Biased Media
Erin Burnett (CNN) Gets Smacked Down by Paul Bremer
Larry Elder (and Paul Bremer) dismantle older as well as new mantras flying around via our friends on the left. In the interview that is the centerpiece of the segment[s] here via Larry Elder, Erin “Monkey” Burnett gets all of her talking points smacked down. The only thing Miss Burnett accomplished was showing her bias/sarcasm well.
- Elder at his best! For more clear thinking like this from Larry Elder… I invite you to visit: http://www.larryelder.com/ ~AND~ http://www.elderstatement.com/
A Poignant Example of Media Bias In The Israel/Palestinian Conflict
(Above video) Interview via of Col. Richard Kemp (British Forces) and his take on the international commentary on Israel that is most obviously distorted.
This is entirely with thanks to TWITCHY!
Various news outlets are reporting that it was a ‘suspected’ Israeli air strike that killed 10 at the Al Shati refugee camp in Gaza.
Middle East Eye: In pictures: Death and devastation at al-Shati refugee camp
A suspected Israeli strike on a playground in the western Gaza City’s Al-Shati Camp killed 10 children on Monday, though the Israeli army denied culpability –
The Nation: Missile Strike at Al-Shati Refugee Camp Kills 10, Including 8 Children
Ten people were killed in the attack, including eight children, and forty were injured, thirty-two of them children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Israel claimed a misfired militant rocket caused the carnage, but several eyewitnesses blamed the explosion on an airstrike.
The Daily Beast: Israel’s Campaign to Send Gaza Back to the Stone Age
In the emergency room yesterday afternoon, young children writhed in pain on gurneys waiting for scrambling ER doctors to attend to them following an air strike on the Al Shati Refugee camp. Nine of the ten people killed in the attack were children and are many more were wounded.
However, Italian journalist Gabriele Barbati on the ground in Gaza affirms the Israeli claim that the “massacre” at the Al Shati refugee camp was actually caused by a misfired Hamas rocket.
“Leaning Forward” Past Facts and Common Sense
The left and Israel, h/t: HotAir:
And this story from Belgium via Libertarian Republican:
The French community in Belgium follows the lead of France in anti-Semitism: In Turkish, the sign reads, “Dogs are allowed in this establishment but Jews are not under any circumstances.”
Comedian Paul Rodriguez Strays from CNN’s Script (+Mark Levin)
Via SooperMexican! (h/t to Libertarian Republican):
The popular Mexican-born comedian Paul Rodriguez shocked the CNN panel on illegal immigration when he advocated for deportation for illegal immigrants. Shamelessly, Don Lemon accosted him by insinuating that legal immigrants like Rodriguez can’t be against illegal immigration. Yeah, that’s pretty pathetic.
What about the leftist hero who was recently lionized by Obama? Mark Levine takes you on a short tour-de-forces of how Democrats try and re-write history:
Breitbart notes a recent visit by Mark Levin to the Sean Hannity Show:
…Chavez, who was also against ethnic organizations like La Raza, would tell illegal immigrants to get out of the country, especially because they lowered the wages of American workers. And he was often far from compassionate in handling illegal immigrants.
As Breitbart News has reported, “Chavez was so opposed to amnesty that even the film’s producers, who have a history of making politicized movies, decided, out of respect, to steer clear of the subject”:
As the New York Times noted, Participant Media, which produced the film, has a “fondness for films about social issues.” The company made Lincoln as a statement about bipartisanship, The Help to “highlight the plight of domestic workers,” and Promised Land as a “call for environmental action” against fracking.
But the producers avoided immigration reform in the movie because Chavez “fought for better wages and conditions for workers but held complex and evolving views on the status of unauthorized immigrants, some of which would be at odds with the changes many Hispanics and others are seeking today.”
Breitbart News has also detailed how much Cesar Chavez opposed amnesty:
Ruben Navarrette, Jr., a supporter of comprehensive immigration who has “studied and written about Chavez and the United Farm Workers … for more than 20 years,” wrote in a 2010 essay that “the historical record shows that Chavez was a fierce opponent of illegal immigration.” He added that “it’s unlikely that he’d have looked favorably on a plan to legalize millions of illegal immigrants.”
Chavez also wanted stiffer sanctions against employers who hired illegal immigrants, and Navarrette emphasized that it was “absurd for anyone to invoke the name of Cesar Chavez to pass immigration reform.” He stressed, “As I said, were he alive today, it’s a safe bet that Chavez would be an opponent of any legislation that gave illegal immigrants even a chance at legal status.”
Navarrette wrote that, according to numerous historical accounts, “Chavez ordered union members to call the Immigration and Naturalization Service and report illegal immigrants who were working in the fields so that they could be deported.”
He noted that while Chavez was with the UFW, “UFW officials were also known to picket INS offices to demand a crackdown on illegal immigrants,” and the UFW even “set up what union officials called a ‘wet line’ to stop Mexican immigrants from entering the United States. Under the supervision of Chavez’s cousin, Manuel, UFW members tried at first to convince immigrants not to cross the border”:
When that didn’t work, they physically attacked the immigrants. Covering the incident at the time, the Village Voice said that the UFW was engaged in a “campaign of random terror against anyone hapless enough to fall into its net.” A couple of decades later, in their book The Fight in the Fields, Susan Ferris and Ricardo Sandoval recalled the border violence and wrote that the issue of how to handle illegal immigration was “particularly vexing” for Chavez.
