If MSNBC is the "place for liberal politics," CNN is the place for latent America bashing, especially its corporations.

On his Oct. 22 CNN program, Rick Sanchez wore his American guilt like a badge of honor and said he wasn't going to stand for America to look bad because of what a corporation had been accused of doing, in this case Chevron (NYSE:CVX), whether they did it or not.

"We do a lot of this, and I'm glad you like it," Sanchez said. "What we do is we try and connect with what's going on in our hemisphere, this is important. In this case, how it is that often time our image as Americans - this is never a good thing - can be sullied by the behavior of an - of an American corporation abroad. And then they end up not representing us well."

On Oct. 23 ABC's "Good Morning America" aired back-to-back segments promoting climate change and, strangely enough, slamming hamburgers. First, George Stephanopoulos worried that Americans were becoming too complacent about global warming and discussed possible climate solutions with "Superfreakonomics" author Stephen Dubner. Dubner suggested choosing a kangaroo burger over a beef burger as a possible solution. Then Stephanopoulos interviewed Michael Pollan, author of "The Omnivore's Dilemma," and discussed the carbon footprint left behind by a McDonald's quarter-pounder with cheese.

Pollan said that "you're eating oil" when you're eating a burger: "You need oil to make the fertilizer to grow the corn. You need petroleum to make the pesticides to grow the corn. You need oil to move it all around the country."

Factoring in production, processing, and shipment, Pollan claimed that a quarter-pounder cheeseburger amounts to 26 ounces of oil. "What it tells you is that the carbon footprint of that burger is really big," said Pollan. "The result is a product that takes a huge environmental toll and obviously takes a health toll as well."

As the old saying goes, a photo can say a thousand things. But what it can't say is how it can be used to say one thing, but really be another thing. And that's just how The New York Times used it.

In the Oct. 9 issue of the Times, an article by Simon Romero and Clifford Krauss examined the events in a decade-and-a-half-long legal battle between a left-wing environmental group, supposedly representing the people of Ecuador, and Chevron over pollution allegedly left behind by Texaco.

However, the Times took liberty with a photo of "murky" polluted water with its Oct. 9 story, one that could lead a reader to Chevron is really at fault for pollution in Ecuador. (h/t Carter Wood, ShopFloor.org) The photograph, taken for the Times by Moises Saman (for photo see here), was captioned "a pool of oil in Lago Agrio, an Ecuadorean town in the Amazon where Texaco left contamination."

David Letterman is not just wearing his political views on his sleeve, as a one of his shows production executives recently pointed out. Now he's allowing his show to be used as a platform for leading Democrats to advocate action on liberal causes.

On Sept. 21, President Barack Obama appeared on CBS's "Late Show with David Letterman" and used his show to promote his health care/health insurance reform initiatives. But the very next night on Sept. 22, he had former President Bill Clinton on to publicize the efforts of the Clinton Global Initiative, one of which is to give aid to nations with rampant poverty.

Letterman set up Clinton to make a point about global warming. The "Late Show" host said he didn't understand how in this day and age people can still not have access to clean drinking water.

You know him as Han Solo or Indiana Jones, but these days, "Harrison Ford Fights for Planet." Or so says "Good Morning America."

ABC's morning show devoted an entire segment on September 21^st to actor Harrison Ford touting "Team Earth", an "action campaign" dealing with "pressing environmental issues." Ford said, "We need to come together, umm, to create solutions to the pressing, uhhh, environmental issues that face us ... "

With the entire on-air cast of GMA surrounding him, Ford stated that "... it's the time to come together and, uhh, make an effort to, uhh, um, make people understand that we require - not just here in the United States but throughout the world - meaningful climate legislation, uhh, from all of our leadership."

Far from questioning the need for climate legislation,  Ford's hosts helpfully prodded him along. Diane Sawyer chimed in, "And there are a lot of people who think this ... these are the months it must be done. We have to address what we're going to do if we're going to do something."

This could be dismissed as anti-human - but the theory the environment can be saved by encouraging the use of birth control is one that has been popular with media some environmentalists. 

CNN's Lou Dobbs certainly hasn't shied away from the idea. On his Sept. 21 broadcast, Dobbs revisited an early report that the true path to environmental salvation wasn't by curbing greenhouse gas, but instead by subscribing to a Malthusian theory that slowing the growth of human population was the best path.

"We have more tonight on a story that we first brought to you last month, Dobbs said. "There is new evidence of the negative impact of overpopulation on our environment. The biggest threat to the environment isn't, it turns out, gas-guzzling cars or power plants but rather having too many children all around the world."

Imagine being sued in a third-world country with a leftist government and you're a major international corporation with deep pockets. Sounds like you might have a deck stacked against you, right? 

Back in May, CBS's "60 Minutes" aired a one-sided segment that could be viewed as nothing short of serving as an accomplice in $27-billion extortion effort by a leftist Latin American government against Chevron (NYSE:CVX). The segment was about a lawsuit filed by the Amazon Defense Coalition (ADC), a group described as "eco-radicals," who are trying to squeeze $27 billion from Chevron for environmental cleanup that Ecuador's government signed off on more than a decade ago.

