Oh look! The Justice Department decides to dump 500 pages on Congress on a Friday night! If they really want to be secretive or different they’d choose to dump documents on a Tuesday night. We’re almost looking forward to Friday nights because that’s when we can expect anything about Fast and Furious from the Justice Department.

Attorney General Eric Holder is set to testify on Thursday, February 2 in front of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee so it’s no surprise there was a dump last night. I was looking through my timeline when I saw Michelle Malkin’s tweet about the documents. The link led to NPR, which shocked me they would be the ones to have it plus they included nine pages of the documents. They beat the AP! I have found unless the AP writes about Fast and Furious the majority of the Old Media won’t touch it.

I went to sleep around midnight central time and at that time the only major outlets that covered it were AP, CNN, Washington Post, FOX News, and ABC News. This morning I woke up and saw USA Today posted the AP article. The story was the main story on the front page of their national section, but has since been replaced. It’s not even on the front page anymore. I’d give them props, but it appeared before 6AM and taken down before 9AM CDT. Sorry guys, it doesn’t count when you have it up and taken down before the majority of the country wakes up. It’s also nowhere on the FOX News home page and it’s buried in the politics section. Shame on them since they’ve been consistent with Fast and Furious coverage. CNN does receive credit because it’s still on their home page.

At The Washington Post and ABC News you have to go a search for Fast and Furious in order to find their AP article. The New York Times also buried the AP article. In order to find it you have to go to the bottom of their home page and find the tiny cube for “More News From AP and Reuters.” Click on AP and it’s under AP Politics. But you have to click AP Politics and scroll to the bottom. Even if you search “Fast and Furious” it doesn’t bring up the article. I consider this as NOT covering it New York Times! I’m very disappointed The Washington Times hasn’t even mentioned it. I haven’t seen anything on CBS News either. MSNBC buried the AP article.

Here’s the thing. I know these outlets have investigative reporters. The emails gave me more questions than answers and I’m wondering why no one in the Old Media is pointing this out. I receive Google Alerts for Eric Holder and Operation Fast and Furious. This morning a blog post from Stop The ACLU popped up addressing the same questions I had. NPR brings up this part in the emails, but ignores it and doesn’t realize the importance. Right after Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry passed away Monty Wilkinson, Mr. Holder’s deputy chief of staff,  emails Dennis Burke (bold my emphasis), “Tragic. I’ve alerted the AG, the Acting DAG, Lisa, etc.”

(more…)

Real Clear Politics (RCP) soothes me. Just clicking over to their homepage, which I do a few times a day, isn’t just about getting an information fix on the latest polls and headlines, it’s about reaffirming my belief that objective journalism isn’t dead.

The RCP front page epitomizes what the front page of any objective news outlet should look like.  There’s no narrative, no code that can be cracked. There’s only information and facts, and the original reporting they do is some of the best you’ll find on the Web.

Yes, Virginia, there is a journalistic ideal and it lives here.

Unfortunately, if this article was voice-over for a film, you would insert the record scratch here.

My opinion about this new wave of fact-checking we’re seeing in the MSM is clearly on record, and it would be hypocritical of me not to point it out everywhere, even when the outlet doing the fact-checking is one I respect. Yes, some things are simply black and white, but in the world of partisan politics, especially with respect to the politics surrounding what will be a bitterly fought presidential election, the nuance and shadings and contextual challenges are too murky and vast for anyone to get their arms around. Good faith, and I have no doubt RCP has plenty of that, just isn’t enough to overcome the insurmountable.

Proof of that, unfortunately, can be found in a piece published at RCP yesterday, titled “The True State of the Union.” It’s a fact-check analysis of the state of our union under President Obama, which is broken up into five chapters. The introduction into those chapters ends with this claim: “Here is a nonpartisan snapshot of where the nation is in five areas.”

(more…)

As reported by Big Government:

Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL), who was the subject of allegations of congressional insider trading, has indicated that he will not seek to extend his term as chair of the House Financial Services Committee after 2012.

Progressive media has fought hard against the story of insider trading, first broken by Big Peace Editor Peter Schweizer with his book Throw Them All Out. Leftist media attempted to discredit the sources and blow off the story, but after President Obama mentioned it in his State of the Union Address, the tactic was turned on its ear.

