonstrated its suspiciously close relationship with Joe Arpaio and his birther posse by posting an article on the posse's press conference as said presser was just beginning -- just as it did for Arpaio's March 1 press conference. Needless to say, WND does not explain what it did to gain the access that gave it such inside information.

We haven't watched the video of the conference yet, but if the WND article is any indication, very little of note occured, and even less in the way of anything new.

The big finding, apparently, as stated by WND:

Arpaio told WND he intends to move the investigation and the new information to a higher authority within the federal government because of what he calls an imminent threat to national security and U.S. immigration laws. The threat is posed by a flaw in Hawaii’s law discovered by his investigators that allows a foreigner to obtain a Hawaii birth certificate.

[...]

Under Hawaii Revised Statute 338-17.8, a person only has to be an established resident of Hawaii, not necessarily a U.S. citizen, and pay taxes there for one year to be able to register an out-of-state or foreign-born person with an official Hawaii birth certificate.

[...]

Arpaio and his investigators said they have deep concerns that the Hawaii Revised Statute is a loophole that makes it possible for foreign born children to illegally establish U.S. citizenship.

The signficance of this was shot down three years ago, when Orly Taitz was ranting about it. And guess who shot it down? None other than the rabid birthers and Obama-haters at the Joseph Farah-founded Western Journalism Center:

In discussing the Certification of Live Birth that the Obama campaign claims was posted on the web, Orly Taitz also asserts that “Hawaii has statute 338 that allows foreign-born children of Hawaiian residents to get Hawaiian birth certificates.” What she is referring to here is the 1982 amendment of the vital records law.  Under Act 182 H.B. NO. 3016-82, state policies and procedures could accommodate even “children born out of State” (this is the actual language of Act 182) with an original birth certificate on record.  But though Act 182 does provide children born out of state with a birth certificate it does not provide them with birth certificates that say that these children were born in Hawaii or at a specific location in Hawaii.  Consequently these birth certificates cannot engender Certifications of Live Birth which state that the subject was born in Honolulu, as the purported Obama Certification of Live Birth does.  So if the Obama Certification of Live Birth was not forged, it could not have been engendered by an Act 182-authorized birth certificate for “children born out of state”.  And if it was forged, the false information on it was not based on anything that could be on an Act-182 authorized birth certificate.  So Orly Taitz’ assertion that “Hawaii has statute 338 that allows foreign-born children of Hawaiian residents to get Hawaiian birth certificates” is irrelevant.

Just like Taitz, WND and the posse apparently offered no evidence that Hawaii's law allows birth certificates to state that someone who wasn't born in Hawaii was born there.

Mike Zullo and his posse also raise a false flag over the birth certificate's coding system:

The codes seen on the document issued by the White House are not consistent with the information entered into the various fields, indicating the document has been altered or amended.

In the coding system, the number 9 indicates the information is not stated, meaning there should not be any information in the box in which the number is written.

However, the number 9 can be seen written in pencil next to the fields for “Usual Occupation,” “Kind of Business or Industry” and “Race of Father” on Obama’s document. Each of those fields are filled with information.

“This proves the document has been tampered with and information has been placed on it,” Zullo said.

In fact, according to Dr. Conspiracy, Zullo is citing a coding system established in 1968, which would not apply to a birth certificate from 1961. The coding system at that time defined the number 9 as "other nonwhite." Given that the number was found in the box for the race of Obama's father, this may explain why his race is listed as "African" -- it may be nothing more than a 50-year-old misguided notion that a black man from Africa was not a "Negro."

Despite claiming to offer "indisputable proof" that Obama's birth certificate is a forgery, none of the evidence appears to rise to that level. Just like last time, it's "indisputable" only if you ignore the evidence that debunks it, which WND, Zullo and their posse have a history of doing.

In other words, this is more discredited crap. Just the way WND (and Arpaio, and Zullo) likes it.

UPDATE: An Arizona TV station interviews birther debunker John Woodman -- whose existence WND and Corsi have yet to acknowledge -- who concurs on the coding issue.

Posted by Terry K. at 7:32 AM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, July 18, 2012 8:35 AM EDT

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Cliff Kincaid and Rusty Weiss write in a July 17 Accuracy in Media article promoting Paul Kengor's conspiracy-mongering, Obama-bashing book " The Communist. Frank Marshall Davis: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mentor":

Paul Kengor says that, in writing his book on Davis, “the most difficult issue always was knowing precisely where and when Davis influenced Obama on specific thoughts and issues, especially in light of what Obama has pursued as president.” But Kengor comes to some interesting conclusions.

“For example,” he tells AIM, “Davis despised Winston Churchill, and one of the first things Obama did as President was return the White House bust of Churchill back to the British. Did Obama’s rejection of Churchill start with Davis? Possibly. Also, Obama has been pro-Russia at the expense of Eastern European allies like the Poles and the Czechs. Well, so was Davis. Was that, too, Davis’s influence? Possibly.”

As we've repeatedly pointed out, the idea that Obama was so offended by the Churchill bust that he demanded it be removed from the Oval Office is a myth. The British Embassy has confirmed that the bust was "uniquely lent" to Bush, and was scheduled to be returned at the end of Bush's term.

