President (I use the term loosely) Barack Obama was voted in by guilted whites and brainwashed blacks. He might even be an illegal alien.

[...]

Obama's objective is to compromise America economically; the goal being to establish first a socialist state, and finally a Marxist one.

-- Erik Rush, March 5 WorldNetDaily column

Posted by Terry K. at 1:21 AM EST

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In a March 3 NewsBusters post, Tom Blumer asserts that Vice President Joe Biden made a "false claim" that Louisiana is losing 400 jobs a day. Blumer cited a "fact check" by a Louisiana TV station claiming that, in Blumer's words, "Biden isn't merely wrong; the Bayou State actually gained seasonally adjusted jobs in December."

But that "fact check" appears to have problems of its own. As the Wonk Room details (h/t County Fair), according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of unemployed people in Louisiana spiked from 109,000 in November to 122,000 in December -- which works out to 430 a day, which would seem to prove Biden right.

So, at best, there's some confusion over different sets of numbers being used. At worst, Blumer is mindlessly repeating a false right-wing talking point.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:20 AM EST

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From a sycophantic March 2 FrontPageMag Q&A with Jamie Glazov, FrontPageMag editor, about Glazov's new book, "United in Hate: The Left's Romance With Tyranny and Terror":

Q: Did the content of the book present challenges in finding a publisher?

A: Yes. It is a hard-hitting book against the liberal-left, which makes it difficult to find a publisher. And it says many things that the boundaries of discourse, which are molded by the Left, do not allow.

Oh, we suspect it wasn't that hard for Glazov to find a publisher -- after all, right-wing publishing houses would slather over the opportunity to publish someone like Glazov who is likening liberals to terrorists. And that's exactly the kind of publisher Glazov found: the book division of WorldNetDaily.

Posted by Terry K. at 2:46 PM EST

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Alan Caruba's March 2 CNSNews.com column once again asserts that "the Earth, based on weather satellite data, is now ten years into a distinct cooling cycle."

As we've pointed out every time Caruba makes this claim, that's not quite true. British meterological experts and researchers point out that "[t]emperatures are continuing to rise" and states that "[a] simple mathematical calculation of the temperature change over the latest decade (1998-2007) alone shows a continued warming of 0.1° C per decade." Further, NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies reports that "[t]he eight warmest years in the [global] GISS record have all occurred since 1998, and the 14 warmest years in the record have all occurred since 1990."

Posted by Terry K. at 9:06 AM EST

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Accuracy in Media has linked to a video, produced by the right-wing birther-populated website 24Ahead, that purports to defend Cliff Kincaid's comments buying into the right-wing conspiracy that Barack Obama isn't an American. The video weirdly attacks Think Progress for falsely titling their version of the Kincaid video by stating that he "suggests Obama wasn't born in U.S.": "Kincaid didn't 'suggest Obama wasn't born in the U.S. He didn't make any suggestions as to where Obama was born. He only -- correctly -- stated that we don't really know."

That's a distinction without a difference. Given that the alternative to being born in the U.S. is not being born in the U.S., by questioning whether there is proof that Obama was born in the U.S., Kincaid is, in fact, suggesting that he was not.

The video goes on to repeat other conspiratorial points about the birth certificate, claiming the one released by the Obama campaignis, "at this point in time, just a picture," and that FactCheck.org has only "seen" the certificate. In fact, FactCheck states it has "seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate."Nevertheless, the video asserts that the folks at FactCheck "aren't document experts and they didn't verify it with the issuing agency." And even WorldNetDaily has declared that the certificate posted by Obama's campaign is authentic (though it now pretends it didn't).

24Ahead also asserts that FactCheck "blatantly lies about the 10/31 statement from the state of Hawaii" without offering evidence. It then tries to raise doubts by claiming there is no "definitive proof."

At no point does 24Ahead acknowlege the logical point that if, according to the Oct. 31, 2008, statement that 24Ahead is presumbly referring, Hawaii state health director Chiyone Fukino said that Obama's original birth certificate is on file with the state in accordance with state policies and procedures, and all information on the released certificate is derivative of the original certificate, then there is no need to release the original certificate other than to sate the partisan anti-Obama paranoia of folks like the anonymous staffers of 24Ahead.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:21 AM EST

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Accuracy in Media has linked to a video, produced by the right-wing birther-populated website 24Ahead, that purports to defend Cliff Kincaid's comments buying into the right-wing conspiracy that Barack Obama isn't an American. The video weirdly attacks Think Progress for falsely titling their version of the Kincaid video by stating that he "suggests Obama wasn't born in U.S.": "Kincaid didn't 'suggest Obama wasn't born in the U.S. He didn't make any suggestions as to where Obama was born. He only -- correctly -- stated that we don't really know."