Earlier this week Joel Pollak discussed how the Huffington Post issued a mea culpa after working hard to encourage dismissal of the story:

Give Ryan Grim of the Huffington Post credit: it takes courage to change one’s mind, and to admit an earlier mistake.

Grim has written that he was wrong to dismiss a November 2011 report by 60 Minutes (based on Breitbart editor Peter Schweitzer’s book, Throw Them All Out) on insider trading in Congress:

At the time, I wrongly reported that 60 Minutes’ poor choice of targets for its report, and its clumsy attempt to connect specific trading to specific legislative action, set momentum for the bill back. Instead, in fact, the report propelled the legislation forward.

Grim had initially reported that the 60 Minutes report “falls short.”

What changed?

Much of the left and the left media–including the Huffington Post, Politico, and Media Matters for America–dismissed the issue of insider trading and tried to discredit both the allegations and their source. Now that Obama has taken up the legislation–with its sponsor, Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) obtaining Obama’s explicit commitment to make Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid move it through the Senate–the left is scrambling to catch up.

(more…)

It’s hard for the Activist Old Media to out-do itself with their leftist bias, but the Romney tax returns have them freaked out.

This fits right in their wheelhouse of deception and class envy.

The latest is an ABC story with this headline. “Romney Failed to Disclose Swiss Bank Account Income.”

Sounds serious there. Sounds like they finally busted Mitt and they are preparing the graphics and music for the hour-long prime time special showing him doing the IRS perp walk.

Five paragraphs into the story you find out the amount is $1,700 dollars. Now, $1,700 is more than most recent Democrats candidates for president donate to charity in a year, but on Romney’s tax returns to find a missing $1,700 dollars is like finding a penny in the cushions that you forgot to report. I guess the dollar amount is not important (unless its somebody making too much money,) it’s the headline they were after here.

Better get top terrorist reporter Brian Ross out of the Caribbean and off to Switzerland to uncover this latest Romney plot.

NBC’s Brian Williams called Romney’s wealth “unimaginable.” Unimaginable? How you doing Brian in your luxury Manhattan apartment? Ask your neighbor Beyonce if you can borrow some sugar.

Better send that crew back to Mexico to see how the branch of the Romney family is doing down there and demand they tell you how much money they make off their citrus farms. You left that out of the last story you did on them.

(more…)

Big Government reported earlier this morning on a Media Matters for America email on the Keystone Pipeline that exposes the true, partisan lobbying agenda behind everything the tax-exempt group does.

The email was sent, apparently in error, to key staff from the office of Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) in an attempt to provide talking points to “allies” (read: left-wing Democrats) in pushing back on the Keystone XL pipeline, which is supported by Republicans, some Democrats and the majority of Americans.

The key line in the email:

We are hoping for a big media splash, but – more importantly – we’re hoping that allies will be able to leverage it to gain favorable coverage.

(more…)

Whether they choose to acknowledge it or not, everyone in media understands what Media Matters for America (MMfA) is really about.

MMfA is an online group of modern-day book burners, a tax-exempt gang of bullies and propagandists dedicated to snuffing out conservative political opinion from the national discourse. To accomplish that goal, the George Soros-funded organization uses boycotts, intimidation, and the like.

Another of Media Matters’ obvious goals is to affect the mainstream media’s political narrative using these same tactics. Any story that might damage the left is immediately targeted by MMfA, using outright lies and half-truths.

The bottom line is that Media Matters is not dedicated to correcting or clarifying or illuminating truth; they’re dedicated to a left-wing political agenda which they intend to achieve by any means necessary, including outright blacklists and censorship.

In this same vein, most of us who work in media know what Politico is really about. The online publication arrived in early 2007 and pulled one of the most effective cons in Internet history. By using all of 2007 to masquerade as a news outlet sincerely dedicated to honest and unbiased reporting, Politico was able to ingratiate itself with high-profile conservatives and conservative outlets.

It was all a lie, but we all fell for it, and through the Right’s generous links, praise, blog-rolls, and talk radio interviews, Politico rose in prestige and name recognition.  Its power and influence in hand, in 2008 Politico threw off the disguise and came at conservatives with both barrels blazing in order to see Barack Obama to the White House. In the three years since, Politico has never looked back.

What prompted me to look into the possibility of an unspoken relationship between Media Matters and Politico was this story. As biased as Politico is, to witness Politico media blogger Dylan Byers use tactics perfected by Media Matters to push for a conservative’s firing from CNN was a new evolution for Politico–and not in a good way.

