The wingnuts have been in an uproar over a "news article" posted by some group called African Press International, in which Michelle Obama allegedly calls the organization and goes on a rampage. Some of the more notable journalists on the right have reported this is entirely false, yet the wingnut hysteria continues. Here's what they are saying at the loony bin known as Newsbusters:
Double WOW! As I stated, African Press International has been in existence for over two years and has filed over a thousand stories. So will the MSM investigate this? Meanwhile this story is gaining enormous steam in the Blogosphere.
UPDATE: Because of the high level of interest in this story, API has just posted a phone number where they can be contacted for verification. Calls must be made between Oct. 16 and 18. Here is the number posted on their site: 004793299739. To call from the USA, the number is: 011-4793299739.
Thousands of news stories? Really? Well I decide to check them out in Google news search and all I found was four mentions of this big organizations. All today, nothing reported by them, just people reporting on this scam.
Next - what kind of news organizations say you can call them to verify a story, but then offers an oddball time window? I decided to look into that phone number and punched it into this site, which does international phone number look ups. That number goes to Norway. Just to get extra proof, I decided to call it on my Skype. Some guy with an accent answered with a simple "hello". I asked for African Press International and got hungup on. Also my Skype showed that call was going to Norway.
Perhaps Newsbusters should look at serious news organizations as ones not using a free blogging service to host their site. They even link their author to africanpress.com. Guess what? That name isn't even registered (though I bet someone grabs it today). How idiotic are this wingnuts? I mean I am just a lonely little blogger sitting in the bottom part of the big blogosphere and I have my own site and domain. As matter of fact they could stay on the free wordpress.com site and have their own domain point to their blog. Wordpress offers that service for free and .com domains can be had for under $10 a year. Big organization indeed.
(more at HuffPo)
UPDATE:
Amanda Carpenter at the right wing Town Hall posts:
Update: I'm just got confirmation this API report is completely UNTRUE. It's been popping up on lots of sites and Michelle Obama's "quotes" about white racism are made up and FALSE. An official from Barack Obama's campaign told Fox News reporters Michelle Obama never made the call and never said those things.
Even before her update she was skeptical to say the least:
Do you think this is legit? Why would someone make this up? The site doesn't seem very professional and appears to be only created in 2006. The author of this story doesn't post his real name and doesn't provide contact information. Looks suspicious to me.
Still blogs on the right are holding their breath expecting this to be some real story.
Comments
Apropos Townhall, Newsbusters, et a.l:
"Obama flag conspiracy theory
Oh, wow...via folo:
John Cole spotted this on a comment thread at Townhall:
At an Ohio campaign stop last week Obama gave a speech with a background of American flags which is quite common. However, if you look closely some of the flags are not American flags. The blue field has been changed to show an Obama seal. Yes, there are also stars but have no pattern and they do not add up to 50.
With Obama making his own seal and now this it looks like maybe he is putting some credence to the recent article by Stanley Kurtz in the National Review. Is he planning on creating an African county within the US.
I think the presence of these flags should be viewed with alarm. And I don’t want to hear any looney left comments that they are only decoration. They ARE a modification of the American Flag.
And on down a few comments, this:
the flag you’re asking about is the state flag of ohio."
Post new comment