Chavez was also against ethnic groups like La Raza. In fact, he saw the dangers of such organizations from the beginning.
“I hear more and more Mexicans talking about la raza—to build up their pride, you know,” Chavez told Peter Matthiessen, the co-founder of the Paris Review, for a profile piece in The New Yorker in 1969. “Some people don’t look at it as racism, but when you say ‘la raza,’ you are saying an anti-gringo thing, and it won’t stop there.”…
Re-Education Camps and Censorship “Chic” in the UK
Powerline has this story of government run media being used to guide the public towards a certain conclusion.
Salon.com (yes, I know) is celebrating that the BBC has decided to go full Pravda on us and cease allowing “climate deniers” on the air. Well, it is a government-run media establishment. But that would be the same BBC that refused to allow Churchill to broadcast his “appeasement denial” views back in the 1930s. Yup, same slimy people.
Anyway, quoth a jubilant Salon:
Good news for viewers of BBC News: you’ll no longer be subjected to the unhinged ravings of climate deniers and other members of the anti-science fringe. . . Were every network to start doing what the BBC is, their unfounded opinions would cease to be heard, Bill Nye wouldn’t have to keep debating them, and maybe, just maybe, they’d all just go away.
Esquire Magazine goes further in it’s diatribe of censorship that prove there is a totalitarian in every leftist waiting to get out, something Powerline missed, by-the-way:
The BBC Forbids Idiots On The Topic Of Science: No longer must Bill Nye debate the ignorant, at least in the U.K.
[….]
…BBC journalists must now attend seminars with academics and scientists who educate on what constitutes popular and marginal opinions.
Perpetuating ignorance for the sake of entertainment is not only getting boring, but is actively dangerous. US media companies should take note. American media makes political bipartisanship a game of spin and false controversy, which—as Jon Stewart will tell you—can inflict a lot of very real pain….
Yes, re-education camps… you read it right. Scientism on the march in the name of secularism. The Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), otherwise known as the Khmer Rouge, would be proud, as would others. Even the HHS is defining media in the immigration battle, this from The Corner:
– No recording devices will be allowed
– No questions will be allowed during the tour
– No interacting with staff and children at the shelter
– We ask that your questions be provided via email or phone after the tour to Kenneth Wolfe
– HHS ACF public affairs will provide answers to your follow up questions as quickly as possible
– We will provide photos of the facility after the tour
– There will be no on-site interviews by HHS staff before or after the tour, all inquiries go to Kenneth Wolfe
To continue… while the BBC stops debate on climate, the UK starts to talk seriously about the normality of pedophilia. CNN notes just how bad it is for the BBC in this regard:
Gay Patriot notes the following:
An increasingly vocal and open group of prominent British Academics is claiming that paedophilia is a perfectly normal and natural thing.
“Paedophilic interest is natural and normal for human males,” said the presentation. “At least a sizeable minority of normal males would like to have sex with children … Normal males are aroused by children.”
The presentation in question was presented at an academic conference at Cambridge University in the UK, where other topics included: “Liberating the paedophile: a discursive analysis,” and “Danger and difference: the stakes of hebephilia.”
And — like every other horror of the current ear — this has its roots in the sexual liberation movement of the 1970′s.
With the Pill, the legalisation of homosexuality and shrinking taboos against premarital sex, the Seventies was an era of quite sudden sexual emancipation. Many liberals, of course, saw through PIE’s cynical rhetoric of “child lib”. But to others on the Left, sex by or with children was just another repressive boundary to be swept away – and some of the most important backing came from academia. [Emphasis added]
Hey, “Love is Love,” right?…
Malcolm Muggeridge (a British journalist, author, satirist, media personality, soldier-spy and, in his later years, a Catholic convert and writer) said it best:
“If God is ‘dead,’ somebody is going to have to take his place. It will be megalomania or erotomania, the drive for power or the drive for pleasure, the clenched fist or the phallus, Hitler or Hugh Heffner.”
- Ravi Zacharias, The Real Face of Atheism (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2004), 32.
MSNBC’s Touré Blames Terrorism on Poverty ~ (UPDATED)
New Video Above
~ Thanks to Twitchy for the links ~
So did “POVERTY” drive terrorism, as Toure says? Lets start with National Review’s article, How Khalid Learned His ABCs:
…At Chowan, Mohammed bonded with other Arab Muslim foreign students known as “The Mullahs” for their religious zeal. Alumni say “The Mullahs” kept to themselves and shunned their American counterparts. So much for the vaunted diversity benefits of cultural exchange (“We take great pride in the wonderful relationships developed with our international students,” crows Chowan’s Office of Enrollment Services.)
Mohammed then transferred to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, where he earned his degree in mechanical engineering along with 30 other Muslims. Also studying engineering at North Carolina A&T at the time was Mazen Al-Najjar, the brother-in-law of indicted University of South Florida professor and suspected Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist fundraiser Sami Al-Arian.
While in North Carolina, Khalid Mohammed may have had contact with Ali A. Mohamed, another key bin Laden operative who enrolled at an officer-training course for green berets at Fort Bragg in 1981 and gathered intelligence for al Qaeda as a U.S. Army sergeant before being convicted of participating in the African-embassy bombing plot.
