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"Glenn Beck 1990" is an exercise in the politics of retribution - a spoof of Glenn Beck's outrageous assertions and obfuscations - an Internet meme engineered by those seeking justice - a theater of the absurd. "Glenn Beck 1990" is short for "Glenn Beck raped and murdered a girl in 1990", a web site dedicated to tracking the meme questioning Glenn Beck's guilt in 1990. Glenn Beck is not pleased, and is taking legal action against the website tracking the meme. tech dirt reports: It turns out that Glenn Beck isn't happy about this either. He's filed a domain name...

"What is Examiner.com? Launched in April 2008, Examiner.com is the insider source of everything local, offering a rich mix of hyper-local and globally relevant content. Examiner.com covers more than 100 major U.S. cities, thousands of towns and neighborhoods, and is developing a strong presence in international markets including Canada, the U.K., the Philippines and Australia. Website visitors are geo-targeted to their closest market, with over 18 million monthly unique visitors expected by the end of 2009. "Examiner.com is a division of the Clarity Media Group, and is wholly owned by The Anschutz Company, one of the largest media investment companies...

Our friends at Restate are hearing credible rumors that Leon Panetta is quitting over the proposed procecution of CIA operatives. If this is true, kudos to Leon...

At a press conference, Obama suggested that the MSN support the health care issue by dispelling rumors. And of course, the MSN has stepped efforts to do his bidding. CNN writer Tom Cohen laments the spreading of false rumors and cites the efforts of CNN's Truth Squad (Ha!) to dispel rumors like the ones about 'bank access.' The gist of his article, and the accompanying photograph, is that objections to Obama care are based on stubborn false rumors alone. Since I don't recall if we are allowed to link to CNN directly, I'll put the link here:http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/08/20/health.care.bad.info/index.html

"Gryphen" gets an extension on his 15 minutes of fame courtesy of the New York Times columnist: Palin is still obsessed with the blogosphere, which recently lit up with a rumor -- started by a fellow mavericky Alaskan, who also no longer has his job -- that she and Todd were Splitsville. Excuse me, Ms. Dowd, but is Palin "obsessed with the blogosphere" or is it the other way around? And don't you share that obsession? Furthermore, ma'am -- speaking of "Gryphen" a/k/a former Anchorage kindergarten teaching assistant Jesse Ray Griffin -- is it the usual practice of the New...

Now that would be a great story, except for one thing...its not true. Still I'm sure plenty of people will read the headline and not the copy. For those who don't know, Mcleod is the “Ethics Nazi” of Alaska who politically stalked Palin while she was Governor, and filed numerous ethics complaints against her and brought on a lawsuit. Now I can't say for fact, and have no real basis to suspect that she probably has assisted in perpetuating rumors about the ex-Governor, but certainly by her actions she has encouraged it and I'm sure if asked she would not...

In 1930's Germany, the new socialist government of Adolf Hitler (NAZI National Socialist Workers' Party) began indoctrinating children in the quasi-military organization, the Hitler Youth, to inform on their parents should they overhear discussions subversive to the policies of the Leader. As the noose was tightened, local community organizers were appointed to watch their neighbors and were told to report subversive comments to the bureaucrats above them. Neighbors informed on neighbors, some for reasons of patriotism or loyalty, some from fear. A modern inquisition ensued; a terror to free thought and expression. Increasingly harsh penalties were meted out to those...

This is highly speculative but you've probably heard by now that a couple of Alaska liberal bloggers "broke" the story about Sarah Palin's supposed impending divorce from her husband. It sure sounded solid coming from Alaska Report News: AlaskaReport has learned today that Todd Palin and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin are to divorce. Multiple sources in Wasilla and Anchorage (including a former Palin staffer) have confirmed the split. A National Enquirer story exposing previous affairs on both sides led to a deterioration of their marriage and the stress from that led to Palin's resignation as governor of Alaska last...

