From Accuracy in Media’s Cliff Kincaid:

The Russia Today (RT) Moscow-funded propaganda channel, which is backing the murderous regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, aired a special program on Tuesday night on how progressives in the U.S. can “Take Back the American Dream” by defeating Republicans. The propaganda effort was broadcast throughout the United States and produced in collaboration with major liberal groups such as the Campaign for America’s Future, MoveOn.org  and Demos, all of them Soros-funded.

The host was Thom Hartmann, who regards himself as the nation’s “number one” progressive radio talk-show host.

The “National Teach-In to Take Back the American Dream” featured Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor; Heather McGhee of Demos; Leo Hindrey, a businessman and self-styled “Patriotic Millionaire;” Natalie Foster, the co-founder of Rebuild the Dream; and Robert Borosage of the Campaign for America’s Future.

Nobody on the program, which also aired on DISH Network, DirectTV and the Free Speech TV Network, demonstrated any concern about appearing on a Moscow-funded channel to promote the “American dream.”

The Russian regime, which has a habit of murdering journalists and political opponents, has a covert and overt program of manipulation of the Western media, similar to what the old Soviet KGB used to specialize in. Interestingly, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has just posted a blog on The Huffington Post, one of RT’s official “partners” in the media business.

However, demonstrating sensitivity to the charge that he is a paid Russian agent working in the progressive movement, Thom Hartmann has refused to discuss how much the Russians pay him to air his program “The Big Picture” on RT. When I questioned him about this, he actually grabbed my camera recording his response in order to avoid being seen stonewalling.

RT is the same channel that recently announced it was going to host a show with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, now under investigation for espionage against the U.S. The alleged WikiLeaks source for the largest theft of classified documents in U.S. history, Pfc. Bradley Manning, is being formally arraigned on February 23 on charges that include aiding the enemy.

In this video, produced by Accuracy in Media, several Soviet-like broadcasts are shown on RT featuring denunciations of the U.S. This is fairly typical of the fare offered by RT.

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From Accuracy in Media’s Logan Churchwell:

While some conservative leaning blogs are beginning to grumble that a popular NPR personality is hosting a fundraiser for the Obama campaign this week, POLITICO and other outlets carrying the original Minnesota Public Radio report are only skimming the surface of a long overlooked history of financial support. According to Federal Election Commission reports, NPR host Garrison Keillor has given $170,279 in soft money, political committee and joint fundraising contributions since 2000.

Some favorite contribution targets include:

DNC Services Corporation/Democratic National Committee

11/3/2006 2,500.00

1/25/2001 1,000.00

7/13/2001 1,000.00

10/11/2011 2,000.00

11/16/2011 1,000.00

1/25/2010 10,000.00

7/19/2010 1,000.00

10/27/2000 1,000.00

8/17/2004 500.00

9/1/2004 1,000.00

9/14/2006 5,000.00

10/27/2011 29,000.00

Obama for America

1/16/2008 200.00

5/25/2011 2,000.00

8/4/2011 500.00

8/4/2011 1,500.00

8/13/2008 2,300.00

10/27/2011 1,000.00

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In the wake of Current TV’s “Countdown” talk show host Keith Olbermann tweeting that there were “no Occupy rapes,” Big Journalism has uncovered the original incident report composed by the Cleveland Police Department.

The report was uncovered after Olbermann accused online publisher Andrew Breitbart of fabricating an “imaginary wave of rapes at Occupy” after Breitbart confronted nearly a hundred protestors descending upon the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington on February 10th.

Breitbart walked outside the Marriott Wardman at about 7 p.m. and shouted at a hostile band of Occupy protestors who were trespassing and intimidating hotel patrons.

“Stop raping people!” Breitbart shouted. “Murderers! Behave yourselves!”

