- Logo test: Which newspaper brands do consumers trust most? Yikes. Not USA Today!

Despite having the second-highest circulation of any U.S. newspaper, the USA Today was the least trusted brand among both consumers and local service professionals, actually

- Crushing progressive media minds all across the blogosphere: Bill Ayers admits to the Obama fundraiser that the Obama camp had called a “myth.”

- Media inquiries forced forward Cain’s latest accuser.

- Ann Coulter heavily censored on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

- Eliot Spitzer returns to cable news.

- Daily Kos’s Markos Moulitsas “uber moron emeritus“:

When it was reported that Republicans had signaled they might go along with an extension of the payroll tax cuts, Markos jumped on Twitter to declare a victory for Occupy Wall Street. He then cranked out ablog post which comes off like someone who has never done an end zone dance trying to do the Ickey Shuffle for the first time.

In the world where Occupy had never happened, Republicans would’ve held these tax cuts hostage without suffering any ill repercussions. Why would they? The chattering class and Beltway media would be droning on endlessly about deficits and other things that didn’t matter.

See that? “Deficits and other things that didn’t matter.” This is actually mainstream Progressive belief. Remember this the next time a Democrat pretends to care about fiscal responsibility. They don’t care. But I digress.

In this world, Occupy has thrust income inequality to the forefront of the political debate — so much so that typically immovable Republicans are afraid to feed that narrative.

In other words, a ragtag bunch of hippies with supposedly no demands have done what Democrats have never been able to do — get Republicans to cry “uncle”.

Yeah, Markos. That ragtag bunch of hippies have gotten the evil Republicans to say they’ll probably back the extension of a TAX CUT.

Two weeks ago, I responded to the mainstream media labeling the Occupy Wall Street protests the left-wing version of the Tea Party. Apparently the reasons given to prove that comparison false were too vague for the media to understand, because they continue to  make that comparison.

So to be helpful to the people in the “fourth estate,” I have created sort of a “difference between the Occupy Wall Street Protests, and the Tea Party Movement” guide for idiots and the Mainstream Media. It follows below:

• There was never a turd left on a Police Car during a tea party but there was at least one left during an Occupy Wall Street protest.

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- If Right-side blogs are a good measure – and they would seem to be in this case – the Washington Post now leads the press wolf pack for the Media Malfeasance Award of the 2012 campaign for this attack on Texas Governor, Rick Perry. It’s unclear if Perry even had a right to change the camp’s long lost name had he tried. Along with this, you may  want to peruse these posts by Ann Althouse and Pajamas Media.

Just for the benefit of those who know nothing of Texas or hunting:A game lease, of the sort involved in this story, isn’t like leasing a house or an apartment. The lessee doesn’t get to live on the property, nor to farm on it, nor even to visit it year-round. Instead, the lessee gets a limited-time, limited-scope license that keeps him from being a trespasser if he enters the property during hunting season for the purpose of hunting. That’s the essence of it.

Now we’re supposed to be horrified that three or four letters can still be read by a WaPo reporter squinting at a picture someone else took, we don’t know who or when? This is supposed to disqualify Rick Perry from political life?

- As for another big story this weekend, the media was all over coverage of arrests at the Occupy Wall Street protest. But will they also report precisely who is behind all that? Not likely. You can read the details on that via Big Government here and here.

- RS McCain on whether debate-attendee and lawyer Sarah Rumpf is a real or make-believe person:

When the Anthony Weiner story broke progressives tried to deflect by claiming that all the attention given to Weiner was taking the attention off … of … jobs! Biden’s favorite three-letter word! It marked the first time since Clinton that Democrats cared about the economy enough to use it to draw the nation’s attention away from what their party darling was doing when his wife wasn’t around.

Now that the story is out of the way, progressives have returned to their third-favorite pastime, the pastime that comes after firming up political segregation and avoiding the economy until the 11th hour: talking about Republicans and seckshul activities. Daily Kos — whom I normally ignore on this site because the only thing that separates Daily Kos from public restroom graffiti is that I’m certain someone takes a Clorox wipe to the restroom stalls at least once a day — went nuts over the latest photos from Iowa involving corn dogs in what I call the Awkward Dog Series.

