Radio

Julie Rovner, NPR's on-staff shill for ObamaCare, filed an unashamedly one-sided report on Friday's Morning Edition about the controversial Obama administration mandate that forces religious institutions to include coverage of abortion-inducing drugs, sterilizations, and birth control.

Rovner turned to only two individuals for her pro-mandate report: Peggy Mastroianni, general counsel at the federal government's own EEOC, an organization which recently got slapped down in a unanimous Supreme Court decision concerning the rights of houses of worship in hiring and personnel matters; and Sarah Lipton-Lubet, a lawyer for the notoriously far-left American Civil Liberties Union, who until May 2011, worked for the pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Rights.

On Tuesday, NPR somehow thought a poll commissioned by abortion behemoth Planned Parenthood on the controversy over an ObamaCare birth control mandate was newsworthy enough to play up on its website. But later in the day, on All Things Considered, a show that reaches millions in the U.S., the media outlet spotlighted how the "new polling...suggests most voters, including Catholics, support the measure."

Correspondent Scott Horsley noted the "survey released today by Public Policy Polling," but completely failed to mention Planned Parenthood's name during his report. Horsley also highlighted a disturbing strategy from the pro-mandate camp without: "Supporters of the new policy are belatedly trying to refocus attention in a more popular direction, away from religious freedom and towards women's health care."

Is a Planned Parenthood poll really newsworthy? On Tuesday, NPR spotlighted a PPP poll commissioned by the abortion giant which found that a majority apparently supports a federal government mandate on birth control that violates the religious liberty of Catholic institutions. The network also trumpeted how "the poll...suggested that Mitt Romney...could pay a price at the polls" for opposing the mandate.

Writer Frank James began his article for NPR.org, "Poll: Majority Of Voters Support Birth-Control Mandate," by pointing out that the ObamaCare regulation was "controversial." But he didn't acknowledge that the poll was "done on behalf of Planned Parenthood" until the second paragraph, and left out any kind of ideological label for the left-wing organization.

Update (18:46 EST): CBS has since changed the headline to "Controversial Voting Legislation Passes In Virginia Senate."

"'Jim Crow' Voting Legislation Passes in Virginia Senate," a CBS news headline on a Washington D.C. CBS news website alarmed readers tonight.

The AP/CBSDC story, filed at 10:33 p.m. Eastern on the website for CBS Radio's new all-news station WNEW, reports on the passage of a strict voter ID law in the Virginia State Senate. As we've noted previously, the Washington Post has reported, uncritically, Virginia Democratic legislators' Jim Crow comparisons, but it appears that CBS News is taking the Washington Post's bias even further (see screen capture below page break):

And no, he wasn't talking about golf clubs.

A liberal says what Ed Schultz said on his radio show Wednesday, other liberals shrug it off as just an opinion, albeit one oozing the odor of the Second Amendment. (audio after page break)

In other news, Al Sharpton rejected criticism that he makes his living as a race-baiting grievance-monger. Suffice it to say, uncomfortable truths do not sit well with this man.

Responding to Mitt Romney saying he's "not concerned about the very poor" because of the decades-old government safety net, Sharpton swung into action on his radio show with a claim that is delusional even by Sharpton's expansive standards (audio clip after page break) --

The former Tip O'Neill staffer-turned-political analyst who'd never heard of congressional insider trading until President Obama mentioned it in last week's State of the Union  insists he is unaware of the Bush Derangement Syndrome of many on the Left during the former president's tenure in the Oval Office. What's more, that's not his bias talking, it's just objective reality.

"There's a real level of national hatred of the president that I hadn't seen before. Certainly not under Clinton or under Dubya," MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews argued on WMAL radio's Morning Majority program this morning. "The hatred, the Hitler mustaches, all that stuff, I haven't seen that before," Matthews added, prompting co-hosts Mary Katharine Ham and Bryan Nehman to incredulously retort that, no, in fact, the Left used Hitler comparisons against the former president.

A report carried at CBS News in St. Louis from Jim Anderson of the Illinois Radio Network (IRN), which appears to be a private entity, tells readers that a research study (summary; PDF of relevant chapter) published by the Institute of Government and Public Affairs (IGPA) at the University of Illinois has identified "a combination of tough policies (which) could bring the state into fiscal balance by the end of the decade." To be clear, the end of the decade is seven years and eleven months from now.

Predictably, the "tough policies" include "maintaining increased income tax rates after they are scheduled to expire." On the spending side, what IGPA describes as "extreme austerity" means "keeping the growth rate of all spending down to 2.1 percent per year." Those who would rather not look at IGPA's detail can be forgiven, because the opening paragraph of the linked chapter above, which IRN did not cite, gives away the researchers' detachment from reality:

American Public Media (formerly American Public Radio) says that its "Marketplace" program "focuses on the latest business news both nationally and internationally, the global economy, and wider events linked to the financial markets."