In the wake of that incident, Olbermann tweeted: “Love this @ Andrew Breitbart goes nuts, hallucinates about some imaginary wave of rapes at Occupy & a bunch of guys w/no necks Tweet-grunt.” He then tweeted, “@TheHenry No Occupy rapes, no cover-up, no apology, no retraction, and no credibility for your Moonie-owned ‘newspaper.’”

Contrary to Olbermann’s claims that there were “no rapes,” Bigs journalists showed that there was an October rape report in Cleveland, among other reports in various cities.

Big Journalism obtained an actual copy of an incident report taken by Cleveland police investigators, along with the names of three defendants from the Occupy Wall Street movement charged with sexual abuse-related crimes.

The Cleveland Police Report narrative, which was partially redacted by police and additionally redacted by Big Journalism to protect the identity of the alleged victim, said the following:

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The controversial contraception, abortifacients and sterilization mandate has quickly become a national debate unlike the country has seen since the passage of Obamacare. Regardless of how the White House is currently positioned to accommodate potentially injured religious parties, Accuracy in Media discovered an alarming narrative developing in the mainstream press. Pundits and reporters have chosen to apply the debate to the horse-race for the GOP nomination, or another battle in the culture war for reproductive rights. Unfortunately a larger, constitutionally intrinsic question is being overlooked: will this pending mandate forever endanger our religious liberties for the sake of public policy? Accuracy in Media sat down with Fr. Joseph Gonzales, Imam Johari Abdul-Malik and Rabbi Charles Feinberg to discuss how this precious balance can be maintained in the 21st Century.

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From Accuracy in Media’s Logan Churchwell:

Go ahead, read the headline again. Mine is almost as bizarre as the original Associated Press piece, titled “How is Romney like 007? Both have money offshore.” Giving us yet another example of the AP’s “New Distinctiveness” in reporting, readers are offered a six-step tutorial on how to hide your money from the Feds. Clearly the intent of this article is to imply that that’s what GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney has done, but the AP doesn’t actually accuse Gov. Romney of any untoward financial activity, right? Read the lead sentence closely (emphasis added):

“Movie super spies James Bond and Jason Bourne use them. So does real-life U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who says he pays his taxes, and untold numbers of Americans who don’t.”

Through each step, the AP is pleased to report how criminals and tax dodgers use foreign (usually Swiss or Cayman, like Romney) accounts to avoid the divine wrath of the Internal Revenue Service; but they neglect to offer legal examples for depositing. In “Step 1: Get a million dollars,” we are advised:

“How? There are essentially two ways — legally or illegally. For those with dirty cash to launder — drug traffickers, mobsters, smugglers, swindlers and such — offshore accounts hidden from the law are the obvious choice (skip to Step 5).”

Don’t hold your breath for the legal method of gaining wealth here. In “Step 2: Decide whether to tell the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. tax agency,” Americans (and therefore Romney) must choose whether to alert the Feds. If they do not, beware: “The government has landed some big fish — notably the largest Swiss bank, UBS AG — and tax cheats are getting scooped up in the net.”

In “Step 3: Look for legal ways to pare taxes,” the author removes any remaining shroud of unmotivated reporting by calling in the experts at Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ), a partisan interest group that has been a cheerleader for Stimulus I, the estate tax and Obamacare. The Associated Press quotes the CTJ, saying “There’s a thin line between tax avoidance and evasion … A lot of these transactions might not stand up in court if the IRS had the resources to pursue them.” Either way, Romney is a bad guy.

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This evening, Andrew Breitbart accepted Cenk Uygur’s invitation to appear on Current TV to debate the phenomenon of rape in the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations. The result was a complete demolition of Uygur, whose ignorance and dishonesty were on full display.

Uygur did not know or care about the well-documented facts about rape and sexual assault at Occupy. He simply wanted to attack Breitbart, and came up with a new and ridiculously false charge: that Andrew Breitbart supports “domestic terror” through journalism.

Uygur made the charge by referring to a remark allegedly made by Breitbart about his own journalism: “It is meant to inflict a maximum amount of damage. It is an act of political and emotional terror.”

