AIM's Kincaid, An Obama Birther, Won't Touch Cruz Eligibility
Topic: Accuracy in Media

WorldNetDaily's not the only ConWeb outlet that wants nothing to do with Ted Cruz's eligibility issues. Cliff Kincaid writes in his April 20 Accuracy in Media column, in the midst of an anti-Trump tirade complaining that "there is no eligibility requirement to be a Republican":

Trump, for a while, was harping on the fact that Cruz was born in Canada, as if that had any bearing on his credentials as a Republican. It was a diversion from the fact that Trump really wasn’t a Republican and had no business in the race. The real question, therefore, is not the eligibility of Cruz but the eligibility of Trump.

Kincaid, however, did think Barack Obama's eligibility was an issue. From September 2009, AIM proclaimed that Kincaid released his own birth certificate in order to raise questions about Obama's:

“My birth certificate includes the names of my mother and father, my mother’s doctor, and the hospital in which I was born,” said Kincaid. “This certified copy of an original long form document is what anyone who wants to be president should be prepared to produce.”

Article II, Section 1 of the United States Constitution, states, “No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.”

[...]

“Journalism used to ask who, what, when, where, why and how,” said Kincaid. “But today’s pro-Obama journalists want to ignore those questions when it comes to the constitutional eligibility of the current occupant of the oval office. They would rather accept what the Obama campaign (and now administration) wants them to believe. The Obama document may reflect what is in another document, but we really have no way of knowing. The only way to address these questions is to identify where exactly he was born, in what hospital, and what doctor was present. All of this information should be on an original birth certificate.”

Kincaid continued, “It is not unreasonable to ask questions about Barack Obama’s birthplace. Anybody who has an original copy of their own birth certificate, or a certified copy of their own original birth certificate, should immediately understand that the Obama version is lacking in basic information that should be publicly available.”

Kincaid asked, “Whatever happened to the public’s right to know?”

We haven't found anything by Kincaid stating that he's satisfied by Obama's release of his long-form birth certificate. He has promoted discredited filmmaker Joel Gilbert's debunked claim that Frank Marshall Davis is Obama's father.

Additionally, several members of AIM's "Citizens' Commission on Benghazi" kangaroo court are serious Obama birthers who, as far as we know, have not raised similar questions about Cruz.

Apparently, Kincaid's concern about "the public’s right to know" doesn't extend to questions about candidates he supports.

AIM's Kincaid Promotes Discredited Vaccine-Autism Link
Topic: Accuracy in Media

Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid has been an anti-vaxxer for a while, pushing the discredited idea that vaccines cause autism. He has insisted that "the science is not settled" on the subject, and he's touted the anti-vaxxers at the National Vaccine Information Center as credible spokespeople when they simply want to fearmonger.

Kincaid begins his April 4 column by needlessly making things political, ranting that "liberals and the left-wingers who come down on the side of the drug companies, known as Big Pharma. They want government to force parents to have their infants injected with potentially dangerous vaccines that may be linked to the developmental disorder known as autism."

Kincaid then promotes former NBC executive Bob Wright, who has a new book out that touches on the subject. Kincaid notes that Wright founded the autism advocacy group Autism Speaks, but not that the group has taken the position that "Vaccines do not cause autism" (though that position statement is accompanied by a more ambiguous one by Wright insisting that "Scientific research has not directly connected autism to vaccines").

Kincaid then opromoted the film "VAXXED: From Cover-up to Catastrophe," which he benignly called "a documentary about the possible link between vaccines and autism that is based largely on the work of a CDC whistleblower." Actually, the film is made by Andrew Wakefield, a now-defrocked doctor whose 1998 study claiming to link vaccines to autism has been retracted by the medical journal that published it and has been called a fraud.

Kincaid then credulously writes this:

Dr. Stephanie Seneff, a research scientist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), says in the trailer for the film that if present trends continue, by 2032 half of the children—and 80 percent of the boys—will be autistic. She says, “This will be a complete catastrophe if we just let it happen.”

That's complete and utter bull. In fact, the autism rate among children has leveled off at 1 in 68, and increasing diagnosis rates in previous years likely had much to do with a "learning curve" among doctors when it came to properly diagnosing autism spectrum disorders.

