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This Thanksgiving, a record high of 42.2 million Americans will use food stamps to curtail the cost of a big meal. At a whopping expense of $72 billion to the taxpayer per year, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has grown by 70 percent since 2007, an increase of over 15 million more people.

Despite acknowledging all of this, Elizabeth Flock of US News & World Report declared "More Americans will use food stamps to buy their Thanksgiving dinner this year than ever before," and implied these government handouts aren't as sufficient as they could be.

While President Obama's record-breaking pace to raising a total of $1 billion earlier this month received significant media attention, there was little if any curiosity among the traditional press about how he was on track to achieve such an unprecedented milestone in presidential fundraising. The broadcast networks in particular have not bothered to mention the growing scandal that is being scrupulously pieced together by alternative media outlets.

An independently-owned website Obama.com (redirects to official site here) has been suspected of accepting millions of dollars worth of illegal foreign donations for months now. Despite all the speculation and accusations coming from a nonprofit organization known as the Government Accountability Institute (GAI), no action had been taken until recently.

MRC director of media analysis Tim Graham appeared on C-SPAN's Washington Journal on Saturday morning to discuss the letter  MRC president Brent Bozell and more than 20 other conservative leaders and media personalities wrote to executives of ABC News, CBS News, CNN and NBC News.

"I would simply say we have a news media that doesn't hold the Obama Administration accountable. It's trying to destroy the Mitt Romney presidential campaign," Graham said. "That is not what ‘objective’ news media does." (See video and transcript below, MP3 audio available here).

CNNMoney mustn’t pay very well, because writer Steve Hargreaves is moonlighting as a PR flack for the International Energy Agency. At least, that’s the impression given by his June 12 article on the IEA’s 700-page "sharply-worded" report that called for an additional $36 trillion of clean energy investment by 2050. 

According to Hargreaves, IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven doesn’t think governments are doing enough to keep global warming in check. “Our ongoing failure to realize the full potential of clean energy technology is alarming,” she said. “Under current policies, both energy demand and emissions are likely to double by 2050.”  

A massive, notoriously scandal-ridden abortion provider is operating in Los Angeles high schools? What could go wrong?

Anna Gorman, writing for the Los Angeles Times on June 5, gave a glowing report of a highly controversial move:  the nation’s largest abortion provider has been put in charge of a public high school’s health care.

New York Times Middle East reporter Neil MacFarquhar brought his usual anti-Israel slant to his Monday New York Times story on the Palestinians seeking United Nations membership: “Palestinians Turn To U.N., Where Partition Began.”

The Palestinians see the membership application as a last-ditch attempt to preserve the two-state solution in the face of ever-encroaching Israeli settlements, as well as a desperate move to shake up the negotiations that they feel have achieved little after 20 years of American oversight. The question is whether trying to bring the intractable problem back to its international roots will somehow provide the needed jolt to get negotiations moving again.

You may have noticed it already but in case you haven't, push reload on your browser. We've implemented some long requested changes to NewsBusters tonight including the much-requested "wide screen" format that expands the left side of the page to fit your browser window width.

Also included in the fixes:

Readers may have noticed a slight change on the site. We've switched out the old Eyeblast video player for a YouTube player, which should function more smoothly than the old one. You've probably noticed the delay in new episodes showing up on the homepage. That will no longer be a problem.

Some other big news regarding 'Busted: with this new player, you can now embed your own NewsBusted widget on your website. It will function exactly like the one you see on the NB homepage, displaying the latest NewsBusted episode right on your blog or homepage. Just copy and paste the code below the break to embed the player.

Hey NBers. I want to take this opportunity to apologize for the shaky roll-out of the new site design. I understand that there has been a lot of frustration with some missing features, and elements of the new layout. I want to make sure your concerns are addressed.

We're finally here. Welcome to the new NewsBusters site design! Please have a look around and tell us your thoughts. There are still a few bugs to be worked out and we'll be squishing them like crazy so please post any you may see in this blog post. Credit for the design of our fancy new digs goes to NB member mrshy, aka Michael Miller who worked with us to come up with this new look.

Great job, everyone. You put us over the top! Thanks so much for your help.

We're ironing out the last wrinkles of the new NewsBusters site, and we expect it to go live soon. We'll make sure to keep everyone updated with the progress.