Breitbart did not recognize the remark, and challenged Uygur to provide the context, which he eventually did, reluctantly. The full article–from the Huffington Post this morning–reveals that Uygur lied completely about what Breitbart had said. Breitbart had, in fact, been distinguishing his own journalism from tabloid journalism.

Here is the full paragraph from the article:

“My problem is that it was about the compliance of the radical gay agenda. My problem is that it’s coercion,” he says, as if his reporting on Weiner, Sherrod, ACORN and others was not driven by any agenda or motive, nor meant to do harm, politically or personally. “I’m not the National Enquirer. I don’t engage in that type of journalism. It is meant to inflict a maximum amount of damage. It is an act of political and emotional terror.”

Uygur lied blatantly and shamelessly, selectively editing the article to smear Breitbart. (more…)

Media Matters for America has become so politically toxic–due to its Israel-bashing and its attempt to silence conservative media voices–that Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz–a pro-Israel Democrat and civil libertarian–declared today that he would not vote for President Barack Obama unless he dissociated from the group.

Dershowitz, who earlier told the Daily Caller that he had first learned about Media Matters from Neo-Nazi emails touting the group’s articles, cited both Media Matters’ virulent hostility towards Israel, and its method of attempting to silence opponents, as reasons for the Obama administration to sever any ties it had with the group:

First of all, [Media Matters] are not liberals. They are radical Stalinists, for the most part. They are–they bear no relationship to liberality. Liberals want to see an open marketplace of ideas, they don’t want to shut down debate the way these guys are trying to shut down; they don’t employ left-wing McCarthyism the way these guys do–these guys have nothing to do with liberalism. They’re radical extremists….And any association with the Obama administration is going to hurt the Obama administration. There’s not enough room under a big tent for both me, and people who are like me–support Israel, I’m a centrist in support of Israel, I’m in favor of the two-state solution–there’s not enough room for me and the bigots of Media Matters. The Obama administration is going to have to choose….I could not vote for any candidate who had anything to do with Media Matters. That’s clear. That’s as clear as can be. I will not–I will take an oath here that I will not vote for a candidate who has any direct association with Media Matters.

Dershowitz described Media Matters’ use of the term “Israel firster” for American supporters of Israel as “the oldest form of bigotry.” He added: “It’s an absolute bigoted defamation. And the people who make it–whether it be J Street, who has supported it, or Media Matters, that has really coined it, or others–are engaging in very un-American activities.” Recently, the Center for American Progress–a close ally of Media Matters–repudiated the term, but Media Matters has refused to do so.

Similarly, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin yesterday took to Facebook yesterday to support Dershowitz’s warning to his fellow Democrats that Media Matters “will be singlehandedly responsible for (Obama) losing this election.” Noting that she, unlike Dershowitz, opposes the Obama administration’s agenda more generally, Palin observed nonetheless that “Americans of all political stripes are awakened to the dangers of unethical journalists and media organizations that deceive their audiences and use bullying tactics to unfairly target political opponents.”

Larry O’Connor’s full interview with Dershowitz is posted below:

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From Accuracy in Media’s Lynn Woolley and Cliff Kincaid:

When the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure made a decision to sever its ties with America’s number one seller of abortions, Planned Parenthood, the media went to war. The media coverage was slanted in such a way that “mainstream” reporters like Andrea Mitchell and Lisa Myers of NBC News were openly advocating for a point of view—pressuring Komen to reverse course and give in to Planned Parenthood.

Why would the media go to war over something as seemingly insignificant as a policy change regarding funding at Komen, a private cancer charity? Part of the answer lies in the fact that, for the media, “women’s rights” take precedence over all other rights, including the rights of children. This is what “feminism” has become and this is what the Komen controversy was supposed to be about. In reality, it had nothing to do with breast cancer because the fact is that most Planned Parenthood affiliates don’t even provide mammograms. That money from Komen was used to refer women at risk of contracting the disease somewhere else.

