Kincaid Buys Into Obama Birth Certificate Conspiracy
Topic: Accuracy in Media

Never one to miss out on a good conspiracy, Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid gave a speech CPAC in which he hops aboard the Obama birth certificate fraud bandwagon:

Yes, back during the 1980s we had a president who was anti-communist. Now, back during the 1980s at least we knew -- we knew that our president was born in the United States.

County Fair has the clip.

Feder Gets It (Repeatedly) Wrong
Topic: Horowitz

Don Feder brings the editorial non-integrity we've come to count on at his little Accuracy in Media-bankrolled anti-New York Times website -- a site AIM is so proud of that it doesn't even offer a link to it from its front page, even though it still promotes a "What Liberals Say" page that hasn't been updated in months -- to a Feb. 27 FrontPageMag screed purporting to "guide you through the ideological land mines of Lib-Speak." Let's count the ways Feder can't be bothered to get basic facts straight, or to engage in civil discourse:

He repeats the false claims that "ACORN gets $4.2 billion" in the stimulus bill.

He asserts that "$2 billion for a high-speed passenger train from Los Angeles to Las Vegas." In fact, the bill does not name any specific project, and funding would be allocated by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, a former Republican congressman.

Feder writes of the New Deal: "All of Roosevelt’s stimulus spending (which was a lot for the times) and alphabet agencies, resulted in higher unemployment in 1938 – five years into the New Deal – than in 1933, when he took office." In fact, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1933 unemployment was 24.9 percent; 1938 unemployment was 19.0 percent.

Feder writes: "Unilateralism is embraced by those with a healthy survival instinct. Imagine that unilateralist Franklin Roosevelt declaring war on Japan on December 8, 1941, without the consent of the League of Nations, Vichy France, Tokyo Rose and the German-American Bund." Of course, FDR didn't "declare war on Japan"; he asked the Congress to do so after Pearl Harbor.

Feder is also quick with the insults,calling Ted Kennedy "Ted The Super-Sized Statist" and calling community organizers "urban guerrillas."

If there's anything we can count on from Feder, it's lies and hate.

Farah Still Not Taking Criticism Well
Topic: WorldNetDaily

We've just detailed how poorly WorldNetDaily's Joseph Farah handles criticism of him and his website. He exhibits all the symptoms again in a Feb. 27 column, in which he takes issue with conservative radio host Michael Medved.

Hurling insults and denigrating the source? Check. Farah calls Medved's radio show "the flagship of Salem Communications, which once tried to buy WND and whose stock is currently trading at around $0.50." Farah also suggests that Medved is on a personal vendetta because WND canceled his column several years ago.

Avoiding details? Check. Farah describes Medved's criticism only in generalities, and at no point does Farah quote a specific claim Medved made (beyond noting that he called WND "WorldNutDaily"). This allows Farah to create straw men for him to knock down.

That's just how Farah rolls. Don't expect him to actually answer legitimate criticism.

Ponte Smears Teenager
Topic: Newsmax

Lowell Ponte's Democrat Derangement Syndrome manifests itself again in a Feb. 26 Newsmax column, in which he decides to trash a South Carolina teenager who wrote a letter to President Obama for help in repairing her school and ended up in the audience for Obama's speech to Congress:

This young woman, lionized Tuesday night on worldwide television, did only one thing: She wrote a letter asking national lawmakers to give her and her school goodies paid for by others.

“We are not quitters,” she wrote.

True, but what she has not quit is mooching.

Once upon a time, self-reliant Americans would have patched the school roof and painted its peeling walls themselves.

All this young woman did was ask politicians hundreds of miles away to tax money from others at gunpoint to benefit her.

Lowell's a real class act, isn't he?

Aaron Klein Anti-Obama Agenda Watch
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Aaron Klein is still hurling guilt-by-association garbage at Chas Freeman, President Obama's apparent pick to head the National Intelligence Council. In a Feb. 25 WorldNetDaily article, Klein claims that Freeman "once peddled a book to U.S. public schools that falsely claims Muslims inhabited North America far before European explorers."

