Scott Walker

Leftist blogger Ian Murphy is "a liar who broke every rule of journalism," with his phone call to Gov. Scott Walker in which he pretended to be conservative donor David Koch, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell told the audience of last night's "Hannity."

The Media Research Center founder was reacting to CNN having practically promoted Murphy's prank by awarding him the title "Most Intriguing Person of the Day" on February 24 and by plugging his website, BuffaloBeast.com, on air.

Had Murphy been a CNN employee, he'd have been fired for his unethical and highly partisan manuever, Bozell noted, citing none other than CNN's own media reporter/critic Howard Kurtz. What's more, Bozell added, the media have been silent about Murphy's rabid left-wing rantings in the past, such as in 2008 when he wrote a piece entitled, "F**k the Troops" in Iraq.

Video embed and link to MP3 audio follow the page break

MSNBC's Ed Schultz on Thursday called Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's newly-proposed budget "racist."

Not surprisingly, Schultz believes allocating more funds to school vouchers picks on poor inner-city kids (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Earlier today, my Examiner colleague Mark Tapscott wrote on the left's tendency to create political bogeymen and then accuse them of just about everything under the sun. There's a bit more that needs to be added in the context of the left's newest bogeymen, the newly infamous Charles and David Koch. Just like they did previously in their attacks on the likes of Kenneth Starr and Richard Scaife, lefties are once again playing fast-and-loose with the facts regarding the Kochs.

Fortunately, lawyer John Hinderaker over at the Power Line blog has engaged in some industrial-strength deconstruction to debunk two hit-pieces against the Kochs and Wisconsin governor Scott Walker put out by Think Progress blogger Lee Fang. He goes through each piece point-by-point and demonstrates that when it comes to the Koch Industries and the environment (and everything else), there is no truth to the leftist smears. Both pieces (1 and 2) are must-reading.

Here's just a taste of the debunking (Fang quotes or summaries are in bold):

During a report on the latest developments in Wisconsin for Wednesday's CBS Early Show, correspondent Cynthia Bowers proclaimed that the 14 Democratic state senators who fled to Illinois to block Governor Walker's budget proposal from passing have "become heroes to protesters." She lamented: "Now comes word, albeit from a Republican, some may be ready to come home and concede."

Bowers used the "hero" label following a sound bite from one of the fugitive state senators, Jon Erpenbach: "For him [Walker] to use dedicated public servants who clear our roads, take care of our sick, teach our kids, as poker chips is ridiculous." At the end of her report, news reader Jeff Glor wondered: "Any timetable right now, as far as you know, of when those Democratic senators might return to Wisconsin?" Bowers replied: "No. But the Senate Majority Leader did indicate to us that some of them want to come home. It's just a matter of how to finesse it, so they don't appear to be the bad guy in this with their constituents, and the protesters."

UPDATE AT END OF POST: Laura Ingraham interviews Assemblywoman Litjens.

As NewsBusters reported Tuesday, a Wisconsin Democrat Assemblyman vulgarly assaulted a Republican Assemblywoman last week disgracefully saying to her after a procedural on the state's budget, "You are f--king dead!"

Although the story was first broken by a Wisconsin radio station at 12:53 PM Monday, America's supposedly civility-minded media have almost completely boycotted it with the following exceptions:

Well, "saved" may be a bit dramatic, since GOP Sen. Glenn Grothman later said that he didn't feel he was in any real danger. But as you can see in the video below the jump Grothman was surrounded by a very loud and angry group of pro-union demonstrators. Democratic Assemblyman Brett Hulsey stepped in at around the 2:50 mark to try to calm the protesters down.

"This guy and I disagree on everything," Hulsey said, "but we're friends."

CNN's Ed Hornick apparently couldn't find anyone who disagreed with the notion that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker "overreached" in his push to eliminate collective bargaining for public sector unions. He couldn't even quote Walker himself. Hornick's Tuesday article quoted from two political science professors, a "progressive" editorial writer, and a former United States comptroller general, who helped forward this liberal-pleasing hypothesis.

