Right off the bat C-SPAN should have aired this hearing. There is absolutely no excuse not to air it on TV. Since I had to stream it online I kept my TV on DirecTV News Mix to keep an eye on the news. The only network that had consistent coverage of the testimony was FOX News. I’m not shocked at all. I didn’t see anything about the testimony on the other channels. Jeff Poor from The Daily Caller helped me keep an eye on MSNBC and he didn’t see anything. He said they were hung up on Donald Trump all day. I was informed by a friend on Twitter, Doug Mataconis, that the hearing was discussed on The Situation Room on CNN for about 15 minutes. “Special Report” and The FOX Report both started off with Mr. Holder’s testimony.

Before I continue I noticed some friends on Twitter growing upset that headlines were partisan. The MSM was right: This was a partisan fight and every single Democrat coddled Mr. Holder. The Republicans were the only ones to demand withheld documents and answers from Mr. Holder.

Right after the testimony ended I began searching for coverage of the hearing on Google. First stop was Associated Press. Remember: If the AP doesn’t write anything on Fast & Furious more than likely the rest of the media won’t mention it. Pete Yost did write about the testimony, but hat’s where the excitement ends. Again, he distorts information to favor Mr. Holder and the Department of Justice. Mr. Yost fails to mention the subpoena was issued October 12, 2011. That’s 4 months ago. That is plenty of time to go through the hoops to release the documents. Mr. Yost says, “Though neither side said so, negotiations are almost certain to be the next step.” If you watched the testimony do you honestly think Mr. Issa or Mr. Holder will negotiate? Didn’t think so. Mr. Issa won’t accept anything less than the documents he needs. Then Mr. Yost describes a few dialogues, but doesn’t bother to get down to nitty gritty of the testimony.

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Remember this? Yes, last Friday night the DOJ dumped documents on Congress about Fast and Furious. Anyone with an ounce of common sense & critical thinking skills would come to the conclusion based on the emails between Monty Wilkinson, Attorney General Eric Holder’s then deputy chief of staff, and then-US Attorney Dennis Burke, Mr. Holder and quite possible Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer knew about Operation Fast and Furious.

The majority of the media ignored the documents. They took the AP article and printed it, but buried it among other articles. Only NPR, The Daily Caller, and CBS had original articles. The New York Times really buried it: Even if you searched for it you wouldn’t find it. The AP article mentions the emails at the very end, but just repeats the talking points instead of using their common sense. “Mr. Wilkinson does not recall discussing this aspect with the attorney general.” Come on people let’s use our brains! Do you believe Mr. Wilkinson, Mr. Holder’s deputy chief of staff, did NOT tell his boss about this?

But Congressional Democrats and the media don’t think this way. Instead of investigating further they simply take someone’s word, even if it sounds suspicious. This morning I saw an alert from The New York Times. The Democrats on The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee cleared the Obama administration of any wrong doing. This is the same Times that ignored the Friday night document dump. This story appeared on the front page of their US section and is an original piece written by Charlie Savage. Ironically the article by Pete Yost at the AP is the most concise one he’s written about Fast and Furious. Gee, I wonder why. The Huffington Post put Mr. Yost’s article on the front page of their politics section. What’s this I see? The Washington Post actually didn’t publish the AP article, but had Sari Horwirz write an original piece? I believe that hasn’t happened since September.

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- Adam Jacobi, formerly with CBS, says the network fired him over reporting Joe Paterno’s death before it happened. Also:

CBS was not the only news site to falsely report Paterno’s death. But it was the first major news site to pick up the erroneous report from Onward State. CBS was criticized, in particular, for not sourcing the original death report but naming the student publication as the source of its error once the mistake was clear.

- The George Soros-financed Adbusters magazine calls for Occupy to get violent at G8 summit:

Adbusters the radical, Vancouver-based anti-consumerist magazine, credited by many media outlets for launching the Occupy Wall Street protests, has put out an ad calling for 50,000 protestors to “Occupy” the G8 summit in May.

The Adbusters ad shows a of policemen beating up a defenseless protestor, and comes with the caption: “In the Tradition of the Chicago 8.” The Chicago 8 were radicals who incited riots in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic convention. The 1968 convention unrest became so legendary that the band Crosby, Stills, Nash (and Young) wrote a about it called “Chicago.” The “tradition” of the Chicago 8 included calling for displays of public fornication and attacking police.

[via]

- Nevada GOP to release caucus results via Twitter.

