Huffington Post

Author and blogger Frank Schaeffer really, really doesn't like what he calls "evangelical/fundamentalist" Christians. In the past, he's suggested that their "hatemongering" was responsible for the "continuing ugliness of the response to President Obama." And now, in a new blog on The Huffington Post, he's calling for the "eradication" of fundamentalist Christianity.

"The next great task for the human race is to wean ourselves off literal interpretations of religion. We need to eradicate fundamentalism in all its forms," Schaeffer wrote. "Atheism is no help," he later added.

It is no surprise that he feels this way toward Christianity. After all, it flies in the face of liberal ideology, which promotes gay marriage and heterosexual cohabitation before marriage.

Right on cue, Schaeffer used the blog promote the gay agenda, beginning in the fifth paragraph.  Killing two birds with one stone he attacked the Church in America and promoted the homosexual lifestyle. Schaeffer praised, "Those of us who have no problem with celebrating the fact that some people are created gay, or that other people live with a girlfriend or boyfriend because marriage isn't always the best way to relate to a lover" as having a wider circle of acceptance.

Pop music sensation Lady Gaga recently released a music video for her popular song, “Alejandro,” but the music video was so controversial that it was denounced as being blasphemy. Despite the video’s clear inappropriate sexual content and profane misuse of Catholic religious symbols, the liberal blogspot Huffington Post joined with the rest of the media in praising the video.

Author Michele Somerville wrote in her June 14 article, “Holy Gaga! A Catholic’s Defense of ‘Alejandro’” that she, “gives ‘Alejandro’ a thumbs ups. It’s pop culture tour de force.”

According to Somerville, “the only sin” she found with the video is that it is a, “possible transgressions against Madonna.” In the music video Lady Gaga swallows a rosary while dressed as a nun, simulates intercourse, and features half-naked men dancing in high heels.

Sometimes even the seemingly most unreasonable characters as far public policy goes can be reasoned with if the circumstances are right. Just sometimes it takes someone like Steve Forbes to pull it off.

On the June 14 broadcast of MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Forbes explained that a flat tax might be the medicine that Greece, a country on the fiscal brink needs.

"Well, when you engage in binge spending and the idea that going to revive an economy, you just get in a spiral on that," Forbes explained. "In terms of countries like Greece what should be done, in addition to the necessary austerity, is they haven't put in place policies, Joe that we did in the early '80s that enabled this  country to get back on its feet.

In what must to the far-left seem like adding insult to injury, Fox News could end up with  Helen Thomas's vacated press briefing room seat.

What's more, rival network CNN's senior White House correspondent would be perfectly okay with it reports the Huffington Post:

At least one competitor is backing Fox News for the newly vacated front-row seat in the White House briefing room: CNN Senior White House Correspondent Ed Henry.

Henry, who is on the White House Correspondents Association board, told the Wall Street Journal that he thinks Fox News should get Helen Thomas's seat now that she has retired.

"When CNN bid for the front row in 2007, Fox could have challenged it and had a knock-down, drag-out fight like the one we might have this time," Henry said. "But they did the gentlemanly thing and said CNN had more seniority. I've got to honor that commitment."

Huffington Post writer and author of poetry and fiction, Anis Shivani, demonstrated what we have seen in bits and pieces throughout the liberal MSM, though it is rarely seen in such dramatic and sweeping fashion.  Shivani harnessed all of the rational thought he could muster, gathered a bevy of intelligent rhetoric, armed himself with a cache of well-reasoned arguments and... quickly dispensed with them prior to writing his recent column. 

The gist of the piece?  Every major catastrophe to hit America can be traced to one singular event - George Bush and the 2000 Presidential election results.

No, seriously.

Shivani starts off by listing examples of American catastrophes - 9/11, Enron, Katrina, Wall Street, the BP spill.

He then explains (emphasis mine throughout):

"It all began with the Florida election theft in 2000 (all of the now-familiar excuses were first used in full force, in total conjugation, for this first disaster). It gave a signal to everyone managing and regulating and overseeing any kind of operation, public or private, that henceforth it was the day of the jackals, that accountability and honesty and certitude were out the door."

