Grover Norquist

See Kos for Clunkers: Grover Norquist Has More Media Clout Than Gore, Dean, and Jimmy Carter?
By Tim Graham | July 31, 2009 | 3:55 PM EDT

The media is so dramatically conservative in Washington, D.C. that Grover Norquist outranks former Democrat presidents, vice presidents, and presidential candidates in the booking order. So claimed the Daily Kos blogger known as "Dengre" in a post on "The bias we fight." Be amazed: 

And as we fight we need to know that we start every round of every battle at a disadvantage. If you are a liberal or a progressive you are always a dirty f***ing hippie --- always a weak-ass panda in this Bourgeois Town. And Conservatives are always the voice of power with access to any media outlet they wish to use. Grover Norquist can get on any show he wants to be booked on and he will always be treated as a serious player. Al Gore, Howard Dean or Jimmy Carter will never be given the respect that the inside-the-beltway crowd gives Norquist and the rest of his merry band of conservative think tank thieves. The gap is big.

Grover Norquist is a serious Washington insider, but let's not suggest that if he threw a huge anti-Gore concert to laugh at the hype over global warming, NBC would broadcast it for 75 hours. He also hasn't guest-hosted the Olbermann show like Howard Dean just did.

The Other Side of the Health Care Debate the Matador Media Should Be Having
By Seton Motley | June 30, 2009 | 6:48 PM EDT
NewsBusters.org | Media Research Center
For the Matador Media,
One Side Fits All
As the media walk hand-in-hand with the Left towards their fantasy-addled government medicine Utopia, they routinely forget that there is another perspective out there as to whether or not the government should commandeer the nation's private health care system. A perspective on which they, had they not already chosen sides on the issue, would (and should) be reporting. 

The most recent high-water mark in media health care bias was last Wednesday, when ABC broadcast on four separate occasions from the White House during what they said was a day of their "moderating" a health care "conversation" with President Barack Obama.  Good Morning America, World News and Nightline all satellite-beamed their video images from within the confines of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. 

And all of that was in addition to a one hour prime time special entitled Questions for the President: Prescription for America.  During which the queries posed to Obama were for the most part fairly difficult, but given the home-field advantage format he was able to deviate from the intent of each question as much as he wanted, filibuster as long as he wished and in every instance had the last word on each issue.

This all-day Obama domination of the "conversation" ABC was claiming to "moderate" inspired in us a notion.  After all, one doesn't "moderate" a "conversation."  What IS moderated - and what is certainly called for on something as important as the decision whether to allow the government to shanghai nearly 20% of the private sector (and arguably it's most important portion) - is a DEBATE.  And ABC wasn't having one. 

So we decided to offer up the other side of the deliberation in which ABC - and the media as a whole - aren't engaging. Working with Americans for Tax Reform and the Health Care Freedom Coalition, we put together a rock star panel of legislators and health care experts to put forward free market-based health care reforms.  And to identify the myriad problems with and debunk the many myths and canards about government medicine - which the Left repeatedly offer up and the Matador Media let go by them with barely a wave of the cape.

On MSNBC Garofalo Paints Conservatives as Angry Racists Who Inspire Murder
By Brad Wilmouth | March 17, 2009 | 7:12 PM EDT

On Monday’s Countdown show, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann hosted left-wing actress and comedian Janeane Garofalo to discuss FNC analyst Bernard Goldberg’s recent enumeration of the "five worst offenders" of what Bill O’Reilly called the "far-left smear machine,"and Garofalo took the opportunity to paint conservatives as angry racists who inspire violence from some of their non-intellectual followers. Garofalo: "The right wing has a way of always having an enemy, whether it be immigrants or Arabs or brown-skinned people, black-skinned people, homosexuals, women. They all, kind of, rally around an enemy, an other, that they can get mad at. And death does occur."

After accusing conservative activist Grover Norquist of "handing out talking points" to a "right-wing machine," and after mentioning former Vice President Cheney’s recent contention that President Obama’s policies would endanger the nation’s homeland security, Garofalo called the "personality type" that she claimed motivates some non-intellectual conservatives a "scourge" and an "unfortunate part of our society." Garofalo: "A lot of the people in the right-wing base are not the most intellectual people in the world, not the most savvy people in the world, and they are definitely quick to anger, and quick to blame other people. ... it's a very sad, sad thing, and it's part of the human nature of a personality type that tends to identify as Republican or conservative. And it's an unfortunate part of our society. It's a scourge on our society." Olbermann concurred: "It is, indeed."

MRC's Free Speech Alliance to Obama: Oppose All Govt. Radio Censorship
By NB Staff | February 19, 2009 | 2:14 PM EST

FSA logoPresident Barack Obama's recent statement about his opposition to resurrecting the so-called Fairness Doctrine is a good first step, but shouldn't be the only step his administration takes to burying political censorship by the FCC for good, Media Research Center President Brent Bozell and Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) President Grover Norquist argued in a joint statement released today.

