By Tom Blumer | December 25, 2015 | 11:58 PM EST

In a year-end interview with National Public Radio, President Barack Obama largely blamed "a saturation of news" coming from a media which "is pursuing ratings" for growing concerns in America over the ability of ISIS and other terrorists to conduct attacks on U.S. soil, and indicated that "it's up to the media to make a determination about how they want to cover things."

It's reasonable to believe that Obama was telling the press corps, which already works furiously to prop him up, that they need to cut back on their reporting of domestic terrorist activities, arrests and court proceedings. It seems fair to say that the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, quickly took that advice to heart in its selective coverage of the saga of Abdirizak Mohamed Warsame, and that its selectivity has kept a noteworthy story very quiet.

By Tom Blumer | December 21, 2015 | 10:55 PM EST

Did you hear about the university which advertised for "a tenure-track Assistant Professor position that will be filled by a White American or Asian American"? Of course you didn't, because it didn't happen. But it's not difficult to imagine the outrage which would justifiably ensue if such an ad were ever placed.

Well, last week it became widely known that the University of Louisville placed an ad for a "tenure-track Assistant Professor position" which specified the racial/ethnic makeup of who would be considered eligible. It was removed after appearing for almost two months. Thanks to the wonders of Google cache, readers can see the relevant portion below (HT Progressives Today):

By Tom Blumer | December 14, 2015 | 2:42 PM EST

Imagine a Republican or conservative governor boasting of his or her use of "the coercive power of government" to accomplish center-right policy goals. The political and media backlash would be furious — and justified.

Such statist rhetoric is becoming ever more commonplace on the left, and is rising to ever higher political levels. The establishment press is mostly ignoring this development, and usually omits related inflammatory assertions from its coverage. Statements relating to "climate change" have especially been reinforcing David Horowitz's old adage that "Inside every liberal is a totalitarian screaming to get out" for several months. Last week in Paris, California Governor Jerry Brown let his inner totalitarian out several times. A video of one such example follows the jump.

By Tom Blumer | December 13, 2015 | 11:24 PM EST

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Thursday that Joshua Williams "was sentenced ... to eight years in prison for starting a fire at a QuikTrip in Berkeley (a St. Louis suburb) after an officer-involved shooting there." The Dispatch apparently didn't think it important to tell readers that the crime spree which occurred after that shooting took place despite the fact that the suspect had pulled a gun on that officer.

I noted in a NewsBusters post a year ago that Williams' arrest on charges of "1st degree arson, 2nd degree burglary and misdemeanor theft," and his confession "to setting fires at the store in a videotaped interview" constituted a major establishment press embarrassment. You see, until then, outfits like the New York Times, MSNBC and others had, in the words of Ryan Lovelace at National Review, "depicted him as a hero of the summer protests" in Ferguson, Missouri.

By Tom Blumer | December 12, 2015 | 10:47 AM EST

The callousness towards human life at Planned Parenthood is such that it believes that the remains of preborn babies killed during abortions are just like any other "medical waste," and that sending them to landfills — or, perhaps even incinerators — is therefore "humane."

That's what one must conclude from reading an Associated Press report Friday evening which strived mightily to play defense for the beleaguered group. The wire service's headline only described State Attorney General Mike DeWine as an "official." The opening sentence from Andrew Welsh-Huggins only conceded that DeWine "criticized" the practices at Ohio's Planned Parenthood's locations, when his press release clearly contends that it has been violating state regulations (bolds are mine):

By Tom Blumer | December 9, 2015 | 11:58 AM EST

In an announcement which deservedly carries far less weight than it has in the past, Time Magazine (1997 circulation, 4.2 million; current circuation, 3.3 million) has named German chancellor Angela Merkel its 2015 Person of the Year.

