National Public Radio commentators can establish one reality very quickly: they won’t cross the feminists. "I am not dumb enough to castigate women en masse," said sports writer Frank Deford in a commentary on Wednesday’s Morning Edition as he blamed them for the popularity of celebrity gossip. But men? That’s easier. They’re diverted from serious news by the sports pages. Sure, Deford said, "there are an awful lot of feather-brained fans who could rattle off the entire roster of the Kansas City Royals before they could name their own congressman." But deny them their sports, and they won’t become C-SPAN fans. "Probably, in fact, their new devotion would be to something more base like pornography."

Well boys and girls, don't you think its about time to start pushing for 9/11 truth? You don't want to be complicit in the crimes of our state do you?

http://www.prweb.com...

http://www.opednews....

http://news.yahoo.co...

(all link to the same story)

Thursday night, for the second time in just over two weeks, George Stephanopoulos served as the anchor of ABC's World News with Charles Gibson. No explanation was offered for Gibson's absence. Just as on June 4, the announcer set up the newscast: “From ABC News headquarters, this is World News with Charles Gibson. Reporting tonight: George Stephanopoulos.”

My Monday, June 4 NewsBusters item noted that Stephanopoulos “has co-hosted Good Morning America on several occasions over the years,” but that “from what I can recall, this is the first time the long-time adviser and strategist for Bill Clinton, and Dick Gephardt before that, has anchored World News -- or World News Tonight as it was previously named.” TV Newser, widely read inside the networks, picked up my item and no one responded to correct my memory, so I presume Thursday became only the second time the liberal operative turned TV news host of Sunday's This Week has anchored the evening newscast. Check the earlier posting for video of the opening of the June 4 newscast.

Complete with a background track fit for an indie horror flick, NBC’s “Today” bashed student loan companies and colleges with a segment on “student loan schemes.”

On June 21, consumer correspondent Janice Lieberman ignored personal responsibility as she bashed colleges and lenders without giving them a chance to rebut.

“You would assume that the college you choose would be on your side and find the best interest rate for a loan that you’ll be paying for many years. Well, think again,” said Lieberman.

Wait a minute - why should a borrower assume anyone else will find them the best deal? We all know what assuming does.

When it was announced Tuesday that China surpassed the United States as the world’s leading emitter of carbon dioxide, NewsBusters asked, “Will Media Notice?”

In reality, the answer is a mixed windbag, with most press outlets totally ignoring the revelation, and a few actually blaming the problem on – wait for it! – the United States. I kid you not.

However, before we address that stupidity, it first must be relayed that not one of the television news outlets bothered reporting the Chinese CO2 data at all. It appears that television news divisions only feel CO2 is a problem if it’s emitted by American corporations or citizens.

As for the print media, the few that did cover this story either gave it very little attention, or made some fairly predictable excuses for why it’s okay as the planet nears its seemingly inevitable doom at the hands of greenhouse gases for China to be the leading “polluter.”

For instance, the New York Times devoted a total of 83 words to this story in its “World Briefing Asia” section Thursday on page A12 (no link available):

Chris Matthews actually came out for a pardon for Lewis "Scooter" Libby, but he had a catch, "Send him to Iraq." On tonight’s Hardball the MSNBC host, during a discussion about whether Bush should pardon Libby, threw out the following wacky proposal on the June 21 edition of his show:

Chris Matthews proposed to former Cheney aide Ron Christie and former Assistant Attorney General Robert Raben: "I got an idea, I got a solution. Pardon him but send him to Iraq in uniform and put him on the front. Send him to the front. He supported the war, send him to fight it! Hey look a lot of guys have to go fight that war, didn't do anything wrong....In the old days the judges would take a working class kid who got into a scrape with the law and say, 'Junior want to go jail or do you want to go join the Army?' They should say the same thing to Scooter Libby. 'Want to join the Army?'"

CNN contributor Roland S. Martin advised Democrats to emulate two of their past presidential candidates - Jesse Jackson Sr. and Bobby Kennedy - and play up the issue of poverty, which is a place that he thinks "where candidates can make some kind of headway in trying to appeal to voters beyond the middle class or the upper income voters."

Martin makes regular appearances on CNN’s "American Morning," and besides being a CNN contributor, he is a syndicated columnist and talk radio host. Co-host Kiran Chetry on Thursday’s "American Morning" asked to comment on a recent column in which he advised the Democrats to reach out to poor whites, and to focus their attention on the issue of poverty, particlarly in rural areas. As he did in his column, he gave the examples of Jesse Jackson Sr.’s campaigns in 1984 and 88, as well as Bobby Kennedy’s trip down to the Mississippi Delta region in order to reach out to poor people.