According to intelligence officials, Mohammed applied his American education to organize the 1993 World Trade Center bombing plot (six Americans dead), the U.S.S. Cole attack (17 American soldiers dead), and the September 11 attacks (3,000 dead). He has also been linked to the 1998 African-embassy bombings (212 dead, including 12 Americans), the plot to kill the pope, the murder last year of American journalist Daniel Pearl, and the Bali nightclub bomb blast last fall that killed nearly 200 tourists last fall, including two more Americans.
Elite U.S. colleges and universities continue to help train students from America’s most hostile enemy countries. Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Sudan — all official state sponsors of terrorism — sent nearly 10,000 students to the U.S. on academic visas between 1991 and 1996 alone. In the 2000-2001 school year, Mohammed’s native Kuwait sent a total of 3,045 undergraduate, graduate, post-graduate, and other students to the U.S. His adopted homeland, Pakistan, sent nearly 7,000 students here. Osama bin Laden’s native Saudi Arabia sent more than 5,000 students. Mohamed Atta’s native Egypt sent nearly 2,300.
Between 1989 and 1995, nearly 100 Middle Easterners paid bribes to community-college teachers and administrators in San Diego — the home base for at least two September 11 hijackers — in exchange for counterfeit admission papers and grades, which allowed them to get student visas. The mastermind of the scheme, Iranian-American businessman Sam Koutchesfahani, pled guilty to visa fraud in 1998, along with officials from six colleges. The whereabouts of his “students,” who poured a total of $350,000 into the plot, remain unknown….
The next article submitted for review is also by Michelle Malkin, and is entitled, “Educating the ignorant Kumbaya candidate,” and it is aimed at statements made by the candidates running for the 2008 office of President:
…As for Obama’s continued delusion about the “climate of poverty and ignorance” that supposedly breeds Muslim terrorists, can American politicians ever rid themselves of this unreality-based trope? This belief is part and parcel of the same idiocy that lead the State Department to embrace “spa days” for Muslims to “build bridges” with the Arab world and President Bush to open up our aviation schools to more Saudi students to “improve understanding.” John McCain also alluded to education-as-cure for Islamic terrorism at the L.A. World Affairs Council in March, when he declared that “In this struggle, scholarships will be far more important than smart bombs.” Just what we need: more student visas for the jihadi-infested nation that sent us the bulk of the 9/11 hijackers.
Author and National Review Online blogger Mark Steyn’s sharp rejoinder to McCain then applies to Obama now: “There’s plenty of evidence out there that the most extreme ‘extremists’ are those who’ve been most exposed to the west – and western education: from Osama bin Laden (summer school at Oxford, punting on the Thames) and Mohammed Atta (Hamburg University urban planning student) to the London School of Economics graduate responsible for the beheading of Daniel Pearl. The idea that handing out college scholarships to young Saudi males and getting them hooked on Starbucks and car-chase movies will make this stuff go away is ridiculous – and unworthy of a serious presidential candidate.”
Ayman al-Zawahiri didn’t need more education or wealth to steer him away from Islamic imperialism and working toward a worldwide caliphate. He has a medical degree. So does former Hamas biggie Abdel Rantissi. Seven upper-middle-class jihadi doctors were implicated in the 2007 London/Glasgow bombings. Suspected al Qaeda scientist Affia Siddiqui, still wanted by the FBI for questioning, is a Pakistani who studied microbiology at MIT and did graduate work in neurology at Brandeis….
The third article for review is likewise by Malkin, and is entitled, “The myth of the poor, oppressed jihadist,” clearly showing that the “jihadi-as-victim canard to the trash bin of deadly dhimmitude.”
The Independent of London has a piece up today on the wealthy, pampered lifestyle of would-be Christmas Day bomber Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab.
The Nigerian elite enginnering student studied at one of Britain’s leading universities, “lived a gilded life” and “stayed in a £2m flat.”
The Independent says Abdulmatallab’s privileged status is “surprising” — “a very different background to many of the other al-Qa’ida recruits who opt for martyrdom.”
Actually, there’s nothing surprising about it. The only surprise is that so many supposedly informed people — from British journalists to our own commander-in-chief — continue to perpetuate the myth of the poor, oppressed jihadist.
Abdulmutallab isn’t the first terrorist admitted to a Western institution of higher learning who spread fundamentalist Islam on campus.
- Al Qaeda mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed enrolled at tiny Chowan College in Murfreesburo, N.C., which had dropped its English requirements to attract–ahem–wealthy Middle Easterners. At Chowan, Mohammed bonded with other Arab Muslim foreign students known as “The Mullahs” for their religious zeal. Mohammed then transferred to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, where he earned his degree in mechanical engineering along with 30 other Muslims. Mohammed applied his Western learning to oversee the 1993 World Trade Center bombing plot (six Americans dead), the U.S.S. Cole attack (17 American soldiers dead), and the September 11 attacks (3,000 dead). He has also been linked to the 1998 African-embassy bombings (212 dead, including 12 Americans), the plot to kill the pope, the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl, and the Bali nightclub bomb blast that killed nearly 200 tourists, including two more Americans.
