The Associated Press today wins first place for the most misleading headline in the MSM by saying that a study shows that Jon Stewart's Comedy Central "The Daily Show" show is somehow "a lot like" Bill O'Reilly's "The O'Reilly Factor." The Thursday May 8 report is flippantly headlined, "Study of 'Daily Show': It's a lot like O'Reilly," but the following report does not exactly confirm the headline. It appears that the AP's distorted headline was meant to equate "The O'Reilly Factor" to comedy in order to impugn the serious character of the hit Fox show and make of it but an exercise in comedy.

There is a news report starting to make the rounds amongst the MSM on a study that claims to have discovered why conservatives tend to be happier than liberals and it is just the sort of bilge that the MSM loves to promulgate. We may see more of it over the next several days because, while it is titled "Conservatives Happier Than Liberals," it is basically saying that the reason conservatives are happier is because they just don't care about other people. This purported research claims to pinpoint the reason conservatives are happier and it is because they have theirs and they don't care if everyone else is poor and downtrodden. In contrast they claim liberals are less happy because they care more about people and are all heartbroken that people suffer "inequalities."

Yes, they are telling us that if you're a happy conservative, it's because you are a hateful, meanie. Thank you New York University.

The San Francisco Chronicle and the various demagogue politicians of Berkeley and Oakland, California should really be ashamed of themselves for ginning up into sensational "raids" a few arrests by ICE agents and making of them actions designed to empty those community's schools of children. In reality a few routine U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in those cities occurred yesterday that had nothing to do with school children. Yet, these politicians shamelessly ran about the countryside waving their arms, serving grave warnings to ICE about their supposed targeting of school children, and ginning up parents with the false bravado of standing athwart ICE's "harassment and fear." But, with all the running about like Chicken Little claiming the ICE is falling, no raids either occurred or were even planned. To top it off, the San Francisco Chronicle reports the incident as the "fear across the communities" being "real" instead of correctly noting that these pandering pols in office made much ado about nothing just to inflate their own importance.

Apparently ICE made a few arrests at some homes in Berkeley and Oakland and that somehow sent a "wave of panic among parents" who were fooled into believing that ICE officers were about to raid all the schools in the area to snap up illegals for deportation.

**Video added below the fold**

**UPDATE: Penguins Edited Out of Report!**

A 15-year-old British girl named Camilla Hempleman-Adams is being hailed as a "hero" for trekking across the ice floes of the North Pole to become one of the youngest women to explore the frozen world of the penguin... well, at least as far as MSNBC is concerned. In their report on the feat of endurance, MSNBC had a shot (about a minute into the video) of penguins on an ice floe. Only one little problem: penguins don't live at the North Pole. Oopsie.

So, the question remains; if these people can't even get a simple fact like that correct, how can we believe them that global warming is destroying the world? If they don't even know where the penguin lives, how can we believe their "science" that states the world is doomed with global warming?

It's amusing how far some people will go not to give someone credit for something they have done especially if that deserving someone happens to be an ostensible political enemy. In this case we find CBS discussing Republican crossover voters in these primaries, the network newser telling us how crossovers will "skew primary results," and then they tell us who is responsible for egging on these crossovers. Now, for those of you in the know, you'd automatically assume that CBS is talking about radio host Rush Limbaugh who has been carrying on his "operation chaos" program to encourage Republican voters to re-register as Dems to vote for Hillary, right?

Not to CBS. No, CBS has decided that the real story is that what we have here is "right-wing radio commentators" and "the bloggers" are who is responsible for "operation chaos." But, in truth, few other radio people are pushing their listeners to re-register and no high profile conservative blogger I know of is doing so either. The whole thing is the brainchild of Rush Limbaugh, not "right-wing radio commentators" -- commentators as in plural, more than one.

CBS is bending over backwards in order NOT to mention Limbaugh's name so as not to give him publicity, apparently. But, it simply is not factual to say that "right-wing radio commentators" are responsible for this crossover voting effort when it is basically ONE "right-wing radio commentator." This spiteful avoidance of naming Limbaugh makes their report factually incorrect.

