- Big Journalism’s Dana Loesch and a good chunk of the Breitbart crew will be at CPAC beginning today. Loesch will broadcast from radio row, is scheduled to receive the AIM award today, present one of the Bloggers’ Red Carpet Award tomorrow, and speak on Saturday at 3:15 eastern. Andrew Breitbart speaks Friday at 4:40 eastern on the topic of “unity.” You won’t want to miss this speech — and won’t have to, as it will be livestreamed on Breitbart.tv

- Media Matters is jealous that they have never been nominated or received an award. They’re trying to bully Sharyl Attkisson from showing up to receive her AIM award. Keep in mind, MMfA mysteriously received (and didn’t disclose) a massive wad of cash from SEIU following the beating of Ken Gladney — around the same time they began vigorously defending SEIU — is criticizing Attkisson for receiving an award for her excellent reporting on Fast and Furious, which Media Matters has wholly ignored. And no, defense pieces for Holder that go against the facts Attkisson discovers don’t quality as “coverage.”

- Is CNN is censor-happy? Now Martin’s Tweets are “homophobic?” Since when the hell is making fun of soccer “homophobic?” Instead of getting angry at drama-happy GLAAD, progressives have blamed … Dana Loesch and Erick Erickson. And probably also George Bush. And Sarah Palin. Also Grover Norquist. And the Koch Brothers, don’t forget them. And Foster Friess. Forgetting anyone?

- Sean Hannity vs Ed Schultz on Twitter.

- Brent Bozell vs Sam Feist on Twitter.

- Even after Roland Martin apologized for GLAAD’s determination to find gay-bashing in a soccer joke, they’re still not satisfied. They want to continue having conversations on how jokes about David Beckham’s underwear can result in LGBT “violence.”

- Dylan Byers: Why didn’t CNN suspend Loesch, Erickson over a joke Martin made that groups claimed was homophobic but wasn’t? Also, when will Loesch, Erickson, apologize for Hurricane Katrina, the Challenger explosion, and Greece’s economic problems?

(more…)

Earlier today on Twitter Media Matters’ readers targeted Dana Loesch for her suggestion that women be more responsible for their bodies as an alternative to abortion. How shocking! The Soros and SEIU-funded website, which endorsed the violent Occupy movement, and whose editor engaged in a bitterly misogynistic rant against Loesch a couple of weeks ago, is now seeing readers make troubling suggestions towards Loesch.

Image provided by Loesch of Twitter stream.

Is this a suggestion of rape? Failure of birth control? Noting MMFA’s past associations with violence and their refusal to condemn the multiple rapes reported at various Occupy encampments, it wouldn’t be at all surprising to see their readers take a cue from the propaganda site’s endorsement of a violent movement where such crimes occurred.

Is this a new part of their mission statement yet published?

(more…)

Media Matters continues to deflect from accusations of antisemitism and extreme bias by trumping up nontroversies on other conservatives. In addition to watching Fox, scouring Andrew Breitbart’s Twitter feed, and recording Erick Erickson and Dana Loesch’s shows, Media Matters for America is also facing questions as to how their organization can actively politick, which is against their own mission statement. Their latest lie? “Dana Loesch compared Al Gore to Leni Riefenstahl.”

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Media Matters for America (MMfA) must be really afraid of Andrew Breitbart. Once again, he’s their number one target for elimination from mainstream media appearances–even ahead of conservative media luminary Rush Limbaugh, whom MMfA hates with a passion.

The above attack, on MMfA’s front page, is pathetic in form and function. (Note to MMfA editors: “vigorously” only has one “u,” unless you’re not writing to be read by Americans.)

MMfA’s intent is not to respond to anything Breitbart said on CNN–where he defended South Carolinians and conservatives against mainstream media attacks–but to protest the fact that he appeared on CNN.

And what, according to MMfA, has Breitbart said or done that would justify his exclusion from American public discourse? Let’s take each claim in turn: (more…)

Eric Boehlert of Media Matters for America was so enthusiastic about new accusations of infidelity by Newt Gingrich’s ex-wife that he boasted on Twitter: “noted: it’s been 16 yrs since Dems had to defend a WH candidate’s marraige/sex [sic] life. For GOP, its now become wkly thing;”.