Again, thank you all for your support. We really cannot do this without you. Our dedicated readership is what keeps this site running, and allows us to upgrade to meet unprecedented demand.

Hey NBers, I know these fundraising asks are getting old, but when this new site goes live, there won't be any doubt that all our efforts were worth it.

In that spirit, I'm asking you today to help put us over the top in our effort raise enough money to do the new site justice. Our readers deserve nothing but the best, and we're determined to give it to them. But we need your help.

Any donation you can give is greatly appreciated. As of my writing this, we have raised $28,682. That's fantastic, and I'm deeply appreciative of everyone's efforts thus far. We're so close to our $30,000, so let's make today the day we finish up this campaign. You can click here to make a tax-deductible donation, or here to donate via PayPal.

Thanks in advance for your continued support.

We're making some great progress in our effort upgrade and improve the NewsBusters site. We've exceeded two thirds of our $30,000 goal. I'll tell you what: if we can reach $25,000 today, these annoying donation requests will end - at least for a while!

Make sure you take a look at all of the great features we will be putting in place. It's really going to improve the quality of the product NewsBusters delivers daily. We're even putting a whole new blog, NB Extra, in motion!

Remember, all donations are tax deductible, and the more you give to us, the less the liberal establishment can get its hands on. Please click here to contribute, or here to donate via PayPal (make sure you type "NewsBusters" in the Description field).

This new site will dramatically improve NewsBusters's ability to affect the national political discourse and to continue exposing media bias wherever it lurks. Thank you all for your help in this critical mission.

Great job, NBers! We're now well past the halfway point in our fundraising effort. As of my writing this, we've raised $18,247 of the $30,000 we need to upgrade and improve the NB site.

In the five years since we launched, NewsBusters has really taken off. Many of you have been with us for a long time now, and have helped us in our growth. This redesign is the next step on our upward trajectory. With your help, we will continue meeting unprecedented demand, and informing the nation of the specter of liberal media bias. Click here to check out some of the features we plan on implementing.

If you haven't given already, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution by clicking here. You can also click here to donate via PayPal (just make sure you enter "NewsBusters" in the description field).

On behalf of everyone here at NB, thank you for your generosity and for your continued support as we expand and improve.

Are you a "NewsBusted" fan? You ARE? Wonderful! Then you probably know our friend Jodi Miller. Jodi has one simple request to make: please make a generous tax-deductible contribution to NewsBusters so we can upgrade and improve the site to meet record-breaking demand.

With help from Jodi and all of you, NewsBusters has become one of the most prominent center-right blogs on the Web. Give yourself a pat on the back for that one.

But we know we can do more. There's still plenty media bias to be exposed and combatted. Click here to see changes we're making to the homepage, and then here to contribute to NB. You can also donate via PayPal (just make sure to put "NewsBusters" in the description field).

You can see Jodi's special announcement on the right sidebar. Thanks in advance for your generosity!

NewsBusters associate editor Noel Sheppard was a guest on Glenn Beck's radio program today to discuss liberal MSNBC pundit and radio host Ed Schultz.

Noel and Glenn covered a few NewsBusters posts on Schultz's more outlandish statements, including his lamentation that he could not cheat in the Massachusetts special election that landed Scott Brown in Washington, his use of former vice president Dick Cheney's heart attack to push Democrats' health care overhaul, and his claim that "Republicans want to see you dead!"

Make sure to check out the full audio below the fold provided by our friends at The Right Scoop. Congrats to Noel, and thanks to Glenn for having him.

As requested by numerous NewsBusters readers, we have just opened up a new store where you can buy NB-branded merchandise. We have clothing, books, and specialty items like our Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann doormats. There's something for everyone, so stop by and get some early holiday shopping done.

We did it! Thanks to your generous donations, we have now met our fund-raising goal for server improvements and expenses. In less than 2 weeks we managed to raise over $30,000.

Congratulations! Thanks to everyone who chipped in!

Thanks to everyone's efforts, we are now over the $20,000 mark, just $10k more to go! Please help support our effort to upgrade NB's servers by helping put us over the finish line.

A multitude of organizations, hundreds of thousands of individuals join together to defend the First Amendment from a reinstatement of the so-called "Fairness" Doctrine

Editor's Note: You too can join the Free Speech Alliance.  Click here and sign the petition, and stand at the ready for whenever any liberal again threatens the First Amendment with talk of reinstating the Censorship Doctrine.   

