Media outlets didn’t cover March For Life while it happened, despite knowing it was going to happen and hundreds of thousands of people there. News outlets do have stories on it now, but of course the number of people there are distorted and the stories are pretty bland. Again, remember how much effort went into Occupy Wall Street coverage. Reporters were at the scenes. News stations were always on them. Also if they had anyone on the scene at March For Life they’d have a more accurate number of people.

Photo Credit Michelle Fields from The Daily Caller

The best coverage belongs to Judge Andrew Napolitano on his show  ”Freedom Watch” on FOX Business Network. Judge Napolitano is a fierce pro-life advocate and doesn’t shy away from the issue. At the end of every show he signs off with “The Plain Truth” and yesterday it was about abortion.

His guest was Rep. Renee Ellmers who discussed the defense of life. This was the most coverage by anyone in the media. Thank you, Judge Napolitano.

I then went to FOX News and I’ll admit, I was disappointed. The article was written by Shannon Bream and just like C-SPAN she called the protestors anti-abortion. Yes they are anti-abortion, but why doesn’t anyone ever call them pro-life? Why do they have to be constantly addressed as anti? When pro-choice protesters march they’re referred to as pro-choice, not anti-life. She did, however, give a reasonable estimate of people there, tens of thousands. Trust me, that’s much better than some of the others.

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This past weekend the Washington Post published a hit piece on the grand opening of a museum in Georgia dedicated to the birthplace of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. The paper was desperate to make some grand conspiracy, some lawbreaking evil out of the project. But whatever is going on with the museum, this story was just one more shot orchestrated by the left aimed at forcing Justice Thomas to recuse himself from the upcoming hearings on whether or not Obamacare is Constitutional. Of course, this is all a smoke screen to hide the fact that it is really left-wing darling Justice Elana Kagan that should recuse herself from the case.

The Post story was a mishmash of innuendo, guesswork, and partisan claims, all amounting to much of nothing for proof of wrong doing. The Post even took the opportunity to use the word “whitewashed” when describing the color of the building housing the museum commemorating Justice Thomas’ birthplace. None too subtle, that.

There was plenty of other coverage of the opening of the museum that was positive, of course. Still it is apparent that the left hates Justice Thomas so much that they can’t even stand it that a small commemoration of his place of birth be created.

But real facts weren’t on the agenda for this article on Thomas. This article was meant as yet another slap at Thomas in order to mount pressure against him for the upcoming case against Obamacare. The left has been floating the demand that Justice Thomas recuse himself because his wife has worked as a “conservative activist and lobbyist, where she specifically agitated for the repeal of ‘Obamacare.’”

Contrary to the left’s new attack on Thomas, in America we do not hold the work of a spouse against someone. If we did that, half the members of Congress would have to be removed for the boards, or agencies, or organizations that their spouses work for. The pertinent fact is, though, that Justice Thomas himself was not the one working for any group that advocated for or against Obamacare.

This, however, is not true of another member of the Supreme Court. Justice Elana Kagan was actually involved in advising how to defend against challenges to Obamacare. If that isn’t directly relevant, what is?

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The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

Transcript: President Obama Press Conference

East Room

8: 03 p.m. EST

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Good evening. I have a brief statement, and then I’ll take a question . . . uh, excuse me. Jay, what?

CARNEY: [from side of room] Sir, you agreed to take five questions.

OBAMA: Oh, right. Everyone, a follow-up counts as a separate question. Don’t screw your colleagues.

As I have said repeatedly since attending Basuki Elementary in Jakarta, America’s national debt is unsustainable. My budget confronts head-on what the scrawny fella from Indiana recently called the new “Red Menace.”

Like New Jersey’s Fat Man, I understand the realities. You heard it here: OMB’s first draft for FY 2012 came in at $8.7 trillion. I told them that was unacceptable. After weeks of chainsawing through the bloat, OMB Director Jacob Lew finally delivered the $3.73 trillion budget I just submitted to the House.