For good measure - and in tune with his liberal colleagues - the BP oil spill is singled out as being directly Bush's fault:

An emerging defense of Helen Thomas's "Jews go home" comment is that either what she said really was not that bad, or that others occasionally say worse things without the same level of reproach.

Richard Greener, writing at the Huffington Post on Monday, was so close to making a good point. He noted that a number of other public figures have said things that could reasonably be interpreted as more offensive than Helen Thomas's comment, and have not been forced into retirement.

Though Greener neglected to note the higher standard to which White House correspondents are inevitably held, his credibility was instantly reduced to ashes when the only example of vitriol from the left he could come up with was Keith Olbermann saying Sarah Palin is "an idiot." And he even followed it up with a pathetic attempt to satiate his readership's intense hatred for Palin (and Olby affection) by noting that "perhaps truth is an absolute defense."

Well that didn't take long. The folks at the left-wing MoveOn.org are practically in mourning over Helen Thomas's "retirement."

Just a few hours after news broke that Hearst columnist Helen Thomas is calling it quits after a viral video of her anti-Semitic comments led to widespead condemnation of the White House press corps dean.

Sam Stein of the Huffington Post has the story:

The abrupt retirement of Helen Thomas from her perch as the ranking member of the White House press corps was essentially accepted as a fait accompli by supporters and detractors alike after her controversial remarks urging Jews to leave Israel surfaced.

Indeed, if there was any defense made of Thomas's comments, it wasn't done persuasively or at an influential level. But that didn't stop the progressive community -- many hearing about her retirement while at the Campaign for America's Future conference in D.C. -- from collectively fretting on Monday about what the loss of her voice bodes for the day-to-day interaction between the White House and the Fourth Estate.

Her absence will be felt "significantly," said Ilyse Hogue, Communications Director of Moveon.org. "The burden will fall on the rest of the press corps to make sure the administration feels the need to be transparent about its plans to get us out of Iraq and Afghanistan."

Former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer, who endured a lot of pointed Helen Thomas questions, told Sam Stein of The Huffington Post that Hearst Newspapers should dismiss Thomas for saying Jews need to "get the hell out of Palestine" and go back to Poland and Germany. 

"She should lose her job over this," Fleischer said in an email. "As someone who is Jewish, and as someone who worked with her and used to like her, I find this appalling."

"She is advocating religious cleansing. How can Hearst stand by her? If a journalist, or a columnist, said the same thing about blacks or Hispanics, they would already have lost their jobs."

Thomas knows that she could never say the blacks should go back to Africa or the Hispanics should go back to Mexico, she would ruin her over-celebrated reputation as the "dean" of the White House press corps. Stein offered more details and an update:

The liberal media's adoration for leftist dictators certainly knows no bounds.

Such was immediately apparent in filmmaker Oliver Stone's love letter to Venezuelan despot Hugo Chavez published by the Huffington Post Friday.

The article also shamelessly doubled as an advertisement for Stone's documentary "South of the Border." 

With this in mind, all quotes have been safely placed after the teaser to limit the gastrointestinal distress to readers that may have eaten breakfast, lunch or dinner prior to reviewing this piece (video of "South of the Border" trailer also follows with commentary):

Investors Business Daily called attention to an alarming story that goes back to Sunday, May 16 in a Monday evening editorial.

A protest noticed by the target's next-door neighbor who happened to be home at the time, namely journalist Nina Easton (who also took the photo at right), occurred in a Metro DC suburb in Maryland marked the next round of a national labor union's attempt at persuasion through intimidation.

IBD concisely describes what happens, and why it should cause so much concern:

Mob Rule From SEIU

On May 16, Washington, D.C., police escorted 14 busloads full of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) members at least part of the way to storm the Chevy Chase, Md., home of Bank of America's deputy legal counsel, Greg Baer.

One of the worst ways that the lack of ideological diversity in America's newsrooms shows forth is in the media's treatment of sensational accusations against the current president.

Oftentimes, explosive allegations against presidents are either untrue or drastically overstated: George W. Bush deliberately lying to get the U.S. to war so he can cash in or deliberately ignoring Hurricaine Katrina due to his hatred of black people (a la Kanye West), Bill Clinton's supposed involvment in the drug trade, truthers, birthers, so on and so forth.

