Reuters:

U.S. authorities are stepping up investigations, including an FBI criminal inquiry, into possible violations by employees of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire of a U.S. law banning corrupt payments to foreign officials such as police, law enforcement and corporate sources said.

But U.S. investigators have found little to substantiate allegations of phone hacking inside the United States by Murdoch journalists, the sources added.

The FBI is conducting an investigation into possible criminal violations by Murdoch employees of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), a law intended to curb payment of bribes by U.S. companies to foreign officials, a U.S. law enforcement official said.

The U.S. official said that if any law enforcement action was pursued by U.S. authorities against Murdoch employees, it would most likely relate to FCPA.

If it is found to have violated the FCPA, Murdoch’s News Corp, which has its headquarters in New York, could be fined up to $2 million and barred from U.S. government contracts, and individuals who participated in the bribery could face fines of up to $100,000 and a jail sentence of five years.

(more…)

While CAP seems to have taken the charges to heart, and is seeking to change its ways, the Obama/Soros-”firsters” at MMFA are digging in their heels.

This dual-loyalty charge, like most anti-Semitic claims, is even more abhorrent because it directly contradicts Jewish Law:

Seek the peace of the city where I have exiled you and pray for it to the Lord, for in its peace you shall have peace. -Jeremiah Chapter 29:7

And it is nothing new: the dual-loyalty charge made by these progressive groups have been around since biblical times, it was what caused enslavement of the Israelites by Egypt.

A new king arose over Egypt, who did not know about Joseph. He said to his people, “Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more numerous and stronger than we are. Get ready, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they increase, and a war befall us, and they join our enemies and depart from the land.” – Exodus Chapter 1:8-10

Jewish sources from all over the political spectrum have denounced the CAP and MMFA use of Antisemitism in their political writing.  Not many people were surprised when the Simon Wiesenthal Center denounced the use of the dual loyalty term, but when the very progressive magazine, The Tablet condemned CAP and MMFA for its use, eyebrows were raised.

The root of this problem is not a twenty-something blogger writing something stupid on the Internet. Rather, it is that anti-Semitic rhetoric and logic are being protected and justified by those who are supposed to be gatekeepers. These people, often in the service of their larger political aims, are willing to apologize for or ignore what is obviously Jew-baiting and Jew-hatred…..

…This isn’t how the world works. Americans’ sensitivity to racist language directed at African-Americans has not made Americans insensitive to “real” anti-black racism. Rather it has made us scrupulous about our language, and subsequently our beliefs and practices have come to reflect, if not wholly fulfill, the promises embodied in this country’s founding documents.

What makes people insensitive to racism is when American political and intellectual elites refuse to confront racist language. The use of phrases like “Israel Firster” and “dual loyalist” that are based on anti-Semitic tropes is anti-Semitic. So is the belief that Jews fan the flames of hatred for discussing the opinions of those who hate them

CAP has denounced the term and instituted “oversight” changes — while the staffer who used “Israel firster” on his Twitter account apologized, deleted the tweets and has since left CAP for another group. The Wiesenthal Center has applauded CAP for making the changes.

The Anti-Defamation League also said in a written statement that the Center for American Progress “took the matter seriously and understood the anti-Semitic nature of raising dual-loyalty canards.” The ADL praised CAP for taking “concrete steps” to address the problem.

But as for Media Matters and its “Israel-firster” user, MJ Rosenberg, the talons are out.  These pages have provided many examples over the years how Rosenberg accuses American Jews of dual loyalty with the term Israel-firsters), or how he claims the  “evil Zionist lobby” controls both the media and the U.S. foreign policy.

(more…)

A recent article by Jonathan Cohn in The New Republic entitled “Why Mitt’s Wealth Matters: It’s Policy, Not Envy” offers a meme that surely will be one line of Democrat attack against Mitt Romney should he happen to win the GOP nomination. Mr. Cohn’s article focuses on a speech that President Obama recently gave at the University of Michigan promoting his program for making college more affordable. What I found fascinating was Cohn’s argument echoing Obama’s not so subtle hint that because of Mitt Romney’s wealthy upbringing, and thus his never needing a student loan, he has no “standing,” for lack of a better term, to be targeting the student loan program for cuts as a part of his total package for reducing discretionary federal spending.

