Huffington Post

**UPDATED WITH VIDEO**

 Glenn Beck was on “The View” today.  Predictably, the conservative talk-show host was attacked by Whoopi Goldberg, as a “lying sack of dog mess.” (Video embedded on the right.)

That, however, is not the only bias to come of this.  Huffington Post political reporter Jason Linkins throws out the red meat for the Web’s left-wing wolves, naturally ignoring the straw man fouling up the Viewettes’ argument.

About what was Beck accused of lying?  Beck, on a recent radio program, recounted a tale of meeting Goldberg and Barbara Walters on an Amtrak train bound for Washington D.C.  Finding seats was apparently difficult on that day (odd, for Amtrak), and upon finding a few open seats, Beck was told by an Amtrak official that those open seats were reserved.  A few minutes later, Beck says, Goldberg and Walters walked onto the train, and sat down in the reserved seats.

In many ways, the appearance of Cuban blogger, Yoani Sanchez, in the Huffington Post is a strange fit. Her posts tell "uncomfortable" truths that counter the leftwing attitude prevalent at the Huffington Post. However, few folks over there dare to attack her directly since she is not only talking the talk but walking the walk in that Communist island. So rather than argue with Yoani, most of her posts elicit little reaction.

Such was the case in Yoani's latest blog post in which a clandestine camera recorded a regime official denying internet access to a Cuban...because he is Cuban...at a Havana hotel. Yes, foreigners are permitted to go on the Web but this "privilege" is denied to Cuban nationals in a bizarre form of Communist apartheid. The reaction to this outrage from Huffington Post readers? None as of this writing except for one very funny yet incredibly sad comment which reflects perfectly the bizarre state of leftwing mentality. I beg you not to cheat and scroll to the end. To fully appreciate that comment you must first read (or watch the video) the transcript of the encounter between a Cuban denied access to the Web by a regime toadie. You can read the English translation of the video by placing your cursor over the center. Yoani Sanchez begins her blog by explaining the internet denial (for Cubans in Cuba) of internet access:

Saturday, May 9, I went to the Melia Cohiba hotel to check if the Internet access limitations for Cubans continue. Several friends had told me that the measure had been rescinded... but I wanted to check for myself. So Reinaldo and I went and made this little video.

The "tourist" who appears to be reading the newspaper Granma is me.

As NewsBusters reported Monday, comedians just can't bring themselves to poke fun at Barack Obama.

This problem apparently is troubling CBS "Late Show" host David Letterman:

The challenge for us here at the "Late Show": what are we going to do to make fun of the President, because that's what we do, we take cheap shots at the President. And, we didn't know what to do the first four years of Clinton. We thought, "Wow, what's going on there?" And BINGO, in comes the heavy set intern, and BOOM. That was great. And then Bush proved to be another mother lode, I mean, what a rich deep vein that was. But now we're, thank you, but we don't know what to do with Barack Obama because he comes in and he hits the ground running, and whether he's doing anything good, he's at least doing stuff. He's gone crazy, he's always doing stuff. And I said, "Oh, God, I'm going to have to go back to telling toothpaste jokes."

Realizing this wouldn't be good, Letterman got one of his writers to finally come up with some Obama jokes, but as you'll see from the embedded video below the fold, they all bashed -- wait for it!!! -- Bush (h/t Hot Air):

There are many elements of tragedy about the John Edwards scandal story currently being unfolded again in public, and on Oprah, due to the publication of his wife's (almost) tell-all book. However, let's face it, all this renewed attention to the foibles of John Edwards is sure to cause yet more late night comedian jokes (with party label conveniently forgotten). And perhaps the funniest bit of comedy yet is the unintentional humor delivered by Huffington Post blogger, Henry Blodget, who provides financial advice to Edwards' mistress in such excruciating detail as to be highly comical. Keep in mind when reading Blodget's blog entry, "The Business Of Revenge: How John Edwards' Rielle Hunter Should Respond," that he is dead serious and did not intend it to be satirical, although that is the way it comes off:

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and no woman is more scorned right now than John Edwards' mistress and likely baby-mommy Rielle Hunter.

