During this afternoon's edition of Studio B, Fox News anchor Shepard Smith reacted to President Obama's announcement that he supports marriage equality by commenting: "The President of the United States, now in the 21st century."

Smith also wondered if "in this time of rising debts and medical issues and all the rest, if Republicans would go out on a limb and try to make this a campaign issue while sitting very firmly, without much question, on the wrong side of history on it."

Smith's colleagues at Fox Nation certainly took issue with Obama's announcement. The Fox News website reacted to Obama's statement with the banner headline: "OBAMA FLIP FLOPS, DECLARES WAR ON MARRIAGE."

Read the full entry ...

In response to President Obama's declaration of support for marriage equality this afternoon, Fox Nation ran the following headline:

Fox Nation's post linked to a Yahoo News article on Obama's announcement, which ran the headline "Obama declares support for gay marriage."

Update: Within an hour of posting its original headline, Fox Nation removed the “war on marriage” language from its post:

National Organization for Women president Terry O'Neill today criticized Rush Limbaugh's new Facebook fan page, "Rush Babes for America," or as Limbaugh called it on his show on Tuesday, the "National Organization for Rush Babes."

In an interview with Politico's Dylan Byers, O'Neill said:

"I don't think conservative women want to associate themselves with his hate. I don't think they would want to associate themselves with his bullying. ...I don't think conservative women would want to associate themselves with his vitriolic attacks."

In announcing the fan page on his radio show, Limbaugh attacked NOW as a "faux-feminist group," saying:

LIMBAUGH: Sometime later this month, the femi-Nazis are going to be working with Media Matters for America and kicking off some giant program, some coordinated plan, to have me taken off the air under the premise that women hate this program, and that this program is an unfriendly environment for women, that this program laughs at, impugns, makes fun of women.

Of course, the flaw in this is that the National Organization for Women thinking that they speak for women. If there was ever a group that speaks for an almost infinitesimal minority of women, it's the NAGs.

"NAGS" is Limbaugh's "pet name for the NOW gang," which stands for "National Association of Gals" -- a term he shared with listeners during a June 2004 show.

Limbaugh said that his fan page would be "dedicated to the millions of conservative women who know what they believe in: family, American values, and not being told by faux-feminist groups how to think."

Politico reported that O'Neill "said that conservative women, while they may agree with Limbaugh on matters of policy, would not support his 'bullying,' citing his recent attacks on Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke, who he referred to as a 'slut' and a 'prostitute.' " O'Neill added:

"I think there are extraordinarily few people who agree with what he said about Sandra Fluke. ... I don't think women want to watch Sandra Fluke having sex in a video tape for the sexual gratification of men."

Limbaugh's fan page was apparently a response to NOW's "Enough Rush" campaign, which the organization launched on April 19 "to deliver the powerful message to Rush Limbaugh and his apologists that bullying is no longer profitable."

Earlier this year, Fox News hyped the rise in gasoline prices, blaming President Obama even though experts agree that worldwide market factors, not U.S. policies, set gas prices. So what is Fox saying now that gas prices are falling?

Seriously.

You know who else sees the drop in gas prices as a bad thing? Republican strategists who were hoping to reap the political benefits of high gas prices at the polls this year. 

Read the full entry ...

Sean Hannity hosted presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney for a 16 minute interview last night but failed to ask about comments in which Romney claimed "a lot of the credit" for saving the auto industry. Hannity did, however, find time to ask: "Do you believe that this President has failed in his time in office?"

Hannity has a long pattern of offering embattled right-wing figures safe refuge in the face of controversy. Last night's one-on-one with Romney definitely fit the pattern. 

During a WEWS-TV interview, Romney said "I pushed the idea of a managed bankruptcy. And finally, when that was done, and help was given, the companies got back on their feet. So I'll take a lot of credit for the fact that this industry's come back."

Romney's claim generated many headlines because in a 2008 New York Times op-ed, Romney argued that a government bailout for auto companies would "virtually [guarantee]" the demise of the auto industry, and that a "managed bankruptcy may be the only path to the fundamental restructuring the industry needs."

Contrary to Romney's advice, the federal government did provide assistance, and economists and a key person who was part of the negotiations say that without assistance from the federal government, a bankruptcy of the auto industry would have likely resulted in liquidation, due to the lack of available private financing.