But Klein offers no evidence at Freeman personally "peddled" this book, as he states. Rather, all Klein offers is that the organization Fredman heads, the Middle East Policy Council, once promoted it.

That's not a distinction without a difference -- things are often done in an organization's name that its officials may not have necessarily signed off on. Unless Klein can demonstrate Freeman's personal involvement in "peddling" the textbook, Klein's claim is guilt-by-association at best and, completely false at worst.

Klein also repeats his previous false suggestion of ties between Freeman and Osama bin Laden.

Examiner Can't Stop Lying About ACORN
Topic: Washington Examiner

A couple weeks ago, as we noted, the Washington Examiner built a "special report" around the false claim, made by local opinion editor Barbara Hollingsworth, that ACORN was allocated money in the stimulus.

Hollingsworth strikes again in a Feb. 26 Examiner column, falsely asserting once more that ACORN "received billions of tax dollars under Obama’s $787 billion stimulus plan."

Once again: ACORN isn't even named in the stimulus bill, let alone allocated money, and ACORN officials have stated that they aren't even eligible for the "billions of tax dollars" it's supposedly getting.

Hollingsworth tries to expand her lie this time around, claiming that La Raza is also receiving "billions of tax dollars" in the stimulus. But she offers no evidence of that, which suggests that this claim is false too. All we could find regarding it is an guilt-by-association assertion by Michelle Malkin that because Citigroup has in the past donated money to La Raza, it's getting stimulus money now.

WND Obama Birth Certificate Fraud Watch
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily is apparently going to take its Obama birth certificate fraud to its logically insane conclusion.

A Feb. 25 WND article uncritically quotes Philip Berg -- whose lawsuits against Obama demanding that he prove he's a U.S. citizen WND has breathlessly promoted -- calling Obama "an illegal alien" who "should be arrested and deported."

Needless to say, WND fails to mention that it originally debunked Berg's claims about Obama's birth certificate -- including citing "experts" to proclaim that the certificate released by Obama's campaign to be authentic -- before deciding to pretend that it didn't.

New Article: Joseph Farah's Thin Skin
Topic: WorldNetDaily
The editor of WorldNetDaily has demonstrated a clear inability to handle criticism, to which he responds by insulting his critics and trying to change the subject. Read more >>

It's All About Him
Topic: Horowitz

In an interview with the Emory University student newspaper, published Feb. 25 at FrontPageMag, David Horowitz lets a little truth slip out:

How do you feel about being paired in debate with individuals such as Ward Churchill, who you termed “an idiot”? Is it demeaning to be paired with them in debate, as if they’re your equivalent?

Yeah, totally. Believe me, the internet is wonderful and horrible. I know everything that’s said about me thanks to Google. A lot of it is deliberately disrespectful and hateful and is meant to destroy me.

The attacks have been so unprincipled that I have had to create my Center [the David Horowitz Freedom Center] in order to have a platform.

There you have it -- the only reason the Horowitz organization (including FrontPageMag) exists is to promote Horowitz.

WND's Washington: Obama Is A Nazi Fascist Devil and Mobster
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily columnist Ellis Washington has already smeared President Obama as a Nazi and a fascist. What can he do for an encore? Liken Obama to the devil, of course -- with a side smear of mobster. From Washington's Feb. 25 column:

How does the legend of Faust apply to Gov. Jindal's refusal to accept all of the $100 million dollars Obama is offering the state of Louisiana as part of it's share of stimulus package money. President Obama, like the suave, cosmopolitan Mephistopheles, has not only crafted and passed the largest wealth confiscation in the history of the world, but upon closer examination of the 1,000-plus pages of this bloated, complex and convoluted text, the devil is truly in the details.

[...]

It's like the wedding scene of "The Godfather," Part I, where Michael Corleone recalled his father (Vito Corleone) doing business through his muscleman, Lou Cabrachi: "Either your signature on this contract, or your brains on this contract." President Barack Corleone's so-called $787 billion economic stimulus package has offered America a deal with the devil.