Okay. One would expect, given the track record of leftist and communist movements and causes in ruining economies and creating unspeakable human misery, that if "Marketplace" were to do a segment on, say, Saul Alinsky, that it might note his antagonism towards free-market capitalism, and how damaging his "Rules for Radicals" recommendations have been in practice. Instead, those listening to yesterday's Alinsky segment got nothing but pap and misdirection orchestrated by a far-left labor prof:

ABC News's Marianne Gingrich interview has "that awful, awful taint of Rathergate to it," timed as it was "to do the most amount of damage it possibly could to Newt Gingrich's career," NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell complained in an interview with Washington, D.C. news-talk station WMAL's Morning Majority program.

While Marianne Gingrich may be "entirely honest" in her claim, she is "lashing out at her ex-husband" and her story is an unconfirmable account. "I think it was a mess of a story, I think it hurts the media," the Media Research Center (MRC) founder added. [interview embedded below page break]

NPR  harped on Mitt Romney's "provocative tax detail" on Wednesday's Morning Edition, highlighting that the GOP presidential candidate "disclosed he's in the same low tax bracket as the billionaire [Warren] Buffett." Correspondent Scott Horsley later used clips from President Obama to accent liberals' class warfare spin about the rich paying a lower tax rate than "millionaires and billionaires."

On CBS This Morning, correspondent Jan Crawford also referenced the Buffett tax issue eight minutes into the 7 am Eastern hour, during a report on the Republican presidential race in South Carolina. She used the same label as the NPR journalist: "He [Romney] revealed that he pays a relatively low rate on his investment income. That's the same low rate that billionaire Warren Buffett pays."

Leftist talk radio host Mike Malloy never stops wishing for the death of conservatives. On January 6, he talked of "Sick Santorum," and said "I think he's Catholic, right? What you ought to do is call Francis Cardinal George out in Chicago and maybe you and he can get together for a cup of -- hemlock." He wants Santorum and Cardinal George to kill themselves.

On both January 6 and January 9, Malloy launched vicious broadsides against the Catholic Church. (On the 9th, he also said libertarians were perpetrators of violence.) He began on the 6th: "I hate to see an organization like the Catholic Church --  that has been one of the bloodiest, most suppressive, most oppressive, most violent organizations in the history of not just religion but of the entire human race try to claim victim status because a bunch of queers want to march a parade down the g*ddamn street! That's what drives me crazy!"

President Obama is pursuing policies that "define all the world's major religions," Thom Hartmann gushes. Which no president should ever do, Thom Hartmann warns.

The liberal radio host tried to pass off this apparent contradiction during conversations with callers to his show on Jan. 5 (audio clips after page break)

Think your government has more than enough on its hands? Geraldo Rivera wants it to do so much more.

On his new WABC radio show Friday, Rivera cited an incident that day involving a Brooklyn mother suspected of killing her 3-year-old daughter, saying this (audio clips after page break) --

Listeners to the Bill Press radio show on Thursday morning -- and there were probably not very many -- must have winced at the complete political schizophrenia or logical incoherence of the self-proclaimed "Mr. Gun Control."  Press asked the audience if 18-year-old Oklahoma mom Sarah McKinley was right to shoot a home invader armed with a knife to protect her little boy? He said "damn right" -- and explained how he also favors banning all handguns and "assault rifles." So, um, how would Knife-Threatened Teen Mom defend herself in Bill Press's ideal America?

"I gotta tell you I am Mr. Gun Control, okay?I think there are too many guns. They’re too easy to get. Most people don’t need them," Press declared. "For hunting only I would say as long as they’re licensed and you know how to use them, that’s okay. But for any other reason, I would ban all handguns. I would ban all assault rifles. I’m as strong as you can get." [MP3 audio available here]

A Democratic member of the Washington, D.C. City Council announced his resignation yesterday after he decided to plea guilty to federal charges of embezzlement and filing false tax returns.

The news of Harry Thomas Junior's resignation made the front page of today's Washington Post, which promptly noted the disgraced councilman's Democratic Party affiliation. Thomas's party affiliation, however, was ignored by the websites for WJLA and WRC, the ABC and NBC affiliates. WUSA, the CBS affiliate, mentioned deep in its coverage that Thomas "agreed to resign from the seat once held by his father representing residents of the heavy democratic voting Ward 5."

On Tuesday, liberal radio host Thom Hartmann engaged a conservative caller who was tired of the anti-capitalist rhetoric from President Obama and the left. “From the president’s own mouth, the anti-capitalist rhetoric is so poisoned,” said the caller.

