Chop Licking: How Obama Uses Falsehoods to Advance His Policies

February 27, 2012 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Barack Obama, Budget, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Energy, Ethics, Government, Government, Corruption, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Oil, President, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Last week we all got a great lesson in how the left promotes a lie to make Republicans the enemy and this time President Obama was a chief participant.

This is how the game is played: the left-leaning media establishment makes a claim about how rotten Republicans are and Obama then echoes the claim and presents it as the true state of Republican opposition to his policies. The result is that we have a partisan opinion foisted on the public as truth about how mean the GOP is to this poor, well-meaning president. A false media narrative is established by the partisan press, politician adds said meme to a policy speech, presto-chango, a political “fact” is born. But it’s all just a partisan hit job masquerading as fact.

We are talking, of course, about President Obama’s claim that the GOP is “licking their chops” over the bad news of high gas prices. This is the line uttered by the president in his most misleading energy speech delivered in Florida on February 23.

In that speech, President Obama claimed that Republicans were happy that gas prices were hurting Americans. Obama intended to show that Republicans didn’t care that America was hurting, happy they could use it as a political tool to hurt the president and his well-meaning policies.

Here is what he said:

“Some politicians, they see this as a political opportunity. I know you’re shocked by that. Last week the lead story in one newspaper said, ‘Gasoline prices are on the rise and Republicans are licking their chops.’ That’s a quote. That was the lead. Licking their chops. Only in politics do people root for bad news. Do they greet bad news so enthusiastically.”

Note how Obama uses the partisan slam, published in “one newspaper” written by a left-wing writer and presents this as fact about how Republicans feel about rising gas prices. Note that Obama didn’t quote any actual Republican saying rising gas prices is a good thing. He quoted one of his own follower’s partisan claims and then assigned that false narrative to his political enemies.
Read more

Heartland Institute: The ‘Gate’ Scandal That Never Was

February 17, 2012 | Filed Under Barack Obama, Climate Change, Democrats/Leftists, Education, Environment, Ethics, Global Warming, Government, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, The Atlantic, The New York Times, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Global warmists finally have an email “gate” of their own that they can turn against “deniers” and they are taking full advantage of it. The Warmists are excited that the Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based state policy group, has been “outed” for attempting to undermine the religiously held tenets of global warming. Emails to that effect are claimed to have been leaked from this group and the warmists as well as their handmaidens in the Old Media are touting this scandal as proof of… well, it’s a bit hard to discern what it is proof of. In fact, it isn’t “proof” of much of anything, really.

For one thing the documents are fakes, but even if they weren’t… so what?

For quite some time, for instance, Chicago’s Heartland Institute has been holding events, debates, and seminars on the hoax of global warming. The Heartland Institute has an entire section of its website dedicated to debunking global warming and it has produced books and pamphlets attacking the false “consensus” of man-made global warming. Without question, global warming (a quasi religious belief I personally call globabloney) has been a major focus at Heartland for a long time, to be sure.

That being understood — not only understood but glaringly obvious — leaked emails that purport to show that Heartland has a plan to influence lawmakers, scientists, members of the media, and even schools against global warming is a bit of a “well, duh!” Any ten seconds of time spent on the Institute’s website would tend to make it clear that they are against claims of man-made global warming. At some point, even if the documents were real it should not come as any sort of shocking revelation.
Read more

CBS Radio News: Still Attacking Sarah Palin in ‘News’ Reports

February 17, 2012 | Filed Under CBS, Democrats/Leftists, Ethics, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Radio, Sarah Palin, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

In a report on the recent FCC rules tightening requirements for telemarketers, CBS Radio couldn’t resist loosening a shot at Sarah Palin even though she has been out of office for several years already and has taken no part in political robocalls for some time. (Listen to audio HERE)

There is one area of media bias that many of us overlook and that is radio. All the big News outfits have radio shows, newsbreaks, radio offerings of all sorts, but we rarely talk about them for one reason… it’s hard to link to a just finished radio broadcast! Radio newsbreaks come and go in a nearly ephemeral manner and rarely can you catch it again, not to mention that rarely do you have something on hand to record it. Once you hear them they are gone so it’s hard to report on the bias constantly revealed in radio broadcasts. But the bias is there nonetheless.

Another reason radio is often ignored is that few of the networks put their newsbreaks up on the Internet so that you can review them. And those that do put them on the Internet, well they don’t make finding specific bits easy to track down. Then again, network radio news is not now a big focus of media with print and TV taking precedence.
Read more

Obama Programming Media Matters, or is it the Other Way Around?

February 15, 2012 | Filed Under Barack Obama, Democrats/Leftists, Ethics, Government, Government, Corruption, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, MSNBC, President, The Law, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

There has been a lot of chatter about the blockbuster report at DailyCaller.com revealing the extent to which the self-proclaimed “media watchdog” outfit Media Matters for America is joined at the hip with the White House. Many are shocked at just how much Obama is seemingly programming the media with the supposedly independent Media Matters acting as its pipeline to the Old Media.

