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.”

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All you need to see is the picture of a beaming President Barack Obama included in USA  Today’s print assessment of the president’s three-year anniversary to know which way the story is slanted.

Or, just take a gander at the glowing, inaccurate headline:

Obama at Three-Year Mark: Big Wins, Much Undone

Gosh, Obama is so great, but even the greatest need a smidge more time to save the world.

The lede in reporter Richard Wolf’s story strikes a better balance, describing a presidency marked by a “mixed record of historic achievements and unfulfilled promises.”

Then, we hit the DNC talking points – hard.

Obama’s accomplishments include “jolting the economy,” which is news to the millions of people either unemployed or who have given up on finding new work. And do “jolts” normally cause the unemployment rates to go up and the deficit to skyrocket?

His other accomplishments? The deeply unpopular health care legislation, ending the Iraq War (no thanks to the surge which he derided but help make Iraq stable) and killing bin Laden – Obama’s one unexpurgated triumph.

The article goes so far as to take Obama’s biggest problem – a stagnant economy – and transform it into a delayed positive as if David Axelrod himself were furiously hammering away on that trusty USA Today keyboard.

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I’m from Ozark country and it is against the law for any home south of Rolla to have a Twinkie-less pantry. Alright, so maybe not “against the law,” but I’ve yet to see a pantry without one. All my kin abided by this unspoken rule. Because of my history with the snack cake, I was dismayed, to say the least, when news hit that Hostess was trying to stave off bankruptcy. I was further dismayed that they sort of obfuscated the reason why.

From USA Today:

Hostess Brands is hoping to take a bite out of its high costs as it heads back into bankruptcy protection for the second time in less than a decade.

Hostess has enough cash to keep stores stocked with its Ding Dongs, Ho Hos and other snacks for now. But longer term, the 87-year-old company has a bigger problem: health-conscious Americans favor yogurt and energy bars over the dessert cakes and white bread they devoured 30 years ago.

Last year, 36% of Americans ate white bread in their homes, down from 54% in 2000, according to NPD Group. Meanwhile, about 54% ate wheat bread, up from 43% in 2000.

Consumption of healthy snacks is growing, too. About 32% of Americans ate yogurt at least once in two weeks in 2011, for instance, up from 18% in 2000.

I’m sorry, but I call BS.

You’re Hostess. It’s not difficult to sell creme-filled heaven snacks and America isn’t exactly eating healthier. If anything, America is eating leaner because the price of everything has increased eleventy-fold because the cost of energy is passed to us, the consumers. Now for the truth: this is what Hostess cited as the real reason behind their move against bankruptcy.

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How do you write a news story about incivility in our politically charged times and not name drop Occupy Wall Street?

Just ask the folks over at USA Today.

The company chided for its brief news stories pulled out all the stops this week to document the lack of civility nearly a year after the Tucson shooting of Dem. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

That savage act had nothing to do with incivility. It was about a mentally deranged man who got his hands on a dangerous weapon. Yet the media meme quickly became how our national dialogue had descended beyond the bounds of decency, conveniently at a time when public criticism of President Barack Obama was reaching a fever pitch.

The media lectured us for weeks on why we all should tone down the rhetoric, but when members of the Left cranked their hate meters to 11 those same scribes didn’t bother to mention it, let alone critique them.

Narratives flow in only one direction, you see.

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- Apparently, calling your viewers “bastards” may affect your ratings.

- The DNC attacks Jake Tapper for not being a lapdog.

- Mitt Romney complains to Bret Baier that Baier’s questions were “overlyaggressive.”

If Romney thinks Baier is “too aggressive,” wait until he gets a load of the Iranians. Sheesh.

- Apple TV is coming:

Apple analyst Gene Munster just reiterated his belief that Apple is going to launch a TV next year.
He made the comments at our IGNITION: Future of Media conference this morning.
In fact, Gene is so sure an Apple TV is coming that he told anyone in the audience who is thinking of buying a TV to wait, because Apple’s is going to be awesome.

- More on Gingrich vs WaPo.

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- Logo test: Which newspaper brands do consumers trust most? Yikes. Not USA Today!

Despite having the second-highest circulation of any U.S. newspaper, the USA Today was the least trusted brand among both consumers and local service professionals, actually

- Crushing progressive media minds all across the blogosphere: Bill Ayers admits to the Obama fundraiser that the Obama camp had called a “myth.”

- Media inquiries forced forward Cain’s latest accuser.

- Ann Coulter heavily censored on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

- Eliot Spitzer returns to cable news.

- Daily Kos’s Markos Moulitsas “uber moron emeritus“:

When it was reported that Republicans had signaled they might go along with an extension of the payroll tax cuts, Markos jumped on Twitter to declare a victory for Occupy Wall Street. He then cranked out ablog post which comes off like someone who has never done an end zone dance trying to do the Ickey Shuffle for the first time.