Journalists do the public a service by rebutting absurd conspiracy theories and wacko charges. In recent memory, though, they have taken a much greater zeal toward stamping out allegations against Democrats, particularly President Obama, a stark contrast to the kidglove or even promotional attitude they took toward books by liberal authors alleging all sorts of anti-Bush absurdities.

World Net Daily-affiliated author Aaron Klein recently discovered this when he sent his new book, "The Manchurian President," to members of the media he hoped would review it. He got some very angry responses. Here are some of the more colorful ones:

For many far-left MSNBC fans, one conservative on the cable network is one too many. Combine a tired tirade against Joe Scarborough of "Morning Joe" with the inanity of a Hollywood leftist's lame attempt at media commentary, and you have one entertaining Huffington Post column.

"Are the programmers at MSNBC nuts?" asked legendary actor Donald Sutherland (pictured right) on Sunday. "They give us refreshing afternoons with Chris and Ed, put us to bed with the clarifying sensibilities of Rachel and Keith and then, idiotically, wake us up with Mr. Small Mouth."

Yes, Sutherland did just use the terms "refreshing" and "clarifying sensibilities" in reference to Ed Schultz and Keith Olbermann, respectively. And no, apparently he was not being sarcastic. Then comes the Scarborough-bashing:

Here's the thing about the vast right-wing conspiracy: it doesn't really exist. The left's latest attempt to invoke the notion has ended in rebuttals from commentators on both sides of the political spectrum.

Conservative blogger Ben Domenech noted the White House's apparent desire to appoint a homosexual to the Supreme Court. He noted in a post at the New Ledger that at least three nominees -- Pam Karlan, Kathleen Sullivan, and Elana Kagan -- are gay. The White House vehemently denied the latter. The left was not happy.

Huffington Post contributor Sam Stein quoted a spokesman for Human Rights Campaign, who alleged a "shameless … whisper campaign" started by the "far right," echoing other groups' statments to the same effect.

But there is no evidence of any such campaign. Indeed, the extent of the evidence offered by Human Rights Campaign and other left-wing groups seems to be that propagating rumors regarding sexual orientation is "straight out of the right-wing playbook."

Another day another anti-religion piece from Huffington Post Religion. On April 14 columnist Derek Beres wrote “Why Arresting the Pope is a Great Idea.” Not only that, but Beres actually compared Pope Benedict to director Roman Polanski, who raped a young girl. He also, of course, couldn’t resist ranting against the Church’s teachings on priests remaining celibate.

Atheists Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens have called for Pope Benedict’s arrest when he travels to Britain. Beres labeled this idea as “common sense.”

“If Roman Polanski can be arrested on sexual abuse charges after 32 years of hiding,” Beres wrote, “so can the Pope, holy or not.”

The co-founder of progressive blog The Huffington Post, Arianna Huffington, has attributed the West Virginia mining disaster, along with virtually every other accident under the sun, as a direct result of  small-government and corporate greed in the April 13 Huffpo column "The West Virginia Mining Disaster and the Financial Crisis Have the Same Root Cause."

"Officials say it's too soon to pinpoint the exact cause of the tragic explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia that took the lives of 29 miners, but we certainly know enough to identify the root cause," Huffington began. "It's the same cause that led to the 2006 Sago mine disaster in West Virginia that killed 12 miners. And it's also the same cause that led to the Lehman Brothers disaster, the Citigroup disaster, the bursting of the housing bubble, and the implosion of our financial system: a badly broken regulatory system."

"The economic collapse has not killed people, but it has gradually destroyed millions of lives. Both calamities occurred because elected officials who should have been creating a regulatory system that protects working families instead created a system that protects the corporations it was meant to watch over."

Huffington predictably mouthed the response from the left and the mainstream media whenever something goes wrong in a business or industry: Massey Energy's Don Blankenship and other evil CEOs who put profit ahead of people.

No one has ever accused Alec Baldwin of being a rocket scientist, but apparently the actor fancies himself a nuclear physicist. At least that’s the logical conclusion to draw based on his post over at HuffPo entitled “The Human Cost of Nuclear Power.” The actor assumes his new role with gusto, metaphorically donning a lab coat to explain what he believes are the inherent dangers of nuclear power, but his bizarre conclusions and the outdated, discredited research he cites suggests that a straightjacket would be his better fashion choice. 

