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As we all know, Andrea Mitchell having told us so, Chris Matthews is no liberal. However the Hardball host did emphatically state on this afternoon's show that, at least when it comes to health care, he agrees with Michael Moore.

Matthews had just aired an impromptu interview that MSNBC's David Shuster had snared with Moore when the filmmaker appeared on Capitol Hill today on the occasion of this week's release of his latest work, "Sicko," regarding health care in the United States. In both Shuster's depiction of Moore's views, and in Moore's own statements in the course of the interview, Moore made clear that he wants to eliminate private-sector participation in health care insurance.

As Shuster put it: "in this movie, Moore calls for the end, the end, of for-profit healthcare."

In the aired interview, Moore described private-sector insurers as a "racket" and said "I want private insurance companies out of the equation."

So how did Matthews react to Moore's call for the killing of private-sector health care?

HARDBALL HOST CHRIS MATTHEWS: You know, I gotta agree with him on this stuff. I gotta agree with him. He's got a case. Healthcare in this country is not working.

As Newsbusters previously documented, NBC is giving 75 hours of air time to Al Gore and his global warming alarmism with his "Live Earth" concert. On June 20 MSNBC, NBC’s cable channel, ran featured Janet Larson from the Earth Policy Institute, a global warming alarmist, to paint a scary picture for the future.

Host Contessa Brewer started with her editorial comment "it was downright scary," and as Larson continued her frightening predictions, Brewer asked softball questions like "are [government officials] likely to listen to this study?" and "is there anything we can do to help change this?" Brewer never mentioned the cost of combating a scenario that may not materialize. The entire transcript is below.

An article by Ryan Lenz of the Associated Press reported on the shooting of two sheriff’s deputies in Georgetown, Indiana by a teenager, who subsequently killed himself. The article, entitled "Officials: Teen used WWII-era rifle," identified the weapon used in the shooting as a "sniper rifle" in its lead sentence. Two paragraphs later, the weapon was specifically-identified as M-1 Garand. [pictured at right, photo via MemorablePlaces.com]

Anyone who has seen "Saving Private Ryan" or the HBO miniseries "Band of Brothers" has seen the M-1 Garand, the standard service weapon in World War II for the American military. It was the first semi-automatic rifle to be issued in mass quantities to infantry forces. It was used with great effect during the war, and General George Patton called it "the greatest implement of battle ever devised." Since it was a standard weapon, it was generally not used in the sniper role for most of the war. Two versions of the rifle for snipers, the M-1C and M-1D were issued in small quantities in the last year of the war, which had the telescopic sight needed for snipers.

"An Eco-System Runs Through It" trumpets the June 19 front page headline in the San Antonio Express-News. The Anastasia Ustinova story manages to combine two liberal positions together in the guise of protecting the environment, as the sub-head tells readers that "Fencing threatens critters - and eco system."

The story goes on to note that the fence "would cut large swaths through sensitive habitat and harm rare or threatened species." The story reads like liberal environmental literature and even has time to push a non-green liberal cause: preventing border fencing.

Yet once again the left gets confused about the difference of opinion and actual balanced news.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announcing he’s leaving the Republican Party is a little like Madonna announcing she’s leaving the Catholic Church. Was he ever really a paragon of the GOP? Speculation abounds that he’s running for president on the Ross Perot egotistical-billionaire plan, with press reports citing his intention to spend a cool $1 billion of his personal fortune. That will surely create a headwind, but a big part of the wind beneath his wings will be the support he hopes to generate from the national media.

And it’s happening already. Bloomberg’s third-party spoiler ambitions were heavily promoted by two news magazines – a big promotional cover story in Time with fellow RINO Arnold Schwarzenegger titled "The New Action Heroes," and a two-page editorial by U.S. News & World Report owner Mort Zuckerman titled "What to Like About Mike."

This is not to say these magazines believe what America really needs is a successful media magnate in the White House. If they did, they would have done the same publicity favors for Steve Forbes.