In the world where Occupy had never happened, Republicans would’ve held these tax cuts hostage without suffering any ill repercussions. Why would they? The chattering class and Beltway media would be droning on endlessly about deficits and other things that didn’t matter.

See that? “Deficits and other things that didn’t matter.” This is actually mainstream Progressive belief. Remember this the next time a Democrat pretends to care about fiscal responsibility. They don’t care. But I digress.

In this world, Occupy has thrust income inequality to the forefront of the political debate — so much so that typically immovable Republicans are afraid to feed that narrative.

In other words, a ragtag bunch of hippies with supposedly no demands have done what Democrats have never been able to do — get Republicans to cry “uncle”.

Yeah, Markos. That ragtag bunch of hippies have gotten the evil Republicans to say they’ll probably back the extension of a TAX CUT.

USA Today published a story recently by Bob Smietana of the Nashville newspaper The Tennessean attacking the integrity and work of well-known Christian First Amendment defense attorney Jay Sekulow – that is shocking for what is left out.

Sekulow is the head man of the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), a Washington D.C.-based organization that takes on attackers of Christian’s First Amendment rights to free exercise of religion, a tempting target in some corners of America’s political establishment.

In fact, writer Smietana didn’t just write one piece attacking Sekulow and the ACLJ but in the space of only a few days wrote two. In one piece Smietana accuses Sekulow and his family of making too much money from the charities they represent and in the second he claims that the ACLJ might be improperly pursuing cases not in its tax exempt charter.

In both cases Smietana employs the “some say” style of indictment by writing innuendoes backed up by little actual evidence, but the piece in USA Today is by far the worst example of the tactic. (more…)

Jesse Jackson wasted no time yesterday in using a Martin Luther King, Jr. event to attack the tea party and create racial divide. The event was one of many planned for the days leading up to the official opening of the MLK memorial on the National Mall.

USA Today reported Jackson’s comments:

Jesse Jackson said Thursday that the Tea Party’s tenets are reminiscent of state’s rights philosophies used in decades past to oppose federally mandated integration.

“The Tea Party is not new,” Jackson said at a luncheon honoring civil rights pioneers on Thursday. “It’s just a new name for an old game.”

There are no details as to whether any black tea party members were invited to the MLK pre-memorial launch event.

The media also does not recount how, despite all the divisive talk from Jackson, no one in the tea party has ever threatened to castrate President Obama as Jackson has done.

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Obama embarrassed himself (and our nation) once again, this time while toasting The Queen of England.  Stranded at a former state dinner setting without his teleprompter, Obama tried to turn a toast into a speech with note cards, talking over the playing of England’s National Anthem.

Some in Make-Believe Media are downplaying the event as an awkward flub, a miscue owed to Obama’s completely understandable lack of experience with royalty (those in the stuffy, uptight British sphincter control set), or perhaps as an isolated, “kinda weird“ incident.

Others are playing the liberal blame game spin tactic: blame anything or anybody but Obama and his White House incompetents.  Jet lag, minor memory lapse, or an overindulgence in elegant lifestyle (too many vacations?).  Heck, blame the band for interrupting Obama by simply doing what protocol dictated.

But Rush Limbaugh called the best spin so far: Blame the Girl.  Yep, blame the Queen herself for snubbing Barry’s own ignorance of protocol.  Check out the Tuscon Citizen‘s lede “Queen snubs Obama’s Toast at State Dinner.”  Compare the title of the video above to this one posted by NewsReelDemocracy who chose to entitle the moment ”Queen humiliated Obama“  instead of “Obama embarrassed Queen with long-winded toast.”

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Just when you think that they can’t come up with anything else, the global warming hoaxers unveil something new in their attempt to scare the public into believing their global redistribution of income scheme.

The latest claim is those horrible, massive tornadoes which caused over two-hundred deaths in America this week were spurred by global warming (a claim that was quickly refuted by both FEMA and the NOAA Storm Prediction Center among others).

The other day, Peter H. Gleick, President of the Pacific Institute wrote in the AOL/Huffington Post about the connection between the tornadoes and climate change. When his words are examined carefully it is clear that his article was simply meant to frighten not to explain. He begins:

Violent tornadoes throughout the southeastern U.S. must be a front-page reminder that no matter how successful climate deniers are in confusing the public or delaying action on climate change in Congress or globally, the science is clear: Our climate is worsening.

On first glance he is saying that there is a connection between the warming hoax and the tragic weather; that’s what he intends for the reader to think. But look again at the carefully-scripted paragraph. He argues that the weather should remind you that the climate is getting worse. Well… that and the fact that people who don’t buy into the scheme are horrible people.