Shockingly, DailyCaller notes that MMFA is even holding teleconference briefings with members of Obama’s administration and the subsequent salting of the results of those meetings among the Old Media’s coverage seems to be a weekly occurrence. If true this is in contravention to MMFA’s tax-exempt status, too.

The report points out that at least up until last fall, an Obama administration official participated in weekly strategy sessions to plan out what the Old Media should know about the Obama agenda. DailyCaller notes that Obama’s recently resigned com director Jen Psaki was “a frequent participant” on those strategy calls.
Read more

Breitbart Editor, Dana Loesch Receives Accuracy In Media Award at CPAC

February 9, 2012 | Filed Under Andrew Breitbart, Conservatives, Democrats/Leftists, Ethics, GOP, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Republicans, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

(Note: The Wardman Marriott lost all Internet connection half way through the event on Thursday and it never came back so no one in the entire building had any connection unless they had their own Internet aircard. I apologize for not getting these up earlier today, but there was no help for it!)

Long-time media watchdog group Accuracy in Media bestowed its Grassroots Journalism Award to the editor-in-chief of BigJournalism.com, one of Andrew Breitbart’s suite of conservative websites on Thursday evening at CPAC.

Of the award and Miss Loesch, Don Irvine, Chairman of AIM, said:
Read more

Washington Post Skews Poll for ‘The One’

February 8, 2012 | Filed Under Barack Obama, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Ethics, Journalism, Media, Media Bias, President, Warner Todd Huston, Washington Post | 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Washington Post was very excited to report on Feb. 5 that President Obama has finally achieved “the edge” over Mitt Romney in a “general election matchup” poll. The Post was pleased to note Obama was “boosted by improved public confidence” and that he now led Romney by over 50%. Well, he does if you don’t poll actual voters, anyway and therein lies the major problem with the Post’s polling.

The flaw in the Post’s poll is that they seem to have polled “adults” instead of “likely voters” and this fact calls into question the claim in the headline that “Obama holds edge over Romney in general election matchup.” You see, you have to be an actual voter before your opinion in an “election matchup” much matters but the Post apparently did not make sure that its respondents were actual voters before declaring that Obama is now winning over more voters.

But the bigger problem is the fact that the Post has decided it no longer needs to include the partisan breakdown of its respondents for readers to assess. The Post did not include the percentages of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents in its polling data so there is no way to know if the poll included a fair representation of all parties or if the whole poll was weighted heavy with Democrats.
Read more

CNNs John King Calls Romney ‘Governor Mormon’

February 5, 2012 | Filed Under CNN, Elections, GOP, Media, Media Bias, Mitt Romney, President, Republicans, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

Talking the Nevada primary, CNN’s John King accidentally called Mitt Romney “Governor Mormon.” If it meaningful? Is it telling? No. But it’s funny.

Courtesy of Mediaite.

Admission: Journalists are Liberals Not Interested in Facts and Truth

February 3, 2012 | Filed Under Democrats/Leftists, Ethics, Government, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Warner Todd Huston | 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

Polk Award-Winning Rolling Stone writer Michael Hastings made a startling set of admissions on CSPAN, recently. Not only did he admit that most “journalists” are liberals, but he implied that they really aren’t interested in just reporting the facts of stories. Instead he said they are filled with a liberal “moralistic righteousness” and their goal is to “afflict” those they disagree with.

In the discussion, Hastings laid out how he sees his work as a journalist. “I think any journalist worth his salt often has a real moralistic kind of righteousness to them somewhere in their soul… and we talk in grand terms about ourselves, you know, afflicting the powerful and comforting the afflicted,” he told the CSPAN host.

Not much “objectivity” going on there, is there?

In the video segment featured by Townhall, Hastings is initially asked about his “prestigious” Polk Award and this discussion led CSPAN’s Brain Lamb to ask Hastings about the ideological mindset of Polk Award winners. This brought Hastings to his admission.
Read more

CBS Featured No Pro-Lifers in Photo Essay About Pro-Life Rally

January 30, 2012 | Filed Under Abortion, CBS, Journalism, Media, Media Bias, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

If you want a case of clear bias, the Washington D.C. affiliate of CBS will surely fill the bill for its bias against pro-life supporters. On January 23 the DC affiliate featured on its website a photo slide show of pictures taken at the March for Life rally held annually at the nation’s capitol. Curiously, though, there wasn’t a single photo of any pro-lifers. Instead the photo essay featured only photos of abortion-supporting protestors that stood on the sidelines taunting the pro-life marchers.

The photo slide show initially featured seven photos of abortion supporters such as one of marchers holding signs saying “Family Planning Saves Lives Worldwide,” one featuring women holding signs saying that abortion should be kept legal, and another showing a woman sporting an abortion on demand sticker.

