Blogs

You think the blogosphere is a hostile place? Well, you ain’t seen nuttin’ yet.

Internet Haganah, a global network dedicated to identifying and confronting terrorist activities over the Internet, reported Sunday that a Palestinian forum named al-Ommh was running a rather disgraceful poll.

At issue is whether or not Alan Johnston, the BBC member who was captured in Gaza in March and is still being held by the terrorist group Jaish al-Islam, should be executed (h/t LGF).

The results reported by IH were despicable (emphasis added):

The New York Times explored Hillary Clinton’s service on the Wal-Mart Board of Directors in the Sunday newspaper. Reporter Michael Barbaro employed a typical focus on inoculating liberals against conservative attack: "Her years on the Wal-Mart board, from 1986 to 1992, gave her an unusual tutorial in the ways of American business — a credential that could serve as an antidote to Republican efforts to portray her as an enemy of free markets and an advocate for big government."

Citing a board of directors credential is hardly proof you’re not an advocate of big government. Just think of all the major corporations – including NBC-owning General Electric – that eagerly allied themselves with the Clinton tax and health plans in 1993. Major corporations and big government are often the coziest of allies. Barbaro sinks into the usual template about how this shows how Hillary the Trailblazing Idealist is an odd match for Hillary the Get-Along-to-Go-Along Pragmatist:

Have you noticed that most of the articles you see that are skeptical about man’s role in climate change come from foreign publications based in countries like Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada?

Why do you think that is?

Are the American press too emotionally attached to the issue -- and, in particular, the chief spokesman, soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore -- to even consider the possibility that the debate isn't over, and that their role as journalists is supposed to be to further discussion rather than squelch it?

While you ponder, an editor for Australia’s The Age, Melanie Griffin, published an absolutely delicious article Sunday slamming the upcoming "Live Earth" concerts about to be thrown in the name of global warming alarmism (emphasis added throughout):

Here’s something you don’t see every day: three media members – two from liberal press outlets – agreeing that Fox News actually did something right.

Yet, that’s what happened on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” Sunday, as host Howard Kurtz and his guests discussed the Republican debates aired Tuesday.

Kurtz began:

Let’s face it, a lot of people expected Fox to go easy on the Republicans. Did that happen?

National Review’s David Frum was first up, and, not so surprisingly, raved:

If you believe the hype from the open-borders crowd about how illegal immigrants "are doing jobs other won't do," you would have to wonder how this ever happened (the following is from a May 11 company press release):

Swift & Company Announces Return of Standard Staffing Levels at All Four Domestic Beef Processing Facilities

Pork Processing Facilities Resumed Normal Production in March

Swift & Company today reported its return to standard staffing levels at all four domestic beef processing facilities after the detention and removal, on December 12, 2006, of approximately 950 Swift Beef employees by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") division.

The December 2006 ICE event also involved two Swift Pork processing facilities. As the Company announced on April 10, 2007, Swift's domestic pork operations returned to normal levels in March 2007. ICE detained and removed a total of nearly 1,300 Swift Beef and Swift Pork employees during the December 2006 event.

A terse Associated Press story on the announcement that gained very little circulation made sure to remind us that "Operations at Swift plants in Colorado, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Texas and Hyrum, Utah, were suspended for several hours on Dec. 12 while immigration agents arrested 1,217 workers. No company managers have been charged."

Somehow, AP "forgot" to tell us that, as reported by the Greeley, Colorado Tribune the previous week (requires free registration), that at just one of the facilities involved:

Here’s something that is almost a metaphysical certitude: no major American newspaper, in the midst of all the current global warming hysteria, would dare do a front-page feature article questioning the merits of Al Gore’s schlockumentary “An Inconvenient Truth.”

Yet, there it was Saturday, covering almost two-thirds of the front page of Canada’s National Post, right smack in the middle, with a big picture of the Global Warmingist-in-Chief, surrounded by the shocking headline:

Even Climate Change Experts Say Many of the Claims in Al Gore’s Film Are Wrong. 

So How Did it Become Required Classroom Viewing?

Think you’ll see that some day on the front page of the New York Times, Washington Post, or USA Today?

While you ponder, the article was just as skeptical (emphasis added throughout):

Kimberley Strassel's OpinionJournal.com column about coal-mine operator Robert E. Murray of Murray Energy is important on a number of levels.

You haven't heard of Robert E. Murray? That's not surprising.