Posted by Terry K. at 9:20 PM EDT

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Conservative columnist Thomas Sowell has a history of false claims, deceptive fearmongering and dishonest arguments. So it's probably no surprise that he would buy into the race-baiting being peddled by Colin Flaherty and WorldNetDaily.

Sowell's July 17 column -- published by WND, of course -- is one long endorsement of Flaherty's self-published book "White Girl Bleed A Lot":

Reading Colin Flaherty’s book made painfully clear to me that the magnitude of this problem is even greater than I had discovered from my own research. He documents both the race riots and the media and political evasions in dozens of cities across America.

Flaherty’s previous writings have won him praise and awards, but this book has been met largely with silence or abuse. However much ignoring the ugly realities his book reveal may serve the interests of the media or politicians, a cover-up is a huge disservice to everyone else – whether black, white or whatever.

Sowell appears to swallow Flaherty's premise whole without questioning why a white writer like Flaherty would be working so closely with a white-dominated "news" outlet like WND to paint all blacks as violent thugs.

Posted by Terry K. at 8:09 PM EDT

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CNSNews.com keeps up its longtime shilling for the oil industry with a July 16 article by Kendra Alleyne warning of "a new blend of gasoline comprising 15 percent ethanol, approved by the Environmental Protection Agency last month and now available in Kansas." Alleyne cited the Kansas Petroleum Council as sounding the warning.

Alleyne didn't mention that the Kansas Petroleum Council is an affiliate of the American Petroleum Institute, which has long attacked the gasoline-ethanol blend known as E15. Alleyne also failed to mention that, as Autoblog noted, E15 is available exactly one gas station in Kansas, so it's hardly a widespread threat.

In an unusual move for a CNS reporter, Alleyne does at least acknowledge the other side of the story -- that the Department of Energy issued a statement that its research on E15 "did not uncover unusual wear that would be expected to impact performance." 

Posted by Terry K. at 12:39 PM EDT

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Bob Unruh uses a July 10 WorldNetDaily article to obfuscate the facts in the case of evangelist Bradlee Dean's lawsuit against MSNBC's Rachel Maddow -- and he fails to report at all Dean's inflammatory attack against the judge who ruled against him.

Unruh leads with Dean and his attorney, Larry Klayman, "asking that the judge in the case be removed because of her biased comments." It's not until after he rehashes the case in a biased manner favorable to Dean -- specifically, the 20th paragraph -- that Unruh gets around to reporting the big news in Dean's lawsuit: that the judge in question had ordered Dean to pay around $24,000 in legal fees to Maddow before she would permit Klayman's request to move the case from District of Columbia court to federal court in order to get around Maddow citing the District's anti-SLAPP laws in her defense.

Unruh uncritically repeated Dean and Klayman's claim that Maddow's "defense work would be equally applicable in the new filing in federal court," without explaining how a federal court can address legal fees for another lawsuit filed and withdrawn in another jurisdiction. Also, given that Dean and Klayman are admitting they're moving their lawsuit to federal court specifically to avoid the District's anti-SLAPP laws, Maddow's defense work could not directly be used since a different set of laws would apply.

Unruh also uncritically -- and selectively -- repeated Dean's complaints about the judge's alleged "biased comments," which included the laughable complaint that the judge "stated in her order that defendants lawyers are ‘distinguished,’" while not applying that description on Klayman. Unruh appears not to have considered the concept that Klayman's legal work, especially of late, is not "distinguished" at all -- or, more to the point, it's distinguished only by its record of failure. (And we haven't even gotten to his own status as a lawbreaker for refusing to pay child support.)

Unruh also cited Dean's complaint of the judge's "mockery of Klayman’s health issues," which according to the affidavit consisted of a broken leg that prevented him from traveling from California to the District of Columbia.

It seems like Dean has a case against Klayman for inadequate (or incompetent) representation.

Unruh failed to mention that Dean, in his affidavit, personally attacked thte judge, calling her a "woman scorned." Insulting the judge is hardly the best way to successfully argue your case -- something Unruh seemed to recognize by not reporting it.

It's also a sign of Klayman's apparent incompetence as a lawyer that he thinks Dean's insult is acceptable to enter as evidence. No wonder he can't win a case.

Posted by Terry K. at 8:00 AM EDT

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CNSNews.com editor in chief Terry Jeffrey hates President Obama so much, he has found a way to turn innocent question-and-answer question into a sleazy personal attack.

Witnes s the headline on Jeffrey's July 16 article, "Obama Imposes Sex Quota on Townhall Questions":

Jeffrey really ought to seek professional help for his raging case of Obama Derangement Syndrome.

Posted by Terry K. at 8:39 PM EDT

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Of course birther martyr Terry Lakin -- who willingly destroyed his military career by refusing his deployment orders because he insisted he didn't know whether President Obama was eligible to be commander in chief -- wrote a book explaining said birther martyrdom. In fact, WorldNetDaily columnist (and birther) Jack Cashill wrote it, and WND is selling it. And, of course, WND is promoting said book in a July 14 article that inadvertently demonstrates what a sad, deluded man Lakin is:

Lakin notes that Obama claimed to have “had every official in Hawaii … confirm that, yes, in fact, I was born in Hawaii.”

