Regarding the Koran insanity...

Just a few random thoughts regarding the big to-do being made regarding the Gainesville, FL idiot pastor of a church of 30 followers for (gasp-) burning a Koran.

My question is thus: Why?

I mean, what is the interest of the lamestream media in hyping this story? Are they hoping for a self-fulfilling prophecy, praying against hope for Islamic-initiated carnage resultant from the hype, providing fodder for the next news cycle?

Does this scenario sound vaguely familiar?

If nothing else, this kerfuffle has made it abundantly clear that in over two centuries of covering news, the Fourth Estate has yet to rise above its genetic tendency toward yellow journalism.

That being said, if any unrest arises from this non-event that does result in death or mayhem, it will ironically be those same lamebrains in the media who unnecessarily stirred the pot that will make excuses for those who practice the mayhem.

You see, the leftist media can't seem to bring itself to hold the same level of accountability toward Muslims with respect to inflicting pain, suffering and mayhem commensurate with their Western counterparts.

The fact that we don't hold the 'Arab Street' to the same moral standards of behavior nor assume ability for rational thought commensurate with the rest of humanity only enables their sub-human animalistic behavior.

So why does the leftist media not only attempt to stir up but actually appear to relish Islamic-inflicted mayhem?

Something tells me that it's about a little bit more than merely trying to stir up fodder for the next news cycle.

As a matter of fact, Jamie Glazov seems to provide the best answer.

To paraphrase an old Arabic/Chinese proverb, any enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Nuff said.

The Inconvenient Truth About Journalism

Cheerleaders, not reporters?:



The media have long been remiss in their first duty as journalists: To question everything, not just things they disagree with.

State-Run Media in the United States...

ABC has turned into the Obama Network:

BC TURNS PROGRAMMING OVER TO OBAMA; NEWS TO BE ANCHORED FROM INSIDE WHITE HOUSE
Tue Jun 16 2009 08:45:10 ET

On the night of June 24, the media and government become one, when ABC turns its programming over to President Obama and White House officials to push government run health care -- a move that has ignited an ethical firestorm!

Highlights on the agenda:

ABCNEWS anchor Charlie Gibson will deliver WORLD NEWS from the Blue Room of the White House.

The network plans a primetime special -- 'Prescription for America' -- originating from the East Room, exclude opposing voices on the debate.

The Director of Communications at the White House Office of Health Reform is Linda Douglass, who worked as a reporter for ABC News from 1998-2006.

Late Monday night, Republican National Committee Chief of Staff Ken McKay fired off a complaint to the head of ABCNEWS:

Dear Mr. Westin:

As the national debate on health care reform intensifies, I am deeply concerned and disappointed with ABC's astonishing decision to exclude opposing voices on this critical issue on June 24, 2009. Next Wednesday, ABC News will air a primetime health care reform “town hall” at the White House with President Barack Obama. In addition, according to an ABC News report, GOOD MORNING AMERICA, WORLD NEWS, NIGHTLINE and ABC’s web news “will all feature special programming on the president’s health care agenda.” This does not include the promotion, over the next 9 days, the president’s health care agenda will receive on ABC News programming.

Today, the Republican National Committee requested an opportunity to add our Party's views to those of the President's to ensure that all sides of the health care reform debate are presented. Our request was rejected. I believe that the President should have the ability to speak directly to the America people. However, I find it outrageous that ABC would prohibit our Party's opposing thoughts and ideas from this national debate, which affects millions of ABC viewers.

In the absence of opposition, I am concerned this event will become a glorified infomercial to promote the Democrat agenda. If that is the case, this primetime infomercial should be paid for out of the DNC coffers. President Obama does not hold a monopoly on health care reform ideas or on free airtime. The President has stated time and time again that he wants a bipartisan debate. Therefore, the Republican Party should be included in this primetime event, or the DNC should pay for your airtime.

Respectfully,
Ken McKay
Republican National Committee
Chief of Staff

And the "useful idiots" at ABC of course retorted:

MORE

ABCNEWS Senior Vice President Kerry Smith on Tuesday responded to the RNC complaint, saying it contained 'false premises':

"ABCNEWS prides itself on covering all sides of important issues and asking direct questions of all newsmakers -- of all political persuasions -- even when others have taken a more partisan approach and even in the face of criticism from extremes on both ends of the political spectrum. ABCNEWS is looking for the most thoughtful and diverse voices on this issue.

