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 | No Comments

-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.
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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

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….

Read the rest at The Western Center for Journalism.

Frank Rich: Obama’s Just Like JFK Because JFK Was Killed With Hate, or Something

November 28, 2011 | Filed Under Barack Obama, Democrats/Leftists, Government, Corruption, John Kennedy, Journalism, Liberals, Media Bias, Newspapers, President, The New York Times, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

It’s hard to believe but Frank Rich’s latest exercise in the fantasist’s art comparing JFK to Obama is a wonder to behold. It really is. One might think it satire if Rich had never been presented as a serious essayist by the New York intelligentsia. If this were to be his first public writing, one might think him the new Jonathan Swift for its central premise is simply amazing for its utter deviation from reality. Rich, it seems, thinks that Obama is just like John Kennedy because Kennedy was somehow killed by the “hate that ended his presidency,” or something.

The part that is so fantastic is that Rich devolves to a long ago discredited theory that Kennedy was killed that dark November day in 1963 somehow because of right-wing hate for him. What is so absurd about Rich’s fantastic claim is that he wholly discounts the fact that Kennedy’s killer was a communist. In fact, Rich never even mentions that Lee Harvey Oswald was an avowed communist. He hints at it obliquely but does so in a way that dismisses the ideology as in any way important.

It has been a long time since I’ve read a piece on a public figure that is one part hero worship, one part discounting of that same figure, one part pure fantasy, and one part baseless comparison to the life of a whole other public figure that is also worshiped as a hero without a legitimate reason. But Frank Rich has done it here in a way that brings to mind J.R.R. Tolkein’s intricate and complicated plotting.

There’s so much wrong in this one piece that it’s hard to figure out where to start first, but Rich’s central premise is that JFK was killed because of a climate of “hate” engendered by the blindness of Kennedy’s detractors on the right. This, Rich seems to think, is somehow just like Obama. Well, except that Obama is still alive and no one has even made a single attempt to kill him (God forbid), of course.

Interestingly, Rich does seem to notice that John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s presidency did not live up to its hype. Rich notes that historians have basically rated JFK’s short tenure in the White House as a wash, neither good nor horribly bad. But even with that admission, Rich writes glowingly of Kennedy. It is still all “Camelots” and “brief shinning moments” with little justification for any other reason than mere hero worship. With that, though, Rich succumbs to the worship like so many starry-eyed members of his deluded generation.

But for all his glorious filler — one wonders if Rich has ever had an editor — here is his raison d’être for bothering us with his hagiographic blather:
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Alter: Obama is ‘Honest’ and ‘Free of Scandal’

October 31, 2011 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Barack Obama, Business, Capitalism, Democrats/Leftists, Ethics, Government, Government, Corruption, Health, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Mexico, Newspapers, Obamacare, President, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston | 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

When does a columnist write something so utterly absurd that his credibility is forever damaged? I am not sure how to answer that in general terms, but I think at least one journalist answered the question for his own, now thoroughly destroyed veracity. Jonathan Alter of Bloomberg has written one of the most ridiculous, least reality-based assessments yet of the short White House tenure of Barack Obama.

Alter put on his strongest rose-colored glasses and penned an uproarious piece headlined, “The Obama Miracle, a White House Free of Scandal.”

In his Bloomberg piece Alter claimed that Obama is “honest” and falsely asserted that his White House has been “free of scandal.” In fact, some of the incidents that Alter himself notes, and immediately dismisses, carry at least a whiff of scandal — if not untruthfulness.

Naturally, Alter ignores far more than he reports on Obama scandals but he also misses the biggest reason why Obama seems to him to have a scandal free presidency. The Media refuses to call anything Obama does a scandal!
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NYTimes Sunday Review Again Pushes Lie that Billionaires Run Tea Party

September 28, 2011 | Filed Under Conservatives, Ethics, GOP, Journalism, Media, Media Bias, New York City, Newspapers, Tea Party, The New York Times, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

It is a lie that serves as the left’s basic narrative for the birth of the Tea Party movement and this weekend it was The New York Times’s turn to push that lie claiming that the Tea Party is “led by veteran conservative activists and bankrolled by billionaires.” This bull hockey (yes, I said bull hockey) can’t be debunked enough, because to undermine the legitimacy of the Tea Party movement, extremists and left-wingers that pretend to be journalists push this lie for all its worth.

