Author Topic: Media, Ministry of Truth Issues  (Read 1041310 times)

Crafty_Dog

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Scotland Yard, the dog that did NOT bark , , ,
« Reply #750 on: July 16, 2011, 11:30:51 AM »
Breaking News Alert
The New York Times
Saturday, July 16, 2011 -- 1:38 PM EDT
-----

Taint From Tabloids Rubs Off on a Cozy Scotland Yard

For nearly four years, six overstuffed plastic bags containing possible evidence of phone hacking by the British tabloid, The News of the World, collected little more than dust in the evidence room of Scotland Yard.

During that time, British police officials assured Parliament, judges, lawyers, potential hacking victims, the news media and the public that there was no evidence of widespread hacking by the paper. But that assertion has been reduced to tatters in the last week, torn apart by an avalanche of contradictory evidence, admissions by newspaper executives that the hacking was more widespread, and a reversal by police officials who now admit to mishandling the case.

In an article in the Sunday New York Times, Don Van Natta Jr. explains how the British police agency and News International, the British subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation and the publisher of The News of the World, became so intertwined that they shared the goal of containing the investigation.

Read More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/world/europe/17police.html?emc=na

G M

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Re: Media Issues
« Reply #751 on: July 16, 2011, 02:02:40 PM »
Now, if Murdoch was somehow intertwined with "Operation Gunwalker", the MSM might pay some attention to it.  :roll:

Crafty_Dog

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G M

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Re: Murder? Whistle blower found dead
« Reply #753 on: July 19, 2011, 12:11:34 PM »



http://news.yahoo.com/police-phone-hacking-whistleblower-found-dead-181711003.html
LONDON (AP) — Police say Sean Hoare, the whistleblower reporter who alleged widespread hacking at the News of the World, has been found dead.

Police said Hoare's death at his home in England was not considered to be suspicious, according to Britain's Press Association news agency.

**Kind of reminds me of when the FBI rushes forward to claim there are no indications of terrorism before an investigation is conducted.Until an autopsy has been conducted, you really can't say.

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Media Issues
« Reply #754 on: July 19, 2011, 12:14:42 PM »
In that Scotland Yard appears to have been a major player in this, serious fox in the hen house issues are presented by any investigation.

G M

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Re: Media Issues
« Reply #755 on: July 19, 2011, 12:33:02 PM »
In that Scotland Yard appears to have been a major player in this, serious fox in the hen house issues are presented by any investigation.

Very bad, that. From what I know, the UK is usually pretty bleeding edge on homicide investigation methods and technology. It depends on the laws and policy and procedures of the location, but typically an unattended death is treated as a homicide unless/until found to be otherwise. It need not require a kicked in front door and a head severed by an axe.

DougMacG

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Media Issues: WSJ Foxified?
« Reply #756 on: July 19, 2011, 12:51:58 PM »
Coming back to a previous Crafty post recently and back around the time Murdoch tookover:

What I notice is that the WSJ perhaps stands alone in the fact that there really is a firewall between the news departments and the editorial writing.  In that sense it is two different publications.  The news side trudges on, very good in parts but no different in slant (IMO) or 'objectivity' to the NYT, WashPost, USA Today, etc.

The Editorial Page OTOH was alone in the pre-internet era in terms of direction and quality, back in the Robert Bartley days.  The transition to the current team I don't think was in any way tied to the Murdoch purchase, just generational.  Paul Gigot the current editorial page editor has great analysis and insight in politics and economics.  I believe he was Bartley's pick to replace himself and to continue what he built.  Gigot seemed to bring in a new team of writers who I would say are very good but not great.  I don't believe the overall political views they publish have changed.  (They were conservative and long before Fox/Murdoch was in TV much less newspaper.)

If you go to Real Clear Politics they show their own most read listings of the day and week.  WSJ columns get in there but you can see over time which writers and stories are more compelling than others.  Maybe WSJ should shake things up and hire away a couple of big name writers, but I see their circulation is number one in the country, more than double the NY Times, more than triple the LA Times.  In a tough business, that's not too bad.  http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/romenesko/130676/wsj-remains-largest-circulation-daily-newspaper/

NYT was also on the lead of Glen Beck (envy) - 'firing' story - last January, he stayed on 6 months and was still number one in his time slot with re-runs the week after he left.  They are IMO just taking this opportunity to remind liberal readers that there are conservatives elsewhere in the media to avoid.