(more…)

When President Obama called for an end to congressional insider trading during his State of the Union Address last night, there may have been some colorful Greek expletives muttered by a multi-millionaire publisher we all know and love.

When Breitbart News began our coverage of Peter Schweizer’s best-selling book Throw Them All Out, AOL/Huffington Post was quick to proclaim the story dead on arrival.  Their full-page headline proudly proclaimed “Hit Job Falls Flat,” which displayed lousy journalism on multiple levels. AOL/HuffPo characterized the diligently investigated report as a “hit job,” they prematurely proclaimed the story a failure and as we revealed at the time, they allowed Arianna Huffington’s cozy relationship with Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to falsely inform their readers that there was no validity to the congressional insider trading scandal.

Here we are, only ten weeks after AOL/Huffpo called our story a dud, there have been multiple congressional and senate hearings, three different laws drafted and now, using his ultimate bully pulpit, President Obama said this:

What a humiliating moment for the smart-set over at AOL/HuffPo when their candidate lends this level of importance to a story they tried hard to spike. There was a time when AOL/HuffPo tried to sell themselves to the public as a new brand of aggressive and independent journalism fighting against the old guard media who no longer resonate with the American public. Now, AOL/HuffPo is the old guard, running interference for political cronies and using their $300 million megaphone to try to shout-down others who don’t fall in line.

The old-guard media versus new media conflict has less to do with the method of delivery of the news (newsprint versus kilobytes) as much as it has to do with the stale, predictable establishment philosophy that permeates the newsrooms of these organizations.  Take a liberal political reporter from the old-guard like Howard Fineman out of the Newsweek office and put him in the high-tech environment of AOL/HuffPo and you still have the same old repetitive and destructive mindset you had before.

This phenomenon, and what sets true citizen journalism apart from the cronies in the establishment media, was best revealed on my show last night by the journalist who got all this started in the first place, Peter Schweizer, author of Throw Them All Out:

The mainstream media pontificators bloviating over President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech last night failed to notice what should have been evident to anyone who had spent any time reviewing his past addresses to Congress: Obama plagiarized himself.

The Republican National Committee noticed, and produced this quick and helpful video:

Why bother analyzing something that you’ve heard every year–and never seen fulfilled? (more…)

Newt Gingrich

Charles M. Blow, over at The New York Times, loves to allege that Republicans are racist, racist, racist. James Clyburn, the third ranking Democrat in the House, accused Gingrich of practicing the Southern Strategy. The NAACP piled on.

In Gingrich’s populist call and celebration of the nobility of work, they hear Nixon’s ominous “Southern Strategy.” The media alone seems acutely attuned to the racist dog whistles we conservatives are supposed to be hearing, but their dogged attempt to sully the Republican Party’s strategy in the South runs afoul of historical facts. Ironically, one commentator, Jim Sleeper, professor at Yale University, plays the race card in suggesting that Gingrich plays the race card.

In 2004, the masterly Claremont Review of Books debunked this growing media narrative in greater depth than I can venture here, but the left-wing argument rests on three key assumptions: that Republicans tailored their message to attract racists, that those of us who oppose racial preferences are somehow racist, and that, having won the South in ‘68, the Republican party continued to play to racism. This is what they believe, made clear by Dan T. Carter, author of From George Wallace to Newt Gingrich: Race in the Conservative Counterrevolution 1963-1994: “Goldwater’s vote against the Civil Rights Bill of 1964, in Richard Nixon’s subtle manipulation of the busing issue, in Ronald Reagan’s genial demolition of affirmative action, in George Bush’s use of the Willie Horton ads, and in Newt Gingrich’s demonization of welfare mothers.”

The problem with each of these instances of supposed racism is that you have to believe that the issue is racism, not principle. To wit, plenty of non-racists doubt the wisdom of busing, racial preferences, furloughing criminals, and giving lavish government benefits. This is a subtle game the media plays and as tautological as it is stupid: views are deemed racist because they are defined as racist. It’s not really an argument because it already assumes its premise.

