A Philadelphia news web site, Phawker, released a set of emails supposedly from MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann. The emails contained harsh criticism and insults about Olbermann’s boss, MSNBC President Phil Griffin.

In one email, “Olbermann” says that Griffin is “not my boss (thank god), nor is he intellectually qualified to be…I’ll be anchoring on election night 2012, long after Phil Griffin has moved on to a job for which he’s actually qualified, perhaps on QVC.”

In another, “Olbermann” writes that “I could have Phil Griffin fired tomorrow if I felt like it, trust me. And if he keeps yapping about me in public, I may. For the moment, however, keeping Phil around is like having a drunk chimp in the office — more amusing than threatening.”

The truth is that it was actually Fox News’ Tucker Carlson who sent the emails, posing as  Keith Olbermann.

Straight from the horse’s mouth…

On Tuesday night, Yahoo’s Michael Calderone reached Carlson by phone. Carlson confirmed that he had, in fact, sent the emails posing as Olbermann.

“Could you resist?” Carlson said. “It was just too funny. The flesh is weak.”

Apparently, the emails were sent from keith@keitholbermann.com – Tucker Carlson stated that he purchased the domain “keitholbermann.com” in July and that people could email him at that address.

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Two years ago, today, Fox News showed their complete lack of ethics and Photoshop skills with these edits of photos of New York Times editor Steven Reddicliffe and reporter Jacques Steinberg.

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Sean Hannity, jumps on the Anti-Kagan bandwagon and does his part to further a myth about Kagan banning military recruiters from the Harvard campus during her tenure as dean of Harvard Law School.

HANNITY: The White House actually released their own video of Elena Kagan, their choice for — the president’s choice for the Supreme Court. Her most notable act, of course, is throwing military recruiters on college campus at Harvard, you know, off the college campus in the middle of a war in violation of federal law. And even the most liberal members of the Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, said she didn’t have the right to do that.

Not so fast, Sean…

Throughout Kagan’s tenure as dean, Harvard law students had access to military recruiters — either through Harvard’s Office of Career Services or through the Harvard Law School Veterans Association.

Additionally, there was, apparently, no adverse affect.

[T]he number of graduates from each of those classes who entered the military was equal to or greater than the number who entered the military from any of Harvard’s previous five classes.

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Is Rupert Murdoch simply unaware of what happens in his own company, or is he lying through his teeth? Or, both? Here’s a brief conversation where he, apparently, shows how completely out-of-touch he is with the loss of revenue Glenn Beck has caused (or how out-of-touch the viewers are who believe his reasoning).

SPOCKO: I know that you don’t break out revenue numbers for Fox News beyond the top line, but with 81 advertisers leaving the Glenn Beck show following the Color of Change action, the show now seems limited to in house ads and gold ads. Do you have a time frame for how long Fox will subsidize the show until it to starts to generate revenue in line with its ratings?

That’s pretty straight forward – without sponsors, the money to support the show has to come from somewhere. Right? Not according to the factually-challenged CEO of News Corp.

MURDOCH: It’s not subsidizing the show at all. And it’s giving a terrific kick off to the whole evening schedule. It has plenty of advertising, and those advertisers you talk about, I don’t think there is anything like that number, but if there were they are on other shows.

Thankfully, some media outlets picked up on this and Keith Olbermann even used Murdoch’s response in his Worst Persons segment. Unfortunately, it doesn’t change anything – Fox News and the News Corp. CEO will continue to simply deny facts and their followers will continue to eat up the BS.

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Quoted from FoxNews.com:

President Obama and Vice President Biden released their tax returns on Thursday (Tax day). They reveal that Biden and his wife, Jill, earned $330,000 in 2009, but gave just four tenths of one percent ($4,820) in cash and “in kind” contributions to charity. The Obamas did slightly better. They gave almost 6 percent of their $5.5 million joint income to charity. Much of their income came from the president’s two bestselling books.

Check the math. The amounts provided by Fox News for Joe Biden do not represent “four tenths of one percent,” but rather almost 1.5%.  Additionally, there is no mention of President Obama’s Nobel Prize donation ($1.4 million) to ten different charities, but not claiming a tax deduction for the donation. The Nobel Prize contribution would have amounted to over 25% of the $5.5 million income reported by Fox News.

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Fox News personalities are on the forefront of spreading misinformation about health care reform and here’s one example that takes the cake.

Bill O’Reilly, citing the New England Journal of Medicine stated that  “46.3% May Leave Medical Profession” and “If half of the nation’s doctors are considering bailing on the profession if Obama-care passes, that is a frightening consequence.”

Here’s what the “poll” actually stated:

46.3%of primary care physicians (family medicine and internal medicine) feel that the passing of health reform will either force them out of medicine or make them want to leave medicine.

Misleading, yes, but that’s not the most interesting part. The New England Journal of Medicine states that they never produced a health care survey!

For example, on Fox & Friends, co-host Brian Kilmeade said: “The New England Journal of Medicine has published a report and did a survey, and they said the impact of reform on primary care physicians, 46 percent, they say, feel reform will force them out or make them want to leave medicine.”

This is false.

Media Matters for America contacted the New England Journal of Medicine, which confirmed it neither conducted nor published the “survey.”

NEJM spokesperson Jennifer Zeis told Media Matters that the study had “nothing to do with the New England Journal of Medicine’s original research.” She also made clear that the study “was not published by the New England Journal of Medicine,” and said that “we are taking steps to clarify the source of the survey.”

The “report” that right-wing media are citing actually appeared in Recruiting Physicians Today, which is an employment newsletter produced by “the publishers of the New England Journal of Medicine.” According to Zeis, that report actually “was written by the Medicus Firm,” the medical recruitment firm that conducted the “survey.”