If there were an open dialog instead of continual blather about "settled science" when it comes to supposedly human-induced "climate change" and "global warming" (two concepts I like to collectively refer to as "globaloney"), Murray would have visibility. But, as Strassel writes, a different "climate," the political one, appears to be keeping him largely out of the public eye, despite his best efforts to break through.

You see, Robert Murray is a coal-company executive who has first-hand experience with what will happen on a much broader scale if the radical changes envisioned by Al Gore and others (whom I like to refer to as "globalarmists") ever get enacted:

On the CBS News website Public Eye, newly minted CBS man Jeff Greenfield saw no danger that the 2008 campaign will be drenched with a liberal bias, even though he admits that "most members of the so-called mainstream media, undoubtedly, in the voting booth, vote Democratic." He pulls out a familiar argument: when liberal losers lose, it’s easy to argue that they weren’t beneficiaries of liberal media bias: "But in my view the danger of bias does not lie in political coverage. I mean, ask Al Gore and John Kerry if they were the beneficiary of a poodle press. They were treated very critically – appropriately."

Before we address Gore and Kerry coverage, let’s make an obvious point: the Public Eye site was developed to help undo the damage that CBS’s horrendous and sloppy anti-Bush bias on the "draft dodging" charge in the fall of 2004. Greenfield ought to at least tip his skeptic’s hat toward that example before serving up his pooh-pooh platter.

Politico's Mike Allen gave readers a peek at excerpts of "The Reagan Diaries," set to hit bookstore shelves on Tuesday, May 22.

Well before the Media Research Center was conceived in 1987, the Gipper was watching the media's liberal biases and recording his "frustration with the press," Allen noted:

One of the dominant themes is his frustration with the press.

April 22, 1982: “Last night CBS did a special 1 hour documentary (Bill Moyers) on 4 cases of poverty and illness they laid to our ec. program. It was a thoroughly dishonest, demagogic, cheap shot.”

March 11, 1983: “Lou Cannon’s story in the Washington Post. It was a vicious series of falsehoods and I was mad as h—l.” (The lead of the front-page story, written with David Hoffman, was: “The resignation of Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Anne M. Burford was carefully orchestrated by White House and other administration officials who had to persuade a ‘stubborn and defiant’ President Reagan, as well as Burford, that her departure was politically essential, administration sources said yesterday.”)

Oct. 30, 1983: “Watched the Sunday talk shows – subject Lebanon & Grenada. The press is trying to give this the Vietnam treatment but I don’t think the people will buy it. They’re still whining because we didn’t take them on a guided tour the 1st day we were on Grenada. No mention of the fact that we’ve flown 180 of them onto the Island today.”

The Fairness Doctrine, the law that effectively put the kibosh on political talk radio for a number of years, might be coming back if congressional Democrats have their way. According to Fred Thompson, this turn of events was prompted in part by the failure of Air America radio:

The real issue here is not what you “can” see or hear — which is what the Fairness Doctrine was about originally. It’s what you’re “choosing” to see or hear.

Insiders say it was the collapse of the radio station “Air America” that led to this attempt to retool the Fairness Doctrine as a form of de facto censorship. I guess the idea is that, if you can’t compete in the world of ideas, you pass a law that forces radio stations to air your views. In effect, it would force a lot of radio stations to drop some talk show hosts — because they would lose money providing equal airtime to people who can’t attract a market or advertisers.

Honestly, the arrogance of some Hollywood liberals knows no bounds. As they live in their million dollar mansions, and jet-set around the world in a manner that 99.99 percent of the population can’t fathom, these folks have the gall to tell others how they should alter their lives for the benefit of the planet.

The most recent example is Leonardo DiCaprio, the 32-year-old actor that has absolutely no formal training in geology, climatology, meteorology, or anything in any way related to complex earth sciences.

In fact, in the picture to the right, DiCaprio could easily be answering a question about just how much education he has in these or related subjects, as according to Wikipedia, Leo never attended college.

Yet, he has the unmitigated audacity to claim in his new film that if we don’t listen to him and other scientifically uneducated folks like soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore, we’re all going to die.

As reported by The London Paper (emphasis added throughout):

Conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh reported on air and at his website Friday that NBC’s “Today” show is going to do a segment Monday regarding his musical parody “Barack the ‘Magic Negro’” (audio available here, subscription required):

Now, this first aired on March 21st. This is May 18th. By the time they get around to doing their profile, it will be two months old as a story.