The stated reason for her selection: "Not once or twice but three times this year there has been reason to wonder whether Europe could continue to exist, not culturally or geographically but as a historic experiment in ambitious statecraft." Time believes that Merkel saved the day each time. It seems highly unlikely that she would have risen to the top of the pack without the third item the magazine's Nancy Gibbs cited, namely Merkel's open-borders acceptance of migrants erroneously described as "refugees" dozens of times in its various supporting articles.

By Tom Blumer | November 24, 2015 | 9:49 PM EST

There are plenty of problems with the government's "no-fly list," and especially the plans by some congressmen and senators to abuse it. That said, it appears, almost three years later, to have gotten one name right.

In late 2012 and early 2013, leftists like Chris Hayes at MSNBC, Glenn Greenwald and Kevin Drum at Mother Jones were upset that Saadiq Long, a U.S. Air Force veteran who was living in Qatar, had been put on the no-fly list. After making a stink, Long's name was apparently removed so he could fly into Oklahoma to see his ailing mother, only to see his no-fly listing reinstated so he couldn't leave. He returned to Qatar, but only after taking a bus down to Mexico City and flying from there. End of story? Hardly, as PJ Media's Patrick Poole reports:

By Tom Blumer | November 23, 2015 | 9:46 AM EST

Time Warner Cable is trying to be in the news business, and is currently engaging in such efforts in 22 locations in five states.

Unless it wants to be yet another unreliable, hopelessly biased news source, it needs to try harder. Take this November 14 report from north-central North Carolina's Triad area on the city of Greensboro's effort to get residents to turn in unwanted guns. Keep in mind, the reference is to multiple "firearms" (HT Hot Air; presented in full because of its brevity, and for fair use and discussion purposes):

By Tom Blumer | November 22, 2015 | 10:38 AM EST

In the wake of the Paris terrorist murder sprees, a media narrative that the U.S. is somehow less vulnerable to terrorist attacks than countries in Europe has arisen.

The reasons given for this contention would be uproariously funny if the stakes weren't so serious: "Geography and strict travel restrictions." Additionally, according to the report where the meme appears to have originated, there is "one measure" which makes the U.S. "arguably" more vulnerable: guns.

By Tom Blumer | November 18, 2015 | 1:29 AM EST

Michael Weiss and Justin Miller at the Daily Beast are apparently really proud of themselves. They're claiming that because a passport found on one of the terrorists involved in last Friday's terrorist murder spree was a fake, it "means the (U.S.) governors’ freakout over refugees was based, at least in part, on a lie." Based on their headline ("GOP Guvs Rely on ISIS Lies to Reject Syrian Refugees"), their attack was only directed at Republican governors.

There are at least four problems with their assertion. The funniest one is that these two apparently have no business ever being trusted around a calclulator or a spreadsheet. It's either that, or Weiss and Miller really believe that 475 million Syrian refugess are spreading themselves throughout Europe and much of the rest of the world.

By Tim Graham | November 14, 2015 | 10:46 AM EST

Canadian conservative Ezra Levant took to Twitter after the Paris attacks to remind the world that the state-run Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has a policy of not employing the words “terrorism” or “terrorist” since “the use of the word can be highly politicized and therefore it is preferable that there be a consistent practice to be as specific as possible in describing an event without labelling it.”

But on October 1 of this year, the same staffers and the ombudsman defended the use of the terms “xenophobes” and “haters” by longtime CBC journalist Michael Enright on the program The Sunday Edition to describe those resisting any plan to accept thousands of Syrian refugees. That's not "highly politicized"?

By Tom Blumer | November 5, 2015 | 4:04 PM EST

After the November 2014 midterm elections, I wrote that "Despite all of their supposed science, improved methodologies, and sophisticated turnout models, nation’s pollsters have just suffered through their worst midterm elections drubbing in 20 years. The last time they were off this badly was when they woefully underestimated Republican gains in the Newt Gingrich 'Contract with America' midterms of 1994." I also predicted that "If they’re right from now on, it will it only be by accident."

Very few, if any, such "accidents" occurred this year. In key contests, double-digit and worse variances from polled predictions were the norm.