Upwards to 50,000 pro-life supporters turned out in the DC cold to participate in the March for Life, yet apparently CBS could only find the small handful of pro-abortion supporters to photograph.
Read more

Conservatives: Occupy Wall Street Shows How We Can’t Get Our Message Out Over Old Media Din

January 26, 2012 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Business, Capitalism, Communism, Democrats/Leftists, Ethics, Government, Corruption, Jobs, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, New York City, President, Socialism, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston | 3 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

The gauzy puffery that the Old Media slathers upon the Occupy Wall Street movement has helped keep most Americans in the dark about how nasty, how violent, how outrageous, and even how incredibly lacking in integrity this movement is. On the conservative blogs the truth is well known, of course, but the fact that few Americans seem to know how bad the OWSers are shows that as conservatives we are not effectively getting our message out there.

For the initial two years of its existence the Old Media spent its every waking moment destroying, maligning, and out right lying about the Tea Party movement. Even today you’ll see an occasional swipe at the Tea Patiers made by some hater from the left and the Old Media is happy to “report” the slander, naturally.

You might remember when Obama operative Anna Park tried to start a counter movement that she prosaically called “the Coffee Party” during the heyday of the Tea Party. You may also recall that those Old Media mavens, while daily lying and lambasting the Tea Partiers, fell all over themselves to play up the silly and quickly failed and forgotten “Coffee Party” effort.
Read more

Chicago Sun-Times Shows White Flag: No More Political Endorsements

January 25, 2012 | Filed Under Chicago Sun-Times, Congress, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Government, House of Representatives, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, President, Senate, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Chicago Sun Times has received your message loud and clear, dear readers. As much as admitting that they are biased and they know it, the long-time Windy City staple has decided that hence forth it will no longer endorse candidates for political office.

In a Sunday editorial, the 71-year-old paper announced its new policy amusingly touting the Old Media’s party line that it engages in “unbiased news coverage” and that newspapers today wish to “appeal to the widest possible readership.”

“They want to inform you, not spin you,” the editorial avers. Yet, the editorial goes on to admit that it has heard from readers who seriously doubt that dedication to unbiased news coverage. And when you note that over the last several decades few national news papers have endorsed a Republican for President — most especially the left-leaning Chicago Sun-Times — it is easy to doubt that purported dedication to just-the-facts reporting.
Read more

Guilt By Association Used by Old Media Only to Hurt Republicans

January 23, 2012 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Barack Obama, Conservatives, Democrats/Leftists, Ethics, Government, Government, Corruption, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Politico, President, Republicans, Scott Walker, The New York Times, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Last week two political operatives were arrested in separate incidents, one Democrat and one Republican. It certainly isn’t news that political operatives sometimes break the law, but how the different incidents were reported is typical of how the Old Media establishment uses guilt by association to tar Republicans but rarely does the same thing to take swipes at Democrats.

The similarity in the two stories is that both of the accused are former staffers of high profile politicians. The Democrat was an Obama campaign staffer while the Republican was a staffer of the Republican Governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker. Neither currently works for those high profile pols, but only the Republican was linked to his former boss. The Democrat’s link to Obama was mostly ignored by the media.

Story One: Some Guy Arrested

We’ll begin with the tale of Iowa Democrat operative Zachary Edwards who tried to steal the identity of a rival Republican in order to use that identity to get the Republican in trouble.

Edwards tried to use the identity of Iowa Secretary of State, Republican Matt Schulz (and/or Schultz’s brother) to illegally obtain some sort of state benefits so that he could then claim that the Republicans were illegally obtaining state benefits. This Edwards fellow hoped he could smear the GOP Sec. of State as engaging in some sort of unethical behavior. (The Iowa Republican blog has more on the fight between Schultz and Iowa Democrats)

Now, as it happens Edwards is not only a member of a politically connected Democrat consulting firm, Link Strategies — a company with long-standing ties to powerful Iowa Democrat Senator Tom Harkin — but Edwards was also a member of Obama’s Iowa team in 2007/08. Edwards’ bio has since been scrubbed from the Link Strategies page but read in part, “In September 2007, Zach joined the Obama New Media department as co-director of the Nevada New Media team and then moved on to direct New Media operations in five other primary states (New Mexico, Texas, North Carolina, and South Dakota).”

For a screen shot of Edwards memory-holed bio from the Link Strategy site, see the Iowa Grounds blog.

So, how was Edwards’ arrest reported? For one thing, it was hard to find Edwards’ Democrat affiliation and his past role as a top Obama campaign staffer in stories of this incident.
Read more

Romney ‘Shoe Shine’ Photo a Hoax, Left-Wingers Push Story Anyway

January 16, 2012 | Filed Under Barack Obama, Democrats/Leftists, Ethics, GOP, Government, Government, Corruption, Huffington Post, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Mitt Romney, MSNBC, NPR, PBS, President, Republicans, TV, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

If you want to see a perfect example of how the left-wing media plans to smear and destroy Mitt Romney should he win the GOP nomination, no better example can be found than the hoax over a photo that lefties every where are trying to sell as evidence of Romney’s “privileged” life. Lefties say the photo in question shows Romney “getting his shoes shined” before getting on a private jet during his campaign travel. That is not what the photo shows, of course, but let’s not let the truth get in the way of a good left-wing mudslinging, OK?