So the issue was something else as well. While there were references to Planned Parenthood being an “abortion provider,” there was no explanation of what this “service” actually “provides”—a procedure that destroys a human life. This is why the annual March for Life against abortion is mostly ignored by the major media. It is a sad fact that even some conservative women still think that Planned Parenthood is simply an organization that provides information about voluntary family planning.

You saw very little in the mainstream media from pro-life people who supported Komen’s initial decision. The bias is so pronounced that the media long ago adopted the language of the Left. The term “pro-life” is never used. But “pro-choice” is. Newspapers use the term “abortion rights” to describe the political process of terminating the lives of the unborn, but use “anti-abortion” when referring to those of us who value human life. We are “against.” They are for “rights.”

So we made it a point to tune into the Big Three network newscasts on Friday night—hours after Nancy Brinker of Komen had caved. We wanted to see if this story would be treated in a neutral manner, or if the stories would be written from the standpoint that Brinker did the right thing—and, why did it take her so long? We did receive a shock, though it was a mild one. One of the three networks actually did a fairly nice job.

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Today, on Fox News Channel’s The Five, liberal panelist Bob Beckel praised President Barack Obama’s efforts at job creation: “One good sign of the economy is there are more manufacturing jobs created in the last two years than the last eight,” he said.

Beckel did acknowledge that American manufacturing was still in a bad state, and lamented that the manufacturing sector “has been bleeding jobs because corporations are going to find cheap labor overseas.”

His conservative colleague, Republican strategist Andrea Tantaros, interjected: “So cut the corporate tax.” Fellow conservative Eric Bolling backed her up–”A hundred percent right, Andrea!”–and added that U.S. corporations pay the highest tax rates in the industrialized world, after Japan recently lowered its rate.

Beckel, on the defensive, retorted: “As much as Botswana?”

Tantaros and Bolling didn’t know what to say, and appeared to concede the point: “Botswana? Botswana is the bar? Botswana?” Tantaros protested. “That was a joke,” Beckel reassured her.

It must have been a joke–because, in fact, Botswana does have a far lower corporate tax rate than the U.S., which has helped propel Botswana to rapid and sustained economic growth. (more…)

Eric Boehlert, serial propagandist and Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America, joined the Stephanie Miller show this morning to fling some more dirt at Big Journalism editor-in-chief Dana Loesch.

Boehlert, who has thus far given a pass to men such as Bill Maher and Brit Hume with regard to their comments supporting U.S. Marines who were videotaped urinating on Taliban corpses, joined his hosts in joking about Loesch’s “screeching.”

Miller’s co-host, Chris Lavoie, opened the interview with Boehlert by describing a debate with Loesch on Twitter: “She got really, really screechy and emotional in her responses, and I just kept it on the level.”

Boehlert agreed, affirming Lavoie’s choice of language: “Straight to the screech, straight to the attacks.” He also belittled Loesch, describing her as “an Andrew Breitbart creation.”

Prior to joining Andrew Breitbart’s Big Journalism in 2010, Loesch had been blogging for more than ten years, and had won an award in 2007 for her column in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, among other distinctions.

Boehlert also slammed Loesch for not apologizing for her remarks–an odd claim, given that Media Matters has yet to apologize for the blatant antisemitism of M.J. Rosenberg, or for the lies and distortions of Boehlert himself.

Piling on, Boehlert claimed that Loesch hosts “a radio show, you know, that nobody listens to in the 22nd largest market in the country.” In point of fact, the Dana Show is the number one talk radio show in St. Louis–and in Indianapolis–in its time slot and it was just announced that the show is expanding to three hours.

But if Loesch’s show were really “a radio show that nobody listens to,” why would Boehlert and the left have made such a big deal out of her comments, elevating them to a national level?