Meanwhile, Kincaid howls that "vaccines have led to the dramatic increase in autism" and rants that vaccines "have become a cash cow for Big Pharma. There is a vested financial interest in increasing the number of vaccines, and making them mandatory at earlier ages." Perhaps Kincaid should disclose what his vested financial interests are in perpetuating a falsehood.

AIM Joins WND In Trying To Revive Vince Foster Conspiracy Theories
Topic: Accuracy in Media

WorldNetDaily isn't the only ConWeb outlet trying to revive fake Clinton scandals to try and take down Hillary Clinton.

A March 25 Accuracy in Media column by Hugh Turley prattles on about the "cover-up" of the "murder" of Vince Foster and tries to play concern troll:

As Hillary Clinton moves closer to securing the Democratic Party nomination for president, her critics and supporters might wonder why she has no apparent interest in the ongoing cover-up of the murder of her close friend and confidant. The day after Foster died, Hillary had lunch at her mother’s home in Arkansas with James Rutherford III, a friend and associate of Foster and the Clintons and dean of the Clinton School in Arkansas, and he told the FBI, “Hillary Clinton was in complete shock and disbelief at the thought of Foster committing suicide.” And she wasn’t alone. What changed her mind?

Needless to say, Turley -- credited only as having "co-authored the final 20 pages of Ken Starr's Report on Vince Foster's death" --  makes no mention of the numerous investigations that found Foster's death to be a suicide. Instead he suggests a more timely, if murky, conspiracy theory: that Brett Kavanaugh, an investigator for Starr, somehow fixed things for the Clintons by making sure any official intimation of murder disappeared from the Starr report on Foster, and that Hillary Clinton, if elected president, will elevate him to the Supreme Court as thanks, or something.

You can't make this stuff up, folks. And as long as there are Clinton-obsessed right-wingers around to gin up conspracy theories, you never have to.

AIM Chairman Baselessly Blames Bookstore for Apparent Prank
Topic: Accuracy in Media

Accuracy in Media chairman Don Irvine rants in a Dec. 29 AIM blog post:

Looks like a Miami, Florida Barnes & Noble got caught red-handed showing its liberal bias towards some Republican presidential candidates. Especially when it comes to Donald Trump and Ben Carson.

Robbie Myers, the digital director for the Senate Republican Conference, spotted Trump’s new book, Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again, along with another Trump book and Carson’s latest, A More Perfect Union: What We the People Can Do to Reclaim Our Constitutional Liberties, in the store’s humor section.

Maybe the manager of the bookstore thinks Trump and Carson are just naturally funny guys—they’re certainly funnier than Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders—but considering that they are the only books written by any presidential candidates in that section is suspicious at best.

This type of behavior by a bookstore towards Republican or conservative books isn’t anything new, but in the age of social media it’s much harder to get away with it.

Completely lacking from Irvine's post: any evidence that a bookstore employee actually did this. It's much more likely that a mischievous customer put the books there without the knowledge of any employee.

This reminds us of the time WorldNetDaily devoted an actual "news" story to a copy of Hillary Clinton's autobiography being placed in a bookstore's science fiction section. WND credited a "mischievous customer" who "is likely one of the majority of Americans who, according to new national polls, think the New York senator is not being truthful in her new book."

We're guessing Irvine was perfectly fine with that bit of silliness and did not baselessly blame bookstore employees for it, as he is doing here.

And Irvine wonders about AIM's increasing irrelevence in the media-criticism game.

AIM Chairman Obsesses Over The Proper National Motto
Topic: Accuracy in Media

In a Dec. 11 blog post, Accuracy in Media chairman Don Irvine complained that University of Maryland president Wallace Loh, in defending the decision to drop the name of a former school president with a history of racism from the school's football stadium, "managed to quote the wrong official motto of the United States" by bringing up the phrase "E Pluribus Unum."

Irvine added: "Considering that 'In God we Trust' has been the official national motto since 1956, it’s hard to figure out how Loh committed such an atrocious mistake, except to say that the official motto wouldn’t have fit his narrative as he caves to the left and practices revisionist history."