G M

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Ooof!
« Reply #757 on: July 20, 2011, 12:04:24 PM »

bigdog

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Re: Media Issues
« Reply #758 on: July 20, 2011, 04:36:50 PM »
That's pretty funny.

ccp

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Media Issues/entertainment/corporate/crime complex
« Reply #759 on: July 27, 2011, 09:43:46 AM »
Almost certianly Piers Morgan is lying.  The entire entertainment industry is rampant with criminal behavior.  We have had our phones hacked, tapped, listening devices, breaking and entering, stolen intellectual property, surveillance to do harm, bribery theft at the Copyright Office, bribery of government officials and more.  The stolen lyrics and anything else we say or do that can be sold to make a buck shows up in commercials, comedy skits, talk shows, cartoons, movie lines, marketing ads, throughout the "entertainment" industry.  Everyone has connections, and spread the material around.   No most of them are not doing the stealing but the are party to passing it around, making deals amongst themselves, looking the other way, claiming it for themselves, and following the code of silence. 

The News corp is not an exception - it is the rule.  I have claimed this for years.  But I am not a powerful person with billions and connections.  So no one gives a shit about me or Katherine.  But News has many wealthy and politically connected enemies.  So this gets traction and people to actually do something about it.

Folks let me say again - this behaviour is not the exception - it is the rule.   Indeed the device makers have ways to "get in" your devices.  Try finding it embedded.  Try doing anyhting about it.

When I hear the doppy girly news anchors ask their guest who come on their shows to talk of the surveillance ask, "can one opt out?" all I can do is cringe at their ignorance an naivity:

*****Phone Hacking

CNN's Piers Morgan 'told interviewer stories were published based on phone tapping'
Piers Morgan, the CNN broadcaster, has said that newspaper articles based on the findings of people paid to tap phones and rake through bins were published during his time as a tabloid newspaper editor, it can be disclosed.
 
Piers Morgan, Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson have all edited the News of the World Photo: REX
 By Jon Swaine, New York
12:40AM BST 27 Jul 2011
Mr Morgan, a former News of the World and Daily Mirror editor who is now a high-profile television presenter in the US, has spent the past week categorically denying ever printing material derived from phone hacking.

He spoke out after being accused by a Conservative MP and political bloggers of being involved in the phone hacking scandal that has engulfed Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, for which he used to work.

“For the record, in my time at the News of the World and the Mirror, I have never hacked a phone, told anyone to hack a phone, or published any stories based on the hacking of a phone,” he said last week on CNN, where he now hosts a talk-show.

But it has emerged that Mr Morgan gave a notably different response when asked during an interview with the BBC about his potential involvement in covert "gutter" journalistic practices during his time as a tabloid editor between 1994 and 2004.

“What about this nice middle-class boy, who would have to be dealing with, I mean essentially people who rake through bins for a living, people who tap people’s phones, people who take secret photographs, who do all that nasty down-in-the-gutter stuff,” he was asked on BBC's Desert Island Discs in June 2009. “How did you feel about that?"
Mr Morgan replied: “To be honest, let’s put that in perspective as well. Not a lot of that went on. A lot of it was done by third parties rather than the staff themselves. That’s not to defend it, because obviously you were running the results of their work.

"I’m quite happy to be parked in the corner of tabloid beast and to have to sit here defending all these things I used to get up to, and I make no pretence about the stuff we used to do,” he told the programme's host, Kirsty Young.

“I simply say the net of people doing it was very wide, and certainly encompassed the high and low end of the supposed newspaper market.”

The discovery of Mr Morgan’s comment, first hinted at by the Guido Fawkes political blog, came after Trinity Mirror, the parent company of The Daily Mirror, announced it had opened an investigation into editorial standards at its newspapers in light of the phone hacking scandal.

Clive Goodman, a reporter for The News of the World, and Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator employed by the newspaper, were jailed in 2007 for illegally hacking mobile phone voicemails. News International, the paper's parent company, initially said the scandal was limited to a "rogue reporter" but in recent weeks conceded it was in fact widespread.

The News of the World was shut down and several more arrests have been made, including Andy Coulson, a former News of the World editor hired by David Cameron to be the chief spokesman at 10 Downing Street and Rebekah Brooks, Mr Murdoch's former British newspaper chief. But News International has made clear it believes hacking was widespread among other tabloids.

At the weekend James Hipwell, a Daily Mirror financial columnist between 1998 and 2000, said that illegal phone hacking was “endemic” during Mr Morgan's editorship. "You know what people around you are doing,” he said.

Last week Mr Morgan was accused in a parliamentary committee by Louise Mensch, the Tory MP for Corby, of publishing an article in 2002 about an affair between Sven Goran Eriksson, the England football coach, and Ulrika Jonsson, the television presenter, which he knew had been obtained via phone hacking. He denied this and demanded an apology during a nine-minute row on live television.