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Every now and again I like to play “name that party.” This is the fun parlor game where you read a story about a politician that has either been indicted, arrested, or imprisoned and try to guess by the story from which party he hails. If you read the story and no political party affiliation is mentioned, 99 out of 100 times you can be sure that the troubled pol is a Democrat. However, if it is a Republican that is going to jail or to court his party usually makes the first paragraph if not the headline itself.

Well, today we have yet another edition of “name that party” going on in the Old Line State where Prince George’s County Executive Jack B. Johnson and his wife Leslie have been arrested and charged with tampering with a witness in connection with a criminal offense and destruction of evidence in a federal investigation. Johnson is a Democrat, not that the news helps you learn that little factoid.

As this is breaking news, the story has popped up on the AP, the Washington Post, Reuters, and several other sources. The stories are filled with all sorts of details about the case, what the charges are, the particulars of the crime, the names and offices of those accused, their ages, where they live… all these things fill the various stories that announce the arrest. But one tiny little detail seems to have escaped many of the news stories: the fact that Johnson is a Democrat. It seems like they just plum forgot to mention his political party.

You are shocked, I am sure.

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Two weeks ago the U.K. Guardian gleefully reported that the self-proclaimed “skeptical environmentalist” Bjorn Lomborg, the best-selling writer on the environment, professor, and director of the Copenhagen Consensus think tank, had made a serious acquiescence to the global warming climate change global climate disruption movement that could quite possibly change the face of the entire conversation. From the article:

The world’s most high-profile climate change sceptic is to declare that global warming is “undoubtedly one of the chief concerns facing the world today” and “a challenge humanity must confront”, in an apparent U-turn that will give a huge boost to the embattled environmental lobby.

Bjørn Lomborg, the self-styled “sceptical environmentalist” once compared to Adolf Hitler by the UN’s climate chief, is famous for attacking climate scientists, campaigners, the media and others for exaggerating the rate of global warming and its effects on humans, and the costly waste of policies to stop the problem.

But in a new book to be published next month, Lomborg will call for tens of billions of dollars a year to be invested in tackling climate change. “Investing $100bn annually would mean that we could essentially resolve the climate change problem by the end of this century,” the book concludes.

Lomborg has a unique voice in the climate change debate because while he has always believed in man-made climate change, he doesn’t believe it’s catastrophic nor does he subscribe to the Leonardo DiCaprio/Laurie David school of thought that massive cut backs in carbon emissions is the one and only way to fix the problem. So a “U-turn” from this stance would mean that after years of studying and writing on the matter, he’s all of a sudden become an Inconvenient Truther. Having met Mr. Lomborg just last year and being a fan of his work, this report made me highly… skeptical. (more…)

Contrary to its mission to provide “reliable scientific information,” the United States Geological Survey is perpetrating a climate science fraud, with a little assist from USA Today.

On August 25, the USGS issued a press release titled, “Glaciers Retreating in Asia.” The subheading was even more frightening: “Could Impact Water Supplies for Millions and Cause Flood Conditions.” The subject of the USGS press release was “a report on the status of glaciers throughout all of Asia.”

What it failed to note, however, is that the report is decades old. Six of the seven chapters are based on manuscripts from the early 1980s. And the claim that glaciers are “retreating” in all of Asia is based almost exclusively on information collected from 1963 to 1993 regarding the tiny nation of Bhutan.

In no way does this old and limited data support the alarmist claims in the press release. That didn’t stop the USA Today website from running a story on the USGS study titled, “Asia’s Glaciers in Retreat, Could Signal Crop Failure, Floods in the Future.” Note the similarity of the USA Today title to the erroneous title of the USGS press release. This is the definition of a media echo chamber. (more…)

In the first (and still best) “Austin Powers” film, a United Nations representative makes a faux pas and calls the film’s villain “Mr. Evil.”

“It’s Dr. Evil,” he huffs. “I didn’t spend six years in Evil Medical School to be called ‘mister,’ thank you very much.”

This is how I feel when I’m referred to as a “blogger,” sometimes with a political qualifier like “liberal” or “conservative” attached. I’m a reporter. I’ve been a reporter since high school. Like a lot of other people, I lucked into some reporting jobs that took advantage of the speed of the web — thus, I blogged. And I left the Washington Post because I was intoxicated by this medium and the privileges of reporting. The leak of my private e-mails wouldn’t have been possible 10 years ago; but then, neither would have my career been possible.

Let’s go back to the start. I started in journalism in a fairly typical manner, by discovering how much I liked writing articles and doing interviews at my high school paper. I chose to go to Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. It was there that I became editor of the campus’s weekly conservative paper, and became plugged into the campus conservative journalism network.