- Great editorial by Joseph Koenig, one of the best explanations I’ve seen of the surprise Newt + tea party meme:

GOP voters are sending a clarion call to the party establishment, but it seems GOP leaders are not getting the message. The statement being sent to the GOP elite isn’t about Newt, and it goes beyond even Romney.  It is about a deep dissatisfaction that has been building for years within the Republican rank and file.

- Elle: “TV’s Wonder Women.” The only question I had after reading this was upon seeing Wendy Williams’s photo with Richard Simmons: Why, at his age, is he STILL wearing those shorts?

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The protest endorsed by progressive media. From Huffington Post San Francisco:

Have you noticed that MSM started distancing itself from the occupy protests?

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As reported by Big Government:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What changed?

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

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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…)

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

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

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

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

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

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

- I can’t tell if I’m watching MSNBC. Stuff Liberals Say via Ace:

- WaPo ombudsman: Yes we’re biased and we need to start scrutinizing Obama’s record:

Deborah Howell, Post ombudsman from 2005 through 2008, said at the end of her tenure that “some of the conservatives’ complaints about a liberal tilt [at The Post] are valid.”

I won’t quibble with her conclusion. I think she was right.

- News archives proves gun control laws will fail.

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- John McCain’s Romney oppo file makes its way to the Internet. Will the media now begin to talk about some of the troubling things in Romney’s record, or will they “Obama him” and allow a candidate to skate through the primary with little vetting — except what the candidates can push through before they’re jumped on and called “mean?” The media doesn’t want to vet Romney now; they’re holding their fire in the event he becomes the nominee, after which they will unload.

- New media turns on Hollywood with SOPA.

- HuffPo is planning an online news network. Dramatic air quotes for “news.”

According to Forbes‘ Jeff Bercovici, HuffPost is following in the footsteps of the Wall Street Journal, and launching a live online news channel, possibly called the Huffington Post Streaming Network, or HSPN for short.

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- How many times can Newsweek insult readers before they leave? Have you picked up a Newsweek lately? I flipped through one while in line at the gas station and was shocked to see how anemic it has become: it’s printed on a cheap, matte, flimsy stock, 1/3 of the pages of its heyday, and filled mostly with ads. Know why? Because of idiocy like this:

The above is what the cover looks like while wearing the media equivalent of beer goggles. Take them off.

Apparently Tina Brown was too busy playing paper dolls with Diana Spencer photos in Photoshop to actually put out a magazine this week. It’s obvious that they just completely stopped giving any sort of damn.

- Red State is hosting a Photoshop contest for the above.

- Brit Hume challenges claim US Marines urinating on dead Taliban is ‘despicable’:

I can’t wait to see progressives freak out over Hume.
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Bill Press’s remarks will get no play, because he’s a liberal and it’s OK for liberals to do what they want.

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Bill Maher has always broken with his progressive ideology on the topic of Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism. His remarks from last night’s “Real Time” were no exception:

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Twitter, Facebook and the blogosphere were on fire yesterday, with the news that Homeland Security Is Monitoring The Drudge Report, The New York Times, and other various websites.  The headline sparked burning blog posts all across the web, some bordering on hysterics. Type “Homeland Security” and “Drudge” into Google and perform a search within the last twenty four hours, and you’ll find 56,700 results at this writing.

The story was borne out of an upcoming privacy compliance review from the Department of Homeland Security regarding one of the agency’s initiatives that entails monitoring “publicly available online forums, blogs, public websites, and message boards.”  There’s just one important detail missing here:  the program was actually implemented in January of 2010.

The Volokh Conspiracy, a well-known group blog of law professors, puts the hype in check:

Matt Drudge and The Atlantic are hyperventilating, and Mark Hosenball of Reuters is bragging, about what The Atlantic calls an “exclusive” report that DHS “routinely monitors dozens of popular websites, including Facebook, Twitter, Hulu, WikiLeaks and news and gossip sites including the Huffington Post and Drudge Report.”

There are just two problems with this exclusive news report.

It isn’t news and it isn’t exclusive.

Readers of this blog could have learned exactly the same thing in one of my posts from, uh, February of 2010.

Here’s what I said two years ago:

With his usual nudge-and-wink, Matt Drudge invites us to be dismayed that “BIG SIS” — his moniker for Janet Napolitano — is “Monitoring Web Sites for Terror and Disaster Info.” Drudge links to a story saying that DHS will be monitoring social media like Twitter, as well as websites like Drudge, to keep abreast of events during the Winter Olympics. The source of the story is a twelve-page “Privacy Impact Assessment” issued by DHS.

This isn’t the first Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) on DHS’s use of social media. A few weeks earlier, DHS wrote a similar assessment of using social media during Haitian rescue operations.