(more…)

The reality behind the often reported story of an ACORN member who is part of the San Francisco Occupy movement is far more complex than the mainstream press has told the public. Donna Vieira, a frequent spokesman for the 99% who tells the heartrending tale of having her home foreclosed on, is actually referring to a second home in another state that she and her husband paid nearly $750,000 for. It’s an example of how the press has been negligent in doing even basic checks to get to the reality behind the media myths of the Occupy movement and how a disparate group of people with their own agendas have glommed onto the Movement.

While researching the recent Occupy/Union/ACORN shut down of Wells Fargo and Bank of America in San Francisco’s financial district, I noticed that two different newspaper articles quoted the same woman: Donna Vieira.

The San Francisco Examiner identified her as a member of the renamed ACORN group ACCE:

But Donna Vieira, 42, a member of the statewide Association of Californians for Community Empowerment, welcomed some of the more provocative tactics, barring violence.

“I was sitting on the floor chained up with two teachers,” said Vieira, who spent Friday morning occupying Wells Fargo’s headquarters. “When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.”

And Reuters reported:

Donna Vieira, 42, a real estate appraiser, said she was protesting because the bank had “unfairly” foreclosed on her home in Reno, Nevada, last year.

“Nobody is going after the big banks. And loss and pain and suffering doesn’t matter to the regulators,” Vieira said.

My first thought was probably about the same as many people reading those articles – here’s a middle-aged woman taking desperate measures against big banks that got bailouts while her home was foreclosed on. I noticed that the home was in Reno, Nevada and wondered for a moment if she might’ve been reduced to homelessness on the streets of San Francisco, hundreds of miles away; a victim of the cold injustice of capitalism.

But my second thought occurred about five seconds later. What I’ve learned in the past few years is that you can’t take stories like this at face value. It didn’t take more than about 30 seconds of research using publicly available, free Internet search tools to discover just how many “facts” have been neglected in the story about this activist/spokesman for the 99%.

According to this story entitled “Faces of Foreclosure: Family Won’t Give Up,” the home was foreclosed on in Reno was not the Vieira family’s place of residence. It was, in fact, a second home of the family, who actually live in San Leandro, a medium-size residential community just across the bay from San Francisco.

The reason that Wells Fargo foreclosed? Apparently it wasn’t hardship on the part of the Vieiras family. They simply stopped making payments to Wells Fargo because they felt that an appraisal conducted by an independent firm was “fraudulent.”

The case is still stuck in Nevada’s court system. In the meantime, Wells Fargo foreclosed on the family’s Reno home for nonpayment.

“Knowing the mortgage was fraudulent, we just couldn’t keep on paying,” Nuno (Donna’s husband) said, adding that they stopped making mortgage payments in September of 2009.

The family still resides at their house in San Leandro, which they bought in 1997, but the foreclosure on the Reno property has made it harder to refinance and get a better mortgage interest rate on their current home.

“Despite the foreclosure, both of us still maintain near perfect credit scores,” Vieira said, “but due to something that is completely not our fault, we can’t take advantage of the low mortgage rates now and switch to a 30-year fixed. It just creates so much uncertainty in our life.”

While boasting about the couple’s “near perfect credit score,” the article also reveals the fact that the family sends their son to private school, despite the good public schools in the area.

“We can’t send Leo [to the public school], because I don’t have the time to help him with his homework or to track his progress in school,” she said.

Thankfully, Mrs. Vieira has put up a website at WellsFargoMortagoFraud.com that provides a number of legal papers that shed even more light on the story.

(more…)

If you didn’t watch tonight’s debate, let me sum it up for you: Why English as the official language in US? Your Thoughts on Terri Schiavo? When was America last great? Also, the Bush tax cuts didn’t work, explain to us why.’

Gingrich, who is usually good at rejecting false premises in questioning, punted and responded “it would have been worse without them.” Really?

… in May 2003 Congress accelerated the tax cuts to make them effective immediately. In addition to reducing marginal income tax rates, Congress also lowered the tax rates on capital gains and dividends.

It was at this point that economic growth took off. From May 2003 until December 2007 (when the recession caused by the global financial meltdown occurred) the economy created 8.1 million jobs, or 145,000 a month. By comparison, after the beginning of the 2001 recession and before the 2003 tax cuts, the economy was losing 103,000 jobs a month.

Bush tax cuts spurred growth and additionally stifled unemployment at 5.2% in the years following 9/11. Yes they worked. Gingrich should have answered better and the moderator asking the question should have been mocked on stage for presenting a presupposition as a legitimate, beyond reproach question.