As an aside, I just watched a global warming propaganda piece report on ABC Nightly News with George Stephanopolous, and, surprise, it did not contain one iota of one piece of information from any opposing view. Obviously, they overlooked it. But I digress

"ABCNEWS alone will select those who will be in the audience asking questions of the president. Like any programs we broadcast, ABC News will have complete editorial control. To suggest otherwise is quite unfair to both our journalists and our audience."

How many folks actually think that ABC, having complete control in selecting those who will be so lucky as to be able to question "the messiah," will be nonbiased in selecting that audience?

In all seriousness, what has happened to the responsibility placed on the Fifth Estate to question those who govern?

Perhaps "the messiah's" refusal to appear on Fox News may hold a clue:

Subject: FW: Obama on CNBC

CNBC Interview with Obama (aired June 16 @ 4:43) - question about the favorable press he's been getting:

OBAMA: I've got one television station entirely devoted to attacking my administration

CNBC: I assume you're talking about FOX

OBAMA: That's a pretty big megaphone and you'd be hard-pressed if you watched the entire day to find a positive story about me on that front.

Tough questions are a bitch, aren't they, Barry?

MSNBC, NEWSWEEK, and their 'god.'

Just what kind of chance in hell (perhaps, literally) do we have of any objective reporting with this circus clown a/k/a Barack Hussein Obama?

(h/t The Freedomist)

All's not lost across the pond...

While the lamestream press and rock-concert goers were salivating and tripping over themselves to touch their messiah's garments on Obama's recent European tour, others were not so impressed

And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.

The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.

When he was twelve years old, they found him in the temple in the City of Chicago, arguing the finer points of community organisation with the Prophet Jeremiah and the Elders. And the Elders were astonished at what they heard and said among themselves: "Verily, who is this Child that he opens our hearts and minds to the audacity of hope?"

In the great Battles of Caucus and Primary he smote the conniving Hillary, wife of the deposed King Bill the Priapic and their barbarian hordes of Working Class Whites.

And so it was, in the fullness of time, before the harvest month of the appointed year, the Child ventured forth - for the first time - to bring the light unto all the world.

He travelled fleet of foot and light of camel, with a small retinue that consisted only of his loyal disciples from the tribe of the Media. He ventured first to the land of the Hindu Kush, where the Taleban had harboured the viper of al-Qaeda in their bosom, raining terror on all the world.

And the Child spake and the tribes of Nato immediately loosed the Caveats that had previously bound them. And in the great battle that ensued the forces of the light were triumphant. For as long as the Child stood with his arms raised aloft, the enemy suffered great blows and the threat of terror was no more.

Read, as they say, the whole thing.

A Reagan wannabe in search of a wall.

Obama, no doubt personally incensed at the idea that anyone would criticize his desire to preach to the masses at the Brandenberg Gate, in true Quixotic style, managed to find some other walls to tilt after:

"The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand," Obama said, speaking not far from where the Berlin Wall once divided the city.

"The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes, natives and immigrants, Christians and Muslims and Jews cannot stand," he said.

No, Obama didn't get to have his moment at the Brandenberg Gate. But this megalomaniacal, mentally-challenged manure-for-brains wannabe still had the audacity in to pitifully attempt to channel Ronald Reagan.

Word to Obama: You are not now, nor will you ever be Ronald Wilson Reagan. You aren't even fit to spit-shine his cowboy boots.

By the way, as a further smite toward our servicemen, Barack Hussein Obama sacked a scheduled visit to wounded U.S. soldiers in a German hospital.

BERLIN (AP) - Sen. Barack Obama scrapped plans to visit wounded members of the armed forces in Germany as part of his overseas trip, a decision his spokesman said was made because the Democratic presidential candidate thought it would be inappropriate on a campaign-funded journey.

The spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said Thursday that Obama made his decision out of respect for the servicemen and women, but Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign immediately criticized the move.

"Barack Obama is wrong. It is never inappropriate to visit our men and women in the military," said Brian Rogers, a spokesman for the Republican contender.