Even Fox Business' Lou Dobbs has highlighted the controversy. But not Hannity. Instead Hannity's viewers were treated to questions like this:

Fox News contributor and psychiatrist Dr. Keith Ablow has a weekly segment on Fox & Friends called "Normal or Nuts," in which he takes viewers' emails about their odd traits and then declares them either "normal" or "nuts." Usually these complaints fall into the category of personality quirks; for example, today's segment included a viewer asking if it was normal to have a crush on her sister's husband. But one of the emails this morning took an odd turn, when a viewer asked if it was normal that they were planning to "move to a doomsday unit in case of an attack." The viewer went on to describe their "safety silo" as having "space to store dry food for years" and being able to "run on wind power."

After co-host Gretchen Carlson read the email, which concluded with the viewer asking if the "safety silo" was "just craziness," Ablow reassured the viewer that, while he wished he could call the viewer "nuts," it made sense because a group of unnamed wealthy people had a plan to flee the country "in case things get so wildly out of control with the government taking over that there's no individual liberty left":

CARLSON (reading question): OK. I may move to a doomsday unit in case of an attack, my new home will have 9 foot thick concrete walls, run on wind power, and with space to store dry food for years. Is a safety silo just craziness?

ABLOW: No, you know, I wish it were. I honestly wish it were. I wish I could sit here and say, "Boy, that's so crazy." But I got to tell you, people with lots of money, they must be really crazy, because they're getting houses outside this country to flee to in case things get so wildly out of control with the government taking control that there's no individual liberty left. So this isn't craziness, but the question is wouldn't you rather build walls of steel in your character? That's never vulnerable.

Ablow's diagnosis?

Read the full entry ...

The publication last week of an excerpt from a forthcoming Barack Obama biography sparked an especially frenzied response from conservative bloggers who view the president's distant personal past with an unhealthy fascination.  

The book's new revelation about the identity of a girlfriend Obama had soon after he graduated college nearly 30 years ago, along with the other biographical nuggets, were deemed to be crucial pieces of information that had gone missing during the 2008 campaign season. Washington Examiner columnist Byron York bemoaned the fact that the Vanity Fair excerpt revealed "a portrait of Obama that might have enriched the voters' understanding of him in the 2008 campaign."

Indeed, for conservatives, previously unearthed details about Obama post-college girlfriend represented the latest piece of evidence that reporters hadn't done enough digging during the previous campaign. That they never grilled the candidate; that they ignored the Rev. Jeremiah Wright story! (Fact: They covered it. Exhaustively.)

But this time around, it's going to be different. Obama's (supposedly mysterious) life story is going to be fleshed out during the 2012 campaign.

Under the headline, "Re-Vetting Wars: Obama's Girlfriends Speak," American Thinker blogger Thomas Lifton noted "One of the foremost concerns of the Obama re-election effort is the promised re-vetting of Obama, playing off the widespread perception that the media utterly failed to investigate the reality beneath the highly manufactured identity peddled in 2008."

That vow to "vet" the president has become a mantra this year. Addressing CPAC this winter, Andrew Breitbart declared "[T]his election we're going to vet him," and specifically promised to "vet" Obama's "college days." (Days after Breitbart died in March, his site unveiled the "college days" vetting he had promised; it did not go well for Team Breitbart.)

That same month, Sean Hannity announced it was clear that Obama's "friends" in the press made sure "that his past remains un-vetted," while Hannity's angry guest Michelle Malkin reported it was time to "vet the prez."

The vetting obsession however, doesn't spring from a natural affinity for fact checking. Instead, it's used to bolster the broader conservative argument that the real reason Obama won an electoral landslide victory in 2008 was because the press (purposefully) hid the truth about who Obama really is. And, by extension, if Obama wins re-election in November, the only reason will be because for his four years in office, the press (purposefully) hid the truth about who Obama really is.

The conspiracy theory serves as a convenient catchall excuse for why Obama succeeds electorally despite the conservative press' depiction of him as a monster determined to destroy the American economy and ruin our way of life.  That's all accurate, the bloggers insists. It's just that the liberal media hasn't properly conveyed all the crucial information to voters.