Heavens, Michele Bachmann eating a corn dog! Oh look, Rick Perry, eating a corn dog! Maybe he’s gay! Requisite “Perry is gay” rumor-mongering! Oh my, Marcus Bachmann with a corn dog! Gay! Look, Mitt Romney is walking down the street with a corn dog! In Markos Moulitsas’s mind, corn dog = gay, apparently. Just for future reference.

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Rep. Todd Akin, Missouri’s conservative Republican challenger against Democrat Claire McCaskill, said this during a recent interview over the NBC/Pledge of Allegiance controversy:

Well, I think NBC has a long record of being very liberal and at the heart of liberalism really is a hatred for God and a belief that government should replace God. And so they’ve had a long history of not being at all favorable toward many of things that have been such a blessing to our country.These powerful works have liberals enraged.

Predictably, the progressive media had a meltdown, led by Think Progress (you know, the outfit who promoted the short-lived ‘Crash the Tea Party’ stunt wherein progs dressed up as klansmen and Nazis and attended rallies so that edited video could be used to smear the movement, even lifting other videogapher’s work).

U.S. Rep. Todd Akin is catching flak from some Missouri religious leaders for saying last week that “at the heart of liberalism really is a hatred for God.”

Local media had to dig deep to find “religious leaders” to condemn Akin’s remark and apparently only spoke to far-left, social justice churches, one of which somehow managed to con its congregation into a modified religious faith that supports the dichotomy of infant genocide and Christ.

Faith Aloud, a St. Louis-based religious group that advocates for abortion rights, began an online petition drive calling on Akin to apologize.

The Rev. Krista Taves of Emerson Unitarian Universalist Chapel in Ellisville said Akin’s comment “shows how very little he knows about liberals, and how very little he knows about God.”

“I’m a liberal because I love God and all God’s creation,” Taves said. “ I value equality, fairness and compassionate justice because my faith informs my politics.”

Rabbi Jim Bennett of Congregation Shaare Emeth in St. Louis said he was “deeply disturbed” by Akin’s statement, which he characterized as a “grotesque politicized attack.”

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reached out to two groups, one which is definitely far-left and another that uses left-leaning code words like “we are agents of social justice” on their “About” page. I’m unclear as to why the paper chose to have representatives of a completely different faith to comment on the faith of another when the beliefs of both faiths are quite varied, but this isn’t Big Religion – a way to drive a wedge? Diversity? But it still doesn’t answer why no other religious leaders – or expressed Christian ones, not one the describes itself as “interfaith” – were represented in this article besides two left-leaning groups. I’ve asked the article’s author, Jason Hancock, on Twitter why only these two groups were included for comment.

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Last weekend Americans For Prosperity once again held its RightOnLine conference, this year in beautiful downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota. Consequently, the Atlantic Magazine decided to do a report on what went on at RightOnLine. Unfortunately, the whole thing was filled with opinions stated as fact, misconstructions of facts, and outright lies. Sadly, along with the rest of the Old Media, it seems as if the veracity of The Atlantic has taken a hit in this bad Obama economy.

The Atlantic assigned third string reporter Tina Dupuy to handle the RightOnLine retrospective, apparently, if her reports are any indication, because she was already in town to cover Netroots Nation. Netroots Nation is the far left conference made famous by the Daily Kos and its YearlyKos conference. YearlyKos started in 2006 and was later re-branded as Netroots Nation in 2008.

As always the RightOnLine event was held at the same time and in the same city as this year’s left-wing extravaganza. AFP does this because, in AFP President Tim Phillips’ words, “to see the true nature of our opponents.”

In order to ingratiate herself with the Nutrooters, at the top of her piece the Atlantic’s Dupuy went right for the left’s favorite boogey men: the dreaded Koch Brothers. Dupuy lamented, “Why is there a giant Koch-funded conservative gathering at the same time and in the same city as Netroots Nation, anyway?”