In fact, Loh never said "E Pluribus Unum," was the "official motto" but, rather, "our national motto engraved on our coins" (as Irvine directly quotes Loh). And "E Pluribus Unum," while not the "official motto," is unquestionably *a* national motto.

History professor Thomas Foster points out that "'E Pluribus Unum' has long been acknowledged as a de facto national motto. After all, it is on the Great Seal of the United States, which was adopted in 1782. Moreover, in the 1770s and ’80s Congress opposed a theistic motto for the nation, and many of the founders worked hard to prevent one from being established." It was founding fathers John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson who approved putting that motto on the Great Seal. "In God We Trust," by contrast, "was made the official national motto in 1956, at the height of the Cold War, to signal opposition to the feared secularizing ideology of communism," Foster writes.

If this debate sounds familiar it should: The ConWeb had a cow in 2010 when President Obama did something similar.

Obama Derangement At Its Finest, Courtesy of AIM's Kincaid: 'Is Our Stoner President Mentally Impaired?'
Topic: Accuracy in Media

It's hard to fine a better distallation of Obama Derangement Syndrome than Cliff Kincaid's Dec. 7 Accuracy in Media column, starting with the headline "Is Our Stoner President Mentally Impaired?" Let's see if we can pick the highlights and  not excerpt the entire column in the process:

Members of Congress concerned about America’s survival have shied away from impeaching President Obama on national security grounds. They either think impeachment would take too long or that the political process of impeaching the first black Democratic President would be too polarizing. There is an alternative: removing Obama from office because of cognitive impairment.

[...]

Rather than accuse Obama of being a secret Muslim blinded by Marxist ideology, perhaps the way for Congress to save our nation is to invoke the 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution dealing with presidential disabilities. This amendment allows Congress to review whether or not the president is able to discharge the powers and duties of his office. If it is determined that he is not, then he can be replaced. A case can be made that he is so affected by previous drug use that he is just not capable of comprehending reality. As a former member of the “Choom Gang” of heavy marijuana users, Obama seems indifferent to the facts on the ground concerning the Muslim terrorist threat.

The charge that Obama has been impaired by marijuana is not made lightly. Interestingly enough, however, a new study has just been released regarding the “psychosis-like effects” of marijuana.

[...]

Obama is, presumably, not smoking marijuana in the White House. But he talks and acts as if he is still under the influence. Indeed, the long-term impact of the weed on his intellectual processes is a subject of concern. David Maraniss, author of a book on Obama, notes that the word “choom,” taken from “Choom Gang,” means to smoke marijuana. He said Obama “started a few pot-smoking trends,” suggesting the future president understood ways to make the “high” from the drug even more powerful and lasting. One method they used was to smoke dope in a car and then inhale or suck in what was left of the smoke in the ceiling of the car.

What Maraniss leaves out of his book on Obama is the role played by Obama’s mentor, Communist Party member Frank Marshall Davis, another dope smoker who probably gave the young Barry some tips on inhaling the drug for full effect. Davis, a pedophile, probably also taught young Barry about experimenting with sex.

[...]

If Congress doesn’t want to find Obama guilty of having an ideology that explains his sympathy for radical Islam and disqualifies his continued service as President, the only alternative is to diagnose his medical condition with public hearings and conclude that he has lost touch with reality and is mentally ill. A Congressional Research Service study cites evidence that section four of the 25th amendment is designed for “a sick president who refuses or is unable to confront his disability,” or “a president who is disabled but unwilling to step aside.”

This section is complicated, but it explicitly allows for Congress to establish a committee or another body to review the president’s disability and recommend his removal from office. It refers to several ways the president can be removed, including through a body “as Congress may by law provide.” This would begin the process of congressional action.

The main objection will be that using Obama’s dope-smoking days against him is going back too far in his life to justify his removal from office. But many observers see that something is seriously wrong with this President’s approach to his job. Blaming his performance on the lingering effects of the heavy use of illegal drugs makes as much sense as any other explanation at this point.

Indeed, with impeachment on ideological grounds off the table, it is within the jurisdiction of Congress to decide that Obama has done enough damage to the nation and the world and that he must go. Since Obama seems to be AWOL in the War on Terror, dereliction of duty by Congress in this case would only increase the danger and risk to the nation.