The meme began from a photo by Getty showing Romney sitting in a chair on the tarmac with his foot up and a red-jacketed worker attending to the candidate’s footwear. The left immediately assumed that Romney was getting his shoes shined before getting on a “corporate” jet. This story was made up out of whole cloth because in reality what the picture shows is Romney getting his shoes wanded by an explosive sniffing device wielded by a TSA agent before being allowed to board the plane.

The photo seems to have appeared early on the blog of the MSNBC smear show The Ed Schultz Show with the headline, “Romney Creates Another Job.” The caption set the tone for the left-wing onslaught to come saying, “Mitt Romney created another job with his presence alone… a job giving shoe shines on the tarmac in front of a corporate jet.”
Read more

NPR: Again Falsely Blaming Giffords’ Shooting on Uncivil Political Rhetoric

January 10, 2012 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Arizona, Congress, Conservatives, Crime, Democrats/Leftists, Ethics, GOP, Government, Government, Corruption, Guns, House of Representatives, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, NPR, Tea Party, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

I suppose we couldn’t get past the one-year anniversary of the crime against Democrat Representative Gabrielle Giffords without some Old Media outlet blaming the supposed “heated” political rhetoric of the day for her shooting. On Sunday we saw NPR doing just that. The fact is, no matter how many times they say it, politics and the “heated rhetoric” thereof had absolutely nothing at all to do with Giffords’ shooting. The linking of the crime to politics is just not legitimate.

On this one-year anniversary, NPR’s Linton Weeks was all about the improvement of our “civil discourse,” and full of lament that it just isn’t happening. Perhaps it is a noble sentiment, but he marred that nobility by beginning his piece with a false allusion once again tying the Giffords shooting to the “political atmosphere” of the day.

“When a gunman opened fire on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords,” Linton wrote, “some people were quick to blame the episode on the overheated political climate.”

With that false allusion we also know what NPR meant to do. It meant to blame conservatives for Giffords’ shooting.

He went on to say:
Read more

Albany Police Chief Slams ‘Occupy’-Supporting Councilmen

January 8, 2012 | Filed Under Budget, Business, Capitalism, Crime, Democrats/Leftists, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, New York, Newspapers, PCism, Society/Culture, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston, Western Civilization | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Albany Police Chief Steven Krokoff came in for heavy criticism by fans of the Occupy “movement” after he ordered the clearing of their downtown encampment pursuant to a court order. The arguments over the actions by police have raged since the December 23 conflagration with Chief Krokoff getting savaged repeatedly by the media and some city councilmen alike. But this week Krokoff confronted his critics and he wasn’t gentle about it!

The big criticism arose when officers used pepper spray when the Occupiers became violent. Since then several Councilmen, such as Anton Konev, have criticized the police saying that their actions were unnecessary. Konev, for instance, has announced that he has no confidence in the Chief and is angling to have him fired. Naturally, Konev has been an open agitator for and supporter of Occupy Albany.

But on January 6, Chief Krokoff came before the city council with a strong defense of his and his officers’ actions delivering a withering blast to some of the councilmen that have come to the defense of the lawless Occupiers.
Read more

Reality TV Tax Hikes? ABC Pushes a Kim Kardashian Tax

January 6, 2012 | Filed Under ABC, Anti-Americanism, Budget, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Entertainment, Ethics, Government, Government, Corruption, Hollywood, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Taxes, TV, Warner Todd Huston | 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

Here’s a new way to try and hip-up the boring, ages-old, left-wing idea of tax hikes: link it to reality TV star Kim Kardashian. That is just what ABC News tried to do on the Wednesday, January 4 edition of ABC World News Tonight when the venerable news program helped advertise an effort by a small group headed by a former Democrat operative that wants to hike California’s income taxes. It is a two-pronged approach of hitching a big government, big spending, high tax agenda to the TV reality show star in order to drag younger people into the left’s class warfare game.

ABC highlighted a California Millionaires Tax policy recommendation from a group called Courage Campaign. The group is headed by Rick Jacobs who is the former head of Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign in California, a Huffington Post writer, and leader of this admittedly “progressive” group.

ABC reported that the “liberal group” (and kudos to ABC for actually identifying them as a liberal group for a change) is upset that Kim Kardashian, who made some $12 million in 2011, only paid one percent more than the average middle class wage in the Golden State.

Here is what the extremist high-tax group says on it’s website about this:
Read more

The Essential Lies Underneath Occupy Wall Street

January 2, 2012 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Business, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Ethics, Government, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Warner Todd Huston | 4 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

The folks at Fox News made a fantastic video that helps elucidate the lies floated about how wonderful, how pro-America, and how peaceable the Occupy Wall Street “movement” has been. It is important to watch this video for the truth.