Let’s start with a question that illustrates just how far the limb that Baldwin is precariously balancing upon extends: what kind of power plant emits the most radiation? The correct answer isn’t the obvious answer. According to the Department of Energy, coal fired power plants emit about one hundred times more radiation, per unit of energy produced, than nuclear plants, chiefly because coal naturally contains trace amounts of radioactive compounds and, unlike nukes, they’re not designed with radioactive shields. Before anyone living near a coal fired power plant runs screaming for the door, I should hasten to add this is still an incredibly tiny amount of radiation, about 1/10,000th of all the radiation that an average person is exposed to each year. Natural sources, by far, make the biggest radioactive contributions to our lives. Nothing else is even close. 

The media simply cannot stop smearing the Catholic Church, especially Pope Benedict, over the alleged cases of sexual abuse. Huffington Post columnist Andy Ostroy was no exception in his April 7 article, “Can We Fire the Pope?” Ostroy blasted the Pope and called the church “diseased.”

Ostroy seemed to base most of his column on New York Times articles. One article reported that as Archbishop, Pope Benedict transferred a priest accused of sexual abuse. Another New York Times article also blamed the Pope for allowing a Wisconsin priest accused of sexual abuse to stay. Although this report is now in question, that didn’t seem to matter to Ostroy.

Even though the Pope hasn’t been proven guilty, Ostroy didn’t seem to understand that. “Perhaps most infuriating is how Church officials have vociferously defended the Pope, who they claim has been a harsh and outspoken critic of the ‘filth’ that infests the Church, citing him as an architect and promoter of reform.”

Jesse Jackson, the civil rights leader, has moved on from the health care debate and found a new oppressed, downtrodden minority: student loan recipients. And naturally, the Huffington Post was happy to afford "the Reverend" a platform for his activism.  

"A plan to earn debt forgiveness retroactively must be instituted at once as an acknowledgment that an entire generation is mired in tens of thousands of dollars in student debt," Jackson wrote. "Not every one of them will be able to write a blockbuster memoir to pay off student loans."

Although the federal government's latest takeover in student loans by "cutting out the middleman" pleased Jackson, he called on the Obama administration to take more drastic steps in today's "Second Great Depression."

"Students need more than good intentions," Jackson said. "They need a guarantee that the savings realized by cutting out the banks and Sallie Mae go mostly to them. There are lots of hands out for the income that direct student lending will generate. Some of it will go to subsidize universal access to health care. But most of it should go to students themselves," Jackson opined.

In the 2PM ET hour on MSNBC on Tuesday, left-wing Huffington Post writer Ryan Grim commented on the Republican National Committee spending scandal: "You know, what Republican donors do, generally, is pretty obnoxious to the American people. What did they have to cancel? They had to cancel a polo match, some yachting, you know, trips to bondage clubs."

Grim went on to claim: "if you want to get money from rich Republicans, you're going to have to engage in some of these obnoxious activities, so they like that to happen without the entire nation watching. Now that everybody's watching, it makes it a lot harder for them to raise money from these rich Republicans."

While Grim pretended to be a journalist reporting facts, he told Hall: "I actually haven't spoken to any – any big Republican donors the last few days." He simply noted how he was "hearing" things "in general" about RNC donors. Hall even remarked at the end of the segment: "Well Ryan, for a guy who hasn't spoken to any big money donors in 24-48 hours, not bad intel there." Apparently MSNBC now sees liberal ranting against the GOP as "intel."   

Pop quiz: which of the following political candidates would you be less likely to vote for: one who had written things offensive to many women in a master's thesis, or one who was convicted of trying to solicit sex from a minor?

If you think the felony conviction is a more condemnable offense for a political candidate, you may want to give up your dream job as a Huffington Post columnist. In the bizarre world of Arianna Huffington, the master's thesis is apparently the more reprehensible offense.

HuffPo columnists relentlessly attacked now-Va. Governor Bob McDonnell for his "frightening" views on marriage and the family as expressed in his 1989 thesis. But lefty blogger Tim Russo, who is running for office in Cleveland, is just the victim of local media that "want him to pay for [his felony conviction] for the rest of his life," presumably by suggesting that soliciting sex from a minor demonstrates a lack of judgment unbecoming a public servant.