Interesting point. After all, Obama himself shrugged this whole thing off as just "entertainment" weeks ago.

Regardless, Rush continued:

If you believe what you see from our news media, everybody in the Middle East with the exception of Israelis wants American military forces out of Iraq as soon as possible, and thinks suicide bombers are martyrs to be revered.

Well, meet Abd Al-Hamid Al-Ansari, the former dean of Islamic Law at Qatar University. He was interviewed by Al-Arabiya TV on May 11 during which he made some statements that folks in our media wouldn’t want you to hear (video available here courtesy of MemriTV).

First, Al-Ansari came out strongly against suicide bombers:

There was a summit between Russia’s Vladimir Putin and the leaders of the European Union on Friday that yielded as little results as it did attention from America’s media.

One of the issues on the table was whether Russia is going to provide more energy resources to EU nations starved for such.

Didn’t hear about this?

Well, that’s not surprising, for in the midst of the media’s ongoing attempts to create global warming hysteria while pushing the U.S. to participate in the Kyoto Protocol, our press have little interest in reporting how energy politics across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans are threatening economies around the globe.

Contrary to most American media that ignored this dicey subject, the BBC covered the following Associated Press article Friday (emphasis added):

In Saturday's Washington Post, Style section writer Jose Antonio Vargas wrote light-hearted advice to Hillary Clinton on her request for ideas for a campaign song. (To those who would easily nominate the gospel song "I Ain't Noways Tired," which Hillary mangled in a spoken-word performance with a bad Southern accent in Selma back in March, just know the Post news staff never touched that with a ten-foot pen.*)

Vargas suggested "Upgrade U," where soul singer Beyonce sings about being an upgrade to her man, the rapper Jay-Z. "See, you and Bill can be the B and Jay of politics," Vargas oozed.

I really shouldn’t have eaten breakfast before reading a preview of the New York Times Magazine’s upcoming piece “Al Gore Has Big Plans” (h/t Dan Gainor).

After all, it’s one thing when sycophants like Sheryl Crow, Laurie David, and Leonardo DiCaprio gush over the former vice president in a manner akin to teenyboppers within earshot of Sean or David Cassidy.

But when such fawning superlatives like “prophetic status” and “intellectual mastery” are employed by a big-time journalist such as James Traub to describe a politician, uncoordinated peristalsis in one’s bowels could cause an embarrassing event without warning.

As such, the reader is cautioned to peruse the following quotes from this disgraceful article with as empty a stomach as humanly possible (emphasis added throughout):

Brent Bozell's culture column this week deals with Opie & Anthony's sick XM shock-jock routine about raping Condoleezza Rice (and raping Laura Bush "to death.") You may not be shocked, but Al Sharpton made no attempt to express his outrage at the XM sickos in defense of this black woman, despite how this routine is so much worse than the Don Imus "ho" comment (video is here):

Rev. Al Sharpton showed up to debate May 15 on the CNN Headline News program “Showbiz Tonight.” But he didn’t say a single word against Opie and Anthony or one word in defense of Condi Rice. He insisted that the Imus gaffe was much more offensive! “I think that these cases are different than Imus. Imus was a repeat offender that stood out, in a different situation...Imus’s situation cannot be compared to other arguments” about free speech, he said.

Better strap yourself in for a dose of alternate reality, for a rock legend has actually come out against Al Gore’s upcoming concerts to promote global warming hysteria.

Can’t be, you say?

Well, Britain’s The Sun reported Saturday (h/t Glenn Reynolds):

THE WHO's ROGER DALTRY [sic] has blasted the big Wembley gig Gore is organising to raise awareness of global warming.

Shocked? There’s much more, although readers should be cautioned about imminent vulgarity in the quotes (emphasis added throughout):

The Formerly Mainstream Media is favorably transfixed on the proposed immigration "reforms" being whipped through Congress -- legislation that opponents characterize as "amnesty."

"Somehow," they have managed to virtually ignore immigration-related legislation that has actually become law in Oklahoma.

Perhaps it's because Oklahoma's reforms have nothing to do with "amnesty," and everything to do with enforcement.

Specifically, from a May 8 Associated Press story on the bill's passage:

Governor Henry today signed a sweeping immigration reform bill that was passed overwhelmingly by the Oklahoma Legislature, but described it as a stopgap measure until the federal government takes action on the issue.