“‘Every official in Hawaii’? I guess the president did not consult with Tim Adams. During the 2008 election cycle Adams served as senior elections clerk for the city and county of Honolulu,” Lakin wrote.

Adams had stated, “There is no hospital record of his birth in Honolulu … and the Hawaii Department of Health told us in the Elections Office that there was no birth certificate.”

“If you don’t know about Adams, there is a reason why. Within a week of his one radio interview on the subject [he was] put under a gag order,” Lakin wrote. “As of this writing, no official in Hawaii has made a serious effort to look into Obama’s birth certificate, and those who said they did have not been able to keep their stories straight.”

As we've documented, Adams admitted in a (WND-proffered) affidavit that he has no firsthand knowledge of any birther-related claims.

As we've also documented, Adams has overstated the job he did as an election clerk in 2008. Glen Takahashi, the administrator of the Honolulu City Clerk's office, told David Weigel that Adams never actually had access to information about Barack Obama -- after all, he was not registered to vote in Hawaii, and searching for birth records was beyond the scope of Adams' job.

Lakin (and Cashill) citing Adams as some kind of authority on birth records in Hawaii is laughable. It shows that Lakin and Cashill remain deluded birthers, and they aren't interested in the truth. It's doubly sad that Lakin decided that believing delusions was worth ruining his military career for.

But, hey, WND has a martyr it can further exploit.

Posted by Terry K. at 3:56 PM EDT

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In an unusually fawning July 13 CNSNews.com article, editor in chief Terry Jeffrey slobbers all over William G. "Jerry" Boykin, who has just joined the right-wing Family Research Council. Sounding much more like a PR flack than a "news" reporter, Jeffrey dutifully recounts Boykin's military credentials and touts Boykin in his FRC role "hopes to do his part in helping Americans who believe in this nation’s traditional values win an intensifying 'culture war' for its future."

As befits a PR flack, Jeffrey dutifully ignores any sort of hint of controversy around Boykin, even though he has a lengthy history of making inflammatory and insensitive statements, mostly of the anti-Muslim variety, though he has also likened President Obama to Castro and Stalin.

Just consider this more evidence that CNS cares only about pushing a partisan agenda, not "news."

Posted by Terry K. at 1:25 PM EDT

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WorldNetDaily's latest missive in its obsession with "mob violence" by blacks is a July 14 article by Colin Flaherty touting how an obscure "teenage video blogger from Milwaukee" complaining about "our own people acting that way."

Flaherty offered no evidence why he elevated some guy on YouTube to a position of authority  to speak for anyone on this subjet, given that he almost assuredly not have given him the same authority to speak about, say, the the Wisconsin governor recall election (in which he endorsed the Democrat).

Flaherty is not above crass self promotion, not a good sign for anyone considering himself a serious journalist. At one point in his article, he references "The 'white girl bleed a lot' beatdown" -- which just so happens to be the title of a self-published book he wrote.

WND again includes an "editor's note" at the top of Flaherty's article attempting to justify its race-baiting, in which it claims "WND considers it racist not to report racial abuse solely because of the skin color of the perpetrators or victims." Of course, when you are reporting only on crimes committed by blacks, as WND is doing here, it very clearly is race-baiting.

Posted by Terry K. at 7:23 AM EDT

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Jack Coleman writes in a July 13 NewsBusters post:

Ed Schultz says it's unpatriotic that Mitt Romney invested some of his money outside the U.S. Much as Schultz did with some of his money two years ago.

[...]

Then by Schultz's own reckoning he's unpatriotic for buying a fishing lodge in the wilds of Canada when he could have invested that money in the United States and helped Americans instead.

Coleman then unearths a 2010 clip of Schultz talking about his Canadian lodge.

While Schultz does promote excursions to the lodge for his listeners, it's clear making money on it is not a top priority for him. In the clip, he talks about how "I love to fish, I've fished all my life, I love it," and that he had been going to the lodge for years and ultimately had the opportunity to buy it.

That's a far cry from Romney's overseas investments, which are expected to make money as well as lower their taxes. Not even Coleman has accused Schultz of using his Canadian fishing lodge as a tax haven.

It seems Coleman can't tell the difference between a Canadian fishing lodge and a Bermuda tax shelter.

Posted by Terry K. at 9:58 PM EDT

Updated: Sunday, July 15, 2012 10:04 PM EDT

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Your long association with unrepentant domestic terrorist and convicted felon G. Gordon Liddy -- i.e. regularly guest-hosting his radio show -- undermines any moral authority you might claim in berating Salon for having "completely given itself over the dark side" by reprinting articles from the Southern Poverty Law Center (which had the temerity to accurately report the paranoid remarks you sald to fellow paranoid Alex Jones).

Hugs,
ConWebWatch

P.S. Hey, here's a picture of Farah warmly hugging the dark side:

Posted by Terry K. at 12:35 AM EDT

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