I am indeed dismayed, but not for Drudge’s reasons.  True, it’s disappointing that neither the Volokh Conspiracy nor www.skatingonstilts.com is deemed worthy of government monitoring.  But what’s really dismaying is that DHS and its Privacy Office felt obliged to labor over two separate and painfully obvious privacy assessments just to do things that you and I would do by simply firing up our browsers.

That’s it.  The story is that people at DHS are, gasp, browsing the Internet. As I said then, there’s no scandal, other than the electrons wasted by DHS agonizing over the privacy implications of browsing public Internet sources to find out what’s happening in the world.

The program is referred to as the Publicly Available Social Media Monitoring and Situational Awareness Initiative (pdf), and it was first implemented to monitor activity and news during events like those mentioned above.

Some seem especially concerned about the portion of the initiative that pertains to actually retaining personally identifiable information.

The DHS Privacy Office (PRIV) and OPS/NOC decided to further broaden the program’s capability to collect additional information, including limited instances of personally identifiable information (PII). As such, a Publicly Available Social Media Monitoring and Situational Awareness Initiative Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) Update5 and new DHS/OPS-004 – Publicly Available Social Media Monitoring and Situational Awareness Initiative System of Records Notice (SORN)6 were issued on January 6, 2011 and February 1, 2011 respectively and are the basis for this Privacy Compliance Review (PCR).

But upon close inspection of “personally identifiable information,” the activity is really no different from what you or I might do to gather our own news interests.

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Stoking the Fire: Despite the fact that the comment was taken out of context, opportunities still abound to seize on Romney’s ‘I like to fire people’ gaffe.

• Cue Vice President Biden and DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
• Out in far left field, Huffington Post reports that Romney Likes ‘Being Able to Fire People’ for Being Gay.
• Meanwhile, GOP candidates Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich speak out in defense of Romney’s comment.

MTV Pretends Poetry Night Was Ron Paul Event: MTV’s website gushes, Ron Paul Inspires Poetry In New Hampshire.  But not so fast, says Newser, which reports that the event’s organizers say it wasn’t a Paul rally at all.  Newser reports: “organizers tell the Worcester Telegram & Gazette that it wasn’t a Paul rally, and estimate that in a crowd of 50-70 people, only four or five were Paul supporters. They say MTV even took lines from poems out of context to make them appear pro-Paul.”

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- Huffington Post said they simply couldn’t allow Andrew Breitbart on their pages due to “ad hominem,” but this didn’t stop them from publishing the same from Bill Maher.

- Michelle Malkin and Sean Hannity disagree on 2012 candidates. Malkin: “It’s not ‘nitpicking,’ Sean …”

- Latest ratings show AC360 beating Lawrence O’Donnell’s over-acted Shakespearian drama.

- Screencap of the day: Obamaney

Megyn Kelly joked: “As it turns out they are not the same man. Not philosophically, not ideologically, not in any other way… our apologies for that error.” Some voters would disagree.

- The Internet: Jake Tapper was robbed. (more…)

**LINK FIXED**

The war on Christmas music has taken a strange turn, with the mainstream media finally up in arms at the overly PC handling of the holiday’s song lyrics.  But it isn’t the constant barrage from uber-sensitive atheists trying to eliminate every reference to Christmas from our schools and public places that has them fired up.

No, it’s an elementary teacher in Michigan that has raised their ire.

The flurry of controversy arose when the teacher, weary of hearing her students giggling every time they had to sing the words ‘gay apparel’ during their rendition of “Deck The Halls,” decided to replace the word ‘gay’ with ‘bright’.

The reception from the media, as you may have heard, was rather chilly.

What you may not have heard covered in the MSM was an essay penned by one Colin Curran, a 16-year-old high school junior from New Jersey.  Taking to the Huffington Post during this same time period, Colin told a story about a high school assignment which involved creating a music playlist for a young children’s holiday breakfast.  There was one catch – none of the songs could contain a certain set of offending words, such as Christmas, Hanukkah, Jesus, God, or Santa Claus.  The reason, Colin explains, is that the “principal does not want to offend anyone with belief-specific music.”

Google Colin’s name under the news section and it reveals a single hit, having nothing to do with the student from New Jersey.  Google ‘bright apparel’ and it’s a whole different ballgame.

Here is a sampling of some of the coverage:

The Daily Mail

“Parents thought the Cherry Knoll teacher had been naughty and not so nice when the elementary instructor replaced ‘gay’ with ‘bright’ after her students wouldn’t stop laughing when they sang the word.”

MSNBC

“Use it as a teaching moment or just tell the kids to pipe down and sing the song as written.”

Dan Savage

“Someone had to straighten out that carol – can’t have children donning gay apparel.”

Huffington Post

“A Michigan music teacher’s decision to censor the word ‘gay’ from a traditional Christmas carol is being met with a frosty response.”

Fox Nation

“A traditional Christmas carol is at the center of controversy at a TCAPS elementary school.”

Of course, the school’s principal, Chris Parker, didn’t miss an opportunity to crank the PC up a notch by calling this a ‘teachable moment’ for student and teacher alike.

In a report for ABC 57 News, Parker doubles down on his overreaction saying:

“We have an anti-bullying and discrimination policy that includes sexual orientation and so going forward, the teacher will be addressing ‘this is how we’re supposed to be reacting.  This is the way to be respectful about this.’”

The amount of attention being heaped upon the “Deck the Halls” nontroversy and the lack of attention being paid to the omission of Christmas altogether from a music playlist in New Jersey are striking.

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Alec Baldwin cannot stop sticking his foot into his mouth. He does so again on the virtual pages of the Huffington Post, in explaining his rude behavior on the American Airlines flight from which he was ejected. He describes American Airlines as thus:

Most of the flight attendants I have ever encountered still have some remnant of the old idea of service. Add to that the notion that in this day and age, many people have a lot of important work to do, by phone, and would like to do so till the last possible minute. But there are many now who walk the aisles of an airplane with a whistle around their neck and a clipboard in their hands and they have made flying a Greyhound bus experience.

The lesson I’ve learned is to keep my phone off when the 1950’s gym teacher is on duty.

One of the reasons we created the category under which this post is filed is because the brass over at the Huffington Post denied Andrew Breitbart written space because … drumroll … they didn’t want stuff on their site like this post from Baldwin. We created the helpful “HuffPo Ad Hominem Alert” to help warn HuffPo of when such pieces appear on their site.

But Baldwin is an uber famous Hollywood celebrity and his name is supposed to lend the site some air of credibility, of coolness, so apparently gets a pass. Yes, some grandpa-angry actor with over-the-hill spread is “cool” now. Baldwin’s attitude seethes with stuffed shirt, limousine liberal snobbery.

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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.

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Despite the fact the social media has eliminated the traditional media cycle, the Obama administration still thinks Friday afternoon document dumps will curtail reporting on what the documents entail. Our wonderful Department of Justice dumped over 1,000 pages with details on how they gave inaccurate information. The Associated Press broke the story at 6:16PM EST. Since then, Old Media has been slow reporting. I would usually give them a day, but I decided to check them out tonight. SHOCKER: The majority posted the AP story–NOT A SHOCKER: The majority buried it.

Before I start I need to give credit to Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News. Once again she shows what we need in the Old Media: She didn’t just copy and paste the AP article. She actually wrote an original piece on it. Thank you so much Mrs. Attkisson. (I also prefer her piece over the AP’s article.)

It’s honestly sad I am not shocked The New York Times didn’t have it anywhere on their website. I searched “Justice Department” and “Eric Holder” and there were no results for the document dump. Not one single word. [Update: New York Times published a piece on this Friday night around 9:30 pm EST several hours after this post published.]

The other media outlets (ABC, NBC, MSNBC, The Washington Post, Huffington Post) did copy and paste the AP story, but there is one major problem: you have to search for the story. It’s not on the front page. I couldn’t find it under US, National, Politics sections. Instead I went to the search box and punched in “Justice Department” and the first hit was the AP article.

I also need to note AP got an important fact wrong. Brian Terry was NOT a customs agent. He was a Border Patrol Agent.

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Today’s opening snark courtesy of Journolister Dave Weigel from his Slate perch:

Big Government breaks the news that Bill Ayers hosted a fundraiser for Barack Obama; well, this was broken by Ben Smith in 2007, but still.

I call it a “snark” because the word “lie” feels a little harsh during this holiday season. However, it’s just a fact that Big Government didn’t position the piece as “breaking news” and as far as I can tell it wasn’t even a featured story. But you have to admire a guy like Weigel who poses as an objective journalist and yet sees no news value whatsoever in new video of a notorious domestic terrorist speaking openly about his relationship with a sitting President of the United States.

But is it really that Weigel saw no news value in it or that he knows that Obama’s re-election could be in even more trouble were he to receive the kind of vetting Journolisters like Weigel did everything in their power to prevent in 2008?

Naturally, Weigel isn’t alone. Here’s Politico’s Ben Smith joining in on the wrist-flicking of the new Ayers video:

Oh, and did you know Ben Smith was also a member of Journolist and that something he didn’t find at all, uhm, “footnote-y” was the possibility that Sarah Palin might own a tanning bed.

Priorities.

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