(See “How Khalid Learned His ABCs,” NRO, Marc h 3, 2003)
- Ayman al-Zawahiri didn’t need more education or wealth to steer him away from Islamic imperialism and working toward a worldwide caliphate. He had a medical degree. So did former Hamas biggie Abdel Rantissi.
- Seven upper-middle-class jihadi doctors were implicated in the 2007 London/Glasgow bombings.
- Suspected al Qaeda scientist Affia Siddiqui, is a Pakistani who studied microbiology at MIT and did graduate work in neurology at Brandeis.
- Osama bin Laden did a summer school stint at Oxford.
- 9/11 lead hijacker Mohammed Atta went to Hamburg University to study urban planning.
- British-born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a London School of Economics graduate, was convicted of abducting and murdering American journalist Daniel Pearl.
Just a small correction to the above Tweet, via Yahoo Answers, “Osama Bin Laden is Rich???“:
- You bet. When Mohammed (his father) died in a helicopter crash in 1968, his children inherited the billionaire’s construction empire. Osama bin Laden, then 13 years old, purportedly came into a fortune of some $300 million. (Sources: Defense Journal, and, Encyclopedia Britannica.)
WH Outs CIA Agent ~ Recalling the Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame Debacle
(Compare the above remarks [around the 1:08 time marker] to that of the video of Richard Armitage [below-right])
What a difference a sitting President makes. I wonder if my old (“old” – in years and history) nemesis thinks of this? We may never know. Anyhew, the Obama White House released a name mistakenly included in a list meant for the media. The Washington Examiner explains WHY this is relevant.
Valerie Plame doesn’t deny that blowing the cover of the CIA station chief in Afghanistan is a serious matter. It’s just that, discussing the issue at a Wednesday evening forum sponsored by The Atlantic, Plame seemed to view the outing of the CIA’s top spy on the front lines in the Afghan war as more of an embarrassment than an outrage.
“My understanding is … it was a military aide who compiled this list of those that were greeting the president when he came,” Plame said. “Colossally stupid, but I think it was inadvertent. It was an error … really stupid. The White House apparently has said that they’re going to do an investigation, and they’ll find someone who’s really embarrassed at the end of it.”
The leak, if that’s what it can be called, happened over the weekend as President Obama made a surprise visit to Afghanistan. In a routine email to the press, the administration included a name with the description “Chief of Station” after it — a clear reference to the ranking CIA official in Kabul. It’s hard to imagine a more sensitive assignment in a more dangerous place, and blowing the station chief’s cover — in an email to 6,000 reporters, no less — will surely have repercussions.
The White House quickly explained that a mistake had been made, but did not offer any details. Top officials announced that White House counsel Neil Eggleston, a veteran of many Washington investigations, will “look into” the matter. “It shouldn’t have happened,” deputy national security adviser Tony Blinken told CNN on Tuesday. “We’re trying to understand why it happened. In fact, the chief of staff, Denis McDonough, asked the White House counsel to look into it, to figure out what happened and to make sure it won’t happen again.”
Many observers seem satisfied with the White House’s explanation that the incident was just a regrettable error. And that is indeed what it appears to be. But such assessments represent a remarkable change in tone from the discussion several years ago, when the George W. Bush administration leaked Valerie Plame’s identity as part of a bitter fight over the origin and direction of the Iraq war. Back then, it was quite common to hear the words “traitor” and “treason” used to describe top Bush officials involved in the controversy.
There’s no doubt the Bush officials deliberately revealed Plame’s CIA connection, if not her name, to the press. But the Plame leak could be characterized as inadvertent in one sense: the leakers, both in the State Department and the White House, did not know that Plame’s status at the CIA was classified when they mentioned her to reporters. That is why no one was ever charged with leaking her identity; they did not knowingly and deliberately reveal classified information. So in that sense it was all a mistake. Yes, it was inadvertent, colossally stupid, an embarrassment — but it was a mistake.
In fact… so relevant is this case, that Plame herself has hit the circuit (she and her husband gravitate towards press) saying there is no comparison. Hmmmm.
…This is a man [Colin Powell] who allowed the spending of millions of dollars in a witch-hunt of a law-enforcement investigation even while personally knowing that his own top aide had been the one who inadvertently leaked the name of a second-tier CIA agent with a dishonest and histrionic husband. One word from Colin Powell, and the “Valerie Plame” case would have come to an end with no prosecutions, but with a few days, maybe just one or two news cycles, of public admonishment of his office for its carelessness. But no… Powell remained silent, thus settling some score with vice presidential chief of staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby and his boss, Vice President Richard Cheney — letting Libby twist in the wind for an alleged cover-up of a non-crime for which Libby himself wasn’t even responsible, but for which Powell’s aide Dick Armitage was culpable instead. (Libby was convicted on a highly dubious perjury charge, based on a years-old conversation with newsman Tim Russert that Russert remembered differently. This was the same Tim Russert whose own memory had been shown to be horrifically wrong in another major court case, but who suddenly was supposed to be perfectly inerrant. Meanwhile, famed newsman Bob Woodward produced notes that Woodward himself said might tend to support Libby’s recollection — but no matter.)…
(American Spectator ~ editors note: sounds the same to me. See also: “The Lost Scandal” and “Scooter Libby’s Bigger Picture“)
The New York Daily News reports the following:
Valerie Plame chided the Obama White House for being “colossally stupid” in accidentally releasing the name of the CIA station chief in Kabul.