The whole nonsense that OWS is a “peaceful movement” is the bigger lie than all of them, too. By John Nolte’s count there have been upwards to 417 serious criminal actions perpetrated by OWSers.

Worse, the claim that OWS supporters make that theirs is essentially a true American movement is also a pile of steaming garbage. Every one of these protests are filled to the gills with communists, socialists, anarchists, and other anti-American “ists.” The people that are the most active simply are not interested in America, its ideals, and its processes. They are essentially un-American.

The way the Old Media has gone out of its way to come to the support of OWS is telling. The same media attempted to destroy the Tea Party Movement casting all sorts of aspersions upon it. Yet, OWS has been by many magnitudes more criminal, more destructive, more anti-American and the Old Media has gone out of its way to be nice to the OWSers.

This pretty much proves the Old Media’s bias against anything conservative, Republican, or center right.
Read more

Israel Killed Fewer Civilians in Military Operations Than Others, Including the US

January 1, 2012 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Anti-Semitism, Ethics, Hamas, Hezbollah, Islam, Islamofascism, Israel, Jews, Jihad, Journalism, Judaism, Liberals, Media Bias, Palestinians, Terrorism, War on Terror, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

The last decade or so we’ve assigned a euphemism to the deaths of civilians in military operations; we’ve called it “collateral damage.” The fact is, though, that deaths of bystanders — purportedly innocent — are almost unavoidable in war operations. After all, war usually entails the indiscriminate firing of automatic weapons or the dropping of large bombs and this simply cannot be done in a surgical manner. But one nation has succeeded in a near total elimination of the deaths of innocents. That country is Israel.

Commendably, Israel has gone far out of its way to minimize civilian causalities over the last five years or so. Does this bust well-worn Palestinian propaganda? It should. In general the facts make the lie to nearly everything the Palestinians and their supporters say, but this particular point demolishes the propaganda.

Propagandists against Israel love to throw around claims that Israel is a violent, war-like nation and that she loves to invade her neighbors. But, once again, facts devastate this blather. In its short life Israel has been engaged in many military actions, to be sure, but few of them began with the Israelis as the aggressors. Most of Israel’s actions have been defensive in nature. The idea of defense as opposed to conquest is so inculcated in Israel that they’ve even put the word “defense” in the name of their military forces. Hence we have the Israeli Defense Force (IDF).

In 2006 after the Israeli disengagement in Gaza, the number of rockets fired into Israel by Muslims in Palestine increased a shocking 436 percent. Israel allowed this outrage to continue for a long time before finally replying and they did this for fear of causalities of non-combatant Palestinians.
Read more

Wash. Post Plays Hate-The-Rich-Republicans With Graphic Chart

December 30, 2011 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Budget, Business, Capitalism, Congress, Conservatives, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Ethics, GOP, Government, Government, Corruption, House of Representatives, Jobs, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Money, Republicans, Senate, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston, Washington Post | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

On Wednesday morning the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake posted an infographic that was a perfect example of how one can use a graphic chart to influence the public in subtle ways, ways that we of the center right better start employing in our own efforts if we want to win over the public.

Blake’s post, “Why People Hate Congress,” fits in well with President Obama’s class warfare rhetoric as employed in his campaign to set different economic classes against each other in a desperate and cynically populist bid to get reelected next year. There is little of substance to Blake’s post other than to fan the flames of the sort of hatred that he wants to see grow in order to aid Obama in 2012.

The Post’s Blake also ended up having to pull the graphic off his The Fix blog post because it simply did not illustrate what he claimed it did in his story — but that is another issue that we’ll deal with at the end of this report.

Blake begins his piece asking, “Want to know why Americans hate Congress?” He then goes on to claim it is in part because our elected representatives in Washington D.C. are members of the eeeevil rich.

The fact that members of Congress are getting richer (and 57 members come from the top 1 percent, according to USA Today) confirms what Americans suspect about the people who are running this country: that they don’t empathize with normal people.

Of course, with a dispassionate application of logic, having a few dollars more than the next guy does not ipso facto make the richer guy so out of touch that he cannot empathize with anyone in a lower salary range. Only those filled with hate make this assumption. Empathy has nothing to do with class, money, or politics. It has to do with one’s character.

Further there are plenty of members of Congress with the character to understand and have empathy with others. Then there are some that don’t. People are people, rich or poor.

It is also telling that even Blake admits that Congress has always been filled with “the rich.” The founders were not groveling in poverty, after all. It often takes a person that has achieved a certain place in society to become elected. I mean, should they be elected, how can anyone expect “the poor” or even the lower middle class to afford to fund homes both in D.C. and back in their district? Who can afford to leave their family and business if half the year off more to fly off the D.C. to attend to government business? And with the costs of elections and the Byzantine election laws these days causing many candidates to self fund, it will only be natural that “the rich” end up being our representatives in Congress.