(more…)

It’s bad when national media outlets show bias, but I honestly think it’s worse when your local media shows bias. Last night on Twitter I came across a tweet about thousands at a pro-Walker rally, but the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said only hundreds were there.

This may not seem like a big deal, but the Associated Press picked it up and didn’t bother to check the facts. Other media outlets reported the original AP article. The MacIver Institute took a screen shot and posted it to their Facebook account:

I looked all over the Associated Press website and couldn’t find their articles. Not shocked at all, but luckily other local outlets used the numerous AP articles on their site. The first one appeared on their ABC website. This article is interesting because it glosses over the pro-Walker protestors, but goes into detail about the anti-Walker protestors. No bias here, right? The AP did post another article that was picked up by Madison.com. This one did get into more detail about the rally and the supporters, including those who spoke. The only article I could find that is any good is from Wauwatosa Patch. The writer, Jim Price, uses accurate numbers. He mentions the organizers were expecting 1,000 people, but 3,000 attended.

I don’t know about you, but when I hear someone say over 1,000 I picture 1,200, maybe even 1,500. I definitely don’t picture 3,000! It doesn’t change the perspective much by updating the articles to say over 1,000 when they will be specific about the number of counter protestors. Matt Batzel, from the original tweet, told me this is unfair because it appears the pro-Walker protestors only outnumbered the anti-Walker protestors 10 to 1.

The local TV stations also repeated the numbers like TMJ-4 and WSAW. Now, the TMJ-4 article says thousands now, but if you look under the by line it will say it was updated. The video of the actual news broadcast shows they changed their mind. The broadcaster says hundreds instead of thousands. Luckily, the MacIver Institute also posted a video on YouTube.

(more…)

Last week two political operatives were arrested in separate incidents, one Democrat and one Republican. It certainly isn’t news that political operatives sometimes break the law, but how the different incidents were reported is typical of how the Old Media establishment uses guilt by association to tar Republicans but rarely does the same thing to take swipes at Democrats.

The similarity in the two stories is that both of the accused are former staffers of high profile politicians. The Democrat was an Obama campaign staffer while the Republican was a staffer of the Republican Governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker. Neither currently works for those high profile pols, but only the Republican was linked to his former boss. The Democrat’s link to Obama was mostly ignored by the media.

Story One: Some Guy Arrested

We’ll begin with the tale of Iowa Democrat operative Zachary Edwards who tried to steal the identity of a rival Republican in order to use that identity to get the Republican in trouble.

Edwards tried to use the identity of Iowa Secretary of State, Republican Matt Schultz (and/or Schultz’s brother) to illegally obtain some sort of state benefits so that he could then claim that the Republicans were illegally obtaining state benefits. This Edwards fellow hoped he could smear the GOP Sec. of State as engaging in some sort of unethical behavior. (The Iowa Republican blog has more on the fight between Schultz and Iowa Democrats)

Now, as it happens Edwards is not only a member of a politically connected Democrat consulting firm, Link Strategies — a company with long-standing ties to powerful Iowa Democrat Senator Tom Harkin — but Edwards was also a member of Obama’s Iowa team in 2007/08. Edwards’ bio has since been scrubbed from the Link Strategies page but read in part, “In September 2007, Zach joined the Obama New Media department as co-director of the Nevada New Media team and then moved on to direct New Media operations in five other primary states (New Mexico, Texas, North Carolina, and South Dakota).”

For a screen shot of Edwards memory-holed bio from the Link Strategy site, see the Iowa Grounds blog.

So, how was Edwards’ arrest reported? For one thing, it was hard to find Edwards’ Democrat affiliation and his past role as a top Obama campaign staffer in stories of this incident.

(more…)

Add this to your list of ways that the #Occupy movement is treated differently than the tea party; an Ohio tattoo artist named Joshua Fellows was arrested during Occupy Wall Street’s late November’s “Day of Action” for possession of an unlicensed gun and 32 rounds of ammunition that were in his truck that he recklessly drove around New York City, toting dozens of members of the #Occupy movement. Mr. Fellows also had a domestic violence restraining order against him, which prohibited him from possessing any weapons. Fellows says that he had obtained the 45 caliber handgun in North Carolina at the Occupy Asheville protest. The response of the “nonviolent” Occupy Wall Street General Assembly?  They voted for a special dispensation to pay for Mr. Fellow’s $25,000 bail.