Sources close to Mr Morgan said that he was referring to the tabloid industry in general. In a statement, he said: “I have never hacked a phone, told anyone to hack a phone, nor to my knowledge published any story obtained from the hacking of a phone. I am not aware, and have never seen evidence to suggest otherwise, that any Mirror story published during my tenure was obtained from phone hacking.”

ccp

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Re: Media Issues
« Reply #760 on: August 05, 2011, 08:00:54 AM »
It is remarkable how the crats are able to still spin the fault of the economy onto the tea party.

Now the lack of new jobs the faultering economy is due to the tea party distracting Brock and the country away from job creation to the debt ceiling and the debt.

And the MSM of course picks up this ball and runs for the goal post.

Apparently independents are ok with this as they seem to blame Congress for everything more than Brock.

They probably still agree with tax the rich mentality.  They still don't get it.  Better steal more from the successful the mess with my Medicare social security and the rest.

Newt was on Greta last night and was right on message (IMO) by explaining how easy this could addressed if we only get big government out of the way. 

However the MSM ignores him.  Instead we here opinions from giants like Obama diseased Brock apologist Eugene Robinson of the Wash Post.

Joe Scarborough has lost me once and for all.  He is living proof that anyone can be bought.  (By his employer MSNBC).

ccp

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Re: Media Issues
« Reply #761 on: August 05, 2011, 10:53:54 AM »
Are there ever any polls about radical progressivism in the United States?  How popular is liberalism once people understand what it is all about?
Americans should be thanking the tea party yet the entitlement crowd never ceases to stop:

****Views of Congress, tea party reach new low in poll
By Chris Moody

Political Reporter

The marathon negotiations that led to the debt ceiling deal seemed to leave an indiscriminate trail of casualties in Washington. And now a new opinion poll has proven as much, with public views on the debt showdown dealing severe hits to all parties--centrist compromisers and principled hardliners alike.

Not all the anger is necessarily aimed at Washington, however. Public perception of the tea party movement, which many see as the driving force that kept Republicans from voting to raising the debt ceiling without implementing unprecedented spending reductions, is at a record low. In a New York Times/CBS poll released Friday, 40 percent of respondents said they held an "unfavorable" view of the movement, up from 29 percent before the debt negotiations began in April, and higher than any number since pollsters started asking the question last year. One in five respondents said they approved of the tea party, down from 26 percent a few months ago.

Congress, as usual, fared the worst. The legislative branch almost never gets high marks from the public, but never before has it earned this level of disapproval. Eighty-two percent in the poll said they disapprove of how members of Congress are doing their jobs--the highest such rate since 1977, when the poll was first taken.

President Obama, on the other hand, was the only one to really escape the negotiation process without deeply damaging blows to his perception, the poll suggested. Almost half (48 percent) said they approve of the way Obama is handling his job as president, a number that has remained stable since late 2009.****

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Media Issues
« Reply #762 on: August 05, 2011, 11:08:19 AM »
What poll is that?  I've seen that Baraq has dropped from 48 to 40% in the last few months , , ,  I'd also be curious to cross check the data from other polls regarding the Tea Party

ccp

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Re: Media Issues
« Reply #763 on: August 05, 2011, 11:22:10 AM »
Crafty,
Good point.  This AM MSNBC cites a CBS/NYT poll.  Anyone would know this poll is going to be biased and is probably directly connected to the jurnolist-NYT-MSNBC liberal media cabal.

Of course in the poll the tea party boehner congress all come out on the bottome while Brock is not nearly as negative.

bigdog

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Re: Media Issues
« Reply #764 on: August 05, 2011, 12:25:46 PM »
Congress is traditionally the lowest regarded branch of government, no matter who is in power, and no matter who is asking the questions (and the article says as much).  It wouldn't matter, almost certainly, if the president had been Republican and the Congress had been split.  That said, if you look at MOC reelection rates, constituents LOVE their elected officials. 

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Media Issues
« Reply #765 on: August 05, 2011, 12:48:27 PM »
Gerrymandering has quite a bit to do with re-election rates. 

If we are going to continue this, lets take it to the election thread

ccp

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STAT Jornolist reply to debate
« Reply #766 on: August 12, 2011, 08:39:00 AM »
This is so obviously the jornolist with the liberal pollsters and party operatives all in cohoots.  They know Brock is a loser so we will see blitzkreg (sp?) like attacks from them about every republican thing that comes up:

http://news.yahoo.com/fact-check-republican-debate-strains-facts-030442355.html

DougMacG

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Re: Media Issues: Phony fact check?
« Reply #767 on: August 12, 2011, 11:47:56 AM »
CCP, Thanks for exposing the phony fact checkers.  That is a political document no better or less biased than what they claim to be correcting.