Among other things, the bill contains employment, labor law and civil rights provisions to protect citizens and legal immigrants who lose their jobs at companies that employ illegal immigrants to perform the same or similar work.

Beginning in November, public agencies will be required to use a program that screens Social Security numbers to make sure they are real and that they match up with a job applicant's name.

A One News Now story provided more detail. It also makes it clear that the sponsor of the legislation believes that the states have more power to enforce immigration law than the "it's the Feds' problem" types would like us to believe (bold is mine):

"Fire Also Can’t Burn Wood"

After Rosie O’Donnell leaves "The View" next month, where will Americans go for bizarre 9/11 conspiracy theories? On Monday, the comedienne reiterated her theory that fire couldn’t possibly melt steel. The ABC host also agreed that she has a "cult personality." A few days later, O’Donnell was at it again, comparing the United States to terrorists. Liberal co-host Joy Behar also found a Republican presidential candidate she can finally embrace...Congressman Ron Paul. 

"Vote Obama ‘08: Unless You’re a Racist"

"This Week" anchor George Stephanopoulos displayed his usual high level of objectivity when he assumed that the only racists who would have a problem with Obama are Republicans (and they wouldn’t vote for a Democrat anyway). Yes, it’s a good thing that liberals don’t use cheap generalizations.

Although the Kelo v. New London Supreme Court ruling almost two years ago caused an outpouring of outrage that still resonates nationwide, what has happened in New London itself in the wake of the decision has, with rare exception, received relatively little coverage outside of the state of Connecticut or, in a few instances, New England.

It isn't as if there haven't been many noteworthy developments after the decision was handed down. To start, here is a rundown of events that ultimately led to last summer's settlement:

• Within a month of the decision, the New London Development Corporation (NLDC) notified the Kelo holdouts that since they had been living on land that they didn't own during the duration of the lawsuit, they were liable for back rents during that entire time, in some cases amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars. This outrage, originally noted in local Connecticut weekly whose article link is no longer available, got no national attention until bloggers took note of it (here, here, and here, to name a few) and percolated it to the higher levels of the blogosphere (examples here [f-bomb warning] and here). Even then, Old Media, with few exceptions, one of them being this USA Today editorial, gave this shocking example of bureaucratic chutzpah little notice.

On May 4, Bill Maher appeared on the PBS talk show Charlie Rose to denounce Bush's handling of the war in Iraq. Speaking of being greeted as liberators, Maher said America will get back its global reputation almost instantly once Bush is gone and the Carter-Clinton people are back in charge of foreign policy:

CHARLIE ROSE: Now, we`re at a low ebb in terms of our respect around the world. In your judgment, and people you talk to -- Madeleine Albright and the whole range of people -- Zbigniew Brzezinski, who come there [to Maher's show in L.A.], how long does it take, if there`s a change in administration -- which there clearly will be -- and if it is somebody that has the same belief that you do, will it take to get America back?

BILL MAHER: Quickly.

CHARLIE ROSE: That`s what I think.

For weekend discussion...

As the clock ticks down on the Bush administration, the leftwing blogosphere is becoming ever more infected with impeachment fever to often comedic effect. In just the past week there have been almost 5 dozen Daily Kos threads on the topic of impeachment alone. Most of these impeachment threads lack the vital element of legal grounds for impeachment so the leftwing nutroots have to be very creative to justify this course of action. The latest of the leftwing grounds for impeachment is a real doozy: Bush did NOT lie. I kid you not. When Bush was asked by a reporter if he sent his chief of staff and legal counsel to ailing Attorney General John Ashcroft's hospital room in March 2004 to sign a reauthorization of an electronic surveillance program, he anwered that it was an important program. And now the nutroots are running with the notion that Bush's non-lie is grounds for impeachment as can be seen in many of the comments in this Daily Kos thread,  WE GOT HIM!!!

See update at foot: life imitates NewsBusters.

This is the first step. We can and must complete this legislation sooner rather than later. We all know that

this issue can be caught up in extracurricular politics unless we move forward as quickly as possible. -- Sen. John McCain [R-AZ], May 17th.

Now is probably the last window for action on comprehensive reform before presidential politics thwart any rational debate. -- Boston Globe editorial, May 19th.

That the Boston Globe would want to ram through the amnesty-based immigration bill comes as no surprise. But what does it say about Republican presidential hopeful John McCain that the Globe's entreaty tracks McCain's so closely?