Spreading the Word The Media Research Center today officially announced the Free Speech Alliance, a gathering of a multitude of organizations and hundreds of thousands of individual citizens dedicated to ensuring that the Censorship Doctrine, mis-named the "Fairness" Doctrine, is never again reinstated.

The Free Speech Alliance member organizations are themselves engaged in a wide array of issues, but they all recognize the preeminent importance of defending the First Amendment and protecting free speech from government censorship, a fundamental Constitutional safeguard.

The Free Speech Alliance member organizations thus far:

What a disgraceful display of media malice in response to the Gov. Palin announcement. The Governor is a remarkable, genteel and upstanding woman, yet the press went right into the gutter in response to Sen. McCain's selection of her to be Vice President.

These alleged journalists are again demonstrating what utter charlatans they are. Every day they lecture conservatives about ‘mean-spirited' politics, yet they spent the entire Labor Day weekend using Gov. Palin's new born son's condition to try to score cheap and shoddy Democratic campaign points. And continued right on doing so when the Palin family announced that their oldest daughter Bristol was pregnant.

These are not reporters, these are hypocritical left-wing advocates using their First Amendment rights as clubs to bludgeon and abuse this fine woman with the lowliest attacks they can drum up.

The line between the liberal media and the Democratic Party has now been crossed so many times it is no longer blurred, it is obliterated.

We're back up. A network connection switch to our servers broke which caused them to be unreachable. The machines themselves were unaffected. The problem is nothing to do with the domain issue earlier, fyi. Consider this today's open thread.

Yes, we had some issues back there.

Somehow our domain was not renewed this year thanks to some bureaucratic errors. It's now fixed. We apologize for the interruption.

Here at NewsBusters, we try to stay on the cutting edge of both media and technology, which is why I'm pleased to announce the addition of “NewsBusted,” a comedy show we're releasing today. You can watch the video now over on the top right of this page.

The idea for the show is really quite simple. Politics is absurd, so is the news. Why not have some laughs from it all?

“NewsBusted” will air twice weekly and be available on every NB page as well as on YouTube. We also are taking joke submissions from readers. If we like your joke, we'll pay you $50 and use it in a future show. Send jokes along with name, email, and phone number to rightstuffcomedy@yahoo.com.

PS: If you are trying to get into the NB live chat, click the "chats" link at the top of this page.

There has been a lot of talk in the blogosphere about Osama’s beard.Was it fake? Was it dyed?

There has also been a lot of discussion about the politics in the video. Some suggesting they sound a lot like the American left.

There are a lot of oddities that open up questions on the authenticity of the latest Al Qaeda propaganda. Michael Leeden, at the Corner, ponders whether this was really Osama with many good points. Another significant find was pointed out by the leftist site, Booman Tribune.

"Osama Bin Laden’s widely publicized video address to the American people has a peculiarity that casts serious doubt on its authenticity: the video freezes at about 1 minute and 36 seconds, and motion only resumes again at 12:30. The video then freezes again at 14:02 remains frozen until the end. All references to current events, such as the 62nd anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan, and Sarkozy and Brown being the leaders of France and the UK, respectively, occur when the video is frozen! The words spoken when the video is in motion contain no references to contemporary events and could have been (and likely were) made before the U.S. invasion of Iraq."

A lot of you have been reporting problems lately accessing NB. It was apparently triggered by a bug in Internet Explorer 7. After a few days of futzing with the DNS and some of the database backend, I think I've fixed the problem.

Report here if you continue to have trouble.

In a recent blog post by CBS Evening News correspondent Cynthia Bowers we find that she has had some problems with the housing market herself. Bowers apparently didn’t grasp the fact that her Adjustable Rate Mortgage (ARM) can actually adjust:

“For a while we were okay. Then that Fed rate started going up, and so did our ARM. Over a five-month period it increased the cost of our monthly mortgage by nearly 40%!” Bowers wrote.

But Bowers shouldn’t have been surprised about her rate adjustment. According to Nexis, Cynthia Bowers has been reporting on the mortgage and housing market since at least 1997. With a decade of industry reporting under her belt, you’d think she’d be able to anticipate the fact that rates shift and payments adjust.