Blogs

Today, on the third anniversary of the enactment of state-managed healthcare, aka the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), aka ObamaCare, it's worth noting a precursor of what we can expect from the establishment press as the law's implementation presses on. It can be summed up in eight words: "Hype the alleged good. Ignore the obviously bad." Distilled in four words: "Toe the administration line."

Two examples of how the press is ignoring the obviously bad came from the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, in its March 6 caoverage of the contents of the Federal Reserve's "beige book" released that day. The Fed's report contained five specific comments, four of them negative and one neutral, about the current and imminent impact of ObamaCare. None made it into either AP report. Many other outlets also ignored or minimized those comments.

Kossacks, of course, love to trash prominent Republicans -- freshman Texas senator Ted Cruz came in for some notable abuse this past week -- but they by no means neglect the party's rank and file and in some cases identify them as the root of the GOP's supposed madness.

As usual, each headline is preceded by the blogger's name or pseudonym. Daily Kos Week in Review will return in two weeks. Happy Easter!

Much of the press is describing the EU's demand that Cyprus seize a portion of bank account holders' deposits, a demand rejected yesterday by the island nation's legislature, as a "tax."

I think it's reasonable to suggest that this characterization is designed to minimize the frightening authoritarianism the EU has just attempted. In a bit of a pleasant surprise, one organization openly calling the move an attempt at "seizure" is the Associated Press.

Regular readers of NewsBusters are by definition familiar with liberal media bias. For Kossacks, however, the concept is a non sequitur, since they consider the mainstream media to be water-carriers for corporatist, right-wing Republicans. Go figure.

As usual, each headline is preceded by the blogger's name or pseudonym.

This posts builds on another by Noel Sheppard which appeared earlier today at NewsBusters. At ShowBiz411.com, Roger Friedman, who worked at Fox News for a decade until he was fired in 2009 over alleged film piracy, claims that Brooke Shields is “Likely” to join “The View” as Joy Behar and Elisabeth Hasselbeck depart. "Likely"? Wow, Rog, way to put yourself on the line.

Friedman went heavy on praise for Shields and took shots at Hasselbeck. Commenters certainly aren't supportive, as will be seen after the jump.

Being that March is Women’s History Month and March 8 is International Women’s Day, what better time to showcase a prominent female journalist being treated poorly by her male colleagues, particularly ones from the "war on women" network itself, MSNBC.

Speaking with the liberal Huffington Post, CBS This Morning co-host Norah O’Donnell describes a not-so-pleasant experience with former NBC colleagues Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann back in 2008:

President Obama's sequester-related press briefing on March 1 contained the usual fibs. Examples include but are certainly not limited to the following: "We've already cut $2.5 trillion in our deficit," when the entire amount involved is something which might happen in the future; his claim that his State of the Union laundry list "is the agenda that the American people voted for," when many of the items involved were never mentioned during the 2012 campaign; and that the sequester is "happening because of a choice that Republicans in Congress have made," despite the fact that his advisers with his personal approval originated the idea in 2011 and the reality that he was under no compulsion when he signed the bill setting it in place last week.

Since then, while the establishment press has largely ignored it, the Washington Post's Glenn Kessler has twice honed in on a relatively small but clearly refutable statement Obama uttered that day: "Starting tomorrow, everybody here, all the folks who are cleaning the floors at the Capitol ... they're going to have less pay. The janitors, the security guards, they just got a pay cut, and they've got to figure out how to manage that. That’s real." No it's not.

CNN, which if I recall correctly severed formal ties with the Associated Press some time ago, quoted former congressman Joseph Kennedy II's reaction to the death of Venezuela's authoritarian leader Hugo Chavez as follows: "President Chavez cared deeply about the poor of Venezuela and other nations around the world and their abject lack of even basic necessities, while some of the wealthiest people on our planet have more money than they can ever reasonably expect to spend" ... There are close to 2 million people in the United States who received free heating assistance, thanks to President Chavez's leadership. Our prayers go out to President Chavez's family, the people of Venezuela, and all who were warmed by his generosity."

Here is how Christine Armario at the AP, with the help of Steve LeBlanc in Boston, sanitized Kennedy's remarks:

During a panel discussion on Tuesday's NBC Today about whether websites should prevent people from commenting anonymously in order to reduce offensive rhetoric, attorney Star Jones made an over-the-top comparison: "I equate it a little bit to what the KKK used to do, in terms of being under the mask....Well, the mask of the web is giving anonymity to these kinds of people, and it's time to take the hoods off." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Fellow pundit Donny Deutsch proclaimed: "I actually think any media outlet that allows that [anonymous comments] is being irresponsible."

Did you ever mean to say "If you are shy then I have an acre of land in the Everglades." and have it come out "If you're bashful I got a snake sitting under my desk here"? I mean, those sentences are so close to being identical, and these kinds of misstatements happen all the time, right?

