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Think those advancing anthropogenic global warming theories are serious about their views? Well, an article from Sunday’s Telegraph should scare every person around the world about the zealotry and danger surrounding this issue (emphasis mine throughout):

Scientists who questioned mankind's impact on climate change have received death threats and claim to have been shunned by the scientific community.

They say the debate on global warming has been "hijacked" by a powerful alliance of politicians, scientists and environmentalists who have stifled all questioning about the true environmental impact of carbon dioxide emissions.

Shocked? Astounded? That’s only the beginning:

Brent Bozell's culture column this week unfolds the new polling numbers for the MRC's Culture and Media Institute on the American people's impression of moral decline and the media's role in it:

A new cultural-values survey of 2,000 American adults performed by the polling firm of Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates for the Culture and Media Institute reveals a strong majority, 74 percent, believes moral values in America are weaker than they were 20 years ago. Almost half, 48 percent, agree that values are much weaker than they were 20 years ago.

Former “Nightline” anchor Ted Koppel was one of Tim Russert’s guests on Sunday’s “Meet the Press.” As amazing as it might seem, he made some truly shocking and compelling statements about the Iraq war and the war on terror that virtually no Democrat or media member is willing to accept or report:

• First, Koppel made it clear that America’s premature departure from Iraq would turn the entire Persian Gulf region into a battlefield between Sunnis and Shia, “something the United States cannot allow to happen”
• Second, he said the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are part of the war on terror that “has been going on for the past 24 years” starting when “the precursors of Hezbollah blew up the U.S. marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon” in 1983 
• Finally, he stated that America’s departure from Iraq and Afghanistan, regardless of when it occurs, will not represent the end of this battle, but, instead, that it is just “going to be a different war” after that point. 

Here are the shocking excerpts in chronological order (MSN video available here with segment 1 at minute 14:10, segment 2 at minute 19:00, and segment 3 here. Update: Dan Riehl has all three quotes edited together in one video here):

The Newsweek feature BeliefWatch has become a true intersection of left-wing ideology and non-traditional religious beliefs. Except of course when it comes to bashing conservative Christians. Then it sticks right with the media’s low standards.

The March 19 BeliefWatch by Lisa Miller called James Dobson of Focus on the Family the “religious right's standard-bearer and junkyard dog.” Miller bashed “Dobson's Lear-like fury” for daring to criticize allegedly eco-evangelist Rich Cizik, “the Washington-based lobbyist for the National Association of Evangelicals.”

Dobson complained that Cizik wasn’t representing evangelicals about the religion of the moment – the environment. But Miller saw red instead of green and said Dobson’s real agenda wasn’t religion – it was politics. “In other words, he’s thought to be a Democratic sympathizer, and in an election season, displays of evangelical unity are critical,” she said of “tree hugger” Cizik.

As the Managing Editor of Fox News Channel's Washington, DC bureau, you might have thought Brit Hume would have taken great umbrage at John Edwards' high-profile decision to spurn a debate of Dem presidential contenders that Fox had organized for August in Nevada. The Edwards pull-out ultimately led to a cancellation of the debate by the Nevada state Democratic party. Edwards had come under pressure from liberal netroots and organizations such as Move.on, which had organized a petition drive calling for cancellation of the debate.

But in a fair-and-balanced comment reflecting an appreciation of real politik, Hume has praised Edwards' move as "shrewd" -- at least in the short run. During the panel discussion on this morning's Fox News Sunday, Hume observed:

Without a lot of breaking news out there this morning, why not pass some of today's 23 hours with an exhilirating session of one of our favorite games, WIARHSI, which as regular readers know stands for "What if a Republican Had Said It?"

Check out this paragraph from a Newsday article that reports on a Hillary campaign event in Nashua, New Hampsire:

"The former first lady, referring to New Hampshire's roster of female Democratic officials, quipped, 'I don't know about you, but I like seeing women in charge.'"

For purposes of WIARHSI, let's imagine that a Republican had made the mirror-image comment: "I don't know about you, but I like seeing men in charge." Fair to say that the feminist howls of outrage would soon be echoing from sea to shining sea? But what are the odds that Hillary's blatant appeal to sexist solidarity will cause even the smallest ripple in the MSM?

