Kerry Picket's blog

An overlooked quote by a Michigan teenager picked up by the Associated Press regarding the murder of pro-life activist James Pouillon illustrates why many in the media are ignoring this story.:

Later on Friday students outside the high school said Pouillon was a fixture there and regularly held graphic signs of aborted fetuses.

"I can see someone spitting on him or punching him, but shooting him is pretty stupid," said 16-year-old Curtis Wisterman.

Apparently, MSNBC's Chris Matthews could not wait for the audio (courtesy of Real Clear Politics) release of the 911 call made by Harvard employee Lucia Whalen. If he did, he would have discovered she never inserted the race of the individuals she was describing during her conversation with the 911 dispatcher,  while she reported what she thought was a burglary in progress.  Her call led to the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates.  However, Mr. Matthews and his guest Michael Eric Dyson decided to attack Ms. Whalen instead on a July 21st Hardball segment. Below is a transcript:

Strong families need strong fathers, but American television has come a long way from the 1950s series "Father Knows Best."

 Now Lifetime TV, a network known for its movies about women being endangered by men, has sunk to a new low - a reality program called "Deadbeat Dads."

 In the beginning of gotcha TV, viewers enjoyed watching the police bust down a door and haul away the bad guy on a show like "Cops." That same format migrated over to Animal Planet, where the cops bust down the door and arrest the man who has been starving his dogs or kicking his cats. Now Lifetime is doing the same thing to divorced fathers.

Perhaps David Frum is jealous of all the media adoration Kathleen Parker now receives. Knowing he would be challenged on other media outlets, as he was previously on Mark Levin’s radio show, Frum appeared with MSNBC's Chris Matthews tonight.  He talked about his recent column in Newsweek titled on the magazine's cover as "A Conservative's Case Against Rush Limbaugh."

Appearing on Hardball to plug his anti-Limbaugh Newsweek article denotes that Frum knew he would be addressing not only the Obama White House but also the mainly liberal fans of MSNBC.

If Frum was truly interested in endearing his article to a right of center audience, obviously, he would have been all over Fox News before he went to MSNBC.  Just the fact that Frum wrote his piece in Newsweek and not a conservative publication will make conservatives wonder if Frum will do a political 180 a la Arianna Huffington.

Matthews jumped on the opportunity to prod Frum to say (or at least imply) that Limbaugh is a racist. (My emphasis added throughout) :  

I met up with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos at the National Capital chapter of the Society of Financial Service Professionals’ Annual Professional Night this evening and asked if he had strategy session conference calls with aides in the White House as reported by Politico’s John F. Harris. 

 Politico's Michael Calderone recently reported that Kerry Smith, ABC News Sr.VP for editorial quality, wrote  that Stephanopoulos "speaks to Mr. Emanuel, a friend he has known for nearly two decades, as a source, just as he speaks to countless sources across the political spectrum each and every day. That is his job as an anchor and reporter and one that he does according to the highest standards."

 ***UPDATE: Huffington Post just posted a retraction of the fake video story on John Gibson.-9:30 am 2/20/09-More updates below the fold.

Here is an example of how liberal lies are spread.  In the midst of  leftists attacking the New York Post over a cartoon by Sean Delonas,  The Huffington Post decided to throw its hat in the ring yesterday and wrote up a scathing attack of Fox News anchor John Gibson.   The Huffington post's Alex Leo accused Gibson of  comparing “Attorney General Eric Holder to a Monkey” during Gibson’s broadcast (H/T Johnny Dollar's Place).  HuffPo then posted a video of  the so-called crime. There is one problem, though.  The video Leo posted was doctored.  At 2:43 and 2:49 of the doctored video the same sentenced is pasted in to make it appear that Gibson is comparing Holder to a monkey.  Here is the fake video Huffington Post's Leo used to slander Gibson, and here is the real footage Fox News Channel ran.  

Below is Huffington Post writer Alex Leo’s attack referencing the fake video as authentic:

 If Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) is not trying to investigate conservatives, he is trying to squelch their voices.  Waxman has jumped into the so-called Fairness Doctrine discussion as of late.  Waxman, however, has added another dimension to the issue...the internet (h/t The Prowler).

Media Research Center's Jeff Poor spoke with FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell last year about the internet and the Fairness Doctrine.   McDowell talked about a real possibility of internet content being regulated in the near future.