Miller provided the answer: (more…)

From Accuracy in Media’s Cliff Kincaid:

When Anita Dunn hasn’t been on CNN or MSNBC bashing the Republican presidential candidates and/or praising President Obama, she has been successfully lobbying for a Washington Post subsidiary by the name of Kaplan University.

You may remember Dunn as the Obama aide who once said communist mass murderer Mao and Mother Teresa were “two of my favorite political philosophers.” The Soros-funded Media Matters said she was taken out of context.

Dunn is now claiming that she is not a lobbyist, even though she works for a firm that does lobbying. Will the progressives defend this, too?

We have written in the past about Kaplan, which is the cash cow for the Post Company, whose newspaper has been losing money and readers. Steven Pearlstein of the Post wrote that Kaplan “has provided the handsome profits that have helped to cover this newspaper’s operating losses” and that “Although we in the Post newsroom have nothing to do with Kaplan, we’ve all benefited from its financial success.”

But that success came at the expense of students, including veterans, who got educated through Kaplan and found that some of their degrees were worthless.

After congressional investigations exposed abuses in the $30 billion for-profit education industry, Kaplan and other companies got very concerned that proposed regulations from the Obama Administration would potentially “cut off the huge flow of federal aid” to private sector colleges declared unfit to receive the money, The New York Times reported.

In the end, “after a ferocious response that administration officials called one of the most intense they had seen, the Education Department produced a much-weakened final plan that almost certainly will have far less impact as it goes into effect” this year.

Former Obama official Dunn played a key role in making sure the for-profit education companies will continue largely with business as usual.

Military columnist Tom Philpott, a former Coast Guardsman, has led the criticism of what he calls the “predatory for-profit schools” that “rob veterans of their Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits.” He quotes Theodore (Ted) L. Daywalt, chief executive officer and president of VetJobs, an online job search firm for military veterans, as saying that he learned about the problem through working with disappointed vets who thought they had used their GI Bill to earn credible degrees only to learn they were “worthless.”

“The eighth for-profit company among the top 10 institutions getting GI Bill payments is Kaplan, owned by The Washington Post. Its Post-9/11 GI Bill payments climbed in 12 months from $17 million to $44 million,” noted Philpott. These are the payments that help pay the salaries of the liberal editorial writers and columnists at the Post newspaper.

In a sign that some news competition is in play among the big papers and that some criticism of the Obama Administration is still permitted in print, the Times noted the key role played by Dunn, “a close friend of President Obama and his former White House communications director.” She had “worked with” Kaplan, the paper said. “And politically well-connected investors, including Donald E. Graham, chief executive of the Washington Post Company, which owns Kaplan, and John Sperling, founder of the University of Phoenix and a longtime friend of the House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, made impassioned appeals,” the paper added.

Dunn had left the Obama Administration to make money at SKDKnickerbocker (SKDK), which describes itself as “a nationally recognized strategic communications consulting firm.” This is what lobbying is called these days. Dunn’s work in the media is highlighted in her bio, where she is described as “a frequent guest on cable and network television, including The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, 60 Minutes, Today, Meet the Press and many more.”

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From Accuracy in Media’s Logan Churchwell:

With the first legitimate event of the 2012 Republican presidential primary just days away in Iowa, the Associated Press today offered a clear example of hatchet jobs to come for the candidates. Mitt Romney was given an early example of what the AP means by “journalism with voice.”

I previously raised concerns over a leaked memo from AP Managing Editor Mike Oreskes two weeks ago. Charging all journalists to use the said “voice,” he did not offer any examples but, rather very contradictory directions (emphasis added):

“We’re going to be pushing hard on journalism with voice, with context, with more interpretation. This does not mean that we’re sacrificing any of our deep commitment to unbiased, fair journalism. It does not mean that we’re venturing into opinion, either. It does mean that we need to be looking for ways to be more distinctive and stand out in the field — something our customers need and want. The why and the how of the news are as crucial as the who, what, when and where.”

The AP offered a very clear example this morning for how these directions will be executed.