RUMORS WRONG: Agent rebuts circulating allegations cited by Anchorage blogger. The FBI is taking the unusual step of declaring that Gov. Sarah Palin is not under investigation, as Palin herself left for Western Alaska and communicated to the world through her Twitter account. "We are not investigating her," FBI spokesman Eric Gonzalez said on Sunday. "Normally we don't confirm or deny those kind of allegations out there, but by not doing so it just casts her in a very bad light. There is just no truth to those rumors out there in the blogosphere." Palin has ignored requests for an...

As speculation swirled that her decision was connected to a pending corruption investigation, Mrs Palin's lawyer issued a four-page letter warning legal action against bloggers and US publications that reprinted the allegations, which she strongly denies. "To the extent several websites ... are now claiming as 'fact' that Governor Palin resigned because she is 'under federal investigation' for embezzlement or other criminal wrongdoing, we will be exploring legal options this week to address such defamation," said Thomas Van Flein, her lawyer, in a statement. He also told the Anchorage Daily News that he was unaware of any criminal investigation involving...

Reporting from Washington -- A day after Alaska Gov. Sara Palin resigned, a federal official in her home state dismissed one potential explanation for her sudden and unexpected resignation -- a rumored FBI investigation into the former Wasilla mayor on public corruption charges. Despite rumors of a looming controversy after Palin's surprise announcement Friday that she will leave office this month, some of them published in the blogosphere, the FBI's Alaska spokesman said the bureau had no investigation into Palin for her activities as governor, as mayor or in any other capacity. "There is absolutely no truth to those rumors,...

Gordon Brown is today engulfed in crisis after a key aide resigned and the Tories threatened legal action over explosive leaked emails discussing how to smear senior Conservatives, including David Cameron's wife, Samantha, with rumours about their private lives. Damian McBride, one of the prime minister's closest advisers, quit over his exchange with the Labour blogger Derek Draper, in which the two discussed setting up a website to air scurrilous allegations about opponents, including unfounded allegations about affairs between leading opposition MPs. The idea was still being actively discussed until a fortnight ago, the Observer has learned. ..... Among the...

The pair, parents to 2-month-old son Tripp, broke up 'a few weeks ago' Bristol Palin and her fiancé Levi Johnston have broken up, two sources tell PEOPLE. The split happened "a few weeks ago," according to a source close to the couple, but it's unclear what precipitated it. "It was a mutual thing," adds the source. "It kind of just happened," says the source, referring to the split. "I thought they would stick it out. But I think they can work together to raise Tripp." Despite the breakup, Levi still sees the couple's son. Levi's dad, Keith Johnston, told PEOPLE...

Sarah Palin's 18-year-old daughter Bristol has reportedly broken off her engagement with Levi Johnston, the father of her 2-month-old son Tripp. It's surprising because in an interview just last month with FOX's Gretta Van Susteren, Bristol said the 19-year-old Levi is a hands-on dad and that they planned on marrying after finishing their education. But in a new interview with Star Magazine, Levi's sister Mercede Johnston says Bristol actually broke up with Levi more than a month ago, is not attending school and rarely lets her baby daddy see their young son. Mercede also says Bristol even told him that...

Caroline Kennedy Romance Affair Caroline Kennedy rumored affair and Arthur Pinch Sulzberger? Caroline Kennedy’s rumored affair was with New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger. Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr. (born Sept 22 1951) is the son of Arthur Ochs Sulzberger aka Punch Sulzberger. The son is sometimes called Arthur Pinch Sulzberger as a variation of his father’s nickname. “Obama recently named Caroline Kennedy to his vice presidential search committee - and she’s been telling friends that if he’s elected to the White House, she wants to move to Washington, D.C., and take a role in his Democratic administration,” a friend revealed....

