Huffington Post

It’s hard to keep up with what the media and the left deem acceptable. Seems like just last year Anderson Cooper publicly took offense at a line from a movie. Come to think of it, it was just last year that the CNN anchor found “That’s so gay,” upsetting to his perfectly honed PC sensibilities.

Fast forward a year. Many people are accusing two currently prominent figures of being gay. But don’t hold your breath waiting for indignant coverage from Cooper and the rest of the media, because it’s liberals leveling the charge against conservatives.   

Take, for example, Marcus Bachmann, husband of GOP presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.). The Bachmanns have been married more than 30 years, and have five children. Mr. Bachmann runs a clinic that offers Christian counseling to people struggling with “unwanted” homosexual feelings – derisively termed “praying away the gay” by liberals.

Last month Tucker Carlson said, "Very few people have done more to divide the country than Chris Matthews."

Once again proving the point, Matthews on the syndicated program bearing his name this weekend expressed great joy that his regulars almost unanimously agreed that Texas governor Rick Perry will be easier for the Obama campaign to attack than former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney - "This is one of the great moments in this program's history" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The primary argument conservatives made against presidential candidate Barack Obama in 2008 was that he lacked the proper experience and qualifications for the most important job on the planet.

On Tuesday, Huffington Post's Howard Fineman, one of the many liberal media members that helped get the woefully lacking junior senator from Illinois into the White House, said on MSNBC's "Hardball," Obama "should have spent more time on the Chicago Board of Aldermen than at the University of Chicago" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

UPDATE AT END OF POST: AOL HuffPo responds.

Joining our growing list of media members willing to flat out lie on national television to advance their political agendas is Arianna Huffington who falsely claimed this week that securities firm JPMorgan warned its clients the debt ceiling agreement "is going to reduce our growth by a point-and-a-half."

Such was dishonestly said during a segment of CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" aired Sunday (video follows with transcript and commentary):

In the wake of liberal disappointment over December's budget agreement and this week's debt ceiling deal - both not including tax hikes - there's been a lot of squabbling from far-left media members about Barack Obama betraying them.

On Wednesday, AOL Huffington Post editor-in-chief Arianna Huffington told MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell that nobody believes the President's top priority is jobs - it's getting reelected (video follows with transcript and commentary):

At the conclusion of a fractious national debate about the debt ceiling, a truly marvelous moment occurred Monday when Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) returned to the House floor after being shot in the head almost seven months ago.

Apparently unable to control himself, the sadly getting more and more disgraceful Chris Matthews chose to mar the emotional homecoming by connecting her shooting to the Tea Party and "the violent level of the right-wing" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

For the second week in a row, the New York Times has embraced the mission of trumpeting the fruitless cause of female "priests" in the Catholic Church. What gives?

As faulty as Laurie Goodstein's article was last week, the offering from Dirk Johnson (Sun., 7/31/11) doesn't fare much better. Johnson's one-sided piece omits a number of important facts in reporting the issue.

 Appearing as a guest on Thursday’s Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC, the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein suggested that the budget plan that the House Republican leadership is trying to pass would harm the economy, and, as if the government did not take in lots of tax revenue already, referred to the absence of a tax increase as "no revenues." Stein:

Frank Schaeffer -- the embittered liberal progeny of the late evangelical Christian scholar Francis Schaeffer -- appeared on MSNBC's "Martin Bashir" program this afternoon where he availed himself the opportunity to spew forth more venom against American evangelicals, who tend to vote for conservative Republicans.

Schaeffer was ostensibly brought on to react to new polling data that show 56 percent of Americans believe it's important for presidential candidates to have strong religious beliefs, even if those beliefs don't square with the voter's personal views.

In the process of the interview, Schaeffer indirectly compared evangelical Christians to the Taliban as he slammed "faith-based politics" (emphasis mine):

Six out of seven reporters, called on by Barack Obama at today's press conference, asked a question of the President that came from the left and/or blamed Speaker John Boehner and the Republicans for standing in the way of a deal on the debt ceiling.