Apocalyptic rants about what global warming will do to civilization have become so frequent it's hard to keep up, but CBS “Evening News” had a monumental one on June 19.

Mark Phillips reported an international study that said climate change could threaten the $662 billion international tourism industry – because rising sea levels and humidity will supposedly destroy monuments and sites like the Tower of London, the Eiffel Tower, the Parthenon and so on.

“[G]lobal warming may hasten the destruction of some of the world’s most treasured buildings and heritage sites,” warned Phillips.

Of course, Phillip neglected to tell viewers that some of the sites have already survived at least two changes in climate and a couple world wars.

Since joining the New York Times' Baghdad bureau (after having covering Iraq for the L.A. Times), reporter Alissa Rubin has consistently provided coverage even more pessimistic than even the early "civil war" declarer, reporter Edward Wong. In April, Rubin lamented how "Iraqis feel about the violence and disruption of daily life that have brought so much misery to the country since the American invasion in 2003."

Today's New York Times lead story by Rubin, on the deadly explosion that destroyed part of the Khalani Mosque in Baghdad, included two occasions where Rubin let Iraqis suggest the U.S. was helping the terrorists.

Dilbert, everyone's favorite office life cartoon, has started a series of strips making fun of environmental alarmism.  (H/t: Small Dead Animals)

Here are the most recent cartoons. Follow the series as it happens at Dilbert.com.

The University of Iowa Press will give voice to the poetic ramblings of 17 terrorist detainees in Guantanamo, entitled "Poems from Guantanamo: The Detainees Speak." The Wall Street Journal reports:

The collection, translated from Arabic, was compiled by Marc Falkoff, a defense lawyer with a literary bent. Mr. Falkoff, who got a Ph.D. in English before he went to law school, represents 17 Yemeni prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, and he dedicated the book to his clients, describing them in the inscription as "my friends inside the wire."

On Wednesday, NewsBusters reported the complete study done by the BBC of the problem it's having with liberal bias within the organization (h/t Benny Peiser).

Inside the Report was a section dealing specifically with how the network is dealing with matters relating to climate change.

As NewsBusters has given great focus to this controversial subject since its inception, it seems appropriate to separate and highlight this part of the BBC’s Report with greater analysis.

This is especially the case given the manmade global warming biases which seemed to infiltrate the Report itself (emphasis added throughout):

When Hillary faked a Southern accent in Selma, Alabama the major network morning news shows, *for the most part, ignored her blatant and awkward pandering but when Hillary and Bill played like Tony and Carmela Soprano in a campaign ad, meant to humanize Hillary, it drew widespread praise on those very same shows.

On this morning's Today show, co-anchor Matt Lauer declared it, "a hit" and "clever" while fellow anchor Meredith Vieira exclaimed she "loved" it. On ABC's Good Morning America, George Stephanopoulos called it "effective" in "showing that she's also a human being who can laugh at herself." Over on CBS's The Early Show, Bob Schieffer called the ad, "hilarious," and cheered: "I think it's one of the cleverest things I've seen in a long, long time."

The Washington Post's obituary pages are never immune from bias, particularly when a Communist goes on to his or her eternal reward. The passing of the "first lady" of Cuba, Fidel Castro's sister in law Vilma Espin de Castro, is no exception. The bias began even before the lede with a headline that described the dead Communist as a "politician" who "empowered women in Cuba."

It wasn't until the 17th out of the 23-paragraph obit that Post staffer Adam Bernstein noted Raul Castro's late wife "was reportedly ruthless when it came to ordering the killing of suspected informers."

Instead, Bernstein chose to view Espin "as a champion of women's rights" being "the first woman elected to full membership on the Cuban Communist Party's Politburo." Something tells me she wasn't a champion of, oh, I dunno, the right to private property, the right of free speech, the right to free and fair elections, or the right to travel freely outside of Cuba. Bernstein doesn't mention it, but other news accounts make clear she was for the right to have an abortion, the quintessential "woman's right" to many in the mainstream media.