Says Cohn:

“Romney also benefited from the lottery of life – among other things, by being born into a family that could afford to provide him with the very best education at every step of the way. He seems unaware of that fact and the possibility that others, born into less fortunate circumstances, might need some of the government programs he’s promised to undermine.”

In other words, because of Romney’s wealth, he simply does not understand the needs of those who use government assistance. So what is Cohn’s argument, then? That only those who had a hardscrabble upbringing need apply for the presidency?

For a columnist who clearly is in the Democratic camp to offer such a notion is utter hypocrisy. In 2004, the “party of the little guy” offered up as their standard-bearer Senator John Kerry, who was at the time the richest man in Congress. Not only was Kerry fabulously wealthy (~$500+ million net worth), but he didn’t even earn it! He married it. Add to this Kerry’s coiffed and grinning side-kick John Edwards was a sleazy trial lawyer who amassed his own pile of tens of millions by bankrupting obstetricians using junk science, and you hardly have a representation of the 99%. So how come in 2004 the Democrats felt that immense wealth didn’t matter, yet now suddenly it is a legitimate issue? (more…)

Two weeks ago Big Government reported that Facebook and Politico created a new partnership to reveal users’ public private messages–if and when they relate to their feelings about a political candidate–will be fed through a ‘sentiment analysis tool’ and potentially reported on Politico.

Conservatives should understandably have concerns about Politico’s upcoming reporting since most Facebook users are young and supportive of Barack Obama–in fact Facebook’s own CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been rumored to be an Obama fan, too.

But now there’s new criticism coming from the left: Christopher Calabrese of the The American Civil Liberties Union’s  (ACLU) Legislative Office posted a blog on January 13th stressing their concerns:

Most troubling is Facebook’s willingness to search and collect users’ private political preferences and thoughts, preferences they may have shared only with their closest friend in a private email.

This raises at least three concerns. The first is that many users may not want to be part of any “sentiment analysis” or poll. For example, they may be a firm supporter of Mitt Romney but find Ron Paul’s ideas interesting. Are they now going to feel hesitant to talk about Paul’s ideas out of awareness that it might be registered as support or boost a candidate they don’t like? Second, we don’t see any mention of user consent anywhere in Facebook’s announcement. How has Facebook decided that users agreed that their personal communications can and should be used in this way?

Finally, what other uses might this information be put to in the future? Will it be used to serve users ads from politicians or manipulate voting preferences in some way? We can see the marketing materials from Facebook now: “Candidates, serve ads to secret supporters! No one knows about their preferences except their closest friends and us.”

The real question here is what are Facebook’s motives? In the wake of its first public offering of an IPO at $5 billion, analysts are saying that the social utility is worth a total of $85 to $100 billion–the biggest Silicon Valley IPO ever. Last year Facebook earned a revenue of $3.71 billion up 88 percent from 2010.

With such stunning financial success, why is such an invasive measure necessary?

(more…)

After President Obama was caught playing tarmac theatrics with Gov. Jan Brewer, everyone accused Brewer of being a racist. (Though, if we’re playing identify politics, I’m not sure how a man storming off a plane with a thunderous expression, stomping over to a woman only to read her the riot act as she stands there with a handwritten note welcoming him to her state isn’t viewed as sexist.) The media would like for you to believe that Obama never thrust his finger in another’s face.

Remember when Obama wagged his finger in Gov. Bobby Jindal’s face? Neither does the media.

Apparently, the Brewer incident wasn’t the first time Obama attempted to create “Tarmac Theater” for the benefit of the watchful press corps. Jindal said the President’s outburst, pictured above, was “staged.”