I always find it amazing when writers in the mainstream press seem to have so little knowledge of America and its history. Of course, I suppose that being blissfully ignorant of US history does help paper over their betrayal, substituting the feeling that they can maintain allegiance to American "ideals" as they attempt to advocate for the sort of socialist/communist vision that they want America to become, quite despite its true character and principles. Heck, if you don't know you are betraying your own country, you can't be ashamed of yourself for it, right? In any case, here we have another prime example of such a betrayal by The New York Times' Thomas Friedman from his May 4 piece where he has decided that America is finished, done, kaput. And guess what? It's all George W. Bush's fault -- shocking, I know.

Freidman imagines that he has found the pulse of the people and he has found that they are aching for nation building. Not nation building in Iraq or Afghanistan, but in the USA. He says we have little to show for our efforts in Iraq, that "we’re just not that strong anymore." He also claims that we have no "leverage" in Iran.

Heck, he should know. After all he and his paper have been attempting to foster these very situations for 8 years. If what Friedman is saying is true, then he and his anti-American paper deserve hearty congratulations for their success at nation destroying -- ours.

On May 2, the Associated Press uncritically reported that an effort to clarify where "evangelicals" stand in the culture/political war in America is soon to be released. It is to be called "An Evangelical Manifesto" and is touted by the AP as a statement by "evangelicals" that "faith is now too political." That isn't all. The AP is claiming that it isn't just Christian leaders in general that are saying this but that it is "conservative Christian leaders" who are standing up and denouncing politics in religion. But a little investigation proves that "conservative leaders" is not a very good description of those who have signed onto this "manifesto." In fact, many of the most well-known conservative Christian leaders in the country have decided not to sign onto the "manifesto" and many more weren't even consulted or included in the creation of this highly political document that pretends it stands against politics.

Sadly, this "manifesto" that is claiming to want to take religion back from its political involvement is itself a political statement, one that was created by people that refused to include Christian leaders from the right side of the political spectrum. This so-called "manifesto" seems to be just another attempt by the political left to undermine the devotion of Christians to the political right.

Well, we've played "Name That Party" so often that it is getting to be old hat. How many times have we seen it where the MSM refuses to mention that a Democrat is the troubled politician in the news? We've also said many times that if only that criminal politician were a Republican, why we'd get the party mentioned ASAP. We say it and accept the claim as fact, but we don't often focus on examples to prove our case. Our detractors point to that and say "prove it!"

Call this one more example of proof.

It seems that Mike Krusee a REPUBLICAN State Representative from Williamson County, Texas got himself pulled over after a night of hittin' the hooch. Of course, we know he is a Republican because the MSM fell all over itself to let us know the fact. Curiously, Krusee is the same fellow who helped up the fines for drunk driving in the state house, the MSM also let us know.

Laura Bush, docile doormat: Behold, the ideal Republican wife: Prim, sexless, nearly useless, lets the men do the real thinkin'. Hot!

Yes, that was the headline and subhead for Mark Moford's column in the San Francisco Chronicle today. Not only does the very title of this screed of ignominious proportions rip into the first lady for no worthy reason, Moford also says that being a Catholic woman is "unfortunate." Shamefully, he also calls the Bush daughters their "twin Styrofoam peanut daughters," so it isn't just Laura Bush he unduly attacks. It's been a long time since a major newspaper has published a so-called editorial with this much vitriol contained within.

Moford tries to explain why conservative women find themselves raising an eyebrow at loudmouthed women like Teresa Heinz Kerry and Hillary Clinton (when she was first lady) but he completely mischaracterizes why people react to them the way they do as mere distaste of their gauche personalities as opposed to opposition to their ideologies and a feeling that such women overstep their boundaries.

The Taliban suffered a big loss in Pakistan/Afghanistan this month and so did al Qaeda in Iraq, but the MSM has been practically silent on these great successes. It only goes to show that the media is so completely sold on the claim that the war is lost that they aren't interested in doing any real reporting on the war.

Not only has Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki headed up a brilliantly successful attack on rebel leader and Iranian backed Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi army in Basra, but it seems that Maliki's hard-line against Sadr has convinced Iraq's main Sunni block to return to their places in the Iraqi government. Sadr has called for a ceasefire between forces loyal to him and the Iraqi government. At this point, al-Maliki seems poised on a breakthrough in Iraqi affairs that could lead to more involvement and less bloodshed. This is all something that few expect possible only a few months ago.

