Blogs

Sure, we know when we're being used. The folks at "Morning Joe" are well aware that if baring some liberal leg is likely to cause us to cover them, mentioning NewsBusters by name virtually guarantees that an item will follow here in short order. But if the MSNBC show wants to play the homely-if-roundheeled high school girl striving for attention, NB is happy, as the popular QB of liberal-media busting, to oblige.

And so it was that on this morning's episode, newsreader Mika Brzezinski, much like the girl at the beach who "accidentally" lets the bikini strap slip, made a transparently intentional "mistake," confusing Dick Cheney with Darth Vader. That in turn prompted host Joe Scarborough, in mock horror at Mika's exposure of too much liberal skin, to call for NewsBusters. The incident occurred during Mika's 6:11 A.M. EDT newsreading of an otherwise innocuous item.

View video here.

It's Friday which means another episode of our new comedy show "NewsBusted" is ready!

This week, we take you on a trip into the twilight zone: a parody left-wing version of the show filled with bumpersticker slogans and Bush-bashing. I can't wait to see how many YouTube liberals wander in and rate it 5 stars not knowing what they're seeing!

Note: If you like the show, be sure and help us by leaving positive ratings and comments on the "NewsBusted" YouTube pages since left-wingers love to vote down anything that's not PC. You can also subscribe to get emails whenever we post new episodes. Support conservative comedy: the endangered species liberals don't want to preserve!

Want to try your hand at joke-writing? Send us your (short) quips to rightstuffcomedy@yahoo.com. If we use them, we'll pay you $50. For the show archive, click here.

President Theodore Roosevelt. Mother Teresa. Lech Walesa. Martin Luther King. Al Gore? The list reads like an easy SAT question, but all five are now the correct answer to: Who won the Nobel Peace Prize? The others earned the prize through hard work, self sacrifice and deeds. Al Gore won it through outlandish media support that portrayed him in almost messianic terms as "evangelist," a "preacher," or a "prophet."

I'd love to spare you the Gore-y details about his plans for higher taxes, new global regulations billions of dollars in new spending or the devastation of the American economy, but that's what he's got in store for us all.

In between cyborg fights, NBC's new sci-fi show “Bionic Woman” flattered Hillary Clinton with an awkward and artificial reference to her prowess at getting to the bottom of an injustice.

In the October 10 episode “Sisterhood,” the latest Bionic Woman, Jaime Sommers, portrayed by Michelle Ryan, discovered there is a constant video feed in her recently implanted bionic eye, and as the character groused about the invasion of her privacy, the writers slipped in a little stilted praise for Clinton.

The remark occured at about 29 minutes into the show where Jaime was talking to her boss Jonas Bledsoe, the director of the bionics program (video here):

JAIME SOMMERS: OK, you know what, this camera in my eye? It sucks.

New York Times media reporter Jacques Steinberg picked up criticism of CBS reporter Rita Braver’s Sunday Morning interview on October 7 with vice presidential wife Lynne Cheney and her continuous conflict of interest with super-lawyer husband Bob Barnett in Thursday’s newspaper. But Steinberg allowed Braver to suggest something untrue: that she’s "stayed away" from Clinton interviews after her husband’s legal work for the Clintons in the White House years:

From September 1993 to August 1997, for example, Ms. Braver covered the Clinton White House; Mr. Barnett recused himself from any legal work related to the Clintons. Since then, Ms. Braver said yesterday, she had "sort of stayed away from the Clintons" in her coverage.

In fact, Rita Braver interviewed Hillary Clinton on November 30, 2003, a few months after her Barnett-negotiated memoir hit the bookstores. Here’s where the Steinberg story gets interesting:

As media in America fall all over themselves with glee at the thought of the Global Warmingist-in-Chief winning a Nobel Peace Prize, Wednesday's findings by a British judge that Al Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth" contained nine material falsehoods has prompted a request to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to strip the movie's producers of the Oscars they received in February for "Best Documentary."

How delicious.

As reported by The West Australian Friday:

In its October 9 editorial, the Toledo Blade condemns Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for his ongoing "savaging" of Anita Hill.