Poor Cliff Kincaid. His ODS just makes this way too easy.

Oops: Anti-Muslim Activists Fall For Fake Story
Topic: Accuracy in Media

A story at the Free Wood Post, claiming that "The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has officially designated Donald Trump and his campaign as a hate group," has captured the attention of anti-Muslim activist (and member of the Accuracy in Media's increasingly discredited "Citizens' Commission on Benghazi") Clare Lopez:

Lopez's tweet was approvingly quoted by another anti-Muslim activist and right-wing favorite, Frank Gaffney:

Just one problem with the story: it's a fake.

The first clue is the banner on the Free Wood Post website, which proclaims "news that's almost reliable." There's also a prominent link to a "satire disclaimer" at the top of the page, which states: "Free Wood Post is a news and political satire web publication, which may or may not use real names, often in semi-real or mostly fictitious ways. All news articles contained within FreeWoodPost.com are fiction, and presumably fake news. Any resemblance to the truth is purely coincidental, except for all references to politicians and/or celebrities, in which case they are based on real people, but still based almost entirely in fiction."

We found nothing on the SPLC website designating the Trump campaign as a hate group, though it has criticized the "extreme, anti-Muslim rhetoric" peddled by Trump and Gaffney, among others.

If Lopez and Gaffney fall so easily for fake stories, that doesn't say much about their supposed expertise in bashing Muslims.

AIM's Kincaid Twists Planned Parenthood Shooting To His Own Right-Wing Obsessions
Topic: Accuracy in Media

We know the ConWeb loves to distract from right-wingers who commit massacres, but leave it to Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid to take it to the next level by twisting the Colorado Planned Parenthood shooting to focus on his own obsessions.

in a Nov. 30 AIM column, Kincaid dismissed alleged Planned Parenthood shooter Robert Dear as a "crazy nut living in a shack" and rants about ... Bill Ayers:

We don’t remember any outrage from the media over the alleged roles played by Obama associates Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn in the 1970 bombing murder of San Francisco police officer Brian V. McDonnell. In fact, the media peddled the nonsense that Ayers and Dohrn, who helped launch Barack Obama’s political career, were “anti-war activists” who bombed a few buildings and never hurt anyone.

Since “domestic terrorism” is now a topic of concern for the media, in the wake of the attack on the Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado, can we expect the media to pressure Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch to gather new evidence in the McDonnell case? It’s not likely.

The claim that Ayers and Dohrn are linked to to McDonnell's death comes from Kincaid buddy and former FBI information Larry Gratwohl, who only came forward with this alleged link in 2008 in an apparent attempt to sabotage Obama's presidential bid. (Kincaid cited this 2008 article in claiming that "For more than seven years Accuracy in Media has been calling on the media to join the campaign to get justice for McDonnell’s family.")

By contrast, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that "investigators have found no evidence that links the Weather Underground to the bombing" that killed McDonnell.

Kincaid goes on to rant: "This is why the left-wing rhetoric from the media about protecting women’s health and women’s lives in the wake of the Colorado killings cannot be taken seriously. They see this violence as a political opportunity to smear conservatives. They don’t care a whit about 'domestic terrorism,' except when it serves their political purposes." Given that Kincaid is a rabid Obama-hater who has served a conduit for the utterly discredited Joel Gilbert, Kincaid cannot be taken seriously on this or, really, any other subject -- after all, he doesn't care a whit about 'domestic terrorism,' except when it serves his political purposes.

Two days later, Kincaid was back with a column titled "Planned Parenthood Killer Was a Deranged Pothead." And -- we are not making this up -- this is all somehow Obama's rault (oh, and George Soros too):

The liberals were quick to blame conservative Christians, Republicans, and others on the right for the carnage in the Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic. It turns out the killer was a paranoid pothead who probably moved to Colorado because it offered him plenty of legal weed. The murders were just the latest example of President Obama’s pro-pot policies causing “active shooter” cases in which innocent people get maimed and killed.

[...]