(more…)

For a few days last week, the leftist media (redundant, I know) tried really hard to make a “spirited” discussion between Governor Jan Brewer (R-Arizona) and President Obama (D-Chicago) into a “something.” Luckily, they’ve cried wolf (read: racist) so many times that most people just roll their eyes, pat the little media types on the head, and tell them to walk it off. There’s no crying in politics. Stop being wusses.

via The Media Research Council

After failing to fan the racial flames again, the lefty media and blogosphere (the echo-chamber) then went with the “it was disrespectful!” angle. Apparently, it is disrespectful to point your finger at the President. Now, assuming Brewer was pointing/wagging her finger at Obama, and she was doing so in a scolding manner – let’s go ahead and ignore that the infamous photo above shows Brewer pointing up at the sky, shall we? – how is it disrespectful?

This is the United States of America. Sure, winning office grants you a certain level of respect, but are we really going to try and score political points when someone uses their hands in an expressive manner? She pointed/wagged her finger; she didn’t flip him the bird. What kind of politically correct nonsense is the media trying to pull here?

One could argue that on day one of his Presidency, Obama – or his sycophants in the media, to be more specific – commanded a certain level of respect. But there’s a history now, isn’t there? In Brewer’s case, Obama implied the now-infamous illegal immigration law she signed was racist. His Attorney General panned the law before he had ever read it. Isn’t that disrespectful to Brewer in her capacity as Governor? Where was the media’s outrage over this disrespectful behavior? There was none. (more…)

Today, The New York Times released a chart purporting to compare what the candidates made and gave away in 2010.

This is a bit like comparing apples to oranges, because the New York Times, like a lot of liberals, compares Romney’s income from capital gains (which were already taxed as income) to Obama’s salary as president (which is taxed as salary), but let’s go with it anyways.

Why only 2010? Because it would reveal how generous Romney is to include more years.

“[F]ew people know which is how incredibly generous [Romney] and his wife and his family have been to people in need. This is not sort of a bombshell surprise. I think it falls in the category of boring, nice surprise,” Scott Helman, co-author of The Real Romney.

But revealing more data would also show how stingy the Obamas were.

In 2011 alone, Romney gave nearly 20% of his income to charity. Barack Obama and his wife Michelle gave only $10,772 of the $1.2 million they earned from 2000 to 2004 to charities, less than one percent. In 2005 and 2006, the Obamas increased their giving to 5% of their $2.6 million income.  Biden’s 2006 tax returns showed the he gave just $380 to charity out of an adjusted income of $248,459, or roughly .15%.

Just as conservatives give more than liberals, so too do conservative politicians give more often than liberal ones. Bill Clinton famously got tax deductions in the ’80s for donating used underwear. In 1997, Vice President Al Gore gave just $353 in charitable donations, or roughly .0017% of his income to charity. Multimillionaire John Kerry’s 1995 tax returns showed he gave no money to charities at all. (more…)

With the publication of Peter Schweizer’s best-selling book Throw Them All Out, Media Matters for America embarked on a scorched-earth campaign in an attempt to undermine both Schweizer and his book, while dismissing the topic of insider trading in Congress.

Bet they’d like to have that one back.

Here’s just a taste of their relentless attack. Each headline represents another post, with even more vitriol at the link on MMfA’s website:

60 Minutes Questions Suggesting Pelosi “Conflict” Reportedly Based On Schweizer Book

Bush, Beck, Breitbart, Palin: Schweizer’s Deep Right-Wing Ties

Schweizer Previously Pushed Dishonest Smears Of Pelosi In Prior Book

Schweizer Wrote Falsehood-Laden Op-ed Accusing Al Gore Of “Hypocrisy”

Schweizer Authored Book Blaming “Big Government Liberals” For Financial Meltdown

For its part, Politico mostly followed the Media Matters line on the story, with much of its report relying on quotes from Nancy Pelosi’s office. They even included a shot at Schweizer: (more…)

All you need to see is the picture of a beaming President Barack Obama included in USA  Today’s print assessment of the president’s three-year anniversary to know which way the story is slanted.