I know, really radical stuff.

Former pastor and left-wing writer Brian D. McLaren has questioned “who is Jesus and why is he so important?” He has also pushed for a liberal agenda on homosexuality and stated it’s not a “black-and-white issue.”  So he shouldn’t be surprised that evangelical Christians disagree with him. But in an April 5 Huffington Post article, “Why Do Evangelicals Dislike Me So Much?”, McLaren tried to figure it out and ended up giving Evangelical Christians even more reasons to dislike him.

In the article, McLaren went out of his way to insult evangelicals. He first compared them to the infamous Milgram experiment at Yale University, in which authoritarian figures instructed people to administer supposedly dangerous high levels of electricity to other people, who turned out to be actors.

McLaren explained how, “In my opinion, multitudes of Christians find themselves in a real-life Milgram experiment these days. Their consciences are in conflict with their beloved religious authority figures on several key issues … ”

What does it say about the Huffington Post when one of their religion bloggers traffics in unproven charges about supposed racial slurs hurled at Congressman John Lewis at the March 20 Tea Party in Washington D.C.? Here is Eddie Glaude, Jr., Professor of Religion at Princeton University, performing his Pinocchio impression:

The word n----er found its way back into our national conversation recently. Some tea party activists hurled the epithet at Congressman John Lewis. Along the way they called Representative Barney Frank a faggot and spat on Congressman Emanuel Cleaver. This venom was supposedly provoked by health care reform; it only revealed how debased our public conversation has become.

With an increasing attempt by the left to paint Tea Party protestors as racist loons, it becomes of great importance to identify those who purport to represent conservative values, but in reality are nothing more than radical individuals. 

As NewsBusters has previously reported, liberal Web sites - particularly Talking Points Memo (TPM) and the Huffington Post - have continually cited the Tea Party links of one Dale Robertson.  Why?  Because he further promotes the concept of the tea partier as racist.  Robertson once demonstrated a level of racial ignorance that boggles the mind by being photographed with a sign reading "Congress = Slaveowner, Taxpayer = N***ar".

But the reality is that Robertson has predominantly self-described links to the Tea Party movement, while legitimate factions of the movement have been trying to distance themselves from the man.  His claims of influence within the Tea Party have turned out to be mildly embellished.  Now, it turns out his web of tales is growing ever more tangled.

Tommy Christopher of Mediaite recently interviewed Robertson, in which he claims that the sign that made him famous for the wrong reasons was simply a fake.  As Mediaite reports:

No, hell hasn't frozen over but, yes, the Huffington Post now has a religion blog. The Huffington Post, a Web site devoted to rankling conservatives and pushing a liberal agenda, announced on Feb. 24 that it was launching HuffPost Religion.

Huffington Post's co-founder, Arianna Huffington, claimed it would simply be "a section featuring a wide-ranging discussion about religion [and] spirituality," but the numbers prove that it is more of an attack on traditional Christianity than a discussion.

The site didn't waste any time throwing punches. In its first two weeks, it churned out articles by a liberal nun calling Catholicism sexist; a Rabbi claiming that Judaism will "stagnate and cease to be meaningful" unless it participates in the "green movement;" an avowed atheist comparing those who believe in God to a 7-year-old still believing in the tooth fairy; a science writer warning being religious could lead to "dangerous side-effects" such as "the crusader jihadist mentality;" and a neuroscientist calling those who believe in "obsolete religious ideas" a "lunatic fringe."

HuffPost Religion is the religion blog that hates religion, but the faith it abuses the most is Christianity.

Author and Huffington Post Rob Asghar joined many in the media March 24 by not only bashing the Palin family, but “Christian sex” as well.

Asghar went further than some, actually criticizing Christianity’s call for pre-marital abstinence. In his post on the liberal Web site, “Bristol Palin and the Trouble with Christian Sex,” Asghar adamantly argued against delaying sex until marriage and used Palin as an example to support his claim.

He bashed the Palin family and their support for abstinence more than he attacked Bristol Palin saying: “While Bristol seems much sweeter than the rest of that clan, that arrogantly church-going family reminds me of three fundamental problems that arise from traditional Biblical instruction on sex.”

