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Live chat with NB members about the RNC. Please click through below the fold

Jim Pinkerton of Fox News Watch says the MSM has a problem: groups like NewsBusters are paying attention and "nailing them" when they let their liberal bias show.

Pinkerton made his comment in an interview with NewsBusters at the RNC today.  The subject was a story NewsBusters broke this morning regarding Yahoo's Washington bureau chief David Chalian, who was caught on a hot mike saying that Mitt and Ann Romney were "happy to have a party with black people drowning."  Chalian was fired not long after the NewsBusters story broke. View the Pinkerton video after the break.

TAMPA, Florida | FreedomWorks president Matt Kibbe said Tuesday that the success of the Tea Party has the media in a bit of a panic.

Speaking with NewsBusters at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Kibbe also said press attacks on the Tea Party will probably end “the day after the election” (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

TAMPA, Florida | American Values president Gary Bauer said Tuesday, "I have never seen a media so deeply in the tank for the left and for the Democratic Party and for Barack Obama. Never."

Speaking with NewsBusters at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Bauer added, "They don’t even try to look like they’re unbiased anymore...They look like they’re a division of the Democratic National Committee" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Geraldo Rivera on Monday praised the fairness of Fox News and NewsBusters while not being so kind about how the mainstream media will cover the Republican National Convention in Tampa.

Speaking with NewsBusters about how the press will report the event, Rivera said, "We’ll be fair, you’ll be fair – we’ll leave them to their own just deserts" (video follows with commentary):

Jonathan Karl would clearly rather ask others about their politics than answer questions about his own.  In an impromptu interview at the RNC this morning, asked by NewsBuster Noel Sheppard what his politics are, an apparently uncomfortable Karl answered: "I would say fair and balanced: how about that?"  When asked in a follow up whether he thinks he is indeed fair and balanced, Karl sarcastically replied: "No. What do you think?"

Karl and his producer also seemed none too thrilled to be caught on camera by NewsBusters.  View the video after the clip.

Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann had some very kind words for NewsBusters at the Republican National Convention in Tampa Monday.

"Good to see you guys here. I read you guys all the time (video follows with commentary):

"I think there’s some real journalism left, but it’s a dying breed.”

So said ABC's Sam Donaldson during an impromptu interview with NewsBusters at the Republican National Convention in Tampa Monday (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Since Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan was announced as Mitt Romney's running mate, the situation in the various states seems to have changed a bit. Ryan's home state of Wisconsin has tightened up quite a bit, moving from solid Obama to a tossup. Mitt Romney's birth state of Michigan has also become more competitive:

"These are two of the most moronic statements I have ever heard," NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell, himself a practicing Catholic, complained after watching video of MSNBC host Martin Bashir and MSNBC contributor Jimmy Williams attacking Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as championing an "unbiblical" budget that doesn't comport to Catholic social teaching.

"Consider that one of these morons is saying that Paul Ryan's budget is unbiblical?! I mean, what book of the Bible dealt with Paul Ryan's budget?" the Media Research Center founder asked on the August 23 "Media Mash" segment, going on to note that seeing as that the Catholic Church is suing the Obama administration over the religious liberty-infringing contraception mandate, it's laughable to suggest that Joe Biden is a better Catholic. [watch the full segment below the page break]

Today's starter topic: How much credence do you give this report that President Obama is pressuring European countries to keep heavily indebted Greece in the Euro zone until after Election Day so as to not put his own re-election at risk? Would he do such a thing? And would booting Greece from the euro really have any effect on politics in this country?

A new poll by Rasmussen shows that 51 percent of voters think the media will, for the most part, attempt to help reelect President Obama rather than work to accurately and fairly report on the campaign. Only 9 percent of respondents believe the media are in the tank for Romney. That same poll found 59 percent of likely voters "believe Obama has received the best treatment from the media so far."

Filling in for Bill O'Reilly last night, conservative radio host Laura Ingraham discussed this poll and other evidence that the American public are wary of the media's liberal bias with NewsBusters senior editor/Media Research Center research director Rich Noyes. You can watch the full segment below the page break.

MRC Research Director and NewsBusters senior editor Rich Noyes appeared on FNC's The O'Reilly Factor Friday night to talk about the so-called "mainstream" media's lack of interest in news that a volunteer at D.C.-based gay group walked into the Family Research Council's offices and opened fire, wounding a security guard.

