On Monday morning, Time/MSNBC political analyst Mark Halperin explained an obvious political reality to his fellow Morning Joe panelists: “The White House does not have much incentive” to negotiate on the government shutdown, because Democrats expect the liberal news media to hand them a public relations victory. As Halperin put it: “The press is largely sympathetic to their arguments that it’s the House Republicans’ fault.”
In fact, as a new Media Research Center analysis of broadcast network evening news coverage shows, ABC, CBS and NBC spent the two weeks prior to the shutdown almost universally pinning the blame on congressional Republicans, especially conservative/Tea Party House Republicans. By the time the shutdown actually took place on October 1, news audiences had been repeatedly instructed to think about it as a GOP-generated crisis.
From September 17 through September 30, the Big Three evening newscasts ran a total of 39 stories about the possibility of a government shutdown. Our MRC analysts found that a majority of those stories (21) were framed around the idea of Republicans triggering the crisis, compared to four that blamed both sides and absolutely none that put the onus on Democrats’ failure to negotiate. (The remaining 14 stories did not include discussion of blame.)
As explained by network news correspondents, the responsibility for the deadlock lies with Republicans for failing to put aside their opposition to ObamaCare. Talking about the initial House Republican decision to seek defunding of the health care law, CBS Evening News correspondent Nancy Cordes on September 18 said “Speaker Boehner was forced into the risky strategy by his right flank...[a strategy] one Senate Republican described to us today as suicide.”
Two days later, NBC’s Brian Williams argued that “the wheels were set in motion” toward a potential shutdown after “Republicans in the House passed a bill that would keep the government going while killing ObamaCare.” A week later, on the September 27 Nightly News, NBC’s David Gregory zeroed in on “a relatively small group of legislators, you have Tea Party conservatives in the House who don’t want to give up on this ObamaCare defunding fight.”
By Sunday, September 29, after Harry Reid’s Senate had killed the proposal to cut off ObamaCare funding, the networks characterized the much-milder demand for a one-year delay as too radical to consider. According to NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell that night, “Tea Party conservatives held to their risky demand,” while on CBS, Nancy Cordes argued that “House Speaker John Boehner had hoped to dial back this fight, but was urged to press on by conservative Tea Party members.”
The next night, after Republicans had retreated to an even-milder proposal to delay just the individual mandate (the President himself, in July, had ordered such a delay for the mandate on businesses), ABC’s Diane Sawyer presented Obama’s characterization of the situation as reality: “The President expressed outrage that one faction in one House of Congress is ready to bring the entire federal government to a halt.”
But Sawyer’s hyperbole about “the entire federal government” coming to a halt was contradicted by her own correspondent, Jonathan Karl, a few minutes later: “Not everything gets shut down. Troops will continue to get paid, Social Security checks will continue to go out.”
Meanwhile, on that night’s CBS Evening News, Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer framed it as a crisis caused by “ultra-conservatives.” According to Schieffer, the question was “will the moderate and more establishment Republicans continue to go along with the ultra-conservatives?...We’re headed to a shutdown unless the moderates in the House revolt.”
As for the rare story that blamed both sides, ABC’s Karl on the September 26 World News juxtaposed Republicans’ “laundry list of demands” with a White House that “has decided not to try” to strike a deal. “Instead of negotiating, they are name calling,” Karl reported. “Today, one of the President’s top aides said of Republicans, quote, ‘What we’re not for is negotiating with people with a bomb strapped to their chest.’”
In a White House briefing on Monday, CNN’s Jim Acosta actually confronted spokesman Jay Carney about the tactic of seeming to “taunt Republicans” rather than exploring the potential for a constructive dialogue.
Acosta told Carney: “In the last couple of weeks, Democrats, including the President, have — and he has not used all of these words, but I’ll throw out some of them that have been used — have referred to Republicans as ‘arsonists,’ ‘anarchists,’ ‘extortionists,’ ‘blackmailers,’ ‘hostage-takers.’...It almost sounds as if this White House is trying to taunt Republicans into shutting the government down.”
If Democratic congressmen, or a Democratic Speaker of the House, pursuing a liberal policy objective, was subjected to similar ridicule or insults from a Republican President or a Republican Senate Majority Leader, you can bet that the networks would have made such language the centerpiece of their coverage.
Instead, the media have chosen to foist all of the blame on conservatives for sticking to their promise to oppose ObamaCare.
No — I am not calling the Secret Service incompetent. In fact, I’m pointing the finger of blame in an entirely different direction. I’m quite sure that the Secret Service always dutifully investigates any threat to the president of which it becomes aware. But that’s the key right there: of which it becomes aware. The Secret Service has only a limited budget and a limited number of investigators, and so can’t be present to witness every potential threat as it appears. Often, the Secret Service is only alerted to a possible threat by reports in the media. And the media is the weak link.