Left-wing Georgetown Professor Michael Kazin, who masquerades as a history professor by day, penned this latest piece for the Times pushing the left’s favorite false narrative about the Tea Party movement. The piece, lamenting the loss of the spirit of activism and protest in the American left, revealed a professor paid for by our tax dollars longing for the days of the violent, anarchist protests of the early 20th century.

Kazin cries that the left has lost its umpf and wails that “the Tea Party rebellion” has instead come to the fore.
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USA Today Hit Piece on Christian Defense Attorney, Jay Sekulow

September 8, 2011 | Filed Under 1st Amendment, Catholicism, Christianity, Civil Rights, Constitution, Democrats/Leftists, Ethics, Free Speech, Freedom, Government, Corruption, Jews, Journalism, Liberals, Media Bias, Newspapers, Religion, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

USA Today published a story recently by Bob Smietana of the Nashville newspaper The Tennessean attacking the integrity and work of well-known Christian First Amendment defense attorney Jay Sekulow that is shocking for what is left out.

Sekulow is the head man of the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), a Washington D.C.-based organization that takes on attackers of Christian’s First Amendment rights to free exercise of religion, a tempting target in some corners of America’s political establishment.

In fact, writer Smietana didn’t just write one piece attacking Sekulow and the ACLJ but in the space of only a few days wrote two. In one piece Smietana accuses Sekulow and his family of making too much money from the charities they represent and in the second he claims that the ACLJ might be improperly pursuing cases not in its tax exempt charter.

In both cases Smietana employs the “some say” style of indictment by writing innuendoes backed up by little actual evidence, but the piece in USA Today is by far the worst example of the tactic.
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Union Astroturf Pretends Like Tea Partiers to Attack GOP

August 21, 2011 | Filed Under 1st Amendment, AFL-CIO, Anti-Americanism, Budget, Business, Capitalism, Congress, Conservatives, Democracy, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, GOP, Government, Government, Corruption, House of Representatives, Jobs, Journalism, Liberals, Media Bias, Nanny State, Newspapers, Public Employees Unions, Republicans, SEIU, Senate, Socialism, Taxes, Unions, Warner Todd Huston | 2 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Hill has an interesting, if not a bit slanted, report about the faux grassroots efforts of unions and left-wing advocates to pretend they are somehow just like the Tea Party by attacking the town hall meetings of various GOP congressman across the country this Summer.

The Hill dutifully reports without complaint the union’s claims that they are organizing just like the Tea Partiers and forcing GOP congressmen to face “angry protests at home” this month in a “replication” of the Tea Party backlash that “bit” Democrats in 2009.

“Liberal groups have been planning these protests for months,” trumpets The Hill, “One organizer told The Hill in February that the campaign would ‘build to a crescendo’ in August.”

These protests have been organized by Obama’s supporters in government unions like the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the AFL-CIO as well as far left NGOs such as MoveOn.org, Campaign for America’s Future and others.
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CNN/Krugman: A Space Alien Attack Will Save Us (Disses FDR, Wants a Fake War?)

August 15, 2011 | Filed Under Barack Obama, Budget, Business, Capitalism, CNN, Congress, Democrats/Leftists, Government, Government, Corruption, Jobs, Journalism, Liberals, Media Bias, Newspapers, President, Regulation, Stimulus, Taxes, The New York Times, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

CNNs Fareed Zakaria and The New York Times’ Paul Krugman have solved our economic problems. They’ve decided that a space alien attack will save us. Aside from the guffaw factor of space aliens, there was so much wrong with this CNN segment that we must lay them out for discussion.

First on the clip is some pinhead from Harvard claiming that “infrastructure spending, that’s great.” He says he’d even borrow money for such programs. This guy thinks that if we had another giant stimulus (like a WWII Works program), why we’d be doing just “great.”

He is, of course, a Keynesian fool. Stimulus does not work. Stimulus has never worked. Further, “stimulus” itself is a misnomer. Take Illinois, for instance. It got millions upon millions of dollars in so-called stimulus money from Obama. Do you know what Illinois did with that money? It paid existing debt, it paid current bills. It “stimulated” nothing with all those millions. This happened all across the country in every state. The “stimulus” did not stimulate anything but instead went to pay exiting bills and created nothing new, supported no new projects. It was a sham.