I normally don't read anything past the first falsehood - this one starts by saying regarding the individual mandate: "Nothing is unconstitutional until courts declare it to be so."  Of course an appeals court just said so today, but other courts have already declared that - in both directions.  Even if this court ruled otherwise or the Supreme Court eventually gets this wrong, she has every right running for President to question the constitutionality of everything the federal government does and declare to us her view of it - and she did.  Other cases are more questionable; this one to me is kind of obvious.  Her view of that gives us an idea of how she would govern.  Whether you like that or oppose it, that is the purpose of the debate.

They don't get anything right IMO until the ending where Bachmann (quoting a false newspaper story) says that Pawlenty said the era of small government is over.  That was just sloppy.  Anyone following his years in the legislature, two terms as governor and campaigning for President knows that Pawlenty, like Bachmann is a force on the side of trying to contain the expansions of government.  If you can find a part of a statement otherwise, it is likely false or lacking context, and she should have known that.

Crafty_Dog

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DougMacG

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Media Issues: LA Times rips Obama?
« Reply #769 on: August 17, 2011, 03:03:05 PM »
How did this get into the L.A.Times??  This would never happen in our liberal paper.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2011/08/obama-jobs-package-debt-deal.html

On Day 938 of his presidency, Obama says he'll have a jobs plan in a month or so

They go on to criticize the bus tour:  "Because Obama wanted to hear from regular Americans, he's encased in an armored Darth Vader bus with heavily-tinted windows so no one can see him looking out at regular Americans.

And as the commander-in-chief meanders through the Heartland in this black vehicle, the entire road in both directions is cleared of regular Americans for the president's entourage and motorcade to pass by safely." [Picture is supposed to be a two-way street. Welcome to the motorcade.]

--------------
[The Pres. flew Air Force One to St. Paul MN to get to the Canadian-built bus.]

DougMacG

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Media Issues: AP = DNC alarmism mouthpiece?
« Reply #770 on: August 18, 2011, 02:34:18 PM »
CO2 is the chief greenhouse gas??

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/08/17/perry_says_he_doesnt_believe_in_global_warming/

"But Perry's opinion runs counter to the view held by an overwhelming majority of scientists that pollution released from the burning of fossil fuels is heating up the planet. Perry's home state of Texas releases more heat-trapping pollution carbon dioxide -- the chief greenhouse gas -- than any other state in the country, according to government data."

Carbon dioxide IS NOT the chief greenhouse gas.  Water vapor is.  By far!

Carbon dioxide is not pollution.  It is what plants breathe and animals exhale.

Carbon dioxide releases by humans in 2011 is a sign of ECONOMIC ACTIVITY.  Is that what they meant to say?

ccp

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Re: Media Issues
« Reply #771 on: August 18, 2011, 03:19:58 PM »
Doug,
Which bus do you think Brock is in the black one or the red one?  Or neither?   :|
Maxine Waters is pissed his tour didn't go through urban Black communities.   :-P
Hell he knows her crowd is going to vote for him.

What does she think?

DougMacG

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Re: Media Issues
« Reply #772 on: August 18, 2011, 04:03:26 PM »
CCP, funny.  The part I though odd was to fly the most expensive plane to MN so you can go busing to IL - to be closer to the people.  And while busing you are hidden completely from public view.  Could have just flown.  $2 million for 2 buses.  Use them 2 days, then fly to the vineyard.  What happens to the taxpayer buses? Bus barn now at the White House or did they buy more property?

I support whatever part of that operation is really necessary to protect him from assassination.  Somehow that highway full of civilian vehicles doesn't seem like the best way to do that.

I recall that Clarence Thomas, with his wife, drives his own motorhome to the campgrounds and diners across the country and actually does meet the people on his time off.  I'm not visualizing an entourage with that.  He may not be leader of the free world, but he plays a role in it.

The reason given by Carney that the trip is business not campaign, as he touts the success of his own policies (?) and slams his opponents, is that the President isn't facing a primary challenge.  That is convenient.