The western press has reported the information above widely, if not enthusiastically, but that isn't the only good news in Iraq. What seems to have been given short shrift is the fact that al Qaeda has been severely hurt in Iraq, even "decapitated."

Dick Polman is a long time Philly columnist and extreme left-winger that rarely makes any attempt to seem "fair and balanced," so it isn't surprising that his latest attempt at prescient punditry is a plaintive plea for the Democrats to chill out and just get along so that they can beat the "septuagenarian" McCain. But, his piece is so filled with horribly misconstrued historical analysis that it is hard to let him slide and mark it up solely as another forgettable example of the kind of partisan claptrap most of his work turns out to be. But, with the sort of half informed historical analysis he indulges in to cajole people to vote for the Democrats, this latest piece is too dishonest to just let it slide by. If anything calls for a fisking, this one does.

Polman starts his lamentably bad history lesson with this taunt to the Democrats.

If the Democrats somehow contrive to blow this presidential election, they should be consigned to the dustbin of history - or to a display case at the Smithsonian, where perhaps they can share space with the Whigs.

To which I say, heck, if the Democrats weren't consigned to the dustbin of history after supporting slavery, starting a civil war, losing that war after 620,000 Americans died, supporting Jim Crow, supporting Japanese internment, continuing to support Jim Crow, fighting civil rights, and building a failed and expensive socialist state, a little primary fight between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton is certainly not going to do them much harm!

College textbooks are overpriced and something should be done. Why, Congress should even step in! That is the message that The New York Times wants us to understand and I can't say it is, in and of itself, entirely the wrong message -- save the whole bit about Congress stepping in, of course. But, as is typical of The New York Times, their story is only a small part of the whole story. In their exuberance to shake a finger at book manufacturers and in their hurry to blame capitalism the Times missed the bigger story.

The Times reports that "College students and their families are rightly outraged about the bankrupting costs of textbooks that have nearly tripled since the 1980s." They also report that a bill is pending in Congress that would "require publishers to sell 'unbundled' versions of the books..." This, the Times feels, is the right move to solve the problem. Any first year economics student, however, knows there is far more to it than just slapping more regulations on book publishers.

The Daily Record in Baltimore, Maryland recently published a story by Brendan Kearney that oddly seems to present a conflict between a bank employing Islamic Shari'ah law with its American investments and some black American borrowers and painting it as a racist issue. Sadly, the real story, that of Islamic law being imposed on American investors, is sidelined in order to pursue the race card. (Full story reprinted at BlackEnterprise.com)

As The Record reports, a black couple in Baltimore -- I identify their race because it is pivotal to how The Daily Record reports the story -- had contracted with the Church's Chicken restaurant chain to open a new outlet in Baltimore. Unfortunately for the entrepreneurial couple, as they were investing in their chicken outlet, Church's Chicken was purchased by Crescent Capital Investments Inc., the US affiliate of the Bahrain-based First Islamic Investment Bank BSC. And, upon the restaurant chain's purchase, these new Islamic corporate owners decided to institute Shari'ah laws upon their investments.

This caught the Beasleys new restaurant in a tough spot because pork products were on the morning breakfast menu for the Church's Chicken chain. Because Shari'ah law principles had been imposed on the Beasleys' new restaurant, they would be barred from serving their breakfast menu items, their corporate owners informed them. This barring from being able to serve their breakfast items, the couple maintains, contributed to the restaurant's failure and their eventual bankruptcy.

The issue of illegal immigration has seemed to drift from the front pages of the news, of late, but the AP is not finished trying to advocate for law breakers everywhere, it seems. On April 25, the Associated Press posted a story that serves as a perfect example of how the wire service aims their reporting to support illegal immigration in the United States. In "Arizona sheriff stirs furor with crackdown on illegals," all the negative framing of the issue is used against Sheriff Joe Arpaio's efforts to curb illegal immigration and those who stand against him are constantly given the benefit of the doubt with neutral or positive language describing their actions. Additionally, whenever illegals are mentioned they are presented as victims, one "afraid" immigrant even being quoted as calling our immigration officials "the devil."