ABCNews.com's The Blotter has an update on their exclusive story of the recent Taliban "graduation ceremony":

The Taliban military commander [Mansoor Dadullah] who led the "graduation ceremony" for 300 suicide bombers was one of five men released from an Afghanistan prison earlier this year in exchange for a kidnapped Italian journalist.

[...]

Journalist Daniel Mastrogiacomo was kidnapped along with his interpreter and driver by Taliban fighters in early March.

A hostage trade was negotiated, in part by an Italian-run hospital organization, for his release in exchange for the release of five senior Taliban commanders that were in the custody of the Afghan federal government.

Have we entered the Twilight Zone? A mainstream media outlet is going after Congress, particularly a Democrat Congress, for not living up to one of their promises?

CNN correspondent Drew Griffin and a team of two staffers and six interns all 435 members of the House of Representatives a simple question - if they get obtain a copy of each representative's earmark request. Even with the Democrats' campaign promise before the last election that they wanted a more "open" government, 330 members of the House never responded to the simple request. Another 67 refused the interns' request. Ultimately, they were only able to obtain the earmark requests from the offices of 31 representatives. Out of the 31, seven said they had no earmark requests in the fiscal year 2008 budget.

CNN aired two different reports about this, one on "Anderson Cooper 360" on June 18, and the other on the June 19 "American Morning." The report on "Anderson Cooper 360" aired the following excerpt from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

DREW GRIFFIN: ...Last week Speaker Nancy Pelosi hailed a new open earmark process saying finally the American people will know where their money is going, and then she said this.

REP. NANCY PELOSI, (D) HOUSE SPEAKER: If I just might direct the record to another place, why don't we just leave this room today forgetting the word earmark? This is legislatively directed spending as opposed to executive spending.

GRIFFIN: And Ms. Pelosi, for the record, a member of your staff told us you would not reveal your "legislatively directed spending requests."

NewsBusters reported Sunday that the BBC completed a year-long internal investigation of its policies and procedures concluding that it “has failed to promote proper debate on major political issues because of the inherent liberal culture of its staff.”

The complete 81-page study has now been made available (h/t Benny Peiser), and should be required reading for media organizations here in America that clearly have similar bias problems.

What follows are some of the important highlights of this fabulous, must-read analysis.

After an introduction and forward, the Report set out twelve editorial guidelines, with the most compelling being (emphasis added throughout):

I have been a huge fan of Michael Yon for years. He risks life and limb as an embedded reporter to report the news in Iraq from the soldiers' point of view and he is honest in his assessment. That honesty has often been met with scorn and resistance by some decision makers in the military who in my assessment have been their own worst enemy when it comes to getting the word out about progress as well as the hardships endured by our fine fighting men and women overseas.

But Michael knows the importance of giving a voice to the voiceless heroes that protect our shores so that we at home may tuck our children in to sleep peacefully at night. For this reason Michael provides us an alternative, more rounded message; a beacon in the darkness of the mainstream media's one sided narrative.

Actor Robin Williams riffed on Catholic priests as pedophiles on NBC's June 18 Tonight Show with Jay Leno, proving that anti-Catholic bigotry is alive and well and condoned among Hollywood's elite, and apparently among the liberal media as well. Williams essentially smeared all priests,  ignoring the fact that 81 percent of the victims in the Catholic Church were males abused by priests and that more than 40 percent of these victims were males aged 11 to 14. The majority of the victims, according to the official reports on the cases, involved people who were past puberty, i.e., young teenagers.

On the show, Williams pretended to play a game where the pedophile is hidden under a cap (hat tip to the Catholic League). Said Williams: "Here we go. Find the priest, find the pedophile. Find the priest, find the pedophile. Here you go right now. Move 'em around, move 'em around. Oh, you found the pedophile." 