Michael Medved, author, film critic, and talk-radio host, argues in one of his latest columns--"Why TV Addiction Links to Liberalism"--that excessive TV viewing may lead some people to embrace "distinctly liberal attitudes on a range of crucial issues, placing them well to the left" of people with lighter TV viewing habits. Medved bases his views on the new study by the MRC's Culture and Media Institute, entitled The Media Assault on American Values.

"The isolation associated with hours and hours in front of the tube leads to liberal values and viewpoints," says Medved.

Yesterday, OpinionJournal featured an fantastic essay (found via Ace) from critic James Bowman about the faulty paradigm that modern journalism has embraced, the idea that "getting the facts right" ought to be the foremost goal of government.

It's a ridiculous premise, Bowman argues, because that isn't what government is supposed to do. In an imperfect world populated by imperfect humans, mistakes and errors are inevitable. What ought to matter most is how governments learn from miscalculations and their will to pursue the important tasks we expect them to.

This odd prejudice may be partly owing to the huge social premium we put on intelligence in the era of the cognitive elite. People who have no idea on earth what to do about the war or any of the problems we face as a nation think it is some kind of program to ridicule the intelligence of the President. Even the political opposition has fallen into this trap by making mere perspicacity in the anticipation of evils rather than the determined effort to combat them its test of political success. Thus in Sen. Jim Webb's reply to the president's State of the Union Address in January, he had no alternative to suggest to the measures for dealing with Iraq that had been proposed, but he was full of indignation on the grounds that the mistakes of the administration had been foreseeable. He knew that they were foreseeable because he himself had foreseen them. The implication was that he was much cleverer than President Bush--as if that was all that need be said to the credit of the former and the discredit of the latter.

On the June 21 edition of "The View" the ladies discussed President Bush’s veto of the embryonic stem cell veto funding bill. On what may be a positive trend, the co-hosts split evenly on the issue with Gayle King and Joy Behar for the funding and Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Sherri Shepherd opposed.

Joy Behar exclaimed it violates the "separation of church and state" because some religious organizations morally oppose the practice. Behar, who considers the title "fringe liberal" "name calling," opined that Bush "listens to the extreme religious right in this country."

When Elisabeth Hasselbeck, who articulated her points very well, noted the she does not want her tax money to go to something she considers unethical, Behar dragged in the Iraq War and said that argument "pisses me off." When Behar said abortion is legal, Hasselbeck responded "it is not a question of banning. It’s a question of funding at this point."

Tuesday mornings’s Democratic presidential candidates forum, aired live on MSNBC and moderated by Chris Matthews, had a few, to put it mildly, strange moments. Billed as a forum, the event was little more than a union-sponsored soapbox for the three leading Democratic candidates, Senators Clinton and Obama, and former Senator Edwards.

The left-leaning American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, or AFSCME, which organized the soapbox, was quick to cheer for the most mundane of liberal catch phrases while descending into boos and hisses at the very mention of former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Related post available here.

On this morning's GMA, a classic bit of MSM advocacy for more government regulation of business that will drive up costs and drive out jobs. The occasion is the hearings today before the House Workforce Protections Subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), on a proposal to expand family and medical leave and impose mandatory sick leave.

Introducing the segment, ABC's David Wright lamented that "it's something that every parent struggles with: how to balance work and family. And the U.S. lags far behind other countries in helping parents to cope. Here on Capitol Hill today, Congress will take the first baby steps to try to address that situation."

The supposedly “free speech” left are out in force trying to silence all voices in the media with views different than their own just in time for the 2008 presidential campaign.

Potentially more worrisome, one liberal advocate in the middle of this debate has close ties to the Clintons, although it is quite unlikely the press will convey such when its recommendations are disseminated with their predictable stamp of approval.

*****Update: Michelle Malkin is all over this.

With that in mind, the left-leaning Center for American Progress published a report Thursday detailing how conservatives dominate the talk radio dial, and exactly what needs to be done legislatively for liberals to wrest control over this medium (emphasis added throughout):

So, it seems that the ACLU is defending a school district which has decided to install foot baths for Muslim students on the basis of a Constitutional duty of the government to provide accomodations for religious practice to all religions.

Just want to know: Are there Bible on the shelves of the libraries in public school? How about holy water fonts inside the doorway? Or refraining from scheduling any extracurricular activities on a Saturday or Sunday? No pork on the school lunch menu? In fact, no food at all in the school lunchroom during Ramadan?

Should taxpayers' money be used to pay for such an accomodation? Doesn't that violate the "separation of church and state" and amount to forcing non-believers to support a particular religion?

What say you?

Earlier today, NewsBusters contributor Pam Meister picked up on the MSNBC investigation into journalists' political contributions. Nearly 87 percent of the journalists gave exclusively to Democratic candidates.