While President Obama blames easy access to guns for these acts of madness and death, it appears that easy access to high-potency marijuana is really to blame in the Colorado case. Marijuana is legal in Colorado, which passed a marijuana legalization measure on the state level in 2012, thanks to “progressive” groups funded by pro-drug billionaire George Soros.

Under Obama, a heavy marijuana user in his youth, the Justice Department has refused to enforce federal laws and treaties against the use and cultivation of marijuana. So the Colorado legalization “experiment” has continued.

Hence, Obama’s pro-pot policies may have cost the lives of those in the Planned Parenthood clinic. No wonder Obama wants to blame guns.

Obama was a member of the Choom Gang, a group of heavy marijuana users. Speculation has mounted that Robert Lewis Dear was on “Obama choom,” as it’s known on the street, or “speed weed,” a high potency form of marijuana perhaps mixed with other drugs.

Kincaid didn't mention that Dear ranted "no more baby parts" during his rampage, was described by neighbors as a Kincaid-level Obama-hater, and believed that anti-abortion extremists like the Army of God were doing "God's work."

Leave it to Kincaid to do anything he can to distract from the fact that extreme anti-abortion rhetoric now has a (larger) body count.

NEW ARTICLE: AIM's Month of Bad Benghazi News
Topic: Accuracy in Media
Accuracy in Media not only felt compelled to laughably insist the House Republicans' Benghazi committee isn't politically driven, a key member of its own Benghazi "citizens' commission" has turned out to be an apparent fraud. Read more >>

What AIM And Its Chairman Are Tweeting About Instead Of Wayne Simmons
Topic: Accuracy in Media

Up until (and shortly after) his arrest on fraud charges, self-proclaimed terrorism expert Wayne Simmons was a member of Accuracy in Media's "Citizens' Commission on Benghazi," a kangaroo court stuffed with Obama-haters and birthers that AIM wants us to believe is seeking the truth about what happened in the Benghazi attacks. Simmons was arguably one of the more prominent members of the CCB.

But after Simmons' arrest, he has suddenly become He Who Must Not Be Named By AIM. It's been systematically scrubbing Simmons and any ties he has to the CCB from its website, and its bland statement on Simmons, issued more than a day after the charges were announced, is oddly buried on the CCB section -- not linked to on AIM's front page -- and its existence was announced solely via an AIM tweet cryptically worded, "Statement on the Citizens' Commission on Benghazi."

Aside from that cryptic tweet, AIM's Twitter account has been silent on Simmons, even though AIM's statement touted him as a "colleague" whose current situation leaves them "stunned and saddened."And the Twitter account of AIM chairman Don Irvine has been completely bereft of any reference to Simmons, cryptic or otherwise.

So what have AIM and Irvine been tweeting about to keep from having to talk about simmons? Well, AIM touted the trailer for the new "Star Wars" film, complete with R2D2 emoji:

AIM also promoted a Fox News story on Benghazi reported by "Past Reed Irvine Award Winner Catherine Herridge," as if Irvine Award winners were known for reporting facts instead of reinforcing right-wing talking points:

Irvine has been even more eager to change the subject. He also touted the new "Star Wars" trailer:

He complained about the weather and his car:

And he live-tweeted the latest episode of "The Walking Dead":

This is what AIM and its leader are talking about instead of Wayne Simmons, a story they are at the center of and whose point of view would be a contribution. Silence and a buried, bland statement do not serve the "accuracy in media" AIM purports to desire.

It seems like the group's initials should be changed from AIM to CYA.

AIM Still Silent On Simmons -- But Scrubs Him From Website
Topic: Accuracy in Media

It's been a day since self-proclaimed CIA operative Wayne Simmons was exposed as a fraud, but Accuracy in Media, Simmons' most prominent connection on the right wing -- he serves as a member of its "Citizens' Commission on Benghazi" kangaroo court -- has remained silent on the situation. There's nothing to be found addressing Simmons on its website, its Twitter account or the Twitter of AIM chairman Don Irvine.

AIM has, however, scrubbed Simmons off its website.

Simmons' name has been removed from the list of "Citizens' Commission on Benghazi" members, where it was as recently as two days ago, according to Google cache. Simmons' bio as a CCB member has also been deleted from the website; the page where the bio formerly resided now returns a 404 error.