Hartmann interrupted: “It is rhetoric in opposition to the excesses of unregulated capitalism. Unregulated capitalism can become a cancer just like unregulated growth in a cell is the definition of cancer.” Hartmann went on to say that libertarian notions are corrupting government, and that the Founding Fathers were for “general welfare” exactly like Franklin Roosevelt.

At the same time that the nation's leading networks can't call Obama a "liberal" more than about once a year, NPR's religion reporter Barbara Bradley Hagerty on Monday announced Rick Santorum was "very, very conservative" on the social issues, in addition to being "very pro-life." He even -- horrors! -- home-schools his seven children.

"He's Catholic. He's billed himself very much as the family values candidate," the reporter announced on NPR's afternoon show Talk of The Nation. "His wife Karen has homeschooled all seven of their children. He's surging in the polls because he's been very, very conservative on these issues." They also discussed if white conservative Christians dislike Obama because they're racists.

Leave it to a fringe leftist to tout a rarely-defended plan proposed by Franklin Roosevelt.

Angered by Supreme Court rulings that blocked many New Deal initiatives, Roosevelt in 1937 came up with what he considered an ingenious scheme to get around the court -- increasing it from 9 to 15 justices, the additional six most assuredly sharing Roosevelt's politics. (audio clip after page break)

Laura Ingraham comes closest to nailing Ed Schultz's persona -- Ingraham sees him as the hothead "Heat Miser" of the mid-'70s animated Christmas special, "The Year Without a Santa Claus."

But Schultz isn't miserly when it comes to what he considers hate speech. Just about any criticism of President Obama qualifies. (audio clips after page break)

What a shock, more revisionism from Ed Schultz.

Schultz is responding testily to criticism that he urged Democrats in 2010 to refrain from voting to protest congressional Democrats not pushing hard enough for extended jobless benefits. (audio clips after page break)

There are lies, damned lies, and what passes for history from Ed Schultz.

Never one to let reality intrude on his delusions, Schultz cut loose with a whopper on his radio show Thursday while talking with Mike Tate, chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, about Time magazine making "The Protester" its annual person of the year (audio) --

You'd think a former Catholic seminarian would be happy about Christian athletes who are unashamed to publicly praise Jesus Christ. But then again, this is Bill Press we're talking about.

Our friend Brian Maloney at Radio Equalizer notes how the left-wing talker and CNN Crossfire alumnus declared on his December 15 radio program that the Denver Broncos quarterback should shut the [expletive] up:

This is what happens when left wingers ignore another left winger with a microphone -- pathology.

Mike Malloy, a man so beyond the pale that he was fired by comparatively sane moonbats at the now-defunct Air America Radio, has again shown he's probably beyond redemption. (audio clip after page break)

Tuesday's Morning Edition on NPR slanted toward TLC's controversial "All American Muslim" series by playing sound bites from two who support the reality TV show versus only one opponent. Correspondent Elizabeth Blair also failed to mention that one of the supporters works for the left-leaning Center for American Progress, while clearly identifying the opponent as being from a "conservative" group.

Host Renee Montagne noted in her introduction to Blair's report that "criticism against the home improvement chain Lowe's isn't letting up. It started after Lowe's dropped its ads from the reality TV show, 'All-American Muslim,' in response to pressure from a conservative Christian group. Now, an online petition has nearly 20,000 signatures, calling on the store to reinstate the ads."

On the popular radio show A Prairie Home Companion this weekend, NPR star Garrison Keillor sang a different version of "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town." It had a slightly different melody, and mocked Newt Gingrich, without naming him. Keillor sang: "Don’t think a sense of style conceals your escapades / Don’t vote to impeach Bill Clinton while shacking up with Congressional aides." Gingrich was cheating on his second wife (with his eventual third wife) at that time in 1998.

Keillor also sang that Santa is watching for who is "beating up on" gays or minorities. There's nothing wrong with opposing physical violence or mean-spirited bullying -- but with NPR, you'd have to suspect Keillor is implying a broader argument about conservative arguments against gay marriage or "affirmative action." Keillor sang:

NPR's Yuki Noguchi and Lynn Neary completely omitted Jon Corzine's Democratic affiliation on Thursday's All Things Considered, while mentioning practically every other prominent occupation he has held- Goldman Sachs CEO, senator, governor, even "multimillionaire." On the other hand, Noguchi gave the Republican party ID of two representatives who questioned Corzine at a recent hearing.

Neary outlined in her introduction for Noguchi's report that "former Senator Jon Corzine returned to Congress...Corzine was once CEO of the most successful bank on Wall Street. He left Goldman Sachs for the Senate, then was elected governor of New Jersey." The correspondent soon added that "until late October, Corzine was the CEO of MF Global."