It's only a month into Obama's presidency, and Washington is running out of insults to hurl. We have to wonder: Does Washington insult the college students he teaches the way he insults the president?

Blumer Doesn't Understand the AP (Or, Really, The Entire Media )
Topic: NewsBusters

A Feb. 25 NewsBusters post by Tom Blumer bashes the Associated Press for issuing a story on President Obama's address to Congress, written in past tense, several hours before the speech was given. But Blumer clearly doesn't understand the purpose of such a story.

The AP issues such a advance story for many such addresses, based on an advance copy of the speech. Why? To allow morning newspapers that publish early editions with a publication deadline before the speech is delivered to have a story on the speech. Newspapers with later deadlines would not run this story because it would be updated with reaction to the speech and other details. Since many news websites that publish AP copy are set up to do so automatically, advance stories such as this appear online as well.

Because Blumer doesn't understand what he's criticizing, he chooses to make fun of it, touting its "comic relief."

Blumer has frequently displayed his ignorance of the media he's supposedly criticizing. He has gotten facts wrong, he cluelessly thinks that supposed "liberal bias" is the only possible reason the newspaper industry is in trouble, and he has falsely suggested that President Bush didn't pre-select reporters to take questions from during press conferences while Bashing Obama for doing so.

How does someone who clearly knows so little about the media get to present himself as a media critic? Or is such ignorance a prerequisite for writing at NewsBusters?

Aaron Klein Anti-Obama Agenda Watch
Topic: WorldNetDaily

A Feb. 24 WorldNetDaily article by Aaron Klein attacks Chas Freeman, nominated by President Obama to head the National Intelligence Council, as once having "business ties to Osama bin Laden's family." But in baselessly suggesting that Freeman is tied to Osama bin Laden, Klein fails to report relevant details showing the lack of connection between Osama's terrorism and the bin Laden family's business interests.

At no point, for example, does Klein mention the fact that Osama's brother, Bakr bin Laden, publicly renounced Osama bin Laden in a statement released to the media in February 1994. Instead, he claims that "some bin Laden factions have not disowned Osama" -- but never bothers to prove the implication that Freeman is in any way associated with those "factions.

In other words, this is more guilt-by-assocation garbage from Klein.

Limbaugh Repeats ACORN Lie
Topic: WorldNetDaily

In his Feb. 24 syndicated column, published at WorldNetDaily and Newsmax, David Limbaugh repeats the discredited claim that the stimulus bill is "allocating billions of taxpayer dollars to community organizing groups, such as ACORN."

As we've repeatedly noted, ACORN isn't even named in the stimulus bill, let alone has money allocated to it, and ACORN officialshave pointed out that they aren't eligible to receive the money people like Limbaugh think they're supposedly "allocated."

Meanwhile ...
Topic: WorldNetDaily
Ed Brayton and Richard Bartholomew point out that invoking the anti-Semetic Martin Luther to criticize Pope Benedict's lifting of the excommunication of Holocaust denier Richard Williamson, as Les Kinsolving did in his Feb. 17 WorldNetDaily column, is perhaps not the most appropriate analogy.

Sheppard Applauds Destruction of Satellite
Topic: NewsBusters

It's not often you see a right-winger root for the destruction of government property, but that's what Noel Sheppard does in a Feb. 24 NewsBusters post as he takes near-sadistic glee in the crash of a NASA rocket containing a satellite to be launched.

Why is Sheppard taking such perverse happiness? Because the satellite was to track worldwide levels of carbon dioxide in order to help track the rate of global warming. Sheppard chortles:

How delicious that it landed near the continent whose expanding ice mass totally defies the myth climate alarmists so eagerly spread for their own purposes.

Not to promote a conspiracy theory here but such anarchic glee makes one wonder if he or his denier cohorts sabotaged the rocket to ensure its destruction. Or perhaps Sheppard is afraid of the possibility of more scientific evidence that would further contradict his politically motivated anti-global-warming activism.

Oh, and contrary to Sheppard's claim, Antarctic ice is, in fact, melting.