NB Staff's blog

The media despised the Tea Party in its infancy, but now that they're trying to boost the "Occupy Wall Street" (OWS) movement, they're describing the latter as a liberal version of the former, without actually reporting on the hard-left Marxist underpinnings of the protests.

NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell and Fox News's Sean Hannity discussed the media's coverage of OWS plus the media's bias against rising GOP candidate Herman Cain during an October 13 "Media Mash" segment on FNC's "Hannity." You can watch the full segment in an embedded video below the page break.

October 17, 2011 will be President Obama's 1000th day in office. At the beginning of his term in office, in a February 1, 2009 interview with Matt Lauer, Obama said "If I don’t have this [economy fixed] in three years, then there’s going to be a one-term proposition."

At 1000 days in, do you think Obama will see reelection? Check out a comprehensive report card of his first 1000 days after the break and let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Economic Freedom, the group behind this successful video on the relationship between economy and quality of life, has come out with a second video on economic freedom in the world today, placing America behind nine other countries that are more economically free than us. As they explain, "for years the United States has been a world leader in economic freedom. But runaway government spending and burdensome regulations have caused a decline in economic freedom in the United States."

Do you think with the widespread media approval of continued government spending and endless regulations will contribute to further decline in American economic freedom? Check out the video after the break, and let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Tomorrow, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is meeting to consider a major postal reform plan. Postal unions across that nation have launched a national ad campaign against the reforms, and now the Oversight Committee has struck back with a video demonstrating that USPS requires reform if taxpayers are to avoid footing the bill for an eventual bailout.

Check out the video after the break, and let us know your thoughts in the comments.

"It’s an outrage that federal money has been an enabler for NPR and PBS since 1967 in their efforts to undermine conservatives and Christians," NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell complained in a statement released this morning that accompanies the release of a new Media Research Center (MRC) study detailing a comprehensive compilation of the 20 most memorable leftist excesses of National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System.

"In this current era of huge deficits, surely this is the most non-essential spending. The pattern of bias from PBS hosts and contributors is more than severe. Now is the time for Congress to finally put an end to it," the MRC founder argued.

Some of the 20 instances in the MRC’s report on NPR & PBS include:

In early May of this year, Attorney General Eric Holder told Rep. Darrell Issa's House committee that he was "not sure of the exact date" he learned of Fast and Furious, but that he "probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.

Now, CBS News has obtained documents showing that Holder was sent briefings on the controversial operation as early as July 2010, nearly a year before he claimed to Congress to have known about the gunwalking program. While the Justice Department claims that "Holder misunderstood that question from the committee – he did know about Fast and Furious – just not the details," the video of the May 4 committee meeting suggests otherwise.

Do you think the media coverage of Holder's lie to Congress will be as minimal as their coverage of the Solyndra scandal? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Even with efforts by both parties to delay early presidential primaries and caucuses, states trying to exert heavier influence on the primary outcome are again pushing their contests into early January.

Under RNC rules, only Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina are allowed to hold their primaries or caucuses before Super Tuesday. Florida announced earlier today that it will move its primary to January 31, potentially prompting the other four states to leapfrog each other to earlier dates.

Do you think Florida made the right move and should have more of an influence in picking the presidential nominee? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

In the weekly take-down of the liberal media on Fox News Channel's "Hannity" on Thursday, NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center President Brent Bozell condemned efforts to "demonize the Tea Party, to marginalize the Tea Party, to suggest that the Tea Party's extremist" simply because GOP debate audiences voiced support for the death penalty. [Audio available here]

Following a clip of CNN's Jack Cafferty asking viewers to tell him whether or not Republican primary voters were "bloodthirsty," Bozell pointed out, "...the vast majority of Americans support the death penalty for convicted murderers and terrorists. That's the reality....Only CNN finds something radically strange about somebody expressing this support."

View video after the jump

President Harry Truman signed the Housing Act in 1949, giving unprecedented power to federal, state, and local governments to reshape entire communities through the abuse of eminent domain. One method of doing so was called urban renewal, which permitted governments to destroy communities they deemed as slums, destroying approximately 2000 communities through the 1950s and '60s, and forcing 300,000 families out of their homes, often most affecting blacks.

One of the first examples of urban renewal was the destruction of six blocks of "slum" on the Upper West Side of New York. The valuable land was then contracted to private developers hand-picked by the city: members of Democratic political clubs, given as political favors, to build middle-class housing developments. With little financial incentive to build quickly, though, the buildings often sat vacant for years.

ReasonTV put together a video telling the story of the destruction of this New York City neighborhood. Check out the video after the break, and let us know your thoughts in the comments.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is speaking tonight at the Reagan Library on the theme of American Exceptionalism, and despite repeated denials that he is running for president, many hopeful Republicans are hoping for a change of heart with tonight's speech.

Former New Jersey governor and close Christie adviser, Tom Kean, maintains that Christie is "very seriously" considering a presidential bid still, while others are denying his potential run. Do you think Christie will change his mind? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Update: Click here to make your voice heard!

NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center (MRC) President Brent Bozell has issued a letter  to the heads of NBC, CBS, and ABC television networks calling on them to end their bias against GOP presidential hopefuls in their reporting and interviewing.

The MRC recently released an analysis of 53 weekday morning show interviews with either potential or declared Republican candidates from January 1 through September 15, and compared the results with our study of the same programs’ treatment of the Democratic candidates during the same time period from four years ago. The analysis revealed, among other things, that by a 5-to-1 margin, ABC, CBS and NBC morning show hosts employed an adversarial liberal agenda when questioning this year’s Republican candidates.

This latest proof of blatant bias has prompted a letter from Bozell to each of the network heads which reads in part:

During the 2008 election cycle, small donors were the symbol of President Obama's campaign. This time around, though, Obama's low approval ratings have underscored a major problem with his 2012 campaign: the growing disillusionment from his former grassroots supporters. With their disillusionment and poor economy also comes a significant drop in the number of small donations Obama is receiving.

Do you think the drop in small donations signals problems for his campaign? Or are big donors really all that matter? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

"Greece has got a 45 percent income tax, a 23 percent value-added tax on top of that, so Greece should be in fine shape according to this economic theory," NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell told Fox News's Sean Hannity on Friday, reacting to a clip of CNN's Christine Romans insisting that "serious economists" all agree that taxes must be raised on America's highest income earners.

"This is a press release by the Obama campaign," Bozell complained, adding that "cutting the size of government... capping spending" and "cutting the deficit" are options that are "off the table, not just with Obama, but with CNN."

[See video after page break]

The media "are so vested" in Obama "not being a failure that it's going to be amazing to watch the lengths they go to protect him," Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) told NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell in an exclusive for CNSNews.com earlier this week.

"There's going to be a real desperation" as the media ramp up their attacks on conservatives who are taking on the president, Walsh noted.

That's something the Illinois Republican can personally attest to, having sparred with MSNBC's Chris Matthews and Martin Bashir recently.

We've embedded the video after the page break:

The debate has been going on for a while now on Fox News Channel at a forum hosted by the Florida Republican Party. Are you watching? Post your thoughts on this thread and discuss amongst yourselves.