The writer all but gave the answer to the question proposed in the title of his CNN.com article ("Did Wisconsin governor overreach in union battle?") in his lead sentence: "Some political experts have said that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, in a battle with public employee unions over the right to collective bargaining, has overreached in his attempts to shore up the state's budget shortfall." The graphic accompanying the article featured a pro-union protestor's sign that labeled Governor Walker a "dope," in a parody of Shepard Fairey's red, white, and blue depiction of President Obama (see below).

Retired Service Employees International Union President Andy Stern was recently interviewed by Journolist organizer and Washington Post staff writer Ezra "the Constitution is confusing because it was written more than a hundred years ago" Klein.

In response to a question from Klein about "the animosity between unions and workplaces" (that is what Klein says he said), Stern made an interesting assertion that most readers probably took at face value:

We grew up in that culture. In the '30s, people didn't want us to exist. We had to do sit-down strikes . . . we had socialist and communist tendencies. We grew up, to speak in Marxist terms, in a world with a lot more class struggle. It's not viewed through that light anymore.

Really? "Permit" me to disagree.

NBC's chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd, on Tuesday's Today show, had no problem labeling Republican governors like Scott Walker, "conservative," but for some reason just couldn't get his lips to utter the word "liberal" when referring to the President.

In a piece about Barack Obama meeting with the nation's governors, Todd observed that in his first two years in office "when the President was desperate for bipartisan support" he turned "to some Republican governors but a lot of the moderates are gone among that group" adding that now there was "a conservative force in the states." Todd then went on to note that moderate Republicans like Charlie Crist and Arnold Schwarzenegger were being replaced by "conservative warriors like Wisconsin's Scott Walker" but he never attached a single liberal label to the President or any of his policies.

Last May when a CBS News poll first asked about Arizona’s immigration enforcement law and found majority support for it (52 percent), the CBS Evening News didn’t report the finding. Two months later, when backing jumped five points higher, the newscast gave it a sentence. And a month after that, when those favoring the Arizona law had risen to 59 percent in August, the evening newscast ignored that number and instead focused on how “Americans oppose building a mosque two blocks from Ground Zero,” a story the network used to castigate Americans, pivoting to how that opposition and “controversies over new mosques in Wisconsin and Kentucky have led some to question is America becoming Islamophobic, a prejudice against Muslims?”

Now, with a CBS News/New York Times survey finding the public in sync with the CBS newsroom, and out of sync with conservatives, Katie Couric trumpeted in teasing Monday’s program: “Our new poll finds most Americans oppose cutting the pay, benefits and union rights of public employees.” She soon announced: “In a CBS News/New York Times poll out tonight, 56 percent of Americans say they oppose cutting the pay and benefits of public workers to reduce state budget deficits and 60 percent oppose taking away collective bargaining rights.”

A Wisconsin Democrat Assemblyman turned to a Republican Assemblywoman in the middle of a legislative session Friday and said, "You are f--king dead."

Despite the following report from the Northwestern at 12:53 PM Monday, no major media outlet other than Fox News has covered this disgusting story:

It is said that if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.

Maybe this is Rachel Maddow's intention behind continually saying the following on the MSNBC show bearing her name (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Since the budget battle began in Wisconsin, so-called journalists have attacked Governor Scott Walker as a union-busting shill representing big corporate donors such as the Koch brothers.

The much bigger story media have ignored - that the 14 Democrat senators who fled the state all have serious financial connections to public employees and unions - was revealed Monday by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

The campaign by pro-union demonstrators in Madison, Wisconsin to silence Fox News and prevent it from reporting continued over the weekend. Protesters did their best to prevent FNC's Mike Tobin from reporting on the protests, all the while shouting - apparently oblivious to the irony - "Fox News lies!"

A few protesters even struck Tobin, though he later downplayed the assault, and said he had declined to press charges. Another protester threatened to break Tobin's neck, he said during one report.

