You can't make this stuff up.

In a blog post today, Jim Hoft (aka the Dumbest Man on the Internet) comments on a report that GE received nearly $25 million in stimulus grants. He portrays this as a payoff by the Obama administration for MSNBC's coverage of the White House, commenting that “Propaganda Pays”:

Glenn Beck guest host Pat Gray (no slouch himself in the stupidity category) quickly picked up the claim:

Look, according to Forbes, GE is the second largest company in the world. They had sales of more than $150 billion last year. They have a foothold in virtually every sector of the economy. It's simply not at all shocking that they would receive stimulus money, and portraying the grants as some sort of kickback for MSNBC's coverage is just nuts.

But if you need more evidence that this is just a wacky conspiracy theory, there's this:

Federal contracts for General Electric, based in Fairfield, Conn., rose to $3.8 billion during the two years ending Sept. 30, 2004, the last period for which figures are available.

GE, the world's second-biggest company by market value, got $2.8 billion in federal contracts during the same period ending in 2000.

Somehow I doubt that the people making this charge think that the Bush administration was awarding these contracts because of NBC's positive coverage.