MSNBC was the victim of a hoax when it reported that an adviser to John McCain had identified himself as the source of an embarrassing story about former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, the network said Wednesday. David Shuster, an anchor for the cable news network, said on air Monday that Martin Eisenstadt, a McCain policy adviser, had come forth and identified himself as the source of a Fox News Channel story saying Palin had mistakenly believed Africa was a country instead of a continent. Eisenstadt identifies himself on a blog as a senior fellow at the Harding Institute for...

Rumor Patrol: Romney Camp Spreading Palin Stories? 07 Nov 2008 06:07 pm Rumor: Aides and advisers to Mitt Romney are responsible for spreading most of the anti-Palin stories that have been going around; during the campaign, they pressured reporters to look into reports of tension between McCain and Palin factions.

An Excellent Editorial posted on City on a Hill Political Observer. The mainstream media and the Obama-Biden campaign made the political assassination of Governor Sarah Palin their number one goal during the 2008 election cycle. The agile and tough Alaskan moose-hunter was able to survive the attempt on her political life, but left this campaign field bloodied. In the past few days some second-rate hacks within the McCain campaign and establishment elites within the GOP have tried to finish the job. They must not and will not succeed. It is often quoted by some random Alaskan politician that, “the Alaskan...

Can't quote due to copyright restrictions but it is another example of the mainstream media trying to deflect stories about Obama's past associations and Socialist rantings as rumors which are just SOP in the waning days before an election. We have heard that the LA Times is witholding a damaging tape of Obama with a PLO spokesman. The major newspapers are burying the story on the SCOTUS wealth redistribution interview from 2001. It's a shameful display of partisan bias.

One of CNN's citizen reporters on their new iReport service caused a bit of panic for Apple's stock prices this week when one of those reports featured a false claim that Apple CEO Steve Jobs had suffered a heart attack. With rumors swirling the stock price fell until official news from Apple quashing the rumor calmed investors' fears. Apple shares, which have in the past been shaken by the question of Jobs' health, climbed more than 5 percent in early trade but retreated as the rumor gained momentum on Internet blogs. The stock at one point was down more than...

Follow the disappearing YouTube account… The blogosphere is doing the job the MSM thinks no one else can do. A collaborative investigative effort by our friends at The Jawa Report to expose an apparently astroturfed, anti-Sarah Palin smear campaign seems to have caused late-night panic in Barack Obama-linked p.r. circles. The bloggers digging into the provenance of anti-Sarah Palin smears on the web got results last night/early this morning while most elite journalists were still in their pajamas sleeping. First, read this. Read the whole thing. Rusty Shackleford — with help from Jane of Armies of Liberation, Stable Hand, the...

Latest on the rumor mill . . . Biden stepping down Let me share some info with you that I have gotten from excellent sources within the DNC: On or about October 5th, Biden will excuse himself from the ticket, citing health problems, and he will be replaced by Hillary. This is timed to occur after the VP debate on 10/2. There have been talks all weekend about how to proceed with this info. generally, the feeling is that we should all go ahead and get it out there to as many blog sites and personal email lists as is...

Gov. Sarah Palin used state funds in June when she traveled from Juneau to Wasilla to speak to graduating evangelical students and urge them to fan out through Alaska "to make sure God's will be done here." State records show that Palin submitted a travel authorization for a quick round-trip visit to attend the June 8 graduation of the Master's Commission program at the Wasilla Assembly of God, the church where she was baptized at age 12. The only other item on the agenda for that trip was a "One Lord Sunday" service involving a network of Mat-Su Christian churches...

ST. PAUL, Minn. - The McCain Campaign is denying a supermarket tabloid story alleging that vice presidental candidate Sarah Palin had an extramarital affair, and is threatening legal action against the National Enquirer.

The National Enquirer is reporting Gov. Sarah Palin had an extramarital affair. The story doesn't mention when the alleged affair happened.My sources in Alaska say the incident occurred in mid 1990s, right around the time she became mayor of Wasilla. Todd Palin's partner in a Polaris snowmachine dealership in Wasilla, Brad Hanson Hampton, and Sarah were reportedly flirtatious and but never consummated the relationship.When Todd found out, he reportedly dissolved the partnership and sold the dealership. Hampton is now a member of the Palmer City Council. He was married at the time of the reported flirtation. Here's the response from...