Yet AIM doesn't want to talk about its actions. Is it afraid that Simmons' fraud will rub off on the committee? Too late for that -- it's already too stuffed with birthers and Obama-haters to be considered credible.

UPDATE: Finally! The AIM website's CCB section has issued a (carefully, tepidly worded) statement -- strangely located in the header of the CCB page, not in its own post, as if it's ready to make this go away quietly as well:

We were stunned and saddened to hear the news about Wayne Simmons. He has been a colleague of ours on the Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi since we were established in 2013. We have removed Wayne’s name from the list of members on the website of the CCB, pending the outcome of the legal proceedings. As with everyone charged with a crime or crimes in this country, he is innocent until proven guilty. We wish him the best.

The statement then goes on to bizarrely promote how "On April 22, 2014 the CCB released an interim report with preliminary findings." That may have been there before the Simmons statement was posted, but its current juxtoposition makes it look like part of the statement -- and an inappropriately placed promotion, despite the fact that the nature of the allegations against Simmons arguably casts a cloud over the entire CCB.

Meanwhile, AIM's Cliff Kincaid has yet to distance himself from discredited filmmaker Joel Gilbert.

UPDATE 2: Media Matters notes that several more pages referencing Simmons have been scrubbed from AIM's website.

AIM 'Citizens' Commision on Benghazi' Member Accused of Fraud
Topic: Accuracy in Media

The bio page for Wayne Simmons at Accuracy in Media's website for its "Citizens' Commission on Benghazi" kangaroo court puts "former CIA officer" right in the headline and claims that he "spent 27 years working with the CIA to combat terrorism, narco-terrorism and narcotics trafficking, arms smuggling, counterfeiting, cyber-terrorists, and industrial and economic espionage."

Much of that is not true, it appears.

The Washington Post reports that Simmons has been arrested on fraud charges relating to the self-aggrandizing tales he has told about himself over the years. A federal indictment states that in order to obtain a security clearance for a government contractor, Simmons was “falsely stating that he had been recruited to the CIA in 1973, that he had not previously been charged with or convicted of a felony offense, that his prior arrests and criminal convictions were directly related to his supposed intelligence work for the CIA, and that he had held a top secret security clearance from 1973 to 2000.”

Simmons was also charged in an apparently unrelated scam in which he convinced someone to make a $125,000 real estate investment with him, citing "his supposed affiliation with the CIA to bolster his credibility," then used the money for personal expenses.

If Simmons is the fraud prosecutors claim he is, that doesn't exactly bode well for the credibility of AIM's "Citizens' Commission on Benghazi," which is already stuffed with birthers and Obama-haters.

Thus far, AIM has been silent about the charges against Simmons both on its webiste and on its Twitter account, as well as the Twitter account of AIM chairman Don Irvine.

AIM Desperately Defends Benghazi Committee
Topic: Accuracy in Media

When House Majority Leader candidate Kevin McCarthy effectively admitted that the House Benghazi Select Committee was a scheme to drive down Hillary Clinton's poll numbers, right-wingers knew the game was up. Now comes Accuracy in Media's Roger Aronoff to deny the obvious, even insisting that AIM's own "Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi" kangaroo court is political:

Following a series of rather uneventful hearings on Benghazi, other than Hillary’s line, “What difference, at this point, does it make?” plus the stacked-deck hearing by the “independent” Accountability Review Board, we at Accuracy in Media (AIM) decided to do something about it. In July of 2013, we formed the Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi (CCB), with a group of top retired military leaders, former CIA officers, and congressmen, including the former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Pete Hoekstra, with the purpose of doing our own independent investigation in an attempt to reveal the truth about what happened—before, during and after the terrorist attacks in Benghazi on September 11 and 12, 2012—and hold people accountable. We have made much progress, and are still at it.