I contend that the media is aggressively reporting on, highlighting and pursuing any and all possible threats to President Obama — and even hints of threats — but they purposely glossed over, ignored or failed to report similar threats to President Bush. Why? I believe it is part of an ideological bias: most mainstream networks and newspapers tried their best during the Bush administration to portray the anti-war movement as mainstream and moderate; whereas now they are trying to portray the anti-tax and anti-health-care-bill protesters as extremists and as fringe kooks. To achieve these goals, they essentially suppressed any mentions of the violent signage (including threats to Bush) at anti-war rallies, but have highlighted anything that could even conceivably be construed as a threat at anti-Obama events.
I believe this partly accounts for the 400% increase in reported threats against Obama over those against President Bush. Part of that reported increase in investigated threats is undoubtedly due to an increase in actual threats; but part of it is almost certainly due to an increase in threats which get reported by the media and are therefore brought to the Secret Service’s attention.
...How long before married people answer the dictators thus: Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage, and help me raise my children in a society where they will expect to marry in their turn.
I wonder if DC comics is aware that Card has threatened to destroy the government over gay marriage?
I didn't see anything in Card's statement about guns, bombs, or violent revolution of any kind. He simply said he will oppose in every way he can an immoral government that imposes unfair laws and intrudes on the rights of its citizens. Like Walesa. Like Gandhi.
But again reminding you of your convoluted double-standard, M E M...
Not to mention, comics stories that favorably endorse and promote the gay lifestyle are equally offensive to the rest of us, as Card's personal opinions of gays are to a few intolerant liberals. I would venture to guess that to most of the public, a story that promotes homosexuality is more offensive than a story that condemns homosexuality.
Score another one for the "tolerant" voice of liberalism.
...you don't seem to have the slightest problem with the most blatant calls for violent action, or the most graphic editorial glee in the notion of killing, a CONSERVATIVE/REPUBLICAN government.
Liberals who bemoan discrimination, intolerance, restraint of Constitutional freedoms, and promotion of hatred toward various abberant minorities, have absolutely no problem with discriminating against, being intolerant of, restricting Constitutional freedoms of, and directing hate-filled scapegoat rhetoric against conservatives.
EXACTLY what they accuse Republicans/conservatives of doing, is EXACTLY what liberals/Democrats do themselves, to those who oppose their beliefs.
CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson has reached an agreement to resign from CBS News ahead of contract, bringing an end to months of hard-fought negotiations, sources familiar with her departure told POLITICO on Monday.
Attkisson, who has been with CBS News for two decades, had grown frustrated with what she saw as the network’s liberal bias, an outsize influence by the network’s corporate partners and a lack of dedication to investigative reporting, several sources said. She increasingly felt that her work was no longer supported and that it was a struggle to get her reporting on air.
At the same time, Attkisson’s reporting on the Obama administration, which some staffers characterized as agenda-driven, had led network executives to doubt the impartiality of her reporting. She is currently at work on a book — tentatively titled “Stonewalled: One Reporter’s Fight for Truth in Obama’s Washington” — that addresses the challenges of reporting critically on the administration.
(more at link)
I love the way the character assassins at Politico felt a need to slander the reputation of a highly awarded investigative reporter, who has broken scandals on both Democrat and Republican administrations.
The part about "which some staffers characterized as agenda-driven, had led network executives to doubt the impartiality of her reporting" means CBS desperately coming up with a counter-narrative to CBS' Obama-cock-slurping editorial leadership not wanting to air stories that are objectively critical of the Annointed One. Stories they would eagerly report if they were critical of a Republican president or administration.
And Politico being perfectly happy to front the slander.
Attkisson still recognizes that her job is to objectively report the news, regardless of which party is in power, and apparently hasn't gotten the Obama Newspeak memo that everyone else at CBS has. A message now loud and clear to any reporters staying at CBS.
Fast & Furious, Benghazi, Solyndra, the ObamaCare rollout — [Attkisson]’s spent the last five years digging into all of them. In a different world, she would have been promoted to “60 Minutes”; as it is, per Politico, she spent months negotiating an early end to her contract with CBS. The bit above about her being frustrated with liberal bias rings true, too. She’s been complaining about that, albeit in more oblique terms, for a long time now.
BBC executives have been forced to admit what critics have known for years - that the corporation is institutionally biased.
The revelation came after details of an 'impartiality' summit called by its chairman, Michael Grade, were leaked.
Senior figures admitted that the BBC is guilty of promoting Left-wing views and an anti-Christian sentiment.
They also said that as an organisation it was disproportionately over-represented by gays and ethnic minorities.