And you thought a couple of plucky young conservative activists with a camera brought down ACORN. Nope. It's the arch-conservative New York Times that did in the noble community organizing group, or so says The Huffington Post in "Why ACORN Fell: The Times, Lies, and Videotape."

"Because of its pivotal role in bringing down ACORN," Peter Drier and John Atlas wrote in their March 24 editorial, "the Times owes the group an apology and the public a commitment to assign an experienced journalist to cover the complex world of community organizing, whose diverse practitioners mobilize poor and middle class people to win a voice in local, state, and national politics."

The New York Times, the two maintained, were complicit in ACORN's "framing."

The authors took particular issue with the following excerpt from Clark Hoyt's March 21 article: "It remains a fascinating story. To conservatives, Acorn is virtually a criminal organization that was guilty of extensive voter registration fraud in 2008. To its supporters, Acorn is a community service organization that has helped millions of disadvantaged Americans by organizing to confront powerful institutions like banks and developers."

Here's a story the liberal Hollywood and media establishment should love:

A remote rural community; a beautiful, innocent woman betrayed by her husband, falsely accused of immorality and condemned to horrible death by a cruel male power structure that hides behind religion; her only ally a courageous, dignified older woman who, when she cannot stop the tragedy, bravely determines to tell the world.

If you're an entertainment maven in Los Angeles or New York, what's not to love? Except that it's not set in Puritan New England or contemporary Texas. And the dignified aunt isn't played by Susan Sarandon. The dialogue is mostly in Farsi, so it lacks the southern drawl that helps liberals identify the bad guys.

"The Stoning of Soraya M." is set in an Iranian village in 1986. The woman is the victim of Sharia law. It addresses misogyny, injustice, human rights abuses and narrow religiosity. It is anti-violence and deeply pro-life, in the broadest sense of the term. In short, as The Weekly Standards Stephen F. Hayes wrote, "it is an important film," and it should have received attention from the people who like to think of films as important. But the people who control Hollywood's most prestigious awards ignored it.

Jenna Wolfe's introduction of her guest on health-care on this morning's Today would surely have led viewers to believe he was an objective, apolitical voice.  What Wolfe didn't tell viewers is that Andrew Rubin is a HuffPo blogger and such an avid ObamaCare advocate that he urged his readers to call Congress to lobby for it. Here was Wolfe's intro:

"The politics surrounding the health-care bill has dominated the headlines. But with the House vote just hours away, what's really in this bill and how will it affect you?  Andrew Rubin is the host of HealthCare Connect on Sirius XM Radio. Andrew, good morning. There's so much involved here; let's try to break this down as to how it affects everyone."

I began to doubt Rubin's objectivity when he explained the bill's effect on various demographic groups by in in every case claiming that ObamaCare would be good in the short run and even better in the long run.  I kept waiting for some balance: a discussion for example, of the massive taxes ObamaCare imposes, or the loss of freedom that the individual mandate represents.  But never a discouraging word was heard.  ObamaCare: all gain, no pain!

View video here.

Which made me wonder: who is Andrew Rubin?  I Googled . . .

Huffington Post blogger Tamara McClintock Greenberg gave one more reason in support of same-sex marriage - without it, her friends "might be forced to leave the country."

Greenberg lamented her friends' situation: "As same-sex partners, not only do they lack the basic rights of any couple in love to marry, since one person is an immigrant on a student visa, they may have to move to another country that acknowledges gay rights and marriage."

With that unique argument out of the way, the rest of Greenberg's post was a textbook-perfect liberal screed against those standing in the way of marriage for gay and lesbian couples. She was ashamed of America and compared it to countries where atrocious human rights violations are committed everyday. She blamed Christianity for our intolerance, and argued that homosexual couples are no different than heterosexual couples.

Bill Moyers and Michael Winship sure have something against health care insurance companies and the Chamber of Commerce. Moyers, the liberal host of PBS’s “Bill Moyers Journal,” and Winship, the show’s senior writer, slammed both for making money and lobbying in the March 12 Huffington Post article.

The article, “Ask the Chamber of Commerce: Why Is Too Much Not Enough?” was a long complaint about “the health care industry saying to hell with consumers and then hiking premium….” They continued whining and wrote, “This week, America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the health insurance industry's lobby, announced they'd be spending more than a million dollars on new television ads justifying their costs.”