In a decidedly one-sided article, Hill is hailed as a hero for coming forward with her unsubstantiated sexual harassment allegations in 1991 against then-nominee Thomas. According to the Blade:

The Thomas confirmation hearings were painful to watch, but they were also important because they blew away the veil of complacency over sexual harassment. Women - and even some men - were empowered by Ms. Hill's testimony to step forward and file complaints and lawsuits against sexist practices that permeated the workplace and other areas of society.

With many newspapers in a state of free-fall as far as their readership numbers go, it is interesting as well as entertaining to watch how they attempt to combat that situation. In the case of some such as my hometown newspaper, the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, the effort to adjust to the new realities of the Web is both awkward as well as laughable. As I pointed out in an earlier NewsBusters blog, the Sun-Sentinel came up with the idea of a "blob" called "The Slant." Here is a description of this "exciting" new feature by editor Earl Maucker:

To take advantage of the web capabilities, our editorial page editors created "The Slant", a blob [sic] devoted to opinion and commentary that goes well beyond what we offer on our printed editorial and commentary pages.

Three months after NBC promoted Al Gore's agenda by broadcasting more than 75 hours of his “Live Earth” concerts, Thursday's NBC Nightly News got the jump on the inevitable media excitement -- if Gore wins the Nobel Peace Prize to be announced Friday -- by championing how that award could launch a Gore presidential bid. Anchor Brian Williams cited “rumors today surrounding” Gore about the Nobel and pronounced “that an effort to draft him to run for President just might work.”

Reporter David Gregory trumpeted how Gore has supposedly “become both a global force tackling climate change and a celebrated figure now in the running for the Nobel Peace Prize.” Gregory highlighted the “Draft Gore” Web site and how “yesterday backers placed a full page ad in the New York Times.” Bizarrely suggesting Republicans would vote for Gore, Gregory contended “Gore is seen by some as a potential savior in the '08 race with questions about frontrunner Hillary Clinton's electability and a GOP field leaving many Republicans dissatisfied.” So, those who find Rudy Giuliani too liberal would prefer Gore? Gregory next featured Democratic strategist Steve McMahon praising Gore for how he “was right on just about every major issue, whether it was the war, the deficit or now global warming.”

If the increasingly conventional wisdom that the Netroots movement is now the driving force behind today's Democrat Party is true, than a look into their actual agenda for America is something voters considering supporting Democrat politicians in 2008 might want to take a very close look at. It's posted by Chris Bowers at Open Left and looked at in plain terms, is substantial and should give conservatives and Libertarians cause for concern.

Below are just some bullet points from the larger plan.

You think the "Fairness Doctrine" is bad, you haven't seen anything yet:

Reversing Corporate Media Consolidation. Using improved ownership regulation of American media to help destabilize the impact of the Republican Noise Machine, and create a more diverse, responsive national media, is another key progressive feedback loop.

Appearing on Thursday night's "Hardball," liberal actor Ben Affleck joined host Chris Matthews in hashing over what Matthews called Jimmy Carter's "fearless" criticism of Dick Cheney, GOP "jingoists" and "crazy" right-to-carry laws.

Interestingly enough, next to Matthews, Affleck seemed more moderate, at least in his responses to the "Hardball" host's liberal baiting, as the actor deemed Carter's attack on Cheney was "almost inappropriate," and admitted, "I'm probably less of a gun control guy than Rudy Giuliani is." However Affleck did agree with Matthews that Mike Huckabee's "crazy" support of right-to-carry laws wouldn't stop increased violence in the cities.

On Thursday’s CBS "Early Show," host Harry Smith and reporter Jeff Greenfield analyzed the effectiveness of YouTube videos for 2008 presidential candidates.The segment described how a an Edwards campaign video "...says let's get serious about what matters," while Giuliani and Romney are examples of how candidates can "...die by YouTube."

After they described how successful videos were for Democrats, Smith decided it was time to analyze the effect on Republican campaigns: "... but there is a whole other backlash on this, as well, right?"