It was also suggested that the Beeb is guilty of political correctness, the overt promotion of multiculturalism and of being anti-American and against the countryside.
During the meeting, hosted by Sue Lawley, executives admitted they would happily broadcast the image of a Bible being thrown away - but would not do the same for the Koran.
Muslim leaders later condemned this approach.
Ishmail Farhat of the Muslim Association of Britain said: "We don't support this kind of action or abuse. If they are respecting all religions - then they should treat all religions the same."
The BBC executives also agreed that the BBC should broadcast an interview with Osama Bin Laden, despite the offence it would cause.
Even one of the BBC's most senior journalists, political pundit Andrew Marr admitted that the corporation was unrepresentative of British society.
He said: "The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It's a publicly-funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities and gay people.
"It has a liberal bias not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias."
BBC 'diversity tsar' Mary Fitzpatrick claimed women newsreaders should be allowed to wear what they liked on air and went on to say this should include a Muslim veil.
She spoke out after criticism was raised of TV newsreader Fiona Bruce wearing a necklace with a cross on it.
'We may have gone too far in the direction of political correctness'
The BBC's Washington correspondent Justin Webb also accused his own employers of being anti-American saying they treated it with scorn and derision and "no moral weight".
He revealed that he had got deputy director general Mark Byford to secretly help him to "correct" it in his reports.
Business presenter Jeff Randall said he complained to a senior executive at the BBC about the corporation's pro-multiculturalism stance.
He claimed he was told: "The BBC is not neutral in multiculturalism, it believes in it and it promotes it."
He told how he once wore Union Jack cufflinks to work and was rebuked with: "You can't do that, that's like the National Front!"
One senior BBC executive admitted that the summit had opened people's eyes to how biased the BBC had become.
He admitted: "There was a widespread acknowledgement that we may have gone too far in the direction of political correctness.
"Unfortunately, much of it is so deeply embedded in the BBC's culture, that it is very hard to change it."
The BBC is believed to be taking a more critical look at itself because it fears if it does not, its regulation could be removed from its board of governors and handed over to the independent regulator Ofcom.
Is anyone surprised by this? When the obvious becomes obvious, admit it, I guess.
"When 99 percent of women used birth control in their lifetime and 60 percent use it for something other than family planning, it's outrageous and I think the Supreme Court will suggest that their case is ridiculous." - Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz on MSNBC's The Ed Show, March 25
Debbie Wasserman Schultz may have gotten two Pinocchios from Washington Post "Fact Checker" Glenn Kessler Monday for that statement above, but she got off easy.
The 60 percent number is a big lie. The real number is 14 percent.
The 60 percent lie wasn't even the first lie of the sentence. 99 percent of all women do not use birth control in their lifetime. In fact, by age 44, only 86.8 percent of women have ever had vaginal intercourse, even once.
Wasserman Schultz's two lies were meant to support a third lie. It doesn't matter to the HHS contraception mandate debate how many women use "the pill" to regulate hormones or for some other medical purpose other than birth control, because the minute the pill is used for something other than birth control, it falls outside the contraception mandate. And since it falls outside the contraception mandate part of ObamaCare, it doesn't matter what happens to that particular mandate in the courts for those who simply want coverage for a drug to regulate hormones, or for some other necessary medical purpose.
Wasserman Schultz wanted the audience to believe a fourth lie. Wasserman Schultz wanted viewers to believe some people (religious conservatives, of course) are trying to block women's access to routine health care. But nobody is. Even the Catholic Church, which famously objects to artificial birth control, does not object to women taking the pill for non-birth control purposes, and does not object to insurance policies covering the pill for non-contraceptive reasons.
It strains credibility to think Wasserman Schultz is, after years of debate in this topic, unaware that the vast majority of women who take the pill use it for birth control. It is very unlikely she truly believes 99 percent of all women use birth control at some time in their lives (are the lesbians using it too, or doesn't Wasserman Schultz believe in the existence of lesbians? How about the devout Catholics? Women who like children? Women who marry late or never? Women who know they can't get pregnant? And so forth.). And Wasserman Schultz has to know that a drug prescribed for something other than birth control does not fall under a birth control regulation, and two minutes on Google would show her that the Catholic Church does not object to the pill, or insurance coverage for same, for non-birth control purposes.
Kessler's Pinocchios grading scale grades two Pinocchios for "significant omissions and/or exaggerations." Kessler said Wasserman Schultz's ten words ("60 percent use it for something other than family planning") qualified as such.
I say Wasserman Schultz should be graded on her entire sentence: four lies. A "whopper" - four Pinocchios.