Amusingly, this guy tried to qualify his support of infrastructure spending saying “as long as it isn’t Big Dig” sort of over spending. The “Big Dig” is a reference to the underground Central Artery/Tunnel Project undertaken by the Boston Metro Highway System that is famous for being a total boondoggle that has gone billions over budget, not to mention having so many structural and engineering failures that the whole thing is a death trap waiting to happen.

Problem is, every state project becomes a version of the Big Dig at some level. At the very least they always, always, always go over budget, at worst they become a pit of political failure and corruption. So, while this Harvard pinhead tried to qualify his position, he did so on a bed of quicksand.
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New York Times Blames American Conservatives for Norway Massacre

July 29, 2011 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Crime, Democrats/Leftists, Journalism, Liberals, Media Bias, Newspapers, PCism, Society/Culture, Terrorism, The New York Times, War on Terror, Warner Todd Huston, Western Civilization | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

The New York Times is never one to let a good tragedy go to waste when it can turn that sad incident into a bludgeon with which to bash American conservatives, even if the incident doesn’t have a thing to do with conservatives, D.C. politics, or even the U.S.A., for that matter. And so, not to disappoint, the Gray Lady incongruously used the terrorist incident in Norway to attack conservatives in America.

Anders Behring Breivik, the killer in Norway, released a manifesto of sorts explaining his actions and in that document he quoted several American bloggers and national security activists such as Islam terror expert Robert Spencer. This, the Times decided, was enough to blame American conservatives for the incident.

Of course, the Times was practically silent about the influence of radical Islam on Major Nidal Hassan who killed 13 U.S. soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009. The Times also did its best to ignore radical Islam in its reports about the Fort Dix six that planned a major terror attack in New Jersey. More recently the Times neglected to mention the radical Islam influence of the pair of homegrown terrorist wannabes arrested in Seattle in June. This is a pattern seen at The New York Times, too. Whenever radical Islam is at the root of a terror attack, the Times routinely fails to note the fact.
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Jose Antonio Vargas: From Journalist to Illegal Immigrant and Political Activist

June 23, 2011 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Crime, Democrats/Leftists, DREAM Act, Education, Ethics, Government, Government, Corruption, Immigration/Immigrants, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Newspapers, Regulation, Warner Todd Huston, Washington Post | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

The newly publicized life-story of award winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas seems to be one of those revelatory stories that tends to confirm some of the worst charges against liberals and the Old Media. The media sees no reason not to break the law, it employs people with political agendas, and all the while refuses to inform customers of the “news” that this is the case. As it happens, Vargas is an illegal immigrant in this country and has been for decades.

Vargas won a Pulitzer Prize for his 2007 coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings, he also made tongues wag recently with an exclusive interview with the reclusive founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg. But his chief journalistic interest has been as a political reporter for the Washington Post.

But even as he has for more than a decade been given the role of an arbiter of sorts of political news, Vargas has been an illegal resident of the very country he has been reporting on.
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New York Times Columnist Kristof’s Foolishness

June 7, 2011 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Communism, Conservatives, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Education, Ethics, GOP, Government, Government, Corruption, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, New York City, Newspapers, Republicans, Socialism, Taxes, The New York Times, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof is a simpleton. There is really no other way to say it, no gentler phrasing possible, to explain how childish and uncluttered his tiny little mind really is. The latest example of his utter inability to think clearly can be seen in Kristof’s screed against Americans that love America. Kristof thinks that conservatives and Republicans should look with longing at the troubled nation of Pakistan and see it as a model state. He says that they are no better than Muslim extremists that employ oppression, murder, and terrorism as a tool of the state. No, he’s serious.

How does he justify this simple-minded, hyperbolic, partisan hate-speech? Not very well, I’ll tell you that much.

He makes all sorts of idiotic charges against Republicans, but the best way to understand how unthinkingly childish his screed is, is to simply imagine that everything he says conservatives support he must imagine that liberals are against. After all, the only way to see his calumnies as such is to imagine he thinks that he stands on the opposite side of the ideas of which he accuses conservatives of being in favor.