The subject of the story is Sheriff Arpaio's recent "crackdown" on illegal immigrants in his jurisdiction of Maricopa County, Arizona. After Federal training was given to his officers, the sheriff began a series of sweeps across the county to detain illegal immigrants. His actions are completely legal and not a single case of abuse by the sheriff's officers has been reported -- a fact that the AP story doesn't bother to mention until the 20th paragraph of the 22 paragraph story.

The list of Barack Obama associates that hold views that clash with mainstream America is getting longer every day and now we can add another notch in the "anti-American" column of Obama campaign workers and supporters. This time we find that the Obama campaign's official blogger, Sam Graham-Felsen, has spent time in France participating in labor riots, has written for a socialist magazine, hung a communist flag in his home, and was a fan of Marx while at Harvard.

Is this a case of the media not vetting another Obama associate? Why have we not heard of this man before and why is the media silent on him? After the stories of John Edwards' anti-Catholic bloggers, you'd think that the media would have been on the lookout for campaign blogger related stories. Yet, this guy and his questionable past has been ignored by the same media that tried to give Edwards' bloggers a pass.

Looks like the daughter of the West Virginia's Democratic governor has gotten herself into a bit of a scandal with an unearned, politically awarded college degree from West Virginia University. A panel to review allegations that the woman didn't really earn that degree was convened and it was determined that she just does not qualify to get that degree that was awarded her by "High-ranking academic officers" at the school. Naturally, no report mentions that Gov. Joe Manchin is a member of the Democratic Party and that HE was the one that appointed the school's officials.

It seems that at the school, highly placed friends of the Democratic governor were trying to cover for the Guv's daughter who claimed for several years that she had a degree when she did not. Heather Bresch was suddenly awarded an MBA from WVU nearly a decade after she left the school and after the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette called the University to check on the woman's degree.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, film director Paul Verhoeven is soon to release a book that is claimed to be a new "biography" of Jesus Christ. In this new publication, Verhoeven feels that he successfully proves that Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ, was raped by a Roman soldier during the Jewish uprising in Galilee and the boy Jesus was the result of that attack. No virgin birth for Christ, but instead a rape.

Verhoeven is best known as the director of the films "Basic Instinct," the Arnold Schwarzenegger film "Total Recall," as well as the spectacular flop "Showgirls." The Dutch director reports that he's had a "lifelong ambition" to make a movie about Jesus and hopes this book will spur interest in his film ideas. Verhoeven spent 20 years writing the tome and this has led Catholic League President Bill Donohue to scoff at the claims as being overwrought and unproven even with 20 years of research. Donohue says they are "laughable" claims and wonders why 20 years of research only led to a claim that Christ is "probably" descended from a rapist.

True to the liberal penchant for blaming every ill in the world on the USA, ABC News has produced a "report" claiming that the increasing number of guns and drug cartel violence in Mexico is all the fault of... the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That's right, it isn't the drug dealers and killers in Mexico that are at fault, it's James Madison and the Founding Father's fault! Now, before you imagine that I am employing hyperbole in my introduction, just look at the title of their piece: "U.S. Guns Arming Mexican Drug Gangs; Second Amendment to Blame?"

ABC wrote that "U.S. gun stores and gun shows are the source of more than 90 percent of the weapons being used by Mexico's ruthless drug cartels," but then noted that "It's virtually impossible to buy a firearm in Mexico as a private citizen." To anyone really thinking about it, this fact sort of confirms the pro-gun bromide that "if you make owning a gun a crime, only criminals will have guns," doesn't it?

If they had a reality show for international politicians called "Biggest Loser" the most popular nominee for the title would be Mikhail Gorbachev, the man that lost his whole country, not merely an election. Yet, every once in a while and for some untenable reason, this communist loser is trotted out by the US media as some sort of expert on international politics. Unsurprisingly, his opinion is always sought to act as an attack on a Republican politician or policy. This time it is the All Headline News service trotting out old spotty in order to wag a finger at GOP presidential candidate John McCain.

Back on March 18th, McCain reiterated his idea of creating a new international organization styled as a "League of Democracies." McCain imagines this organization as a chance to renew the commitment of the world's democratic nations to the concept of helping others grow as well as lending more support to those already so formed.