If you wanted to use a devious method to deceive people who are trying to differentiate between truth and lies on the Internet how would you do it? If you were extremely devious and had no conscience, you might set up a Web site with some official and unbiased sounding name that claims to be the encyclopedia of truth to be used as a tool for anyone who has the same biased view and wants to make believe to "back it up" with what they would like you to think is "indisputable fact."
That is exactly what Web sites like factcheck.org are. They are biased, politically motivated propaganda Web sites, manned and funded by biased political organizations who set up the sites for the sole purpose of deviously "backing up" the political arguments of those who hold the same views that they do. It's kind of like you have a friend who is in on your lie, and you use him to back up your story and don't tell anyone else he is your friend.
Just because they use a name that implies unbiased assessments, doesn't mean that they provide them. You can call your Web site anything you want. I can set up a web site called thetruth.org or realfacts.com or stopthelies.org and post any kind of biased political propaganda I want on it. The name means nothing. And in the case of sites like factcheck.org, the name is intentionally misleading and deceptive. But it isn't the only so called "fact check" site that is a fraud. There are others.
Think about it. Would you rely on any particular Web site to get the "truth?" Anyone honest would tell you that you should NOT rely solely on them to get your facts. You should get them by considering many different and sources, with different points of view and opinions and arrive at what you believe to be the truth by using your own God given senses. Only con artists purport to be the de facto source of truth.
If you look behind the scenes at these phony "fact check" sites, you find that they are funded by organizations with political biases. You must always ask yourself. Who is writing about this so-called "truth." Who funds the site and pays their expenses. What are the origins and history of the funders and who are they associated with. In the case of factcheck.org they receive their funding from the liberal Annenberg Foundation.
The Annenberg Foundation was originally founded by Walter J. Annenberg, a conservative who supported Ronald Reagan. However, when Walter Annenberg died, his family took over the management of the foundation and it took a turn to the far left and has ties to radical left individuals such as Bill Ayers and his friend and fellow left wing radical colleague Barack Obama. How is factcheck.org associated with these people:
To start, Ayers was the key founder of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which was a Chicago public school reform project from 1995 to 2001. Upon its start in 1995, Obama was appointed Board Chairman and President of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Geesh, that alone connects all three. Well, it branches out even more from there.
Ayers co-chaired the organization’s Collaborative, which set the education policies of the Challenge. Oddly enough, Obama was the one who was authorized to delegate to the Collaborative in regards to its programs and projects. In addition to that, Obama often times had to seek advice and assistance from the Ayer’s led Collaborative in regards to the programmatic aspects of grant proposals. Ayers even sat on the same board as Obama as an “ex officio member”. They both also sat together on the board of the CAC’s Governance Committee. Obama and Ayers were two parts of a group of four who were instructed to draft the bylaws that would govern the CAC. Keep in mind that the “A” in CAC is for Annenberg, the owners of FactCheck.org. The funding for Ayer’s projects and those of his cronies was approved by Board Chair, Barack Obama.
Most of the good factchecks I've seen source their stuff in a way you can check and determine yourself how non-biased it is. Do they leave something out or exaggerate? Is the subject a matter of being a fact or an opinion? Or something in-between?
Liberals who bemoan discrimination, intolerance, restraint of Constitutional freedoms, and promotion of hatred toward various abberant minorities, have absolutely no problem with discriminating against, being intolerant of, restricting Constitutional freedoms of, and directing hate-filled scapegoat rhetoric against conservatives.
EXACTLY what they accuse Republicans/conservatives of doing, is EXACTLY what liberals/Democrats do themselves, to those who oppose their beliefs.
It’s no secret that television news has long been addicted to public opinion polls; decades ago, all three broadcast networks decided to partner with an influential newspaper (ABC News with the Washington Post; CBS News with the New York Times; and NBC News with the Wall Street Journal) to sponsor their own regular surveys for use in their political coverage. That’s why it’s so extraordinary that polling news has practically vanished from the Big Three evening newscasts in 2014 as President Obama’s approval ratings have tumbled and the public opposes [the White House's] defining administration policies like ObamaCare.
Just last Thursday, for example, Gallup found Obama’s approval rating at a record low of 38 percent, yet none of the three broadcast networks bothered to mention this on their evening or morning newscasts. Such coverage is in stunning contrast to how those same newscasts relentlessly emphasized polls showing bad news for George W. Bush during the same phase of his presidency. Media Research Center analysts reviewed every reference on the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts to public opinion polls from January 1 through August 31, 2014, and from the same time period in 2006. Eight years ago, the networks aired 124 evening news reports which cited public opinion polls about either President Bush’s overall approval rating or his handling of specific policies. In 2014, those same broadcasts produced only nine reports which mentioned public opinion surveys related to President Obama.