Can someone please start a thread on all the Palin rumors that are coming out. Include any references that show the rumors to be false. It would be great if we could have this all at one spot to work on. Thanks!

If Mrs Palin, a conservative mother of five, ever doubted that landing on a national presidential ticket would open her to the harshest of spotlights and smear tactics, she also awoke yesterday to utterly unfounded internet rumours that her fifth child, born in April with Down’s Syndrome, was actually her 17-year-old daughter’s.

John McCain is seriously considering choosing a pro-abortion-rights running mate despite vocal resistance from conservatives, with former Democratic vice presidential nominee Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) very much in the mix, close McCain advisers say. Under strong consideration: former Pennsylvania Republican Gov. Tom Ridge, and Lieberman, who was Al Gore’s running mate in 2000. Multiple GOP sources say that party officials in Washington and in the states have been contacted by the McCain campaign in the past two weeks and asked about the fallout from such a choice. One person familiar with the calls said the party was being instructed to...

Four years after finding himself the target of a scathing campaign-year book from a conservative author during his own campaign, former Democratic presidential contender John Kerry is launching a Web site to discredit the writer’s latest work, which takes aim at 2008 presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama. The move comes amid news “Obama Nation,” the latest book by author Jerome Corsi, has secured a berth atop New York Times best-seller list. Corsi previously co-wrote “Unfit for Command,” a book highly critical of Kerry’s military record during the Vietnam War. Kerry’s new Web site, “Truth Fights Back” – which will be...

Are reporters in the business of reporting facts or rumor? Andrea Mitchell, for one, has no problem sending along "scuttlebutt" that if true would be deeply damaging to John McCain. Barack Obama's cancellation of plans to visit injured military members at bases in Germany has drawn considerable attention and criticism. On today's Morning Joe, Mitchell passed along a rumor that McCain used his Pentagon connections to sabotage the Obama visit. View video here.

Washington takes on the shorts Treasury bails out Fannie, Freddie, while SEC declares war on rumors By MarketWatch Last update: 8:49 p.m. EDT July 13, 2008WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The U.S. financial system has lost hundreds of billions of dollars on stupid investments, but don't worry: The federal government has found someone to blame: Rumor-mongers and short-sellers. Sunday the 13th was a very unlucky day if you've been shorting Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, or a host of other financial firms. Washington has put you on notice: If you don't have something nice to say about banks, don't say anything at all....

Hughs: Rumor mill fueled by Internet stories By Ina Hughs (Contact) Friday, July 11, 2008 Think about the Swift Boat campaign and what it did to John Kerry in 2004 and what rumors of a secret love child did to John McCain's bid for the White House in 2000. As a kid, we used to play a game called "gossip." We'd sit in a circle, and someone would whisper a sentence into the ear of the person next to her; that person would then whisper what she heard to the person next to her - and so on. By the...

Sticks and stone may break your bones - but words can destroy. Think about the Swift Boat campaign and what it did to John Kerry in 2004 and what rumors of a secret love child did to John McCain's bid for the White House in 2000. ~~snip~~ The Internet is making it easy to set these little fires and fan them into a blaze of untruths, and this election has become so intense that groups wanting to undermine the other guy have sunk to a new level. Unregulated attack groups like the 2004 Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, called 527s...

<p>EDITOR'S NOTE: This story appeared on the front page of The Washington Post on Monday under the headline,"In Flag City USA, False Rumors About Obama Are Flying." It was also distributed to 669 news organizations in 56 countries, including The Courier. An editorial and related letters to the editor are on Page A4.</p>

FINDLAY, Ohio -- On his corner of College Street, Jim Peterman stares at the four American flags planted in his front lawn and rubs his forehead. Peterman, 74, is a retired worker at Cooper Tire, a father of two, an Air Force veteran and a self-described patriot. He took one trip to Washington in 1989 -- best vacation of his life -- and bought a statue of the Washington Monument that he still displays in a glass case in his living room. He believes a smart vote is an American's greatest responsibility. Which is why his confusion about Barack Obama...