Crafty_Dog

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Stewart on Megan wuzzername
« Reply #774 on: August 29, 2011, 02:34:37 PM »
Gotta give props to Jon Stewart for anally plugging Megan Wuzzername of FOX this past week for being a hypocrite-- contrasting her on entitlements then getting in a snit over someone who criticized paid maternal leave as a scam or something like that.  You had to see it to appreciate-- quite the skewering!

ccp

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Re: Media Issues
« Reply #775 on: August 29, 2011, 03:56:54 PM »
I forgot about the maternity leave "entitlement", ahem excuse me, I mean "human/civil right".

http://thecallblog.com/?p=99

DougMacG

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Re: Media Issues
« Reply #776 on: August 29, 2011, 04:59:59 PM »
A couple of links:  http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-august-11-2011/lactate-intolerance
Funny but misleading.  The original piece of her skewering the radio show host I thought really was funny though you couldn't tell if he was serious, if she was really mad or what any of her political views really are: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMiipGGdHIs

She was giving shit to a friend who asked for it.  He said something intentionally to get her going - the maternity thing is a racket. I doubt he doesn't understand mothers being with newborn.  Her time off was in a private contract, not a government entitlement.  Yes she said US in the dark ages on that with a twinkle in her eye, perhaps devil's advocate to a conservative radio host friend of hers. 

The Stewart assumption is that she is otherwise a complete anti-government anarchist because she works at Fox and has asked tough questions in the past about entitlements that can't be reformed.  He tried a few gotcha moments and for sure it worked with his audience.  A straw argument string of unrelated partial clips of her insinuating that overall entitlements have gone too far.  Yes they have.  The clip of her saying "the free market should dictate" was about the FAIRNESS DOCTRINE, not pregnancy, leave or child rearing.  Stewart has it down to either you favor all entitlements and government control 'like us' or you don't.  Everyone in between, like a moderate on Fox, is a hypocrite.

Crafty_Dog

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WSJ: Digital Divide
« Reply #777 on: August 29, 2011, 08:57:01 PM »
By DAVID FRIEND
It is clear that the world changed on 9/11. It is less clear exactly how it did. Ten years later the debate is still open on the wisdom of waging war in Afghanistan and Iraq, on laws that effectively rolled back civil liberties, on the West's relation to Islam, on America's place in the world. But in one respect, the way the world changed is utterly clear—the manner in which we witness news events.

In 2001, few could have foreseen the way the attacks would coincide with a phase change in how we observe and respond to key moments in public life, and therefore how society and culture go on to interpret history. Three technologies that found their footing in the 1990s—digital photography, 24/7 television news, and Internet-supported citizen journalism—came of age that day as some two billion people (a third of the species) watched the attacks unfold on TV and the World Wide Web.

But what we couldn't foresee then is how the act of newsgathering would be turned on its head. Since 9/11, the documentation of conflict—in the form of still photographs and moving pictures, often by civilians carrying camera-equipped mobile phones, whose footage can be viewed almost instantaneously across the globe—actually takes precedent in the public mind over context and analysis. Often, "traditional" media coverage, no matter how well-funded, thorough and authoritative, is not considered credible or definitive unless accompanied by compelling visual evidence.

On Sept. 11, 2001, there was no such thing as a YouTube video. Or a Facebook page. Or a Twitter feed. Cellphone cameras did not exist. Yet legions of people rushed to the site of the twin towers to document the attack and its aftermath. Their images, as much as those from stationary TV cameras or professional photographers, became our window onto the calamity. Meanwhile, countless others used their pagers, phones and PCs to enter firsthand reports of what things were like in Lower Manhattan. Thousands more, forwarding those accounts around the world, helped produce a people's chronicle of 9/11 that corresponds with—rivals, really—the record seen on television and in print.

What was extraordinary that day has become thoroughly familiar. In 2011, when history happens, it is more often than not a nonjournalist with a pocket camera, a blog or a Twitter account who files the initial dispatch. It was a tourist with a camcorder who captured the first devastating waves of the Asian tsunami of 2004. A commuter with a mobile phone, riding the London Underground, took the first haunting frames of the transit bombings of 2005. Nowadays, history belongs to the first photographer to post the pictures of it.

This phenomenon was everywhere apparent during this year's popular "Arab Spring" uprisings, from Tunis to Tripoli, and from Aleppo to the Gulf of Aden. In country after country, abuses were revealed via Facebook postings and YouTube videos. Protests, coordinated via social networks like Facebook, were spearheaded by young people, all of whom had grown up during the digital era. (More recently, both rioters and citizen-response groups in London and elsewhere have used mobile messaging services to mobilize.)

In retrospect, one can only imagine how the assaults of 9/11 might have been absorbed and magnified in the age of the smartphone, WiFi and streaming video. How might the attacks have further traumatized us had the technology existed to allow real-time visualizations of the deaths of thousands of innocents? How differently might the international community have reacted—or might historians have judged the actions of al Qaeda—had workers, trapped inside the World Trade Center, used the cameras on their hand-held devices and computers to record scenes of atrocity and carnage, then beamed those photos and videos to their families?