Let’s take his points and then imagine what the opposite is and you’ll see what I mean.
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L.A. Times Tim Rutten, Historical Idiot

June 3, 2011 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Bible, Catholicism, Christianity, Congress, Constitution, Democrats/Leftists, Education, Elections, Ethics, Founders, Freedom, George Washington, Government, Government, Corruption, History, House of Representatives, James Madison, Journalism, Liberals, Los Angeles, Media, Media Bias, Morals/Sex, Newspapers, Religion, Republicans, Senate, Thomas Jefferson, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Tim Rutten is a left-wing, hack writer from L.A. He is always good for contemporary left wing trope but the other day we discovered that he is also good for the sort of uninformed blathering that leftists of his ilk pretend is American history. Chiefly that of America’s religious history and the so-called “wall of separation between church and state.”

In a June 1 piece about Mitt Romney, Rutten regaled us with his “reading” of Mitt’s current political reality. Rutten proposed that any question about Mitt’s Mormonism was somehow a threat to the United States.

Before I get to Rutten’s warped take on U.S. history, let’s take this business about the attacks on Mitt’s Mormonism.
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Obama White House Bans Newspaper For Printing a Mitt Romney Op Ed

May 25, 2011 | Filed Under Barack Obama, Boston, Chicago Sun-Times, Democrats/Leftists, Ethics, Government, Government, Corruption, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Newspapers, President, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Apparently the Obama White House is not so fond of the Boston Herald. Well, maybe “not so fond” is too mild. More like furious. So mad, in fact, that the paper was banned by the White House from covering local visits by Obama and crew. The Boston Herald said “pretty please” and Big Brother O’s crew said, “not allowed!” And Orwell would be saying, “I told ya so.”

As Politico explained, the White House designates local pool reporters to augment the traveling pool of reporters covering events on the road. Usually a request is all it takes to get added to the pool. But when the Herald contacted the White House to get its reporters added to the pool the paper was denied access.

Apparently the water in Obama’s pool is too warm for the Boston Herald!
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Wash Post’s Cohen: GOP Should Compromise… Like They Did With Slavery?

May 11, 2011 | Filed Under Civil War, Democrats/Leftists, GOP, Government, Corruption, History, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Newspapers, Patriotism, Republicans, Slavery, Warner Todd Huston, Washington Post | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Richard Cohen is what passes for an opinion editorialist in the Washington Post — not a learned one, just a bloviating one. Cohen’s latest, “The Myth of American Exceptionalism,” is at the same time as self-loathing as it is historically stupid. Not only does this nonsense Cohen ladled out upon us all serve an example that you don’t have to actually know anything to be in our modern Old Media establishment, but it is evidence that the profession of editor is long dead.

In his ten paragraphs Cohen indulges every left-wing trope that one can find. Whites are all racist, we don’t do enough for “the poor” in America, Christianity is the root of all evil, and it all started in the 1850s when the Republican Party was born. Most ridiculously, Cohen a-historically seems to think that the art of compromise died in American politics when the GOP was born. This last bit alone is guffaw worthy to say the least.
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Telling Us Who They Fear: Left-Wing Journo Attacks Rep. Allen West

April 27, 2011 | Filed Under Allen West, Congress, Democrats/Leftists, Ethics, Florida, GOP, Government, House of Representatives, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Newspapers, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Brandon K. Thorp, a gay activist from the alternative weekly Broward-Palm Beach New Times newspaper, is only the latest left-winger to launch into a verbal assault on Lt. Col. Allen West, now a Representative from Florida’s 22nd District. Like Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman, Rep. West is one of the many conservatives that leftists fear the most. We know this because the left’s constant, fevered, overwrought attacks tell us so.

This time Thorp, who also has worked for CNN, is all hot-n-bothered by West’s April 19 use of an historical reference to rally conservative and Republican women to the cause. In an address to a *Women Impacting the Nation meeting in Boca, West urged conservative women to raise strong men by relating to them the example of the Spartan women of ancient Greece.

“When you understood what made the Spartan men strong it was the Spartan women,” West told those gathered. Thorp thought this whole meme was not only “ungraceful,” but proved West is “hateful and stupid.” Further Thorp’s poison pen informs us that he thinks West is “not nearly smart enough to give coherent extemporaneous speeches.”

Thorp’s first offbase criticism is over whether West should have been addressing his comments to mothers or fathers.
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Obama’s Bribes to the Wash. Post and CBS

April 7, 2011 | Filed Under Barack Obama, Budget, CBS, Democrats/Leftists, Government, Government, Corruption, Health, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Newspapers, President, Taxes, TV News, Warner Todd Huston, Washington Post | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

In a blow to the autonomy of the media it has been discovered that employees of two Old Media outlets are the happy beneficiaries of hundreds of thousands of federal dollars from an Obamacare slush fund. CBS and the Washington Post have both taken large payments from Obama’s Early Retiree Reinsurance Program (ERRP), with the Post getting $573,217 while CBS has received a whopping $722,388.

