Media Matters for America’s Senior Fellow MJ Rosenberg has become infamous for accusing any American Jews who support Israel of dual loyalty (he calls them Israel-firsters). He also has claimed the evil Israel lobby” controls both the media and the U.S. foreign policy. He also uses the term “neo-con” as a slang pejorative term for Jews who are politically conservative.  Rosenberg is not the only Jew-Basher at Media Matters, just the most vocal.

Rosenberg and his fellow progressives at MMFA and Center for American Progress have finally picked on the wrong Jews: The Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC). Formed by the famous Nazi-hunter, the SWC’s only purpose is to preach tolerance. Unlike groups such as the ADL and the AJC, which often lean left, the Wiesenthal Center is non-political. Also unlike those groups, the Center will criticize and/or praise people on either side of the political aisle.

Last week, Politico published a piece about how the Progressive MMFA and CAP were fighting with the more mainstream Democrats about Israel.  They want to change the party to the Anti-Israel Party.  The article reported that the battle was being led by several bloggers at Media Matters and the Center for American Progress’s Think Progress blog.

The piece highlighted several controversial comments that were made on Twitter by MJ Rosenberg and other MMFA and ThinkProgress bloggers calling groups that did not share their anti-Israel positions “Israel firsters” essentially repeating the antisemitic meme of dual loyalty.

In response to the progressive attacks sent to the Wapo’s Jennifer Rubin, Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center attacked “progressive” antisemitism:

“Unfortunately, it’s becoming increasingly difficult in this country to take a position sympathetic to the Jewish state and in favor of the continuation of America’s historic strong alliance with Israel without being called “an Israel Firster” and charged with “dual loyalties.” (more…)

Politico’s Ben Smith writes today that Media Matters for America (MMfA) and the Center for American Progress (CAP), both “core institutions” of the Democratic Party, are pushing anti-Israel policies and downplaying the threat of a nuclear Iran.

By promoting views once confined to the extreme left and isolationist right, MMfA and CAP are dividing the Democratic Party and isolating themselves on the margins of American political debate.

Smith notes, for example, that MJ Rosenberg, “Senior Foreign Policy Fellow” at MMFA, “regularly heaps vitriol on those who disagree” with his radical left-wing views on Israel, including liberal pro-negotiation voices such as Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic. In May 2011, Andrew Breitbart noted that Rosenberg had accused supporters of Israel of disloyalty to the U.S. and called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “terrorist.”

Though CAP “tends to walk a more careful line,” Smith notes that CAP policy analyst Matt Duss, who directs the Middle East Progress blog, called Israel’s blockade against terrorist-controlled Gaza a “moral outrage” and likened it to “segregation in the American South.” CAP has also accused pro-Israel organizations, such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), of agitating for war with Iraq and Iran.

Smith reports that CAP chairman John Podesta has faced complaints over “borderline anti-Semitic stuff” about Israel published on his organization’s website: (more…)

I give all but one of the GOP candidates an “F” for last night’s performance.

The very premise of the Republican presidential debate, hosted by NBC/Politico and broadcast by corporate welfare queen MSNBC proves that conservatives don’t understand the power the media is trying to exert over the next election.

It is an insult to the house of Reagan that MSNBC would try to pass itself off as a fair news organization with the eight Republican candidates giving the sneering, snobby and snide enemy a certain imprimatur of legitimacy.

The only reason the GOP is in a fighting stance in the 2012 presidential election is the Tea Party. The alternative narrative-drivers at MSNBC have spent much of the last two-plus years trying to frame millions and millions of patriotic and concerned Americans as violent, racist knuckle-draggers.

To dignify those habitual and unaccountable slanderers by appearing on that stage shows that apparently these Republicans and daily MSNBC punching bags don’t comprehend the scope of the media problem.

Barack Obama was elected due to the work of the media in 2008. Barack Obama will not cross the finish line in 2012 without the help of that same media–with MSNBC leaning forward as it pushes their wildly unpopular President from behind. (more…)

My wife says that I am too much of a worrier. Usually my concern surrounds my kids, family, or a close friend. Very rarely have I worried about a public figure and certainly never worried about an entire website.  During the past few days this worrying has caused a loss of sleep and it’s not even a “someone,” it’s a web site. Something horrible must have happened to Media Matters, the protectors of the Jewish people.