In her new book, Elizabeth Edwards blasts Hunter as "pathetic." She slaps her with the famous Clinton diss, "this woman." She delusionally chalks up her husband's attraction to her to the fact that Hunter is "different" than the good old-fashioned Edwardses, and tells a preposterous tale of the stalking and seduction:

There is a charge starting to make the rounds of the science and medical blogs that the Huffington Post is allowing its bloggers to claim they are "doctors" when some really aren't qualified to claim the title. Still others ply their legitimately earned title to discuss as authorities issues in fields other than those in which they trained. Some of these same "doctors" are offering health advice and assessment of scientific news when they really aren't qualified to discuss them in any way other than as opinionists. So, the questions become these: is the Huffington Post misrepresenting its posters as trained, accredited experts when they aren't? Is there any attempt by the HuffyPost staff to substantiate the claims made by its posters?

Case in point is the Huffington Post's wellness editor, "Dr." Patricia Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald claims to have a doctorate in "Homeopathic Medicine," as well as a Master's Degree in "Traditional Chinese Medicine." But what, exactly, is a Doctorate in Homeopathic Medicine? And why does Fitzgerald not say on her bio page from where these degrees were earned? Why is she so intentionally vague?

Someone needs to sue Santa Monica High School for education malpractice on behalf of the ill-educated Sean Penn. I mean, the man is nearly illiterate and he certainly has no grasp on history, philosophy, or statecraft. But his wacko left-wing inanities aside, it is his illiteracy that seems the most lamentable. Oh, it isn't Rosie O'Donnell illiterate. Hers is a special class of insensibility all by itself, but Penn's brand is proof of the lowest quality of education. I mean the man can barely put two words together sensibly much less exhibit a grasp of grammar and syntax. It really is a crime how badly he's been educated.

Take for instance his latest Huffington Post blathering where he seems to be saying that all we need to win the day in international relations is to give a "smile." Aside from being childishly simplistic in concept, it has some of the worst word usage and syntax I've seen for a long time in what is supposed to be a leader of opinion (again, Rosie aside).

This is just too funny! A liberal Ivy League student decides to enroll at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University in Virgina and write a book exposé (The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University) supposedly showing the intolerance that must be there, or so he thought. The liberal student, however, was surprised to find little of the expected intolerance but is now finding plenty of it from the left because his book was not an outright condemnation of Liberty University nor of Jerry Falwell whom he met during his semester there. An AP story by Eric Tucker sets the scene:

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Kevin Roose managed to blend in during his single semester at Liberty University, attending lectures on the myth of evolution and the sin of homosexuality, and joining fellow students on a mission trip to evangelize partyers on spring break.

Roose had transferred to the Virginia campus from Brown University in Providence, a famously liberal member of the Ivy League. His Liberty classmates knew about the switch, but he kept something more important hidden: He planned to write a book about his experience at the school founded by fundamentalist preacher Jerry Falwell.

One has to hand it to Meghan McCain. She has certainly found the perfect shtick for extending herself beyond her allotted 15 minutes of fame. And the method Meghan has discovered is to slam conservative Republicans. That is her meal ticket to getting invites on cable news shows such as Larry King and, "OMG," she is also going to be guest co-host of The View for a couple of days this week. Think any of these invitations would have materialized had Meghan urged Republicans to become more conservative? If that were to happen all those TV appearances plus her new book deal would dry up more quickly than a drop of water in Death Valley.

One important measure of Meghan McCain's "success" is that she is now being quoted favorably in the Huffington Post.  HuffPo blogger, Sam Stein, expressed his approval of her in his latest blog post: Meghan McCain: "Old School" Republicans Are "Scared Sh--less."

Shhh! Put on your dark conspiratorial shades. Radio critic Bill Mann has revealed the highly classified "secret" of Rush Limbaugh's success in his Huffington Post blog. The information is so top secret that it has heretofore been known only to people even slightly familiar with the radio business. Listen as Mann whispers the "dirty little secret" in public:

Ever wonder why Rush "Boss" Limbaugh's syndicated radio show is all over the place like the proverbial cheap suit?

