Sen. Whitehouse Blames GOP For Okla. Tornado, Storms, Rising Seas, Etc

May 21st, 2013 10:08 AM
In remarks which will more than likely be ignored by the establishment press, Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse in essence blamed yesterday's deadly tornado which struck Moore, Oklahoma on Republicans who have "run off the climate cliff like a bunch of proverbial lemmings." Whitehouse was intensely upset because, in his view these red state ignoramuses who are allowing ever more intense,…

WSJ Reports 'Obama's Counsel Was Told of IRS Audit Findings Weeks Ago

May 20th, 2013 2:14 PM
Saturday, David Espo at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, engaged in an execrable exercise in advocacy journalism entitled "Obama Agenda Marches on Despite Controversies." Yesterday (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), I took apart Espo's claim that there is a "lack of evidence to date of wrongdoing close to the Oval Office" by showing that in at least five situations -- Fast…

AmSpec Scoop: Obama 'Met With Anti-Tea Party IRS Union Chief the Day B

May 20th, 2013 11:20 AM
Jeffrey Lord at the American Spectator has reviewed the White House logs looking for a relationship between meetings listed there and the timeline found in the Inspector General's report on the targeting of Tea Party and conservative groups issued last Tuesday. Lord's work represents yet another example of alternative media scooping a lazy or negligent establishment press. What Lord has found…

Politico's Gerstein Assumes GOP and Other Efforts to Get at the Truth

May 19th, 2013 9:40 PM
When a reporter makes an assertion about someone else's beliefs or motivations, he or she is supposed to offer something up as evidence, say a direct quote, something that person has written, or even something someone else close to him or her has said. Politico's Josh Gerstein offered nothing of the sort in his coverage of Eric Holder's "you can't touch me" attitude, though he provides plenty…

AP's Espo Runs Defiant Interference for Adminstration: 'Obama Agenda M

May 19th, 2013 8:56 AM
It has only been a week since the Associated Press learned that its reporters' privacy and the confidentiality of their relationships with sources were violated on a massive and unprecedented scale by Eric Holder's Justice Department in April and May of last year. DOJ has admitted that it secretly obtained the call records for 20 personal and business lines used by over 100 AP reporters and…

NYT's Peters 'Cleans Up' Jonathan Weisman's Original Report on Friday

May 18th, 2013 10:19 PM
Clearly, the New York Times couldn't run with Jonathan Weisman's headline or opening sentence in the report he filed shortly after Friday's portion of Friday's testimony at a hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee in its Saturday print edition. And it didn't. The original headline at Weisman's story, as seen here (HT Ann Althouse via Instapundit), was "Treasury Knew of I.R.S. Inquiry…

Politico Ignores Govt.-AP Timing Discussions in Saying 'Veteran Lawyer

May 18th, 2013 10:39 AM
In a story appearing this morning at the Politico about the Department of Justice's broad and unannounced subpoenas of the April and May 2012 personal and business phone records of reporters and editors at the Associated Press involving 20 phone lines and involving over 100 reporters and editors, James Hohmann found several "veteran prosecutors" who aren't necessarily outraged by what most…

Want Approval from IRS for Your 501(c)3? A Liberal-sounding Name Helps

May 15th, 2013 6:26 PM
Chris Moody of Yahoo! News has a great story this afternoon about the saga the conservative media watchdogs at MediaTrackers had with the Obama IRS. The long and short of it is that after after waiting for more than a year for IRS to approve his 501(c)3 application for the group, conservative activist Drew Ryun  "determined that Media Trackers would likely never obtain standalone nonprofit…

NRO's Williamson: Conference Question to IRS's Lerner Was Planted

May 15th, 2013 7:30 AM
When I first heard of limp faux apology by the IRS's Lois Lerner on Friday for her tax-exempt division's harassment of Tea Party and conservative organizations, I thought she had done so on a conference call. Well, she did have a conference call with reporters later that day -- the one where she said “I’m not good at math” -- but her original apology occurred at a conference of the Exempt…

After Over Five Years of Fawning, Politico Pair Writes That 'D.C. Turn

May 14th, 2013 10:18 PM
Imagine that. Politico has a very negative story on our second-term president. After over five years during which the online publication has engaged in virtual non-stop fawning over the wonders of Barack Obama -- going all the way back to shortly after its founding in January 2007, when Ben Smith found someone who described him as "frighteningly coherent" -- Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei…

Pope Francis Canonizes Victims of Medieval Islamist Violence; NBCNews

May 14th, 2013 3:43 PM
In their ongoing effort to attack the Catholic Church, it seems not even something as uncontroversial and routine as the pope canonizing new saints can happen without the liberal media find some way to work in an attack. Witness Claudio Lavanga's May 12 post at NBCNews.com headlined "A saint-making record is also a diplomatic headache for Pope Francis." [h/t Creative Minority Report] "Pope…

Bloomberg Admits to Allowing Its Reporters Access to Client Terminal A

May 13th, 2013 11:00 AM
It says something about the seriousness of the rest of the news during the past several days when a story about unethical spying by reporters working for a company founded and built by the current mayor of New York City barely makes a ripple. It has been alleged, and now admitted, that Bloomberg reporters monitored terminal login activity to develop stories about possible Wall Street…

CBS's Scott Pelley at Quinnipiac Luncheon: 'We Are Getting Big Stories

May 12th, 2013 12:03 PM
Scott Pelley deserves grudging credit for recognizing something obvious at a Friday luncheon in New York. Readers tempted to go beyond that point would be advised to visit the archive of Pelley-related posts at NewsBusters on his brand of so-called journalism, a few of which will be identified later in this post. At said luncheon, Pelley received the 20th annual Fred Friendly First Amendment…

New Jersey Dems Caught on Hot Mic Wanting to 'Confiscate, Confiscate

May 11th, 2013 8:12 AM
How many times have we heard establishment press members, particularly broadcasters, insist that no one on the left side of the gun control discussion wants to take away anyone's guns? Just a few examples include CNN's Piers Morgan, CNN's Carol Costello, and MSNBC's Alex Wagner, even after New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was quoted in the New York Times before Christmas saying that "confiscation…