The title, “Romney tries to come across as man of the people” was bad enough and it only got worse from there. The AP revealed its playbook as to how they will frame the Romney campaign in 2012.

Step 1: Paint Romney as filthy rich; like his daddy before him. What better way to fan the flames of class warfare than to paint the Republican frontrunner as the quintessential political aristocrat of one-percenter roots? The AP led with (emphasis added):

“Mitt Romney reminisced before a noontime crowd about the long car trips his family took when he was a boy. ‘My dad made Ramblers, so we had one,’ the Republican presidential hopeful said…In fact, Romney’s father didn’t just make cars. He was chairman and president of American Motors, the company that made Ramblers, and a highly successful businessman before he entered politics. It’s a detail the son omitted as he sought to establish a bond with Iowans he hopes will support him in next week’s presidential caucuses.”

Toward the end of the piece, another wealth jab that now opens the Romney wardrobe and Christmas list to criticism:

“As he stood at the cash register at a Concord, N.H., toy store, picking up a few gifts for charity, a patron asked him what he gave his family for Christmas. Earlier in the day, he had bought his wife a $285 North Face jacket as a gift, he said…For his sons? ‘We sent them checks,’ said Romney, a multimillionaire. ‘Cash is always good’.”

Some may remember just how effective the smears were against the Palin family wardrobe in 2008; a standard not held to Michelle Obama.

Step 2: Suggest to readers that either Romney is too smart, or Republicans are too dumb to understand him. Not only is Romney rich and therefore uncaring, but he cannot speak the language and empathize with the common man. The AP cited Romney’s comments regarding company relocation affecting employee commutes:

“Sometimes it’s counter-intuitive,’ replied Romney, a former businessman, explaining that businesses often invent new, more efficient ways to compete…The term is called productivity. Output per person,’ he said. ‘Our productivity equals our income’.”

Anyone with a Business 101 course under their belt or basic sense gained from commercial employment can understand what that statement means, and therefore why the question was properly answered. To argue otherwise is an insult to the general intelligence of the electorate. But the AP does not stop there, suggesting that he can also be too smart and systematically-minded to be “sympathetic.”

“When one retired firefighter in New Hampshire said he was drawing a reduced Social Security check because he also had a state pension, the former Massachusetts governor was less than sympathetic. ‘If there’s a competition for who will give you the most free stuff, go vote for that guy.’ When the man said he wasn’t asking for any handouts, Romney said, ‘You knew what you were getting into. … I wish you well, but I’m not going to promise you more bucks’.”

Regardless of the approach, Romney will be made to look unfit to chat up a voter on Main Street. It also would be helpful to know the context of that exchange and the tone of the question.

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From Accuracy in Media’s Logan Churchwell:

An internal memo penned by the Associated Press’ Managing Editor Mike Oreskes was leaked and featured on sites such as The Huffington Post and Gawker this morning. As an effort to keep up with the rapidly changing news cycle, Oreskes is now offering a new direction for the wire service.

(Source: Moonbattery/Media Mania)

The new plan of action is called “The New Distinctiveness.” But why the change? The AP defines the problem:

“AP wins when news breaks, but after an hour or two we’re often replaced by a piece of content from someone else who has executed something more thoughtful or more innovative. Often it’s someone who has taken what we do (sometimes our reporting itself) and pushed it to the next level of content: journalism that’s more analytical, maybe a fresh and immediate entry point, a move away from text, a multimedia mashup or a different story form that speaks more directly to users.”

To face this challenge, Oreskes will be leading assignment editors and reporters to respond quicker, focus on story themes (dig deeper into the story), diversify communication methods and most important, report with “voice.”

This “reporting with voice” plank of the proposal should set off alarm bells. The full passage states (emphasis added):

“Journalism With Voice. We’re going to be pushing hard on journalism with voice, with context, with more interpretation. This does not mean that we’re sacrificing any of our deep commitment to unbiased, fair journalism. It does not mean that we’re venturing into opinion, either. It does mean that we need to be looking for ways to be more distinctive and stand out in the field — something our customers need and want. The why and the how of the news are as crucial as the who, what, when and where.”