That's a distinction without a difference. Given that the alternative to being born in the U.S. is not being born in the U.S., by questioning whether there is proof that Obama was born in the U.S., Kincaid is, in fact, suggesting that he was not.

The video goes on to repeat other conspiratorial points about the birth certificate, claiming the one released by the Obama campaignis, "at this point in time, just a picture," and that FactCheck.org has only "seen" the certificate. In fact, FactCheck states it has "seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate."Nevertheless, the video asserts that the folks at FactCheck "aren't document experts and they didn't verify it with the issuing agency." And even WorldNetDaily has 

24Ahead also asserts that FactCheck "blatantly lies about  the 10/31 statement from the state of Hawaii" without offering evidence. It then tries to raise doubts by claiming there is no "definitive proof."

At no point does 24Ahead acknowlege the logical point that if  and according to the Oct. 31, 2008, statement that 24Ahead is presumbly referring that Hawaii state health director Chiyone Fukino said that Obama's original birth certificate is on file with the state in accordance with state policies and procedures, and all information on the released certificate is derivative of the original certificate, then there is no need to release the original certificate other than to feed into the partisan anti-Obama paranoia of folks like the anonymous staffers of 24Ahead.

Posted by Terry K. at 6:41 PM EST

Updated: Thursday, March 5, 2009 1:32 PM EST

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In a March 2 post on the Fox News Forum, NewsBusters' Noel Sheppard bashes John Kerry for attacking George Will's false claims about global warming by using information first reported by Media Matters and the Center for American Progress' Think Progress blog. Why? Because Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, is an "indirect benefactor" of affiliates of these "political propaganda organizations" through her donations to the Tides Foundation, which have donated to these groups.

There's just little one problem with Sheppard's conspiracy theory: it's not true.

As we and others have detailed, Heinz Kerry's donations to the Tides Foundation have been explicitly earmarked toward specific projects in Pennsylvania, making it impossible for that money to have gone toward CAP or Media Matters. Thus, the entire premise of Sheppard's article is false.

Curiously, at no point does Sheppard address the actual claims CAP and Media Matters have made about Will's false statements on global warming, nor does he mention that Washington Post ombudsman Andy Alexander has raised questions about the claims and the editing process that allowed them into Will's column.

Apparently, it's much easier to engage in ad hominem attacks than offer a fact-based response.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:53 PM EST

Updated: Tuesday, March 3, 2009 1:55 PM EST

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Joseph Farah's March 3 column takes another stab at bashing Keith Olbermann for tweaking WorldNetDaily -- and fails yet again to tell the full truth about what WND reported about Barack Obama's birth certificate.

To recap the story thus far: last December, we caught Farah baldly lying about the fact that last August, WND reported that "WND investigation into Obama's birth certificate utilizing forgery experts" found the certificate released by Obama's campaign "to be authentic." Olbermann picked it up and reported it on "Countdown" in January. That got Farah riled up, and he obfuscated, claiming that WND "appeared to suggest an image of Barack Obama's birth certificate on his website was found conclusively to be genuine." Again, not true. WND did a lot more than "suggested" its authenticity -- it affirmatively declared it.

So last week, when Olbermann discussed the birth certificate issue again and noted that "the right-wing site the WorldNetDaily authenticated the Obama birth certificate," it was almost guaranteed that Farah would respond -- and obfuscate again:

It is simply untrue that WND ever "authenticated" the document on Obama's campaign site. First of all, we would have to examine the original document, not a web posting, to do that. Second of all, assuming it is not a fraud, which is more than I would assume, it proves nothing about Obama's actual place of birth, for the reason stated above.

Again, here's what WND wrote last August:

Philip J. Berg, a former member of Pennsylvania's Democratic State Committee and former deputy attorney general of Pennsylvania, filed the lawsuit this week in U.S District Court, asking the court to declare Obama ineligible for the presidency and to prevent him from running for the position.