What a tool. Barack Hussein Obama, IMO did not visit wounded U.S. soldiers for a reason. If he did, there would be no fawning crowds. There would be no fanfare. There was nothing in it for the "messiah." For in Barack Hussein Obama's world, it's all about him. He couldn't be bothered to make a sidetrip to visit some wounded soldiers because he not only has no appreciation for their sacrifices, he actually loathes the reason that they were injured in the first place, and loathes the mission for which they sacrificed.

And yet the media minions (Drudge included) fawn all over this mentally, historically, and geographically-challenged bozo (who, incidentally, is as dependent on a teleprompter as a baby is dependent on its bottle) as if he were the second coming of sliced bread.

I don't get it.

Does the name, "Nicolae Carpathia" ring a bell with anyone?

***UPDATE***

It appears that the anointed one's campaign thought it would be a good idea to desecrate a holy site with campaign posters:

By Aaron Klein
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

JERUSALEM – Sen. Barack Obama's campaign plastered the entrance to the Western Wall – the holiest site in Judaism – with official campaign posters, WND has learned.

Jerusalem police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld confirmed to WND posters that adorned police barricades erected at the Western Wall plaza for Obama's visit were distributed by the presidential candidate's campaign.

"These posters were his campaign and not the doing of the police," said Rosenfeld, whose police department coordinated security and provided protection for Obama's visit today to the holy site.

Asked if it was traditional practice for politicians visiting the Western Wall to bring along posters or campaign materials, Rosenfeld replied, "No."

Obama campaign posters can be seen in media footage of the Illinois senator's early morning surprise visit to the Western Wall.

His visit reportedly was not on the official campaign schedule.

How...tasteful.

But then again, he is the anointed one. And one cannot necessarily desecrate a holy place with posters from an anointed messiah, can one?

AP and "Big Oil": The whole truth?

The AP has a story out that basically portrays oil execs as cowering under the thundering bloviations coming from the Senate today:

"Where is the corporate conscience?" Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., asked the top executives of the five largest U.S. oil companies.

It's all about economics, came the reply. Supply and demand. The company leaders tried to shift attention from motorists' anger over $4-a-gallon gasoline to a debate over new areas for drilling.

But senators at the Judiciary Committee hearing weren't having any of that. They wanted to press the executives about public anguish over paying $60 or more to fill up a car's gas tank.

"People we represent are hurting, the companies you represent are profiting," Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., told the executives. He said there's a "disconnect" between legitimate supply issues and the oil and gasoline prices motorists are seeing.

The executives, sitting shoulder to shoulder in the hearing room, said they understood people were hurting, but they tried to blunt the emotion with economic analysis.

Profits have been huge "in absolute terms," conceded J. Stephen Simon, executive vice president of Exxon Mobil Corp., but they "must be viewed in the context of the massive scale of our industry." And high earnings "in the current up cycle" are needed for investments in the long term, including when profits will be down.

"'Current up cycle,' that's a nice term when people can't afford to go to work" because gasoline is costing so much, replied Leahy with sarcasm.

"The fundamental laws of supply and demand are at work," said John Hofmeister, chairman of Shell Oil Co., acknowledging it is something the oil industry has been saying for some time and that the explanation may sound "repetitive and uninteresting."

Hofmeister was joined by executives of Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., BP America Inc. and ConocoPhilips Co. Together the five companies earned $36 billion during the first three months of this year.

As the executives sought to explain their profits and why prices are so high, the global oil markets were moving into new, uncharted highs, touching $133 a barrel for the first time. The national average price of a gallon of gasoline hit $3.80, with $4 showing up in more places. Crude prices increased even more in late electronic trading Wednesday hitting $134 for the first time.

What writer Josef Hebert conveniently failed to add to the reporting was this reply by John Hofmeister, CEO of Shell Oil:

HOFMEISTER: In the United States, access to our own oil and gas resources has been limited for the last 30 years, prohibiting companies such as Shell from exploring and developing resources for the benefit of the American people. It is not a free market. According to the Department of the Interior, 62% of all on-shore federal lands are off limits to oil and gas developments, with restrictions applying to 92% of all federal lands. The Argonne National Laboratory did a report in 2004 that identified 40 specific federal policy areas that halt, limit, delay, or restrict natural gas projects. The problem of access can be solved in this country by the same government that has prohibited it. Congress could have chose to lift some or all of the current restrictions on exploration and production of oil and gas. Congress could provide national policy to reverse the persistent decline of domestically secure natural resource development.