The story was largely ignored him ignored in the national press but reported in a couple of articles in the New York Post, at Gothamist.com and in discussion on the Occupy Wall Street’s official website for the New York City General Assembly, where a discussion ensued about the bail payments. The Finance Committee of #OWS claims that the money was not taken from the general fund of Occupy but from unnamed “other sources”; however, that doesn’t change the fact that the vote was taken and the $25,000 bail money was approved by the NYCGA.

One interesting note from the New York Post coverage; Mr. Fellows is described by everyone who knows him including his mother as having a very short temper. The incident that resulted in the restraining order involved Mr. Fellows threatening his wife and then crashing his truck into her car. What triggered Mr. Fellows’ rage that day? Apparently, his young son mentioned that Mr. Fellows had a bad temper.

(more…)

First it was Juan Williams. In the other South Carolina debate, Gingrich actually had the audacity and indecency to address Mr. Williams by the name Williams’ parents gave him.

Obviously, Gingrich’s insensitive remark towards Juan Williams showed signs of subtly racist language. Just ask former one term president, Jimma Carta.

Next is Chris Mathews. Sure he cackles like an old lady, come to think of it, kind of looks like one too, but when it comes to calling out conservatives for being evil and racists, well his ears and intuition are to Mathews as built in sonar is to bats.

You can read the entirety of the comment and judge for yourself:

Juan

Not convinced? OK. In case you missed last night’s debate,  Gingrich “subtly” struck again. This time it was with last night’s CNN debate moderator, John King.

(more…)

Let’s call it what it is now, folks. The biggest SuperPAC out there right now is the one working overtime to destroy any Republican wh0 might be so bold as want to take on the media’s Dear Leader in the White House.

Stephen Colbert won’t be parodying this SuperPAC, because he can’t make fun of his friends, but there is plenty of material out there he could use.

The Activist Old Media has two very specific goals in mind here, 1) keep the “horse-race” going as long as possible because it will help ratings and revenue, 2) work to damage whomever becomes the GOP winner. Oh, they call it good journalism, or whatever line they want to use, but the facts show otherwise. They have never been this aggressive towards Democrat candidates. The only time they go after a Democrat Presidential candidate to this degree is when he has been so damaged by his own actions that the candidate is finished and they have no other choice, then they pile on to make it look like they’re doing their job.  See: John Edwards (hey, didn’t the National Enquirer break those stories?)

Take your pick, Mitt or Newt, the media has the long knives out. Mitt Romney has already been called by some in the media, “one of the wealthiest candidates to ever run for President,” like that is some sort of negative. Let’s see here, I believe Jon Carry (intentional mis-spelling, click the link to remember why) was rather wealthy, in fact, he has four times as much money as Romney and his wealth was not an issue in 2004. Of course, Romney made his money on his own (he donated his inheritance to charity) and Kerry married his billion dollar fortune. To the media, Romney is the bad guy here, Kerry the good guy,  and he could not be put on the spot for finding a Heinz flavored Sugar Mama.

Romney has been ripped for donating to his church. 10% of his income, possibly more. Kerry donated 0 dollars to charity on his 2003 tax returns. I guess when you are the media and you are running the Obama SuperPAC you can rip candidates for donating to charity.

Romney has been ripped for paying the required 15% income tax on capital gains, Kerry paid 12%. I don’t recall that being an issue in 2004. BTW, don’t give me this garbage that it matters now because the media says it’s supposed to matter now, they would change the landscape of “what matters now” to whatever they want to fit their needs. They will pull out the class-envy card whenever it needs to be played, and since their candidate is using in now, they will belly-up to the table and unload the entire deck.

With Romney, the media has already stated that his religion will be a major issue and at the same time, Obama’s Media SuperPAC has virtually declared Reverend Wright off-limits. No, they have not vetted this issue already. Of course, now they will say this is old news and they covered it in ‘08, when they did not. NBC has yet to air audio of Reverend Wright—I saw them air video briefly once when they referred to some sort of controversy, but the audio is still too damaging to Dear Leader to have NBC put it on air.