However, a WND investigation has found that at least part of Berg's lawsuit relies on discredited claims.

[...]

A separate WND investigation into Obama's birth certificate utilizing forgery experts also found the document to be authentic. The investigation also revealed methods used by some of the bloggers to determine the document was fake involved forgeries, in that a few bloggers added text and images to the certificate scan that weren't originally there.

It is reasonable -- not to mention entirely accurate -- to deduce that if a "WND investigation ... found the document to be authentic," then WND has, in fact, authenticated the document. Needless to say, Farah again fails to link to the original August article so his readers can judge for themselves whether WND "authenticated" the birth certificate.

The simple solution to this crisis -- and to avoid further ridicule from Olbermann -- is for Farah to do what real news organizations would do: acknowledge what WND wrote last August, formally retract the story, then explain to readers why he and his website no longer stand by that conclusion.

But for some reason, he won't do that. Why?  Perhaps because he knows that the original report is true and that he's now playing a partisan game to undermine Obama's authority by peddling a lie.

Farah ironically concludes: "If you're sick of being lied to, I urge you to show the Keith Olbermanns and Jonathan Alters of the world what you think of them." But what good does it do to go after Olbermann and Alter if the person doing the lying is Joseph Farah?

Posted by Terry K. at 12:03 PM EST

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In his March 2 Newsmax column, Ronald Kessler said of President Obama's plan to raise taxes on those making more than $250,000 a year: "Most of those penalized under the tax hike are small businesses, which create most new jobs."

False. In fact, as of 2007, only 2 percent of tax returns that reported small business income are in the top two income tax brackets that would raise under Obama's plan.

Kessler also claimed that in a 2001 radio interview, Obama "expressed regret that the Supreme Court hadn’t engaged in wealth redistribution."

False -- Obama never said that. As we've detailed the last time Kessler made this false claim, Obama said that because the Supreme Court under Earl Warren did not address "redistributive change," it was evidence that the court was not as far-left as its critics have claimed. And Obama's "regret" was specifically aimed at the civil rights movement for overly relying on the court system to advance its agenda.

Posted by Terry K. at 9:10 AM EST

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When Norman Liebmann wrote for Newsmax, he was best known for his virulent, hateful smears of the Clintons and others. He left Newsmax in 2004 after a spat over virulent hateful smears of gays, posting his work at his own website, Firehat.

We figured he wouldn't take too kindly to another Democrat in the White House, and boy were we right. Below are excerpts from Liebmann's March 1 posting, "The Washington Shell Game Goes Black":

Obama announced to the black community, a policy of Don’t ask - Just take. Many blacks anticipated this policy long ago – and took.

Female groupies fawn over Barack Obama. Charles Manson enjoyed that same kind of adoration. For Negroes, Obama’s election is like eating birthday cake three times a day for the next four years. Inasmuch as there is no such thing as black icing, they can coat the cake with soot.

His principal objective is to smooth out the bumps in America for the blacks. We may soon see traffic signs at every intersection that read, “Stop Whitey, Go Bro”.

Where in the past the blacks resented injustices, now they collect them. Revenge has become their recreational drug. The most marked characteristic is complaining. Ghetto dwellers resent the Oscar award going to a movie about a slum in India when it is their own slums that need to be further glamorized.

It is fitting that Hillary, the Bitch Goddess, has been replaced by Michelle – the Bride of Blackenstein. During the campaign Obama cautioned, “My wife is ‘out of bounds’”. Maybe he should have asked around.

Barack Hussein Obama is Islam’s Man in America. It needs no other. The Obama Administration is now Islam on the Potomac. 

Muslims are spreading over the world like a pox. Cure that plague and the economy will take care of itself.

The Obama Administration is the ghettos’ ATM machine. Giving stimulus money to irresponsible people is like slopping the hogs. No matter how often they are slopped, they are still hogs.

Obama may next force Congress to guarantee homosexuals equal time with heterosexuals on talk radio to present their kinky world view – perhaps to be called The Fagness Doctrine.

Nothing happens in The Beltway that does not devolve on the question of race. In his pursuit of his Negroöcracy, Obama is loading up Washington with hostile blacks in demographic overkill. He has appointed Eric Holder his Attorney General. Holder’s anti-Caucasian inclination will likely promote a forced integration of lawn jockeys.