You may remember in a recent story about Helen Thomas’ anti-Semitic comments, I concluded with challenge:

… allow me to send a shout-out to the hypocritical folks at Media Matters, you enjoy blasting conservative figures such as Glenn Beck with trumped up charges of Antisemitism, along with writing up one-sided editorials about people throwing around Nazi-related terms.  Since you folks have set yourselves up as the “protector of all Jews” will you now write something that criticizes real Antisemitism spewed out by the progressive Helen Thomas? ….So my progressive friends are you going to finally accept the fact that it is humanly possible for a progressive to be a hater? Maybe after you are done with Helen you can go two of the most Anti-Semitic sites on the internet, the progressive Daily Kos, and the progressive Huffington Post.

That’s if George Soros allows you to.

There is no doubt that Media Matters would read and respond to my challenge, after all they have read and criticized my posts before.   Based on their fake criticism of people like Glenn Beck, one would think they would just love to sink their teeth into a real case of Antisemitism, after all they are the protector of all things Jewish in America. Media Matters truly cares about Antisemitism, that’s why they spend all of that time protecting George Soros, calling almost everyone who criticizes “the spooky dude” a Jew hater.

Despite their desire to protect all things Jewish (and my little challenge) Media Matters has been strangely silent. And the longer their silence, the more I am concerned for their well-being. (more…)

We have a pretty substantial file built up on liberal Mediaite blogger Tommy Christopher, who has put in a lot of hours attempting to damage the Breitbart brand.  But today he writes one of the best pieces we’ve seen recapping ABC News’s attempt at credibility suicide.  And when you’ve lost Tommy Christopher…:

Under pressure from groups like Media Matters and Color of Change, ABC News first scaled back, and then canceled, Andrew Breitbart’s planned participation in its Election Day coverage. Rather than admit they were responding to pressure, however, they decided to blame Breitbart, claiming that he had exaggerated his role in their coverage, essentially firing him for promoting their broadcast.

[...]

However, in his first conversation with [ABC Executive Producer Andrew Morse] Morse, Breitbart says he was calm. “Do you understand that you invited me to be a participant in this, and because of pressure from the predictable (George) Soros, Huffington, Talking Points Memo, John Podesta activist left, to shut up other voices that they disagree with, a la Juan Williams, of course you would have to react.”

“But to react by throwing your invitee under the bus, and humiliating him in the process? Do you think that that sends the right message to your audience, and to the people out there who think that I am a credible news source, that I offer a valuable opinion as the primary defender of the Tea Party movement against merciless attacks by this very same mainstream media?” (more…)

If you’d believe ABC News, they were forced to cancel their booking of Andrew Breitbart as part of their election night activities because he “exaggerated his role” with the network’s planned coverage.

For his part, Breitbart’s story has remained consistent throughout the episode and he has even produced e-mails to prove what the network originally invited him to do on air as part of the mid-term election coverage.  ABC News, on the other hand, has been inconsistent and has offered conflicting statements from the moment Media Matters and other left-wing activist groups began to apply pressure on them over the booking.

But don’t take our word for it, take a look at what our pals at Media Matters has to say about the duplicitous nature of ABC News’s statements and actions as they capitulated to the demands of the intolerant left.

***

“Breitbart’s role has always been…” (A timeline of ABC’s conflicting statements):

October 29

Breitbart’s Big Journalism: Breitbart will be “featured” on ABC’s “election night coverage.” In an October 29 post titled, “ABC Election Night Coverage to Feature Loesch, Breitbart,” Big Journalism stated: (more…)

In response to the announcement that I would provide my analysis on ABC News from Arizona on election night, like-clockwork, from the George Soros-funded Media Matters to Keith Olbermann to Huffington Post to Daily Kos to Talking Points Memo to Twitter (#boycottABCNEWS), the institutional left began on Friday to inundate ABC News with a wave of partisan objections and unfounded allegations against me.

Make no mistake: this is a calculated “astroturf“ intimidation campaign by the well-funded and frightened-for-their-political-lives institutional left to quash dissenting voices. It’s what they do.

What was ABC News’ response? Not standing up for free speech and the 1^st Amendment. Not sticking by their original invitation. Not standing up for diversity of opinion.

Instead, on Saturday, ABC News issued an official statement that was immediately heralded as a victory by the anti-free speech forces on the left:

Since conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart announced on his website that he was going to be a participant in ABC’s Town Hall meeting at Arizona State University, there has been considerable consternation and misinformation regarding my decision to ask him to participate in an election night Town Hall event for ABC News Digital. I want to explain what Mr. Breitbart’s role has always been as one of our guests at our digital town hall event:

Mr. Breitbart is not an ABC News analyst.

He is not an ABC News consultant.

He is not, in any way, affiliated with ABC News.

He is not being paid by ABC News.

He has not been asked to analyze the results of the election for ABC News.

Mr. Breitbart will not be a part of the ABC News broadcast coverage, anchored by Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos. For the broadcast coverage, David Muir and Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg will contribute reaction and response gathered from the students and faculty of Arizona State University at an ABC News/Facebook town hall.

He has been invited as one of several guests, from a variety of different political persuasions, to engage with a live, studio audience that will be closely following the election results and participating in an online-only discussion and debate to be moderated by David Muir and Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg on ABCNews.com and Facebook. We will have other guests, as well as a live studio audience and a large audience on ABCNews.com and Facebook, who can question the guests and the audience’s opinions.

George Stephanoplous quickly tweeted, “Breitbart NOT on ABC network broadcast http://bit.ly/bgkseJ.” (more…)

Either the hacks and non-entities at Media Matters for America are trying to confuse everybody, or the munchkins they employ to write down everything Glenn Beck says are suffering from some sort of dementia.

The “progressive advocacy” group funded in part by George Soros, and birthed by Obama transition head/Dem party hack John Podesta, called Glenn Beck a hypocrite for questioning whether Feisal Abdul Rauf, the Imam of the Ground Zero Mosque was truly a “moderate.” For evidence the fair-minded stenographers at MMFA point to a 2006 appearance on Good Morning America, where Beck appeared with Imam Rauf.  The strange part is that back in 2006 when Glenn Beck made that appearance on GMA, the selfsame hacks and non-entities at Media Matters used the appearance to brand Beck as an Islamaphobe.

So which one is it guys?

In an article published this week called “In 2006 joint appearance, Beck appeared to call Imam Rauf a ‘good Muslim,’” MMFA used the following as the “smoking gun” — (more…)

It’s always disheartening to see someone from your own camp take a bad hit as Dave Weigel has.  The Washington Post blogger, who was hired to provide coverage “inside the conservative movement and the Republican Party,”resigned over recently leaked emails from the Journolist listserv, in which he used some less than flattering language in his personal commentary about many of the people he was covering.

While I’ve always been respectful of Weigel’s insights and his writing, I would be being less than honest however if I’d said there wasn’t something about his posts that I’d also found worrisome.  The revelation of the Journolist emails only strengthened my gut feeling, especially when I saw how nasty the rhetoric was in the emails.  Frankly, that part surprised even me.

It’s not that I wasn’t open-minded to the views that Weigel has always presented; I could appreciate that he has criticisms of the right.  But as someone assigned to provide conservative insight, his commentary sometimes struck me as being penned more from a liberal viewpoint than that of a conservative or libertarian one.  It almost seemed more targeted to pleasing Media Matters’ readers.  And since I already follow a number of liberal journalists to balance out the material I read from conservative and libertarian leaning authors, Media Matters’ tone isn’t exactly what I’m usually looking for.  But perhaps there was a reason his posts sometimes seemed that way to me. (more…)

If you haven’t read by now all the headlines on this story, you’ll want to start at the beginning and read the first post, SEIU Storms Private Residence, Terrorizes Teenage Son of Bank of America Exec. Because as each day passes, new facts are popping up. The story seemed so outrageous at first. After all, the thought of over 500 screaming and chanting protesters surrounding a Bank of America lawyer’s private residence while the man’s teenage son, home alone, hid frightened inside a bathroom – it’s just so extreme, even by SEIU’s standards.

I knew something was up when the following day, Fortune magazine editor Nina Easton, a neighbor of the targeted residence, published an account of the incident and was almost immediately attacked by what seemed like practically a coordinated dogpile of writers from several specific sources.

In almost mirror fashion to the Town Hall events last August, when both the Huffington Post and Media Matters seemingly tried to cover up and dismiss the violent acts that SEIU committed against Kenneth Gladney, the same players were again out in full force. As our Larry O’Connor wrote, both outlets behaved less like journalists and more like arms of the SEIU press office, dismissing SEIU’s bad behavior and attacking an innocent party with fabricated conflicts of interest as a method of distraction and intimidation.

Bob Borosage, Erica Payne, and John Podesta

And now we learn this: Erica Payne, the guest who was invited to appear Friday on Megyn Kelley’s Fox News show and proceeded to blame the Tea Parties for the behavior of SEIU? She was co-founder of Democracy Alliance, the very organization that spawned and is a donor to Media Matters. SEIU Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger is also the Vice-Chair of its Board.

(more…)

Media Matters and the Huffington Post have tried to expose a supposed conflict of interest for journalist Nina Easton’s coverage of the shameful tactics used by SEIU this past weekend as they stormed the home of a Bank of America executive.  In doing so, they uncritically repeated a complete and total lie spewed out by SEIU’s propaganda machine.

In yesterday’s post exposing the propaganda efforts from MMFA and HuffPo, where they carried water for SEIU blogger-goon John Vandeventer, we seem to have downplayed how completely and totally deceitful and misleading their “reporting” really was.

If you recall, SEIU thugs invaded a quiet suburban neighborhood on Sunday afternoon and protested on the lawn and private property of Bank of America executive Greg Baer.  Fortune magazine journalist Easton happened to be Baer’s neighbor and the ruckus was so obnoxious that it woke her two-year-old child from a nap.

She reported on the event in Fortune and noted that SEIU is currently in an effort to organize the bank tellers at B of A.  She also revealed that SEIU owes B of A millions of dollars and today, our own Liberty Chick fleshes that story out even more… $90 million more! (more…)

Washington Post blogger Greg Sargent, who writes under the by-line The Plum Line, criticizes pollster Whit Ayres for suggesting that the failed Times Square bomb incident gives Republicans a political opportunity.

Sargent closes his blog with:

Ayres is the GOP equivalent of prominent Dem pollster Stan Greenberg of Democracy Corps or John Podesta of the liberal Center for American Progress. If Greenberg or Podesta had explicitly said after the capture of the Shoe Bomber under Bush that it presented Dems with a political opportunity, you can bet that some folks would have made a lot of noise about it.

Here’s what Greg misses: The “Dems” don’t necessarily have to overtly declare a “political opportunity” as long as they have the Post and other MSM outlets to exercise the opportunity for them.

For example, here’s a January 2008 WaPo blog by Andrew Cohen who writes under the by-line Bench Conference: (more…)

“Where were you when George Bush was President?” You know that question well. It’s been asked of each of us more times than any of us would care to count. Do you know how I usually answer it?

I was home, enjoying my life. I went to work every day and focused on doing the best job that I could do. When I wasn’t working, I hung out with family and friends. I went to baseball games, and barbecues, and obscure little hole-in-the-wall joints to hear some of my favorite live music over a couple of Guinnesses. Yum.

Why? Because while George Bush was president, we had a media establishment that was challenging our government, not our citizens.

I wasn’t necessarily happy with the direction of the country in those days. But I could sleep at night, knowing that we had media that pressed George Bush and our Congress on every single issue. I could know at any given moment what the “death count” was in Iraq because just about every channel splashed a persistent counter in the bottom corner of the television screen. When bills like the Patriot Act were first introduced in Congress, I never lacked for any detail on the dangers of the legislation. There was barely a single detail that went uncovered in the daily political grind. When there was a scandal to research and report, I certainly never had to do that myself. There were reporters who did all that.

Yep, I’m actually missing the Bush days now. I had so much more free time. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always done my homework and researched issues on my own anyway. I recognize that all media is biased to some degree (and has been for quite some time). But I could always count on the media to challenge the government in the days of George Bush. I wrote my fair share of letters, I called and complained about the spending, even attended a few protests, but I can’t say that I ever felt there just wasn’t anyone challenging the president in the mainstream media. Quite the contrary, there was never any lack of DC pushback from the collective press in those days.

But we live in extraordinary times today. There now exists this giant, open cavity where that healthy pushback against government used to be. And when the mainstream media stepped away from that opening in 2008, two things happened:

(more…)

UPDATE: The bounty is now $100,000 for any audio/video footage of the N-word being hurled at Congressmen John Lewis and Andre Carson.

***

After 14 months of committing 100% to health care reform, the day after the signing of the Health Care bill was to mark the Democratic Party’s new primary concern: destroy the uprising, annihilate by all means necessary, the Tea Party movement.

The first sign that a plan was in place was the ham-fisted, high-camp posturing of the most controversial members of the Democratic caucus walking through the peaceful but animated “Tea Party” demonstrators on Capitol Hill. There is no reason for these elected officials to walk above ground through the media circus amid their ideological foes. The natural route is the tunnels between the House office buildings and the Capitol. By crafting a highly symbolic walk of the Congressional Black Caucus through the majority white crowd, the Democratic Party was looking to provoke a negative reaction. They didn’t get it. So they made it up.

The proof that the N-word wasn’t said once, let alone 15 times, as Rep. Andre Carson claimed, is that soon thereafter — even though the press dutifully reported it as truth — Nancy Pelosi followed the alleged hate fest, which allegedly included someone spitting, by walking through the crowd with a gavel in hand and a shit-eating grin on her face. Had the incidents reported by the Congressional Black Caucus actually occurred the Capitol Police would have been negligent to allow the least popular person to that crowd – the Speaker – to put herself in harm’s way.

That crowd was a sea of new-media equipment. Not only were tens of thousands people armed with handicams, BlackBerrys and iPods, so also was the mainstream media there, covering every inch of the event. Why did not one mainstream media outlet raise the specter that perhaps a video would exist to prove the events occurred? I am still dealing with the same press telling me we didn’t prove that ACORN was aiding and abetting criminal activity because we “did not provide enough audio and video evidence.” (Insert laugh track.) Is there not a blatant double standard at play here? Nancy Pelosi tipped her hand that race was a central part of her strategy. She invoked the Civil Rights Act and compared it with the universally reviled health care bill. Her caucus is doubling down on the civil-rights rhetoric. There are no coincidences.

(more…)

The future of journalism?

I like to consider myself a talent scout. A lot of my day is spent meeting people of different disciplines with different skills. When I see talent I know it.

I created the Big sites in order to put some of the best fresh faces of the right of center political movement online. We need to expand the movement beyond the predictable parochial precincts of Washington D.C. New media has served as a monumental boon for expanding the Big Tent of conservatism.

But some of the talent that I find is, how shall I put it?… unconventional… and admittedly, defiantly left of center. What to do with such talent?

I’ve taken flack for drawing so much attention to Media Matters, the George Soros-funded temple of propaganda and misdirection and den of paranoid malaria-ridden partisan mosquitos. I’ve especially been taken to task for isolating the plum of John Podesta’s Media Matters stable of mostly caucasian male “senior fellows,” Eric Boehlert. But even though he and I disagree on absolutely everything, he’s undeniably awesome. Many are now realizing the value of pointing the flashlight on the cockroaches of the institutional left.

Once Team Podesta is engaged one realizes all they have is Alinsky. Once engaged, all they realize is that they have is Alinsky. When both sides realize that the left only has the politics of personal destruction (“critical theory” on steroids), both sides realize the left is in deep trouble.

That is where we find ourselves now. It is high cockroach season. And I have designated myself the Ted Nugent of cockroach season.

(more…)

Andrew Breitbart used his address to CPAC yesterday morning to continue his assault on the mainstream media, but at around the 5:00 mark, he moved the ball in a different direction altogether.  Listen for the part where he invites citizen-journalists on campus to turn their video cameras on academics. Needless to say, the best of the bunch would be featured at the forthcoming Big Education.

I woke up this morning to an email from Gillian Reagan, the reporter who had slammed me in a hit piece for Business Insider, defending her work and mitigating her sins, while not seeing how they all added up to an obvious hit job.  Thus began a war of words that’s continued all day.  Honest journalistic enterprise or partisan attack piece?  You be the judge:

PART 1: Gillian Reagan’s email

Hi Andrew,

We’d like to respond to your post on Big Journalism. May we repost the entry onto BusinessInsider.com so we can respond?

Let us know how you’d like to work it out.

Best,

Gillian

–

Gillian Reagan

The Business Insider

xxx@businessinsider.com

xxx Fifth Avenue, 7th Fl

New York, NY 10003

646-xxx-xxxx

~~~~

PART 2: Blodget Response to My Piece

From Buisness Insider:

Our Response To Andrew Breitbart’s Allegations About Us And Our Story

Yesterday, we published a story about Andrew Breitbart’s new site, Big Journalism. The story contained numerous quotes from Breitbart, including this one, in which the right-leaning Breitbart was describing sites operated by the left-leaning Arianna Huffington:

(more…)

Media Matters (for America, they claim) has officially become a parody unto itself.  What started as a wonderful (if not Orwellian) dream of a non-profit entity living off of the ample teat of George Soros busily crafting “rapid response” items in opposition to the small yet enormously effective voices from the right in journalism, has now turned into what appears to be a bunch of guys monitoring radio, TV and the internet with the hopes of finding the slightest divergence from left wing orthodoxy as dictated by their founder, spaceship enthusiast John Podesta.

John Podesta

It isn’t enough that they label as “homophobic” any questions about Safe School Czar Kevin Jenning’s objectively questionable judgment with regard to the teaching materials associated with his organization GLSEN.  And it isn’t enough that they dismiss any video report exposing left-wing sacred cows such as ACORN and Planned Parenthood as “heavily edited” as if editing automatically renders a report untruthful (even though the entire, unedited transcripts and audio for the ACORN stories have been available at Big Government).  No, those ridiculously laughable positions that fly in the face of common sense are not enough to keep the team at MM(FA) feeling smugly supercilious and self-important… now they go on the attack if a journalist dares to refer to Guantanamo prisoners as “terrorists,”   No, this is not a parody. (more…)