If you do much driving in rural areas -- e.g. between cities -- "Boss" Limbaugh's bloviations are often the only thing you can pick up on a car radio. Hey, that's what CD players are for.

Did Rush accrue hundreds of local radio affiliates across the country because his political views are mainstream? That's obviously not it. OK, so why IS his show so "popular?" Why do hundreds of stations around the country carry his show, the most widely syndicated talkfest in the country?

The easiest stereotype of a Huffington Post article is a raging screed against conservatives written by a gasbag celebrity. Take Steven Weber, the former star of the sitcom Wings. His funeral for the Republican Party is promoted on the Huff-Po homepage with these words:

The Republican Party is like a dying tyrant, mad with syphilis, ironically like that very Stalin they would accuse their enemies of associating with.

That's how they scream "read more." It's so stereotypical it makes you think that Arianna's hired some 20-year-old intern in the basement to write a sort of Mad Libs parody of....mad liberals. But Weber was only getting started. From Stalin, it continued:

Some groups on the left may have it out for anti-tax tea party movement, but according to one of the movement's biggest proponents - it is because they don't understand it from a hierarchical perspective.

Although there are reports that ACORN, The Huffington Post and the Daily Kos wanting to infiltrate the rallies, or crying foul for other reason - Beck, who appeared on Fox News Channel's April 9 "Your World with Neil Cavuto," explained that the left has difficulty understanding it's not a top-down movement, but a bottom-up one.

"It is a fundamental misunderstanding of the left," Beck said. "They don't get it. They think that these tax rallies - because they are so into their ‘.org's and their ACORN movements, where you have to have these coordinators. These are regular people and they are regular people that were hacked off at George W. Bush. They were angry at the spending of the Republicans."

Once again, someone has squared off against one of CNBC's star personalities, and this time it's a liberal economist taking aim at the old standby, "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer.

An April 8 Associated Press story reported that, on the heels of "The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart taking Cramer "to task for trying to turn finance reporting into a game," New York University Professor and Huffington Post contributor Nouriel Roubini blasted Cramer in an interview. Predictably, Cramer responded.

"Cramer is a buffoon," Roubini said to the AP. "He was one of those who called six times in a row for this bear market rally to be a bull market rally and he got it wrong. And after all this mess and Jon Stewart he should just shut up because he has no shame."

Acts of protest tend to be synonymous with the left and are usually considered unsurprising on the right. However, when conservatives demonstrate - liberals take notice in a big way.

On Fox News Channel's April 7 "Your World," host Neil Cavuto reported that the Tax Day tea party protests on April 15 will be "infiltrated" by their political opponents and led by left-wing activist organizations. He specifically named Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).

"Only eight days before a nationwide tea party, some over-caffeinated crashers aiming to lay waste to it," Cavuto said. "Reports of very well-organized infiltrators trying to mix in and rain on this parade. Talk about taxing."

She's been popping up in a lot of places lately to chime in on the economy. 

This time Huffington Post editor-in-chief Arianna Huffington appeared on ABC's April 5 "This Week," where she voiced her disapproval of the March 30 decision by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) relaxing mark-to-market accounting rules.

"This week, we saw so many concessions to the banks," Huffington said. "We saw the suspension of mark-to-market, which is absolutely tragic. Japan, by not having mark-to-market, made it much harder for them to recover."

But as Brian Wesbury and Robert Stein of First Trust Portfolios recently wrote for Forbes magazine, mark-to-market accounting reinstitution was reinstated only in recent years. The last time it was in effect - during the Great Depression - it caused many bank failures.

Throughout George W. Bush's presidency, insults were doled out repeatedly about the commander-in-chief and that was just a fact of life for the highest-ranking public official in the land. However, now there's a new president, there seems to be a different standard on how you talk about a president.

CNN's Rick Sanchez, the host of the 3 p.m. hour of "CNN Newsroom" on April 2 took offense to conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh described a flowery praise of President Barack Obama by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

"Well, some folks are naturally graceful, some not so much," Sanchez said. "By that measure alone, radio yacker Rush Limbaugh is the polar opposite of our Commander-in-Chief, Barack Obama. Now, you can just disagree with Barack Obama on his leadership, perhaps his policies. But it's hard not to at least acknowledge the ease with which America's 44th president handled himself in London on a global stage, even among royalty."