"I find the whole thing a terrific distraction, and terribly frustrating, because I want to cover the story," Tobin told Fox News Radio host Scott Allen Miller on Monday. Tobin brushed off the physical abuse he says he has endured from a few protesters, and insisted that the real frustration was being "harassed with every live shot" (video below the break via J$P).

Joe Scarborough's "intuitive gut reaction" to the mess in Wisconsin is that Gov. Walker's holdout against union pleas for collective bargaining "seems kind of un-American" to him. It supposedly pained the self-described small-government conservative to say it, but he held to his opinion on Monday's "Morning Joe."

"I'm going to get killed for saying this," Scarborough hesitantly prefaced his confession. "I'm going to get so killed for saying this – I hate to say this, but the concept of telling people that they cannot come together to negotiate with a government – it just kind of seems un-American to me."

The "Morning Joe" panel was covering the latest updates on the standoff in Wisconsin between Gov. Walker and the public sector unions, who are willing to compromise on some demands but want to keep their ability to collectively bargain. Walker still refuses to meet their demands, saying that unions' historic abuse of collective bargaining power contributed to the budget mess his state is now in.
 

The New York Times took pains over the weekend to emphasize the nonviolent nature of the ongoing pro-union protests in Madison, over Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to limit collective bargaining for government unions and increase the amount they pay for their health care and pension plans.

From Monday’s report by Richard Oppel in Madison on Wisconsin state authorities capitulating to protester demands they be allowed to remain overnight in the Capitol:

Union leaders say one of the strengths of the demonstrations has been that despite harsh language and personal attacks directed at Mr. Walker, the protesters had been loud but nonviolent.

At the top of Saturday's CBS Early Show, co-host Russ Mitchell cheered unions protests across the country: "Workers uniting. 50 rallies are planned in 50 states today, as organizers show solidarity with Wisconsin state workers, fighting to preserve their right to collectively bargain for benefits and work conditions."

Introducing the segment later, fellow co-host Rebecca Jarvis noted how the protests were organized by MoveOn.org. Rather than accurately label the organization as left-wing, she simply referred to it as "an advocacy group." In the report that followed, correspondent Cynthia Bowers announced that "workers who are coming to these rallies around the country to support Wisconsin workers are being told to wear those red t-shirts we've become so familiar with." The headline on screen throughout the segment referenced Karl Marx: "Workers of the Nation Unite; 50 State Rallies to Support Union Rights."

NBC's Mike Taibbi, on Saturday's Today show, portrayed the pro-labor union protestors in Wisconsin in almost heroic terms as he hailed "The crowds of overnight campers and protestors keep up their vigils. A weary resolve still evident" and depicted them as victims that were "taking the hits." On the other hand the GOP was painted as the bad guys with Taibbi detailing "Republicans used an obscure rule allowing them to end all debate" and "have tried other means of persuasion, suspending direct deposit of the Democrats' paychecks, even sending state police to several of their local homes."

Taibbi's piece was also peppered with pro-union soundbites including a Democratic state senator calling the budget bill "backwards" and a protestor cheering, "we are getting worn out but we are stronger than ever." Taibbi also aired various clips of protestors chanting "Shame! Shame!" "Scott Walker has got to go!" and "Yes we can" but allowed only one voice of dissent from the other side, with the aforementioned Governor Walker getting a brief clip to announce: "Enough time has passed. It's time to come back and have a vote on this measure."

The new civility demanded by liberals suffered a setback at Rev. Jesse Jackson's Rainbow PUSH Saturday morning forum this week.  As televised on the WORD Network, featured speaker Democratic Wisconsin state Sen. Lena Taylor told a cheering audience that Gov. Scott Walker (R) "got our state for sale like a two-bit. . . "  Taylor's PUSH appearance was reported by, among others, the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago's ABC 7 News, and the Huffington Post.  None found Taylor's slur worthy of mention.

From the video:

TAYLOR:  It's not acceptable that in this bill where my governor lies and says that it's for his budget, when he's already received all the concessions he needs from workers that he is really just giving away.  It's not that our - he says that our state is open for business, he got our state for sale.  Ooo.  Ooo.  Ooo. He got our state for sale like a two-bit. . .  OK, hmm, hmm, you know what I was going to say.  And it's not acceptable.