Well, that's what you have to believe if you're still a defender of Connecticut legislator Ernest Hewett, who said the latter on February 20 to a 17 year-old girl at a public hearing and is now saying he meant to say the former. Most press covereage of Hewett's obviously lewd remark has done an acceptable job of tagging him as a Democrat, with a notable exception being Ken Dixon at the Connecticut Post (HT Hot Air via Instapundit; bolds are mine throughout this post):

This past week, Kossacks cheered the televised trashing of Sean Hannity and jeered another media personality, Bob Woodward, for questioning President Obama's sequester narrative.
 
As usual, each headline is preceded by the blogger's name or pseudonym.

Hold the presses! The far-left blog Daily Kos is insisting that liberal reporter Bob Woodard, in doing his job as a journalist, has gone “full Breitbart” with his coverage of sequestration. Just a few short years ago, the Kossacks loved when reporters "spoke truth to power" in confronting Republicans in the White House. But now that Woodward has gone on record saying that he received threatening emails from senior Obama administration officials, well, that's a far different story.

On the February 27 broadcast of The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer on CNN, Woodward said:

The rogue collection of bureaucrats known as the Environmental Protection Agency continues its lawless ways. The establishment press continues to serve as enablers.

In January, a federal court vacated the EPA's regulations mandating the use of cellulosic biofuels which weren't produced at all until last year, and barely exist now. In response, the agency, directly defying the court, increased the production requirement of these fuels for 2013. In covering the story, as I noted at NewsBusters on January 31, the Associated Press's Matt Daly only wrote that "An oil industry representative said the Obama administration was thumbing its nose at a ruling last week by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia" -- as if the agency's action was only a matter of some eeeevil oil guy's opinion.

At the Hill on Monday, Pete Kasperowicz, employing the establishment press's usual "mean Republicans attack" spin, is packaging something first aggregated on Friday at Michelle Malkin's Twitchy.com exclusively as an accusation coming from GOP Congressman Steve Stockman of Texas.

Malkin's credit-denied crew, with the help of citizen activists who did much of the dirty work, detected what I will call "Astro-Tweets," a Twitter-driven variant of the campaign tactic known as "astroturfing," which aims, using a variety of means, to create the illusion of public support for a cause where little or none exists (bolds are mine throughout this post):

On Wednesday, the New York Daily News reported that Rob Morrison, an anchor for CBS's New York City affiliate WCBS, had quit his job after being arrested the previous weekend for an alleged assault on his wife, CBS MoneyWatch anchor Ashley Morrison. While this news story has been picked up by CNN, the New York Times, and UPI, CBS's own morning and evening newscasts have yet to report on it.

By contrast, CBS This Morning devoted several news items to the arrest and trial of Fox News correspondent Douglas Kennedy in 2012. During a April 4, 2012 report, then-anchor Erica Hill pointed out his affiliation with the news outlet before interviewing the journalist's attorney:

Kossacks are rarely short of hostility and condescension for Republicans, but their blasts at the Grand Old Party and its members seemed especially abundant this past week.
 
As usual, each headline is preceded by the blogger's name or pseudonym.

Liz Sidoti's offering this morning at the Associated Press, which is clearly a serious competitor for Worst AP Item Ever, carries the "column" label. As such, I suppose we're expected to accept the idea that the "analysis" offered is hers alone.

But you would think that the self-described "essential global news network" would have enough business judgment to review a reporter's work to make sure it doesn't talk down to the general public and indict its own reporting on the economy at the same time. You would be wrong, as will be seen after the jump.

It's always interesting when liberals disagree on something because each one believes he or she is always 100 percent correct on any issue, a stance that often leads to fiery confrontations and personal attacks.

The latest example of this concept is the angry Twitter debate between Buzzfeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith and Talking Points Memo founder Josh Marshall over an article entitled “7 Things Democrats Would Have Freaked Out About if Bush Had Done Them.”

My review of previous NewsBusters posts relating to "Bill Nye the Science Guy" indicates that he's an atheist who doesn't think creationism should be taught in schools and, more pertinent at the moment, such an avid believer in "global warming" aka "climate change" that he believes those who doubt it or that it's caused by human activity are "unpatriotic."

Nye's belief in what I prefer to call "globaloney" appears to be based far more on faith than sound meteorological knowledge, given the alarming ignorance he expressed recently on MSNBC about the origins of the past week's snowstorms in the Northeast. Washington Post Weather Editor Jason Samenow ripped into Nye at the paper's "Capital Weather Gang" blog yesterday (HT Yid With Lid via Instapundit; links are in original; bolds are mine):

As Geoffrey Dickens at NewsBusters noted earlier today (HT Washington Examiner), at what a White House blog post described as "a roundtable discussion to talk about the Administration’s plan to reduce gun violence" in Philadelphia yesterday, Vice President Joe Biden said, apparently to the members of the press assembled there, that "To be very blunt with you, we’re counting on all of you, the legitimate news media to cover these discussions because the truth is that times have changed."

Biden's clearly key takeaway quote is not present at that White House blog post written up by Tobin Marcus. In what might be an example of a news agency taking a cue from this treatment and deciding to be "legitimate" in the administration's eyes, Joann Loviglio at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, also failed to report Biden's obviously newsworthy comment. A few paragraphs from Loviglio's lapdog effort follow the jump:

Buzzfeed's Ben Smith, who used to toil at Politico, must be blind in one eye and can't see out of the other.