The use of words like voice, context and interpretation are broad pathways to journalism with a point of view. Ask yourself, how does one report with “voice” while maintaining a “deep commitment to unbiased, fair journalism?” Will the AP weigh the use of “voice” on an ad hoc basis against fair reporting?

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Monday night’s episode of The O’Reilly Factor, the number one show in cable news, features an unusual collaboration between FOX and CBS as Steve Kroft of 60 Minutes joins Throw Them All Out author and Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer to discuss insider trading in Congress.

In less than a week, Schweizer’s book–which documents suspicious trades by members and leaders of both parties has upended Washington, DC, prompting hearings to be scheduled in both the Senate and House and shining public scrutiny on a previously hidden avenue of potential corruption and political self-enrichment.

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Media Matters has offered up a ridiculous post that tries to distort the fundamental facts about Barack Obama’s green energy program. I hesitated whether to even comment on it because they fail in the basic tenets of honest journalism. George Soros is a large contributor to Media Matters. In my book Throw Them All Out, I point out how Soros has received millions in taxpayer money via the green energy program. And I also devote an entire chapter to Soros’s crony capitalism as it relates to the stimulus. Does Media Matters disclose this blatant conflict of interest? Of course not. Media Matters is displaying blatant cronyism, pure and simple.

Since my book Throw Them All Out is about cronyism and conflicts of interest, I guess now I’m going to have to include a new chapter on Media Matters for the paperback edition.  I will respond to their criticisms now. But until they release the names of their large donors who have received green energy taxpayer money, I will not respond more in the future. It’s a waste of time to exchange arguments with an organization that claims to be interested in the truth but runs from it. Failure to disclose these names shows a complete and total lack of integrity. Full disclosure: my source of support is apparent in my title. I am the William J. Casey Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Financial support comes from the William J. Casey Foundation. And just so Media Matters doesn’t try to distort matters further, this foundation is not connected with the oil industry. Now, Media Matters, it’s your turn.

First, let’s see what they don’t dispute: that at least 10 members of Barack Obama’s 2008 National Campaign Finance Committee are large investors in companies that received Obama stimulus money and that at least one dozen campaign bundlers did the same. How many of these individuals are financial supporters of Media Matters? We will never know, because the organization would never be honest enough to reveal them to us. They also never dispute the fact that Obama-linked lobbyists have served as intermediaries to get money for green tech companies. And finally, they never dispute the criticisms that the Department of Energy’s own Inspector General has raised about how the various green energy stimulus programs have been run. (more…)

With details now erupting on Capitol Hill about Sen. John Kerry’s (D-MA) questionable investments, a curious question lingers: why did it take a Tallahassee-based think tank wonk to uncover a former presidential candidate’s aggressive trading of pharmaceutical stock during both the 2009 Obamacare debate and the 2003 prescription drug benefit plan debate?

After all, as Throw Them All Out makes clear, Sen. Kerry, while serving as a member of the Health Subcommittee on the powerful Senate Finance Committee, made huge profits off of healthcare-related trades.

So why didn’t the mainstream media expose the story, especially involving a man who ran for the nation’s highest office?

One explanation for the media’s failure to properly vet Mr. Kerry’s finances might be that some journalists believed reports like this 2005 USA Today article that claimed Mr. Kerry has a blind trust. However, according to his financial disclosure forms, Mr. Kerry does not have a blind trust. With a minimum net worth of $188.6 million, The Hill notes that Mr. Kerry is the richest member of Congress. According to Peter Schweizer’s book Throw Them All Out, “the bulk of the Kerrys’ wealth resides in a series of marital trust and commingled fund accounts.  All together, these funds include significant investments in stocks of many corporations.”