Instead of a panoramic view of mass murder, witnessed from a distance, would we have seen individual lives extinguished one by one, and irrefutably, in the here and now? And to what end? How, one wonders, would we have handled such images, given the breadth of the horror and the unspeakable depth of the loss?

It is hard to imagine that we would have wanted a more detailed account of the awfulness of that day. Even so, it is hard to suppose that we would rather have learned about the facts of September 11 through the next morning's newspapers. Ten years after, we don't just expect a crowd-sourced profusion of digital images to accompany a significant event as it unfolds; for better for worse, we demand it.

Mr. Friend, an editor at Vanity Fair, is the author of "Watching the World Change: The Stories Behind the Images of 9/11," reissued this month by Picador. This op-ed is adapted from the book's preface.


G M

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Remember when the left was so concerned about civility?
« Reply #778 on: September 07, 2011, 05:42:56 AM »
http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2011/09/wheres-civility-now


Where's the civility now?
 

By:David Freddoso | 09/06/11 8:05 PM
Online Opinion Editor | Follow on Twitter @freddoso.
 
Remember when Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., was shot in Tucson by a mentally ill gunman? Do you remember the many voices calling for civility in our political dialogue that sprang from that event?
 That happened only eight months ago, but civility has evidently become passe.
 
We've received a few recent, unpleasant reminders of this fact. Just before the holiday weekend, video emerged of Rep. Andre Carson, D-Ind., telling a friendly crowd that some of his fellow members of Congress would like to lynch him because he is black. Given that Carson obviously made this up (if he didn't, he is free to return The Washington Examiner's calls at long last and name names), it's a cheap way of spreading false fears and exciting base voters.
 
On Labor Day, Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa had choice words for Republicans at a union rally: "Let's take these son-of-a-bitches out and give America back to America where we belong." The first part of that sentence seems slightly more serious than putting "targets" on a campaign map, doesn't it? (And no, I have no idea what the second half means.)
 
Despite the fact that President Obama appeared on stage about 20 minutes after Hoffa, the White House declined to comment on Hoffa's remarks. It's just as well, because if Obama had commented on the "son-of-a-bitches," he might have also had to comment on the equally absurd (if less salty) declaration from his own vice president to an AFL-CIO rally the same day: "You are the only folks keeping the barbarians from the gates." (Biden actually said something very similar at a fundraiser in 2008, except that he included trial lawyers among those guarding the gates.)


Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2011/09/wheres-civility-now

ccp

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unions do not represent the middle class
« Reply #779 on: September 07, 2011, 10:13:24 AM »
The strategy of the unions is to exand *their* plight to most Americans by calling it a *middle class* issue.  The jornolists/unions/liberals are all on the same page screaming about the "war on the middle class", "working people", etc.

Like yeah right;   the tea party the republicans the conservatives want to destroy the middle class.

Most of us are not in unions and even some union members don't buy this propaganda - which is exactly what it is.

Yet Pat Buchanan is exactly right and echoes what I have been saying all along:

the left and the right have not as yet put forward a real plan to save the obvious trend of falling behind of the middle class.

And Doug, I love ya but please don't try to give me stats about how the middle class is doing as well as it was 30 - 40 years ago.
It clearly is much  harder to make ends meet today then it was only a generation ago.   Two people working, even college degrees meaning far less, people not having job security, $30,000 being a decent wage in 1970 and now 100K is not even the same.  The middle is clearly been stagnant and not able to keep up with the bills.

That said the answer for me is not to steal from succesful people and dole it out. The answer is unclear to me.  Without any doubt in my mind any Republican who can give a logical plan that addresses this more specifically will wipe out Brock.

The big government small government argument alone will always be a screaming yelling match struggle for the middle votes.
 

ccp

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MSNBC - a night of high comedy
« Reply #780 on: September 08, 2011, 06:15:09 PM »
I missed the debate but saw some of the MSNBC liberal "analysts" afterwards.

The two Chrises, Rachel, Al, Ed.  It was really a riot watching them fail as they tried to demean the candidates.  The whole time using every conceivable name, label, argument, and struggling with logic so twisted even one with Down's syndrome would be cracking up with laughter.

The only ones who have lost the *debate* are the liberals.

The LEFT  has lost the *debate*.  Now if the Repubs can only bring home the bacon.

DougMacG

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Media Bias - Meet the Depressed with David Gregory
« Reply #781 on: September 18, 2011, 08:47:24 PM »
It is so old to complain about media bias so I apologize in advance, but that lightweight David Gregory was way over the top today IMO.  At the start of his interview with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell must have said may I have permission to treat this one as a hostile witness.  What a jerk, Gregory.  What a bunch of loaded questions.  'The President wants to [grow jobs and solve the debt problem] but wonders whether he has a partner with the Republicans'.