Hugh Hewtt has described the operative sentiment as "a repulsive attitude of contempt towards the voters who elected the senators."

The “Weekly Standard” profiled libertarian-leaning conservative and political commentator turned documentarian Evan Coyne Maloney, whose new documentary about the leftist ideological indoctrination and pervasive political correctness in the US higher education system is called “Indoctrinate U”. Saturday May 19, CSPAN ran a segment about his film on the network’s “Washington Journal”, but CSPAN posts footage of the shows online (when they have it up, I'll post it. His spot is at the two-hour mark). You can see a clip of his film on YouTube as well as the film's website, Indoctrinate-U.com.

“Indoctrinate U” focuses on the pervasive trampling of free speech and thought on college campuses and traces the modern history of free expression on campuses from the ‘60s through today. The doc covers personal stories like “the Kafka-esque nightmare faced by Steve Hinkle, a student at California Polytechnic, who the school attempted to sanction for placing a flier in the university's multicultural center announcing a speech by conservative African-American author, Mason Weaver.” It also features a professor who “excitedly tells the camera ‘whiteness is a form of racial oppression…treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity’.”

The “Weekly Standard” highlighted what the documentary covers (my emphasis throughout):

Tim Russert was Jon Stewart’s guest on The Daily Show Tuesday night. The main course on Stewart’s menu of questions: Bush-bashing. Don’t the Bush people have an “open contempt for democracy” when they don’t submit to the All-Powerful Russert on Meet the Press? How do they “get away with their belligerence?” And when David Gregory dances behind Karl Rove at the White House correspondents dinner, why doesn’t he lean in with a microphone and assert “you lied to everybody!”

Stewart made his "open contempt for democracy" outburst after Russert complained he hasn't interviewed President Bush since 2004, Vice President Cheney since last September, and didn't interview Defense Secretary Rumsfeld in the last three years of his tenure. But Bush has submitted to plenty of other interviews (including with NBC anchors Brian Williams and Matt Lauer) not to mention press conferences. The same goes for Rumsfeld. Russert insisted to Stewart that our leaders "cannot make tough decisions unless you're willing to answer tough questions." But when has Russert submitted to a tough, adversarial TV interview about his role in the Plame-Wilson war on the White House? Never.

Here’s a disturbingly inconvenient truth: Students at Roger Williams University in Briston, Rhode Island, were forced to watch Al Gore’s global warming schlockumentary if they wished to graduate.

Think I’m kidding?

As reported by Young America’s Foundation (h/t NBer Dahlia Travers. Also, please watch the following video of Fox News’ Neil Cavuto interviewing one of these students on the May 9 “Your World”):

For a news division that prides itself on being hard-hitting, there's nothing less hard-hitting than a special where CBS News touts itself as the Historic Oasis of Truth and Fairness. That's coming again tonight with a special remembering Walter Cronkite on his 90th birthday. Most companies don't put their slobbery internal tributes up for a nation to watch, but CBS News keeps trying to live down Memogate and other embarrassments in partisan excess by playing up Cronkite. (To see a more critical look at Cronkite and his excesses, check out our Walter Cronkite Profile in Bias page.)

MRC's Justin McCarthy noticed a big promo segment on Friday's Early Show. The only honorees were Bill Clinton, George Clooney, Robin Williams and a slew of TV news buddies -- like Diane Sawyer cooing "I think he is the most wonderful combination of a certain steel of integrity but absolute humanity," and Katie Couric having a diva moment: "If I knew the answer to what made Walter Cronkite Walter Cronkite, I'd be running all three networks and every cable channel, too." The morning clip read like this: 

Bob Knight, Director of the Culture and Media Institute offers these thoughts on the media's treatment of the death of Rev. Jerry Falwell.

In many of his talks to Liberty University students, the Rev. Jerry Falwell emphasized the importance of “finishing well.”

On Tuesday, May 15, he was at the top of his game when he unexpectedly died in the college office where he was planning more expansions of the fast-growing university that he founded in 1971.

The Rev. Falwell did a lot of things well, ticking off liberals right up to the end. How else would he have garnered the kind of tribute from a major newspaper’s religion writer that was headlined, “Sigh of relief over Falwell death.”

To make sure no one mistook her, Chicago Sun-Times Religion Writer Cathleen Falsani’s May 18 column explains her reaction to the news about Dr. Falwell on May 15.