Someone going by the Twitter handle “OH_Robb” responded soon thereafter by pointing out an obvious counter-example: “John Edwards ran in 2008.”

Instead of acknowledging the error, Boehlert doubled down: “Q’s abt. Edwards marriage arose after his 2008 run was over; was never part of the campaign dialogue.”

Not only was that claim untrue–the National Enquirer accused Edwards in October of 2007–but it also highlights the left-wing media bias that Media Matters is at great pains to deny. It was no accident that journalists failed to probe Edwards until after he had dropped out.

Media Matters declares that its purpose is to correct “conservative misinformation” in the American media. To that end, it also tries to dismiss conservative allegations of left-wing bias in the mainstream media, either by denying that such bias exists, or claiming that such bias, even if it does exist, has no effect on Americans’ views. On matters such as the Edwards scandal, Media Matters provides the cover-up for the media cover-up.

The goal for Media Matters is not to win a political debate but to prevent one–to shift the terms by eliminating the few conservative voices in the mainstream media. (more…)

Eric Boehlert, serial propagandist and Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America, joined the Stephanie Miller show this morning to fling some more dirt at Big Journalism editor-in-chief Dana Loesch.

Boehlert, who has thus far given a pass to men such as Bill Maher and Brit Hume with regard to their comments supporting U.S. Marines who were videotaped urinating on Taliban corpses, joined his hosts in joking about Loesch’s “screeching.”

Miller’s co-host, Chris Lavoie, opened the interview with Boehlert by describing a debate with Loesch on Twitter: “She got really, really screechy and emotional in her responses, and I just kept it on the level.”

Boehlert agreed, affirming Lavoie’s choice of language: “Straight to the screech, straight to the attacks.” He also belittled Loesch, describing her as “an Andrew Breitbart creation.”

Prior to joining Andrew Breitbart’s Big Journalism in 2010, Loesch had been blogging for more than ten years, and had won an award in 2007 for her column in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, among other distinctions.

Boehlert also slammed Loesch for not apologizing for her remarks–an odd claim, given that Media Matters has yet to apologize for the blatant antisemitism of M.J. Rosenberg, or for the lies and distortions of Boehlert himself.

Piling on, Boehlert claimed that Loesch hosts “a radio show, you know, that nobody listens to in the 22nd largest market in the country.” In point of fact, the Dana Show is the number one talk radio show in St. Louis–and in Indianapolis–in its time slot and it was just announced that the show is expanding to three hours.

But if Loesch’s show were really “a radio show that nobody listens to,” why would Boehlert and the left have made such a big deal out of her comments, elevating them to a national level?

Miller provided the answer: (more…)

Media Matters is famous for being a “core institution” of the Democrat party and a staunch defender of the slur “Israel-firster,” thus it’s no surprise that they lack the ethics to fully and accurately quote Governor Rick Perry in his quote on the Marines and the Taliban:

MMfA, who spend more time obsessing over Big Journalism’s Dana Loesch, have devoted more print, time, and research to Loesch than to Fast and Furious. Seriously! They have pretty much the exact same number of entries on their search results, and all of their Fast and Furious articles are defending it and Holder.

Perry’s full quote is actually this:

“These kids made a mistake, there’s not any doubt about it,” he said. “[They\] shouldn’t have done it, it’s bad — but to call it a criminal act, I think is over the top.”

This is virtually the same thing that Loesch has said, in a week’s worth of radio broadcasts on the subject, before and after the controversy hit. During her January 11th broadcast, Loesch discussed how the Marines would be brought up with UCMJ. Media Matters doesn’t want you to know that because they have been gunning to get her off of CNN because they believe that CNN should be a progressives-only outlet. Media Matters wants to institute a fascist-style of broadcasting, wherein only progressives are allowed on the airwaves. Media Matters has repeatedly targeted respectable news outlets with their insipid, Van Jones-type attacks, only to fail.

(more…)

Media Matters appears fixated on a mission to try and silence the free speech of Big Journalism editor Dana Loesch, while also engaging upon a campaign to somehow damage her with CNN. True to their Leftist origins, it never seems enough for them to disagree, or even take offense, at someone, or something, they invariably resort to attempting to silence them. Such thuggish tactics have no place in media, least of all in America. Perhaps they are mis-named.

Now, they’d like their readers to believe that somehow Rush Limbaugh has rejected Loesch’s comments. But that’s simply not true.

Dana Loesch’s comments, too extreme for Rush Limbaugh, put her out on the fringe where CNN should never go.

Certainly, Limbaugh has his own opinion, one that MMfA would likely desire to shut down every bit as much as they now seem intent on silencing Loesch. However, Limbaugh also took to task the very type of over-reaction in which Media Matters is now engaged, over-reaction that was Loesch’s original point. Evidently, MMfA is too blinded by their mission to realize Limbaugh may as well have been speaking directly to them, given their current misguided efforts aimed at Loesch. Emphasis mine.

Well, there’s a video, nobody knows how old it is, of some U.S. Marines urinating on the bodies of Taliban combatants in Afghanistan. Peed on them. And of course it’s Marines. It violated the rules. There’s no defense of this. The overreaction of this is nuts, but still it happened.

It’s worth noting that, while obsessively attacking Loesch in post after post, they’ve yet to acknowledge the comments of Representative Alan West (Fl).

I have sat back and assessed the incident with the video of our Marines urinating on Taliban corpses. I do not recall any self-righteous indignation when our Delta snipers Shugart and Gordon had their bodies dragged through Mogadishu. Neither do I recall media outrage and condemnation of our Blackwater security contractors being killed, their bodies burned, and hung from a bridge in Fallujah.

All these over-emotional pundits and armchair quarterbacks need to chill. Does anyone remember the two Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division who were beheaded and gutted in Iraq?

The Marines were wrong. Give them a maximum punishment under field grade level Article 15 (non-judicial punishment), place a General Officer level letter of reprimand in their personnel file, and have them in full dress uniform stand before their Battalion, each personally apologize to God, Country, and Corps videotaped and conclude by singing the full US Marine Corps Hymn without a teleprompter.

As for everyone else, unless you have been shot at by the Taliban, shut your mouth, war is hell.

MMfA also ignored the scores of other conservatives who’ve said the same, some beyond, Loesch’s original point on reaction.

(more…)

The Soros and SEIU-funded Media Matters is smarting over three losses these past two weeks. First there was the Simon Wiesenthal Center slamming Media Matters for America for its anti-Israel screeds, the second was Politico calling the propaganda site a “core institution” of the Democrat party, and the third was the Girls Scouts backing away from linking to the site in its brochures. Because of this stellar track record Media Matters decides to throw another noodle at the wall and reverse its position on “class warfare” by defending the $2k dresses (to say nothing of the shoes and handbags) worn by the First Lady:

- Michelle Obama wears two-thousand dollar sundresses on her taxpayer-supported Hawaiian vacation. Do you think the media will report this the same way they reported Gingrich’s Tiffany credit line or Romney’s bet?

Not only will the media not report on this, but propaganda sites like Media Matters defend it – yet they attacked Sarah Palin for slamming the wardrobe criticism and tried to justify it by saying that the other political candidates were subjected to the same level of scrutiny, which was a lie.

(more…)

- A video dedication to Eric Boehlert:

- Brokaw on Trump:

“[Trump] is an utterly shameless self-promoter” and the media should stop enabling him.”

- An update to our story about the blogger slammed with the $2.5m charge, from Forbes:

Crystal Cox was that the judge in the case determined that she wasn’t a “journalist” according to Oregon law, because she was not “affiliated with any newspaper, magazine, periodical, book, pamphlet, news service, wire service, news or feature syndicate, broadcast station or network, or cable television system.” This has led to a slew of angry stories, pointing out that bloggers are journalists. But these stories have not dug deeply enough. The facts in the case are far more complicated, and after hearing them, most journalists will not want to include Cox in their camp.

This story is not like that of Johnny Northside Hoff, the Minneapolis blogger who was (unfairly) ordered to pay $60,000 to a university employee after a truthful post about mortgage fraud led to his firing. If you Google Crystal Cox’swork about Obsidian Financial Group, you will find a host of websites full of erratic writing about the firm’s allegedly unethical practices, with domain names like “obsidianfinancialsucks.com.” She mainly directed her ire at firm principal Kevin Padrick. His search results are ruined — dominated by posts on websites Cox created, such as “bankruptcytrustfraud.com,” “realestatelies.com,” and “realestatehoax.com.” Obsidian’s tech team found dozens of sites that appeared to have been created by Cox to write about Obsidian, says Padrick, and over 1,900 others that she had created to write about other people and companies. This is not the work of a journalist, but the work of someone intent on destroying reputations.

The post was also updated with feedback from the comments.

- O’Reilly vs protester.

(more…)

Whenever I think of the Huffington Post newsroom I think of the frat house from “PCU.” That’s the only possible explanation for the is-it-or-isn’t-it-true story posted to HuffPo yesterday detailing how Eric Boehlert firmly believes that the bearded Verizon guy at his house was part of a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.

A short, bearded man stood outside, holding a clipboard and wearing a Verizon uniform. He asked Boehlert if he’d be willing to take a customer survey. Verizon had, perhaps coincidentally, been at the house a week earlier to handle a downed wire. Boehlert quickly agreed and noted that a Verizon worker had actually failed to show up when he said he would.

But as the survey went on, it started getting strange. “The only weird part before he got to his final question was he started telling me, ‘Oh, you know, it’s really tough out there, the economy, and I’m just happy to have a job,’ and stuff like that, which I thought was weird for a customer rep to be telling one of his customers,” Boehlert recalled to HuffPost.

“So he gets to the last questions, and he’s really reading intently off of his clipboard, and he says something about making the kind of salary I do, working from home, something something about the 99 percenters,” Boehlert said.

The man claiming to be a Verizon representative finally asked his question. “After he mentioned my salary and that I work from home, all the bells went off, and this is not who this guy says he is. Therefore, I kind of lost track of the exact wording of the question, but it definitely was like very accusatory of me and I’m a hypocrite and how do I have this supposedly cushy job while I’m writing about real workers and the people of the 99 percent,” said Boehlert.

“So there was this pause, and I said, ‘You work for Verizon?’ And he just sort of looks back at me and [says], ‘Will you answer the question? Will you answer the question?’ And I said, ‘Can I see your Verizon ID?’ And he wouldn’t produce any Verizon ID, and I think he asked me another time to answer the question. And basically I just said, ‘I’m done so you can leave now.’”

The man started to walk off.

Boehlert decided to follow him to obtain his license plate number. By now he had realized that the man was likely pulling a political stunt, and James O’Keefe’s notorious “To Catch a Journalist” project came to mind as a possibility.

Are you ready to lose more brain cells without the benefit of alcohol? Read on.

(more…)

In a commentary posted on Big Government on Monday evening, Nov. 14, editor Mike Flynn wrote that Occupy Savannah had reported the tragic death of one of its members, 34-year-old Jonathan Brazell. The headline read: “Breaking: Facebook Posting Reports Murder at #OccupySavannah.” The article itself was a reflection on the lawlessness at Occupy encampments, and the mainstream media’s general reluctance to report it.

The difficulty of covering breaking news: An Occupy Oakland protestor injured on Nov. 2 was reported dead by Occupy activists, until later reports confirmed his injuries had been non-fatal.

One reason we believed, in investigating the initial lead, that the crime had occurred at the protest site was that the Facebook posting by Occupy was accompanied by comments that indicated Brazell had been “one of the protestors there.” There had also been a spate of shootings at several Occupy protest sites in just a few days. We had interpreted the Occupy Savannah post in that context–perhaps too readily, in retrospect.

Subsequently, we received comments and tips indicating that Brazell had not, in fact, been killed at the Occupy Savannah protest site itself. We were not able to confirm that fact–partly because there was little information available at the time of the post, and also because Occupy activists at other protests had, in the past, made apparently false claims that victims and perpetrators of crimes were not connected to their campsites.

On Wednesday morning, we were finally able to confirm that police were investigating the murder as an ordinary robbery, and published an update to the original article. That is standard practice in breaking news. We decided that we would leave the rest of the article in its original form, since it was largely opinion and analysis. We also felt the tone of the article had been appropriately somber and had expressed genuine sympathy.

For Eric Boehlert, senior fellow at Media Matters for America, the article presented an attractive opportunity to deflect attention away from the scandal over insider trading in Congress, and particularly from the allegations against House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Boehlert published one attack on Tuesday, and another one yesterday, resulting in roughly two dozen complaints to our site (some from fake addresses) over several days.

In my capacity as editor-in-chief, I took the time to respond to some of these complaints, especially from people who said they had known Brazell. Some were satisfied that we had updated the post. Others were not; their objection seemed not to the facts reported, but to the opinions accompanying them. Meanwhile, at Media Matters, Boehlert tried to use the episode to deny Occupy’s criminal record, and to denounce the Breitbart sites.

(more…)

As we’ve highlighted before, tax exempt Media Matters’ mission isn’t to correct misinformation in the conservative media. Their job is to promote narratives which will then be picked up by friendly outlets, like MSNBC, and seep out into the public consciousness. Their real purpose is to act as guardians at the gates of the Left’s ideological iron curtain and keep progressives from thinking for themselves. When you couple this narrative-shaping with the “mainstream” media’s ingrained left-leaning bias, you get, for example, polls showing the level of misinformation in the general public.

A recent NBC/WSJ poll (pdf) provides a classic example of how the left-leaning media takes a poll and uses it to shape and promote a narrative. Note first that this poll is a general opinion poll measuring public sentiment on a broad range of issues related to politics and the economy. Keep in mind that the Left has been in full damage control for the Occupy movement because a) Democrats have voiced support of it and b) the violence, vandalism, drug overdoses and reports of sexual assaults/rapes are beginning to get bad coverage – finally. The spin doctors are desperate for anything that can lend legitimacy to a solidly Leftist movement which is spiraling into chaos.

The Washington Post’s resident DNC talking point parrot (I know there are several), Greg Sargent, cites some findings of the new poll. The poll results are 27 pages long, but Sargent cherry-picks the stuff that can be spun into “positive” news for Occupy Wall Street.

A new NBC/WSJ poll finds very broad support for Occupy Wall Street’s critique of inequality, with more than three quarters agreeing with this statement: “The current economic structure of the country is out of balance and favors a very small proportion of the rich over the rest of the country. America needs to reduce the power of major banks and corporations and demand greater accountability and transparency. The government should not provide financial aid to corporations and should not provide tax breaks to the rich.” Eighty-four percent of working class whites agree with that statement, too.

To his credit, Sargent also notes that the poll finds a majority of the people are against raising taxes on anyone, but he questions the wording of that particular question. So he only gets half-credit because he didn’t question the wording of another finding that I’ll address in a bit. Actually make that 1/4 credit because he claims the critique in question is an “Occupy Wall Street” thing when this sentiment is shared by the Tea Party which has obviously been around longer. To sum it up, 53% either strongly agreed or mildly agreed with this statement:

The national debt must be cut significantly by reducing spending and the size of government, including eliminating some federal agencies and programs. Regulations on business by the federal government should be reduced and instead, the private sector and individuals should have greater control. The government should not raise taxes on anyone.

Sargent makes you go and look for this part of the poll. Chances are most people won’t. Let’s move on.

Greg Mitchell from the conservative bastion (that’s sarcasm), The Nation, picks up the cues from Sargent and tries to milk the poll to provide some much needed image nourishment to the Occupy Wall Street movement he’s been blogging – read cheerleading – about. Linking to Sargent, he writes:

7:00  Wash Post:  New NBC/WSJ poll–84% pf working-class whites say rich unfairly get breaks,  and also need more control of corporations… 71% say Obama did not go far enough in regulating banks….

Then, after scouring the poll results he does some more Occupy Wall Street cheerleading / tea party bashing:

7:20  More from new NBC/WSJ poll just out:  Occupy gets 32% positive number, 35% negative,  Tea Party 27% positive, 44% negative….  Occupy also “wins” in another question, with 25% saying it is a “good thing” for the country with 16% saying no, while Tea Party gets 31% good thing and 27% bad…. Finally 28% call themselves supporters of Occupy, with 25% backing Tea Party.  Also:  70% blame Bush and bankers for economic woes, only 21% name Obama…. 71% back total Iraq pullout…. and despite focus on jobs job jobs, concerns about health still nudge it as prime concern for most,  by 33% to 32%.

Notice how he doesn’t address the finding showing that a majority don’t think we should raise taxes on anyone – a core Occupy Wall Street demand. It doesn’t fit the narrative. The Occupy movement has “wins” he wants to highlight and The Nation readers are predisposed to Leftist “wins.” They won’t bother looking much further. The narrative is strengthened: “Hey! Did you hear about that poll showing OWS is winning?” So now, within the Leftist echo-chamber, the word is that recent polling is good for Occupy Wall Street and most have no idea that a central policy position isn’t “winning.”

(more…)

- NYPD blames Occupy Wall Street protesters for the 154% increase in shootings:

The number of people shot surged 154 percent two weeks ago — to 56 from 22 over the same week last year — and spiked 28 percent in the last month.

Last week tallied another increase in victims — 22 people had been hit through Friday, including the three victims gunned down outside a Brooklyn school Friday.

Last year, only 17 shooting victims were logged for the entire week.

The recent gunplay has now pushed the number of shooting victims this year slightly above last year’s tragic tally — to 1,484 from 1,451 — through Oct. 16.

Four high-ranking cops point the finger at Occupy Wall Street protesters, saying their rallies pull special crime-fighting units away from the hot zones where they’re needed.

Did this receive coverage on the SEIU-funded MMfA?

Of course not on MMfA. Other sources?

No MSNBC?

- David Duke endorses Occupy Wall Street. Something about teh joos:

It seems he found solidarity in anti-Jew sentiment at the occupy protests. Wait–the Nazi Party and communist endorsements mean that the Duke nod is a hat trick! Where has coverage of this been hiding? Let’s check Media Matters website. They were so quick to say that because David Duke had endorsed the tea party that the tea party was racist as a result. So is OWS, whose antisemitic tones got a big white thumbs-up from the terrorist wing of the Democratic Party, mentioned in the sacred pages of Soros’s Media Matters along with their new endorsement?

(more…)

Yesterday Eric Boehlert made the mistake of trying to equate media coverage of the tea party to NBC’s Dylan Ratigan helping the occupy movement write their messaging while reporting on said movement. Boehlert has yet to provide examples of Fox actively writing tea party messaging. Boehlert is quick to defend NBC as it’s the only network that will consider having him on, albeit rarely.

Today Boehlert takes issue with my remark from last night that the Nazi Party USA endorsed the occupy movement, which they did, on Twitter and their website.

Boehlert’s response:

Obsessive, isn't he?

David Duke says that “thousands of tea partiers” asked him to run, yet never produced a single name from those thousands of tea partiers. Because he says it happened it must be true! When did Eric Boehlert begin listening to and believing a white supremacist? Very telling. Says more about his belief system than that of a tea partier’s.

The guy speaking at the Phoenix tea party apparently showed up when they were allowing citizens to line up and address people via an open mic. No one realized who he was until it was too late. The thing about these instances is though, the tea party runs off crazies. Boehlert defends them.

We also realize that many of these instances were LaRouche plants and progressives which attempted to crash tea parties, get film and photo of themselves doing it, and then later edit it altogether and make it appear as though Nazis, etc., were attending rallies. Lee Fang of Think Progress used without permission video from Adam Sharp who took video of a prog doing just this. Fang dishonestly presented the guy as a real Nazi instead of one of the tea party crashers from the Tea Party Crashers website and short-lived, epically failed movement.

The bottom line is that Media Matters established the yardstick which defines any group that has even the perception of the above as “racist.” The danger in using this yardstick, as demonstrated by my first image, is that it can go both ways. Progressives rarely think about things like that; they’re instant satisfaction, do now think later-type folks. So I’m going to use the yardstick that progressives insist we use and in doing so, progressives come off as exponentially worse in this story.

From my post yesterday:

There is only one group endorsed by the Nazi Party, supported by communists, a group that has scored over athousand arrests, a group where felons are arrested with guns, a group that threatens to kill people, a group where they desecrate the flag and defecate on cop cars, spit on uniformed Coast Guard members, and that group is the Obama-endorsed, cop-killer endorsed, Pelosi-blessed occupy movement for which NBC’s Dylan Ratigan served in some capacity as an editor while reporting on them.

Progressives have had communists march with them and President Obama himself appeared at a rally with hate leader Malik Shabazz, the same NBPP who intimidated voters and hollered about “killing white people” and their babies. We’ve seen numerous instances of antisemitism at these occupy rallies:

(more…)

Yesterday Big Journalism first told you how NBC’s Dylan Ratigan and other media types were actively working with Occupy Wall Street to help them craft messaging (and in some cases, completely revise statements themselves) while simultaneously reporting on the movement as an objective network anchor. Afterwards, Retracto and I placed bets on the quickness with which Media Matters would spin for the embattled Ratigan. (I won, but Retracto was close.)

Eric Boehlert responded early this afternoon:

Since Boehlert edits a site called Media Matters, and since the primary obsession/focus of this website is Fox News, I figured Boehlert had written a piece detailing how Fox itself had clandestinely written talking points for the tea party while reporting on the movement. I asked Boehlert to produce this link, but as happens any time you bring up facts, Boehlert went silent.

The fact is that Media Matters wrote no such piece and Boehlert has no link to produce because it never happened.

The three people who read Media Matters valiantly tried to throw a besieged Boehlert a rope with the kooky argument that any Fox coverage of the tea party was equal to NBC’s Ratigan writing talking points for Occupiers. One asserted that 9/12 was a Fox event; it was not. In reality, Fox ran as far as it could from 8/28 and was one, if not the only, network to not report on 8/28 at all. This argument is invalid however, because it assumes that the 8/28 event was a tea party when it was not; the purpose of the 8/28 event was American unity. I was in DC covering the event; I saw not one Gadsen flag.

(more…)

Back in August I did an autopsy on Media Matters for America and their blood-money fueled attack on Kenneth Gladney, the black merchant beaten mercilessly by two pro-Obama SEIU thugs at a townhall meeting in August of 2009. What was fascinating about diving so deeply and thoroughly into a story I knew little about was in the discovery of how the MSM counts on the left-wing, Soros-funded Media Matters to run interference for them when it comes to stories inconvenient to the desired Leftist narrative.

An excerpt:

What Media Matters is designed to do (or adapted itself to do) is to (through any dishonest means necessary) discredit any and all stories bubbling online before they reach the MSM and do damage to the Left’s desired narrative. If you watch the insidious relationship between Media Matters and the MSM, it becomes obvious that their unspoken agreement is that another Swiftboat Veterans story must never be allowed to survive long enough to where the MSM will have no choice but to cover it. Therefore, Media Matters’ primary function is not to uncover truths or reveal facts, their mission is solely to engage in tactics that undermine and discredit stories inconvenient to the Left — and their approach is a simple one. By directing buzz-words like “hoax” at these undesired stories with a side order of calculated ridicule and mockery, Media Matters gives the MSM the excuse necessary to look the other way.

Since Big Government posted a link to of thousands of documents that show Occupy Wall Street is anything but grassroots and that its true roots and goals are, the national news media is once again faced with a story they have no desire to cover. The media likes this Occupy movement. They like how it could turn into votes for Barack Obama and they like how it distracts from a number of brewing White House scandals. But this document treasure-trove completely blows out of the water the media attempts to paint this movement as a force of good — which is especially important now that White House has attempted to co-opt it.

Worst of all the for the leftist MSM is how these documents expose those behind this protest as the nihilistic monsters they really are — a force much worse than anything the MSM attempted to falsely portray the tea party as.

And so, if history is any judge, it will soon be Media Matters to the rescue! Senior Fellows will ride in on their white unicorns full of the kind of dismissive “analysis” the MSM craves so that they can ignore the revelations at Big Government this morning. They have manned their posts and prepared for battle.

(more…)

Your money at work … attacking both truth and freedom. Why Is Media Matters a 501(c)(3)?

- New Video Suggests Media Matters Ignored Facts In Attempt to Smear Breitbart, Cover Up Pigford Fraud

This morning, Big Government posted video from an event at the National Press Club at which Faya Rose Touré (formerly Rose Sanders), an attorney from the $2.7 billion Pigford “black farmers” discrimination settlement, revealed major flaws in the claims process. Her statements support previous reporting by Big Government and Big Journalism–reporting which Media Matters ruthlessly and wrongly attacked as false.

The newly released video confirms much of what Pigford’s critics have been saying, destroying previous attempts by George Soros’s Big Labor-funded minions at Media Matters to hide the truth.

From Breitbart media’s earliest reporting on the Pigford settlement, Media Matters began recklessly hurling accusations of racism, and lying about Andrew Breitbart and others’ writing about the issue, while discounting facts now shown to be correct.

In hindsight, that appears to have been an orchestrated effort to suppress the truth behind Pigford and potentially keep the scandal from surfacing in mainstream media outlets.

It is an effort that has failed.

- Did Media Matters Collude With DOJ On Black Panther Story?

When news broke of alleged voter intimidation involving the New Black Panthers Party in the 2008 election, Media Matters for America (MMfA) launched a relentless push back against the charges, resulting in almost 8,000 MMfA site specific Google hits in which MMfA attacked virtually anyone who attempted to report on the controversy, while elevating any reporting that minimized it, or the Department of Justice’s decision to drop the case.

Meanwhile, a former MMfA Director of External Affairs, Xochitl Hinojosa, who had actually joined the Department of Justice in July of 2009 as a Public Affairs Specialist, took an active role in pushing back against the story from witin DOJ.

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Earlier this afternoon Soros and SEIU funded Media Matters’ lackey Eric Boehlert falsely claimed that the St. Louis Tea Party left a coffin on Congressman Russ Carnahan’s lawn. Rep. Carnahan’s mouthpiece smeared the St. Louis Tea Party without apology by making up the coffin story which was later blown apart by local media:

Local television shows the coffin was actually in the garage of St. Louis Tea Party Co-Founder Bill Hennessy -- the same coffin Carnahan had claimed was left on his lawn. Magic!

Progressives have been lying about it ever since, most recently by Eric Boehlert today.

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Soros blogs were left scrambling late yesterday evening after spending all day carefully constructing a house of cards narrative designed to spin Jimmy Hoffa Jr.’s incendiary remarks into a positive light. Media Matters specifically accused Fox News of “editing” Hoffa’s remarks — apparently “editing” them in real time as they came out of his mouth — and further blamed conservatives such as myself for “buying into it.” (It’s also important to mention that MMfA is a union-funded blog defending a union in this story.)

Right-wing bloggers misled by dishonest Fox News video editing are attacking Teamsters President James Hoffa, Jr. for supposedly urging violence against Tea Party activists during a Labor Day speech. Conservatives are also attacking President Obama, who appeared at the event, for “sanctioning violence against fellow Americans” by failing to denounce Hoffa.

Media Matters and other progressives hammered away with their ridiculous “edited video” narrative, their only defense for the rest of the day:

Loesch’s comments in particular were already way over the top. But they became truly embarrassing at around 3 p.m., when the whole story collapsed after Fox finally got around to airing what Henry had called the “full quote” of Hoffa’s “take these son of a bitches out” comment …

Except later on, after Soros bloggers spent so much effort attempting to spin this as a “doctored” video, Hoffa doubled down on the remarks and made it very clear that he wasn’t talking about “voting.” TPM inadvertently wholly destroyed the careful narrative Media Matters spent literally all day fabricating:

Teamsters union president James Hoffa would say it all again if he could, he told TPM Monday.

Hoffa riled up Fox News and the right wingMonday with a Labor Day speech in Detroit in which he called Republican members of Congress “sons of bitches” and said union workers are ready to “go to war” with the tea party next year and “take out” Republicans at the ballot box.

Hoffa said he’d say the exact same words all over again.

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