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Although the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has been in the spotlight in recent weeks for promoting legislation similar to the Florida "Kill at Will" law at issue in the Trayvon Martin case, for decades the organization has been quietly "ghostwriting the law" to the benefit of its big business funders and the detriment of consumers, investors and victims of corporate wrongdoing. Increased attention on the shadowy organization is revealing that ALEC's now-notorious and since-disbanded foray into gun rights and voter suppression was a tangent from a massive, concerted campaign to set aside laws that hold corporations accountable when they pollute the environment, sell dangerous products or defraud consumers. All the more effective for its stealthy nature, ALEC's war on corporate accountability has received only a fraction of the scrutiny the media has focused on the Kill at Will controversy.

ALEC's Civil Justice Task Force drives this agenda under a banner of "tort reform."  A "tort" is a wrong that gives rise to a legal claim. Tort lawsuits seek to compensate victims for physical, economic and psychological harm and deter future negligence or intentional wrongdoing. Because most tort law is made at the state level and many cases are tried in state courts, ALEC's state-focused Civil Justice Task Force is a crucial element of a broader corporate-driven "tort reform" effort.

ALEC shapes state law by drafting and promoting "model legislation," and the Civil Justice Task Force actively engages in this effort, as illustrated by two documents. The first, recently brought to light by the public interest organization Common Cause, is a spreadsheet titled "ALEC State Tracking:  Good Legal Reform Bills." The spreadsheet tracks 160 pieces of legislation relating to "tort reform" from 38 states in great detail. Among the categories of information collected in the spreadsheet are the sponsor of each bill, his or her political party; the title of the bill, the related ALEC model bill, any hearings held on the bill and its status. Thus, when the Civil Justice Task Force took this snapshot in 2011, 160 pieces of legislation, each of them inspired by an ALEC model bill, had been introduced in the state legislatures of 76 percent of the states. The "Good Legal Reform Bills" document is proof of the sweeping scope and sophisticated nature of ALEC's campaign to limit corporate accountability.

A second document gets at the equally ambitious substance of the campaign. Titled The State Legislator's Guide:  Tort Reform Boot Camp, the 44-page document sets out 13 pieces of model legislation, along with "talking points" in support of each provision; tips on "gauging your opposition;" and "steps in the right direction" that a legislator might pursue if political or legal barriers prevent full adoption of the proposal. The document is "tort reform" in a box, equipping corporate-friendly legislators to introduce, promote and enact the Civil Justice Task Force's agenda. The effectiveness of ALEC's techniques, as represented by Tort Reform Boot Camp, is illustrated by the organization's claim that between 1999 and 2011 43 states "enacted legislation based on ALEC Civil Justice Task Force legislation."

Read the full entry ...

Are you better off now than you were four years ago?

The quadrennial question is percolating among the chattering classes as attention increasingly turns toward the general election.

And as the right continues its push to obscure the record and deny the fact that the economy has improved, the media are obligated to recall where the economy was.

Four years ago, the front page of The Wall Street Journal announced "AIG posts record loss, as crisis continues taking toll." The article reported that the financial crisis that had already sunk Bear Stearns was spreading out from Wall Street and into the broader economy. Not just profits, but jobs were disappearing at an alarming rate:

The global financial crisis is increasingly claiming jobs as the stock market struggles, financial firms retreat from risky businesses and deal-making remains slow. More than 23,000 financial-related U.S. job cuts were announced last month, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray &Christmas Inc. That increased the total to 49,825 in the first four months of this year -- nearly as many job cuts as were announced for all of 2007.

In the U.S., Wall Street's employment losses are concentrated in New York, where one in every five securities-industry jobs is based. Layoffs also are deepening in London, Hong Kong and other financial hubs. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., based in New York, is expected to announce next week that it is eliminating about 5% of its employees, or about 1,425 positions, on top of a previously announced 5% cutback in Lehman's work force. A Lehman spokeswoman declined to comment.

By the end of June, Morgan Stanley plans 1,500 more job cuts, falling largely in the U.S. and hitting all businesses except global wealth management. No brokers will lose their jobs, but the latest downsizing puts total layoffs at Morgan Stanley at about 4,500 people, or 10%

In contrast to the hemorrhaging job market that existed in the run up to the 2008 election, employment growth has continued unabated for more than 2 years. Indeed, the Labor Department reported that in March companies posted the highest level of job openings in four years. The number of workers competing for each job opening has reached the lowest level since the recession ended.

Last week, the media failed to examine Mitt Romney's absurd claim that the economy should be creating more than 500,000 jobs per month -- never mind that such a high level of persistent jobs creation is unprecedented.