Note how Newsday tries to cover for Hillary, casting her comment as a mere "quip." Real side-splitter!

With the recent announcement by CBS that they have made ex-Clinton friend Rick Kaplan the new Executive Producer of the CBS Evening News, it was eyebrow raising that another fawning pal has suddenly been ensconced in a "new" position at an American news service.

The AP has announced that long time Clinton friend, Ron Fournier, is joining the newswire service to act as the watchdog for "accountability and governing".

Original caption:

Pedestrians walk past the main entrance to the Washington Post, Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2007, in Washington.

A front-page article in today's Los Angeles Times (Saturday, March 10, 2007) trumpets that an "Evangelical Agenda Fight is Heating Up." The piece is by Stephanie Simon, whose slanted coverage we've once cited here. Among the number of problems in Simon's latest piece:

1. In the article, Simon tags James Dobson of Focus on the Family as a "conservative crusader." Fair enough. But the Rev. Jim Wallis, who openly advised Democrats and Sen. Kerry during the 2004 campaign (here), avoids any "liberal" tag. He is simply identified as the "best-known champion of such causes" as "citizenship for illegal immigrants, universal healthcare and caps on carbon emissions." Wallis and some other pastors want to expand the evangelical agenda to include issues such as global warming.

Of the broadcast network evening news shows, on Friday the NBC Nightly News uniquely covered the "history-making" federal court ruling striking down Washington, D.C.'s restrictive gun control laws. While anchor Brian Williams made the story his show's lead item, with correspondent Pete Williams calling it "the most important gun control ruling in 70 years," the CBS Evening News and ABC's World News ignored the story entirely.

Pete Williams set up his report relaying the story of D.C. resident Tom Palmer, "who was once assaulted and wants a gun in the house for self-defense." A party to the lawsuit against D.C., Palmer argued that since "criminals don't obey the law," that "it's the law-abiding citizens who are disarmed by this law." The report then featured opposing viewpoints in the form of soundbites from Democratic Mayor Adrian Fenty and gun control advocate Paul Helmke complaining that the ruling could "weaken gun laws nationwide." (Transcript follows)

It goes without saying that the majority of NewsBusters articles concerning MSNBC’s Don Imus are not very positive towards the radio host. However, on Friday, Imus completely lit into Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) over some obvious hypocrisies regarding the current controversy at Walter Reed Army Medical Center (h/t Larwyn and Macsmind).

As reported by NewsMax, Schumer was trying to lay all the blame for conditions at Walter Reed on the Bush administration. Fortunately, Imus wasn’t buying it (video available here).

What follows is a partial transcript posted at NewsMax. Frankly, it’s too much fun to interrupt with commentary. As such, roll the tape:

As NewsBusters reported Saturday, a documentary skeptical about man’s role in climate change aired in Great Britain on Thursday. The show’s director, Martin Durkin, was interviewed by the British website Spiked the day after the program ran, and he had some rather harsh words for journalists and politicians that are haphazardly advancing the junk science surrounding this issue (emphasis mine throughout):

Durkin’s latest film has won him the accolade – or perhaps slur – of being the ‘anti-Al Gore’. Where the American president-who-never-was transformed his rather dull PowerPoint presentation on the threat of global warming into a marginally less dull big box office flick – An Inconvenient Truth – Durkin has directed a 90-minute made-for-TV movie that basically says: ‘Everything you know about global warming is wrong!’

The article wonderfully continued:

With American media falling all over themselves in unbridled adoration for soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore while they generate totally unwarranted hysteria over climate change, it seems impossible to imagine a televised documentary debunking the junk science surrounding this issue.

Yet, across the Pond, our greatest ally, Great Britain, has done exactly that.

The program is called “The Great Global Warming Swindle,” and the entire must-see video has been posted at Google (h/t Allah and Dan Riehl).

*****Update: Video available here.

EarthTimes.org reviewed the program on Wednesday (emphasis mine throughout):

On CNN's "The Situation Room" yesterday, White House Correspondent Suzanne Malveaux substituted for host Wolf Blitzer. Ms. Malveaux introduced a segment by Carol Costello on Newt Gingrich:

"Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich is making a confession. He cheated on his second wife at the same time President Clinton was impeached.