(more…)

Drudge dropped a bomb on the South Carolina Primary in a big way last night with an old-school siren and everything.  After wearing out command/control + r on millions of laptops in America, Drudge finally revealed a few details on a story involving Newt Gingrich’s second wife (and second ex-wife) Marianne Gingrich.

According to the exclusive report, ABC News’ Brian Ross had a revealing interview with Ms. Gingrich earlier this week and the contents of the report are so explosive that ABC News executives at first ordered the story to be kept under wraps until this Monday, 48 hours after the South Carolina primary, then they changed their minds to Friday. At the time of this writing they changed the air date to Thursday.

The idea that corporate executives determine what information can and cannot be released by a news outlet lest the news effect voters behavior raises serious ethical issues that need to be explored.

According to Drudge:

ABCNEWS suits determined it would be “unethical” to run the Marianne Gingrich interview so close to the South Carolina Primary, a curious decision, one insider argued, since the network has aggressively been reporting on other candidates.

Assuming the report is accurate, one has to ask “how close is ‘too close’ to voting day for a story to break?”  Is it three days?  Four?  How about seven?  Who makes this determination?  Is this just a rule for a primary, or for a general election as well?  Will the network be this introspective and reserved when they receive the inevitable October Surprise from Team Axelrod?

News is news is news is news.

When we receive information that is relevant to Americans making an informed decision is not the business of an unnamed executive who likes to play God with the news of the day.  The networks and newspapers of the old media are so obsessed with being the “gate-keepers” and having the all-important job of protecting the American public from having too much information that our delicate sensibilities can’t handle that we end up with squashed stories about blue dresses, ex-wives and Islamist terrorist sympathizers partying with an unknown State Senator from Illinois.

And by the way, if the ABC News executives were trying to “protect’ Gingrich from this story they’ve done a miserable job.  If they squash it until after the voting Newt is in a horrible position.  The story has leaked (as these stories always do) and now little trickles have seeped out onto the Internet, talk radio and eventually cable news.  By the time CNN holds tomorrow night’s debate in Charleston everyone will have already formed an opinion about a story that none of us have really been able to see. Poor Newt Gingrich will be unable to address any single, specific part of the story because, like the rest of us, he doesn’t really have any idea what, specifically is in the story.  So instead, our imaginations will run away with us and assume the worst and Newt can’t do a thing about it.

Airing it on Thursday, two days before the primary, implies a deliberate attempt to influence the outcome.

(more…)

From Drudge:

Marianne Gingrich has said she could end her ex-husband’s career with a single interview.
Earlier this week, she sat before ABCNEWS cameras, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned… MORE… Developing…

She spoke to ABCNEWS reporter Brian Ross for two hours. Her explosive revelations are set to rock the campaign. But now a “civil war” has erupted inside of the network, an insider claims, on exactly when the confession will air!

ABCNEWS suits determined it would be “unethical” to run the Marianne Gingrich interview so close to the South Carolina Primary …

… A decision was tentatively made to air the interview next Monday, after all votes have been counted.

I don’t even know the content of this interview or what further revelations she could have on Gingrich, but unless it involves cross-dressing, drug trafficking, or other salacious details, I’m going to feel completely let down.

We all know that Newt Gingrich cheated on two of his three wives. He cheated on his wife Jackie, who had cancer, with Marianne Gingrich, the woman who gave an interview to ABC. If the details are simply that he was unkind to her or didn’t treat her right, well, surprise! You were the mistress! You helped break up a marriage and thus forfeited your right to be outraged when the next mistress usurped your spot as the new wife. I have no pity for the “other woman.” I guess that’s why I find Marianne Gingrich’s late-to-the-game interview so odd. Could there be any bigger bombshell than the story of their union?

That being said, ABC’s decision to drop this interview after the votes are counted in South Carolina has just been thwarted as the first shoe has been dropped. Everyone now expects the other one; they know that something is going to come out about Gingrich’s second marriage because of the Drudge headline. How will this affect voting? How will it affect fundraising? And will the details of the interview sufficiently match any loss of support that Gingrich may receive as a result?

(more…)

If you were mad about Obamacare, if you were made about the Patriot Act, the DHS watch lists, the administration’s reach into your diets, then you’re already concerned about SOPA.