Matthew Boyle reported that the news of the media giants taking federal cash was revealed at a hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee last week.

The question here becomes one of disclosure. Will CBS and the Washington Post put disclaimers on any story they relate about Obamacare? After all, if we see a positive story about Obamacare from the Washington Post or CBS might we assume the stories are so positive because employees of those media organizations know they could be the beneficiaries of thousands of dollars in federal cash? Might we assume that these Old Media employees might fear that any negative story might put that largess at risk?
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The Independent’s Over-the-top Anti-Catholic Bias

February 23, 2011 | Filed Under Britain, Catholicism, Christianity, Government, Journalism, Liberals, Media Bias, Newspapers, Religion, Selwyn Duke | Comments Off

-By Selwyn Duke

Except for those still caught in the web of the media matrix, it’s no secret that the Fossil Press seeks to destroy conservatism, tradition and Christianity. It’s also plain that central to this are unrelenting attacks on the Catholic Church. But a February 5 piece in The Independent written by one Michael Day reaches a low worthy of Cold War commissars.

The article concerns the fact that Pope Benedict XVI’s status as an organ donor ended when he ascended to the papacy and is titled, “Pope’s organs are too holy to donate to mortals, says Church.” Wow, that sounds really bad. It must be an example of the Church hierarchy superciliously placing itself above the hoi polloi. Except that a discerning person may smell a rat; in this case, a journalism-school rat who would never let the Truth get in the way of a cherished agenda. And, sure enough, while Day repeats the supposed Vatican sentiment in his first paragraph, a little ways further down is the real explanation for the Church’s policy:

Archbishop Zymunt Zimowski, a member of the Vatican health council, said it was because the body of the Pope effectively belonged to the entire Catholic Church. “It’s understandable that the body of the Pontiff should rest intact because, in his role as successor to Saint Paul and universal pastor of the Catholic Church, he belongs entirely to the Church in spirit and body,” he told La Repubblica.
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Newspaper Ignores Facts in Teacher’s ‘Vagina Dance’ Song Controversy

January 18, 2011 | Filed Under Children, Democrats/Leftists, Education, Government, Government, Corruption, Illinois, Illinois State Government, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Newspapers, Teachers Unions, Unions, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

It isn’t just national issues that the Old Media misreports. As we focus on the “big” stories of the day, we often overlook the local scene and the left-wing excuse for “reporting,” therefrom. This is a perfect example of that.

Imagine you are a sophomore in high school and your sex ed teacher forces you to prance about your classroom singing and dancing to “The Vagina Dance” in a puerile attempt to teach the parts and functions of the female sex organ. Worse, imagine you are a male student in a classroom of such an unhinged teacher? Well, we don’t have to imagine it too hard because this exact situation has happened in a classroom in the Chicago, Illinois suburbs. But don’t worry. Chicago’s Old Media is all about reporting this incident honestly. Well, if honestly means to ignore relevant facts and shore up support for the out of control teacher and smooth things over for the school, that is.

Early this month, parent Robert King, whose son goes to Crystal Lake’s Prairie Ridge High School, complained to school authorities over the inappropriate teaching methods of health teacher Jacqulyn Levin. As a teaching tool Levin used “The Vagina Dance,” a song replete with dance steps and arm movements, and required her entire co-ed class to participate in it – all to the tune of The Hokey Pokey, no less. As it happens King’s son was uncomfortable being required to prance about the room, arms emulating fallopian tubes, and singing about vaginas, so the parents complained.
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Even As Arizona Shooting Story Unfolds, Some Media Already Blaming Tea Party/Sarah Palin

January 8, 2011 | Filed Under Conservatives, Crime, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Newspapers, Republicans, Sarah Palin, Tea Party, The New York Times, Warner Todd Huston, Washington Post | 3 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

Even as the early, sketchy details of the shooting incident in Arizona were still emerging some members of the left-leaning media were already trying to tie the killer to Tea Party activism in general and Sarah Palin in particular.

Andrew Sullivan of the Atlantic.com was early to attempt to link lunatic killer Jared Loughner to the Tea Party, but he wasn’t the only one. The Washington Post’s Sandhya Somashekhar immediately attempted to color the story as an example of the “militant rhetoric” of the Tea Party movement and Sarah Palin.