This is some of the analysis of Democratic candidates:

GREENFIELD: ...for instance, Dennis Kucinich, no money, no organization, so he goes to YouTube, puts out an ad. It's not particularly compelling. He's talking about a peace tower as a way of symbolizing peace. This has been seen about 6600 times, which isn't much, but how many times does a candidate like Kucinich get to talk to 6600 people at virtually no expense?"

Wolf Blitzer’s interview of former president Jimmy Carter on Wednesday’s "The Situation Room" demonstrated the CNN host’s catering to prominent liberals. In one question to the former president, Blitzer asked about the ongoing presidential campaigns. "Do any of these candidates, presidential candidates, scare you?" After Carter answered that none of the Democrat candidates scared him, Blitzer asked as follow-up questions, "What about the Republican side?" and "Who scares you the most?"

Later in the interview, Blitzer asked Carter, "By your definition, you believe the United States, under this administration, has used torture?" Carter’s unequivocal answer: "I don't think it. I know it, certainly." This led to a follow-up question from Blitzer on the question of whether President Bush should be impeached. "But you don't want to see any formal charges or a trial?"

Update, 6:10 PM - Video (4:45): Real (3.50 MB) or Windows (2.91 MB), plus MP3 (2.17 MB)

Hillary could have saved CNBC “Street Signs” viewers about 10 minutes of their lives by just saying “Trust me,” when CNBC Washington correspondent John Harwood pressed her on economic issues.

Clinton appeared on the October 11 show with Harwood and “Street Signs” anchor Erin Burnett.

Harwood asked Clinton to respond to a comment made by GOP presidential nominee frontrunner Rudy Giuliani: “Hillary Clinton … wants to put a lid on us. She wants to put a lid on our growth. We want to give people freedom.”

Teasing yet another (manufactured) Ann Coulter controversy, ABCNews.com practically suggested that Coulter is an anti-Semite, and when you follow the bread crumbs, you'll find Media Matters the culprit behind the half-baked cake. "The columnist suggested that the U.S. would be a better place without Jews," teased a headline in the rotating news summary on ABC's Web site (see screencap at right).

Yet in context, it's quite logical to conclude Coulter means that, as a Christian, she would like everyone to embrace Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, hence securing them eternal life in Heaven. Grounded in historical Christian teaching, her desire for all to believe in Jesus (and hence be Christians) is not a racist or genocidal point-of-view, but a loving, religious one, however awkwardly stated it may have been in her recent interview.

The front page tease takes readers to a blog entry at Political Punch by ABC reporter Jake Tapper. The Tapper item in turn links to an article and transcript at Editor & Publisher, furnished by, surprise surprise, Media Matters.

To his credit, at no point in his blog did Tapper himself characterize Coulter as a closet anti-Semite or anything of that nature, although he does take a swipe at Coulter as a hypocrite:

“CBS Evening News” has a history of being tough on businesses that might be engaging in illegal activity or otherwise acting unethically. But there’s one exception – employers of illegal immigrants.

“Jim Zappala says the federal crackdown is killing his business right in the middle of harvest,” CBS correspondent Seth Doane said on the October 10 broadcast. “His onion farm in western New York has been targeted by immigration officials twice in just six months. Workers have been deported. Others are too scared to return.”

Zappala is the owner of Zappala Farms and has openly admitted to hiring illegal immigrants. One solution Doane proposed to Zappala: pay more money and he could get American workers to do the jobs. “I don't think there's any amount of money that we could pay to get workers to come in and hand-clip these onions or help with the field work,” Zappala replied.

On Thursday’s CBS "Early Show," host Harry Smith had on the founder of the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center, Morris Dees, to discuss "...the ugly news about nooses. Why this symbol of bigotry is suddenly back." Smith then went on to ask: "Is there some way to account for this resurgence in seeing this as a symbol? We've done an internet search. It's popping up all over the place." I think we are all impressed with Harry’s extensive research skills.

Beyond the recent noose controversies at Columbia University and in the Jena Six case, Smith and Dees launched into a litany of examples of racism in America and declared a rise in such sentiments:

SMITH: "You've monitored hate groups for decades now. Do you have a sense that they're flourishing, floundering? Are we -- is there a resurgence? Might this be a symbol of some resurgence?"