Ben Feller of the AP, began the trend of questioning when he asked how Obama was going to deal with Republicans who were "adamantly" opposed to tax increases. CBS News' Chip Reid followed with "isn't the problem the people who aren't in the room, and in particular Republican presidential candidates and Republican Tea Partiers on the Hill?"

“Daily Show” co-creator Lizz Winsted is going on tour to fund Planned Parenthood, and Lucas Kavner of the Huffington Post insisted that this is somehow not leftist:

While her comedy has always been inherently political – and she's not backing down from her own personal affiliations – this tour is not aimed at those on the right or left. It's merely to raise awareness and support for an organization that has been an essential part of her life.

"It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more."

-John Adams, July 3rd, 1776

Seems like a lot of fuss over a document written to form a political agreement between some loosely unified colonies more than 200 years ago.

When Adams wrote that, a nation had been created, yes, but it had yet to win any significant victories in its war against the most powerful military in the world. Many states were nearly bankrupt and it wasn't certain they'd hang together. And for all its noble ideas about equality, the Declaration did nothing to end slavery, which Adams called "as offensive in the sight of God as it is derogatory from our own honor or interest of happiness."

During the 2008 presidential campaign, media members were conspicuously disinterested in one candidate's connection to domestic terrorists as well as his ties to an America-hating reverend.

Following the second debate during this election cycle, the Huffington Post's Sam Stein actually wrote an article about Mitt Romney having knowledge of a hockey game going on at the same time Republican presidential candidates were swapping jabs, and whether that may have violated the rules:

Tracy Morgan isn't responsible for what he says, not when he's in Nashville -- Republicans in the Tennessee legislature are, according to comedienne Wanda Sykes.

The "30 Rock" actor has generated considerable unease among fellow liberals in recent days, while also mercifully diverting attention from the aptly-named Weiner scandal, after it was reported that Morgan cut loose with a decidedly un-PC standup routine on June 3 in Nashville.

As initially reported by a blogger named Kevin Rogers on his Facebook page, Morgan said that "if his son was gay he better come home and talk to him like a man and not [he mimicked a gay, high pitched voice] or he would pull out a knife and stab that little N (one word I refuse to use) to death."

Morgan also said, according to Rogers, "that there is no way a woman could love and have sexual desire for another woman, that's just a woman pretending because she hates a f***ing man. ... that the gays needed to quit being p***ies and not be whining about something as insignificant as bullying ... that bullied kids should just bust some ass and beat those other little f***ers, not whine about it. ... how women should be home cooking him a f***ing meal and not becoming CEOs or him talking about f***ing the moms of retards."

Media critics, decidedly un-conservative for the most part, are piling on Arianna-OL in the wake of  what is increasingly being seen as a disastrous merger. Don't blame the right, this is coming from Poynter, MediaBistro, Business Insider and elsewhere, Forbes being perhaps the only "conservative" outlet.

Four months ago, when AOL chairman Tim Armstrong needed something to revitalize his news department, he found what he thought was his savior in the Huffington Post. The popular news site already had three things that AOL hadn’t been able to previously accomplish: a clear editorial voice, continued and growing traffic growth, and deep engagement from its users. Although AOL had executed a series of bad mergers and new product launches in recent years, Armstrong pushed forward, forking over $300 million dollars into the coffers of the far left Arianna Huffington and her initial investors.

Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn is a well-known proponent of despots the world over.

On Sunday, he wrote another piece for the Huffington Post extolling the wonder that is Hugo Chavez while asking America to withdraw its recently imposed economic sanctions on Venezuela:

If you're like me, you've been waiting for feminist claims that global warming is harder on women and therefore should be a greater concern to the public.

Actress Sigourney Weaver of "Alien" fame did just that Thursday with an astonishingly ludicrous article published at the Huffington Post - a website rife with astonishingly ludicrous articles:

Borrowing the phraseology of left-wing bloggers, NBC Justice correspondent Pete Williams has (so far) thrice invoked Nazi terminology to describe SB-1070, the Arizona immigration law that continues to be the object of liberal scorn.