Now some journos are reacting, and it seems the ones at Time magazine don't see the big deal.

Aside from Time.com Washington editor Ana Marie Cox's dismissive blog entry entitled, "OMG OMG TEH BIAS TEH BIAS," there's this gem from the magazine's James Poniewozik:

I haven't myself made any political donations since I've been with Time, as far as I remember, owing mostly to being a cheap bastard. (Time's policy allows political donations, although according to MSNBC's list, only one staffer has taken advantage of that, so I'm guessing most of my co-workers are as tightfisted as I am.) Scratch that: I did attend a fundraiser for John Kerry in 2004, which I believe Mrs. Tuned In paid for, that consisted of a $20-a-ticket concert in a friend's backyard by children's folk-rock musician Dan Zanes. There is probably no more yuppie-Brooklyn phenomenon than a Toddlers Against Bush concert.

After reporting on the compassionate U.S. soldier rescue of abused Iraqi orphans, CBS’s Lara Logan ran a follow up story on the June 21 edition of "The Early Show." To her credit, Logan continued to defend the soldiers. She noted that an Army captain went "back to check on the 24 boys he and his soldiers rescued" and "thanks to these soldiers...the boys’ lives were saved."

Upon reporting that the Iraqi labor and social affairs minister accused Lara Logan of reporting a "lie" and that the U.S. soldiers that rescued these emaciated boys "have no compassion," Logan played a gracious remark from an unidentified U.S. soldier.

Related MRC content linked below.

NBC Today co-host Meredith Vieira opened her Today at the Pump segment cheering the recent decrease in gas prices as "sweet relief" but then wondered: "Would we be better off...if gas prices were even higher?" On this morning's Today show, Vieira invited on Chevron’s CEO, David O’Reilly, to harass him about getting America off its "dependence" on oil and cited critics of Chevron’s allocation of profits to find alternative sources of energy as merely, "symbolic."

The following exchange occurred on the June 21st edition of Today:

Vieira: "Would, would we be better off, sir, if gas prices were even higher, if it were four, five, six dollars a gallon? Wouldn't that provide the incentive we need to come up with alternative forms of gas and to stop this dependence that we have on foreign oil?"

The New York Times reported today that “some reporters and editors at the Wall Street Journal” are calling their options “a choice between ‘trash or slash.’”

“Trash,” by their definition, is the buyout offer from Rupert Murdoch. “Slash” is the possible bid by General Electric and Pearson – owner of the Financial Times.

Some staffers actually prefer Murdoch:

“If you put a gun to my head, I’d take Murdoch over G.E.-Pearson,” the Times quoted one “senior editor” as saying.

For the third time in 2007, ABC has used its "Good Morning America" program to deride the United States for not being generous enough in providing paid leave for employees. On the Thursday edition of the show, reporter David Wright complained that "the U.S. doesn't make it easy" for working parents. He used a 2007 study to claim that, on this issue, America is no better then several Third World nations.

At no point did the ABC reporter mention that countries who provide generous leave, such as France, also have extremely high taxes and high unemployment. (The French are currently at 8.7 percent.)

[Related post by Mark Finkelstein available here]

After an introduction by host Robin Roberts that explained how Congress is considering legislation to expand federal and medical lave, Wright cited a recent Harvard-McGill study that lumps the U.S. in with third world countries such as Swaziland:

What you don't know about your kids' sneakers can kill them!

Hmm, I'm getting a strange sense of déjà vu.

The Washington Post's Fredrick Kunkle let a leftist group skate away with the bland "nonprofit group" tag. The group, the Boston-based World Against Toys Causing Harm (WATCH) named Heelys -- a pair of sneakers with small wheels recessed into the heel -- the worst toy of 2006.

But a review of WATCH's Web site reveals that the group is headed by a trial attorney who boasts of raking in "record-setting settlements and jury verdicts throughout the country."

Oh, and they don't like toy laser guns, although they, you know, don't actually shoot real lasers:

For general comment and discussion...

MSNBC took a look at 144 journalists who donated political contributions from 2004 to the start of the 2008 campaign:

...according to the public records of the Federal Election Commission. Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left: 125 journalists gave to Democrats and liberal causes. Only 17 gave to Republicans. Two gave to both parties.

The donors include CNN's Guy Raz, now covering the Pentagon for NPR, who gave to Kerry the same month he was embedded with U.S. troops in Iraq; New Yorker war correspondent George Packer; a producer for Bill O'Reilly at Fox; MSNBC TV host Joe Scarborough; political writers at Vanity Fair; the editor of The Wall Street Journal's weekend edition; local TV anchors in Washington, Minneapolis, Memphis and Wichita; the ethics columnist at The New York Times; and even MTV's former presidential campaign correspondent.