DEES: "Well I think definitely it is. In the last five years, we've seen a 30% increase in the number of hate groups. We're tracking at the Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Project some 844 hate groups in the United States, and we see that a large percentage of them, the motivation for their increase has been Latino immigrants in the United States."

Here we go again. Another instance of a reporter mocking conservative Christian teaching. And giving an atta-boy to Jimmy Carter to boot.

In an October 11 post to The Skinny blog at CBSNews.com, Keach Hagey took a reductionist and highly stereotypical slant to biblical teaching on Christian households, mocking the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary for offering women "an academic degree in their special, God-given role," which Hagey described as making dinner:

The controversy started when a Mexican bar owner in Reno Nevada flew the Mexican flag above that of the United States. This is illegal under United States Code Section 7, Title Four.  An insulted and offended American veteran, Jim Brossard, felt he had to take action and cut down both flags.  After much controversy in blogs and media, the ACLU released a statement urging the media to "correct the misinformation that it is illegal" to fly foreign flags over the U.S. flag.

NewsBusters reported Tuesday that a British court rendered an opinion concerning Al Gore's schlockumentary "An Inconvenient Truth" citing eleven inaccuracies in the supposedly factual presaging of imminent planetary doom.

As it turns out, the judge, Michael Burton, announced his ruling Wednesday, and he listed only nine key scientific errors in this piece of detritus that should never have been allowed by the Motion Picture Association of America or the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to be marketed as a documentary.

According to the British Telegraph, Burton claimed these "errors had arisen ‘in the context of alarmism and exaggeration' in order to support Mr Gore's thesis on global warming."

Pretty much what climate change skeptics around the world have been claiming since this abomination was first released in 2006, wouldn't you agree?

Here were the nine pertinent errors reported by the Telegraph Thursday:

Is NBC "Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams really a conservative? "Washington Post" media analyst and CNN "Reliable Sources" host Howard Kurtz implied that he is. Kurtz appeared on the October 10 edition of "The O’Reilly Factor" to promote his new book "Reality Show: Inside the Last Great Televsion News War." When Bill O’Reilly inquired on the lack of conservative representation on the network news, this exchange followed.

BILL O’REILLY: What news man at CBS or NBC is conservative?

HOWARD KURTZ: I wanted to make- first of all, Brian Williams, we can talk about him in a moment, probably President Bush’s favorite anchor.

O’REILLY: He just likes his ties.

KURTZ: Has quoted Rush Li- has quoted Rush Limbaugh, reads conservative blogs as well as liberal blogs.

O’REILLY: I know Brian Williams. He’s about as conservative as Les Moonves.

In retrospect it seems less and less surprising that Google ever agreed to the Communist Chinese government's demands on censorship (see here and here). It seems the Internet giant and Democratic campaign contribution engine is banning anti-MoveOn.org ads (h/t Malkin):

It's time for 'Name That Party' again. The besieged mayor of Atlantic City, Robert Levy, resigned today after allegations of claiming false military benefits, according to his lawyer. The lawyer also gave a reason for Levy's disappearance.

Attorney Edwin Jacobs said that the mayor had been undergoing treatment for substance abuse and mental health issues since city officials last heard from him Sept. 26.

However, according to the story in the Los Angeles Times, there were even larger reasons for Levy's disappearance- he was under investigation by Federal officials for falsely claiming military benefits to which he had no right. The Times reported,

Federal officials have been looking into whether Levy, 64, lied about his service in order to increase his veteran's benefits. The mayor was in the Army for 20 years -- serving two tours of duty in Vietnam -- and received numerous medals, awards and citations, Jacobs said.

You know The Washington Post is a liberal newspaper when it hails Democratic grande dames -- in the Home section. The lead story in the Thursday section was "Secretary Albright's Sugar Shakers: And Other Significant Parts of Great Women's Houses." Post reporter Annie Groer touted the effects of "great women" like Madeleine Albright. When Albright ran through her official flower budget as U.N. Ambassador, "she pressed her antique sugar shakers into centerpiece duty in New York and later in Foggy Bottom." A large picture of Albright and her shakers dominated the top of the page.