Or, just take a gander at the glowing, inaccurate headline:

Obama at Three-Year Mark: Big Wins, Much Undone

Gosh, Obama is so great, but even the greatest need a smidge more time to save the world.

The lede in reporter Richard Wolf’s story strikes a better balance, describing a presidency marked by a “mixed record of historic achievements and unfulfilled promises.”

Then, we hit the DNC talking points – hard.

Obama’s accomplishments include “jolting the economy,” which is news to the millions of people either unemployed or who have given up on finding new work. And do “jolts” normally cause the unemployment rates to go up and the deficit to skyrocket?

His other accomplishments? The deeply unpopular health care legislation, ending the Iraq War (no thanks to the surge which he derided but help make Iraq stable) and killing bin Laden – Obama’s one unexpurgated triumph.

The article goes so far as to take Obama’s biggest problem – a stagnant economy – and transform it into a delayed positive as if David Axelrod himself were furiously hammering away on that trusty USA Today keyboard.

(more…)

It was so full of promise, the ideal candidate with grandiose plans to fundamentally transform America had won. The man the New York Times had worked so hard to help elect was about to usher in a period of utopian hope and change: a chicken in every pot and a Chevy Volt in every driveway. Of course, Chevy Volts turned out to be explosive junk and President Obama’s hope and change has an equally illustrious track record. Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, ever the optimistic Obama cheerleader, realizes that Obama has not succeeded. Nevertheless, she constructs an argument explaining where the disconnect originated.

Following on the heels of Newt Gingrich’s overwhelming victory in the South Carolina primaries, Dowd penned a piece entitled “Showtime at the Apollo”. Her opening graph is a tear-jerker:

FOR eight seconds, we saw the president we had craved for three years: cool, joyous, funny, connected.

“I, I’m so in love with you,” Barack Obama crooned to a thrilled crowd at a fund-raiser at the Apollo in Harlem on Thursday night, doing a seductive imitation as Al Green himself looked on.

That doesn’t sound desperate at all. Imagine the thrill of being at the Apollo (as opposed to the usual $30,000 per-plate cost, the man of the people would allow participation by the peasants for a mere $200 to $5000), the goosebumps resulting from the dream of what might have been … if only Obama’s presidency was not an overwhelming and abject failure. His record is impossible to ignore, and unless Obama wants to guarantee his loss, his campaign will have to utilize other tactics. Dowd posits her winning idea:

The song would make a good campaign anthem: “Let’s stay together, lovin’ you whether, whether times are good or bad, happy or sad.” Don’t break up, turn around and make up.

The latest polls indicate that the American people have already made the decision to break up. President Obama’s class warfare messaging and embracing of the Occupy Wallstreet fecal-fest have done little to encourage Americans to make up. Neither has the high unemployment or blatantly anti-business environment created by his administration.

When those tactics fail, one of the Left’s favorite tactics is to gloss over the president’s flagging record by blaming his predecessor:

The man who came to Washington on a wave of euphoria has had a presidency with all the joy of a root canal, dragged down by W.’s recklessness and his own inability to read America’s panic and its thirst for a strong leader.

Blaming Bush is never out of style. The problem is, even DNC Chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz admits the Democrats own the economy. This dog won’t hunt anymore. Three years after Obama’s immaculation, Americans want jobs, not excuses.

Finally, Dowd gets around to expressing her true elitist confession about Obama’s failure:

(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…)

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…)

In the March 2009 issue of Vogue in an article entitled “Leading Lady,” editor at large André Leon Talley pays homage to Michelle Obama, who he believed was “poised to be the most transformative First Lady in history.” In the opening paragraphs of the article Talley describes Michelle Obama, two weeks prior to the Inauguration, standing in front of a window in the Hay-Adams Hotel, where the Obamas had moved so Sasha and Malia could start the spring semester at Sidwell Friends School.

It was there that the woman Talley described as a “long, lean…Alvin Ailey [dancer] in another life,” turned to her smitten admirer, pointed across the street, and asked him the question: “Do you see our new house?”