UPDATE: Following inquiries from Media Matters, the “NEJM CareerCenter” website has now posted the following statement, making clear that Recruiting Physicians Today is a “free advertiser newsletter” whose content is “produced by physician recruiting firms and other independent groups involved in physician employment” and that Medicus was responsible for conducting and publishing the “survey” in question…

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Bill O’Reilly recently stated on his show that the current health care bill would “require American taxpayers to fund abortion” and “we now have taxpayer money linked up with the termination of a fetus.”

Actually, the Senate Bill, before the House, forbids insurers from using federal subsidies to do so, except in cases of life endangerment, rape, or incest. It specifically states, “the issuer of the plan shall not use any amount attributable” to the subsidies created under the bill “for purposes of paying for such services.” The bill that passed the Senate requires insurers to collect a separate payment for such services so that federal funds are not used as O’Reilly falsely stated.

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Fox News contributor Sarah Palin was on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, where she had some rather entertaining things to say… And it was not the somewhat intelligent entertainment one would hope for from a Vice Presidential candidate, but rather what you would expect from Palin: a tsunami of BS.

PALIN: I studied journalism, my college degree there in communications. And now I am back there wanting to build some trust back in our media. I think the mainstream media is quite broken and I think there needs to be the fairness, the balance in there — that’s why I joined Fox. Fair and balanced, yes. You know because, Jay, those years a go that I studied journalism it was all about the who, what, when, where, and why, it was not so much the opinion interjected in hard news stories. … As long as there is not the opinion under the guise of hard news stories — I think there needs to be clear differentiation.

Not only does she ignore the fact that Fox News Channel is part of the mainstream media, but she ignores all of the evidence that clearly shows that Fox News’ opinions bleed over to their “news” segments… Unless she was talking about FNC being “quite broken.”

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Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) calls Fox & Friends hosts out for spreading lies and disinformation about health care reform… Enjoy!

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Bill Hemmer, the anchor of Fox News’ America’s Newsroom, stated that Fox News’ “opinion” programs don’t bleed into his “news” program…

TVNEWSER: The evening opinion hosts get a lot of press and a lot of attention … I’m kind of wondering, do you think that there’s any sort of effect on the news reporters and anchors?

HEMMER: I hope not.  You wonder if some of that bleeds over into other areas.  In our case, it does not. On our broadcast, with Martha MacCallum and me, we shoot it down the middle at 9am and for the next several hours after that.

Here are numerous examples to prove Hemmer wrong:

• Hemmer latest to advance made-up charge that Jennings knew of “statutory rape” case and “never reported it”
• On America’s Newsroom, Henneberg repeats right-wing myth that hate crimes bill could gag ministers
• America’s Newsroom pushes discredited GOP calculation of Obama’s cap-and-trade proposal
• Hemmer revives ACORN-funding bogeyman to attack Obama budget
• Drudge, Fox News again suggest a few days of cold weather trump climate change science
  
• America’s Newsroom promotes McCaughey falsehood that stimulus would “hav[e] the government essentially dictate treatments”
• Hemmer: “Can’t get to a tea party? Fox Nation hosts a virtual tea party”
• What Grinch? Fox’s Hemmer and Camerota mislead on “War on Christmas” story
• Hemmer asks of possible use of reconciliation: “Does anyone remember” Scott Brown’s election?
• America’s Newsroom promotes tea party organizing info on-air and online

Don’t have time to read? Here is some disturbing imagery – disturbing to Hemmer’s credibility that is…

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The FoxNation caption reads, “Obama’s Army? Calling Lawyers for Permission to Kill Terrorists” – This refers to the judge advocate general (JAG) policy of verifying legality prior to ordering a mission… a practice that existed under Bush. So, this is nothing new for anyone except the alarmist Fox News web site…

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The other day Rachel Maddow called Glenn Beck out for his lie about previously using storms and heavy snowfall to somehow “disprove” climate change. Beck responded, as he is known to do, by spewing more falsehoods with a dash of video editing for good measure… Also note that she mentions his lost sponsors.

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Sean Hannity, speaking with former Bush adviser Nicolle Wallace, made an absurdly ridiculous claim, which, of course, was not refuted by Wallace, nor anyone else at Fox News.

HANNITY: George Bush who you worked for did not play golf while this country was at war. He didn’t want the families of loved ones serving, well, that they may have lost the loved ones seeing him on a golf course.

WALLACE: Yes, I mean…

HANNITY: He seemed to be far more in touch.

Remember, “We must stop the terror. I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers. Thank you. Now watch this drive.” and all the time spent in Crawford?

It’s been suggested that it wasn’t the war that made Bush cut down on his golfing, but rather doctor’s orders. Of course, two months after Bush said he quit playing golf (2003) he spent Columbus Day playing with “three long-time buddies” and also attended a golf fundraiser for John McCain in 2008. Condoleezza Rice; however, didn’t give up her game – where was Hannity to call her out-of-touch in 2008?

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Brian Kilmeade of Fox & Friends made the following factually-challenged statement regarding economic growth and unemployment, both things he spun in George W. Bush’s favor…

KILMEADE: I did not think the President was going to do this. He said, let’s just remember what I got when I walked in the door. What I had is after eight years of tax cuts, unfunded prescription drug plans and two wars without financing, I found myself in a mountain of debt essentially. But what he also found was 50 plus months of economic growth going into that. He also found between 5 and 7 percent unemployment. President Bush had it under 5 percent during those times.

Reality called and left a message – economic growth and employment were both going down before Obama took office. Additionally, unemployment was at 7.7 in Jan ’09, not between 5 and 7 percent.

Economic Growth:

Unemployment:

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