According to The Prowler, Waxman and his staff are already looking at ways to police content on the web. (emphasis mine throughout)

The main stream media has done it again. I was blogging at the Republican National Committee elections on Friday, and I asked newly elected Chairman Michael Steele if the RNC would stand behind Rush Limbaugh in the midst of the attacks the radio host was getting from Democrats. The Washington Post referred to my question and Steele's response. Here is what Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post wrote:

Asked about the controversy surrounding Rush Limbaugh and his back and forth with President Barack Obama, Steele was careful not to wholly embrace the controversial conservative talk radio host. "Rush will says what Rush has to say, we will do what we have to do as a party," said Steele

Here is the actual full text question and response I had with Steele at the news presser: video

While the media talking heads are still gabbing about the greatness of President Obama’s inauguration, few, if any, are mentioning the purple inauguration ticket holders, who were stuffed thru Washington D.C.’s 3rd street tunnel hoping to see the Obama inauguration. 

A Facebook group titled “Survivors of the Purple Tunnel of Doom” is for individuals who attempted to attend the inauguration with purple tickets and their January 20th horror stories (h/t American Thinker Larrey Anderson).  Here are a few from this morning.  (my emphasis throughout:)

A poster at 1:32am wrote:

Perhaps what infuriates me most is the ongoing denial of the scale of the problem. My personal estimate is that as many as 40,000 ticket holders were trapped in the tunnel (I was one of them). My brother-in-law and I are both Californians, and Feinstein will be hearing from us.

A  reported one to two million people attended the inauguration today.  For the amount of glowing reports about how many people attended, who would have thought that certain inaugural parties are being cancelled due to lack of interest? 

 The Washington Post’s gossip columnists Roxanne Roberts and Amy Argetsinger reported today that those with official ball tickets sponsored by the Presidential Inaugural Committee will have no problems partying the night away at these affairs. 

On the other hand, if you were neither swift nor well connected enough to get an official ball ticket, attending other unofficial inaugural parties around DC could have been another option.  

Unfortunately, according to the Washington Post, many of these gatherings have become a little less expensive or are getting the shaft completely (emphasis mine:)

When the Senate Judiciary Committee questioned Eric Holder, the media ignored his personal ideological activism.  NewBusters Tim Graham recently wrote about how differently the media treated John Ashcroft’s confirmation as opposed to Holder's. 

Silence and the media are going hand in hand with the Holder confirmation.  The mainstream media is not going after Holder in regards to his involvement with the Marc Rich and FALN pardons, for example.  

The mainstream media also claimed that Ashcroft would put ideology over his duties at the Department of Justice.  Here are some clips from columnists at a PBS Online Newshour segment during Ashcroft’s 2001 confirmation hearing(emphasis mine throughout:)

The Critics' Choice Awards last night gave Hollywood celebrities the chance to congratulate themselves, Barack Obama, and take parting shots at the Bush administration.

Surprisingly, Sean Penn had no political diatribe to speak of after winning Best Actor for his role in the highly politically charged film “Milk.” However, Sarah Silverman and "John Adams" director Tom Hooper took zingers at President Bush.  Video here.

Richard Gere, after being honored with a humanitarian award for his work in Tibet, said the following:

As a follow up to a previous post of mine regarding Rachel Maddow's hissy fit over the Obama family having to endure staying at the fancy Hay-Adams Hotel, the mainstream media jumped into the mystery machine and gave themselves a bunch of Scooby snacks for finding this all important scoop.

It seems word has gotten out to the blogosphere as to who bumped the Obama family from taking temporary residence at Blair House until the all important move to the White House. 

According to the Washington Post, former Australian prime minister John Howard will be at Blair House this week (emphasis mine throughout):

President-elect Barack Obama is bringing back yet another Clinton retread. While many question former Clinton White House chief of staff Leon Panetta as the best choice to head up the CIA, due to his lack of experience in the world of intelligence, the Washington Post's David Ignatius has nothing but praise for Obama's pick.(my emphasis throughout:)

Here's the message, according to Obama's advisers: Panetta is a Washington heavyweight with the political clout to protect the agency and help it rebuild after a traumatic eight years under George Bush, when it became a kind of national pincushion.

"Leon is not going to preside over the demise of the CIA," explains one member of the Obama transition team. "The CIA needs to have someone who can represent them well."

*UPDATE BELOW THE FOLD

 MSNBC host, Rachel Maddow complained yesterday that the Obama family was stiffed by the Bush administration, because the next leader of the free world and his family, who are moving into the White House in two weeks, could not stay at Blair House due to lack of vacancies. Instead, the Obama family will stay at a fancy Washington hotel.

MADDOW: The next leader of the free world and his family arrived in DC over the weekend, and they are living in a hotel room. The Obama kids, Sasha and Malia started school today at their new school in Washington, so the family had asked to move in this weekend to Blair House which is right across the street from the White House.

President-elect Obama came to the national stage with a quip like, "There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America. There's the United States of America."

It is too bad his supporters in the media did not believe him.  Obama has not even been sworn in yet, and the mainstream media is already finding divisive ways to fan the flames of racial politics.