I see some heads shaking. Look, the final product does indeed represent a savings of almost $5 trillion off the initial proposal. Extrapolating from similar budget scenarios each cycle through FY 2016, and taking into account hyperinflation and debt servicing, we stand to chop about $60 trillion in spending over the next five years. In so doing, we’ll keep the deficit monster at bay a while longer. (more…)

Via Twitter:

Common Cause condemns bigotry, hateful statements caught on film at rally

Common Cause’s 40 year history of holding power accountable has been marked by a commitment to decency and civility – in public and private. So we are of course outraged to find that a few of those attending the events around a gathering Common Cause helped to organize Sunday near Palm Springs voiced hateful, narrow-minded sentiments to an interviewer in the crowd.

We condemn bigotry and hate speech in every form, even when it comes from those who fancy themselves as our friends.

Anyone who has attended a public event has encountered people whose ideas or acts misrepresented, even embarrassed, the gathering. Every sporting event has its share of “fans” whose boorish behavior on the sidelines makes a mockery of good sportsmanship; every political gathering has a crude sign-painter or epithet-spewing heckler.

We organized the “Uncloak the Kochs” panel discussion and took part in the rally afterwards to call public attention to the political power of Koch Industries and other corporations, their focus on expanding that power, and the dangers it presents to our democracy.

We’re committed to staging other forums and public events in the coming months to continue that effort. We urge all Americans of good will to join us.

###

Thoughts?

I’ve yet to hear an “epithet-spewing heckler” at a tea party or meet a sign-bearer at a tea party that wasn’t someone with the LaRouche camp trying to start trouble, so I can’t really get on board with the “every political gathering” part. Protests are fun – when people can disagree without lowering themselves to a level of humanity that should’ve been left in the 60s.

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Proposition 8 in California contains this simple statement, “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”

A single judge in California reversed the vote of seven million people. Certainly, this issue will go to the U.S. Supreme Court, where another single Justice, Anthony Kennedy will probably decide whether to let the vote of the people stand, or whether he will be the person to define marriage for the future in America.

The media is celebrating this victory. Do not doubt me. Newsrooms held parties yesterday and the joy is evident on their “impartial” faces during every report on this issue.

They see this as an issue that begins and ends with gay marriage. To them, this is all about gay marriage and only about gay marriage. CNN goes to a gay bar in Hollywood to get reaction. The graphics and headlines say this is an issue of “same-sex marriage.” I must correct their narrow vision here. This is an issue of defining marriage, and there is a major difference. If this is going to the U.S. Supreme Court and will define marriage in America (which it will), then where’s the live shot from Colorado City? I hear all the time this issue is just about two people who love each other. I will ask, who chose the number two? Why just two? (more…)

The word of the week is “transparency.”  No, this isn’t the vapid hopey-changey wordage that the Obama campaign and administration has been using for the past two years, rather the transparency I’m speaking of here involves the literal process of revealing truths, exposing potentially negative material and providing a fair playground on which lovers of rational thought can explore and determine reality for themselves.  At the end of the day, transparency is all about providing access to information and ideas, while shifting power to the people to subsequently formulate conclusions.  This week, two transparency medals of honor should be given out – one to the Sunlight Foundation and the other to Andrew Breitbart (naturally).

First and foremost, in a bid to once again outdo itself in the categories of “way too cool” and “ultra useful,” The Sunlight Foundation has created a timely democracy tool that offers the American public a first-hand look into the opinions and past work of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan.  The new project, called “Elena’s Inbox” takes Kagan’s public e-mails from her Clinton administration years and organizes them in an easy-to-view format, thus providing unprecedented access and perspective.  In an e-blast from Sunlight yesterday afternoon, Jake Brewer wrote,

All of the emails sent and received by Supreme Court Justice nominee Elena Kagan during her time in the Clinton White House were recently put online… [We] built a site to take Elena Kagan’s emails and make them readable…While we’re in the middle of Kagan’s hearing for the Supreme Court, it’s fascinating to get a sense of her through her public emails.

In the past, I’ve voiced concern over Kagan’s take on the first amendment, so I personally plan to sift through her e-mails to gain a better sense of her worldview and how she’ll function on the Supreme Court. This website couldn’t have come at a better time, as the American public (and Congress) learns about the woman who might very well partially shape American law for decades to come. (more…)

We’ve blown it once again, another great opportunity to win the biggest sporting event on the planet and America comes away empty handed in the World Cup.