That, my dear readers, is the problem in a nutshell. Big Government is in the midst of bloviating, beating their chests and pointing their bony fingers of indignation at "Big Oil," when all the while the cause of and answer to the problem is waiting to be answered the next time they look in the mirror. And "Big Media" who is in cahoots with "Big Government" lacks the cajones to report that fact.

Surprise? I think not.

Curious.

From the Associated Press:

Former KKK member endorses Obama

WASHINGTON - Senator Robert Byrd, a former member of the Ku Klux Klan and a one-time opponent of civil rights legislation, is endorsing Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Not that I find it particularly noteworthy that Senator Robert "Sheets" Byrd endorsed Obama. What I find completely jaw-dropping is that a member of the drive-by media actually acknowledged democrat Robert Byrd's past stint as a KKK Kleagle.

What this unprecedented Hillary-Obama hatchet fight has allowed us to witness is the drive-by media's uncomfortable situation of having to pick sides between two liberal democrats; forcing them to inevitably eat their own in the process.

If nothing else, this current election cycle is making for some grand and glorious theatre.

Just in case you wanted to know what happened to Pravda reporters...

Or so it would seem through this story on the AP:

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. - When the hostages had been released and their alleged captor arrested, a regal-looking Hillary Rodham Clinton strolled out of her Washington home, the picture of calm in the face of crisis.

[SNIP]

It was a vintage example of a candidate taking a negative and turning it into a positive. And coming just six weeks before the presidential voting begins, the timing could hardly have been more beneficial to someone hoping to stave off a loss in the Iowa caucuses and secure a win in the New Hampshire primary.

[SNIP]

At the same time, the woman striving to move from former first lady to the first female president was eager to convey that she knew the traditional lines of command and control in a crisis, even if the events inside the storefront on North Main Street were far short of a world calamity.

"They were the professionals, they were in charge of this situation, whatever they asked me or my campaign to do is what we would do," Clinton said.

Along with taking charge while giving the professionals free rein, Clinton offered up a third dimension to her crisis character: humanity. She said she felt "grave concern" when she first heard the news of the hostage-taking.

[SNIP]

"It affected me not only because they were my staff members and volunteers, but as a mother, it was just a horrible sense of bewilderment, confusion, outrage, frustration, anger, everything at the same time," Clinton said.

It was a thawing moment for a stoic figure who once snapped that she opted for professional life instead of staying home to bake cookies.

She buttressed it with one final message. Clinton sought to use the sad moment as a national teaching opportunity, another skill often employed by presidents.

She paid tribute to the thousands of believers who set aside their lives every four years so they can propel presidential campaigns on little more than blood, sweat and tears.

"They believe in our future. They work around the clock. They are so committed to their cause, and I just want to commend every one of them from every campaign who really makes what is a sacrifice and a commitment," Clinton said. "A lot of them postpone school, leave their families, move across the country, and I'm so grateful for them every single day, and I'm especially just relieved to have this situation end so peacefully without anyone being injured.

Class dismissed.

Class dismissed??

As in Sycophantic Reporting 101?

Err.., Glenn Johnson... Just wondering... did you smoke a cigarette after that piece?

h/t BRight and Early

As long as we're handing them out...

The FCC is thinking about imposing a fine for "fake news."

WASHINGTON — The Federal Communications Commission is proposing a $4,000 fine against Comcast Corp. for airing a pitch for a sleep aid without telling viewers that the spot was financed by the maker of the product.

The fine was in response to a complaint by the Center for Media and Democracy, a media watchdog group, which said it marks the first time a company has been sanctioned for airing a "video news release," a type of programming it dubs "fake news."

Well, if you're handing out fines for fake news, then by all means, let's go on to here, and here, or here for starters.

But there's much more where that came from, isn't there?

What media bias?

Where, but at Day By Day will you hear these facts?

Like they're gonna have a choice in the matter...

Geeze... is the AP actually that stupid or what???

HAVANA (AP) -- Fidel Castro will be in "perfect shape" to run for re-election to parliament next spring, the first step toward securing yet another term as Cuba's president, National Assembly head Ricardo Alarcon said

Run for re-election? Like he's going to have opposition or something?

Why is the AP giving this assclown the dignity of the title of president, when in fact he is nothing but a two-bit tinhorn dictator???

Just what planet do those dolts come from, anyway?

----------------------------