The question is laced with a typical authoritarian, leftist mindset. Its base assumption seems to be a raise of the eyebrow that the conservative group would dare visit the same city at the same time as the Netrooters. With her very question Dupuy seems to be saying that the conservative groups should somehow not even be allowed to confront the Netrooters head on. It’s a travesty, a shock, an affront to the good Nutrooters, I guess.

Someone has neglected to tell Dupuy that in America conservatives don’t have to ask lefties for permission to hold a conference.

Dupuy’s very second paragraph incongruously hung another lefty trope onto her coverage of RightOnLine. Dupuy belabored the contrasting of RightOnLine and Netroots Nation by trying to say that AFP’s event is somehow like a crisis pregnancy center fooling young women into entering only to find themselves being pressured not to have an abortion.

It was an absurd and malapropos comparison, but good reporting wasn’t Dupuy’s goal. Showing her far left pals that she is one of the kool kids was.

After a few paragraphs about Netroots Nation, Dupuy discusses the costs of the two conferences. Netroots Nation costs its attendees “a staggering $355 per registration,” Dupuy tells us. Meanwhile, RightOnLine is only $120 per person.

Dupuy thinks she knows why this is true: it’s them gosh darn Koch Brothers, dontcha know!

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Andrew Marcus of Founding Bloggers caught up with Daily Kos publisher Markos Moulitsas at Netroots.

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I have always wondered who made Howard Kurtz the arbiter of Reliable Sources, but in Weinergate, we are reminded that Kurtz’s ability to discern them is very much in question.  For that matter, so is CNN’s.  It has never been a secret that the supposedly even-handed journalism maven is in reality almost too liberal to function, but if he can’t get his head screwed on straight, he might have to fork over the name of his show to someone else altogether.  Hopefully Kurtz will have the decency to straighten out some of his Weinergate missteps soon and reconsider who really are “reliable sources.”

Kurtz’s history of judging Reliable Sources is staggeringly one sided and ideological.  For one thing, I have frequently seen him go out of his way to profess his respect for the reliability of Keith Olbermann, of all people, not to mention the rest of the guttersnipes at MSNBC:

Now, I don’t put Keith Olbermann in the same category as Beck at all. His MSNBC show, agree with it, disagree with it, was a very well-researched program.

Sure it was, Howard.  Also have a look at how incensed he got when Hugh Hewitt insulted Olbermann on Reliable Sources.  Kurtz and his publication The Daily Beast also seem to regard the Daily Kos, where Olbermann once blogged, as a very legitimate publication.  The most recent example comes during Weinergate.  The Daily Beast didn’t respond when I inquired who writes the captions for their “Cheat Sheet,” but have a look at this caption.  This is The Daily Beast’s own writing, not a quote from the linked story:

Not even a hint of suspicion about the reliability of the post by an anonymous blogger “stef” at a radically partisan website with absolutely no editorial oversight.  The Daily Beast simply reported it as fact. Not long after this story was posted, Kurtz gave it his blessing on twitter, boasting how his “wait[ing] for the facts” had just been validated:

The bottom line is that Kurtz actually believes “the facts” come from anonymous, unaccountable bloggers at one of the murkiest breeding grounds for partisan trolls there is.  Once “stef” weighed in, Kurtz could finally comment on Weinergate without even bothering to check.  “The facts” had arrived. (more…)

“I hope he [Weiner] comes after me. Look up my IP. Nothing to hide here. I’d voluntarily hand anything they want over. Check me and my IP. Anything. I did not post that tweet.”

Twitter user Dan Wolfe (known as @patriotusa76) has clarified several details concerning his involvement in the “Weinergate” scandal, insisting that a thorough investigation of the tweets in question will prove he did not compromise the verified Twitter account of Congressman Anthony Weiner (D, NY-9). In a series of direct messages on Twitter, Wolfe explains how he found the offensive image sent from Weiner’s Twitter account, his previous tweets about accounts followed by the Congressman, and his desire for law enforcement to investigate his online activity that night.