Michael Kranish uses some unusual comparisons pertaining to American slavery and the inauguration of Obama in a December 28th Boston Globe piece located in the news section.

Kranish begins by pointing out Obama will be sworn in on grounds that slave labor built. He reminds readers Obama will stand before a crowd where blacks were previously sold as human property(my emphasis throughout):

It has been a particularly cold winter season, and the energy issue is front and center for the Obama administration. In a surprising December 25th New York Times piece, Kate Galbraith wrote about the season's deleterious effect on alternative energy sources like wind, solar, and biodiesel.

The network news shows have yet to pick up on this story. Galbraith first tackles the issues regarding solar panels in snowy conditions(my emphasis throughout):

This time of year, wind turbine blades ice up, biodiesel congeals in tanks and solar panels produce less power because there is not as much sun. And perhaps most irritating to the people who own them, the panels become covered with snow, rendering them useless even in bright winter sunshine.

So in regions where homeowners have long rolled their eyes at shoveling driveways, add another cold-weather chore: cleaning off the solar panels. “At least I can get to them with a long pole and a squeegee,” said Alan Stankevitz, a homeowner in southeast Minnesota.

However, Galbraith still holds on to the liberal idea that the planet  is being affected by global warming, but she admits it is still “cold enough” to knock out green energy technology:

Maybe Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is looking for work in the new Obama administration? Could that have explained the cheap shot he hurled at conservatives when he discussed inauguration day security with Fox News this weekend?

CHERTOFF: We’re also looking at the possibility of a lone wolf and that doesn’t have to necessarily be a terrorist from Al Qaeda. It can be a right wing, you know, crazy nut who decides that they… because of racism or for some other reason they want to carry out an attack.

The idea of “Rest In Peace” is something that will never be extended to a conservative on a liberal web forum like DemocraticUnderground.com. The day it was announced Paul Weyrich had passed away, the vitriol was let loose on DU.  This is not the first time this site has pulled this kind of nonsense.  William F. Buckley received his share of cheap shots from DU after his passing.

 While a poster tries to remind the DU mob that “pi*sing on the guy’s grave is unseemly. Remember Paul Wellstone,” The pleading poster is promptly shut down with the reply, “Not if the only thing he did right was to die.”

Other than a few gracious token statements, the rest of the thread is chock full of hate. These DU posters said the following about Weyrich's passing:

WinkyDink: There IS a God.

UpInArms: I'm putting on my dancing shoes. Weyrich's prolly sitting next to RayGun by the fire right now

President Elect Barack Obama picked Rep. Hilda Solis (D-CA) as his Labor Secretary today. While groups like La Raza, N.O.W., and NARAL are likely to be pleased, Solis is also likely to please the liberal group Media Matters.

In late May of this year, she teamed up with Media Matters to present a report ( titled "Fear and Loathing in Prime Time/Immigration Myths and Cable News") that said cable news shows hosted by Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, and Lou Dobbs presented a negative image of “undocumented immigrants.”

Media Matters has the You Tube Video video here. At the very end of the video Solis says, “We all have to be responsible as well and make the cable companies responsible.”

On May 27th, Solis was interviewed by National Public Radio about the Media Matters report. The new censorship doctrine may very well come in the form of government-mandated diversification of media. Solis talks about wanting a more accountable media and that certain cable shows have already “incited” “hate crimes.” (my emphasis throughout:)

While the mainstream media whines that everyone should just "move on" from the Blagojevich scandal, they continue to harp on any conservative who was involved with McCain-Palin campaign. Los Angeles Times writer Tina Susman took a shot at Joe Wurzelbacher on Monday and compared him to Iraqi journalist and part-time shoe thrower Muntather Zaidi.(my emphasis throughout:)

 In the few seconds it took Iraqi journalist Muntather Zaidi to wing a pair of shoes at President George Bush, the Middle East got its own version of Joe the Plumber.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell was interviewed Sunday afternoon by CNN's Fareed Zakaria. Zakaria asked Powell about his thoughts on the Military's 1993 Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy.

ZAKARIA: Let me ask about one social issue that you were associated with, which was "don't ask, don't tell," the policy toward gay people being in the military openly. Do you feel like the country has moved to a place where we could reevaluate "don't ask, don't tell"?

The DC Capitol Visitor Center opened last week three years late and $360 million dollars over budget. The AP reported that James Billington, the librarian of Congress, said the new visitor’s center "will make the Capitol, the icon of our republic, more accessible to all of us than ever before." He also said,“It provides a splendidly presented civics lesson.”

The first place one walks into is the Hall of Emancipation where the massive Statue of Freedom stands along with Sakakawea, a member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

The exhibit hall display cases look like they were overrun by liberal interest groups. Environmentalism, healthcare, and public education groups must be pleased to have been deemed as important if not more important than our Constitution’s Bill of Rights. On the same wall as the freedom of the press display case, today’s liberal causes were also displayed. Check out the Video .