During an election likely to be centered on economic growth, these failures allow conservatives to set impossible goals while simultaneously obscuring just how far the economy has come since four years ago. 

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) is receiving extra security after an activist in Missouri, Scott Boston, said, "We have to kill the Claire Bear." But in defending Boston, CNN contributor Dana Loesch failed to mention that she co-founded a conservative activist group with him.

From the Post-Dispatch:

At an event Thursday in Springfield, Mo., Scott Boston, a St. Louis area activist who has been involved with the Tea Party, told the crowd "we have to get Claire McCaskill out."

"We have to kill the Claire Bear ladies and gentlemen," Boston said. "She walks around like she's some sort of Rainbow Brite Care Bear or something but really she's an evil monster."

The comment was seen as ominous enough to prompt the U.S. Capitol Police to seek extra protection for the Missouri Democrat.

Police in Kirkwood, where McCaskill lives, confirm they were asked by the Capitol security agency to perform stepped up patrols around her house.

McCaskill has also had extra security tailing her at public appearances.

In writing about the incident at Big Government, Loesch reported that the FBI questioned Boston about his remarks at his home in St. Louis.

In December, Loesch and Boston helped to found the Gateway Grassroots Initiative, which is dedicated to "advancing conservatism at the national, state, and local levels." Boston has also co-authored a post promoting the Gateway Grassroots Initiative at Breitbart.com.

Loesch made no mention of her connection to Boston in her Big Government post.

A story bubbled up in the right-wing media suggesting that the White House requires "that unborn children get security clearance" if their parents want to tour the building. The reporting was based on an email from the White House that instructs potential visitors about "how to enter security information for a baby that has not yet been born."

The Daily Caller, Washington Free Beacon, Drudge Report, National Review Online, and Fox Nation all highlighted this story and presented it in the context of President Obama's support for abortion rights.

However, a closer reading of the email shows that expecting parents are required to fill out security information for a child who is not yet born only if they anticipate giving birth by the time they want to visit the White House. The email clearly refers to "newborns" and gives instructions for what to do once "the baby is born."

The Huffington Post spoke to a representative from the Secret Service who said that "all White House guests are required to provide information at the time of their request for the tour, including for children and infants, and those expected to be on the tour once born."

So, no, the White House does not require pregnant visitors to register their fetuses as people for security purposes. 

Last night, Cumulus Media, a radio company that carries Rush Limbaugh's show on 38 of its stations, announced millions in losses directly attributable to Limbaugh's show.

From Radio Ink (emphasis mine):

Monday evening Cumulus CEO Lew Dickey said the advertiser boycott cost his company "a couple million" dollars in ad revenue in the first quarter and "a couple million" in the second quarter. He said things look like they will be back to normal in June. Cumulus carries Rush Limbaugh 38 markets and blames 1% of the 3.5% drop in revenue for the quarter on the Rush boycott. Dickey said Cumulus was "hit pretty hard by this."

This report certainly undermines protestations from Limbaugh and his crisis manager that everything is fine.

That said, I want to unpackage this news a bit to: 1) explain how this impacts the marketability of Limbaugh's show; and 2) address Cumulus' remark that business should return to normal in June.

Read the full entry ...

Only two short months after his sustained verbal assault on Georgetown Law school student Sandra Fluke, Rush Limbaugh announced the launch of a Facebook fan page named after one of his favorite sexist pejoratives, "Rush Babes for America."

Announcing the page, Limbaugh claimed the fan page is for conservative women who are "not being told by faux feminist groups how to think."

Limbaugh scoffed at the idea that his program "laughs at, impugns [or] makes fun of women," but Rush routinely refers to women as:

• "babes"
• "NAGs"
• "feminazis"
• "senatorette[s]"
• "infobabes"
• "clucking hens"
• "bimbo[s]"
• "sex-retary"

Limbaugh also christened the launch of his new page with his brand of sexism, using the terms "feminazis" and "NAGs," in his announcement.

Limbaugh's go-to pejorative for women from first ladies, to congresswomen, reporters to academic and historical figures is "babe." He's used the term describe at least 61 prominent women including Supreme Court Justices, Senators, economists, and astronauts. After all of this, Limbaugh laughably called himself a "defender and protector" of women in September 2010.

Read the full entry ...

Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum has a habit of defending GOP talking points. During a conversation with Sen. Tom Coburn today, she continued the practice, scoffing at Democratic suggestions on how to help reduce the deficit and increase revenue:

MacCALLUM: I think everybody in this country, Democrats and Republicans across the board, know that there need to be some spending cuts in order to move -- in order to protect the country, basically, from complete default. But Democrats will tell you, as you hear all the time, that if you just, you know, tax wealthy people more, and you take, you know, raise taxes on oil companies, that you're going to go a long way to solving the problem. That's what they believe.

SENATOR COBURN: Well, they know that's not true.

Coburn went on to say that those Democratic proposals wouldn't make a dent in the deficit, adding that "this is all about politics, this is all about November, this is silly time in Washington -- unfortunately, it's silly time all the time in Washington 'cause there's no grownups up here." MacCallum replied: "I was just gonna say, I think a lot of folks feel like it extends throughout the year."

In fact, the Democrats' budget proposals amount to more than just "tax wealthy people more" and "raise taxes on oil companies" -- measures Fox News has stridently defended against in its rush to protect the rich and tax breaks for oil and gas companies.  

Read the full entry ...

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, News Corporation's second biggest shareholder, has reportedly said that the company's phone hacking scandal "is not helping the name of the company" and is "not something to be proud of."

Alwaleed also said that his backing of embattled News Corp. CEO and chairman Rupert Murdoch "is definitely unwavering." A British government panel recently concluded that Murdoch is "not a fit person" to lead a major company, citing his "willful blindness" to unethical behavior.

From The Guardian:

Alwaleed said that although News Corp was "very diversified," with interests covering books, magazines, newspapers, television and film, the phone-hacking scandal was having a company-wide effect. "I really hope that this is behind us because really it is not helping the name of the company," he said. "We hope that this page is folded and put behind us because really it is not something to be proud of."

News Corp investors have voiced concerns about the phone-hacking scandal since it erupted last year and, at the company's AGM in October, several shareholders, including powerful pension fund CalPERS, called for the appointment of an independent chairman. Murdoch currently holds the position of chairman alongside that of chief executive. Alwaleed is one of Murdoch's staunchest supporters and had never before spoken publicly about the wider impact of the scandal.

His most public previous involvement was to suggest the resignation of Rebekah Brooks as chief executive of News Corp's UK newspaper division, News International. Brooks was editor of the News of the World when its journalists hacked the phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler and in July last year Alwaleed told the BBC's Newsnight: "If the indications are for her [Brooks's] involvement in this matter is explicit, for sure she has to go, you bet she has to go ... Ethics to me is very important." Brooks resigned the following day.

News Corp holds a significant stake in Alwaleed's Saudi Arabian film, TV and music business Rotana Media Group and he said: "We have a strategic alliance with Rupert Murdoch for sure and I have been with him for the last 15 or 20 years. My backing of Rupert Murdoch is definitely unwavering."

Alwaleed said that although the scandal had had an impact on News Corp's reputation, its financial results had not been damaged. "The share price is really separating from what is happening in the UK," he said. "We see the price is hovering around $20 and the results are very good."

Previously:

Murdoch's Nixonian Demise

Murdoch Admits Phone Hacking "Cover-Up"

British Panel: Murdoch Unfit To Lead Media Empire

Murdoch Testifies That Phone Hacking Is "A Lazy Way" To Do Journalism

The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) -- a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate group that works closely with controversial anti-immigrant activist and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach -- has announced its list of radio personalities that are expected to attend its Hold Their Feet to the Fire 2012 media event. Here are some of the controversial comments that many of them have made.

Attendees Of FAIR's 2012 Hold Their Feet To The Fire Event

ROGER HEDGECOCK

Said Obama Wants Amnesty To Get "Undocumented Democrats To The Polls In 2012." In July 2011, Hedgecock wrote at Human Events: "Large majorities of Americans in repeated polls want border security first, jobs for Americans first and "path to citizenship" last.  Obama wants amnesty first to get the undocumented Democrats to the polls in 2012, has bullied Republican employers with workplace raids to get their support for amnesty, and will never secure the border any more than his immediate predecessor did." [Human Events, 7/1/11]

Said Voter Rolls Are "Stuffed With Illegal Aliens, Felons And Dead People." In June 2011, Hedgecock wrote at Human Events:

The voter rolls of this country are stuffed with illegal aliens, felons and dead people, who not only vote, they vote overwhelmingly Democrat. 