How a onetime hero of the liberal blogosphere and the Democratic Party spread perhaps the most damaging anti-Obama smear of the primary. On May 13, 2006, Larry C. Johnson -- former CIA intelligence officer, counterterrorism pundit, classmate of Valerie Plame -- put up a breaking post claiming that Karl Rove was under federal indictment for perjury and lying to investigators looking into the leaking of Plame's identity. "Rove Indicted," Johnson blogged. "Frog march the bastard. As Freddie Mercury sang, 'another one bites the dust.'" The post linked to the investigative site TruthOut, and an anonymously sourced story that it turned...

The Barack Obama presidential campaign introduced a new site last week, FightTheSmears.com, that it hopes will debunk persistent myths about the senator: that he's a Muslim, that he won't say the Pledge of Allegiance, etc. As we have argued before, restating the myths often reinforces them, no matter how persuasively they've been refuted. Rather than restate untruths about Obama, the campaign would do better to start some rumors of its own. Here's a template e-mail the Obama campaign might consider disseminating. From: [Redacted]To: [Redacted]Subject: WHO IS BARACK OBAMA? There are many things people do not know about BARACK OBAMA. It...

Michelle and Allahpundit are right — if the media is going to write about the debunked "whitey" tape, particularly as a trigger for Obama's anti-smear site, there's really no excuse for not mentioning the two sources more responsible than anyone else for hyping the story: pro-Hillary blogger Larry Johnson and Democratic strategist Bob Beckel, who appeared on Fox News claiming a "mighty big shoe" was about to drop regarding Michelle Obama. (Now Beckel accuses conservatives of spreading rumors about her.) Did conservative bloggers write about the tape as well? Sure, but with varying degrees of skepticism. Allah finds the "conservative...

Liberals were outraged in 2004 when they nominated Sen. John Kerry, who by the way, served in Vietnam, and some veterans who served with him on Swift Boats had the audacity to challenge his war heroism. So how will they greet cranky old leftist author Gore Vidal who does some "swift boating" of his own in the Sunday New York Times Magazine? Interviewer Deborah Solomon talked to the "literary lion" about John McCain, and Vidal suggested the "rumor" of McCain’s heroism should be so questioned, we might even doubt he actually served time as a POW:

Rumours have been rife that the Clintons' marriage may be on the rocks. From Washington, Tim Shipman dissects the dynamics of the power-hungry duo's complex relationship. Hillary Clinton is licking her wounds, relaxing at an undisclosed location with her husband, Bill, and daughter, Chelsea, doubtless pondering the causes of her failure to win the Democratic presidential nomination. Yet as the New York senator considers her future in American public life, there are new claims that she is also considering the future of her marriage. The First Post, an irreverent online news magazine, last week alleged that some of those around...

As long as there have been rumors in politics, there has been one widely accepted way for a candidate to deal with them. Basically, it's not to. Otherwise, according to prevailing wisdom, all a candidate achieves is to elevate the rumors to a legitimate story for the media to feast on. That don't-go-there approach was Barack Obama's plan for months until, on the candidate's first full day of campaigning as his party's presumed presidential nominee, a reporter from McClatchy Newspapers who was traveling aboard his plane asked him about a particularly toxic bit of hearsay that was zooming around the...