[click logo above at right to be directed to the Free Speech Alliance petition]

After all, liberal organizations and individuals like MoveOn.org, ACORN, John Podesta's Center for American Progress, House Energy and Commerce Chair Henry Waxman (D-CA) have expressed their intention to silence talk radio by alternative regulatory means such as nebulous FCC "diversity" in ownership and "localism" requirements.

President Obama must make clear his opposition to those back-door regulations as well, Mr. Bozell declared:

The Free Speech Alliance Declares War on the 'Censorship Doctrine'
By NB Staff | December 1, 2008 | 1:41 PM EST
A multitude of organizations, hundreds of thousands of individuals join together to defend the First Amendment from a reinstatement of the so-called "Fairness" Doctrine

Editor's Note: You too can join the Free Speech Alliance.  Click here and sign the petition, and stand at the ready for whenever any liberal again threatens the First Amendment with talk of reinstating the Censorship Doctrine.   

Free Speech Alliance | Media Research Center
Spreading the Word
The Media Research Center today officially announced the Free Speech Alliance, a gathering of a multitude of organizations and hundreds of thousands of individual citizens dedicated to ensuring that the Censorship Doctrine, mis-named the "Fairness" Doctrine, is never again reinstated.

The Free Speech Alliance member organizations are themselves engaged in a wide array of issues, but they all recognize the preeminent importance of defending the First Amendment and protecting free speech from government censorship, a fundamental Constitutional safeguard.

The Free Speech Alliance member organizations thus far:

Arianna Huffington's Disturbing Fantasy
By Mark Finkelstein | November 14, 2008 | 10:31 PM EST

By definition, projection is revealing of what lurks in a person's heart and mind.  Arianna Huffington projected tonight, and what she revealed wasn't pretty.  So much so, that even her liberal host hastened to diassociate herself from the HuffPo editor.  Huffington, grossly misquoting Grover Norquist's famous line about doing away with government, added an infanticidal twist.

Huffington was a guest on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show. The two shed crocodile tears about the diminished state of the Republican party.  It was in suggesting that, of all things, she and Maddow should head up a Marshall Plan to save the GOP that Huffington engaged in that ugly bit of projection.

Obama's 2005 Daily Kos Post : Tone It Down, and Usher in a New Progressive Era
By Kerry Picket | October 30, 2008 | 7:58 PM EDT
Barack Obama sent a letter to the Daily Kos which was posted back in 2005 to talk strategy and "change" to the Kossacks. Obama was very serious about toning down the rhetoric only until it was safe enough to "enforce a more clearly progressive agenda.” (h/t to Gateway Pundit for bringing this back through Sweetness and Light) (my emphasis added:)

I thought this might be a good opportunity to offer some thoughts about not only judicial confirmations, but how to bring about meaningful change in this country.

Maybe some of you believe I could have made my general point more artfully, but it’s precisely because many of these groups are friends and supporters that I felt it necessary to speak my mind.

There is one way, over the long haul, to guarantee the appointment of judges that are sensitive to issues of social justice, and that is to win the right to appoint them by recapturing the presidency and the Senate.

ABC: Palin Pregnancy a 'Damaging Revelation'
By Mark Finkelstein | September 1, 2008 | 5:28 PM EDT

Bristol Palin's pregnancy is a "damaging revelation " that has caused Sarah Palin's image to "suffer." Says who? Says ABC News, in an article by Rick Klein and Jennifer Parker.

In Palin Pregnancy Rocks Political World, Klein and Parker report reaction from a variety of Republican and traditional-values sources.  Every one, from Dr. James Dobson to Grover Norquist to Chuck Donovan of the Family Research Council to a pro-life delegate to the GOP convention who said "the fact that her daughter's keeping it and marrying the father is wonderful," had a positive reaction.

But what do they know?  Declare Klein and Parker [emphasis added]:

Palin's image may suffer further if more damaging revelations come out in the coming days and weeks.
CNN Cites Omission of Bush’s Name at Debate, Quotes Daily Kos
By Matthew Balan | November 29, 2007 | 10:47 PM EST

NewsBusters.org - Media Research CenterA report on Thursday’s "The Situation Room" tried to make an issue out of the fact that President Bush’s name was only mentioned a few times at the Republican presidential debate that they organized with YouTube. CNN correspondent Carol Costello compared the President’s name to a curse word in her introduction to the report. "It sure seems like Bush has become a four-letter word you don't want to mention if you are a Republican running for office. They've taken to talking about him in code, not daring to say 'Bush,' but not shy about promoting his agenda."

During the report, which aired at the bottom half of the 5 pm Eastern hour, Costello went on to say that "the Bush moniker [was] uttered just four times in two hours." This is indeed the case if you look at the CNN transcript of the debate. But this doesn't tell the entire story.