I thought this was our year. The world was supposed to love us. We were told that during the 2008 Presidential election that all we had to do was put Barack Hussein Obama in office, and the world would love us. Instead, what do we get? We get horrible calls where goals are being taken away from us by World Cup officials who are either blind, or they haven’t heard that Obama is now our President.

Now, before you think that sports and politics do not mix, just Google “USA Basketball vs. USSR 1972.” Sports and politics cannot be separated. Oh, there was another political incident that year involving Israeli athletes, but since Obama was only 11 years old at the time it’s not relevant to this White House.

I watched much of the media analysis of World Cup Soccer and much of it centered around who played where and why, and how USA coach Bob Bradley said “we needed stronger legs in the midfield.” You had Ricardo Clark and the Yellow Card and bla bla bla bla bla. No, forget all that, there is something much bigger here that the media is missing.  This is the biggest sporting event in this solar system, so no analysis can be ignored.

We were promised. (more…)

Judging by the exceptions he recently proposed for altering the Miranda warnings, even Attorney General Eric Holder believes that “the Constitution is not a suicide pact,” a truth first stated in 1949 by Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, and made new again in our time.

Meanwhile over in Britain, this week they have a new Prime Minister.  They also have a Queen.  They have Big Ben.  The have, in Chelsea, a world-class soccer club owned by a Russian oligarch.  They have an honorable tradition of tolerance, free speech and fair play.  But they do not have a constitution.

Recently, though, a British judge, John Mitting, signed a suicide pact between his nation and violent Islamic extremists when he ruled that two Pakistani men, one a known al-Qaeda operative, could not be deported due to the possibility of their being harmed if they were sent home.

The private reaction of many British citizens has been fury and dismay.  From the right-wing newspapers, the same. Let us for this story turn instead to the left-wing, “insurgent”-accommodating Guardian newspaper, just to assure readers new to Big Journalism that this is not a “stretcher”: (more…)

Comparisons are always a great way to show how differently the Old Media treats conservative and leftist politicians in America today and Obama’s nomination of the Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court gives us another opportunity to see the Old Media’s penchant to excoriate a Republican’s actions while soft peddling and excusing away similar actions by a left-winger.

In this case, it is instructive to see how the Old Media treated the claim that Sarah Palin banned books from the Wasilla library when she was mayor and today how it is treating the recently highlighted Supreme Court arguments made by Elena Kagan that the government could ban books under the McCain-Feingold Act.

After McCain picked Governor Sarah Palin for his number two slot on the ticket during the 2008 campaign the Old Media lit upon a story that said Sarah Palin tried to ban books from the Wasilla library when she was mayor there in 1996. A list of the supposedly banned books was even bandied about by the left-wing blogs, causing a ruckus in the media, but it turned out the list had books on it published years after Palin had left the Mayor’s office. The list was a fabrication and was lifted from a website that detailed the books that had been banned at one time or another, in one place or another, over the last 100 years. (more…)

In the brief period following President Obama’s nomination of Elena Kagan to the upcoming opening on the Supreme Court we have learned relatively little about her.  Apparently there is not much to know.  And anyway, everything you need to know about the candidate for the highest court in the land has already been gathered by ONN, (that’s the Obama News Network) and posted on the Internet so nobody needs to ask any more questions.

Wait, WHAAAAAT?  That’s it?  We get 3:22 of Ms. Kagan telling us what she wants to tell us?  And who is the interviewer?  Even the matrimonially-distracted Larry King could do a better job with this interview. Where are the “journalists” from every single network standing up and screaming about this obvious manipulation of their primary obligation to the public?  Where are the truth seekers? Aside from a mild form of protest lodged online by CBS, we hear almost nothing about the troubling control of the message by the White House.

Many in the MSM and Kool-Aid drinking supporters of the administration have simply responded with the statement,  “Elections Have Consequences.” That’s the axiom often used to shut down any discussion from someone who opposes things like a 2,000+ page unpopular law, the fundamental transformation of America or even a Supreme Court nominee.  However, that axiom did not provide the same free pass back in 2005, when President Bush had an opportunity to put his stamp on the highest court in the land and nominated Harriet Miers, to replace the retiring Sandra Day O’Connor.  We all know how that ended.  After a couple of weeks filled with pushback from both sides, Ms. Miers withdrew her name from consideration. (more…)

In the aftermath of President Obama’s nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, ABC and Politico, among others, have reported on Kagan’s history of political contributions. Not surprisingly, she has donated exclusively to Democrats, with Obama receiving more than half ($6300) of the $12,300 in total she contributed to national level campaigns in the preceding 10 years. (Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, and John Kerry were also recipients.)