CNN contributor Roland Martin, a known Barack Obama sympathizer, surprisingly isn’t buying the argument that conservatives/Republicans are behind the rumored Michelle Obama "whitey" comment. During a segment on Thursday’s "Anderson Cooper 360," substitute anchor Campbell Brown asked Martin, "Republicans have made it clear, pretty much, that Michelle is fair game here. Are you surprised by the intensity of the attacks?" He replied, "I'm not surprised by it, but I think, also, we can't blame Republicans for everything. It's these idiot Democrats that started some of this stuff." When Brown asked what he meant by that, Martin dropped the names of...

Michelle Obama Says “Whitey” On a Tape Lie: On May 30th, Rush Limbaugh said he had heard a rumor that a tape exists of Michelle Obama using the word “Whitey” from the pulpit of Trinity United Church of Christ. Truth: No such tape exists. Michelle Obama has not spoken from the pulpit at Trinity and has not used that word. Lie: Blogger Larry Johnson wrote on May 31st that he would add “New and dramatic developments. This is a heads up. I’ll post the news Monday morning by 0900 hours. Now I know why people who have seen the videotape...

If the Michelle DVD exists and if it is as damaging as it is reputed to be, the Obama campaign will want to deal with it sooner rather than later, in order to deny anyone a "October (or November) surprise. To assume that the Obama campaign doesn't know about it or can't get a copy is ludicrous. Trinity Church likely still has a copy, if not, one of its members certainly does. A little investigating by the campaign could almost certainly produce a copy. How could the Obama campaign turn this against the Republicans? Simple, make it even worse than...

SEOUL (AFP) South Korea's government on Thursday dismissed rumours of the death of North Korea's reclusive leader Kim Jong-Il as baseless after they swirled through stock markets."Recent rumours (about Kim's death) are groundless," Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-Nyoun told reporters.The rumours emerged briefly on South Korea's financial markets and in Tokyo but were short-lived, market watchers said.The North's official Korean Central News Agency reported Thursday that Kim was touring a textile factory in the northeastern port city of Hamhung.Rumours about Kim's death have circulated this week despite reports by the North's state media that he visited army units Monday and...

The Arab-Israeli region of the Middle East is filled with rumors of war. That is about as unusual as the rising of the sun, so normally it would not be worth mentioning. But like the proverbial broken clock that is right twice a day, such rumors occasionally will be true. In this case, we don’t know that they are true, and certainly it’s not the rumors that are driving us. But other things — minor and readily explicable individually — have drawn our attention to the possibility that something is happening. SNIP Rumors now are swirling that the Israelis are...

He's a Muslim. He was sworn into office on the Koran. He doesn't say the Pledge of Allegiance. His pastor is an anti-Semite. He's a tool of Louis Farrakhan. He's anti-Israel. His advisers are anti-Israel. He's friends with terrorists. The terrorists want him to win. He's the Antichrist. By now you've probably seen at least some of these e-mails and articles about Barack Obama bouncing around the Internet. They distort Obama's religious faith, question his support for Israel, warp the identity and positions of his campaign advisers and defame his friends and allies from Chicago. The purpose of the smear...

Source is permitted via link only.Story.

Fred Thompson today blasted the media for propagating a false rumor about his impending withdrawal, while bolstering the role he has created for himself as the candidate in this race who does not suffer unwelcome questions gladly. Back in Iowa, Thompson famously refused to respond to the debate moderator/school marm's demand for a hand-show on global warming. Then this morning on Today, he declined to engage in horse-race speculation about his own prospects, then took the media to task for its propagation of that false rumor about his impending withdrawal. Weekend anchor Lester Holt interviewed the former Tennessee senator. View...

GOP presidential hopeful Fred Thompson said in an in-studio interview with KCCI-TV in Des Moines that there is no truth to rumors that his campaign will fold before New Hampshire if he doesn't have a strong showing in Iowa. "That is absolutely made up out of whole cloth," said the former U.S. Senator from Tennessee. Thompson said a rival campaign was likely the source of that rumor. "Can you imagine such a thing in politics?" he asked. Thompson said his campaign is seeing a "surge" in interest right now, and said he has visited 50 communities in the Hawkeye State...