Two journalists appearing as guests on CNN on Wednesday and Thursday praised “mighty Michelle” Obama for being “stylish,” “successful,” and for showing “an interest in wanting to reach out to people who may feel they’ve been disenfranchised or held at a distance from the power structure.”

Self-described “political provocateur” Lola Adesioye, who writes for the Huffington Post and the left-wing British rag The Guardian, gushed over the first lady during a segment on Wednesday’s Newsroom: “Personally, I find her fascinating. I’m impressed. I’m -- you know, I’m inspired by her, as somebody who can be a mother, a wife and successful in her career as well. So, you know, it’s been -- it’s really, really been a great thing.”

Eighteen hours later on Thursday’s American Morning, the Washington Post’s Robin Givhan tried to sell how Mrs. Obama could aid her husband on the international stage: “[She] helps people to get more of a human sense of the administration. And also, I think that for many people, there was, to some degree, a sense of being closed off to the rest of the world or closed off to those who are kind of outside of the mainstream by other administrations. And I think this is a way of trying to build those bridges in a way that is very non-confrontational.”

Both have loyal following, but their fans are on opposite sides of the political spectrum.

CNBC's Rick Santelli rose to prominence earlier this year when he railed against President Barack Obama's policies on live TV from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. He's a hit with conservatives staging tea parties to protest the bailout culture in Washington throughout the country. 

Arianna Huffington, who appeared as a guest host on CNBC's March 31 "Squawk Box" has following of left-wing readers and bloggers, as the editor of the very popular Huffington Post blog. The two faced off on "Squawk Box" about how the housing crisis should be handled. Huffington asked Santelli what his thoughts were on more government assistance for underwater homeowners to prevent another round of foreclosures.

"Well, the whole country is underwater I guess," Santelli replied. "It's just a matter of where you want to point the bailout gun. I would certainly like to see some of those mortgage contracts gone through to find out where the erroneous and inaccurate and illegal contracts and separate those from the rest because I think that a lot of the information on the original mortgage contracts is not accurate and I don't think it would be very fair to put those in the same camp as other foreclosures."

It looks like at least one Huffington Post blogger has been paying attention to the surge in Rush Limbaugh's radio ratings since the White House began attacking him. As chronicled here in NewsBusters by editor Brent Baker, Limbaugh's numbers have increased drastically ever since the organized White House attack. As a result of this Rush Surge,  Huffington Post blogger Earl Ofari Hutchinson who also writes a syndicated column, has called upon the Democrats to raise the white flag of surrender:

President Obama and the Democrats should wave the white flag in their strawman war on Rush Limbaugh. The Media Research Center delivered the grim casualty figures for the Democrats. Since January, the top talk show gabber's ratings have soared off the charts. Radio affiliates that carry Limbaugh's syndicated show call the ratings boost he's gotten from the Democrat's orchestrated attack on him a "dramatic surge." This writer predicted as much when President Obama cracked to Congressional Republicans in late January that they should knock off listening to Limbaugh if they expected to get anything done in Congress and with his administration.

More and more people are starting to take notice of CNBC's dramatic shift to the left and the liberal groups promoting it.

On Fox News Channel's March 27 "The O'Reilly Factor," host Bill O'Reilly and Bernard Goldberg, author of "A Slobbering Love Affair: The True (And Pathetic) Story of the Torrid Romance Between Barack Obama and the Mainstream Media" took a look at trends pointing to this shift that started after the feud between "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer and "The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart.

O'Reilly cited a column written by NewsBusters Associate Editor Noel Sheppard on March 26 for The Washington Examiner that noted some of the things indicating CNBC's leftward swing.

It's has been in the news a lot lately, and the prospects of a global currency have Max Keiser, Huffington Post blogger and host of BBC World's "The Oracle," giving dire warnings of the consequences if China or other countries were to make a push for it.

Keiser appeared on Al-Jazeera English's March 27 "Inside Story" to discuss the possibilities of a global currency. Host Darren Jordon asked Keiser about the pitfalls of converting to a global currency and Keiser used it as an opportunity to launch into an anti-American diatribe.

"Well, the pitfalls are for the U.S.," Keiser said. "The U.S. has what [former French President Charles] de Gaulle called an extraordinary privilege - they can write checks that they never have to cash. They just print new dollars. This has been going on since Bretton Woods at the end of World War II."

Raspy left-wing talk show host Lionel (no surnames needed) hailed fellow leftist Bill Maher Friday on the Huffington Post with an article titled "God Bless Bill Maher." Lionel says he should win, without any challenge, "the award for best critical thinking by a television news commentator." (He quickly steps on that analysis by adding, "Bill Maher and Jon Stewart have earned my seal of approval for cogent commentary.") Why the honor? The atheism is apparently lovable:

Bill Maher has a point of view shot through his own perspective barrel with its own rifling. You can see his comedic ballistic marks. We know his frame of reference. Personally, I love his take on religion and [Maher's film] Religulous is brilliant. I'm biased. As is he.

Imagine the howls of anguish that would have belched forth from the Old Media if George W. Bush had decided to only talk to Fox News and Drudge? Imagine if members of Bush's administration had reached out only to the Internet sites RedState and Powerline. What if Bush had instituted a concerted effort to only interact with conservative media sources? Who can doubt that the Old Media would have decried it as the end of the world as we know it? In fact, they did by so often attacking Fox News.

Yet, here is precisely where Barack Obama is going with his own media outreach. Not with out reach to conservative sources, of course, but to exclusively partisan, left-wing sources, often to the exclusion of moderate, right of center, and older media outlets. As Politico reported on March 24, the president's team is "reaching out to liberal commentators, local reporters and ethnic media" in hopes of going around long established Old Media outlets.

Perhaps this post could be headlined "CNBC Continues to Atone for Its Outspoken Obama Criticism."

As if announcing Democratic National Committee chairman and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean as a "CNBC contributor" weren't enough, CNBC has invited the editor in chief of one of the its biggest critics to guest co-host one of CNBC's most popular shows.

Originally reported in a status update from Arianna Huffington's Facebook page on March 24, and later confirmed by Huffington herself in an e-mail with the Media Research Center, the co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post will co-host CNBC's "Squawk Box" on March 31.

It's the latest ailment of the left - CNBC derangement syndrome.

Since CNBC's Rick Santelli and Jim Cramer took an outspoken stance on the shortcomings of the Obama administration, left-wing storefronts have been popping up all over the place wanting to capitalize on the network after it took a vicious attack from Comedy Central "The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart.

After CNBC "Squawk on the Street" co-host Mark Haines took on a couple of sanctimonious Democratic congressmen, Reps. Brad Sherman, Calif., and Charles Rangel, N.Y., for being advocates of a 90-percent retroactive tax on bonuses, he has found himself as the subject of a main headline on the Huffington Post on March 23, for being concerned about some of the populist rhetoric promoting compensation limits after wrapping up an interview with Nick Debenedictus, the CEO of Aqua America (NYSE:WTR).

While Time magazine honors Arianna Huffington as the Oracle of the Internet, anyone reading The Huffington Post knows it’s still a salon for liberal celebrities to channel their own self-involved conspiracy theories about how conservatism is ruining the world, and especially the world of the Artist. In a rant posted on Sunday night, '80s rock star John Mellencamp unfurled the theory that Ronald Reagan ruined the music business, and now it’s somehow impossible for musicians and bands to "percolate up" from the street:

Reagan's much-vaunted trickle-down theory said that wealth tricked down [sic] to the masses from the elite at the top. Now we've found out that this is patently untrue -- the current economic collapse reflects this self-serving folly. The same holds for music. It doesn't trickle down; it percolates up from the artists, from word of mouth, from the streets and rises up to the general populace. Constrained by the workings of SoundScan/BDS [Broadcast Data Systems], music now came from the top and was rammed down people's throats....

Why, oh why, can't Mother Nature cooperate so we can promote our global warming agenda? That pretty much sums up the attitude of global warming alarmist and documentary filmmaker, Gabriel London. His frustration came about over the fact that lately the very cold weather we have been experiencing has made the public more skeptical than ever over global warming. London explains in his Huffington Post blog why he is irked by the cold weather:

In a case of bad timing, last week brought with it more below average temperatures in New York coupled with another chorus of headlines from scientists spelling out dire warnings about global warming. As scientists gathered in Copenhagen for an 'emergency meeting' reported that climate predictions of the Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) from two years ago are being outdone by worst case scenarios -- ice melting!, seas rising!!, rainforests disappearing!!! -- I, along with the rest of New York, was looking at the calendar trying to remember when it gets warm. It's been a long, cold winter here and Spring has barely even registered, so my feeling is, there go hopes that we as a people will get out in support of Congressional legislation and a new UN treaty on climate change. It sounds trite, but here's my hunch: beliefs in global warming rise and fall with, well... the mercury. And that spells trouble for those of us who believe we need to make changes now to head off global warming.

It’s not even April 1 yet, and Keith Olbermann is already expressing fears that President Obama "is acting disturbingly like President Bush," because of a number of recent decisions by the Obama administration to continue policies similar to those of President Bush, which Olbermann recounted on Monday's Countdown while the words "Four More Years?" displayed at the bottom of the screen. The MSNBC host then introduced his guest for further discussion: "Here to help us tell the two men apart, Arianna Huffington, founder of Huffington Post."

Responding to Huffington’s hope that Obama’s decisions would only be temporary, Olbermann queried that if, "after one of these six-month reviews – renditioning, for instance – continues on or other detentions without legal rights? What happens then?" prompting Huffington to convey her willingness to oppose Obama: "Well, everybody who cares about what are the fundamental American values of fairness and justice and due process needs to vociferously and unambiguously oppose the Obama administration. I don`t think there is any alternative to that."

MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann and CNN’s Rick Sanchez both poked fun of Fox News personality Sean Hannity for his on-air commercials for Stanford Coins and Bullion, which is part of the Stanford Financial Group led by Robert Allen Stanford, who has been in the news recently due to charges of fraud. It was the Huffington Post on Wednesday that pointed out the talk show host’s spots for Stanford. Olbermann named Hannity his “Worst Person in the World” on Thursday evening for the radio spots for Stanford.

Nineteen hours later, on Friday afternoon’s Newsroom program on CNN, Sanchez gave the misleading impression that Hannity was still doing the live spots even after the news of the investigation into Stanford came out: “Sean Hannity unabashedly endorsed Robert Allen Stanford on the air to millions of potential customers -- the same Fox News host who calls President Obama a socialist.” An on-screen graphic during Sanchez’s segment indicated that his source for the story was the Huffington Post, while another graphic asked, “Who’s Your Friend, Sean?”

Whether it's a shot at competitor Newsweek for putting Markos Moulitsas on the payroll, or a brief moment of clarity, Time magazine has named the disgustingly liberal website Daily Kos as one of the most overrated blogs on the Internet.

I kid you not. 

Such a revelation seems even more odd given the absence of any conservative websites in Time's "25 Best Blogs of 2009."

But before we get there, here's what the magazine had to say about DK:

During a segment on the “Reliable Sources” hour of CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, PBS’s Gwen Ifill and Bloomberg’s Margaret Carlson agreed that it was fine for President Obama to call on Sam Stein of the Huffington Post at his first press conference, and that the correspondent’s left-wing question on a proposed “truth committee” investigation into the Bush administration was “perfectly reasonable.” Carlson also agreed with host Howard Kurtz’s assessment that the “White House press corps not exactly rolling over for the new president.” Her response: “Never do, do they?”

Ifill and Carlson participated in a panel discussion with The Washington Times’ White House correspondent Christina Bellantoni at the beginning of the 10 am Eastern hour of the CNN program. Kurtz brought up the topic of the first presidential news conference, and specifically, how Stein was one of the reporters who asked a question: “So is this a new era for bloggers, in terms of the White House recognition?”