Double Standards

"We need to re-evaluate what is required in our lives, so that we have a sense of satisfaction.  What really counts?  One friend of mine has reduced it to this: you should get up in the morning and ask 'what do I need,' not just 'what do I want?'" -- Tom Brokaw, Morning Joe 11-1-11. "Of course, one of the reasons I bought it was to be able to get away from the frantic life I lead and to have…

For those who don't know, ProPublica (bold is mine) "is an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. Our work focuses exclusively on truly important stories, stories with 'moral force.' We do this by producing journalism that shines a light on exploitation of the weak by the strong and on the failures of those with power to vindicate the…

Turns out there’s one union the New York Times is not totally enamored with: The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, New York City’s largest police union. Saturday’s front page featured a hostile anti-police story by N.R. Kleinfield and John Eligon related to charges of wide-spread ticket-fixing, “Officers Unleash Vitriol as Peers Are Charged in Ticket-Fixing.”   The reporters didn't seem…

CRITICAL UPDATE AT END OF POST A week ago (at BizzyBlog; at NewsBusters), I noted how Charleston Daily Mail blogger Don Surber quickly determined through all of a few minutes of Internet research that Berkeley professor Robert Muller, who convinced Washington Post Plumline blogger Brad Plumer that he was a "climate skeptic," has been a believer in human-caused global warming since the early…

The news item I will cite goes back over a week, but the problem surely remains. In light of the ongoing battles over public-sector wages and benefits as well as the taxes which pay for them, it deserves far more attention than it is currently receiving. It follows up on an October 15 post (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog) where I noted, in reviewing an Associates Press story which originally…

In the New York Times's Thursday Styles section, contributor Helaine Olen talked to some liberal Manhattanites who took their children to Zuccotti Park to enrich them with “teachable moments” (i.e. using them as political props) and "to enlighten them on matters ranging from income inequality to the right to protest":“For Children’s Sake, Taking to the Streets.”

On Thursday's NBC Today, White House correspondent Kristen Welker only managed to give 23 seconds to the State Department buying up $70,000 worth of President Obama's various books. However, on October 21, investigative correspondent Michael Isikoff offered a full report about Herman Cain's presidential campaign buying copies of the businessman's new book. Isikoff portrayed the large…

“Almost half of the public” thinks the left-wing Occupy Wall Street movement accurately reflects the views of Americans, claims the New York Times in Wednesday’s off-lead, “New Poll Finds A Deep Distrust of Government – Anxiety Over Economy – Concentration of Wealth Seen as Key Issue in a Volatile Time.” Jeff Zeleny and Megan Thee-Brenan played OWS approval high, in paragraph three.

Yesterday (since updated to early morning Monday), in what should be seen as a thoroughly embarrassing report -- but mostly won't be -- the Associated Press's Jay Lindsay in Boston, with help from Karen Matthews in New York, devoted almost 1,000 words to the involvement of various religious clerics in the ongoing Occupy Wall Street activities. Before getting to their report, I'll bring…

While the New York Times was hypersensitive to any signs of racial prejudice among the massive, peaceful Tea Party protests, reporter Joseph Berger raised and dismissed the idea of anti-Semitism at Occupy Wall Street, in Saturday’s “Cries of Anti-Semitism, But Not at Zuccotti Park.” Just two of many references: Reporter David Herszenhorn assumed racism was a force in the movement in an April…

A notable moment on Morning Joe today, as Joe Scarborough called out Mika Brzezinski on her double standard when it comes to criticizing politicians for their over-the-top remarks. Setting Scarborough off was Brzezinski's defense of Joe Biden's allegation that crime, including rape, would increase if Republicans don't vote for President Obama's latest tax-raising stimulus plan.  Joe claimed…

Yesterday, in what appears to have been a not particularly sweat-breaking research enterprise, blogger Don Surber at the Charleston Daily Mail demonstrated that the Richard Muller, a Berkley scientist who the Washington Post's Brad Plumer declared to be a "cliimate skeptic," has been a believer in human-caused global warming -- since the 1980s. Muller convinced Plumer that as a result of…

On October 13, Monika Scislowska of the Associated Press reported that a "legendary freedom leader ... says he supports the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York that protests corporate greed," and that "that he is planning either a visit or a letter to the protesters." That leader would be Poland's former President Lech Walesa. On Friday, October 21, at 5:01 p.m., Adam Andrzejewski at…

The easy catch in former Obama administration economic adviser Austan Goolsbee's Thursday interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," as reported by the Politico's Tim Mak, is that he believes that "if given a second chance he would not have backed the Cash for Clunkers program or the home buyer tax credit." Goolsbee's excuse for his changed position -- that the administration didn't think the recovery…