The first reference occurred today during the 10 a.m. EDT hour of "Jansing & Co.," when Williams called the state measure the "show us your papers law."

Moments later, Williams led the top of 11 a.m. EDT hour of "MSNBC Live" by repeating the "show us your papers" line.

The NBC correspondent took a break for about an hour before rephrasing the legislation during the 12 p.m. EDT hour as the "round up the usual suspects law."

Many in the press are gearing up to present today's special election in New York's 26th Congressional District as a referendum on Republican budget proposals and plans to reform entitlement programs.

MSNBC's website collected examples of such claims from numerous news outlets, including the Associated Press, Roll Call, the Hill, and a pair of local newspapers. Left-wing news outfits such as the Huffington Post and Talking Points Memo have also tried to play this card.

The facts belie these claims. A conservative third party candidate seems to have siphoned significant support from the Republican candidate, and polling data suggests district residents support Republican Medicare reform proposals. But don't expect that to stop reporters from making their referendum claims, just as they did after the 2009 special election in upstate New York.

Interesting revelation at Huffington Post today about International Monetary Fund managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn facing charges stemming from an alleged sexual assault involving a hotel maid.

"Strauss-Kahn has blogged for HuffPost," the story reads, nine paragraphs deep. Well, that certainly catches a reader's attention.

Turns out the prominent French socialist has blogged at HuffPo at least a dozen times over the last eighteen months, including four posts this year. Most recently, on March 31, Strauss-Kahn wrote about China's economy and the international monetary system. All of his posts, linked here, have been on economics.

First of Four Parts

When liberal investor George Soros gave $1.8 million to National Public Radio, it became part of the firestorm of controversy that jeopardized NPR's federal funding. But that gift only hints at the widespread influence the controversial billionaire has on the mainstream media. Soros, who spent $27 million trying to defeat President Bush in 2004, has ties to more than 30 mainstream news outlets - including The New York Times, Washington Post, the Associated Press, NBC and ABC.

Prominent journalists like ABC's Christiane Amanpour and former Washington Post editor and now Vice President Len Downie serve on boards of operations that take Soros cash. This despite the Society of Professional Journalist's ethical code stating: "avoid all conflicts real or perceived.

Can you imagine liberal media members in 2007 or 2008 blaming George W. Bush's sagging poll numbers on the public's dismal view of the Democrat Congress?

On Friday, the Huffington Post's Howard Fineman actually told MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell "the fact the Republicans and Congress are so poorly regarded, that the whole system is so poorly regarded, drags everybody down, including the president" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

A freelance blogger on Tuesday filed a class action lawsuit against Arianna Huffington for $105 million. The suit alleges that the Huffington Post's legion of unpaid bloggers are entitled to one third of the revenue from the site's sale to AOL in February.

Jonathan Tasini, who filed the lawsuit, compared Huffington to a "robber baron" in a blog post on Tuesday, and called her site a "blogger plantation - where her slaves work to build her fortune."

Tasini's hard-left perspective came through in his complaint (students of Marx will no doubt recognize his labor theory of value):

Following its controversial decision to ban Andrew Breitbart from publishing articles at its front page, the Huffington Post has found itself in quite a pickle now that one of its regular contributors, comedian Bill Maher, made disgustingly vulgar references to former Alaska governor Sarah Palin.

As NewsBusters previously reported, Breitbart made some comments about President Obama's former green czar Van Jones that precipitated the following hypocritical statement from HuffPo spokesman Mario Ruiz last Thursday (readers are warned of vulgar content in full article):

Howard Kurtz on Sunday hypocritically supported the Huffington Post's decision to can Andrew Breitbart as one of its front page contributors.

The "Reliable Sources" host took issue with comments Breitbart made about former Obama green czar Van Jones, but ignored the immutable fact that numerous HuffPo bloggers have regularly made ad hominem attacks on prominent conservatives without being admonished or demoted (video follows with transcript and commentary):