Guest host Juan Williams branded the lack of coverage "outrageous." Noyes described how if the reverse had happened -- a Christian conservative volunteer invading a liberal headquarters with 50 rounds of ammo -- the same networks that barely touched the FRC shooting would undoubtedly have provided far more intensive coverage.

Video below the jump.

Paul Ryan is radically anti-woman, anti-senior citizen, and if he and Mitt Romney are elected and ObamaCare is repealed, people will die! That, in a nutshell, is the liberal media's spin about Gov. Romney's pick of the Wisconsin Republican as his running mate, with the latter claim being made recently by MSNBC political analyst Jonathan Alter, formerly of Newsweek.

"That sleazeball did exactly accuse Romney of murder!" NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell exclaimed on the August 16 Hannity program, adding that by Alter's logic, it would be the majority of Americans who voted for Romney's presidency who would be complicit in "murder." "Where is that talk... where is the discussion of civility? Where are those high-minded people talking about civility now?" the Media Research Center founder asked. [watch the full "Media Mash" segment in the video embedded below]

One of the persistent themes on the campaign trail for many liberals is the idea, best exemplified by President Obama's "you didn't build that" remark and also the anti-capitalist rants of Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, that people who work hard for a living somehow are undeserving of their success. That attitude likely originates from the mistaken belief that cronyism, collusion between private industry and government, is capitalism.

Unfortunately, more cronyism is the inevitable product of the expansion of the regulatory state. The more power bureaucrats and politicians have over business, the more likely business is to become interested in synergy with the government. Below the fold is a video from the Crony Chronicles, a new website which looks to spread awareness of this growing problem.

While the media "are treating him as a serious and substantive person," they are erroneously tagging Romney running mate Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) "as a budget slasher," which is patently false, NewsBusters senior editor Tim Graham told Fox Business Network's Stuart Varney this morning.

"There isn't any slashing [in the Ryan plan]. There's a reduction in [the rate of] growth" of government, the Media Research Center director of media analysis noted. [watch the full segment below]

It looks like former Alabama congressman Artur Davis has completed his transition from Democrat to Republican. Davis, the first congressman not from Illinois to endorse President Barack Obama during his candidacy will help the Republican Party continue a recent tradition of featuring Democrats and former Democrats at its nominating convention, the party announced today.

Davis also has come forward to attack vice president Joe Biden's offensive statement that Republicans want to put black Americans "back in chains" in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer:

According to a news release from the Mitt Romney presidential campaign, the soon-to-be Republican nominee will announce his running mate later today.

Word has it that the likely pick is Wisconsin representative Paul Ryan although such predictions have been known to be wrong in the past. In 2008, Minnesota's Tim Pawlenty was expected to be John McCain's running mate. Who do you think it will be?

Discuss the news of the day or whatever else suits your fancy...

Bill O'Reilly and commentator Bernard Goldberg on Monday night touted a new Media Research Center study that found 86 percent of stories on Mitt Romney's international trip emphasized "diplomatic blunders." Goldberg derided the soft coverage Barack Obama receives, asserting, "...Journalists are Barack Obama's most loyal base. They will not abandon him." [See video below.]

He added that reporters have "too much invested in [Obama]." Describing the MRC's study, The O'Reilly Factor anchor marveled, "86 percent of all the media coverage on Mitt Romney's overseas trip was negative. Eighty-six percent."

More than 20 conservative leaders joined Media Research Center president Brent Bozell in raising their voices in support of religious freedom and our Constitutionally protected right to free speech as part of the Coalition Against Religious Bigotry (CARB).

The leaders said the controversy over Chick-fil-A exposed the rampant anti-Christian bias and First Amendment double standard characteristic of liberal media in several ways:

NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell appeared on Thursday night's Hannity and angrily denounced the big three networks for trashing Mitt Romney's foreign trip, what Bozell called "a clear-cut example of an agenda to kneecap" the presumptive Republican nominee. During the "Media Mash" segment, Bozell cited a new MRC report that found an astonishing 86 percent of stories about Romney's international visit wallowed in supposed "gaffes." (See Bozell's statement on the subject here.)

While in London, Romney highlighted Olympic security problems.  Bozell exposed, "The very same thing that Mitt Romney was accused of gaffing about is exactly what Brian Williams reported as news one week before." "It's shocking," the MRC president added.

In a press conference yesterday, Representative Jim Hensarling (R-Texas) said he believed that President Barack Obama has been a historic failure, not seen since the Great Depression.

“You have to go back to the Great Depression to find a president whose policies have failed more this economy and the American people than Barack Obama,” said Hensarling. Do you agree or disagree?