“What an error of huge proportions with tremendous consequences,” she said Wednesday on CNN.
But Plame, the CIA operative outed during George W. Bush’s administration, warned against those drawing a “false equivalency” between her situation and the recent press office mistake.
“Apparently some low-level either military and diplomatic officials put the name down on this list that was given to a reporter who submitted it as a pool report,” she said of the Obama failure, whereas “my name was intended to be leaked in retaliation against my husband, who was a fierce critic of the Bush administration and the Iraq War.”
State Department official Richard Armitage is believed to have been responsible for leaking Plame’s status as a covert operative to the press in 2003. Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff Scooter Libby was convicted of obstructing the federal investigation into the disclosure but no individual was actually convicted of leaking the classified information that blew Plame’s cover.
Larry Elder discusses the Movie, “Fair Game,” and the real story of Joe Wilson & Valerie Plame:
Video Description:
Firstly, I want to than J. White (http://www.thevastconspiracy.com/), where the original audio file came from.
Secondly, while this is an old story and review of a 2010 movie, “Fair Game.” The White House’s recent outing of a CIA covert operative and how the media and White House reacted to it. Why? Because when the shoe was on the other foot, or more specifically, Bush’s foot, the media went MAD!
For more clear thinking like this from Larry Elder… I invite you to visit: http://www.larryelder.com/
Media Carrying Water for the White House ~ IRS and Benghazi
Maddow: “Did you just call me a cheerleader?”
Rep. Huelskamp: “I don’t know, maybe you have that history. I’m saying—”
Maddow: “No, wait, wait. Hold on. Hold on.”
Rep. Huelskamp: “When you’re a cheerleader for the administration, you’re not being a journalist. When you’re not willing to look at the facts. If it was Bush, you would be jumping and screaming.”
FrontPage Magazine has a story about Judicial Watch — through court order — getting emails that show collusion on the part of the White House… and ultimately, media cover-up. After quoting and email, some FP commentary about Benghazi is worth noting:
…This revelation appears to contradict written testimony given by Morell to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence last April, during which he insisted that “there is no truth to the allegations that the CIA or I ‘cooked the books’ with regard to what happened in Benghazi and then tried to cover this up after the fact.” Morell also claimed it was Rice, not the CIA, who linked the video to the attack. “My reaction was two-fold,” he told Committee members, “One was that what she said about the attacks evolving spontaneously from a protest was exactly what the talking points said, and it was exactly what the intelligence community analysts believed. When she talked about the video, my reaction was, that’s not something that the analysts have attributed this attack to.”
Why is all this important? Because the false narrative concocted by the Obama administration deflected blame away from the State Department and then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for not protecting the dedicated diplomats she had posted in post-Qhaddafi Libya. This was a highly volatile environment and a burgeoning haven for terrorist groups, something the Obama administration did not want to admit. Morell has since left the CIA and joined a consulting firm founded by former aides to Clinton, front-runner for the Democratic nomination for U.S. president. This is a key issue of public trust that must be addressed. (The Foundry)
Rhodes’ email blows Morell’s allegation out of the water, but a critical question remains unanswered: who did brief Rice in the aforementioned “prep call”?
[….]
Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, who believes the newly released emails completely undermine President Obama’s 2012 campaign narrative (i.e. “Al Qaeda is on the run”), also believes a more thorough investigation of Benghazi is warranted. “I think the Republicans have something here that really ought to be looked at,” he said Tuesday. “I just don’t know if there’s gonna be any interest in the mainstream media. They should, because this exposes a cover-up of a cover-up. The fact that it was redacted when the documents were asked for and only revealed by a court order is telling you this is a classic cover-up of a cover-up, and that is a serious offense.”
What Krauthammer is referring to is the reality that Rhodes’ email wasn’t included in the 100 pages of emails released by the administration last May, when Republicans refused to confirm John Brennan as CIA director until the “taking points” memos were released.
Yet Krauthammer’s other point about a lack of mainstream media interest is just as germane. Some of that lack may be driven by the reality that Ben Rhodes’ brother is CBS News President David Rhodes, who was not enamored with former CBS investigative report Sharyl Attkisson’s reporting on the attack, despite the fact that she had been one of the few reporters to follow the story wherever it led. Yesterday in interview with Glenn Beck, Attkisson said she was glad to see “a little more light” shed on that relationship, even as she bemoaned the incestuous relationship between Big Government and Big Media, and the increasing level of intimidation aimed at journalists who refuse to abide that collaboration.
Unfortunately, many in the media are still willing to carry water for the White House. The George Soros-funded Media Matters insists Fox News is “distorting” the use of Ben Rhodes’ memo “to falsely suggest that the administration was lying about the Benghazi attacks for political gain.” Slate’s Dave Weigel claims the email “was largely redundant” and that the talking points blaming the attacks on a video “came from the CIA,” apparently ignoring Morrel’s testimony. Politico Magazine Deputy Editor Blake Hounshell tweeted, ”Can you point me to a credible, authoritative story saying the WH knowingly pushed a false narrative?” demonstrating a willful obliviousness to the efforts undertaken by Attkisson, Karl and Fox’s Catherine Herridge.