The presumptive face of the most biased and propagandist television news outlet in America had some harsh words for the media organization that bests hers in ratings virtually every hour of every day.

In a piece published by the Daily Beast Sunday, Rachel Maddow hypocritically told Howard Kurtz that Fox News has "become a McCarthyite chamber of horrors… You can't really call yourself a news channel if that's what you broadcast":

CNN's Gloria Borger ripped the 87 new Republicans in the House of Representatives in a Thursday commentary on CNN.com for their "arrogance of absolute conviction" in wanting to cut the budget. Borger first labeled this attachment to principle "dangerous," and continued that the "problem" with the freshmen representatives and their allies at the state level was "their conviction that compromise is bad."

The senior political analyst set the tone right away with the title of piece, "The arrogance of the new budget cutters." After noting that "we said we wanted budget cutters, so that's what we have" and the apparent "downright frenzy of rectitude in Washington," Borger stated that those "most convinced of their task are the 87 House Republican newcomers." She shot her first "arrogant" labeled at the freshmen after complimenting them a bit:

Shades of bitter-clingers!

Chuck Todd has developed an interesting device to delegitimize support for Gov. Scott Walker, depicting his backers as uneducated, frustrated, blue-collar people who are willing to "lash out at government workers."

Yup, there's no respectable basis to support Walker and his call for reforms on a collective bargaining system that has nearly wrecked Wisconsin and many other states.  No, there's just the irrational reaction of the embittered, ignorant masses.

Todd offered his analysis on today's Morning Joe in explaining that the Obama administration is backing off a bold stand on Wisconsin, given its swing-state status.

View video after the jump.

Catching up with a Thursday night appearance by Senator Rand Paul to plug his new book, Paul’s segment on the Late Show exposed David Letterman as an arrogantly ill-informed ally of Wisconsin’s public employee unions: “Why don't we just raise the taxes and let these folks have their collective bargaining, have their union representation and go back to their jobs? Raise the taxes on the wealthy.”

When Paul tried to educate Letterman about how a small percent of the wealthy pay far more than their fair share, Letterman was an oblivious student as he baselessly countered: “I think there's something wrong with those numbers. I don't know what it is exactly, but I'm pretty sure there's something wrong with them.”

Paul had outlined his wish to reduce government spending, prompting Letterman to retort: “What would be so wrong then in terms of leaving the public sector alone and reducing tax benefits for the wealthy and large corporations? Why couldn't you make up your money that way?” (Audio: MP3 clip)

Newsweek's Eleanor Clift on Friday amazingly asked, "Since when does Scott Walker represent 'the people'?"

Such happened during a heated discussion on PBS's "The McLaughlin Group" about the goings-on in Wisconsin (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CBS’s Bob Schieffer hit Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie from the left on Sunday’s Face the Nation, claiming he has “demonized” teachers and urging him to give some “straight talk” about the necessity to raise taxes.

After asking if he thinks “Governor Walker out there in Wisconsin has gone too far?” in trying to end collective bargaining, Schieffer ludicrously asserted “everybody in this country on all sides of this thinks we need education reform,” but he wanted to know if Christie realized his stance has “demonized teachers and will raise questions in young people's minds as to whether they want to go into the profession?”

“Banal Bob” soon implored Christie with his standard plea: “You have a reputation as a straight talker, I think. Do you believe that the budgetary problems across this country can be resolved without raising taxes?”

As NewsBusters reported, CNN on Thursday named the blogger that prank called Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker its "Most Intriguing Person of the Day."

On CNN's "Reliable Sources" Sunday, host Howard Kurtz noted the hypocrisy here saying, "If anybody who worked for CNN did what this guy did, they would have been fired" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Dictionary.com defines "hooligan" as a ruffian or hoodlum.

This is what the Washington Post's Dana Milbank called Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in his Sunday column: