Twitter

On Friday, NewsBusters reported Salon editor Joan Walsh saying on MSNBC's Hardball, "I didn’t think it was possible to get lower than Andrew Breitbart, but his spawn have."

In a piece marvelously titled "Is It Possible to Get Lower Than Joan Walsh?" Twitchy reported moments ago that this sparked a new hashtag on Twitter:

Alec Baldwin almost had another Twitter meltdown Tuesday.

The perilously liberal, intellectually challenged actor took some time out from the Cannes Film Festival for another one of his classic anti-conservative rants this time telling his followers that "lying thieves" like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney will be back in the White House if Obama loses (presented in chronological order):

We've written before critically about Twitter, including posts about how the micro-blogging site's was slow in removing a "Kill Zimmerman" account that encouraged violence -- in violation of Twitter's terms of service agreement by the way -- against alleged 2nd-degree murderer George Zimmerman. But today, we have to offer a hearty kudos to the folks at Twitter for refusing to cooperate with a censorship effort in Pakistan to silence "Everybody Draw Muhammad" tweets.

By contrast, the Associated Press is reporting that Facebook -- which on Friday became a publicly-traded company -- gladly cooperated with efforts by the Pakistani government to prevent users in Pakistan from accessing pages devoted to Draw Muhammad Day content:

Warning: Remove all food, liquids, and flammables from proximity of your computer before proceeding.

The folks at Comedy Central actually published an article Thursday with the headline "Conservative Hashtag Games Are Ruining Twitter":

A not-so funny thing happened on the social media website Twitter Sunday.

As the Washington Times reports, the account of Chris Loesch, the husband of Tea Party leader and conservative writer Dana Loesch, was suspended by Twitter management due to what observers believe was foul play by liberal users of the website that don't like the couple's politics:

Twitter is blaming an automated spam filter for the multi-hour shutdown of a conservative activist group's Twitter feed on Earth Day, just as the organization was seeing a surge in interest on Twitter and the web for its scathing video critical of the Obama administration.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time Twitter has blamed technology for silencing a conservative activist group on Twitter.

CNN's Don Lemon committed heresy on Sunday night.

In his "No Talking Points" segment on CNN Newsroom, he had the unmitigated audacity to challenge Barack Obama while agreeing with former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin (video follows with transcript and commentary):

In the aftermath of the Gabby Giffords shooting, the liberal media were quick to harangue conservative Republicans for a campaign website that had depicted tiny images of crosshairs on different points of the continental U.S.. They represented targeted districts in the 2010 midterm race, including Rep. Giffords' seat.

But now in light of the ongoing coverage of the Trayvon Martin shooting, there's a different infamous set of crosshairs, this one over a picture of George Zimmerman, the Sanford, Florida man who claims to have killed Trayvon Martin in self-defense last month. That image is the avatar for a Twitter profile established on March 24 with the handle @KillZimmerman. Despite conservative bloggers and Twitter users' complaints, as of press time the Twitter handle is still live. What's more, the liberal media have thus far been strangely silent on the matter.

A few days ago, left-wing director Spike Lee, who has 248,000+ followers on Twitter, retweeted an item bearing what was supposed to be the address of George Zimmerman, the man who claims to have shot Miami teen Trayvon Martin in self defense a month ago in Sanford, Florida. But the address was incorrect and the occupants of the residence are an elderly couple who bear no relation to Zimmerman. As a result of Lee's retweet, they've received hate mail and, fearing for their safety, have fled their home.

Yet when it came her turn to report the development today, MSNBC's Chris Jansing did her level best to spin the news in such a way as to absolve Lee -- who directed some of the network's Lean Forward promo spots -- of any culpability for putting the couple in jeopardy. Here's the relevant transcript. Video follows the page break (MP3 audio here):

Comedy Central's Daily Show took the news of Dick Cheney's heart transplant as another opportunity to attack the former Vice President.

On Monday, whoever is responsible for the show's Twitter account posted a series of supposedly comical messages about the recovering patient including "Please warn your children not to accept candy from or get into a car with #CheneysOldHeart":

Less than two weeks after his suspension for previous intemperate tweets was lifted, CNN's Roland Martin was engaging in personally insulting "mis-tweetment" again this afternoon with PJ Media's David Steinberg.

In a series of tweets at around 5 p.m. tonight seen after the jump, Steinberg criticized Martin for spending so much time on the press's Trayvon Martin obsession -- where one person tragically died -- while ignoring the impact and meaning of the documents leaked by an unnamed Department of Justice official relating to the Fast and Furious "gunwalking" scandal -- as a result of which "at least 300 Mexicans, plus at least two American law enforcement agents" have been killed. Martin's responses were immature, insulting, condescending -- and all too typical of a press corps which, now that it is seeing poll results it doesn't like, has in certain cases taken to calling voters stupid.

You have to wonder whether HBO's Bill Maher is losing his mind, trying to draw attention to boost ratings, or really believes he can say anything he wants about conservatives and liberals will support him.

After ridiculing Alabama and Mississippi voters Tuesday as being "toothless," Maher took to Twitter with an even far more vile comment about Republican presidential candidates Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum (serious vulgarity warning):

CNN a few weeks ago suspended Roland Martin for making homophobic comments on Twitter.

Will MSNBC consider Salon editor-at-large Joan Walsh's attack on Mitt Romney's faith Tuesday equally offensive?

UPDATE AT END OF POST: Exchange erupts in Twitter war with Baldwins from all over the country.

For those that ignore such things, Alec Baldwin, after a brief respite following his embarrassing display on a plane in December, is back on Twitter.

Keeping with his pattern of saying characteristically inane things on the social media website, Baldwin on Saturday called conservative publisher Andrew Breitbart "a festering boil on the anus of public discourse":

ABC, CBS, and NBC spotlighted the Komen foundation's about-face on funding Planned Parenthood on their Friday evening newscasts, and played up the apparent role of social media in getting the charity to reverse its earlier decision. On World News, ABC's Diane Sawyer trumpeted the "dramatic day for people power," while on Nightly News, NBC's Lester Holt concluded, "score one for the power of social media."

The Big Three outlets also covered the 180 by the breast cancer organization on their Saturday morning shows. Altogether, the networks added seven more reports to the 13 from the first 60 hours or so of the controversy, bringing the total to 20 since February 1, versus only three on the face-off between the Catholic Church and the Obama administration since January 20 (the MRC documented and highlighted this imbalance in a report on Friday; ABC and NBC added mentions on their Sunday morning political shows).

Time magazine on Monday published a lengthy cover-story hit piece on Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney penned by the Obama-loving Joe Klein.

This caused Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to take to his Twitter account with a deliciously accurate smackdown of his own:

Michelle Malkin scoffed first on her blog: Twitter picked the "Top Tweets of 2011" and ABC News got the "exclusive" right to broadcast the list...and both ridiculously skipped in that top-ten list the biggest Twitter political scandal of the year (and Twitter's five-year existence): now-former Congressman Anthony Weiner's crotch shots. Their criteria was allegedly the level of “impact, resonance, and relevance,” and "the big stories that first broke on Twitter — not by news agencies — but by people looking to share a photo, a thought, or a moment in time with people they may never meet."

Instead, Twitter (and their ABC promoters) insisted it was more notable that a guy joke-tweeted for a Morton's porterhouse at the airport and Morton's decided to show up with a steak for the publicity. Or that bored NBA star Kevin Durant showed up at a flag-football game with old Oklahoma buddies through Twitter. It doesn't pass the laugh test. (By contrast, on December 31, 2010, Sawyer's newscast did mock Sarah Palin using "refudiate" on Twitter in their year in review.)

Some 24 hours before taking to the air for the debut of "Now with Alex Wagner," the MSNBC host tweeted a snarky comment about sexual harassment being a "lucrative side gig" for GOP presidential hopeful Herman Cain, who "raised $9M in Oct."

Wagner's November 13 tweet -- a screen capture of which is shown below the page break -- links to a "The Page" blog post at Time.com regarding a $9 million fundraising boost for Cain since October 1.

But besides presuming Cain's guilt, Wagner's claim is factually inaccurate, ignoring the fact that Politico broke the sexual harassment allegations at the end of October, publishing the story to its website after 9 p.m. Eastern on Halloween night. Indeed, Time magazine notes that only 25 percent of the contributions "came since Politico published its story alleging the Georgian sexually harassed two women."

Like many Americans, actor Alec Baldwin took to his Twitter account Wednesday evening to express his feelings about the execution of Georgia cop killer Troy Davis.

Rather strangely, the objects of his derision included former Vice President Dick Cheney, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and conservative author Michelle Malkin:

If we post this story on Facebook, will the company remove it? According to a new study from the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) and the American Center for Law and Justice, there's a good chance it will.

NRB conducted a study of "the practices of Apple and its iTunes App Store, Google, Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, as well as Internet service providers AT&T, Comcast and Verizon." Its conclusion: with the notable exception of Twitter, "social media websites are actively censoring Christian viewpoints.

In the view of the perilously liberal syndicated columnist Mark Shields, nothing good ever comes from corporate America.

On PBS's "Inside Washington" Friday, Shields told his fellow panelists, "If one waited for all the great social improvements of this country to come from CEOs, we would still have child labor at 8 cents an hour working at mills and looms and lathes" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Over the past few days, Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich has been the subject of criticism due to his unusually high number of Twitter followers. Some say a large number of his followers were manufactured by a Twitter account generator to falsely boost his online clout. His campaign contends his follower count came from other means, explaining instead his early adoption of the social network and his personal engagement with his followers, in addition to having been featured as a suggested account for quite some time.

We won't take a position on whether or not Gingrich's followers are legit but it is worth noting that before he began his presidential run, Gingrich was the literally the only right-leaning political pundit to be recommended to Twitter users by the company. That stands in dramatic contrast to the many liberal pundits and media outlets which Twitter recommends to its users via a hand-picked list. Read on for the full details.

 Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Alayon recently released a video in which he defends Israel’s presence in the West Bank, and argues not only that Israeli settlements within the territory are legal, but that the West Bank technically should not be labeled as "occupied’, but rather, "disputed," because the West Bank was not recognized previously as being legally part of a sovereign state.

Staff writer Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic (formerly The Atlantic Monthly) was so incensed by the pro-Israel video that he was driven to use profanity on his blog as he mocked the Israeli government as trying to send the message that the world should "f— off." He further charged that the "cheesy and disturbing video" was an attempt by the Israeli government to hold onto the West Bank, even though Ayalon’s video clearly speaks of negotiating the boundaries for a Palestinian state. Goldberg began his blog posting:

Hailed for his engagement with the online world and being cutting edge for hosting a Twitter town hall, President Barack Obama made quite the gaffe at his town hall yesterday, calling the internet, "internets," the same mistake for which former President George W. Bush was widely mocked following a 2004 presidential debate.

The flub, which Obama quickly corrected, came while he was discussing the importance of bringing the internet to classrooms, but the president has received little media flack for his slip-up.

Friday afternoon, the White House quietly released its annual report to Congress on White House staff salaries. Among the employees is the infamous director of progressive media and online response, Jesse Lee, who is paid $72,500 a year to provide White House sanctioned responses to any negative press it receives.

The position, which was previously part of the privately-funded DNC's rapid response team, is now a taxpayer-funded spin machine to thwart bad press against President Barack Obama. In effect, the position is a pulpit for the White House, through Lee, to ridicule critics and promote a liberal agenda. Lee frequently retweets liberal bloggers and media organizations, but also picks fights with a number of conservative bloggers.