That’s water-carrying by commission. There’s also water-carrying by omission. On Tuesday, when this story first broke, CBS This Morning was the only network broadcast to cover it. ABC, CBS and NBC completely omitted the story from their evening broadcasts.
Many left leaning — influential — bloggers on the left sway their larger counterparts to the progressive agenda: 
Progressive Bloggers Are Doing the White House’s Job
When Jay Carney was grilled at length by Jonathan Karl of ABC News over an email outlining administration talking points in the wake of the 2012 Benghazi attack, it was not, by the reckoning of many observers, the White House press secretary’s finest hour. Carney was alternately defensive and dismissive, arguably fueling a bonfire he was trying to tamp down.
But Carney needn’t have worried. He had plenty of backup.
He had The New Republic’s Brian Beutler dismissing Benghazi as “nonsense.” He had Slate’s David Weigel, along with The Washington Post’s Plum Line blog, debunking any claim that the new email was a “smoking gun.” Media Matters for America labeled Benghazi a “hoax.” Salon wrote that the GOP had a “demented Benghazi disease.” Daily Kos featured the headline: “Here’s Why the GOP Is Fired Up About Benghazi—and Here’s Why They’re Wrong.” The Huffington Post offered “Three Reasons Why Reviving Benghazi Is Stupid—for the GOP.”
It’s been a familiar pattern since President Obama took office in 2009: When critics attack, the White House can count on a posse of progressive writers to ride to its rescue. Pick an issue, from the Affordable Care Act to Ukraine to the economy to controversies involving the Internal Revenue Service and Benghazi, and you’ll find the same voices again and again, on the Web and on Twitter, giving the president cover while savaging the opposition. And typically doing it with sharper tongues and tighter arguments than the White House itself.
While the bond between presidential administrations and friendly opinion-shapers goes back as far as the nation itself, no White House has ever enjoyed the luxury that this one has, in which its arguments and talking points can be advanced on a day-by-day, minute-by-minute basis. No longer must it await the evening news or the morning op-ed page to witness the fruits of its messaging efforts.
[….]
Joan Walsh, an editor-at-large at Salon, brought this tension to a head last year when she slammed Klein for being too critical of the Obamacare rollout and, in essence, giving aid and comfort to the enemy. “On one hand, yes, it’s important for Democrats to acknowledge when government screws up, and to fix it,” Walsh wrote. “On the other hand, when liberals rush conscientiously to do that, they only encourage the completely unbalanced and unhinged coverage of whatever the problem might be.”
Unbalanced. Interesting word for a card-carrying member of the progressive media to use.
It’s OK to Leave the Plantation ~ Bundy & Black Conservatives
- “I’ll have those n*ggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years.”
Lyndon B. Johnson to two governors on Air Force One according Ronald Kessler’s Book, “Inside The White House“
When I first heard Cliven Bundy’s remarks about the “ghetto” and how he thought “Negroes” picken’ cotton was better than what they have… I was saddened. I had already come to the conclusion that Cliven was not entirely correct with his view of Federalism, but that the Federal government was wrongly pressing an issue of importance for those who wish to shrink government. And remember, Bundy is the last of over 50 ranchers/farmers in his area whom were effectively chased out of business by Federal regulations.
I still think a vested interest in what went on (and is going on in a state where the Federal government is in control of 81% of the land in that state) in the larger sense on the Bundy Ranch deserves our attention. An earlier post explains why we should care: Confused About the Ongoing Bundy Ranch Debacle? Read On…
There are some good (macro) signs coming from this, and that is that the states are eyeballing Federalism in the classical sense. And directly related to the “Bundy Standoff” our side of the country is looking at curtailing Federal control of soooo much property:
Lawmakers from Western states said Friday that the time has come for them to take control of federal lands within their borders and suggested the standoff this month between a Nevada rancher and the federal government was a problem waiting to happen.
“What’s happened in Nevada is really just a symptom of a much larger problem,” Utah House Speaker Becky Lockhart, a Republican, told The Salt Lake Tribune.
The lawmakers — more than 50 of them from nine Western states — made their proclamations at the Legislative Summit on the Transfer for Public Lands, in Utah, which was scheduled before this month’s standoff between Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and the Bureau of Land Management….
(Fox)
ALL THAT ASIDE, the statements I heard from Bundy were hard to hear. BUT, I remembered an older article (2009) by Walter Williams called “Race Talk” in which he explains that over the years what “African-Americans” have been politely called has changed:
- What to call black people has to be confusing to white people. Having been around for 73 years, I have been through a number of names. Among the polite ones are: colored, Negro, Afro-American, black, and now African-American. Among those names, African-American is probably the most unintelligent.
So even though Cliven Bundy was calling a segment of our body-politic, “Negro,” that wasn’t the issue that worried me. But before drawing a final conclusion on the matter I chose to wait a few days to see what would flesh out.
I am glad I did, because the legacy media pushed a narrative (see three good critiques of this narrative: here, here, and here) different from the larger body of evidence. Gateway Pundit, Alfonzo Rachel, Kira Davis, and Larry Elder helped trigger in my mind what Paul Harvey said was “the rest of the story.” So lets start the journey of what Cliven was saying that is no different in its substance (just not delivery) from what Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Larry Elder, C. Mason Weaver, , Star Parker, Carol Swain, Allen West, Deneen Borelli, and others have been saying for a long time. In fact, here are some of the covers I wish to show:
All of the above books and names are people of color saying in a more erudite manner what this po-dunk farmer said. However, many of the above authors call Big-Government what it is to the black community: plantation.