In Bush’s case, the networks routinely highlighted his falling approval ratings to illustrate his political weakness, and regularly cited polling data showing public disapproval of policies such as the Iraq war. This year, even as President Obama has suffered his own political meltdown, the networks have spared him from such coverage.
This year, the three broadcast networks have conducted 15 polls asking people to rate Barack Obama’s performance as President; 13 of those showed at least 50% of the public now disapproving of how Obama is handling his job. Yet the Big Three evening newscasts have essentially ignored their own polls, plus the dozens of others conducted by news organizations and universities that are commonly cited in routine political coverage. So far this year, there have been only two citations on an evening newscast of President Obama’s national job approval rating.
“Obama has the lowest average approval rating of any President after five years in office,” correspondent Jon Karl announced on the January 28 edition of ABC’s World News. Seven months later on the August 31 edition of the CBS Evening News — a Sunday evening on a holiday weekend — political director John Dickerson opined that Democrats are facing a tough midterm election because the President’s “approval rating is just above 40%.”
For its part, the NBC Nightly News has failed to report Obama’s overall approval rating during the first eight months of 2014, despite having conducted five nationwide polls on the subject. (While not discussions of Obama’s approval rating, on the January 26 edition of ABC’s World News, anchor David Muir noted a poll showing “just 37% believe the President has the ability to make the right decisions for the country.” A month later, CBS’s Scott Pelley told viewers that his network’s latest poll found “59% say they’re disappointed” with Obama’s presidency.”)
[more at link]
That's pretty amazing, the networks pay for polls, and then don't publish the results of their own polls, when it doesn't favor the Democrats!
The contrasting firestorm of media condemnation of Bush in 2006-2008 during the troop surge, vs. the media silence during Obama's plummet in the polls, is quite remarkable. Gee, you'd almost think... they were biased or something!
I again strongly believe that while Bush and Obama's numbers are about equal for this point in their respective presidencies, it has to be considered that Bush's numbers were with the media vitriolically and unrelentingly ATTACKING HIM, and Obama having the same numbers despite the media unrelentingly PROTECTING him!
There might actually be greater symbolism than the artist intended in that last one. It has the "Lapdog media" driving the car, while Obama is asleep in the passenger seat, as the car (and the country) goes over the cliff.
Manifesting that while Obama doesn't care, and is essentially asleep, the media still shape the narrative for Obama, continuing to give Obama their support, all the way down to the cliff bottom.
Andrew Klavan often appears on Mediabuzz on Sundays with Howard Kurtz.
He hits on several issues we've hit on here before.
1) the liberal bias of the news media 2) the liberal bias/indoctrination in our schools and universities 3) the liberal bias in movies and television entertainment 4) reporters have learned to lie about their liberal bias and now more often answer polls as "independent". But their political donations reveal them as 88% liberal despite their best efforts to project otherwise
and 5) conservatives volunteer more and are more financially generous than liberals (despite being portrayed by all the above media as heartless and selfish) 6) conservatives are smarter and more open to opposing views than liberals.
One that didn't fully occur to me before is that conservatives are more liberal, in terms of free speech, free thought and freedom from government regulation and censorship. At some point in the last 70 years or so, Democrats successfully marketed that actual freedom isn't liberal, and that their brand of re-packaged Marxism is.
Probably because, as they say in the clip, it only would have been news/racist/an outrage/whatever, if a conservative had said it. But since it was MSNBC anchor Contessa Brewer, it's like it never even happened.
Sharpton, Jackson, whatever. If it was Fox News who made the error, the collective media would make a big deal about it, alleging Fox reporters to be racists who think all blacks look alike.
Another far greater error by MSNBC anchor Contessa Brewer, where she bemoans a white racist Tea Party member with a gun at Glenn Beck's "rally to restore honor" in Washington DC (the 3rd largest protest in Washington's history). But with selective editing zooming in on the gun, it hid that the "white racist" gun owner was actually black!
I miss Gutfeld's "Gregalogue" on Redeye. Great commentary, scathing as well as very funny.
Donald Trump’s claim that the “crooked media” has it in for him has prompted much soul-searching with the Fourth Estate, and its conclusion appears to be that he's right -- and that's just fine with some news organizations.
“I’m not running against Crooked Hillary,” Trump told a crowd in Fairfield, Conn., last week. “I’m running against the crooked media.”
Lately some, including The New York Times, Vox and Bill Moyers’ website, have not only owned up to Trump's accusation, they've embraced it.
“If you deplore media cowardice, you might think this is a good thing, not because Trump is a mortal danger to this country, although he is, but because it means the press is doing its job,” Neil Gabler wrote on the journalism website of Moyers, the longtime PBS newsman who cut his teeth as a spokesman for Democratic President Lyndon Johnson. “Call it partisan bias if you like. I call it journalism.”