Asked whether he followed Congressman Weiner or the recipient of the controversial tweet, Wolfe states he “wasn’t following either of them ever.” He named several other twitter uses who he regularly communicates with, explaining, “Our twitter group mentions him a lot because he appears in media a lot and says things we hate a lot. If he wasn’t saying anything, we wouldn’t comment.” Wolfe claims that on May 27th, the date the tweet went public, he navigated to the @RepWeiner account by clicking on Weiner’s username on a retweet in his Twitter stream. The tweet in question was the much-discussed one where Weiner announced the time of his upcoming appearance on the Rachel Maddow show with the hashtag #Thats545InSeattleIThink. “I found the 5:45 tweet weird,” Wolfe says.

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From Media Trackers:

The national liberal blog Daily Kos – aided by a report in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – is raising misleading questions regarding the April 5 Supreme Court election because election results on the website of the Waukesha County clerk for past elections showed more votes than ballots cast.

However, the blog and the newspaper that reported on its propaganda failed to tell readers that the reason for the gap was widely known at the time it occurred – and had nothing to do with failings by Kathy Nickolas or nefariousness that would call the races into question.

Indeed, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel itself reported on the reasoning back in 2006 (two communities’ decisions to use new voting machines that year caused them to not electronically report all votes, although they were counted). Although some were unhappy with slow returns as a result, the election results weren’t questioned, and did get completely reported to the state, meaning the Daily Kos’ “big gap” is a complete non-story, and the Journal Sentinel, missed basic journalism 101 (looking up its own archives) by covering it as such.

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In the journalistic blockbuster videos posted at Breitbart‘s Big Government and Big Journalism, Live Action exposes Planned Parenthood’s apparent complicity in putative underage sex-slave rings in New Jersey and, most recently, Virginia.  And the Make-Believe Media has circled the wagons around Planned Parenthood with obfuscated timelines and strawman arguments attempting to salvage PP’s public reputation.

Tipped off to this impending public relations disaster, last week PP announced – and the MBM dutifully reported – a purported FBI investigation of this undercover sting, implying that PP had discovered and quickly reported this possible criminal ring of underage sex traders.   Even the AP’s all-important Orwellian title “Planned Parenthood Seeks FBI Probe” implies a valiant PP calling for an FBI investigation of these criminals who sought PP’s advice in trafficking child sex slaves.

Yet, the videos appear to show billion-dollar corporation Planned Parenthood conspiring with child-prostitution hustlers.  Damning stuff?  Provocative, at least?  Well, no, not to some elements of the MBM.

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The silence from many progressives and the mainstream media is revolting.

Where is Media Matters? Daily Kos? Ed Schultz? Lawrence O’Donnell? Rachel Maddow? Chris Matthews? Katie Couric?

Where is John Lewis and Emanuel Cleaver? Al Sharpton?

Where is the NAACP? Ben Jealous?

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This week, two weeks after the AZ massacre and one week after President Obama’s call for “civility,” the MSM has proved once again that it is fair, unprejudiced, professional, and full to the brim with the best of intentions.

As a conservative, I honor the admirable achievements of the professional journalists at MSNBC, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. My head hangs in humbled deference at the hate-filled remarks of Obama pals, U.S. Senator Dick Durbin and Rep. Steven Cohen. Behold their collective greatness in attempting to cover-up their gaffes, lies, and hypocrisies again this week: MSM made small mention of liberal activist James Eric Fuller, who was shot in the knee at the AZ shooting and his death threat against Tucson Tea Party leader Trent Humphries. Fuller told the Post Friday:

There would be torture and then an ear necklace, with [Minnesota US Rep.] Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin’s ears toward the end, because they’re small, female ears, and then Limbaugh, Hannity and the biggest ears of all, Cheney’s, in the center.

An “ear necklace” is a reference to necklaces made from the cut-off ears of enemies in the Vietnam War era and, thus, fails Obama’s civility test.

Unlike Sarah Palin and the Tea Party Movement, the MSM did not attempt to link the incendiary statements of U.S. Senator Dick Durbin or even President Obama to Fuller’s violent actions. Durbin has called Tea Partiers “extremists” and President Obama has called on supporters to “punish our enemies.” To date, no other Fuller linkages have been made to journalists who have called Tea Partiers “terrorists,” “thugs,” “brown shirts,” and “dangerous.”

Want more?

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I was pleased to read that Eric Fuller issued an apology to Trent Humphries this afternoon:

Arizona shooting victim James Eric Fuller sent his apologies Monday for telling a Tea Party leader, “you are dead.”

Dorothy DeRuyter, a companion of Fuller’s, provided CNN with a statement.

“I would like to tender my sincerest apologies to Mr. (Trent) Humphries for my misplaced outrage on Saturday at the St. Odelia’s town meeting,” Fuller said in the statement. “It was not in the spirit of our allegiance and warm feelings to each other as citizens of our great country.”

Fuller, 63, was involuntarily committed to a county mental health facility after he photographed Tucson Tea Party founder Humphries and said, “You are dead” when Humphries began speaking at the event.

Fuller “is apologetic and very sad” about his outburst, DeRuyter said. “He wishes he could go back and do things differently,” she said.

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There’s no mincing of words in this. Considering the public isn’t buying the spin and a recent study shows how Americans find Sarah Palin more believable and sincere after her Tucson remarks, this (forgive the “violent rhetoric”) backfired on the left.

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While praying for the recovery of the Safeway victims all last week, we also documented the media’s attempts to defame the tea party by tying the actions of Jared Loughner to the conservative movement — all of this done while lecturing America on civility and rhetoric:

Pointing Fingers Rather Than Saying a Prayer

Media Praises The New Civility

Thoughtful, On-Target Palin Responds To Attacks; Left Loses Last Grip On Reality

Tucson Aftermath Not the Left’s First Political Witch Hunt

A Modest Proposal to End The Progressive Media Tuscon Hate Talk

How the media wanted Loughner to play out

Fire Krugman, Olbermann Now For Blood Libel Against Palin, Americans, In AZ Shooting

The Sheriff and The Media

YouTube Asked to Remove Video of Left’s Threats Against Palin

Targeting A Media Beneath Contempt

Maddening Rhetoric

Media Racially Profiles Giffords Shooter

The result? Death threats against Sarah Palin are at an all-time high, I myself have received threats as has Andrew Breitbart (who made the first call for civility last Saturday), Big Journalism contributor Liberty Chick, talk radio host Jon Justice, and more hardworking conservatives and tea party activists than I can expediently include, including many who do not wish for their circumstances to be known as they are fearful for their families. Yesterday during a taping for a national broadcast, Tucson Tea Party organizer Trent Humphries had his life threatened on camera by Eric Fuller, a victim of the Safeway shootings.

Despite zero evidence to connect Loughner to any conservative, despite the President’s words that discourse “did not cause this tragedy. It did not,” none of the insinuations, suggestions, or coverage presented above from certain media and leftist blogs has been corrected, retracted, or remedied by way of apology.

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The leftwing Daily Kos on June 25, 2008, called for putting a “bull’s-eye” on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords’ district. The Kos called it a “target” list that included Mrs. Giffords, who now fights for her life after an attempted assassination on the Second amendment champion. The author of the “target” list on Kos goes on to say that perhaps Giffords should be “primaried.” In other words, Giffords was a traitor and should face a primary challenge to take her out. “Not all of these people will get or even deserve primaries, but this vote certainly puts a bull’s eye on their district,” the Kos publication reported.

Then, two days before a nutcase attacked Giffords, the Daily Kos printed the words:

“My CongressWOMAN voted against Nancy Pelosi! And is now DEAD to me!”

The eerie writing referred to Congresswoman Giffords who had voted against Nancy Pelosi as minority leader in the House.

The Daily Kos scrubbed these writings from its website, but screen copies of the offensive screeds remain, thanks to quick-thinking readers.

So what are we to make of these rants in the face of the tragedy in Tucson that left the congresswoman with a bullet-wound to her head and an uncertain future, and six innocents dead: Judge John Roll ,63; Dorthy Murray, 76; Dorwin Stoddard, 76; Christina Greene, 9; Phyllis Scheck, 79; and Gabriel Zimmerman, 30? Should we blame the Daily Kos and others who used their First Amendment rights to criticize Giffords at one time or another? Should we look toward ways to shut down the Daily Kos and others who publish outrageous and sometimes untrue diatribes? In a Democratic Republic like our own, the resounding answer has to be “no.”

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Politicizing any tragic event for the sake of political posturing is despicable. And that’s exactly what the left did on Saturday before the bodies of the victims of Lee Loughner’s massacre were even cold. It’s deplorable to point fingers and play the partisan game, but the right has to respond to the left’s rhetoric. Citing blogs and tweets to point out hypocrisy of the left’s behavior concerning an incident of such horrible violence makes me sick to my stomach. But if we don’t engage the left, even at their most disgusting states, they will dominate the narrative. If the left had their way, they would have you believe that the responsibility for Saturday’s events rested solely on the shoulders of Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, Glenn Beck and Andrew Breitbart. It’s disgusting, despicable, insensitive to the victims and provably false. But that’s how the left wants this event to go down in the history books and those of us on the right have to engage.

I wasn’t prepared for what I saw in my news feed on Twitter that morning. I assumed it would be updates and conflicting reports of the chaotic events (which there was plenty of that). But within 30 minutes of the story catching fire, my timeline was filled with radical leftist ranting against the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and Andrew Breitbart.

Eric Boehlert first re-tweeted someone blaming Palin for the shooting. I don’t necessarily equate re-tweets as an endorsement so I let that one slide past without comment. I just couldn’t believe that even someone as ridiculous as Eric Boehlert would actually ascribe blame and political posturing before any facts were known about the incident. Minutes later Bohlert linked to Andrew Breitbart’s breitbart.tv livestream of the CNN coverage citing a commenter as “proof” of the approval of violence from the right. Disgusting.

It seems that MMFA has taken quite a turn from the previous shooter situation. Look at how Media Matters treated the Discovery Channel incident:



When it’s apparent that the insane person with the gun might lean toward the extreme left, Media Matters takes the road of “this isn’t a time to score political points.”

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The tragedy of yesterday and the importance of identifying and preventing “lone wolf” attacks has been completely obscured by a shameful and uneducated attack of private citizens by the media and certain public figures who were elected to lead, not divide.

I watched as mainstream media double-downed on yesterday’s massacre by orchestrating a massive defamation against conservatives. It made me physically ill to watch corporate reporters abuse the title of “news” in order to prostitute the dead for an agenda. It made me sad to see a litany of threats against conservatives on Twitter, Facebook, in my inbox. I was told I and other conservatives were “murderers,” that Palin should “burn in hell” that Andrew Breitbart “has blood on his hands.” I guess that isn’t considered the same “violent rhetoric” they opposed. I watched as Markos Moulitsas singled out Sarah Palin’s target map while defending the scrubbing from his own website threatening posts against Giffords by his writers.

I watched as a partisan sheriff in Pima County Arizona gave a press conference and electioneered instead of doing his job.

I watched as progressives ran with the false narrative that the shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, was an Afghan veteran tea party member who hated illegal immigrants. Every single word in that last sentence, except his name, is a proven lie, but many progressives discovered that they valued the opportunity to make opportunity from tragedy more than the sacredness surrounding the lives lost that day.

We’ve heard over and over “don’t politicize this.” I said it all day online. Andrew Breitbart wrote a post at Big Journalism before the culprit was identified imploring all to refrain from politicizing the tragedy no matter the shooter’s political identification. I watched as conservatives were attacked simply for defending themselves against the false narratives that the leftist media used to attack them.

This tragedy was politicized. It was politicized by Sheriff Clarence Dupnik. It was politicized by Markos Moulitsas, MSNBC, the George Soros employees at Media Matters, and more, all who incited a wave of threats and violent atmosphere towards conservatives. I’d wager most never had to live with the amount of death threats against them or their families for speaking their minds but the people who send them to me, Palin, Breitbart, and other good conservatives too numerous to mention cite the exact same rhetoric that these irresponsible mouthpieces are pushing.

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