But special attention has to be paid to the graphic Blake used to illustrate his story. And what a masterwork of subtlety it is. Blake claimed that the illustration made by a well-known hate-the-rich researcher from California showed in graphic form the distribution of wealth among both chambers of Congress. The graphic depicts the “top 1%” and the “next 9%” in the color red. Then it uses blue to show the “following 10%” and the “bottom 80%.” Notice what is going on? That’s right, this graphic uses the color red to depict the eeevil rich. And what is the color red in politics these days? None other than the color the Old Media has assigned to the Republican Party.
Read more

Politico’s Top 10 Political Blunders: Mostly GOP Blunders?

December 28, 2011 | Filed Under Barack Obama, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Ethics, Government, Corruption, John Boehner, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Politico, President, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Top ten lists at year’s end are always subjective, to be sure. But some lists seem rather obviously out of whack at first glance. Politico’s “Top 10 political blunders of 2011” is one of those lists that is glaring for what isn’t present as opposed to what is. And what isn’t seems to bespeak that Politico wanted to avoid focusing on Democrat failures in a year when there are so many Democrat failures.

Politico bills this list as one of the “worst political strategic decisions” of 2011. Strangely enough, this list contains fully seven GOP “blunders” yet only three Democrat goofs. Some of the GOP blunders are also questionable for any top ten list considering what is missing from the thing.

First we need a rundown on what is on this list, and in the order Politico places them.

Obama pivots to deficits
Republicans vote on the Ryan budget
Tim Pawlenty bets it all on Ames
Mitt Romney hides
Rick Perry debates
Jon Huntsman returns from China
Mr. Daley goes to Washington
Mitch and Haley stay home
Dems pick Charlotte
John Kasich pushes S.B. 5

Isn’t it fascinating that some of these “top blunders” did not actually result in a major reversal of great import of some type or another? Take the Jon Huntsman point, for instance. Jon Huntsman is not consequential and his decision to enter the GOP primary race instead of staying in China is not going to make much difference to anyone, anywhere. The Mitch Daniels point is also specious for such a list as Daniel’s decision to sit out 2012 did not necessarily end his career. Further the blunder of Democrats picking Charlotte, North Carolina, while certainly a messy proposition fraught with mistakes, is hardly any kind of end of the world goof, is it?
Read more

The Kwanzaa Con: Created by a Rapist and Torturer

December 26, 2011 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Christmas, Crime, Democrats/Leftists, Ethics, Holiday, Journalism, KKK, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Race, Warner Todd Huston | 3 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

Every year I post a piece on the troubled history of Kwanzaa. This year will be no exception. Note that some of the newspaper articles I quote are several years old and may no longer be online.

Each year, with the onset of Christmas, we are treated to another gauzy, fluff piece about how great Kwanzaa is by yet another PC spewing columnist. This year, among many others, we find aggrandizement such as that in The Record from New Jersey with, “Kwanzaa sheds light on pride, heritage; Celebration of African-American culture spreads,” and the Huffintgon Post with its titled, “Kwanzaa Detroit 2011: Events Celebrate Holiday’s 7 Values .” We even find such helpful sites as TeacherPlanet.com’s, “Kwanzaa Resources for Teachers.” Yes, the world is filled with celebratory lionization of Kwanzaa.

Several years ago, the Houston Chronicle got in the act with a piece by Leslie Casimir titled “Learning about Kwanzaa from the holiday’s creator.” This one, though, was a bit off the usual track of the how-great-is-Kwanzaa theme because this particular piece celebrated the inventor of the faux holiday, Maulana Karenga, himself. So, instead of merely celebrating this manufactured holiday Casimir amazingly made a hero of the rapist, race monger and violent thug who created it! To Casimir, Kwanzaa creator “Maulana Karenga” was a hero.

Casimir waxed all a’glow about how wonderful Karenga was and her column found a gullible parent who, with kid in tow, went to see the man at a local community center.
Read more

Media Forgets to Mention S. C. Immigration Law-Blocking Judge is Obama Appointee

December 23, 2011 | Filed Under Associated Press, Barack Obama, Crime, Democrats/Leftists, Ethics, Government, Corruption, Immigration/Immigrants, Journalism, Judges, Law, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Regulation, South Carolina, The New York Times, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

One of the Old Media’s favorite ways of attempting to hide the ideological track of a story is to somehow forget to mention to which party someone in the news hails or owes fealty to. In this case it is what they don’t report that misleads. This week we find a classic what-they-don’t-say story concerning the judge that blocked sections of South Carolina’s new immigration law.

For those unaware, U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel temporarily blocked segments of South Carolina’s new immigration laws because he claimed that some of its provisions impinged on federal prerogatives, things over which the state has no jurisdiction.