The “No-Churchgoing” Mrs. Obama told Talley that after “checking out churches to join [and] helping her kids adjust to unfamiliar surroundings,” she intended to “open up the White House again.” After implying that there had been years of exclusion, with Michelle as grand hostess, Talley looked forward to a day where “in a spirit of diversity and inclusion,” life at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue would finally become a “collective experience.”

The following month, Michelle’s BFF Oprah Winfrey interviewed the First Lady for O Magazine in an article entitled “Oprah Talks to Michelle Obama.”  In that article Oprah shared that Michelle, while contemplating what Winfrey called the “weight of history,” oftentimes said, “This is not about us.”

In that same interview, Oprah observed “Yet for all the majesty of the White House, the First Lady has already infused it with a palpable ease; her presence makes the place feel open and approachable. When we sit down to talk, she seems as relaxed as she did when I first interviewed her and her husband in their Chicago apartment in 2004.”

Now the American public comes to find out that in “The Obamas,” a new book by New York Times correspondent Jodi Kantor, the woman who Oprah said was excited about living in the White House because “if you want pie, there’s pie,” and who Talley perceived was “like the neighbor organizing a block party,” really wanted to stay in Chicago and delay moving to Washington DC.

In one section of André Leon Talley’s article, the part-time fashionista goes on and on about Michelle Obama’s sense of community and how Chicago’s South Side native exudes the impression that once in the White House,  ‘everyone is invited’ to the “ never ‘me’ and ‘mine’ and ‘some,’ but ‘we’ and ‘our’ and ‘all’ people’s house.”

If that was true, then why, according to Jodi Kantor, was Michelle so “worried about her children bumping into White House tourists during play dates?”

Admittedly, it is easy to understand the difficult transition from Chicago, which Michelle told Talley was the Obama family “Kennebunkport,” to what she soon felt was a “tough life in Washington DC.”  But, to say that the woman who had the water dyed green in the fountain on the White House lawn for St. Patrick’s Day a few weeks after moving in was “alone, frightened and unsure of what to do next” may be stretching it a bit.

When Oprah asked the first lady if she felt the glare of the fishbowl, Michelle said, “I don’t pay attention to it. There isn’t a bigger fishbowl, but I don’t own the glare.” In Jodi Kantor’s book the author differs when she claims sources told her that Mrs. Obama said, “Sometimes it becomes difficult to live in what we call a bubble.”

(more…)

This screen shot was taken just a few minutes ago, and it is a breathtaking (even for the left-wing PolitiFact) example of what a horribly biased outlet PolitiFact is. In the past, I’ve written about Poltifact’s bias and even grabbed a screen shot to make my point, but this is truly something to behold:

(more…)

Take note, South Carolina. We know that Mitt Romney has been on all sides of basically every issue, but the broader concern here is:  are conservatives tired of stressing about and being duped by northeastern so-called Republicans and their mostly liberal voting records–leading to political survival in Democrat states.  But, seriously, is anyone else tired of this? And again, I ask,  why is a government-run healthcare lover a GOP frontrunner? Name recognition, gaining independent voters, and anyone but Obama, I get that, but come on already. Romney? I’m not buying the media hype over who can beat Obama.

From Jonah Goldberg:

Romney, the son of a politician, has been running for office, holding office or thinking about running for office for more than two decades. “Just level with the American people,” Gingrich growled. “You’ve been running … at least since the 1990s.”

For some reason, Romney can’t do that. Or at least it seems like he can’t. His authentic inauthenticity problem isn’t going away. And it’s sapping enthusiasm from the rank and file.

Goldberg is right, but the underlying theme that voters need to be reminded of is that during so many important debates from healthcare, jobs, Wall Street Reform, confirmations, recess appointments, to taxes the culprits to invoke cloture or side with the Democrats typically are the same:  Senators Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe,  and Scott Brown–the trifecta of RINOs. All from the northeast, too.  See where I’m going with this?