In what appears to be a sudden revelation in his column ("Obama Prepares To Screw His Base") on ObamaCare's harsh treatment of young people, Smith notes how they "will pay disproportionately for ObamaCare." What this really represents is something which alarmed those who studied the bill both before and after its passage in March 2010. In other words, people who follow these things closely have known about this situation for years. But course, it has fallen on deaf, deliberately ignorant, or deliberately negligent establishment press ears. Thus, most low-information voters don't know what's coming. Beyond that, Smith acts as if the Obama administration hasn't been shafting young people ever since Barack Obama took his first oath of office in January 2009, when it has been doing so in a variety of ways on a daily basis. Excerpts from Smith's somnambulance, wherein he actually tries to blame Sarah Palin for what's coming, follow the jump (bolds are mine throughout this post):

UPDATE: The post has been revised from its original presentation to reflect the fact that the Cincinnati Enquirer covered the story but chose not to identify the person involved, even though her name is a matter of public record.

On Wednesday, local Cincinnati TV station WCPO did a report (HT John Fund at National Review via Doug Powers at Michelle Malkin's blog) on how "The Hamilton County Board of Elections is investigating 19 possible cases of alleged voter fraud" (Cincinnati is the county seat of Hamilton County).

The most potentially outrageous case involves Melowese Richardson, who "admits to voting twice in the last election." Even though "she has worked the polls since 1988," she offered a hopelessly lame excuse for the multiple vote. She may also have voted four additional times under others' names, and also appears to have helped her granddaughter vote twice. Excerpts concerning Ms. Richardson's alleged voter fraud, which the left insists never, ever happens, follow the jump (bolds are mine throughout this post):

A Wednesday report by Keith Laing at the Hill failed to point out a quite obvious contradiction during departing Transportation Secretary LaHood's appearance on NPR's Diane Rehm show.

From all appearances, based on the video available at her site, Rehm, once LaHood launched into a predictable rant about how our transportation infrastructure is in serious disrepair, didn't ask -- and should have asked -- why the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on the stimulus plan accompanied by those ubiquitous Recovery Act promotional signs seen at road construction projects didn't stabilize things two or three years ago. Excerpts from Laing's lackluster effort follow the jump (bolds are mine):

Last week while MSNBC was busy deceptively editing a video of Neil Heslin, the father of a child murdered in the Newtown, Connecticut mass shooting, the "Lean Forward" network and the rest of the liberal media failed to notice the pro-gun rights testimony of another Newtown father, Bill Stevens. While he was fortunate enough to not have lost a child that day, Mr. Stevens has a daughter in 5th grade and her classmate's little sister was among those killed. "Charlton Heston made the phrase 'From my cold dead hands' famous and I am here to tell you today, you will take my ability to protect my Victoria from my cold dead hands," Stevens told the panel. [watch the video below the page break]

"In the politics of tragedy, victims and the relatives/friends of victims are often given absolute moral authority on the subject at hand. As long as they’re saying things that fit the political agenda of one side or the other in the debate," conservative blogger Rob Port noted in a February 4 post. "I’m guessing Mr. Stevens won’t be given that authority, however, because his opinions don’t fit the narrative," Port added, concluding:

Surprised they didn't opt for the auto da fe analogy . . .

On Chris Hayes's MSNBC show this morning, Ali Gharib, editor of the "Open Zion" blog at the Daily Beast, described the questioning of Chuck Hagel at his Senate confirmation hearing as "a Republican purge" and a "Maoist public shaming."  Michael Hastings of the Rolling Stone begged to differ, finding it more reminiscent of "Stalin."  View the video after the jump.

In his coverage of the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence report released earlier today, the Associated Press's Martin Crutsinger conveniently avoided using quote marks when he wrote that "Conference Board economist Lynn Franco said the tax increase was the key reason confidence tumbled in January, making Americans less optimistic about the next six months." That isn't what Franco said.

Crutsinger also -- finally -- told AP readers and subscribers what other reporters and commentators have been saying for about two weeks, namely that analysts' estimates of economic growth in tomorrow's government report on gross domestic product are a for a very weak annualized 1%.

It's not very often that a federal judge begins a ruling by saying that "Sometimes even a person with excellent vision does not see the forest for the trees." That happened yesterday in a case involving former First District Democratic Congressman and sore loser Steve Driehaus, whose district mostly comprised the western two-thirds of Cincinnati's Hamilton County. Yet it's not news at Gannett's Cincinnati Enquirer -- or anywhere else, for that matter.

After his 2010 defeat at the hands of Republican Steve Chabot, Driehaus sued the Susan B. Anthony List in federal court  for defamation and -- get this -- "loss of livelihood." Why? Because, during that campaign, SBAL told Driehaus's constituents -- correctly, it has since been proven -- that his vote for ObamaCare was a betrayal of his pro-life principles. Yesterday, despite his obvious conflict of interest as former president and director of the Planned Parenthood Association of Cincinnati, Judge Timothy Black, a Barack Obama appointee, found a way to do what he should have done in the first place, and rejected Driehaus's nonsense.