The South Carolina law was opposed in court by Obama’s left-wing, activist Department of Justice headed by Eric “Fast And Furious” Holder and a gaggle of civil rights groups and Judge Gergel agreed with these attackers issuing an injunction to stop implementation of the provisions in question.

The Old Media reported a lot of details in the story, of course. We learned all about who opposed the provisions, who scoffed at the injunction, in what District Judge Gergel hailed, and in some of the reports we even get to hear what Republican South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley had to say about it all. But one thing few of these news outlets seemed to report might help readers understand the decision better.

Judge Richard Mark Gergel is an Obama appointee.
Read more

Senator Dick Durbin: Pants on Fire

December 23, 2011 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Budget, Congress, Constitution, Democrats/Leftists, Dick Durbin, Ethics, Government, Government, Corruption, Illinois, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Senate, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Illinois Senior Senator, Democrat Dickie Durbin wants you to know that the fact that the Democrats have not passed a full, working budget in over 900 days is all because of those wascally Republicans.

Never mind that the Democrats have had the majority for over three years in the Senate, never mind that before the 2010 midterm elections they had 100% control of both Congress and the White House… it’s all them gosh darn Republican’s fault.

Never mind that they passed the boondoggle healthcare bill that will cause the U.S. to go bankrupt, never mind that Obama has gotten all his little sops to Big Labor to spite the faltering economy, never mind…. well, never mid all the things the Democrats seemed to have no problem getting done, they just can’t get that danged ld budget passed.

The fact is, Democrats are playing politics with one of the only real Constitutional duties they have, creating and passing a federal budget. Yet, the Old Media allows Obama to stand before the American people and pretend that he and his party are the ones interested in fiscal sanity? This is why our politics is so messed up. The Democrats operate on bald faced lies and the Old Media allows them get away with it.
Read more

Nut Wants Obama Assassinated, Left-Wingers Falsely Say He’s a Tea Partier

December 20, 2011 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Barack Obama, Crime, Democrats/Leftists, Ethics, Government, Hate Crimes, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, President, Warner Todd Huston | 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

On Monday morning a story whipped through the liberal blogosphere (and unfortunately one generally conservative news source) that had the left gleefully attacking the Tea Party Movement. They were thrilled, you see, to find a Tea Partier advocating for the assassination of President Obama and his entire family. Only they didn’t. Find such a Tea Partier, I mean.

Keith DeHavelle outlined this great example of how the left wing blogs glommed onto this story of an idiot that wrote on his Facebook page that Obama and his family should be assassinated and then assigned it to a “Tea Party darling” when in truth neither the nut in question nor any part of the story itself is connected in any way to a Tea Party group or Tea Party sentiment.

The story began when unsuccessful candidate for the Carson, California City Council, Jules Manson, decided it would be a great idea to post on his Facebook Page all about his hope that Obama and his family would be assassinated.

In an acute example of how erudite this Jules Manson is, he wrote, “Assassinate the f—ing n—er and his monkey children.”

I hope this ignoramus realizes he just committed a federal crime.

Anyway, it wasn’t long before this guy’s Facebook account was canceled and pulled off the web for its hate-speak. Rightly so, too.
Read more

The Top 50 Examples of Liberal Media Bias: Part Two

December 17, 2011 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Democrats/Leftists, Ethics, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Let’s face it, liberal media bias has been around since there have been liberals to do the “reporting” of the news. But this fact should surprise no one. After all, the news media has always been filled with bias of one type or another. In fact, there was a time when American customers of the news knew exactly which newspapers sported which point of view. It was taken for granted that one newspaper supported one side and another newspaper a different side.

But in the late 1950s and early 1960s that all changed. Suddenly the folks in the news media began to present themselves as unbiased pursuers of “the truth.” Gone was the out-in-front bias and instead the media cloaked itself in a new air of detachment, a new just-the-facts mien.

This new era in media conceit coincided with the advent of a liberal mindset that took on the weight of the world, a new era in which liberals felt that their ideals rose above God, tradition and country….

Last week The Western Center for Journalism posted the first 25 examples of media bias and here are the last 25 examples of media bias.

(Part one is on the same page as part two, by the way. Just scroll upward.)

Not to Nag But Obama’s Horse Flip Flop Leaves Media Uninterested

December 16, 2011 | Filed Under Barack Obama, Capitalism, Democrats/Leftists, Free Trade, Government, Government, Corruption, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Warner Todd Huston | 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

Let’s talk about flip flops, shall we? No not those of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, but those of President Obama. One in particular, in fact. It turns out that Obama was horsing around with one of his many campaign promises and has ended up galloping in the opposite direction of the thing. And throughout this whole episode the Old Media has gone silent.

What we talking about is Obama’s 180 turn on his promise to make a ban on American horse slaughter houses permanent. And no less than the Barbi Twins of Hugh Heffner fame find this story a night-mare and are a bit peeved at their Big “O” over the whole thing.

