Liz Thatcher's blog

Kanye West’s new song, launched on May 17, compared consumerism to slavery. “What you want, a Bentley? Fur coat? A diamond chain?” he rapped. “New slaves.”

In his nearly two minute long song, West ranted about corporations and consumerism. “F*** you and your corporations,” he rapped. “I know that we the new slaves.”

Former Secretary of Defense and CEO, Donald Rumsfeld has a brand new book focused on business, politics and more.

In “Rumsfeld’s Rules: Leadership Lessons in Business, Politics, War, and Life,” released on May 14, Rumsfeld expounded on capitalism, and why we need more people to defend it in our society. “I suppose if more business leaders defended capitalism, there might not be quite as many smiling photos with politicians,” he wrote.

On the May 5, 2013, edition of C-SPAN 2’s “In Depth,” British journalist Melanie Phillips spoke candidly of her new autobiography “Guardian Angel: My Story, My Britain” and pointed out the flaws in liberal group think.

Phillips spent 20 years working at Britain’s left-wing The Guardian where she finally realized that many journalists were out of touch. She explained how journalists see the conclusion first, and then distort evidence and facts to prove their point. “There are quite a number of people who … start with the conclusion and say let’s make the facts fit the conclusion.”

Philosopher George Santayana once said “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” In regards to socialism, the media has turned a blind eye to the more than 100 million victims of the ideology. In fact, May 1 actually marks a socialist holiday – International Workers’ Day, or May Day.

“Socialist” is a word often used in conjunction with President Obama, but seldom explained by the major media. During the White House Correspondents Dinner, the president even joked that “I'm not the strapping young Muslim Socialist that I used to be.” It might be a joke to the president, but to millions who have lived under socialism, it has been a nightmare.

Two years ago, Jimmy McMillan ran for New York governor and became a viral sensation, with more than 7 million Youtube views.  Now the creator of The Rent is Too Damn High party is running for New York City mayor and has expanded his platform is his new rap anthem video.

In the first 30 seconds of his video, the news reporter declared that rent in New York is at an all time high. “Critics say Bloomberg has failed.” McMillan pointed out that mayor’s economic record is one of failure.

Five U.S. gun control groups have received almost $7 million combined from liberal billionaire George Soros, including the most prominent one, the Brady Campaign.

The Soros contributions to these five groups total an astounding $6,727,966 between 2000 and 2011.

On April 8, President Obama spoke yet again on the issue of gun violence in Connecticut, only an hour away from the Newtown massacre. NBC, ABC, and CBS all ran stories on this speech. While the media have continually attacked the gun industry and promoted stricter gun control than even the administration, they conveniently ignored new tax plans being implemented and proposed in five different states. 

These taxes will raise the price on guns and ammo, punishing law-abiding citizens for their gun ownership, and ultimately make it harder to exercise Second Amendment rights. 

Occupy Wall Street is still alive and kicking to director Uwe Boll and actor Dominic Purcell. Even though the OWS movement didn’t even last for a full year, Boll had decided to make a film depicting an outsider violently attacking and murdering Wall Street Executives.

“Assault on Wall Street,” set to be released in limited theaters on May 10, 2013, depicts a man who decided to get his life back after the market crash by strapping on a mask, entering a bank with bombs and guns, and blowing the bank to smithereens while killing lots of people. 

The Supreme Court of Indiana ruled unanimously that their state’s voucher program was constitutional, much to the chagrin of Washington Post blogger Valerie Strauss. “It isn’t the first time a supreme court has made a questionable call,” she wrote in her March 26 Answer Sheet post.

According to Strauss, voucher programs are bad for several reasons. First, she is quite offended that families can choose to use their funds at private religious schools who teach “anti-scientific notions” like creationism. Her article made no room for school voucher proponents, nor did it include any pro-voucher arguments.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s controversial ban of large soda and sugary drinks was overturned March 11, yet the liberal media continued to promote such a ban.

NBC portrayed Bloomberg’s law as a noble fight for the health of New Yorkers. CNN “Starting Point” anchor Soledad O’Brien threw away her objectivity in an interview by announcing she had been a “long supporter” of the soda ban. CNN host Piers Morgan also chimed in support for the overturned law. But MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski had a complete meltdown, referencing it as a “serious issue” and calling sugar “poison” four times and “toxic” twice.

Since the tragedy at Sandy Hook, the media have come out with guns blazing against firearms and the business that sell or produce them. The broadcast networks’ coverage of the gun industry has been no exception.

Between Dec. 14, 2012, and Feb. 22, 2013, the evening news shows on all three networks attacked the gun industry and gun businesses three times as often as they defended them. Altogether, there were 44 attacks compared to just nine pro-industry interviews and 12 statements in defense of gun business and the industry during the same time period.

The George Soros-funded eco-news outlet Grist attacked Beef Products Inc (BPI). In its March 6 blog titled “Pink-slime Maker’s Lawsuit Against ABC Grows Slimier” Grist writer Susie Cagle bashed the company’s lean beef as “uber-gross” and inaccurately described it as “ammonia-soaked.”

Cagle went on to complain that “I’d be bitter, too, if I were Beef Products, Inc.” According to Cagle, a BPI win against ABC would be “chilling for reporting on industrial food,” as opposed to encouraging more professional and accurate news coverage.

USA Today highlighted a study on gun violence, giving it top billing on its front page March 5. The headline read: “Gun Violence Annual Cost: $12 Billion.” But the USA Today story didn’t give any indication of the left-wing inclinations of the group behind that study.

The Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, or PIRE, is a Maryland based advocacy group that is anti-alcohol, anti-tobacco, and in its latest study, anti-gun. The $28 million non-profit organization is also financially connected to left-wing donor George Soros. PIRE has received funding through the Tides Foundation, which itself is a Soros-funded organization.

With the sequester looming, the impending budget cuts have got the left screaming the end of the world is just around the corner. In a blog published on Feb. 27, co-founder, CEO, and Editor-in-Chief Henry Blodget predicted that our economy was “crappy” because of cutting back government spending. He also posed that this was the problem with European countries like Greece and England.

The problem, according to Blodget is that “we reduce economic growth” which then will “put more people out of work” when there are government spending cuts. Oddly absent from this article was any mention of how increased taxes affect businesses and consumer spending.

Just when we thought Occupy Wall Street was over, DC Comics decided to resurrect and give it new life. In a new comic book series set to release in May titled “The Movement,” readers will be able to “Meet the 99%… They were the super-powered disenfranchised — now they’re the voice of the people!”

In an interview with Wired Magazine’s Graeme McMillan, “The Movement” writer Gail Simone explained the vision behind the series. “It’s a book about power.” She went on to elaborate on how essential information and the internet were to her vision. “Because the sources of that information are so dispersed and nameless, it’s nearly impossible to shut down.”

The release of Apple’s iPhone was a godsend, or so thought J.P. Morgan’s chief economist Michael Feroli. In September of 2012, the release month of the latest version of Apple’s iPhone, NBC, CBS, and ABC all reported Feroli’s prediction that the sales from the iPhone 5 could boost U.S. GDP by a quarter or half of a percent.

But the recent drop in GDP by .1 percent and Apple’s own stock drop have showed that predictions sometimes don’t come true. Unfortunately, not one of the networks has pointed that out.

Do you have an extra $20? You could end poverty for one person according to a new report by international rights group and charity Oxfam. On Jan. 20, Al Jazeera cheered about this new study. Both Oxfam and al Jazeera failed to actually work out the math of this new claim to realize how ridiculous this “study” actually was.

Al Jazeera claimed that with the income of the world’s 100 richest billionaires, it would be enough to “end world extreme poverty four times over.” So let’s do the math, since Al Jazeera and Oxfam refused to do it for themselves.

At one time, newspapers were America’s source for news and current events. Today it’s a completely different story. While President Obama has declared a push to ban or limit types of guns, the nation’s major newspapers are nearly unanimous in their support of gun control. The New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today and other most-popular papers led the list.

The consistent theme of almost every gun editorial from Dec. 15, 2012 to Jan. 11, 2013, was that stricter gun laws were needed, and semi-automatic rifles should be completely banned from civilian use. Some newspapers were even more aggressive.

The gun industry can’t do anything right … at least, that’s what the average citizen would think if they paid attention to the media. On Jan. 15, the Associated Press even attacked a gun industry trade show.

That same day, the annual Shooting Hunting and Outdoor Trade Show opened in Las Vegas.  Only a limited number of media credentials were allowed in the show – if you consider 2,000 credentials to be “limited.” According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the show expects one in 30 attendees to be press. Yet the AP complained the “show was closed to the public and was covered by a limited number of reporters and photographers.”

Oscar winning “documentary” film-maker Michael Moore is no stranger to activism. On Jan. 9, Moore told the AP that he was “heartbroken” that his 2002 pro-gun control documentary “Bowling for Columbine” had not moved the nation to make more strides toward gun control.

He continued by prescribing his “solution” that included gun bans and licensing. “The short term solution is we have to ban the assault weapons, ban the semiautomatic weapons, ban the magazines that can hold more than ten bullets. That's it. That should be the bottom line of what we need to start with," he argued.  “We are a violent people. We as Americans believe it’s OK to kill people,” he added.

The media agenda against guns is nothing new. But recent mass shootings have encouraged supposedly neutral journalists to push for gun regulation instead of reporting the facts surrounding the tragedies.

One thing the media seldom mention is that both the Newtown and Aurora shootings occurred in gun free zones. In the Clackamas Town Center Shooting in Oregon, however, a gunman was stopped when someone with a concealed carry permit intervened. There were only two casualties in this shooting which received little media attention. If this incident was mentioned, the concealed carry part of the story was almost completely ignored.

If Hollywood doesn’t like something, then clearly state legislators should react. At least that’s what Dave Fehling, NPR’s StateImpact Texas reporter suggested. StateImpact is a “reporting project of local public media and NPR,” and has many financial backers including George Soros (through his Open Society Foundations).

“Chances may be better this time around that the Texas legislature might actually strengthen regulation of oil and gas drilling by the Texas Railroad Commission,” he wrote on the StateImpact  website that accompanied his radio story aired on Dec. 18, 2012.

Few wealthy individuals are demonized as much as Charles and David Koch. The brothers, who are worth $31 billion each, have been targets of the left and the news media, but in a rare interview in the Dec. 24 edition of Forbes Magazine showed much more about the them than the typical media mention of the Kochs.

The Kochs are the big funders of conservative and libertarian-leaning groups and politicians, something liberals can’t stand. But what most people may not know is that the left despises the brothers so much that the pair get death threats.

Nobel prize winning liberal economist Paul Krugman, who has often argued that President Obama’s $831 billion stimulus was too small, has now decided he knows what’s good for everyone’s health (besides government-controlled healthcare). His health advice? “Don’t spend much time watching CNBC” because it is “bad for your financial and intellectual health.”