The ADC maintains it was working on behalf of 30,000 villagers, although there were only 48 named plaintiffs, to win funds for so-called environmental damage in Ecuador's rain forest from then-Texaco Petroleum's (Texpet) operation of oil well sites. A subsequent May 15 New York Times story followed, but neither CBS nor the Times gave much credence to the possibility of corruption in the Ecuadorian courts.

Only $120.4 billion, or 15 percent of the gigantic $787-billion stimulus has been spent and some on the left, including Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, are already calling for Stimulus, Part II.

In an interview with CNBC Asia from the World Capital Market Symposium on the Aug. 10 broadcast of "Squawk Malaysia" Krugman said the stimulus that passed earlier this year was inadequate.

"We should be doing something to give the world, well give each of the major economies more of a jolt," Krugman said. "I mean, we've had these stimulus packages, but they were all inadequate. The United States, it was clear from day one that this wasn't going to be big enough."

Go green or have your private business robocalled and vandalized. It happened to a computer manufacturer in a Greenpeace publicity stunt earlier this week that included William Shatner.

Greenpeace and the Canadian-born actor joined forces against Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) and accused the company of "breaking green promises" for not producing products completely free of PVC plastic and brominated flame retardants. Activists from the radical environmental group painted a giant message on the roof of Hewlett-Packard's headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif. that read "Hazardous Products."

And in addition to the rooftop graffiti, Greenpeace set up an automated message to dial HP employee's numbers and then play them a recorded message from Shatner.

Via Hot Air's Ed Morrissey:

Barack Obama’s energy czar appeared on Fox & Friends this morning to discuss the cap-and-tax bill passed by the House last week on a razor-thin margin. Carol Browner got stumped by Fox’s Steve Doocy while questioning her ability to speak to the subject, which prompted her to declare Doocy “unfair” for blindsiding her. You be the judge — should Doocy have wondered whether Browner had bothered to read the bill she was promoting on national TV, or is that “unfair”?

Have you ever read a newspaper article and walked away stunned that the writer seemed to be totally oblivious to the real story or left some significant questions unasked?

Conservative readers of the June 9 Washington Post could understandably answer yes to the aforementioned question after reading the front page story "Early Lesson in Eco-Activism Comes From Economics Book."

Writer Daniel de Vise begins:

Casting about for a cause, the Young Activist Club at Piney Branch Elementary settled on something close at hand: the hundreds of polystyrene trays and plastic utensils discarded daily in the school cafeteria.

After 120 days of the new presidency, the automobile industry provides some of the best evidence of an administration that favors the heavy hand of government meddling in the private sector. And as is the case with mostcoverage of President Obama and his policies, criticism of his automotive tinkering has been sparse.

On May 19, Obama announced a 30-percent increase in Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, which would come to a 35.5 miles per gallon (mpg) average for both cars and light trucks. It will equate to a higher percentage increase for cars, up from its current level of 27.5 mpg standard to 39 mpg starting in 2016. And the average for light trucks would rise from 24 mpg to 30 mpg.

"We have set in motion a national policy aimed at both increasing gas mileage and decreasing greenhouse gas pollution for new trucks and cars sold in the United States of America," Obama said during his May 19 announcement.

While reporting on the Obama administration’s plan to impose higher fuel standards on cars and trucks on Tuesday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith asked Obama environmental advisor Carol Browner: "As a former long-time administrator of the EPA, how overdue is this?" Browner replied: "It is long overdue. You know, Congress stood in the way of tougher fuel economy standards for a long time. That finally was fixed."

Smith did question the higher price of cars for consumers that would result from the tougher standards: "With the added price tag cost to these average vehicles, and much higher -- higher gas mileage and fewer emissions, what is my incentive, what is my dollar incent – incentive to buy a car like this?" Browner argued that consumers would save money in the long-run due to better gas mileage: "...whether you want to buy a bigger car or a smaller car, they will all be more efficient, and cleaner. So we're preserving the consumer choice, but giving every consumer the opportunity to save money at the pump." Smith replied: "Will SUVs and pickup trucks go the way of the dinosaur, though?"

On the face of it, the idea of the government being able to regulate how much carbon dioxide (CO₂) is emitted into the atmosphere seems absurd. After all, it's a gas emitted by, among other things, human breathing.

That's the point Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, was making when he criticized the new policy that requires the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate CO₂ - much to the chagrin of MSNBC "The ED Show" anchor Ed Schultz.

"The Republican from Texas, Barton has already made it clear he's one of Congress' biggest deniers on man-made climate change," Schultz said during his "Psycho Talk" segment on his May 13 broadcast. "Now he's got a new one. The Congressman spoke with Newsmax - there's a news source - on Monday. Now, based on his interview, if you were a runner, I'd be a little bit of nervous about your favorite sport."