[...]

Does the illegal alien actually vote?  Apparently not.  Another box on the registration form requests a permanent mail-in ballot be sent to the "voter." The mailing address is different from the "voter's" residence address, meaning that the the illegal alien "voter" never receives a ballot and never votes.  The mail-in ballots are sent to another location and someone else votes and mails back the ballot for the new "voter." Random checks of these mailing addresses show the same addresses over and over.  This is election fraud on an organized level.  It's going on now in every state.  Any attempt to stop this corruption would cause Obama to go to court to defend the right of illegals to register to vote. [Human Events, 6/10/11]

Said That Without "Illegal Alien Votes" Democrats Can't Be Reelected. In January 2012, Hedgecock wrote at Human Events:

Mindless propaganda twisting easily accessible scientific studies is a testament to the desperation of the Obama re-elect campaign and it's media acolytes.  Without illegal alien votes (as Harry Reid proved in his 2010 campaign), unpopular Democrats cannot be re-elected. If it takes a phony campaign to "save the black bear" to insure that illegals continue to stream into the country, then so be it.  Nobody really reads those studies anyway, do they? [Human Events, 1/6/12]

LARS LARSON

Lars Larson Referred To "Illegal Aliens, Or As We Call Them, Undocumented Democrats." In December 2011, Larson said on Fox News:

Allison let me help connect the dots for my liberal friend Leslie. Illegal aliens, or as we call them, undocumented Democrats, are stealing the jobs of American citizens. With 15 million people out of work, only a million of those 12 million illegals in the country work farm jobs. The rest of them are working jobs that Americans are willing to do right now. [Fox News, America Live, 12/13/11, via Media Matters]

Lars Larson Claimed That Undocumented Immigrants Commit "A Larger Proportionate Share" Of Crimes. In June 2011, Larson said on Fox News: 

Illegal aliens, like it or not, are populated by the millions in our country. They come here, they take jobs, they send billions of dollars out of the country, and, unfortunately, they're involved in more than their share, a larger proportionate share, of criminal activity. States should be looking out for their own citizens by saying we're gonna identify these illegals, and then alert the federal authorities so they can be deported. [Fox News, America Live, 5/31/11, via Media Matters]

Read the full entry ...

Sean Hannity invited anti-Muslim "hate group" leader Pam Geller onto his Fox News show to analyze current events again, and Geller used the opportunity to accuse President Obama of being in league with terrorists.

On the May 7 edition of his show, Hannity led a discussion of a Washington Post report that the U.S. has been releasing prisoners in Afghanistan "as part of negotiations with insurgent groups." During the discussion, Geller said that Obama "has basically declared the war on terror over." Hannity interjected, "Two weeks ago." (This accusation is presumably based on the overhyping of a single quote from an anonymous State Department official.)

Geller continued, "Two weeks ago. And frankly, he's not just declared it over, he's switched sides. The very idea that we've been releasing jihadists for years is not an act of appeasement, it's an act of surrender."

Watch:

It is inexplicable that Hannity continues to give a platform to a person designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as the leader of a "hate group." She is devoid of credibility.

By contrast, during the very next hour on Fox News, Greta Van Susteren hosted someone with a relevant background to comment on the Washington Post report -- Fox News military analyst Robert Scales. 

Read the full entry ...

Rush Limbaugh today breathed new life into the inflammatory lie that President Obama's Social Security number is illegitimate. In response to a caller who cast doubt on Obama's birth certificate, Limbaugh asked, "What are your thoughts on the fact that Obama's Social Security number is from Connecticut, and he's never been there?" This is only the latest long-debunked smear conservative talk radio hosts are re-injecting into the mainstream in this election year.

The point that Limbaugh and other Social Security-obsessed birthers have seized on is that the first three digits of Obama's Social Security number would only be assigned to someone whose request was processed in Connecticut. But as the Social Security Administration explained:

Prior to 1972, cards were issued in local Social Security offices around the country and the Area Number [the first three digits of an SSN] represented the State in which the card was issued. This did not necessarily have to be the State where the applicant lived, since a person could apply for their card in any Social Security office. Since 1972, when SSA began assigning SSNs and issuing cards centrally from Baltimore, the area number assigned has been based on the ZIP code in the mailing address provided on the application for the original Social Security card. The applicant's mailing address does not have to be the same as their place of residence. Thus, the Area Number does not necessarily represent the State of residence of the applicant, either prior to 1972 or since.