Frankly, Romney, who the mainstream liberal media would like to see win the nomination, has yet to unite the GOP base.  His used car salesman pitch simply rubs people the wrong way.  We’ve seen this over and over again–even John McCain pointed this out and won in 2007’s primary–and now supports him–that should speak volumes to my point.  Romney has always been dogged by this and this is why we have such a large ‘Not Romney’ camp on the right side of the aisle.

The GOP is also paying the bitter price for not having anyone in line to succeed GW Bush.  The party’s internal tug of war will be an historical teachable moment and prepare the party for future elections.  The one saving grace is that, while the Democrats have Hillary, they have no one to succeed her at this point in time.  I say Hillary because she seems to be the only power broker left untarnished by Obama–even though she is an Alinsky kinda girl.

Additionally, the GOP presidential candidate will have a two-pronged mission as the nominee:  to beat the MSM and Obama.  However, enlightened voters now know for sure the media is mostly state-controlled, Obama was never vetted, and that his radical leftist ideology drives his policies, appointments, and regulations out of the mainstream.

Furthermore, the MSM needs Romney to offset Obama.  The formula is quite simple: RomneyCare is to ObamaCare as Obama’s rhetoric is to Romney’s rhetoric all of which cancel each other out according to how the media sees it.

(more…)

More proof the MSM is done hiding their biases in 2012.

We all know, including the mainstream media, that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is a GOP star, a devastatingly effective critic of President Obama’s failed policies, a superb communicator, and one of GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney’s strongest allies. All of this adds up to trouble for President FailureTeleprompter, which is why his media Palace Guards have ginned up a story that would only be too stupid to be believed if the MSM didn’t exist.

Below is a video of the incident in question — below that, the corrupt MSM’s intentional misrepresentation of the incident.

—–

CBS New York:

While stumping for Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney in New Hampshire, this weekend, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie addresse

It’s not surprising that the loquacious governor responded to a heckler, but what he said is: “You know something may go down tonight, but it ain’t gonna be jobs sweetheart,” Christie can be heard saying to the woman.

Christie’s spokesman wouldn’t comment or clarify — only to urge you keep perspective over the nugget that dropped from Christie’s mouth, 1010 WINS’ Steve Sandberg reported.

(more…)

Good morning, Mainstream Media. How are things under the Obama bus? Please tell Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers we say hello. You remember them. You helped Obama hide them there.

Frequently, I refer to the mainstream media as Obama’s Palace Guards. But maybe “secret service” would be a better term today, because this time the MSM has apparently decided to take a public relations bullet for Their Precious One.

The story goes a little something like this. Over Halloween in 2009, during the depths of the Great Recession, the White House threw a lavish party for children from all walks of life, including local DC kids, military families, and friends of the President’s two young daughters, Malia and Sasha. The theme was “Alice In Wonderland” and director Tim Burton, whose film based on the classic story was about to be released in theatres, attended, as did his star, Johnny Depp, who reportedly greeted guests in character and costume as the Mad Hatter.

More details:

(more…)

The Obamas threw an epic Halloween bash in 2009 and we’re only just now discovering how over-the-top the bash was — and how complicit media was in keeping the White House’s secret. After all, White House staff was “concerned” that the extravagant bash would appear tone-deaf to unemployed Americans, hundreds of thousands of whom are leaving the workforce entirely as new jobs are scarce and businesses are stretched thin. But is the story what it seems?

The White House has thrown so many over-the top parties and the First Lady has come under fire from the President’s advisers for her expensive tastes, so the initial reaction to hearing of yet another extravagant White House party is anger. But was the Halloween bash like the other White House parties? Was it like the party with Paul McCartney that the Obamas enjoyed while the Gulf struggled with an oil spill? Or the party the White House threw when America had its credit rating downgraded? If media reports are to be believed, the Halloween bash was “staged“/thrown by Tim Burton and Johnny Depp. Security for the event would cost the public, but (I assume) comparatively no more than the cost of the annual Easter egg roll or other observances.