You might expect this sort of simple revelation from the New York Times reporting, but a May 11 article declared that when Chevron hires a former reporter to tell the company's side of the story, it's intended to make them look good - or not as bad as the eco-activists deem appropriate.

After CBS's "60 Minutes" aired a one-sided segment attacking Chevron (NYSE:CVX) for a mess the oil company contends it is not responsible for, a Times article by Brian Stetler questioned the merits of their efforts to counter the claims, specifically in hiring a former CNN reporter to speak on the company's behalf.

"As a demonstration of just how far companies will go to counteract negative publicity, the Chevron case is extraordinary," Stetler wrote. "Gene Randall, a former CNN correspondent, spent about five months on the project, which was posted on the Internet in April, three weeks before the ‘60 Minutes' report was shown on May 3."

When $27 billion is at stake, some companies would pay big bucks to win a PR battle, but one side of an environmental lawsuit doesn't have to, since CBS is pushing its position for free.

On CBS's May 3 "60 Minutes," correspondent Scott Pelley, who once compared global-warming skepticism to Holocaust denial, gave the plaintiff of a $27-billion frivolous lawsuit against Chevron a public relations victory with his report.

Pelley's report featured a suit filed by the Amazon Defense Coalition, a group described as "eco-radicals," who are trying to squeeze $27 billion from Chevron for environmental cleanup that the nation's government signed off on more than a decade ago. Pelley described ADC as working on behalf of 30,000 villagers, although there are only 48 named plaintiffs, to win funds for so-called environmental damage in Ecuador's rain forest from then-Texaco Petroleum's (Texpet) operation of oil well sites.

On Sunday’s CBS ‘60 Minutes,’ anchor Scott Pelley, who once remarked that global warming critics were the equivalent of Holocaust deniers, identified the American coal industry as one of the main culprits of climate change: "The future of our climate might be summed up in one question, what do we do about coal? Coal generates nearly half the electricity in the United States and in the world. But it is the dirtiest fuel of all when it comes to carbon dioxide, or CO-2, the leading greenhouse gas. A few days ago, the Obama administration declared, for the first time, that CO-2 is a threat to human health and it plans to impose limits."

Pelley’s story did feature a representative of the coal industry, Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers, who actually called for limitations on carbon emissions: "It's my judgment it is a problem. We need to go to work on it now. And it's critical that we start to act in this country...Our goal line is substantially to reduce our carbon footprint, to de-carbonize our business, by 2050." However, that wasn’t good enough for Pelley: "Four decades? That's a long time."

Pelley followed up by citing left-wing global warming activist Jim Hansen: "2050 is too late. We will have guaranteed disasters for our children, grandchildren, and the unborn." Pelley explained: "Jim Hansen is NASA's top climate scientist. He's credited with some of the earliest and most accurate projections on climate change. He thinks that Rogers plan leaves the Earth in the oven decades too long."

President Barack Obama burned roughly 9,000 of jet fuel yesterday, Earth Day, and that only to deliver one speech in Iowa, reports CBS News's Mark Knoller in an April 22 Political Hotsheet blog post.

As if that weren't amusing enough, Knoller notes that the Air Force and the White House wouldn't disclose to Knoller how much fuel the president's plane burns on an average flight, so he had to consult with the manufacturer of the 747, Boeing:

In flying to and from Iowa today, President Obama took two flights on Air Force One and four on Marine One.

The press office at Andrews AFB wouldn’t give me the fuel consumption numbers for the 747 that serves as Air Force One without the approval of the White House Press Office, which as I write this has yet to be given.

But Boeing says its 747 burns about 5 gallons of fuel per mile. It’s 895 miles from Washington to Des Moines, so a round trip brings the fuel consumption for the fixed-wing portion of the President’s trip to 8,950 gallons. 

Oh for the good old days when West Virginia was full of mountaineers who lived off the land. You know, before those evil coal companies came and enslaved the state to its grimey grasp.

That's the view of Julia Bonds, an environmental activist from the Mountain State whom Newsweek's Daniel Stone featured in an April 21 Web-exclusive interview.

Not once in his story did Stone press Bonds on specifics about how she expected to replace jobs lost due to the anti-mining regulations that she pines for, nor did he raise an eyebrow to Bonds practically suggesting that West Virginians would be better living in shotgun shacks without electricity (emphasis mine):

Don’t you dare go buy that $300 department store satin dress for your senior prom; a Captain Planet costume is more appropriate. Some high school students are entering an online video contest called Project Green Prom in which they promise to create a “zero waste event” for their high school prom.

For the next 25 days, high school students have the opportunity to send in three minute videos describing their ideas to create a more environmentally-friendly prom to the Web site teensturninggreen.com. The contestants can win eco-prom dresses from top designers, “sustainable” beauty products, and the grand prize winner gets a trip to New York City for a full “Green Prom Makeover.”

But the media is not reporting this push to get high school students to incorporate political pressure into what is already a night full of pressure to get the right date, get the right dress, etc. The only places this contest appears are on left-wing, “green” sites like greendaily.com, www.treehugger.com, and mothernaturenetwork.com.