Ezra Klein, the Vox writer who as a Washington Post staffer organized a secret society of left-wing reporters dubbed “JournoList” that was shut down after it was exposed in 2010, acknowledged that the press is not giving Trump traditional treatment.
“The media has felt increasingly free to cover Trump as an alien, dangerous, and dishonest phenomenon,” Klein wrote last week.
New York Times’ media critic Jim Rutenberg wrote that journalists who personally oppose Trump had an obligation to “throw out the textbook” when it came to coverage of The Donald.
“If you’re a working journalist and you believe that Donald J. Trump is a demagogue playing to the nation’s worst racist and nationalistic tendencies, that he cozies up to anti-American dictators and that he would be dangerous with control of the United States nuclear codes, how the heck are you supposed to cover him?” Rutenberg wondered in a front-page article earlier this month.
When it comes to covering Trump, it’s only fair to be unfair, according to The Atlantic.
“All things considered, the press has responded defensibly to the unusual challenges of covering a brazen, habitual liar,” Conor Friedersdorf wrote in a recent column titled, “The Exaggerated Claims of Media Bias Against Donald Trump.”
Has anyone else noticed that EVERY SINGLE REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE since Gerald Ford has been portrayed as a dangerous choice who would get us into a war? That every Republican candidate since Reagan has been portrayed as an entitled out-of-touch blue blood who doesn't have the experience and understanding of the issues of the American people to lead them.
That every Republican since Gerald Ford has been portrayed as an imaginationless simpleton (and in contrast Dukakis, Bill Clinton, Gore, Kerry and Obama are portrayed as brilliant scholarly visionaries far superior to their Republican opposition, and in the cases of Gore and Kerry, were later proven to be lower academic achievers than even George W. Bush.)
So... when the liberal pundits try to sell us that Donald Trump is temperamentally unfit for office, rich and out of touch with the people, a warmonger who is dangerous to be holding the nuclear button, a bigot and a simpleton (a simpleton who has accumulated personal wealth of 4 billion dollars!) the media's portrayal of Trump really can't be believed. Trump is not exceptionally dangerous and unqualified, the media has proven for roughly 45 years that ANY Republican will get the same treatment.
Liberals who bemoan discrimination, intolerance, restraint of Constitutional freedoms, and promotion of hatred toward various abberant minorities, have absolutely no problem with discriminating against, being intolerant of, restricting Constitutional freedoms of, and directing hate-filled scapegoat rhetoric against conservatives.
EXACTLY what they accuse Republicans/conservatives of doing, is EXACTLY what liberals/Democrats do themselves, to those who oppose their beliefs.
Hillary Clinton gave a disputable description of the location of Mosul, the largest city held by the Islamic State group, during Wednesday’s final major-party presidential debate, but pundits and the press did not pounce.
In contrast to the intense news coverage of Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson’s moment of confusion about Aleppo, Syria, during an MSNBC interview last month, Clinton’s arguable misstatement about the major Iraqi city attracted just a handful of tweets.
“What's really important here is to understand all the interplay. Mosul is a Sunni city. Mosul is on the border of Syria,” the Democratic nominee told a domestic audience of about 70 million during the debate made memorable by bitter barbs and insults.
Mosul is not directly on the border with Syria, which is about 100 miles to the west or 75 miles northwest to the nearest border crossing. Ireland is closer to Wales. Montreal is nearer to New York state and Damascus, Syria’s capital, is closer to Israel – either its de facto or internationally recognized borders.
“The obvious response is there is a very hypocritical double standard here,” Johnson tells U.S. News. “If anyone ought to know geographic locations, it’s Hillary.”
I thought President Trump did a spectacular job of drawing attention to the unprecedented liberal media bias against him at the end of last year, by (click-bait style) producing a "top 10" list of the most biased media stories about him in 2017.
I guess it would bother me if a democratic president railed against our free and independent press like Spanky does while he lies. And equating fake with negative news you don't like isn't a principled stance. Sad to see bad behavior like our president's constant dishonesty get cheered on by some.
I guess it would bother me if a democratic president railed against our free and independent press like Spanky does while he lies. And equating fake with negative news you don't like isn't a principled stance. Sad to see bad behavior like our president's constant dishonesty get cheered on by some.
I guess you forgot how Obama attempted to ban Fox News from the White House press conferences early in his term (until other news agencies objected and surprisingly sided with Fox News).
And how the Obama administration pushed for the arrest of Fox News reporter James Rosen and another reporter.