They play a clip from Speaker Boehner, Gregory asks, "Isn't this classic politicians double talk, talking out of both sides of their mouths?"  No attempt whatsoever to hide his hatred or bias.  McConnell was professional and directly answered the questions without complaint.  Then, guess what?  Next guess was former President and out comes the gushing and fawning.  It was supposed to be friendly because it was supposed to be about just some global do-gooding Clinton is up to.  Fine. Instead they used Clinton to answer the other side of the same questions and issues, but with the hosts' friendly and helpful kid gloves.  If hostile is how best to question and Bill Clinton is who they send up, then rough him over too.  If he is too old, too removed or too fragile, leave him out of it.

Yes, former Presidents deserves respect.  So do the leaders of the senate.

Here is the link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/
Please don't watch.  The internet hits just encourage them.

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Re: Media Issues
« Reply #782 on: September 18, 2011, 08:53:30 PM »
Here is the link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/
Please don't watch.  The internet hits just encourage them.

If it were not for right-wing bloggers, MSLSD wouldn't have any traffic at all.....   :evil:

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Media Issues
« Reply #783 on: September 19, 2011, 03:08:04 PM »

"Here is the link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/
Please don't watch.  The internet hits just encourage them."

Experiencing cognitive dissonance here , , , :lol:

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Mex narcos intimidating US journalists
« Reply #784 on: September 22, 2011, 05:28:13 AM »


Vice President of Intelligence Fred Burton examines the emerging threat against journalists covering Mexican cartel violence along the border and the challenges of corroborating source information.


Editor’s Note: Transcripts are generated using speech-recognition technology. Therefore, STRATFOR cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.

Related Links
Mexico Security Memo: Zetas Communications Network Dismantled
As a forecasting company, we try to look at emerging threats. Intelligence surfaced this week over concerns for border violence against journalists that cover cartel violence from Mexico. In this week’s Above the Tearline, we’re going to examine the challenges of making sense of this kind of emerging threat, as well as how we go about attempting to corroborate or refute the information.

Being a journalist or an investigative reporter in Mexico is an extremely dangerous job. Organizations like Reporters Without Borders reports that there’s been 80 journalists killed in Mexico since 2000, and recently we had two female journalists found naked, bound and killed in Mexico City. The intelligence we received this week is from a very reliable source of STRATFOR that expressed very specific concern for this emerging threat against journalists inside the United States, especially those in close proximity to the border.

When STRATFOR receives a report like this from a reliable contact, we take great strides to attempt to corroborate or refute the data point, meaning we go about contacting our other sources in state and local and federal law enforcement, as well as foreign police, in this case, Mexico, in an effort to see what they may know about this concern and to seek out their assessment as to whether or not this could be a viable threat. One of the things that we did to connect the dots is, we have had over the years anecdotal information from various media contacts and investigative journalists of the exact same fear. We’ve had reports of journalists being relocated out of concerns surrounding this exact issue, and in essence protective security measures being taken by various media outlets to protect themselves from this kind of issue.

One of the other things we do in an effort to corroborate or refute a source report is, we’ll gather together the tactical team that puts together the Mexico Security Memo and discuss in great detail whether or not we think this is a viable threat and will unpack that threat to see if it makes sense or if it’s something that just is totally off the wall.

The Above the Tearline aspect with this video is the fear that the cartels have the capability to suppress the open source as to what’s taking place in Mexico or along the border and in essence shape the perception of what the cartels are doing. We have already seen this happen inside of Mexico. There has been a reduction of investigative journalists, we’ve had numerous killed and intimidated and if this threat is now coming across the border, this is an issue that most of us have to look at very closely and think about the ramifications of the spillover effect and the ability of the cartels to shape the news inside the United States.

Click for more videos


Crafty_Dog

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It was only ten years ago today, that Al Alwaki was the voice of moderate Islam
« Reply #785 on: October 01, 2011, 12:10:00 AM »
Bret Baier Report tonight reported that after 911 Pravda on the Hudson, Pravda on the Potomac, NPR and other usual suspects interviewed and lauded Al Alwaki as a voice of moderate Islam.  Only POTP had the class to mention this in today's reports on his most excellent kill.