For example, a display case highlighting the conservation of the Yosemite Valley says the following:

Justice Samuel Alito was the featured keynote speaker at the American Spectator’s annual Robert L. Bartley dinner at Washington’s Mandarin Oriental hotel last night. Along with taking a crack at the new vice-president elect (h/t Politico), he also joked about the famous 2008 Obama campaign mantra of “Hope and Change.” (Eyeblast.tv has the audio uploaded here:)

 On November, 29 1967, Secretary of State [Defense] Robert McNamara resigned in protest over the war which he had personally presided over for a number of years.

On November 30th, Eugene McCarthy announced that he would seek the Democratic presidential nomination promising to restore hope and bring about change.

In another edition of, "where in the world is that Democrat party identification?" Pauline Repard of The San Diego Union Tribune made no mention what so ever that former State Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez is a California Democrat in an article about his son's recent arrest. The L.A. Times was no better either in identifying Nuñez's party affiliation. The Associated Press mentions Nuñez's party in the third paragraph from the bottom of the story.

Nuñez's son, Esteban,19, was arrested Tuesday with three other men, in connection with the stabbing death of a young collegian.

According to the article:

 

Unlike Governor Palin, President Bush did not need to be interviewed in front of a turkey slaughter for the media to attack him over turkeys. As part of an annual tradition at the White House, President Bush pardoned two fortunate turkeys, Pecan and Pumpkin, on Wednesday.

 Media outlets like MSNBC, ABC, and the Washington Post used the opportunity to make Bush look not only clownish but also useless and heartless. ABC actually titled this year’s turkey pardoning coverage: “White House Turkey Pardoning Scandal? President Forgives Turkey, Then Eats Turkey”

When the reader looks further into the article, Bush did not eat the two turkeys he just “pardoned” but simply ate turkey for Thanksgiving like the rest of the United States did.

Washington Post staff writer Manuel Roig-Franzia among others used the annual event as an opportunity to take a shot at the president(my emphasis throughout:)

President-Elect Obama’s choice for Attorney General, Eric Holder, had a 2002 interview with CNN’s Paula Zahn, (partial transcripts and stories have appeared on several sites recently including: National Review, Salon, Israpundit, and Democrats.com) where he cited a stance on terrorist detainees and their rights which was very different from not only Vice President-elect Joe Biden  but also  Obama himself  (my emphasis throughout:)

***UPDATE***NY lawmaker seeks to prevent Bush pardons of “cronies”(h/t Naked Emperor News)

Naked Emperor News has unearthed a 2007 KJFK radio interview Barack Obama gave to host Christiane Brown.  He promised that one of his first acts as president would be to call on his new Attorney General to investigate the Bush administration(emphasis is mine:)

BROWN: And when you are... if you were to be elected president of the United States, Senator Obama, do you feel that we need to look back if the investigations have been done on this administration find out what happened, because there’s a fear there’s a dangerous precedent being set... the CIA interrogation tapes missing, warrant-less wire tapping, all of these are violations of the Constitution, and people can be forgiven for thinking that it seems like we only enforce the Constitution when its politically expedient.

OBAMA: Well one of things that I’ve said, and I’ve said this repeatedly publicly, since I taught constitutional law for ten years is that...one of my first acts as president is going to be call in my new attorney general to review every single executive order that’s been issued... to overturn those that are undermining the Constitution, undermining our civil liberties, that are promoting this cockamamie theory of Unitary government, that says that somehow the executive branch does not need to obey the Constitution…uhh

(Cross talk)

 In April 1999, the Columbine High School massacre happened. The shooters, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, reportedly learned how to construct sophisticated bombs through their internet activity. This discovery caused then Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder to say the following(audio uploaded at Eyeblast.tv:)

The court has really struck down every government effort to try to regulate it. We tried with regard to pornography. It is gonna be a difficult thing, but it seems to me that if we can come up with reasonable restrictions, reasonable regulations in how people interact on the Internet, that is something that the Supreme Court and the courts ought to favorably look at. - May 28, 1999 NPR Morning Edition

William Ayers spoke to a Washington, D.C. audience tonight about his views on the American education system. The Ayers speech included slams towards Fox News and Governor Sarah Palin.

 The event was full of mostly supporters given the amount of loud applause he received. A true question and answer session never really occurred, as audience members were required to write their questions on note cards for pre-screening. Knowing organizers would only choose softball questions, I confronted Ayers with Radio Equalizer's Brian Maloney.

I asked Ayers about the dedication to Robert Kennedy’s assassin Sirhan Sirhan in his 1974 book Prairie Fire. The video is uploaded at Eyeblast.tv: