Every time I think that the “Press” can’t sink any lower than the rock bottom they’ve already hit, they somehow manage to burrow themselves further into the earth’s mantle. As is so often the case, this most recent gutter-dwelling example has to do with Sarah Palin, who dared to go on a humanitarian trip to Haiti. This does not suit! You see, how can the Press feel all holier-than-thou and better than Sarah Palin – and her fellow rubes – when she is out helping people in Haiti, while they are sitting at home and sipping their soy lattes? I mean, you can’t even see their super awesome and caring “cause ribbons” in print. Plus, she’s just a girl and not the right kind of girl; she embraces motherhood and doesn’t hyphenate her name. She doesn’t even limit herself to caring only about topics that women are assigned to caring about by the left. This aggression cannot stand.

So, they fall back on sneering contempt, mixed with insanity and outright lies. While that is what they are best at, even that no longer works. A funny little thing happened to their ability to do so: the absolute moral  insolvency of the Fourth Estate is now apparent to most and citizens are now finding the truth for themselves. This again happened on Monday, when the AP ran this picture and caption:

What the photographer purposely neglects to mention is that the woman fixing Palin’s hair is her daughter, Bristol. She is clearly seen in the following photograph, as also noted by Free Republic:

In other photos from Saturday, Todd and Sarah Palin’s white, brunette, eldest daughter Bristol, who accompanied her parents on the trip to Haiti, is wearing the exact same clothing and ponytail as the “hair stylist” in the AP photo.

That’s right, what the Palin-hating AP and others fail to report is that the “hair stylist” is Bristol Palin.

Bristol Palin was fixing a loose clip or an errant strand of hair for her mother. The photographer quite clearly knew that, having taken the picture and having actually looked through the lens at the people whose photo he was taking. He managed to identify Todd Palin, yet purposely did not identify Bristol.

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The Associated Press has a famous book on grammar and style that its news writers use to govern their work, a book that is also popular with the whole American news industry. It has served as a standard for many years. The AP, however, seems to have no style or rule for reporting history. Or rather, perhaps it does and the rule is to purposefully garble American history, always skewing it.

The APs recent report on a re-creation of the famous 19th-century, two-masted schooner La Amistad, famous for its connection to America’s slave trade history, is a case in point.

As it happens a replica of the famous ship was built to highlight history of the slave trade as part of UNESCO’s Slave Route Project, “to remind the world of the consequences of slavery and to promote cultural exchanges.” The problem with APs coverage, though, is that it does not mention the facts about La Amistad leaving the impression that the ship was an American slave trader. In truth it was not an American slaver, though. On top of that misimpression the AP seems to think the ship was “made famous in a Stephen Spielberg movie” instead of made famous by the trial that resulted in its seizure by U.S. authorities in 1839. (more…)

I’ve interviewed many celebrities, politicians and sports stars over the years. I’ve grilled George Soros, been threatened by Mike Tyson and had fun with Jason Alexander. I’ve never interviewed a President of the United States, but I’d welcome the opportunity and the responsibility. Who wouldn’t? During his first year in office, Barack Obama did 158 “exclusive” interviews. I don’t know how you do 158 “exclusives,” but basically that means he sat down, one-on-one with everybody from Katie Couric to Al Jazeera. Al Roker never got an exclusive, but there’s plenty of time this new year to make that happen.

Since many people have gotten on that “exclusive” list, I’d like to give it a shot. We can do it when he comes to Las Vegas, or I’d foot the bill to fly to his place in D.C. to make it happen. If the President wants the questions in advance, I’d tell him to read this column, I’ll put some of them here. I’ve never been one to put questions in writing before I do an interview, certainly not for the person I’m interviewing, and I’ve never really even done it for myself, so this is rather unique for me to put this much planning into an interview.

But if I had fifteen minutes with the President, I’d ask him some question that he’s probably never been asked by my friends in the activist old media who have actually gotten the opportunity to talk to him and pretty much wasted it. So, here goes, my questions for the President: (more…)

A few weeks ago, Lord Christopher Monckton told me a distressing story about a visit to Haiti. He said that poverty in that troubled nation is so pervasive that many of its inhabitants have been reduced to eating mud pies. The term “mud pies” is not slang for a local staple made from locally-grown cereal crops. We’re talking about people reduced to eating actual dirt. Monckton watched Haitians form mud into the shape of pies, mixing in a sprinkling of whatever nutritional foodstuffs might be available (like oil and salt) and then “cooking” the mud pies in the sun.

Sounds like further evidence of the devastating effects that the January 12 earthquake had on Haiti, right? Not really. Oh, did I forget to mention? This was the situation in Haiti before the earthquake hit, as this 2008 story that appeared in National Geographic documents.

Between 2000 and 2010 the World Food Price Index, the inflation-adjusted measure of how expensive food is across the globe, almost doubled. In 2000 the index sat at a value of 90. As of January 2010, the index had risen to a value of 172. That a 91% increase in the cost of food over the course of a decade.

While Americans and citizens of other industrialized nations may be able to absorb that kind of price increase, the poor living in the Third World cannot. Tragic cases of starvation like the ones Monckton witnessed in pre-earthquake Haiti are hardly unique. Dwindling, more expensive food supplies have led to an increasing number of food riots around the world. More and more people are dying, simply because they can not afford basic sustenance. How could this happen? (more…)

Left seat: Pilot Thomas Sonne; Right seat: Major Bill Tice.

Kandahar, Afghanistan
10 February 2010

American forces are stationed at bases far and wide around Afghanistan.  Some bases are like towns, such as Camp Bastion, Kandahar Airfield, and Bagram Airfield.  But mostly they are small, often occupied by only a handful of troops.

Logistics into Afghanistan is a nightmare, and it only gets worse after you cross the border from the North or from Pakistan. By comparison, Iraq “logs” was like a run to a convenience store down the road.  Afghan logs are more like driving from Miami to Seattle for grocery shopping, and then driving the groceries back to Miami while under threat of attack.  Not a speck of exaggeration in that statement.  Enemy logs interdiction was a large constituent of the Soviet defeat, despite that the Soviet Union comprised the entire northern border of Afghanistan.  When the Soviet hammer tried to crack the Afghan rock, the hammer shattered.  The Soviets can easily put people in space and keep them there, but they couldn’t handle backdoor logistics during their Afghan war.  It’s easier to keep people in space than to supply our war here. (more…)

It’s happened before, this tendency of the MSM to walk away from an incomplete story when something new, and usually more political, comes along.  Like sheep moving en masse, the eager correspondents run off in a pack to chase the new news.

It happens…it did back in 1979.

On November 4, 1979, when Iranian “students” took over the U.S. Embassy in Teheran, a 444-day saga began. If you weren’t tuned-in then, here’s just one image from that day.

Although little happened for months on end, the network evening news-readers counted up the days of the “crisis” like we count up the deficit these days. For President Jimmy Carter, the no-news of the daily-news brought political death by 444 cuts. (more…)

It’s quite a stretch to call The Nation’s Max Blumenthal a journalist.

A real journalist is free to have an opinion and even to express it, but he doesn’t fabricate things to make his subject look bad. A real journalist tries to understand his subject and help his audience understand it instead of just subjecting it to abject ridicule.

Blumenthal, who leaped to conclusions in his since-corrected Salon.com article to slander Andrew Breitbart and James O’Keefe, is an ethically challenged agitprop creator and self-indulgent performance artist. His slurring of O’Keefe, who helped to expose the criminal inclinations of ACORN, as a racist is the same thing that ACORN does when it’s attacked. If you disagree, you’re a racist. Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah!

This left-wing extremist, who wrote the book Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party, is so consumed by his hatred of the other side that he can’t think straight. His work is littered with factual errors, non sequiturs, selective use of evidence, glittering generalities, and hyperbole.

Blumenthal hates the Christian right, evangelicals, supporters of Israel, tea party activists, conservatives, and Republicans. This is not an exhaustive list. To him, conservatives are a “movement that’s filled with people who can’t handle individual freedom and the pressures of democracy.” Conservatives also are needy losers seeking redemption, according to Blumenthal: (more…)

Once upon a time former Governor, Presidential candidate, and Chairman of the Democrat National Committee called the GOP the “White Party.”  CNN commentator Lou Dobbs took Dean to task for his language.

So was Dr. Dean, and those among the Left who share his understanding of history, accurate?  Is the GOP the party of white people?  Let’s test the good doctor’s diagnosis.

Fifteen questions follow.  The correct answers are provided at the end. No peeking!

Question #1.  During whose administration did the signature of an African-American first appear on U.S. currency? During that of a Republican or a Democrat President?

Question #2.  Was the first African-American diplomat appointed by a Republican or a Democrat President?

Question #3.  Was the first African-American popularly elected U.S. Senator a Republican or a Democrat? (more…)

MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann broke from his self-described pattern of not offering commentary, and called for an end to the media’s self-imposed editorial silence concerning the U.S. government’s response to a terrible natural disaster.

Okay, it was a different disaster during a different administration. But did you hear what he said? A week into the Hurricane Katrina recovery he declared that,

But now, at last, it has stopped getting exponentially worse…and having given our leaders what we now know is the week or so they need to get their acts together, that period of editorial silence I mentioned should come to an end.

As the chaos of recovery efforts in and around New Orleans became the big story, old media commentators fired barrages of harsh rhetoric toward President Bush and members of his administration directly involved with disaster relief. Never mind what part of that criticism was justified, and what part was driven by political preferences. It was a blend. (more…)

Who knew that George W. Bush had such powers over the natural world? According to some pundits, Hurricane Katrina was Bush’s fault, as was the tsunami in Indonesia and now – if you believe James Ridgeway in Mother Jones – that Bush’s policy is responsible for the devastating effects of the 7.5 earthquake that decimated the poor country of Haiti.

But during the eight years of George W. Bush’s presidency, we could depend on such ridiculous musings as Mr. Ridgeway displayed. I haven’t done enough research to determine if Bush was the most reviled president in our nation’s history – that might well have been Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican President — but it’s not that hard to figure out that his coverage by the media was historically the most relentlessly hostile.

I first started writing my op-ed columns during the Clinton administration and while I may have disagreed with most of his policies I never stooped to the insulting, vitriolic language routinely leveled at President Bush. What also amazed me was the lack of outrage by the president and his administration officials. There is always the possibility that I might have missed their fury because the mainstream media was unlikely to report anything other than leftist propaganda. But I was a columnist for the only New York newspaper that covered Bush honestly and without bias from 2002 to 2008, when we died as a print publication. (more…)

This week, thousands of Haitians will be the beneficiaries of Pat Robertson.  In fact, long before the horrific earthquake struck on Tuesday, when many of the more fashionable humanitarians who always flock to every tragedy probably would have been hard-pressed to find the island of Hispaniola on a map, Robertson’s Operation Blessing was already hard at work, helping to address the centuries-old tragedy that is Haitian poverty.  Many Haitian bellies have been filled in the past, and undoubtedly many more Haitians will live and be fed in the coming days, because of Robertson and his organization, which has given more than $500 million in aid to suffering people since it began in 1978.

Just a little thought worth bearing in mind about Robertson while watching this clip of his High Moral Majesty, Keith Olbermann, discuss damning him to hell:

Of course, Olbermann is also outraged by Rush Limbaugh (Olbermann is always outraged by Rush Limbaugh), but Rush’s deliberate tweaking of the left by using the words of their own party’s leader in the Senate doesn’t need any defense from me, nor does the irony of Olbermann attacking his political rival while people are still dying in Haiti need any further exploration. (more…)

I reached out to Andrew Breitbart over the weekend with a simple plea: Haiti needs assistance. Can you help? Within seconds, I had the answer I was hoping for — a resounding “Yes!”

I own a jet charter service that operates a fleet of Boeing 737s. Haiti needs medical supplies, surgeons, nurses, rescue workers, food, water and the only way to get it there quickly is by air.  Haiti needs to Medevac the critically injured to US hospitals, and orphans need to be flown to homes in the US. The vital link in all the countless ways people are providing help in Haiti is air transportation.

This is our mission, to support the ongoing relief effort in Haiti with air transportation logistics.

We have three Boeing 737’s and two King Air turbo props. What we don’t have is fuel (yet).

We need you. We need immediate donations to cover our fuel and related expenses. Fuel costs money.

Please visit www.airlifthaiti.org and give. Time is of the essence and many lives are precariously hanging in the balance.

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What do Jake Tapper, Alan Colmes, Rich Shapiro, John Cook and Mike Potemra all have in common?  All of them reported that reliable media punching bag, Pat Robertson, blamed the devastating earthquakes in Haiti on a “pact with the Devil.”  But did Robertson really do that?

Did the former Republican presidential candidate really state on his national TV program, The 700 Club, “that the earthquakes were the Haitians own fault”?

First, readers can listen to Robertson, then form their own conclusions. The video is below.

At no point do I hear Robertson actually blame the earthquake on “a pact to the Devil.”  Whether you agree with Robertson or not about the “why,” he was also correct about the long-time suffering of the Haitian people.  And he asks for his viewers to contribute generously to his relief fund.

So, what could have caused so many to get this item so wrong? (more…)

Haiti is on my mind and I am very sad today.

I was in Port-au-Prince twice in 2009.

When I arrived the first time and walked through the streets, the people stared at me cold.  At first glance, it was an unwelcoming place.

My dear friend Jean-Marc de Matteis, whom I hope is alive and well tonight, smirked a bit and said, “The thing with Haitian people is that they’ve been through a lot.  It’s a hard life here and people wear it on their faces.  But that’s not the true nature of Haitian people.  Watch what happens if you make eye contact and simply say ‘bonjour’ to someone.”

I did.  And I always got a smile.   Sometimes a quick flash of a smile and back to a glare, but the glare became an easier glare.  Sometimes they’d smile a massive smile and say “bonjour” back.   It’s an amazing feeling of getting a smile 100 times out of 100 attempts.   The country really was a welcoming place.

I don’t exaggerate when I tell you I said “bonjour” to almost everyone with whom I made eye contact.   And Port-au-Prince is a crowded place, which means a lot of people to greet.  My friend and interpreter, Alain Charles, who, as of this moment I cannot locate — and it’s taking me enormous restraint to not cry — took notice and would often laugh whenever I said “bonjour.”  To him it seemed like I was kind of insane.  Like I would if he tried it in L. A. or New York City.  But I loved doing it. (more…)