The Stimulus is Hurricane Katrina revisited. If Katrina has demonstrated anything it is Obama’s belief that the blacks are incapable of rescuing themselves. This time they don’t have to loot. The Feds will be passing out $13 a week – which is hardly a lucky number. Hopefully, the survivors will not grab the rescue lines and drag the Coast Guard helicopters down out of the sky.

The Obama Administration is likely to be as beneficial to the American Military as the Bataan Death March.

The Prince of Darkness has been replaced by the Prince of Blackness. Obama has become a one person elite among Negroes. The rest are as they were. The semi-urbane Obama comports himself as though he is the Cary Grant of the Inner City. Being black is no longer considered a race, but a mystique.

Socialism is made to order for some ethnicities. If Karl Marx hadn’t invented Communism, he might have invented Hip Hop.

The nation trembles before one arrogant aborigine. Hope and change has been replaced with qualms and quaking. The major question of our time is - at Obama’s command will American soldiers fire on American citizens?

Wow. Just ... wow.

And the folks at Free Republic can't quite agree on whether Liebmann is racist or prescient.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:31 AM EST

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Joseph Farah's March 2 column attempts to make the case that the Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal "failed miserably to pull the country out of the country's one and only Depression." Unsurprisingly, Farah deceives in doing so.

Farah writes:

After two complete terms in office in 1939, Roosevelt saw higher unemployment in 1939 than what the nation experienced when he took office – up from 16.3 percent in 1931 to 17.2 percent in 1939. No depression or recession in American history, before or since, ever lasted even half as long.

However, statistics can never tell the whole story.

No, "statistics can never tell the whole story" -- especially when you're cherry-picking them and placing them around erroneous information like Farah does.

Roosevelt, in fact, had not gone through "two complete terms in office in 1939"; he was elected in 1933, and his second term ended in 1941.

Moving the Roosevelt administration up two years allowed Farah to cherry-pick unemployment rates from 1931 (when Roosevelt wasn't in office, despite what Farah thinks) and 1939. Farah fails to mention that unemployment peaked in 1933 at 24.9 percent and had dropped to 14.3 percent in 1937 -- de facto evidence that the New Deal worked. Further, because federal labor statistics at the time did not count those in government work programs as "employed," the actual unemployment rate was even lower.

Since Farah is cherry-picking statistics to fit his preconceived notions, he fails to ask the question of why unemployment went up from 1937 to 1939. Many experts believe that it was because  Roosevelt cut spending and raised taxes in an effort to reduce the deficit.

But remember: Farah is a hack, and he doesn't believe in reporting facts when they conflilct with his right-wing agenda.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:13 AM EST

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Aaron Klein's guilt-by-association garbage smears of President Obama continue unabated.

Not only does he yet again baselessly link Obama to communists, he tries to link Obama to Carlos the Jackal.

How pathetically desperate and filled with hate for Obama can one person be? Fortunately for Klein, he's employed by WorldNetDaily, whose raison d'etre is to spread Obama-hate.

Posted by Terry K. at 3:55 PM EST

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His employees have been asserting it for weeks. Now Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy joins them in his March 2 column, repeating the lie that the stimulus bill contained "handouts of $3 billion for groups like ACORN."

In fact, ACORN isn't even mentioned in the stimulus bill, let alone allocated money in it, and ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis has stated that "ACORN isn't getting any of this money ... we aren't eligible for it in the first place."

Posted by Terry K. at 1:49 PM EST

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Ranked No. 2 on the Washington Examiner's "10 worst ideas of the week" for March 1 (print-only, not online) was this:

2. Doubting a true Katrina story

A host of liberal blog sites and MSNBC's Keith Olbermann accused Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal of lying about a post-Katrina incident he recounted Tuesday in his national speech, claiming he never actually went into the disister zone. But multiple reports show Jindal being all over the flood zone in the storm's aftermath and eyewitnesses confirm the story.

The Examiner misrepesents the nature of the criticism. No evidence is offered that critics have claimed Jindal never "went into the disister zone." Rather, the question is whether the anecdote Jindal told was true.

The Examiner also ignores the fact that Jindal's own office has confirmed that the incident didn't happen the way Jindal told it, which makes it something other than a "true Katrina story."

Posted by Terry K. at 12:56 PM EST

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