Government Agencies

Daily Beast: Some in Brooklyn Are Cheering NYPD Officers' Murders
December 21st, 2014 12:15 AM
In New York City, police officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos were killed Saturday afternoon by a man who indicated online that his motivation was to seek revenge for the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and Eric Garner on Staten Island.
At the Daily Beast, M.L. Nestel didn't find it particularly difficult to find people who thought that the officers deserved to die, and almost…

NY Official Bans Fracking to Protect 'Child,' 'Family' He Doesn't Have
December 20th, 2014 9:59 AM
In discussing a statewide ban on hydraulic fracturing announced Wednesday, the New York Daily News carried comments made by Howard Zucker, the state's Health Commissioner, about fracking's impact on public health.
Zucker asked two rhetorical questions: "Would I live in a community with (fracking) based on the facts I have now?" and “Would I let my child play in a school field nearby or my family…

Reporting on New York's Fracking Ban Ignores Awful Upstate Economy
December 20th, 2014 7:49 AM
The establishment press is virtually giddy over New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's cowardly, self-serving decision to ban fracking in New York. It's cowardly because Cuomo is publicly pretending that he's only deferring to his environmental and health commissioners, when everyone with an ounce of sense knows that he's getting the recommendations he wanted. It's self-serving because it enhances his…

Blogger: Cheney, Other ‘Elites’ Help Make GOP the ‘Torture Party’
December 17th, 2014 11:57 AM
“What the average person is seeing right now,” declares the American Prospect’s Paul Waldman, “is an entire party mobilizing to defend the use of torture, whether they will call it by that name or not. And that looks to be having an effect on public opinion.”

AP's Story on Federal Judge's Immigration Opinion Woefully Incomplete
December 16th, 2014 11:55 PM
Earlier tonight, Curtis Houck at NewsBusters observed that the Tuesday evening network news shows failed to report on an opinion issued today by a federal judge in Western Pennsylvania in connection with President Obama's illegal immigration-related executive actions last month.
Several blogs and center-right outlets noted Judge Arthur Schwab's 38-page "Memorandum Opinion" this afternoon. Not…

Politico Mag Falsely Claims That Louisville's Air Quality Has Worsened
December 16th, 2014 5:37 PM
In a December 9 article at Politico Magazine, Erica Peterson went after Louisville's "urban heat island" problem, where "a city’s center experiences significantly hotter temperatures than its less-developed surroundings."
In doing so, Peterson rolled out some very questionable statistics. But it's her contention that "As pollution and stagnant air bake in the sun" in the city's heat island, "air…

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Schultz to Valerie Plame's Hubby: Didn't Cheney 'Torture' Your Family?
December 15th, 2014 6:40 PM
With 2015 only a couple of weeks away, Ed Schultz just managed to sneak under the wire in the race for Most Inane Question of the Year by an MSNBC Host. Speaking to Valerie Plame's husband Joe Wilson on the The Ed Show this evening, Schultz suggested: "Your wife was outed by the Vice-President and now he's saying he has no problem with torture. How do you feel about that? I mean isn't it torture…

AP Thinks We're Thrilled to Be 'Finally Getting Over' on Gas Stations
December 14th, 2014 10:31 AM
Here's a small window into a journalist's mindset.
In a report on how lower gas prices are affecting the companies operating retail gas stations, Associated Press reporter John Fahey revealed his apparent believes that there are millions of us walking around, perhaps including him, obsessed with getting back at gas station owners for charging us so much at fill-up time for years:

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Barely News: Rep. Lummis's 'Most Moving Moment' at Gruber Hearing
December 13th, 2014 11:00 AM
Dictionary.com defines "glib" as "readily fluent, often thoughtlessly, superficially, or insincerely so."
Jonathan Gruber's apology at his Tuesday congressional hearing included that word. The word, especially the "superficial" element of its definition, applies to how the establishment press covered the hearing. With only rare exceptions, it excluded any mention of what has accurately been…

Gruber a 'Household Name' in LAT Editorial, Despite No News Stories
December 11th, 2014 11:20 PM
Tuesday afternoon, Kyle Drennen at NewsBusters observed that the Big Three networks "Appear Finished With Gruber Coverage," and that their Tuesday morning shows had no coverage of the de facto Obamacare architect and his congressional appearance.
One factor likely influencing the nets' posture is how original news sources like the Associated Press and the nation's largest dailies have managed to…

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NBC’s Welker Berates Congressman Peter King Over ‘Torture Report'
December 11th, 2014 2:15 PM
Kristen Welker, NBC News White House Correspondent, served as fill-in host on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports Thursday afternoon and took the opportunity to badger Congressman Peter King (R-N.Y.) over the Democratic Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA’s use of enhanced interrogation techniques on suspected terrorists. Speaking to her Republican guest, Welker asked “some of the…

Celeb-Worshipping WaPo Vets UVA's 'Jackie,' Lets Dunham Off the Hook
December 11th, 2014 1:09 PM
Two recent items in the Washington Post support my contention that the establishment press is currently doing more than anyone besides Lena Dunham and "Jackie," both of whom have been irrefutably exposed as rape story fabulists, to cause victims of sexual assault to be reluctant to come forward (Note: That's not to say that the two women haven't been victims of sexual assault, "only" that the…

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Nicolle Wallace Slaps Down Rosie Over CIA ‘Torture’ Report
December 11th, 2014 12:25 PM
A day after Rosie O’Donnell proclaimed that the CIA engaged in “horrific” and “illegal” “torture,” on Thursday morning the cast of ABC’s The View decided to revisit the controversial Democratic Senate report on the CIA’s use of enhanced interrogation techniques on suspected terrorists. Predictably, Rosie doubled-down on her claim that America “tortured” people but conservative co-host Nicolle…

St. Louis Journo: Dorian Johnson 'Rose to Fame' in Michael Brown Saga
December 10th, 2014 11:41 PM
St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Nick Pistor has quite an odd take on Dorian Johnson, the closest eyewitness to the killing of Michael Brown by Ferguson, Missouri police officer Darren Wilson in early August.
The occasion enabling Pistor to publicly purvey his perception was news on Monday that Johnson had taken a job with the City of St. Louis. Before getting to those details, let's look at…