Was I really that conservative? Yes. (more…)

USA Today reports that private pay has shrunk to historically low levels, which should send chills down Americans’ spines.  After 17 months, we are finally seeing the anticipated results of Obama’s well-designed policies.  And there are those who still think Obama isn’t intentionally trying to bankrupt the United States through the implementation of government programs, nationalizing of industries, bogus “reforms”–all under the guise of good will and fixing a “broken” system.

The excuse of “Bush created the problems, so we had to spend all this money and implement these reforms” is wearing thin.  And, frankly, if that is true, then why the result of historically low private sector pay and record numbers of people dependent on the government?   Shouldn’t the opposite have happened?  Isn’t that what a stimulus is?  Or, were those supposed stimulus and jobs bills vehicles to facilitate this exact result reported by USA Today?

From the USA Today article:

Paychecks from private business shrank to their smallest share of personal income in U.S. history during the first quarter of this year, a USA TODAY analysis of government data finds.

At the same time, government-provided benefits — from Social Security, unemployment insurance, food stamps and other programs — rose to a record high during the first three months of 2010.

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The media has been trying its hardest to spin this tough new Arizona immigration law for all it’s worth. It’s such a swarm of media agenda journalism that even liberal reporters who write about the travel industry are trying to demonize Arizona over it all.

We can see this in the facile reporting by USA Today’s travel reporter, Barbara De Lollis. Her story, “Arizona immigration law backlash? Traveler says state ‘is off my travel list for sure,’” is a screamer for the wild assumptions and unproved and unprovable assertions made in order to further the Old Media agenda.

De Lollis asserts that there is a “backlash” among travelers over the Arizona legislature’s decision to strengthen its immigration laws. She thinks that the tourist industry in the Grand Canyon State will find itself on the short end of the stick because of “the USA’s toughest immigration law.” (more…)

Recently, USA Today ran a story about Michael Mann, the lead author of the debunked “Hockey Stick” fable and principal actor in ClimateGate. Specifically, the paper bemoans the inevitable slowing of Mann’s ultra-important, (even “stimulus”-funded) research due to McCarthyites like us skeptics who refuse to just accept an economically harmful ideological agenda ostensibly grounded in what has turned out to be the biggest scientific scandal of our time.

This strange assist in the ongoing effort to rehabilitate the warmmongers offers a nice opportunity to mention an email I just found going through a massive document dump from NASA under the Freedom of Information Act. These 1,500 pages were apparently produced at the 11th hour seeking to forestall litigation we had signaled was coming for NASA’s refusal to come into compliance with the transparency statute.

We’re still suing for their refusal to turn over entire categories of information for which the taxpayer paid, and which are highly relevant to the unfolding scandals, which withholding was not changed by these documents. We just have to go over the documents first.

And among the gems we found was an admission that NASA (specifically, its Goddard Institute for Space Studies, or GISS and its GISTEMP data) passes no one’s test for credibility. Rather, according to NASA, it’s worse than the “CRU” temperature data that was the central issue in ClimateGate. That is the temperature record which we now know was for all intents and purposes fabricated. (more…)

The dust-up started with a USA Today editorial entitled “Our view on war on terror: National security team fails to inspire confidence.”  It featured this photo of a confused National Intelligence Director named Dennis Blair.

The bite was in the article’s subtitle: “Officials’ handling of Christmas Day attack looks like amateur hour.”  That left a bruise.

The accompanying photo of Blair was excerpted from a video clip that featured his admission of a “Duh” moment surrounding the initial questioning of Christmas Day would-be bomber Abdulmutallab. Watch the grilling here:

The USAToday piece did everything except compare administration anti-terrorist officials to the Keystone Cops: (more…)

The media have an inadequate understanding of religion. This simple fact is corroborated frequently, as mainstream outlets attempt to illustrate stories, explain religious themes and delve deep into faith-based systems.  Unfortunately, most outlets miss the mark entirely, as journalists do not have proper understanding of the constructs through which they are attempting to report.  As a result, the American public suffers a lack of pointed and well-presented information on a subject that stands at the forefront of important global and domestic issues.

Case in point, Christiane Amanpour’s 2007 CNN mini-series entitled, “God’s Warriors.”  The three-part series delved into the world’s three largest religions – Christianity, Judaism and Islam.  As is typical of the secular media, an enhanced level of relativism led the Iranian-bred Amanpour (born in London to a Persian family) to equate “extremism” within and among adherents to the three religions.  While each belief system has had moral failures, equating the deaths as a result of radical Islamic fascism to those of contemporary Christianity and Judaism is absurd.  Furthermore, as is the case when journalists attempt to cover religion, Amanpour left out essential details that would have provided a more fair-minded picture. (more…)