Liberals on Saturday blamed the tea party movement’s sometimes militant rhetoric — for example, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin’s advice to her supporters via Twitter, “Don’t Retreat, Instead – RELOAD,” or Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle (R) advocating “second-amendment remedies” for some of the nation’s problems. Palin had also posted a U.S. map depicting crosshairs over the states where she hoped to oust Democratic incumbents. That map no longer appears on the Web site of her political action committee.

Additionally, within minutes of the attack, hard left-winger Paul Krugman of the New York Times asserted that the reason Giffords was shot was because her seat was not turned over to Republicans. Despite that no political motive was at all known, Krugman immediately asserted that it was the fault of the Tea Party and Sarah Palin.
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King Street Poll Watchers Absolved of Harassment

November 1, 2010 | Filed Under Constitution, Crime, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Government, Government, Corruption, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Newspapers, Regulation, Texas, Vote Fraud, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

At one of the last poll watcher training sessions held by the King Street Patriots on November 1, Assistant Harris County Attorney Doug Ray made an admission that contravenes the media meme that charges KSPs poll watchers with harassing voters here in Harris County, Texas.

All week the media and Democrats have charged that voters were being harassed by King Street Patriots poll watchers and thus far county officials have not countered the claims being made by KSPs opponents. But this evening the myth has been busted.

During an address to those attending a late training session, attorney Ray admitted that most of the reports the county has gotten about “hovering” over voters has been blamed on poll judges and workers, not the King Street Patriots poll watchers.

In his first address to the room, witnesses heard Ray say, “There were lots of reports about poll watchers intimidating or ‘hovering’ over voters. We learned that those were actually poll workers for the county.”

After he spoke to those gathered, I asked Attny. Ray about his comments.
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Union To Boycott Newspaper for Exposing Union Failures

August 17, 2010 | Filed Under California, Democrats/Leftists, Education, Government, Government, Corruption, Liberals, Media, Newspapers, Public Employees Unions, Teachers Unions, Unions, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Now usually when someone points out that one has done something badly or has failed in something, the average person would look at those accusations and assess where they went wrong in order to correct the situation for the future. Not unions, though. Unions boycott those that point out union failures. Such is the case in Los Angeles as union teachers are organizing a boycott of the L.A. Times for daring to point out that kids in the L.A. school district are all too often failing miserably.

In a series of recent articles the Times used student test scores to estimate the effectiveness of L.A.’s teachers. This infuriated the union.
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Top Ten most Left-Biased American Journalists – #3: Paul Krugman, The New York Times

July 21, 2010 | Filed Under Democrats/Leftists, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Newspapers, The New York Times, Warner Todd Huston | 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

Number three on our list almost violates the criteria that I set up in the first piece I wrote for this series. I said then that denizens of the Old Media that are too much a “cartoon of journalism” would not be included on my list. Yet despite my dismissal of such Old Media clowns, in the number four slot on the list you’ll find Paul Krugman of The New York Times.

Given this week’s revelations about the JournoList, we now know Krugman either participated in a media conspiracy to get Obama elected or at least witnessed it first hand and did nothing to stop it. Consider this fact merely the latest insight into a man who’s done more consistently left-biased journalism than nearly anyone in America.
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Top Ten most Left-Biased American Journalists: #10 = Neil Steinberg, Chicago Sun-Times

July 14, 2010 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Democrats/Leftists, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Newspapers, Warner Todd Huston | 2 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

Over the next ten days BigJournalism.com and I will present to you America’s top ten journalists that are most biased to the left. The newest entry will be hosted by BigJournalism.com for a day first and the following day (or so) will appear here.

On this list you will find denizens of the Old Media that just can’t seem to help themselves from delivering the news with a leftward tilt, journalists for whom balance means to condemn all Republicans and conservatives, folks that never met a righty they could like much less agree with or even report upon fairly.

This list will be peopled by journos that, in true Kealian fashion, simply can’t understand those Republicans and/or conservatives. After all, these journalists never met anyone that would support a conservative so they just don’t understand how conservatives could ever stand for truth. These are folks that just don’t “get” that there is any other side to a story but that of their own ideologically leftward political bent.