As the urban legends website Snopes noted, the ZIP code for the Honolulu area, 96814, is very similar to the ZIP code of Danbury, Connecticut, 06814:

Why Barack Obama's Social Security card application might have included a Connecticut mailing address is something of a curiosity, as he had no known connection to that state at the time, but by itself that quirk is no indicator of fraud. The most likely explanation for the discrepancy is a simple clerical or typographical error: the ZIP code in the area of Honolulu where Barack Obama lived is 96814, while the ZIP code for Danbury, Connecticut, is 06814. Since '0' and '9' are similarly shaped numbers and are adjacent on typewriter keyboards, it's not uncommon for handwritten examples to be mistaken for each other, or for one to be mistyped as the other (thereby potentially resulting in a Hawaiian resident's application mistakenly being routed as if it had originated from Connecticut).

Limbaugh's nod to the fringe birther movement comes only two weeks after radio host and CNN contributor Dana Loesch revived the smear that Obama was educated in a "madrassa." CNN -- Loesch's own employer -- debunked the claim five years ago.

Loesch defined a "madrassa" as "kind of like the equivalent in Islam of a Catholic school in Catholicism." However, this is problematic since the American media have primarily applied the word to radical schools that sprang up following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, many of which engage in anti-Western "political indoctrination." The term madrassa in this context is often purposefully used to stoke fears about Muslims.

Limbaugh has repeatedly entertained and promoted the notion that Obama is not a U.S. citizen. At the same time, he has also warned his listeners to be wary of birther theories, cautioning them against going down that "dead end street" and claiming he's "not going to be distracted" by such claims. 

After former NFL football star Junior Seau's death on May 2, the long-term effects head injuries can have on NFL players are once again a hot topic. Although there is no conclusive evidence on the precise consequences of head traumas, doctors suspect these traumas do leave a lasting mark on the brain. In that vein, more than 100 former football players filed a lawsuit last week against the NFL, claiming the league does not do enough to protect its players against brain injury.

According to Rush Limbaugh, however, those advocating for heightened NFL safety rules are "wusses." He spent much of his talk radio show Friday lamenting that new safety regulations will only "pave the way" for the game's demise. In 2010, when the League proposed a new rule to lessen the number of concussions, Limbaugh mocked the rule, asking if players will now receive awards for "courageous restraint" by not tackling.

And in typical Limbaugh fashion, he has struggled to discuss this issue without resorting to racially charged commentary. Today, Limbaugh claimed that "somebody is gonna figure out here pretty soon that since 75 percent of the players in the NFL are African-American -- that 75 percent of the concussions are being suffered by African-Americans." He continued:

LIMBAUGH: And then somebody is going to say, maybe this week after I put it out here, somebody is going to say: How long are we going to put up with the sacrifice of African-American males for a bloodthirsty American audience? How long are we willingly going to submit African-American males to maiming, concussions, early death, and perhaps suicide -- for what? The bloodlust of the American population?

And they'll make the obvious connection to the old plantation days. You watch. That's what's gonna happen. It will be used as a further arrow in the quiver to ban the game -- not something we have to protect because it employs so many African-Americans.

Limbaugh has been unable to resist injecting race into his discussions of football. Back in 2007, Limbaugh declared that the "NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons." In April, he ranted that whenever a black man becomes a head coach in the NFL, the media act "as though this particular coach just got out off the plantation. No longer is he picking cotton." He added: "It doesn't matter if the coach is qualified or not -- all that matters is his race."

But Limbaugh has developed such a reputation for racially incendiary comments while talking about the sport that numerous NFL players admitted they "wouldn't play" for a Limbaugh-owned team due to his "flat-out racist" comments.

Today, Fox News chief national correspondent Jim Angle attempted to set the record straight on wage inequality between men and women. As we have previously noted, gender wage inequality is a real issue. Even controlling for a number of different factors, like personal characteristics, occupation, and hours worked, studies have revealed a persistent wage gap between men and women.

Even the Bush administration study found that a gap existed between men's and women's pay after controlling for a variety of factors.

These studies didn't make it into the segment, however. Instead, Angle's segment consisted of snippets of interviews from people stating that there is no wage inequality and Angle's own suggestion that the reason for the difference in pay between men and women "is pretty simple. Women take time off to have children and to care for them."

Watch: