Unfortunately , Komen For The Cure is now experiencing the full fury of the Left following their apparent divorce from the murder factory that is Planned Parenthood. In keeping with their typically Leftist agenda, NPR immediately released a bitter indictment of Komen for separating from Planned Parenthood (PP).

The nation’s leading breast-cancer charity, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, is halting its partnerships with Planned Parenthood affiliates — creating a bitter rift, linked to the abortion debate, between two iconic organizations that have assisted millions of women.

The change will mean a cutoff of hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants, mainly for breast exams.

NPR’s opening salvo contains the usual argument for supporting Komen’s involvement with Planned Parenthood; PP’s use of Komen funds for offering “breast exams” to women at their clinics. This argument contains some very serious flaws, as Jenny Erikson points out in her piece here (please note Jenny’s piece has been attacked by the Left):

Sure, they say the money goes for breast health exams, but money is liquid. Once it goes into the bank, it’s grouped with all the money that’s in there, and then it’s paid out for expenses. It’s like having a dual-income household with a joint checking account. The mortgage isn’t paid with one income and groceries with the other; they’re both paid out of the same checking account.

Besides, Planned Parenthood doesn’t even offer mammograms, which are the surest way to detect early signs of cancer. How much money do they need to be able to tell a patient, “Yup, that feels like a lump — here’s the number for a place that can actually help you”? [my emphasis]

Essentially all of the funds are co-mingled meaning that they may be used for any purpose, not just breast exams. This argument is a red herring used by PP to keep their funding from Komen while trying to make Komen’s involvement with them more palatable to the growing number of donors choosing not to give to Komen. Whether or not Komen acknowledges it, this was clearly a growing issue for them,

Life Decisions International includes Komen on its “boycott list” of companies and organizations that support or collaborate with Planned Parenthood. In December, Lifeway Christian Resources, the publishing division of the Southern Baptist Convention, announced a recall of pink Bibles it had sold because some of the money generated for Komen was being routed to Planned Parenthood

The author of the NPR piece goes on:

Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, has depicted Stearns’ probe as politically motivated and said she was dismayed that it had contributed to Komen’s decision to halt the grants to PPFA affiliates.

“It’s hard to understand how an organization with whom we share a mission of saving women’s lives could have bowed to this kind of bullying,” Richards told The Associated Press. “It’s really hurtful.”

The Left and Planned Parenthood cannot look past their embrace of the culture of death to realize their mission is really not about saving lives. In fact, PP’s mission is so repugnant it has to be researched to be believed. Short summaries may be found here and here.

Komen, however,  is the antithesis of PP. Komen’s mission since their founding has always been about women’s health and actually saving lives. In fact, since its inception in 1982, Komen has contributed nearly $1.9 billion to the fight against breast cancer.

NPR wants to emphasize where they believe the blame lies:

(more…)

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.

(more…)

Oh look! The Justice Department decides to dump 500 pages on Congress on a Friday night! If they really want to be secretive or different they’d choose to dump documents on a Tuesday night. We’re almost looking forward to Friday nights because that’s when we can expect anything about Fast and Furious from the Justice Department.

Attorney General Eric Holder is set to testify on Thursday, February 2 in front of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee so it’s no surprise there was a dump last night. I was looking through my timeline when I saw Michelle Malkin’s tweet about the documents. The link led to NPR, which shocked me they would be the ones to have it plus they included nine pages of the documents. They beat the AP! I have found unless the AP writes about Fast and Furious the majority of the Old Media won’t touch it.

I went to sleep around midnight central time and at that time the only major outlets that covered it were AP, CNN, Washington Post, FOX News, and ABC News. This morning I woke up and saw USA Today posted the AP article. The story was the main story on the front page of their national section, but has since been replaced. It’s not even on the front page anymore. I’d give them props, but it appeared before 6AM and taken down before 9AM CDT. Sorry guys, it doesn’t count when you have it up and taken down before the majority of the country wakes up. It’s also nowhere on the FOX News home page and it’s buried in the politics section. Shame on them since they’ve been consistent with Fast and Furious coverage. CNN does receive credit because it’s still on their home page.

At The Washington Post and ABC News you have to go a search for Fast and Furious in order to find their AP article. The New York Times also buried the AP article. In order to find it you have to go to the bottom of their home page and find the tiny cube for “More News From AP and Reuters.” Click on AP and it’s under AP Politics. But you have to click AP Politics and scroll to the bottom. Even if you search “Fast and Furious” it doesn’t bring up the article. I consider this as NOT covering it New York Times! I’m very disappointed The Washington Times hasn’t even mentioned it. I haven’t seen anything on CBS News either. MSNBC buried the AP article.

Here’s the thing. I know these outlets have investigative reporters. The emails gave me more questions than answers and I’m wondering why no one in the Old Media is pointing this out. I receive Google Alerts for Eric Holder and Operation Fast and Furious. This morning a blog post from Stop The ACLU popped up addressing the same questions I had. NPR brings up this part in the emails, but ignores it and doesn’t realize the importance. Right after Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry passed away Monty Wilkinson, Mr. Holder’s deputy chief of staff,  emails Dennis Burke (bold my emphasis), “Tragic. I’ve alerted the AG, the Acting DAG, Lisa, etc.”

(more…)

If you want to see a perfect example of how the left-wing media plans to smear and destroy Mitt Romney should he win the GOP nomination, no better example can be found than the hoax over a photo that lefties every where are trying to sell as evidence of Romney’s “privileged” life. Lefties say the photo in question shows Romney “getting his shoes shined” before getting on a private jet during his campaign travel. That is not what the photo shows, of course, but let’s not let the truth get in the way of a good left-wing mudslinging, OK?

The meme began from a photo by Getty showing Romney sitting in a chair on the tarmac with his foot up and a red-jacketed worker attending to the candidate’s footwear. The left immediately assumed that Romney was getting his shoes shined before getting on a “corporate” jet. This story was made up out of whole cloth because in reality what the picture shows is Romney getting his shoes wanded by an explosive sniffing device wielded by a TSA agent before being allowed to board the plane.

The photo seems to have appeared early on the blog of the MSNBC smear show “The Ed Schultz Show” with the headline, “Romney Creates Another Job.” The caption set the tone for the left-wing onslaught to come saying, “Mitt Romney created another job with his presence alone… a job giving shoe shines on the tarmac in front of a corporate jet.”

From there Salon’s most virulent hater, Joan Walsh, picked up on the meme on her blog with one titled “Mr. 1 Percent is clueless about inequality,” where she used the photo as an illustration to “prove” that Romney was out of touch with the reg’lar folks.

Salon’s Steve Kornacki then went on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show and launched into his interpretation of the supposed shoe shining.

“There’s a picture that’s making the rounds today — the shoe shine on the tarmac,” Kornacki explained. “I don’t know if you saw this one. I don’t know where this came from… He’s sitting in front of an airplane. I think it might be a corporate jet, and he’s wearing a suit and he’s getting a shoe shine. He’s got a big smile on his face.”

…“He’s getting a shoe shine! We put this on Salon earlier today. I’m not sure where it originated. But it never looks good for a politician to be getting a shoe shine, you know, on a tarmac but it looks terrible when it’s Mitt Romney and this is your image and background. It looks worse when it’s the year 2012 and the economy is in such a bad place, and the Democrats are going to be going after your party for being the one that sort of favors the people who get shoe shines on tarmacs!” he added.

So, not only did Kornacki lie about the photo — he had no knowledge at all about what it really showed — but he then throw in the “I think it might be a corporate jet” on top of it — again without knowing if it really was or not — so that he could add more layers of lies to the story.

(more…)

Glenn Beck’s The Blaze has joined the “progressive” left’s all-out attack on James O’Keefe after his Project Veritas successfully demonstrated that dead people could vote in the New Hampshire primary due to the state’s lack of voter ID requirements at the polls.

Instead of focusing on the issue of voter fraud, Beck has slandered O’Keefe, stoking an apparent grudge that surfaced during O’Keefe’s successful NPR sting last year. At that time, The Blaze tried–and failed–to discredit O’Keefe’s exposé of political bias among NPR’s senior executives, which resulted in the departure of CEO Vivian Schiller. Today, The Blaze claims the New Hampshire attorney general is investigating O’Keefe, when in fact the attorney general is investigating the state’s voting system over the flaws O’Keefe exposed.

Ironically, Beck had previously treated voter fraud with the seriousness it deserves.

In 2008, he attacked “liberal whiners” for defending ACORN on the issue of voter fraud. In 2009, he attacked voter fraud by Democrats in the Minnesota election that saw Al Franken unseat Republican Norm Coleman. In 2010–relying on O’Keefe’s ACORN exposé–Beck attacked “progressives” and MSNBC, whom he said were promoting voter fraud in an attempt to help Democrat Martha Coakley defeat Scott Brown in the Massachusetts special election for U.S. Senate:

“Fix the rules! Make sure that it doesn’t happen again! The rules are severely flawed, clearly!” Beck exclaimed in 2009. O’Keefe has made the same case with his New Hampshire sting.

But today, Beck is so desperate to discredit O’Keefe that he has discarded his principled stance against voter fraud and thrown his lot in with Barack Obama’s legal team and dead voters.

(more…)

Yesterday, on NPR’s Talk of the Nation, Glenn Kessler, who writes the Washington Post column The Fact Checker, said he doesn’t call people liars. Really? One wonders what, say, a MSM fact-checker would think of that statement. Granted, Kessler doesn’t use the word “liar,” but he does assign Pinocchios, sometimes up to four of them. Calling someone a Pinocchio isn’t exactly like calling someone a liar, just as calling someone an elephant isn’t exactly like calling them fat.

Or maybe this fact-checker should heal himself.

In the world of politics where hyperbole, shorthand, nuance, and soundbites rule the day, no one has the right to assume the role of fact-checker. And in a world where the MSM has completely abdicated every journalistic principle and responsibility when it comes to objective reporting — the very last institution doing any kind of high-ground fact-checking should be one so shamelessly dishonest it refuses to profess its own biases up front.

The MSM assuming the role of fact-checking has about as much moral authority as the Capone Mob regulating prohibition.

Whether it’s Fact Checker, PolitiFact, Anderson Cooper’s Keeping Them Honest, or the too-many self-appointed Guardians of Truth currently infesting the MSM, these outlets are an arrogant, dishonest and biased cancer on the very idea of journalism and most certainly on a democracy.

Yes, you’ve heard these arguments from me before because, along with many others on the right, I’ve been making them for years. But suddenly we’re not alone. Suddenly NPR has decided to wring their hands over MSM fact-checkers. But why now? (more…)

I suppose we couldn’t get past the one-year anniversary of the crime against Democrat Representative Gabrielle Giffords without some Old Media outlet blaming the supposed “heated” political rhetoric of the day for her shooting. On Sunday we saw NPR doing just that. The fact is, no matter how many times they say it, politics and the “heated rhetoric” thereof had absolutely nothing at all to do with Giffords’ shooting. The linking of the crime to politics is just not legitimate.

On this one-year anniversary, NPR’s Linton Weeks was all about the improvement of our “civil discourse,” and full of lament that it just isn’t happening. Perhaps it is a noble sentiment, but he marred that nobility by beginning his piece with a false allusion once again tying the Giffords shooting to the “political atmosphere” of the day.

“When a gunman opened fire on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords,” Linton wrote, “some people were quick to blame the episode on the overheated political climate.”

With that false allusion we also know what NPR meant to do. It meant to blame conservatives for Giffords’ shooting.

He went on to say:

At the time of the attack, there was a high tide of political rhetoric across America and a low ebb of social civility. The New York Times reported that the shootings “raised questions about potential political motives” and that the Pima County, Ariz., sheriff was blaming the tragedies on “the toxic political environment.”

According to The Times, national reaction was immediate. “Democrats denounced the fierce partisan atmosphere in Gifford’s district and top Republicans quickly condemned the violence.”

To the extent that “some people” did indeed immediately jump to the conclusion that the rhetoric of the Tea Party, conservatives and the Republican Party was at fault for the Giffords shooting, Linton is correct.

(more…)

Every once in a while, there is a story in the mainstream media that goes so far beyond ordinary liberal bias that it deserves special recognition. To highlight such extraordinarily egregious propaganda masquerading as news, we at Big Journalism are creating the Red Star Award–named for the symbol that the Soviet Union elevated to a global emblem of communism.

The inaugural recipient of the Red Star is Scott Horsley of NPR, for his story on today’s Morning Edition: “Obama: Recess Appointment Was An ‘Obligation’”

The story concerns President Barack Obama’s appointment of Richard Cordray to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Republicans oppose the appointment of Cordray–or anyone–to the Bureau until concerns about the lack of congressional oversight are resolved. Despite Democrats’ previous outrage over recess appointments, Obama chose to ignore Congress and appoint Cordray while the Senate was in recess.

Except–it wasn’t. The Senate used pro forma sessions to stay open–a tactic once used by Democrats to prevent some of President George W. Bush’s appointments. And why did Bush, that alleged tyrant of the “unitary executive,” fail to do what President Obama has just done? The answer–as even many liberals agree–is that it is unconstitutional, and in this case even unlawful, exceeding any power grab President Bush ever attempted.

Scott Horsley’s story does not address any of the constitutional or legal problems with President Obama’s unprecedented abuse of power. Instead, it breathlessly recounts the appointment as a tale in political courage–“the President, and his lawyers, had had enough”–and repeats Obama’s campaign messages about fighting for the “middle class” against a “do-nothing Congress,” evil financial firms, and “armies of lobbyists.” (more…)

Yesterday, NPR reported an unclear snippet of audio as former Senator Rick Santorum having said the word “black” when discussing individuals becoming dependent on government’s redistribution of wealth, as opposed to being able to go out and earn their money themselves.

As per Tommy Christopher at Mediaite, a new, cleaner version of the clip does not support that conclusion.

NPR’s Ted Robbins noted: “Santorum did not elaborate on why he singled out blacks who rely on federal assistance. The voters here didn’t seem to care.”

CBS doubled down on the error, offering a brief transcript with the clip:

While campaigning in Sioux City, Iowa Sunday, GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum said if elected he plans to cut regulations and entitlements and he doesn’t want to “make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money.”

(more…)

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on the end of the war in Iraq:

He said that the war was worth the price in blood and money, as it set Iraq on a path to democracy. …

They’re going face challenges in the future,” Panetta said Wednesday during a visit with troops in Afghanistan. “They’ll face challenges from terrorism, they’ll face challenges from those that would want to divide their country. They’ll face challenges from just the test of democracy, a new democracy and trying to make it work. But the fact is, we have given them the opportunity to be able to succeed.”

Those quotes are from a Fox News story posted earlier today. If, however, you are a NPR consumer, you would never know the Defense Secretary said any such thing:

Panetta told those gathered that “challenges remain, but the U.S. will be there to stand by the Iraqi people as they navigate those challenges to build a stronger and more prosperous nation,” The New York Times reports.

He also said, the BBC writes, that the effort had been worth the cost because the U.S. leaves with an Iraq that is now a partner.

“You will leave with great pride — lasting pride,” Panetta told troops at the ceremony, according to the AP. “Secure in knowing that your sacrifice has helped the Iraqi people to cast tyranny aside and to offer hope for prosperity and peace to this country’s future generations.”

That’s about as gracious as NPR is willing to get. Nowhere does NPR mention the Secretary’s words about democracy or the real miracle of the war in Iraq, and that’s that we now have the first true democracy in the history of the Arab world. And though it may be complicated and take a few steps back at times, as a direct result, the flower of self-determination is opening in that region.

(more…)

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.

(more…)

NPR’s Morning Edition hosted a debate (of sorts) today on the question of “inequality” in American society. Like other mainstream media outlets, it is faithfully following the line laid down by President Obama, the Democrats, and the Occupy Wall Street mob, who insist that “the rich” are the central problem in our society. The debate is an attempt to distract from the failure of big government to create growth, opportunity, or shared prosperity.

Of course, inequality is a perennial topic of inquiry for philosophers, economists, and policy wonks–though it is rarely the urgent priority the left makes it out to be. It is also a topic on which American thinkers, both liberal and conservative, had achieved a degree of consensus, until recently. That consensus declined to treat inequality as a problem in itself, but rather as a condition that only became a problem if associated with injustice. What remained up for debate was the definition of injustice and its remedies.

Liberals such as John Rawls defined justice as “fairness,” by which he meant that those inequalities that did exist in society would have to be to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged. That might require redistribution to make up for inheritance, luck, and talent. However, inequality due to different levels of effort was socially useful, especially to the poor, because it could create growth and innovation that led to opportunity.

Conservatives in the libertarian mold of Robert Nozick argued instead that justice was fundamentally about an individual’s right to possess the fruits of his or her labor, as well as what he or she had obtained in voluntary transactions with others. “Fairness,” in the conservative view, imposed an arbitrary pattern of distribution that inevitably resulted in depriving some who had done no wrong to reward others who had done no right.

The debate between these two philosophies was rich and vibrant, encompassing a variety of perspectives and prescriptions. It flourished because it excluded extreme and destructive views–such as the radical “leveling” view that everyone should be forced to be equal, and the totalitarian view that one person or group should dominate all others. While American conservatives accepted these conditions, liberals began to resent them. (more…)

It’s Thursday. You know what that means don’t you? Another university “study” that proves that viewers of Fox News are uninformed boobs. This time it’s out of Farleigh-Dickinson University in New Jersey. Their shocking claim is “watching Fox News makes you less informed than watching nothing at all.”

Their telephone poll of 612 New Jersey adults purportedly shows that the Fox News watching people don’t know the right answer to a few questions the pollsters asked. That is to say, the right answers according to the pollsters.

The first question is about Egypt and whether or not the protests have been successful in bringing down the regime there. The expected answer is, of course, yes. Only 49% of FNC watchers responded “correctly” while 68% of NPR listeners did.

So, did the protesters in Tahrir Square bring down the regime? I guess that depends on how you define “the regime.” Following three weeks of protests, President Hosni Mubarak was forced to step down and his National Democratic Party (NDP) was dissolved. It was at this point that the Armed Forces of Egypt officially took control. So, why is this ambiguous in any way? Well, Mubarak and the entire upper echelon of the NDP were military. As a matter of fact, the Egyptian military have been the de facto rulers of Egypt since the military coup of 1952 that ousted King Farouk and ushered in the Nassar regime. So, the only real change in Egypt was cosmetic.

In addition, it wouldn’t be too far off to say that, of all the coverage of the “Arab Spring,” one of the few news outlets that was not reflexively cheerleading it was Fox News. Outside of the first few days of heady enthusiasm, where it all appeared to be a spontaneous push for freedom and democracy, it has become clear that many of the Arab nations that have removed their previous autocratic leaders have not been moving in a positive direction. There is a troubling move from Communist/Socialist autocrats towards Islamist autocrats. Needless to say, there has been no real change in the leadership of Egypt with the exception of getting rid of Hosni Mubarak.

The second question was whether or not the opposition in Syria has been able to bring down the regime there.  Amongst those giving the wrong answer, there was no statistical difference. All people answering, grouped by primary news source, came within 4% of each other. When the reported margin of error is 3.5%, you have no real grounds making claims that one group is getting it wrong. That is, unless you’re now looking not at who answered incorrectly, but at who answered that he didn’t know. The coverage of what has been going on in Syria has been spotty at best. For someone to answer that they don’t know is not an incorrect answer, it just means that they admit to not being having an informed opinion.

(more…)

On Wednesday, National Public Radio Education Correspondent Larry Abramson phoned Education Action Group to ask about our activities related to Issue 2 in Ohio, the referendum on the collective bargaining reform that was defeated at the polls Tuesday. Specifically, he inquired about our “canvassing and mobilization” efforts.

As a 501(c)(3) non-profit, EAG is prohibited from engaging in such activity. I told him as such. I did acknowledge that last year EAG published an analysis of collective bargaining agreements in southwest Ohio, prior to knowing anything about Senate Bill 5.

Additionally, we recently issued an analysis of how the mere threat of SB 5 had a positive impact on finances in several Ohio school districts.

We never recommended that Ohio voters support or oppose SB 5 or the ensuing ballot referendum on the bill.

Abramson, whose tone was clearly adversarial and one-sided, then asked me if EAG posts a donor list on its website – which oddly is the same question our union antagonists frequently ask. He was told EAG does not make that information public. Abramson then made a reference to having “ways of finding out” and ended the conversation.

So much for impartial journalism. This so-called reporter was clearly on the attack. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought the Huffington Post or Media Matters was on the line. (more…)

This news is actually good.  PolitiFact was built to allow the MSM to present their own left-wing opinions as objective truth, so by teaming up with the notoriously left-leaning welfare queens at NPR, it only helps to further expose this biased “fact-checker” for what it really is.

Today from PolitiFact:

To help you sort out the truth in the avalanche of claims from the 2012 campaign, PolitiFact and NPR are partnering for Message Machine, a year-long venture to highlight the candidates’ exaggerations and falsehoods.

Reporters from PolitiFact and our nine state sites will be checking claims that candidates and political groups make in TV and radio ads, Facebook messages, tweets and robocalls. We’ll focus largely on the presidential campaign, but we’ll also examine claims from races for governor and the U.S. House and Senate.

We’ll publish our Truth-O-Meter articles on PolitiFact and NPR.org, and we’ll keep an archive of them on our NPR/PolitiFact Message Machine page. NPR will air segments about our fact-checking on Morning Edition, All Things Considered and other shows.

Our first batch of Message Machine items includes a mix of TV commercials, online videos and Web ads.

PolitiFact would never dream of teaming with Human Events or Townhall, two respected right-of-center outlets. No, for 2012, it wants to stick its fingers in the eyes of the right as they join in partnership with an outlet we both distrust and dislike.

When it comes to the MSM, arrogance always trumps credibility. Besides, were PolitiFact to actually team up with the right it might end up living up to its name, and then what would Obama do?

(more…)

The mainstream media, embarrassed by the violence of yesterday’s Occupy Oakland protests, is desperately trying to save the image of the movement it has propped up as an ostensibly legitimate voice of populist support for economic redistribution and a liberal alternative to the Tea Party.

Almost uniformly, media reports today about the violence at the “general strike”–including vandalism, clashes with police, and burning barricades–have attempted to describe the Occupy Oakland demonstration as “largely peaceful.”

When the media have described violent acts, they have suggested, unreasonably, that these have been separate from the Occupy Oakland protests. The media seem uninterested in holding Occupy Oakland organizers responsible for the violence, or even in asking them for statements of condemnation.

National Public Radio’s report on the Occupy Oakland violence is typical of today’s mainstream media spin but hardly unique (as Stanley Kurtz points out, citing CBS coverage).

There’s quiet now in the streets of Oakland, the local Tribune reports.

But what began as a “mostly peaceful” general strike that “drew thousands Wednesday for rallies and marches … turned chaotic early Thursday after protesters took over a vacant building and police moved in, firing tear gas and flashbang grenades.”

Note that the violence is described–misleadingly–as having started after the “general strike” protest. And note that the Occupy Oakland activists themselves are never blamed directly.

Instead, we are told–much later in the story–that “Oakland protesters inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement” were responsible. Inspired by, but not belonging to, Occupy.

(more…)

In his recent assessment of his year since he was unceremoniously — and illicitly in many folks’ estimation — fired by NPR, Juan Williams indulged one of those fallacious assumptions that just screams left-wing spin. It is the sort of straw man argument that casts aspersions on others — this time against Christians — while pretending to be the logical adult in the room, not to mention while pretending not to be casting aspersions. It is a logical sleight of hand that many liberals use.

First, let me say that I am 100% on Williams’ side in that his firing by NPR was a real breach of journalistic ethics: theirs. The comments he made a year ago that got him fired did not in any way harm his veracity as a journalist, nor were they racist or even incorrect. Heck, they weren’t even injudicious except when taking the brain dead political correctness that infests the left into consideration.

Though that was the discussion of a year ago and really is not something worth rehashing here, Williams did say something outrageous in his review of that year-old issue that deserves to be highlighted. In essence, Williams made an illogical argument about how we should think of radical Islam, and he did so by assuming that domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh of the Oklahoma City Bombing could be considered as representative of Christianity as the Saudi 19 were of radical Islam.

Here is what Williams said [my bold for emphasis]:

… we have to keep in mind that America is a country founded on the ideal of religious liberty. We can’t stereotype any group on the basis of the behavior of extremists among them. We don’t indict all Christians because of Timothy McVeigh.

(more…)

Falling to your own media malpractice makes you irresponsible, not a “victim.” It doesn’t make you a “target” when other people publicly note the absence of your journalistic integrity. Politico missed this bit of logic recently when it attempted to blame conservatives for the misdeeds of various members of the media, most recently NYT’s Natasha Lennard.

… these critiques may just muddy the waters enough to do some damage to both the media and the fledgling anti-Wall Street movement.

Michele Norris hosts NPR’s dishonestly named  ”All Things Considered,” one of those insufferable dulcet-toned offerings where very few conservative ideas or pols are “considered” reasonable or sane. The show would be laughable if not for the fact that my hard-earned tax dollars subsidize all the self-important leftist bias and sanctimony.

Anyway, the decision to remove her from the show seems like an overreach on NPR’s part. There’s no reason why what a spouse does for a living should in any way reflect on the other spouse. Husband and wife should be allowed to have their own separate careers, worldviews, and political beliefs without a guilt-by-association conflict of interest dogging them.

NPR, however, says they think differently:

Michele Norris, co-host of NPR’s “All Things Considered,” is temporarily stepping away from all her duties and all campaign-related coverage because her husband, Broderick Johnson, has taken a senior advisor position with the president’s re-election campaign.

“After careful consideration, we decided that Broderick’s new role could make it difficult for me to continue hosting ATC,” Norris wrote in a note to NPR staff. “Given the nature of Broderick’s position with the campaign and the impact that it will most certainly have on our family life, I will temporarily step away from my hosting duties until after the 2012 elections.”

(more…)