And how even reporters from the New York Times and Washington Post (definitely not Republicans) who had dealt with multiple administrations of both parties for 30 to 40 years, described the Obama administration as the most "control freak" administration they had ever dealt with, in their authoritarian lockdown and tracking of leakers like no previous administration.
So authoritarian, they used illegal FISA warrants gotten on falsified evidence to spy on the Trump campaign and administration.
I didn't forget about Obama vs FOX. There is actually a thread when it happened and unlike yourself with the orange turd I was critical of it. Likewise other news organizations also backed fox. Maybe you should reread it and see how far you've lowered the bar for Spanky. I don't have time for unproven partisan accusations. I'm sure if there was actually a case to be made there actually would be made legally outside of Hannity world. Even with corrupt trump in power they can't do it.
Feel free to show me where, in 27 pages of the topic throughout Obama's presidency, you objected to the Obama administration's going after Fox and reporters investigating them, and even intimidating pollsters Obama didn't like.
In September 2009, the Obama administration engaged in a verbal conflict with Fox News Channel. On September 20, President Barack Obama appeared on all major news programs except Fox News, a snub partially in response to remarks about him by commentators Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, and Fox coverage of Obama's health-care proposal.[191][192]
In late September 2009, Obama senior advisor David Axelrod and Roger Ailes met in secret to attempt to smooth out tensions between the two camps. Two weeks later, chief of staff Rahm Emanuel referred to FNC as "not a news network" and communications director Anita Dunn said "Fox News often operates as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party".[193][194] Obama observed, "If media is operating basically as a talk radio format, then that's one thing, and if it's operating as a news outlet, then that's another".[195] White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said it was important "to not have the CNNs and the others in the world basically be led in following Fox".[196]
Within days, it was reported that Fox had been excluded from an interview with administration official Ken Feinberg, with bureau chiefs from the White House press pool (ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN) coming to Fox's defense.[197] A bureau chief said, "If any member had been excluded it would have been the same thing, it has nothing to do with Fox or the White House or the substance of the issues".[198] Shortly after the story broke, the White House admitted to a low-level mistake, saying Fox had not made a specific request to interview Feinberg. Fox White House correspondent Major Garrett said he had not made a specific request, but had a "standing request from me as senior White House correspondent on Fox to interview any newsmaker at the Treasury at any given time news is being made".[199]
On November 8, 2009, the Los Angeles Times reported an unnamed Democratic consultant was warned by the White House not to appear on Fox News again. According to the article, Anita Dunn claimed in an e-mail to have checked with colleagues who "deal with TV issues" and had been told nobody was instructed to avoid Fox. Patrick Caddell, a Fox News contributor and former pollster for President Jimmy Carter, said he had spoken with other Democratic consultants who had received similar warnings from the White House.[200]
Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has uncovered documents from the Obama Department of Treasury showing that the Obama administration, contrary to its repeated denials, attempted to exclude the Fox News Channel (FNC) from a round of interviews with Treasury’s “Executive Pay Czar” Kenneth Feinberg. The documents, which include email exchanges within the Department of the Treasury and between Treasury and White House staff, also provide colorful evidence of an anti-Fox News bias within the Obama White House.
The documents, obtained last week by Judicial Watch pursuant to an October, 28, 2009, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, concern a series of interviews with Feinberg, who served as the Special Master for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) Executive Compensation, on October 22, 2009, organized by the Treasury Department. According to press reports, the Fox News Channel was specifically excluded from joining the pool of reporters which precipitated a backlash among the networks and a reversal by the Obama Treasury Department.
According to The New York Times: “Fox’s television news competitors refused to go along with a Treasury Department effort on Thursday [October 22, 2009] to exclude Fox from a round of interviews with the executive-pay czar Kenneth R. Feinberg that was to be conducted with a ‘pool’ camera crew…”. Fox News Channel’s James Rosen reported this backlash forced the Obama administration to reconsider its position on the matter: “The Washington bureau chiefs of the five TV news network consulted and decided that none of them would interview Feinberg unless Fox was included, and the administration relented…,” reported Rosen. Ultimately, after other media representatives objected, Fox News Channel was allowed to participate in the interviews.
…[details at link]
As I pointed out at the time, the other news agencies refused to go along with the exclusion of Fox News, because if that were allowed to happen, the Obama administration would have used the same tactics to force other more liberal news agencies to likewise be compliant to Obama administration wishes, forced to give favorable coverage, or similarly be excluded like Fox News.
Paraphrasing Pastor Martin Neimoller: "First they came for Fox News..."
The collective mainstream media saw where this was going, and didn't go along with it.
Okaay, you answered my question from the Press is liberal topic....
Originally Posted By: Wonder Boy
Feel free to show me where, in 27 pages of the topic throughout Obama's presidency, you objected to the Obama administration's going after Fox and reporters investigating them, and even intimidating pollsters Obama didn't like.