A few media outlets did mention the controversy over the reopening of American horse slaughter houses that Obama signed into law in September — The Washington Times and Politico, for instance — but here it is almost two months later and few others have paid much mind to the incident that sent Barbi One and Two into a snit over the President.
Read more

Salon’s Joan Walsh: Reagan Dems Voted GOP in 1980 Because They Were Raaaaacists

December 15, 2011 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Barack Obama, Conservatives, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, GOP, Government, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, MSNBC, President, Republicans, Ronald Reagan, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Did you know that the only reason those famed “Reagan Democrats” voted for Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984 was because they were… uh… racists? Well on the little watched Ed Show on MSNBC, Salon’s Joan Walsh assured the nation — or at least the 20 people watching — that this was the truth.

Sometimes a talking head on TV will say something so stupid that jaws drop nationwide as a result. Often that stupidity becomes the talk of the news cycle, too. But usually that only happens when there are actually viewers for the show upon which the stupidity is uttered. In this case, Joan Walsh of Salon uttered the stupidity, but since no one watches MSNBC — most especially the Ed Show — I thought I’d help pass around her comments to make her stupidity the talk of the day. It’s just a service from us here to you in the Internet tubes.

The rotund Ed Schultz was disparaging the Reagan Democrats as “dead” (both figuratively and literally) and was saying that Reagan Democrats could not possibly be a factor in 2012. Whatever merits of that claim, when Schultz turned to Salon’s Joan Walsh he got one of the most absurd comments about Reagan Democrats evah!

Walsh said:
Read more

Time Mag: Occupy Wall Street The Number One Story of 2011?

December 12, 2011 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Banks, Budget, Business, Capitalism, Communism, Congress, Crime, Crony Capitalism, Democrats/Leftists, Ethics, Free Trade, Government, Government, Corruption, Jobs, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Nanny State, Taxes, Tea Party, Time Magazine, Warner Todd Huston | 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

It’s that time of year again, time for newspapers and magazines to start floating their “top stories of the year” lists and Time Magazine has a whole “Top of Everything” list with which to thrill us. But it is Time’s Top U.S. News Stories list that deserves some closer scrutiny because on it Time has determined that the Occupy Wall Street tale is the number one story of the year. As if anyone ever doubted that this left-wing temper tantrum would pique Time’s interest most.

But, seriously, now. Is Gabrielle Giffords somehow a lesser story than the Occupiers? Is the long-drawn out GOP primary campaign a lesser story? How about the debt crisis? Is that somehow a less important story than Occupy Wall Street? Apparently Time thinks so.

Certainly these lists are always somewhat subjective. After all, what one considers important another may not. But some of these entries seem to point out Time’s ideology as opposed to a serious attempt to pick the top stories of 2011. And making the Occupy story number one is pure ideology.

Time puts this story above the bad economy, Iraq, the Penn State sex abuse case, and the Gabrielle Giffords shooting. In fact, if it weren’t for the bad economy, the debt ceiling debate and the bank crisis this Occupy business would not have occurred at all.
Read more

The Top 50 Examples of Liberal Media Bias

December 10, 2011 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Anti-Semitism, Anti-War, Censorship, Civil Rights, Clarence Thomas, Communism, Conservatives, Democrats/Leftists, Elana Kagan, Ethics, Free Speech, Freedom, GOP, Government, Government, Corruption, Hate Crimes, Immigration/Immigrants, Journalism, Judges, Liberals, Liberty, Media, Media Bias, Newspapers, NPR, PBS, Regulation, Republicans, Socialism, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Read the rest at The Western Center for Journalism.

Jose Antonio Vargas: Being an Illegal Alien Made Me… a Better Reporter?

December 8, 2011 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Crime, Democrats/Leftists, Ethics, Immigration/Immigrants, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Mexico, Regulation, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Jose Antonio Vargas is the perfect example of media bias. He presents himself as both an activist for illegal immigrants and a “journalist.” He’s uniquely suited to this claim in today’s PC world, too, because he is himself an “undocumented American,” as he styles it. And in a new interview he also claims that being an illegal alien made him a better journalist.

Vargas has been blurring the line between journalist and activist since it became public knowledge that he has been in the United States illegally since he was a child. After his coming out, Vargas launched himself into being an advocate for illegals. Only in the Old Media establishment can someone be an advocate for a political viewpoint yet still be consider a just-the-facts journalist. Vargas isn’t the only one, of course. Remember such “journalists” as Sanjay Gupta, Chris Matthews, Jay Carney, or Linda Douglas. Well, if you are a left-wing activist it works, anyway.

In the new interview with The Ithican’s TinaMarie Craven, Vargas posits that his status as, in his words, an “undocumented American” (nice conceit, that) made him a more careful reporter. He had to exhibit the utmost veracity, he said, because if not people might start looking closer at him and his background.
Read more

« Previous Page — Next Page »

Tags: Publius+Forum, Warner+Todd+Huston, Old+Media, Media+Bias