In an interview with Peter Schweizer, the author further explained that the Kerrys’ investment funds include two small funds run by Teresa Heinz Kerry’s sons, both of whom are close to Mr. Kerry and worked in senior positions on his 2004 presidential campaign. The Sustainable Technologies fund is run by Andre Heinz. He has little financial experience. The fund is set up in Sweden. The Kerrys have multiple investments in the fund through several of their trusts. Another son, Christopher Heinz, runs Rosemont Capital, where they also have invested. But neither of these are blind trusts, despite what some news outlets erroneously reported. (more…)

Big Journalism has learned that the Occupy Washington DC movement is working with well-known media members to craft its demands and messaging while these media members report on the movement. Someone has made the emails from the Occupy Wall Street email distro public and searchable. The names in the list are a veritable who’s who in media.

Journolist 2.0 includes well known names such as MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan, Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi who both are actively participating; involvement from other listers such as Bill Moyers and Glenn Greenwald plus well-known radicals like Noam Chomsky, remains unclear. The list also includes a number of radical organizers, such as Kevin Zeese.

In these emails we see MSNBC’s Ratigan, hawking his book in the footnotes, instructing occupiers on how properly to present their demands and messages while simultaneously appearing on television reporting “objectively” on the story (when he’s not taking part in the protests himself as content.)

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On Friday, September 23, 2011, at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, a panel of activists held a press conference on the $2.7 billion Pigford settlement between the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and black farmers claiming past discrimination.

What ensued was a grotesque display of racism, antisemitism, and homophobia. And not a single member of the mainstream media was on hand to report what happened.

The event was opened by Malik Zulu Shabazz, Chairman of the New Black Panther Party, a militant hate group that supported Barack Obama in the 2008 election and sent armed thugs to intimidate voters at several polling places in 2008 and 2010. (On Monday, Andrew Breitbart revealed that Obama and other Democrats shared a podium with Shabazz and the New Black Panthers at a march in Selma, AL in March 2007.)

Shabazz would go on to express frustration that President Obama had not delivered as expected in the face of opposition. While making the otherwise valid point that black people should be able to criticize a black president, he complained that Obama had abandoned blacks for gays:

While Troy Davis was being executed, President Obama was focused on promoting the gay rights agenda as he prepares for an election.

Gary Grant, the President of the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association, said that Obama had failed to deliver on his promises to black farmers because he and his family were surrounded by white people:

I have mixed emotions about President Obama, you know. I think Dr. Ridgely [Muhammad, Minister of Agriculture of the Nation of Islam, seated on Grant’s right] probably has defined it best. He said: “Now, look. The man is black. His wife is black. His children are black. They are being–heʼs being guarded by white folk. Sheʼs being guarded by white folk. The children are being guarded by whitefolk. And then he went out and bought a black dog,” you know.

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This is all that remains of the very popular Ford commercial that went viral on the internet and was featured on cable news channels over the past three weeks:

According to the Detroit News, Ford has pulled the ad due to pressure from the Obama White House:

Ford pulled the ad after individuals inside the White House questioned whether the copy was publicly denigrating the controversial bailout policy CEO Alan Mulally repeatedly supported in the dark days of late 2008, in early ‘09 and again when the ad flap arose. And more.

With President Barack Obama tuning his re-election campaign amid dismal economic conditions and simmering antipathy toward his stimulus spending and associated bailouts, the Ford ad carried the makings of a political liability when Team Obama can least afford yet another one. Can’t have that.

In an exclusive interview with Breitbart.com, the “star” of the popular ad, Chris McDaniel told me he was “a little bit flustered’ by Ford’s decision. He found out about it during a live radio interview this morning. “I had no idea. As soon as I got off the interview, I sent an e-mail to Ford’s VP of Marketing.” He told me, “I put myself out there on the line. You either stand behind it or you don’t.”

Ford has not yet returned Mr. McDaniel’s e-mail.

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