...in the Free Speech in the era of Obama topic. So way back (2014), you did condemn the Obama attempt to shut out Fox News. I commend you on that occasion taking a stand against the bad judgement your own party, and your siding instead in favor of free speech.
Do you take the same stand against Obama/Democrat authoritarianism, in using illegal FISA warrants to weaponize law enforcement against Republicans to spy on the Trump campaign? And to simultaneously corrupt the system by handing out immunity to Hillary operatives like candy, to avoid prosecution of Hillary Clinton, while weaponizing FBI/DOJ on manufactured charges against Trump? While that is a federal power issue, the fact that the press, rather than reporting on that, is flying cover for the abuses of the Democrats (unlike during Watergate), makes it once again a free speech/free press issue.
Liberals who bemoan discrimination, intolerance, restraint of Constitutional freedoms, and promotion of hatred toward various abberant minorities, have absolutely no problem with discriminating against, being intolerant of, restricting Constitutional freedoms of, and directing hate-filled scapegoat rhetoric against conservatives.
EXACTLY what they accuse Republicans/conservatives of doing, is EXACTLY what liberals/Democrats do themselves, to those who oppose their beliefs.
In a current example, the Mueller investigation completed their investigation, and Mueller submitted his report to attorney general Barr for review a week ago on Friday, March 22.
The media have had a week now to get past the first rumors or bad impulses and actually report the news. But instead they have fallen into line with their Democrat masters, avoided the truth, and just pivoted on Pelosi's orders to the latest Democrat talking-points-false-narrative the collective broadcast liberal media subject to a healthcare narrative.
Carlson rightly points out that the CNN, MASNBC, New York Times, Washington Post and the other collective liberal media have all followed the same marching orders and deflected from the truth. And in doing so have proven themselves to be a propaganda machine and a super-PAC for the Democrat party, and abandoned all pretense of being objective news sources. Even when it has caused them a precipitous drop of 50% of their audience.
And as Carlson cites, this is one of several rare glimpses of the liberal-narrative sausage being made behind the scenes. Just as in the previous examples of Journo-List, and in the Wikileaks exposure in July 2016 of internal DNC communications with journalists. Where reporters were coordinating to help the DNC win the election, asking permission to run or not run stories to benefit Hillary. Brainstorming ideas of how to slander and bring down the Republicans and Berni Sanders in the eager service of their bitch queen.
If they were human beings with ethics and not unholy things of the darkness, they would feel shame, or at least the slightest embarassment, the slightest need to at least appear ethical. But no. They are what they are.
Tucker Carlson gave another example last night of the liberal media orchestrating a pro-DNC/anti-Trump message, in this case holding and postponing a story to benefit the Democrats politically.
This example with the Yashar Ali, a freelance reporter, who was pressured by NBC executive Dafna Linzer to delay and hold a story so the Democrat political leaders could be contacted and coordinate before the story would be released. And Linzer essentially, outraged and annoyed, saying "What's the big deal, we do this all the time!" Manifesting this is not an isolated case. The isolated case is any reporter (Yashar Ali) resisting this DNC/liberal media conspiracy. And it makes clear something that hadn't been visible before that reporters like Yashar Ali who cooperate in this might not be part of a willing conspiracy, but cooperate with the conspiratorss because to do otherwise would result in the destruction of their journalism careers.
Carlson's opening editorial on the White House Correspondents' dinner (which President Trump rightly snubbed for the third year in a row) is a perfect example of the bias, lack of integrity and hypocrisy of the liberal news media, as they use the event to congratulate themselves for being the Great Defenders Of Free Speech, even as they suppress free speech outside of their own liberal bubble of free speech, in the Newspeak propaganda they produce.
They congratulate themselves (at the dinner) as whistleblowers, even as they destroy whistleblowers that expose their own lack of integrity. They bash Trump as the great threat to free speech, ignoring that Trump beyond some off the cuff remarks has never used his presidential power to suppress the media, ignoring the many ways that Barack Obama ACTUALLY DID use his presidential power to attack the media.
And the examples Carlson gives are abundant. The news media have become the defenders of tyranny and deception of the DNC and the corporate/globalist machine that runs it, not of truth.
Liberals who bemoan discrimination, intolerance, restraint of Constitutional freedoms, and promotion of hatred toward various abberant minorities, have absolutely no problem with discriminating against, being intolerant of, restricting Constitutional freedoms of, and directing hate-filled scapegoat rhetoric against conservatives.
EXACTLY what they accuse Republicans/conservatives of doing, is EXACTLY what liberals/Democrats do themselves, to those who oppose their beliefs.