Dr. Sowell made this thinking clear with his debate about the dynamics of welfare with then Pennsylvania Secretary of Welfare, Helen O’Banion (1980). The black family was more intact during the hardest times of our nations history for them, but now 70% of black kids are born to single mothers because the father abandons them because the state will cover his ass. Sowell makes the point that the black family was better during even slavery.
But lets assume the worse fears about Cliven Bundy. Let us posit that he really is racist. What affect does that have on either the issue at hand a) government overreach, or b), your personal life. Government overreach has more possibility of affecting me (all of us), and the guys that can come to your door are carrying AR-15’s. Cliven has no affect on me and will never interfere with my personal well-being.
But I do not think Mr. Bundy is racist like Donald Sterling, if you take all he said IN CONTEXT. Something the left leaning, race-card throwing media does not. So, let us start this journey first with Kira Davis, in all her glory (sorry Kira, looked like a long night with the kids):
Kira makes the point well, that even if Mr. Bundy was a racist… so what. That is a micro issue, the macro issue is whether the law in question that allowed heavily weaponized federal agents to start killing cattle in mass graves is just. This is the point made well by Zo Nation (Alfonzo Rachel) in what I still regard as MachoSauce:
Okay, we have seen that in the BIG picture, even if Cliven Bundy WAS racist, it has no affect on your personal life, and government overreach is much more damaging to the individual. But lets get back to the issue Bundy was making. Larry Elder, in a rather long segment I edited (video included in Larry’s audio), shows that in context, and rather against the New York Times truncating the quote to make Mr. Bundy out as a villain:
You see, in context, we find the narrative to be a bit different than what our handlers want us to see.
Gateway Pundit was stellar in their posting on this matter — NY Times EDITED Cliven Bundy’s Controversial Remarks:
Liberals constant attempts to silence debate and free speech with the caterwauling cries of “racism” were best summed up by this Gateway video posted on George Will.
“Liberalism has a kind of Tourette’s syndrome these days. It’s just constantly saying the word racism and racist. There’s an old saying in the law: If you have the law on your side, argue the law; if you have the facts on your side, argue the facts; if you have neither, pound the table. This is pounding the table. There’s a kind of intellectual poverty now. Liberalism hasn’t had a new idea since the 1960′s except Obamacare and the country doesn’t like it. […] So what do you do? You say anyone who criticizes us is a ‘racist’. It’s become a joke…”
Cliven Bundy scares the Left because the Left has failed at scaring Bundy—who doesn’t scare easily and stands up for what is constitutionally protected. The released EDITED video is more pounding of the table to avoid arguing the facts.
Liberal Media Matters and NY Times brought down Cliven Bundy with the release of this EDITED VIDEO HERE on his controversial comments. Below is the context of the FULL video in which he mentions the Government is the master of enslavement. He explains at the beginning and emphasizes again at the end of the video (which was edited out by the Left because they don’t blame government).
Many conservatives like Sean Hannity were quick to jump in and condemn Bundy’s racist statements, rightfully so. But maybe Hannity missed the discussions on many of the same ideas, admittedly expressed differently than Bundy, shared by great minds such as Walter E. Williams, Ben Carson, Rush Limbaugh, Allen West, and other great conservative minds.
Does the media find Walter E. Williams, Ben Carson, and Allen West ”repugnant” and “beyond despicable” for making similar points as Cliven Bundy? The fact remains this fight is still about GOVERNMENT OVERREACH—not about Bundy.
Here’s a sample of what Walter Williams has said on the subject [I edited the longer video to the relevant remarks]:
And what about Ben Carson who ranted about the massive welfare program known as Obamacare in the video below. Is Ben Carson repugnant, too? No doubt a racist in the eyes of the NY Times.
Read all of Gateways post — well worth it.
So, the conclusion I can come to with all the relevant information is a) Bundy is most likely not racist, but only God can see his heart; b) Mr. Bundy is right about calling a “spade-a-spade,” big government entitlement programs has created what progressive hero said it would do:
How is this a “vote pump”? ~ paying for those to stay unemployed or not worry about their family and continue to vote for the party that pays them:
(CNS News) The top 40 percent of households by before-tax income actually paid 106.2 percent of the nation’s net income taxes in 2010, according to a new study by the Congressional Budget Office.
At the same time, households in the bottom 40 percent took in an average of $18,950 in what the CBO called “government transfers” in 2010.
Taxpayers in the top 40 percent of households were able to pay more than 100 percent of net federal income taxes in 2010 because Americans in the bottom 40 percent actually paid negative income taxes, according to the CBO study entitled, “The Distribution of Household Income and Federal Taxes, 2010.”
(CNS News) Buried deep on the website of the U.S. Census Bureau is a number every American citizen, and especially those entrusted with public office, should know. It is 86,429,000.
That is the number of Americans who in 2012 got up every morning and went to work — in the private sector — and did it week after week after week.
[….]
All told, including both the welfare recipients and the non-welfare beneficiaries, there were 151,014,000 who “received benefits from one or more programs” in the fourth quarter of 2011. Subtract the 3,212,000 veterans, who served their country in the most profound way possible, and that leaves 147,802,000 non-veteran benefit takers.