We started off with an all-day conference in September 2013, which can be viewed here. Leading off the conference was Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), who already had a House bill with approximately 185 Republican House members as co-sponsors, calling for a Select Committee on Benghazi. The advantage of a Select Committee is that it brings all facets of the investigation under one roof, rather than being divided up between various committees, each with a limited scope and purview. Plus, a Select Committee isn’t limited by the normal rules, in which each questioner has only five minutes, which can easily be eaten up by a single answer. Wolf was the real driving force in Congress behind the formation of a Select Committee. You can watch or read his comments here. It had nothing to do with driving down Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers.

Aronoff doesn't sound very convincing. He offers nothing to back up his assertion beyond insisting it wasn't political. And if AIM's little kangaroo court wasn't political, why is it filled with Obama-haters and birthers?

Indeed, we've been pointing out the kangaroo-court nature of the CCB since AIM announced it in 2013. Neither Aronoff nor AIM has disputed the fact that it's stacked with birthers and Obama-haters who cannot possibly be interested in an impartial view of the Benghazi evidence that does not implicate Obama or Clinton.

Now we know the CCB is no different from the House Select Committee in its partisan intent. Aronoff should stop pretending that politics isn't his primary motivation.

Obama Derangement Syndrome Watch, 'Muslim Identity' Edition
Topic: Accuracy in Media

So what reason is there to believe that Obama is a Christian just because he says so? He doesn’t act or talk like a Christian, and he doesn’t go to church very often. Instead, he acts and talks like a Muslim. Obama acknowledges in Dreams from My Father that his grandfather was a Muslim (page 104) and that he spent two years in a Muslim school in Indonesia studying the Koran (page 154).

There is no evidence Obama was baptized, in any formal sense, in Jeremiah Wright’s church.  What’s more, there is no evidence that Obama ever specifically rejected Islam. Indeed, Obama could have joined Wright’s church in Chicago without disavowing the Muslim faith. Author Edward Klein notes that Wright told him that he “made it comfortable” for Obama to accept Christianity “without having to renounce his Islamic background.”

[...]

If Obama had demonstrated his Christianity through actions and statements, and if there was indisputable evidence that he was baptized a Christian and rejected Islam, the media might have a point.

In this case, they do not. The behavior of the media is far more objectionable than a simple observation, based on the facts as he perceived them, from an American citizen about the American President.

The record is clear: Obama has lied about his Marxist and Muslim backgrounds. The American people have every right to be suspicious of him.

-- Cliff Kincaid, Sept. 18 Accuracy in Media column

AIM's Kincaid Pretty Much The Only One Defending O'Keefe Now
Topic: Accuracy in Media

Project Veritas provocateur and convicted criminal James O'Keefe unveiled his latest trolling operation last week, which consisted of an O'Keefe operative serving as a moderating party between a Hillary Clinton campaign merch table operator and someone who claimed to be Canadian who wanted to buy a couple of Hillary T-shirts, then claiming this was a massive scandal of foreign contributions to Hillary's campaign.

This was so embarrassing, even many conservative outlets ignored the story, and the right-wing Daily Caller pretty much mocked it.

But not Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid. "The law says that foreigners are strictly prohibited from contributing to U.S. political campaigns, and O’Keefe had dramatic evidence of the campaign law violation. The video was played on a television screen for all to see," he thundered in a Sept. 1 column, which was curiously silent about the exact nature of what happened. He complained that media outlets mocked O'Keefe (not mentioning the right-wing outlets that also mocked and ignored O'Keefe), then thundered again:

But those distortions won’t suffice when the video evidence itself can be seen by millions, telling the real story that some in the media try to conceal. As Project Veritas emphasized, the video shows Molly Barker, the Director of Marketing for Hillary Clinton’s national campaign, knowingly breaking campaign finance law by accepting a straw donation from a foreign national.

Kincaid didn't mention that if Hillary's campaign broke the law, O'Keefe's organization did as well.  As the Daily Beast's Olivia Nuzzi pointed out, Project Veritas broke the law twice by invervening in the transaction between the campaign and the alleged Canadian (Project Veritas doesn't know the identity of the that person, let alone if the person is actually Canadian) and by having its operative make the transaction under a false name.

But the facts don't matter to Kincaid, who declared that "the great number of journalists who showed up was an indication that, when it comes to Hillary, nobody really knows how serious the law-breaking will get. O’Keefe suggested that more evidence against the campaign is yet to come."