The Boston Herald ran a story which also highlighted some of her contributions to state-level candidates, including Deval Patrick’s gubernatorial campaign and Tim Murray for lieutenant governor. However, every media outlet has either failed to report, or missed, a campaign contribution of Kagan’s which seems pretty notable given how little is known about her political beliefs and preferences.

In 2006, Kagan made a maximum ($500) campaign contribution to John Bonifaz who was running in the Democratic primary campaign for Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.  I suspect like me most of you have probably never heard of John Bonifaz, but it turns out he is about as far left as you can get before joining the Bernie Sanders fan club. His opponent in the 2006 race actually accused him of being a closet Green Party supporter, which of course is just a polite way of calling someone a socialist. But putting aside labels, here are a few facts about Bonifaz which demonstrate his extreme left credentials:

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The Associated Press again demonstrates bizarre journalistic navel gazing in reporting that thieves have stolen the Mojave Memorial Cross from the California desert.  This theft occurs just three weeks after the Supreme Court’s flat rejection of the years-long crusade to remove it by the ACLU and other groups openly belligerent to any public displays of religion, especially Christianity.  Associated Press writer Robert Jablon, after making the profoundly erroneous comment that the cross stands “on federal land” (Congress authorized the transfer of the land to private ownership in 2004) addresses the journalistic “why” for the story, writing:

Authorities had no immediate motive for the theft but ideas range from scrap metal scavengers to people with an interest in the case.

Scrap metal scavengers?!?  Of course!  Imagine the confused, head-scratching scene in the Associated Press newsroom when this story broke.  Why?  Why would anyone steal this cross, they puzzled?  On the one hand, you have embittered anti-religious zealots who just lost a years’ long battle costing them hundreds of thousands of dollars. (more…)

In case you didn’t know it, Linda Greenhouse covers the Supreme Court for the New York Times. Not surprisingly, her coverage has long been infused with her leftist agenda, during which she has sometimes confused her personal beliefs with her professional obligations, leading to her 1989 reprimand by the Times for participating in an abortion-rights march and her own domestic conflicts of interest via her husband, Eugene Fidell.

An honest newspaper would have fired her long ago, or re-assigned her to the bridge column or the Mets, but no: today she is the Times’s “emeritus” Supreme Court correspondent.

Now she’s weighed in — in an utterly impartial New York Times sort of way — on the Arizona “illegal aliens” controversy. And guess which side she’s on?

I’m glad I’ve already seen the Grand Canyon.

Because I’m not going back to Arizona as long as it remains a police state, which is what the appalling anti-immigrant bill that Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law last week has turned it into.

What would Arizona’s revered libertarian icon, Barry Goldwater, say about a law that requires the police to demand proof of legal residency from any person with whom they have made “any lawful contact” and about whom they have “reasonable suspicion” that “the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States?” Wasn’t the system of internal passports one of the most distasteful features of life in the Soviet Union and apartheid-era South Africa?

Right… Arizona is now a “police state,” akin to the U.S.S.R. and South Africa. On the Upper West Side, maybe, but OK… (more…)

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

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

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

As a child, I watched a lot of westerns and cowboy movies. I saw the same scenario in countless films. The sheriff had a prisoner locked up in his jail waiting to stand trial when the judge arrived in the morning. Some loudmouth, convinced the prisoner was guilty, would stand on the steps of the jail house and rally the crowd. His words whipped them into a frenzy, “Let’s drag the no good piece of scum out here and hang him, now!” The angry mob would overrun the sheriff and his deputies, drag out the terrified prisoner who was proclaiming his innocence and pleading for his life and hang him. I was always amazed how people could so easily be manipulated and sheepishly follow one loud mouth.

In his gazillionth, and most recent health care speech, Obama used the same “give ‘em somebody to hate” tactic against the insurance industry. Outrageously displaying behavior unbecoming to the office of the presidency, Mr. Obama, with no holds barred, attempted to make the American people hate, and seek political vengeance against, the insurance industry.