The 147,802,000 non-veteran benefit takers outnumbered the 86,429,000 full-time private sector workers 1.7 to 1.
How much more can the 86,429,000 endure?
Paying for failure, and a new type of slavery… Western style.
WaPo Supports Hank Aarons Contention that Dissent Is Not Patriot
Gateway Pundit posts a story about the editorial piece in WaPo saying Hank Aaron was right. Here is GP’s comments:
The Ku Klux Klan‘s first incarnation was in 1866. On September 28, 1868, a mob of Democrats massacred nearly 300 African-Americans. The Klan was involved in a wave of 1,300 murders of Republican voters in 1868. The group was an offshoot of the Democrat Party. Klan members often threatened opponents at night with torches and hoods outside their homes.
Last week baseball great and historic whiner Hank Aaron compared all of those Americans who oppose Obama to the KKK.
Today, the Washington Post agreed with Hank Aaron.
Do you remember when dissent was patriotic? Yeah, well now if you dissent you’re a Klansman. Keep it classy, Democrats.
The Legacy Media’s Shoe-Horn of a Double-Standard (Dub v. Hill)
Remember when President Bush had a show thrown at him by a “journalist” in the Middle East? The media covered that as “more bad news for Bush” and the unpopularity of the war on terrorism. CBS even compared Bush to Saddam Hussein.
- “Sock and awe. How the Iraqi shoe-thrower is now being hailed as a hero and drawing thousands of supporters….It’s being referred to as the ‘toss heard around the world.’ In fact, many Iraqis are showering accolades on the journalist who threw his shoes at President Bush.” — CBS’s Harry Smith on The Early Show, December 16, 2008.
- “In the Middle East, there’s no bigger insult than hitting someone with a shoe, a dirty object worn on the lowest part of the body. By showing the kind of contempt formerly reserved for Saddam Hussein to President Bush, [Muntathar] al-Zaidi’s become an instant hero….Al-Zaidi should do jail time, said the Iraqi bloggers – because he missed.” — CBS’s Elizabeth Palmer on the December 15, 2008 Evening News.
(Kyle Drennen, via FoxNation) On Friday, all three network morning shows fretted over a woman throwing a shoe at Hillary Clinton during a speaking event in Las Vegas. NBC Today co-host Tamron Hall was particularly melodramatic: “I mean, but how scary is that?…Had it hit her, that would have been awful. It would have been awful.” Weatherman Al Roker added: “Jeez, that’s frightening.” Hall declared: “It’s hard for me to watch, actually.”
The shoe was on the other foot in 2008, when an Iraqi journalist threw two shoes at then-President George W. Bush during a Baghdad press conference. At that time, ABC and CBS referred to the shoe-thrower as a “celebrity” and “folk hero” who “thrilled the Arab world.” In 2009, then-MSNBC host David Shuster actually cheered the release of the footwear assailant from prison. Tamron Hall happened to be on the show at the time and observed that people would have been “more outraged” if someone threw a shoe at President Obama. Here are some reactions to the shoe throw at Hillary:
- On CBS This Morning, co-host Charlie Rose observed that Clinton “handled that quite well” before noting that the thrower was “facing federal charges.” Fellow co-host Norah O’Donnell gushed: “You know, it was amazing to see how calm she [Hillary Clinton] was….she didn’t really react much at all and had a great retort, you know?” Rose agreed: “It was amazing.” O’Donnell concluded: “Incredible, indeed.”
- By contrast, on Friday’s ABC Good Morning America, White House correspondent Jon Karl reported: “Hillary Clinton took that with good humor. But it was a scary moment.” Co-host George Stephanopoulos remarked: “Yeah, Hillary Clinton, quick with the quip. But that was a scary moment there for a second.”
- On CBS This Morning, co-host Charlie Rose observed that Clinton “handled that quite well” before noting that the thrower was “facing federal charges.” Fellow co-host Norah O’Donnell gushed: “You know, it was amazing to see how calm she [Hillary Clinton] was….she didn’t really react much at all and had a great retort, you know?” Rose agreed: “It was amazing.” O’Donnell concluded: “Incredible, indeed.”
Here is CNN covering Bush’s “Shoe Debacle,” take note of the public dislike of Bush in this report… from mentioning “disliking” him, to marveling that Bush would try and turn this into a positive:
- “You may not like President [George W.] Bush‘s politics, but one thing you can say for sure is that the man has great reflexes,” then-CNN anchor Alina Cho told foreign correspondent Michael Ware in the wake of the December, 2008 incident in Iraq.
- Ware marveled at the fact that Bush joked about the situation and attempted to “turn the incident to his advantage,” as opposed to dwelling ruefully on his shoe-administered repudiation.
- “Bare in mind that, in Iraqi culture, throwing a shoe is close to the ultimate insult,” Ware noted. Unlike in the United States, where shoe-throwing is a traditional feature of weddings and christenings.
- “This may become the press conference of the Iraq War that everyone will remember,” Ware later reported. He noted that this insult is “reserved only for the most hated.”
This blatant double-standard should be embarrassing to the legacy media. Alas, it is probably a badge of honor to them – unfortunately. Sad.