"Let's go back to Carol Costello with more on this story -- absolutely amazing, confessions all around."

"Yes," agreed Carol Costello, "I know. It is amazing."

But how amazing is it really? After all, eight years ago CNN reported in a story titled, "Gingrich return to the spotlight colored by messy divorce" that "Gingrich finds himself in the middle of a messy divorce -- complete with allegations of an affair with a younger staffer."

HBO’s Bill Maher threw quite a Bush bash on the March 9 installment of “Real Time.”

Not only did he stock his panel exclusively with well-known critics of the Administration like Roseanne Barr, the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank, and former Special Assistant to the President David Kuo who attained notoriety by writing the book “Tempting Faith” after leaving the White House.

Maher also began the program after his opening monologue by interviewing a retired Army major general that had just written a scathing op-ed about America’s top officers published in the New York Times Tuesday. This made him the perfect guest to start such a hate-filled program (video available here courtesy of our friend Ms Underestimated).

In fact, it was quite clear why Major General Paul D. Eaton (Ret.) was present when Maher, after some brief niceties, began the interview:

As I have in the past, to be a fair and honest reporter, I'll bring the good news about the MSM to the fore right along with the bad. Today I have some good in the form of a piece in Editor & Publisher's Shop talk section titled Who's a Journalist These Days? This is an interesting piece that takes journalists to task who share, as E&P puts it, the "big ego disease" that seems woefully prevalent throughout the MSM.

In fact, Mark A. Phillips doesn't at all mince words when taking to task his fellow journalists, not sparing their feelings a bit. He even identifies by name one of the journalistic comrades of whom he is scolding. That being one Debra J. Saunders of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Over on radical Pacifica Radio's "Democracy Now" propaganda-cast, they're still recycling lectures from the big National Conference on Media Reform weeks back. On Thursday, they rebroadcast a lecture from actress Geena Davis on how children's entertainment cruelly stereotypes women, especially back in the Dark Ages of the last century. Is Judy Jetson too thin? And what's up with Smurfette? Davis started a foundation to fight for the image of women in children's entertainment, as she explained:

Do you remember the kinds of stuff that they made for us, for kids, in the oldie old days? Let’s see, the first animation, of course, was Disney's Minnie Mouse and -- where is she? I’m pushing the button -- Daisy Duck, who didn’t really do much at all, except ask to go shopping, I think. There were a lot of Hanna-Barbera cartoons -- Magilla Gorilla, Wally Gator, George of the Jungle -- virtually no female characters. I had a vague recollection that Yogi Bear had a girlfriend, and I searched and searched, and I finally found her, Cindy Bear, as you all remember.

At The Corner, Mark Steyn notices once again that the liberal media elite's line that they only love a good story, and not any one political party in particular, can only lead one to fits of giggles:

Here’s something I meant to mention yesterday – the unerring news instincts of the American media . Anyone who wonders why US newspaper sales are heading south should ponder the behavior of the geniuses at The Tennessean. They had the Al Gore electric-bill story a month before the Oscars but somehow never got around to writing anything up:

Last week, the media got themselves into quite a lather over Ann Coulter making a joke about Democrat presidential candidate John Edwards. Do you think the same “delicate” press will be as close to offended by a major cable personality suggesting that Republicans "love Ronald Reagan in a way that’s just gay"?

On Friday’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher was discussing how various Republicans like to “dress up” in assorted costumes, and quickly moved into a diatribe about one of our nation's favorite presidents that would offend most Americans regardless of what side of the aisle they were on (video available here courtesy of our friend Ms Underestimated):

UPDATE (01:15 EST): Law professor and blogger Eugene Volokh addresses factual errors in reporting in the New York Times and Washington Post (h/t Instapundit).

How are your local TV news shows covering today's federal court decision overturning the D.C. handgun ban?

I live just outside Washington, D.C., and the station I most often watch for local news deployed a few typical media bias tricks: stacking the deck with sources aligned on one side (4 pro-ban, one anti-ban) and focusing on emotional aspects of a debate (highlighting emotional reactions to the court ruling rather than dealing with the legal merits).