Included inside among more "Treasures of Great Women" was liberal Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Tang Dynasty-era sculpture of a Chinese woman that sits on her piano.

Your turn...

Surprise! Mika Brzezinski, far from criticizing Jimmy Carter's excoriation of the Bush adminstration, applauds it . . .

View video here.

In a free-swinging democracy such as ours, rare are the restraints on political speech by our elected representatives. One exception are rules of decorum, such as those governing the House of Representatives that prohibit members from speaking in negative personal terms about their colleagues and other officials.

There is a similar, unwritten rule by which former presidents do not criticize their successors. And while the occasional lapse has occurred over the history of the republic, no president has so thoroughly trashed the tradition as Jimmy Carter, who has made stinging criticism of the Bush administration a virtual art form. Earlier this year, for example, Carter publicly labelled the Bush administration "the worst in history."

The Kvetcher-in-Chief is back at it again.

“Jimmy Carter is back in the news tonight,” NBC anchor Brian Williams declared Wednesday night in making true what he, but not the ABC or CBS evening newscasts found newsworthy, “this time because of harsh words for the current Vice President.” Williams proceeded to highlight how “in an interview with the BBC, former President Carter calls Vice President Cheney quote, 'a disaster for America' and 'a militant,' who has been in Carter's words, 'overly persuasive' on President Bush.” A few hours later, MSNBC's Live with Dan Abrams led with Carter's derision with “'DISASTER'?” on screen under a picture of Cheney.

A Reuters dispatch, “Jimmy Carter calls Cheney a 'disaster' for U.S.,” reported Carter's attack:

The MRC's Brad Wilmouth alerted me to a slip of the tongue Wednesday night by ABC anchor Charles Gibson, who didn't catch and correct his error -- at least in the 6:30pm EDT feed of World News. In a brief item on the congressional resolution labeling a 1915 massacre of Armenians as "genocide," Gibson inadvertently said "Americans" instead:

Hard to believe, but there was a political fight in Washington today over something that happened 92 years ago. In 1915, as many as a million and a half Americans were killed by Ottoman Turks...

Video clip (20 secs): Real (600 KB) or Windows Media (700 KB), plus MP3 audio (100 KB)

Ann Coulter did her best to drop a bomb on the October 10 episode of "Tucker" on MSNBC. At the conclusion of her interview, Ann Coulter announced (video) that the National Enquirer was just reporting that John Edwards had an 18-month affair while on the campaign trail. You can read the story here.

Before going any further, this allegation must be met with a healthy degree of skepticism. First of all, the story is originating from the National Enquirer, which in and of itself, raises questions as to the story's reliability. Secondly, Coulter had a notorious run-in earlier this year with Elizabeth Edwards on an MSNBC episode of "Harball." Coulter would have every motivation to repeat a salacious tabloid sex allegation about John Edwards.

With that said, though, you would think that the mere allegation would be worthy of a media frenzy based upon its recent behavior. The media have extensively covered the "bathroom sex" case of Senator Larry Craig. Before that, the media happily reported when Sentator David Vitter's phone number showed up in the records of the "DC Madam." Even before that, the Mark Foley story lingered for a month during a crucial point in the 2006 campaign.

Network morning news programs showcase musicians all the time with concert series and the like, and sometimes musicians make political statements in between songs, as Bruce Springsteen did on the September 28 "Today" show. But usually those segments are fluffy revenue raisers meant to hook audiences with popular musical acts. The politics are notable for their general left-wing slant, but otherwise unconnected to the news reporting on the program or the network.

Not so with Michael Stipe's appearance on the October 10 "Anderson Cooper 360," which will give Stipe and his band REM a platform to make a politically correct ecological statement in line with CNN's upcoming special, "Planet in Peril."

According to CNN.com:

(CNN) -- Rock group R.E.M. plans to debut a song from its upcoming album Wednesday on CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360°" program.