Pakistan Blocks Facebook in Response to 'Draw Mohammed Day' Pages
May 21st, 2010 1:54 PM
The government of Pakistan has blocked social networking site Facebook due to a page encouraging users to "Draw Mohammed." The page, and the larger movement, have outraged Muslims, who believe it is blasphemous to physically depict Islam's prophet."Death to Facebook!" shouted protesters in Karachi, demonstrating against a group called "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day," designed to further the cause…
Newsweek's Adler Furthers Meme That Conservatives Are Obsessed with Ka
May 21st, 2010 12:20 PM
Another day, another liberal meme.Yesterday I tackled how Newsweek's Howard Fineman was attacking Kentucky Republican Senate nominee Rand Paul for picking a fight that the liberal media, in fact, was whipping up.Today, it's Fineman colleague Ben Adler and his insistence that conservatives are fixated on smearing both Elena Kagan and softball players everywhere as gay.Adler made his argument in…
Bonnie Erbe: 'Congress Handling the Gulf Oil Spill Crisis Better Than
May 20th, 2010 4:21 PM
"What the hell is wrong you you people?!"That's essentially what PBS "To the Contrary" host and US News & World Report contributor Bonnie Erbe wrote in her May 19 Thomas Jefferson Street blog post "Congress Handling the Gulf Oil Spill Crisis Better than Most Americans.""Although the Gulf spill has lowered the percentage of Americans who support offshore oil drilling, a new Pew Forum poll…
Time's Newton-Small: 'Toomey/Sestak Race Starts Ugly
May 20th, 2010 3:34 PM
The general election campaign for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania between Republican Pat Toomey and Democrat Joe Sestak has started "ugly," according to Jay Newton-Small. In her May 20 Swampland blog post, the Time magazine staffer offered as evidence the former's press conference yesterday in which:[H]e spent much of the speech blasting Sestak. In his 7-minute opening remarks he said “I” or “me” 52…
US News's Erbe Suggests Justices Thomas, Scalia Soft on Sexual Predato
May 19th, 2010 3:24 PM
"In a 7-2 ruling [on Monday], the Supreme Court expanded Congressional powers just a mite, by allowing the federal government to keep sexual predators in prison beyond their terms if they are deemed too dangerous to be released," U.S. News & World Report contributor Bonnie Erbe noted in a May 18 Thomas Jefferson Street blog post.The PBS "To the Contrary" host later snarked that: [T]he two…
Newsweek's Romano: Twitter Made Me Sound Like a Michelle Bachmann Hate
May 18th, 2010 5:28 PM
Newsweek's Andrew Romano isn't really anti-Michelle Bachmann, he argues that he just sounds like one on Twitter. In a May 17 "Web Exclusive," entitled "Tweet the Press," the Newsweek staffer explained to readers how an editor assigned him to write a "Twitter profile" of the Minnesota Republican:My editor had just stepped into my office to discuss a new assignment. The NEWSWEEK brass is…
Texas Considering Giving State Funding to Anti-Arizona Immigration Fil
May 18th, 2010 1:10 PM
Taxpayers may be forced to foot a portion of the bill for a new movie that has become a stark -- and violent -- message against the recently passed Arizona immigration law. The liberal political stance is nothing new in the movie world. That the film is still being considered for indirect public funding, however, is quite striking.An online trailer for the film "Machete," released on Cinco de…
Post Buries Article on Palin's Call for 'Conservative, Feminist Identi
May 16th, 2010 6:38 PM
"Palin pushes abortion foes to form 'conservative, feminist identity,'" reads the headline to a page A16 Amy Gardner story in Saturday's Washington Post.While the 10-paragraph article in itself didn't raise any bias alarm bells, I was disappointed but hardly surprised that the Post buried the story on the last page of its A-section.Gardner's article focused on how Palin, "[s]peaking to a…
Newspaper Websites Ignore or Downplay Pew Poll Showing Americans Large
May 13th, 2010 11:45 AM
Yesterday the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press released a poll finding "Broad Approval For New Arizona Immigration Law."While Republicans were the most supportive, a full 45 percent of Democrats and 64 percent of independents polled supported the law. When broken down to the particulars of the bill, there was even broader support. For example, 65 percent of Democrats and and 73…
Lefty Blogs, Duped By Student Project, Claim to Unearth 'Secret' Astro
May 12th, 2010 5:53 PM
One can't help but be a bit stunned at the audacity of an organization built by Morton Halperin and George Soros lecturing others on "astroturfing." But that same audacity -- not the good Barack Obama kind -- is taken to extremes when that same organization alleges a corporate conspiracy where there simply is none.Think Progress's Lee Fang was practically giddy that he had uncovered the next vast…
Deficit Comes In Just Below CBO Estimate; Economists' Predictions Were
May 12th, 2010 4:19 PM
It doesn't seem like this exercise should be that tough. The government issues Daily Treasury Statements telling everybody what went in and out on a given business day. At the end of the month, the last Daily Treasury Statement has a record (admittedly jumbled and larded with lots of bureaucratic excess) of all receipts and disbursements for the month. The folks at the Congressional Budget…
Increasingly Opaque White House Insulates Kagan From Press Corps
May 12th, 2010 2:28 PM
In the latest example of a pattern of opacity, the White House has cut off the press's access to Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan. Kagan has extensive ties to journalists, which only serves as a testament to this administration's determination to control the message on its major initiatives, including Kagan's nomination."Tell her we're deeply frustrated," one reporter told White House press…
Newsweek Notes Evangelical Leaders Pushing for Immigration Amnesty
May 12th, 2010 1:01 PM
The mainstream media often have little use for religious folks, except, of course, when they sing from the same hymnal on an issue dear to liberals.We've seen it before with how the media bash the Catholic Church as behind the times when compared to its American laity who are decidedly less conservative on sexual mores, abortion, and women or married persons in the priesthood. Yet when Catholic…