Under pressure from radical-left activists at MoveOn.org and bloggers like the Daily Kos, the Nevada Democratic Party pulled the rug out from under the Fox News Channel on Friday, canceling a planned presidential debate that had been scheduled for August 14, Politico.com reported. MoveOn launched a petition drive that it said was signed by more than 260,000 people, arguing “Fox is a mouthpiece for the Republican Party, not a legitimate news channel. The Democratic Party of Nevada should drop Fox as its partner for the presidential primary debate.” The group's Eli Pariser also called FNC part of the "right-wing smear machine."

The decision represents a dramatic shift leftward from the presidential cycle four years ago. On September 9, 2003, all nine Democratic candidates went to Baltimore to participate in a debate sponsored by FNC and the Congressional Black Caucus Institute. Dick Gephardt and Dennis Kucinich even missed a close school-voucher House vote for the event. Brit Hume was the moderator, and the panel had three black liberals: NPR's Juan Williams, Ed Gordon (formerly of NBC and BET), and former Newsweek writer (and current NPR host) Farai Chideya. As you can see from the transcript, Hume asked no questions to the candidates, aside from asking Howard Dean what his lapel pin said.

On Friday, Judge Laurence Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the city of Washington D.C. could not ban its citizens from owning firearms because such a ban violates the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

In light of this ruling so damaging to gun grabbers everywhere, I was curious to see how the wires were handling the news. Turns out, they don't seem too happy.

In two reports on Friday the AP gave far more time in their "balanced" report to opponents to Second Amendment rights than they did to proponents. Worse, it never seemed to occur to them to report that gun violence in Washington D.C. has consistently ranked as among the highest in the country despite being one of the strictest anti-gun cities therein.

As a devout conservative, I must say that I was shocked – shocked I tell you, shocked! – to find out that I don’t like sex. Alas, if Chris Matthews says so, who am I to question it, right?

With that in mind, I think all readers need to brace themselves for the truth according to the all-knowing, all-seeing, wisest man in the world as presented on Friday's "Hardball."

We must learn from the sage, ladies and gentlemen, as he explains why liberals are focused on important issues like “poverty, injustice, and racism, and nuclear war,” while “conservatives don’t like sex” (video available here courtesy of our friend Ms Underestimated):

The White House isn't alone in doing advance work for the President's trip to Latin America. Associated Press is already finding negative angles to highlight the Ugly American President's critics. Juan Carlos Llorca writes from Guatemala City:

Mayan priests will purify an ancient archaeological sites to eliminate ‘bad spirits’ after President Bush visits next week, an official with close ties to the group said Thursday.

"That a person like (Bush), with the persecution of our migrant brothers in the United States, with the wars he has provoked, is going to walk in our sacred lands, is an offense for the Mayan people and their culture," Juan Tiney, the director of a Mayan nongovernmental organization with close ties to Mayan religious and political leaders, said Thursday.

Original caption:

Democratic Presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., is surrounded by reporters following a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington.

CNSNews.com managing editor Patrick Goodenough has a new column reporting that some of the most visible far-left sites attacking Ann Coulter for making a failed "faggot" joke about John Edwards have used their new F-word themselves: "Daily Kos postings have included the word 'faggot' at least three times in recent years, as have other liberal blogs -- without apology, and without generating a furor."

Among the offending bloggers were Melissa McEwan and Amanda Marcotte, the two Christian-bashing bloggers who were hired by John Edwards and then slowly disappeared from his staff.

If I were a rich man, the media would likely bash me. But if I were a female billionaire, I would become "good news" according to ABC and NBC.

While both ABC and NBC have called very successful CEOs examples of "runaway pay," there was no animosity to be found toward extremely high-earning women during the March 8 "World News with Charles Gibson" or "Nightly News."

In fact, after CNBC's Maria Bartiromo stated  that 83 women made Forbes magazine's billionaires list on NBC "Nightly News," anchor Campbell Brown chimed: "All right, that's good news."

ABC's "World News" lauded the 1 percent club: "self-made members of the fairer sex," but left out Forbes statement that 60 percent of those on the billionaires list all made their fortunes from scratch.