SOPA = Stop Online Piracy Act sounds benign, as almost all legislation does. The names of most bills are completely antithetical to what the bill would actually do. SOPA is no exception. You read the name. “Piracy is bad,” you think. “Respect for intellectual property is good,” you think. Both of these things are correct. SOPA survives on the assumption that this is all the bill entails. Piracy is a major problem, but SOPA, and its Senate companion PIPA (Protect IP Act), are the worst ways to go about solving it.

What is SOPA?

The bill would authorize the U.S. Department of Justice to seek court orders against websites outside U.S. jurisdiction accused of infringing on copyrights, or of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement.^[4] After delivering a court order, the U.S. Attorney General could require US-directed Internet service providers, ad networks, and payment processors to suspend doing business with sites found to infringe on federal criminal intellectual property laws. The Attorney General could also bar search engines from displaying links to the sites.^[13]

If the Justice Department or a copyright holder believed a site was directing users to pirated content, they would go to court. Depending on who’s complaining, different remedies would come into play: In some instances a judge could order an Internet service provider like Verizon to cut off access to a site. In others, a search engine like Google could be directed to delete links to an infringing site. The idea is to starve the offending sites of the web traffic that keeps them in business.

Inconclusively, too.

Google and First Amendment scholars like Harvard’s Lawrence Tribe argue that SOPA would squelch free speech by giving private parties power to effectively cripple sites that allegedly — but not conclusively — steal copyrighted content. The simple filing of a complaint, they say, would exert huge pressure on the Internet ecosystem to blacklist an accused site. They also say it would give the feds dangerous new powers to go after sites for political reasons.

Gizmodo:

Perhaps the most galling thing about SOPA in its original construction is that it let IP owners take these actions without a single court appearance or judicial sign-off. All it required was a single letter claiming a “good faith belief” that the target site has infringed on its content. Once Google or PayPal or whoever received the quarantine notice, they would have five days to either abide or to challenge the claim in court. Rights holders still have the power to request that kind of blockade, but in the most recent version of the bill the five day window has softened, and companies now would need the court’s permission.

The language in SOPA implies that it’s aimed squarely at foreign offenders; that’s why it focuses on cutting off sources of funding and traffic (generally US-based) rather than directly attacking a targeted site (which is outside of US legal jurisdiction) directly. But that’s just part of it.

…to the point of potentially creating an “Internet Blacklist”…

Here’s the other thing: Payment processors or content providers like Visa or YouTube don’t even need a letter shut off a site’s resources. The bill’s “vigilante” provision gives broad immunity to any provider who proactively shutters sites it considers to be infringers. Which means the MPAA just needs to publicize one list of infringing sites to get those sites blacklisted from the internet.

Potential for abuse is rampant. As Public Knowledge points out, Google could easily take it upon itself to delist every viral video site on the internet with a “good faith belief” that they’re hosting copyrighted material. Leaving YouTube as the only major video portal. Comcast (an ISP) owns NBC (a content provider). Think they might have an interest in shuttering some rival domains? Under SOPA, they can do it without even asking for permission.

Who is behind it?

(more…)

It’s always fun when media and their analysts tie themselves into knots when confronted with something that destroys their template.

Republican front runner Mitt Romney gives 50 or 60 bucks to one of his volunteer campaign staffers and leftists spin themselves into a self-imposed Ken Shamrock-style submission.

The fact that the volunteer was black is driving the left and their media absolutely nuts. “It galls me, I don’t even like to watch it. I felt like it plays into every sort of patronizing stereotype of what black people are.” That was the line on MSNBC over Romney paying Ruth Williams the cash.

Now, let’s get this straight, Williams felt inspired (by God, she said) to volunteer for the Romney campaign before he paid her. She earned the money. She worked for the money. She never expected it, but she was unemployed, she needed the cash and Romney gave it to her. Sounds like a fair transaction to me. Of course, the problem here is that it was done by an Evil Rich Republican who isn’t supposed to do acts of gratitude and since the recipient was a minority they are angrier than an OWS’er being told to find a job. Listen to the entire MSNBC segment and you’ll learn that it’s government’s job to take care of people like this, not churches or individuals. Seriously, these loons have snapped over this.

What they don’t care to mention is that this is nothing unusual for Romney. He sacrificed two and a half years of his life (beginning at age 19) to serve the people of France on an LDS mission. Hey, he was an unpaid community organizer before it was supposedly cool to call yourself that. You can just begin and end with that act of service, but if they cared to look at the rest of his life, they would learn more.

(more…)