Coming back from a commercial break that included a plug for "the best reporting, the power of NBC News" on "Super Tuesdays," MSNBC's Chris Matthews was caught uttering an expletive, complaining about the content of the network's programming.

The "Hardball" host complained that "we're all reacting here and putting on shit" with the network's breaking news coverage pertaining to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg leaving the GOP to become an independent.

Video (0:46): Real (1.94 MB) or Windows Media (1.39 MB), plus MP3 audio (216 kB)

NBC anchor Brian Williams, on Tuesday's Daily Show, recognized that there are “tremendous local victories” in Iraq, but told Jon Stewart the constant suicide bombings killing scores of civilians leave him unable to answer the question: “How's the war going?” But, “when you look at the big picture you wonder how it's ever going to work?” Asked by Stewart about his March trip to Iraq, Williams offered a colorful detail about pleadings from Iraqi women as he answered:

“We go to Ramadi and Iraqi women, unprompted, didn't know who I was, come up and say in Arabic to the American commander, 'please don't ever leave us. Don't leave this town.' They've gone block by block talking to the Imans, making the town safe. Same day: I fly back with an American four-star General, we get to Baghdad to hear that 93 Shia pilgrims have been killed by two vest bombers. And then you come home after eight days and people say, 'How's the war going?' And how are you ever going to sum that up? You have tremendous local victories, and yet when you look at the big picture you wonder how it's ever going to work?"

After you...

Iain Murray at Planet Gore yesterday predicted the enviro reaction to the news that China is already the world's biggest carbon emitter, and is running away from the rest of the world:

I look forward to complaints that China has only a sixth of the world's population but emits a quarter of its CO2, that Chinese auto emissions standards aren't good enough (Mr Gore?) and that China hasn't signed Kyoto .....

Murray didn't have to wait long.

The propagandists are already at work, with the willing help of the BBC:

On her blog, CBS anchor Katie Couric is once again offering her love and kisses to Jimmy Carter. In a "Katie Couric's Notebook" video (which airs on some CBS affiliates as an Evening News promo), Couric used the occasion of Carter being awarded an honorary doctorate of civil law from Oxford to demand of viewers that "you have to respect him for sticking to his principles." Tell that to President Bush. She began by citing another Carter cheerleader:

"Historian Douglas Brinkley says he used the White House as a stepping stone for greater things. He intervened in civil wars around the globe, monitored elections, and confronted dictators. And Carter’s work for Habitat for Humanity shows that even for someone who was once the most powerful man on Earth there’s no higher calling than helping your neighbor. To cap it all in 2002, he won the Nobel Peace Prize. Of course he’s been outspoken, criticizing President Bush and equating some Israeli policies with apartheid. And critics have accused of acting decidedly unpresidential. Agree with him or not, you have to respect him for sticking to his principles. At 82, Jimmy Carter is having an impact, still, perhaps even more than when he was president. That’s a page from my notebook."

A new Hollywood comedy by Judd Apatow called "Knocked Up" is taking heat for its perceived stance on abortion from an unlikely source; the left. The movie is a comedy bordering on raunchiness that is proving a popular diversion this Summer with strong box office takes. It's about a slobish sort of slacker (actor Seth Rogen) who has a one night stand with an incredibly beautiful and together woman (the delightful Katherine Heigl) who's life is on the rise. Unfortunately for her, she gets pregnant. The rest of the movie centers on how these two very different people attempt to get together to have and raise their child... and therein lies the left's displeasure.

You see, the couple decides to keep the baby instead of aborting it. How revolting, eh?

A snippy little review by Anthony Lane in The New Yorker snidely comments upon how Apatow's film is geared towards the great unwashed "conservative" audiences, as if that in and of itself is a disgusting proposition.

On Tuesday's The Situation Room on CNN, substitute host John King asked a question rarely asked by other journalists as he inquired whether the Democratic presidential candidates are moving too far left as they appeal to the anti-war movement, which King tagged the "juice of the left." During a discussion of the candidates' participation in the liberal Take Back America Conference and in an event for the labor union AFSCME, the CNN host asked Democratic strategist Paul Begala whether the push to withdraw from Iraq could "come back to haunt the party in a general election." King: "Anti-war is the theme, the energy, the juice of the left right now. ...  Any concerns at all on your part that all of this, bring the troops home now, bring the troops home now, turn the page, close the door on Iraq, can come back to haunt the party in a general election?" (Transcript follows)

If a counterterrorism officer working for England’s Scotland Yard admitted to leaking an intelligence report containing al Qaeda attack plans to a British newspaper, do you think this would be newsworthy here in the States?

Well, our media certainly didn’t think so, as such occurred in a British courtroom Monday, but not one American press outlet deigned to share the information with us.

Not one.

As reported by This is London (h/t NB reader Gil Andrews, emphasis added throughout):

In the June 25 edition of People magazine, Ozzy Osbourne's wife Sharon takes part in a "Q&A" surrounding her new job as a judge on NBC's "America's Got Talent." People poured some gasoline with a Rosie question, and Mrs. Osbourne lit a match:

PEOPLE: As an ex-talk show host, thoughts on the The View's Rosie O'Donnell-Elisabeth Hasselbeck feud?

OSBOURNE: Elisabeth needs a lobotomy! How can she defend the Bush administration? Being pregant doesn't [screw] with your head that much.

That's funny. How can a woman married to crazy Ozzy Osbourne attack defenders of George Bush as defending the indefensible? AP's Erin Carlson suggested Sharon Osbourne could be Rosie's replacement on The View. But the oddest part of that story is Entertainment Weekly's Ken Tucker, who thinks Joy "Republicans Cause Cerebral Hemorrhages, Don't They?" Behar is a voice of reason:

ABC’s Brian Ross broke an exclusive story Monday, first at his blog “The Blotter,” and then on “World News with Charles Gibson,” concerning teams of well-trained al Qaeda suicide bombers supposedly heading to the United States and Europe.

This report included video-clips of a Taliban “graduation” ceremony (video available here), with still-pictures of the event available here.

Yet, despite the seriousness of this report, LexisNexis and Google News searches identified few media outlets covered the story.

As most people likely didn’t hear about this given the paltry amount of coverage, what follows is a full transcript of the segment (h/t NB reader Gil Andrews):

In the closing moments of a segment on the June 19, 2007, episode of Hannity & Colmes, co-host Alan Colmes asserted, "Most Americans are pro-choice."

The truth? Well, it depends what poll you look at. In the specific issue of "pro-choice" vs. "pro-life," Colmes might want to take a look at a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll from last month, May 4-6, 2007. 1,028 adults were questioned. The margin of error is ±3%. (source, scroll down)

"With respect to the abortion issue, would you consider yourself to be pro-choice or pro-life?"

Pro-choice    45%           Pro-life    50%              (Other answers comprised 5%) 

In today's Chicago Sun-Times, columnist Jennifer Hunter writes of:

"an interesting phenomenon that has arisen over the last few months: a trend of moderate Republicans who want to vote for Barack Obama. It may seem counterintuitive, conservatives supporting a candidate who wants to tax the wealthy and embrace the conventions in the Kyoto Accord, but there is something in Obama's message about ridding politics of partisanship that is appealing to these Republicans."

In the first sentence, moderate Republicans are backing Obama. By the next, they've become conservatives. You'd think Ms Hunter, who is married to the newspaper's publisher, would know - as most people do - that moderate Republican isn't synonymous with conservative.

Socialist Dictator Hugo Chavez has seized private businesses in Venezuela and many Venezuelans are fleeing the country, yet BusinessWeek magazine found a silver lining:

“In some respects, business has never been better,” claimed Geri Smith in the June 25 issue.

Smith quoted Venezuelan American Chamber of Commerce President Edmond J. Saade who said:

“It’s a bit like the … French Revolution. Power to the people, death to nobility.”