This list will be restricted to working journalists (or one who just retired in the case of number one), so biased old hacks like Dan Rather, Walter Cronkite or Walter Duranty will be excluded even as we take their leftism for granted. Also you will not find those whose career is but a cartoon of journalism. People such as Keith Olbermann, John Stweart, Rachel Maddow, Maureen Dowd, or Chris Matthews do not belong on a journalist list, even one highlighting left-wing bias. Such people are simply too silly even for a list such as this.
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Another Journo Turned Politico Turned Journo Again

June 30, 2010 | Filed Under Democrats/Leftists, Government, Illinois, Media, Media Bias, Newspapers, Pat Quinn, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Well we’ve got a case of another journalist that turned into a political operative that now wants to go back to being a journalist. And would you be surprised that the journo/politico/journo redux is a Democrat? I would hope you wouldn’t because the right leaning journo to politico hardly ever happens (though it has been known to).

This time it’s one Bob Reed former Chicago reporter and editor of Crain’s Chicago Business turned mouthpiece for Illinois Democratic Governor Pat Quinn. Reed quit the journalism trade to head up Pat Quinn’s communications office when he was Lt. Gov. and stayed with him when he became Illinois’ accidental governor upon the elimination of Rod Blagojevich from his lofty, bribe riddle heights. Now Reed wants to go back to being a journalist and has resigned from Quinn’s staff to pursue new opportunities.

Interestingly, Reed termed his employ in the guv’s office as just another journalistic “assignment.”
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Wash. Post Cries: White ‘Hate’ Groups Increasing! Says Who?

June 29, 2010 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Crime, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Government, Government, Corruption, Hate Crimes, Journalism, Judges, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Newspapers, Race, Rights, The Law, Warner Todd Huston | 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

It’s time once again for some more left-wing hand wringing over the supposed rise of “white militias” in the era of Obama. This time it is the blather of Metro Columnist Courtland Milloy claiming that white-based hate groups have increased substantially because we have a black president. Milloy also rails about the “racial double standard” in evidence because no one is all that upset about this business. If it were black racists increasing their militia activities because of a white president, Milloy gravely writes, why the whole country would be alarmed.

Milloy isn’t the only denizen of the Old Media to make the claim that white hate groups are increasing, though. It has been an occasional claim by a dozen or so journalists since Obama’s inauguration. But is it true? Are white hate groups increasing? And is it because Obama became president? Who says so, anyway?

There is one source that each of these stories relies upon to prove that white militias and hate groups have increased under Obama. That source is the Southern Poverty Law Center. The SPLC claims that hate groups have increased to over 900 under Obama.
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Atlanta Journal Columnist Tucker Says USA is ‘The Enemy’

June 23, 2010 | Filed Under Budget, Business, Capitalism, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Energy, Free Trade, Government, Government, Corruption, Jimmy Carter, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Newspapers, Oil, Warner Todd Huston | 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

Columnist Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a 2007 Pulitzer Prize winner, has found the enemy and he is us. During a recent episode of the Chris Matthews show, Tucker decided that because we are “addicted to petroleum” we are our own enemy just as much as communism was our enemy during the Cold War.

Tucker characterizes our “addiction” to oil as an “external threat” — just like communism was — and presents oil as an enemy that we should defeat. Tucker also makes excuses for Obama saying that it’s “harder” for him to call on Americans to sacrifice because of this addiction.

Leave it to a member of the Old Media to construe capitalism, progress, a growing standard of living, and even our own fellow citizens to be as great an enemy as an antithetical foreign system that was sponsored by those that promised to destroy us. Leave it to a member of the Old Media to pinpoint our own system as the enemy.
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Just a Quick Example on How Bad Writing is in the Old Media These Days

June 14, 2010 | Filed Under Budget, Economy/Finances, Education, Government, Corruption, Jobs, Labor Law, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Newspapers, Regulation, UAW, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Here’s how bad writing is in the media. In a Reuters story about unions making concessions is this amusing line:

“Under Gettelfinger, the UAW agreed to allow new workers to be hired at about $14 per hour — about half of the $28 base rate for existing autoworkers.”

Uh, per my math, 14 IS half of 28. It isn’t “about half.” Nice writing there al Reuters!

Now, a better way to say it would have been:

“Under Gettelfinger, the UAW agreed to allow new workers to be hired at about half the $28 base rate for existing autoworkers.”

More precise, less wordy and makes sense. It was pretty poor work by Reuters. I know I make my share of mistakes, but then again, I’m just blogging here. I don’t have editors!