After masterfully portraying them as cruel monsters who only care about profits, President Obama basically said, let’s drag those no good S.O.B insurance companies out and hang them by passing government run health care. And yes, Obama’s ultimate goal is to drive insurance companies out of business. In an earlier speech, Obama admitted it, while warning that it may take ten years or more to get it done: (more…)

Over the past week, two good friends of mine have been raked over the coals by the left because they are conservatives.  Both have recently taken on new challenges and the left can’t stand to see these two outspoken conservatives succeed.  The left-wing noise machine will say anything to destroy the reputations of good people.

Erick Erickson, editor of the popular conservative web site Red State, had the misfortune of being hired as a contributor to CNN.  Erick is a frequent guest on Sean Hannity’s show.

Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, dared to start a group Liberty Central dedicated to promoting liberty and freedom.  This new group is associated with the Tea Party movement by providing “an online community for visitors to preserve freedom and reaffirm the core founding principles.”

How dare they. (more…)

The Philadelphia Inquirer published a reader feedback opinion editorial from reader Stan Isaacs that is as outlandish as it is indicative of the disregard for the American process that liberals in the Old Media all too often exhibit. It is proof once again that tradition, law, and any effort at legitimacy is wholly outside a liberal’s field of interest. Winning is all they care about, voters opinions and the rule of law be damned.

What sparked Mr. Isaacs’ interest is when he somehow stumbled upon the fact that the number of U.S. Supreme Court Justices is not set in stone in the U.S. Constitution. We now have nine justices but in the past have had fewer. What intrigued him is that the number of justices fluctuated because of politics. “Political issues accounted for the changes,” Isaacs gleefully reported.

In keeping with these “political issues,” Mr. Isaacs lit upon the ideal way to help Obama finally push his left-wing agenda. He advised President Obama to add three new justices to the SCOTUS, justices who will mindlessly adhere to the grand vision of the age of Obama and will rule accordingly. This is necessary, Isaacs thinks, because the court has proven an impediment to Obama’s grand socialist design. Worse, Congress has balked at Obama’s wholesale destruction of America and has resisted his attempts to turn America into a weaker, less free version of Europe. Issacs, you see, demands a recount. (more…)

Acronyms seem to be more popular than ever. The President is the POTUS, his teleprompter is the TOTUS, and the Supreme Court is the SCOTUS. The media should have its own acronym, so I have the perfect plan.

There are many ways to describe the media in America in its current state, most seem to fit pretty well. Most common is the Mainstream Media. The MSM acronym fits. I like it, it works and most people know what it means. I know the reference here is that they are mainstream with their own leftist ideas, but, there is nothing “mainstream” about the current state of the media in this country. In fact, it is far from the mainstream. The American media hates the mainstream when they protest against excessive federal spending and a loss of Constitutional values. The media ignores the mainstream when it figured out that global warming is nothing more than fraud. The media has long since left the mainstream in this country (Fox News being the exception) and they have become a radical arm of liberal politics.

I have used the phrase, Activist Old Media at times just because it fits with their agenda, but witness the children at MSNBC. You don’t have to be old to be wrong. That’s the kid network. At just 14 years old it is young and pubescent and likes it that way. Someday it may grow up, but until then we will watch and laugh and be amused at its adolescent behavior. (more…)

Back in early 2009, while the MSM noted the tax evasion problems of several of Obama’s appointees, Congressman Charlie Rangel (D, NY) sat nearby, grinning like the Cheshire Cat from Wonderland. The tax transgressions of Timmy Geithner, Tommy Daschle, Nancy Killefer, et al are equivalent to shoplifting a candy bar from a convenience store when compared to Charlie’s multiple, long-term, bank heists. Cholly’s been at it for four decades!

Last October, the New York Post reviewed his long history of funny money management.

So it would go for Charlie Rangel over the next four decades — a pattern of tax evasion, special treatment and enrichment that seemed to increase with his power and prestige in Congress. Whether it’s living in rent-stabilized apartments while making a hefty salary, or failing to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars in earnings and assets, his actions betray a consistent, defiant sense of entitlement. And when he is caught, the powerful Democrat blames a right-wing conspiracy.

We also learned last October that the on-going congressional inquiry into Charlie’s tax issues was being “expanded” — (more…)