The point of the question isn’t to excuse the Obamas’ past irresponsibility in presentation; they lead one of the most tone-deaf administrations (Camelot style in a Carter economy, after all). The point is that this event, from my understanding, was for, and attended predominately by, military members and their families. This party is easier to justify, and features a better guest list, than the previous devil-may-care variety. I don’t want to discourage Hollywood from doing something nice for our soldiers when 99% of the movies they make about them portray them as monsters. The last time Johnny Depp dabbled in politics he called the country a “big dumb puppy.” A good deed like footing the bill (assumedly sans Secret Service, other security) for a bash thrown in honor of military families deserves some positive reinforcement by way of kudos, if this report is true.

There is still the pesky question of why the White House and media in attendance kept all of this quiet.

The White House press corps was allowed to report on more modest festivities earlier that day for Washington-area school children, but did not release details of the more glamorous festivities that occurred later for what was the Obamas’ first Halloween in office in 2009.

Why? One could beg the question that the White House and media didn’t disclose this because they knew it was wrong. Why would it be wrong? Because of public reaction? This is where it gets sneaky. It’s a set up: The narrative will be that details weren’t released because the White House didn’t want folks freaking out over extravagances for military families provided by a Hollywood director and his actor/muse. The narrative will progress into a notion that conservatives are tight-fisted when it comes to providing military families with a nice Halloween, one that wasn’t even at the conservatives’s expense. It will reinforce the stereotype that conservatives and Hollywood will always be at odds, and can’t a film director throw a party for the military if he wants? GOSH.

(more…)

The Jerusalem Post reports today that Faiz Shakir, vice-president of the Center for American Progress (CAP) and editor of the ThinkProgress.com blog, had admitted that the term “Israel Firster,” which has been used by bloggers at CAP and Media Matters for America (MMfA), is “anti-Semitic.”

Faiz Shakir (Image: Press.tv)

The admission was made in an e-mail obtained by the newspaper:

The Jerusalem Post last week obtained the first CAP acknowledgment of Jewhatred stemming from a group of Mideast bloggers affiliated with CAP’s ThinkProgress website.

In the e-mail that the Post obtained exclusively from the CAP account of Faiz Shakir, who serves as editor-in-chief of the ThinkProgress.org website and is a vice president at CAP, he wrote, “Yes, I agree ‘Israel Firster’ is terrible, anti-Semitic language. And that’s why that language no longer exists on Zaid’s personal twitter feed, because he also knows and understands the implications.”

Zaid Jilani wrote on his Twitter account, where he identifies himself as a “Reporter-Blogger for ThinkProgress,” that “…Obama is still beloved by Israel-firsters and getting lots of their $$.”

The e-mail recognizing the anti-Semitism of a CAP blogger was sent from FShakir@americanprogress.org in December.

The term “Israel Firster” evokes old anti-Jewish slurs of “dual loyalty” and implies that Americans of all faiths who support Israel, and especially those who oppose the Obama administration’s hostility to Israel, are disloyal to the United States.

MMfA senior fellow M.J. Rosenberg is particularly fond of the term “Israel Firster,” and frequently uses it–and worse–terms to attack the pro-Israel cause.

Both CAP and MMfA are key to the Democratic Party’s policy and public relations strategies.

(more…)

The Shell Game is in full swing.

Watch closely; the hands move quickly and it takes a sharp mind, quick eyes and cat-like instincts to keep up with all the movement going on right in front of us.

Much has been written and will still be written about the way the media is covering the Republican candidates, but while that is going on, Barack Obama is destroying the US military and trashing our Constitution … and who knows what else?

The media has eyes wide shut and can only tell us Mitt Romney is unacceptable and Rick Santorum is un-electable. But skip that for now; there are actually much larger issues.

While the world gets more dangerous under his watch, Obama is cutting defense spending by half a trillion dollars over the next 10 years. Oh, the Activist Old Media may give it a passing mention and may even show Obama’s soundbites while saying he is acting in ours, and the worlds, best interest, but if you blink you will miss where the shell is hidden. Obama is now officially more dangerous than Jimmy Carter, and Carter gave us the first “Arab Spring.” (more…)