Michigan To License Journalists?

May 29, 2010 | Filed Under 1st Amendment, Blogging, Civil Rights, Computers, Constitution, Free Speech, Freedom, Government, Government, Corruption, Inernet, Journalism, Media, Media Bias, Michigan, Newspapers, Radio, Technology, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

This is the face of tyranny. A Michigan State Senator has introduced an Orwellian bill that would provide for the licensing of journalists. There is no doubt that this thing is aimed squarely at delegitimizing the New Media, silencing bloggers, and creating a protected class of state approved “journalists.”

State Senator Bruce Patterson is the braintrust behind this flouting of the U.S. Constitution and outrageously enough, this Patterson fellow claims to be a “constitutional lawyer.” Pair him with the “constitutional scholar” we have as president and we have a matched set of revisionists out to steal as much power for themselves as one can find in any tinpot dictatorship! Even more ridiculously, this mustachioed villain is a Michigan Republican, proving that this sort of megalomania infests both sides of the aisle.

So what is this licensing deal supposed to do for we, the stupid people not able to figure out what end is up with current events, anyway? According to Patterson we can’t get “good information” any more because of the proliferation of new sources of info. But not to worry, granny Patterson is here to save the day and he’ll selflessly take it upon himself to determine what news source is a “legitimate media source.” What could possibly go wrong, eh?
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A Tale of Two Book Banners: Palin Ripped, Kagan Excused

May 24, 2010 | Filed Under Associated Press, Barack Obama, Books, Democrats/Leftists, Entertainment, Government, Government, Corruption, Huffington Post, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Newspapers, Republicans, Sarah Palin, TV News, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Comparisons are always a great way to show how differently the Old Media treats conservative and leftist politicians in America today and Obama’s nomination of the Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court gives us another opportunity to see the Old Media’s penchant to excoriate a Republican’s actions while soft peddling and excusing away similar actions by a left-winger.

In this case, it is instructive to see how the Old Media treated the claim that Sarah Palin banned books from the Wasilla library when she was mayor and today how it is treating the recently highlighted Supreme Court arguments made by Elena Kagan that the government could ban books under the McCain-Feingold Act.

After McCain picked Governor Sarah Palin for his number two slot during the 2008 campaign for president the Old Media lit upon a story that said Sarah Palin tried to ban books from the Wasilla library when she was mayor there in 1996. A list of the supposedly banned books was even bandied about by the left-wing blogs causing a ruckus in the media but it turned out the list had books on it published years after Palin had left the Mayor’s office. The list was a fabrication and was lifted from a website that detailed the books that had been banned at one time or another, in one place or another, over the last 100 years.

As it turned out the whole story came from another former Wasilla mayor. He claimed that Palin had asked a Wasilla librarian “how she could go about banning books.” No books were banned, no list was made and Palin said she was asked by a constituent to look into how a book might be removed for its “objectionable material.”
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Old Media: Democrats = Moderate, Republicans = Extremist

May 24, 2010 | Filed Under Congress, Democrats/Leftists, GOP, Government, Government, Corruption, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Newspapers, Republicans, Warner Todd Huston | 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

It is interesting to see how the Old Media constantly spins American politics, but one thing underlies the media’s conception about current events. The Old Media’s base assumption is that the left is “moderate” but all on the right are “far right.” This concept serves as the benchmark for almost every single analysis of American politics. It’s the assumption they nearly all start with as they analyze modern politics.

Ron Fournier, Washington bureau chief for the Associated Press, recently penned an analysis of Washington perfectly infused with this benchmark assumption. In early May Fournier wrote a knee slapper that claimed that there is “no place to go for moderates” because the US political scene is headed for “extremes.” And why is it headed for “extremes”? Likely it’s because it looks like the GOP is on the ascendance and the left is in retreat. But according to Fournier it’s because “moderates” are being chased from the parties.

Fournier thinks that “extremes” are befalling American politics because Charlie Crist of Florida was somehow “chased out” of the Florida Republican Party. He also points to Arlen Spector’s ship-jumping move from GOP to Democrat as evidence that the “extremes” are winning. For balance he tries to use the case of former Democrat, now independent, Joe Lieberman as an example of a “moderate” Democrat chased from the Democrat Party. These examples, Fournier posits, is proof that “compromise” is being killed in politics today.
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