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Re: Media Issues
« Reply #786 on: October 01, 2011, 12:45:16 AM »
 In relation to the post from Stratfor that Crafty posted earlier:

  BY Helen Kennedy
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Sunday, September 25th 2011, 5:18 PM

 Related NewsMexican bloodbath: At least 40 killed in weekend drug violence Mexican drug gang leaves alarming message for American agents near school, 59 bodies found buried in series of pits in northern Mexico Mayor, police chief and official in U.S. border town busted for running guns to Mexico drug cartels Mexican military detains a suspect in killing of ICE agent Cruise ships are canceling stops in Mazatlan, Mexico, due to crime.

Headline:
 A woman who blogged about the Zetas drug cartel was found tortured and decapitated Saturday night in Mexico - the latest atrocity against people who criticize the drug gangs online.

The 39-year-old, who blogged under the name "Laredo Girl," was found butchered by a roadside monument to Christopher Columbus with two computer keyboards.

Gruesome photos in the Mexican press showed her semi-clothed body, missing parts of limbs, sprawled in the grass.

A large placard stood propped nearby, with a scrawled note that read in part, "I'm here because of my reports...Thank you for your attention, respectfully, Laredo Girl."

It was signed "ZZZZ" - the sign of the vicious Zetas cartel.

The woman's severed head was balanced on the top of a large cement globe, with dark rivulets of blood running down the sides.

Some newspapers identified her as Mary Elizabeth Castro Macias, others as Marisol Macias Castaneda.

She was a newsroom manager at Primera Hora, the newspaper in Nuevo Laredo said, but the note made it clear it was her blog posts that angered the cartel - not the paper's journalism.

She posted anonymously as "NenaDLaredo" on a social networking site called Nuevo Laredo Live, where residents shared tips about drug-gang activity.

It was not clear how the cartel found out her real name.

Ten days ago, the mutilated bodies of a young man and woman were found hanging from an overpass in Nuevo Laredo with a message threatening internet posters.

A woman was hog-tied and disemboweled, hanging topless by her hands and feet. The man was dangling by his hands, cuts in his joints so deep that bone was visible.

"This is going to happen to all of those posting funny things on the Internet," read a sign next to them.
Share EmailPrintYou may also be interested in:From NYDailyNews.com

                                                                           P.C.



DougMacG

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Media Issues: NY Slimes
« Reply #787 on: October 06, 2011, 09:08:47 AM »
160 years and 106 Pulitzer Prizes and THIS passes for journalism:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/06/opinion/wheres-the-jobs-bill.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

"...The Republicans have used that cowardice to embarrass Mr. Reid, his party and Mr. Obama. On Tuesday, when the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, prankishly offered to bring up the jobs bill, Mr. Reid was forced to object, leading to all sorts of merry, if hollow, taunts from the Republican side.  The Republicans’ willingness to play political games while millions are out of work is inexcusable, ..."
-----
The bill is more of the same of what did not work and dug our debt deeper at frightening pace.  This continues and extends our problems, does not solve them.  Mr. Reid isn't a coward. Slimeball maybe but not a coward.  They know better than that and lie to their own trusting readers.   Majority Leader Reid has a number of Democrat members who reject the bill outright and a good number more with serious doubts.  Mitch McConnell isn't a prankster.  Voting down the bill in the senate just like they voted down an Obama budget 98-0 IS how you call the question and begin to move forward with real solutions.  How can it be a prank to call for a vote on the President's own agenda tight while you are being publicly berated as an obstructionist?

Believe or not, people have honest disagreements in policy with their failed view of economics.  That does not make people cowards and pranksters.  Hard to believe people pay for drivel passed off at the highest levels as journalism. 

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Mark Steyn: Why the lack of MSM outrage at “dead Mexicans”?
« Reply #788 on: October 08, 2011, 05:35:27 AM »
http://hotair.com/archives/2011/10/07/mark-steyn-why-the-lack-of-msm-outrage-at-dead-mexicans/

Mark Steyn: Why the lack of MSM outrage at “dead Mexicans”?
 

posted at 1:25 pm on October 7, 2011 by Tina Korbe

 
As I wrote yesterday, Fast and Furious should have been uppermost in the minds of every reporter at the president’s press conference — yet most of the journalists in the room gave BHO a bye. Today on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show, columnist Mark Steyn memorably took the mainstream media to task for its lack of interest in the scandal, which has resulted in the murder of at least 200 people in Mexico and at least 11 violent crimes in the United States:
 

“Now real Mexicans are dead,” [Steyn said]. “Does the president of the United States, does his attorney general, does CNN, does The New York Times, does NPR — do they not care about dead Mexicans?
 
“I mean, forget the United States Border Patrol guys that were killed with these ‘Fast & Furious’ guns. Real-live, or previously live, citizens of third world countries — the kind of people that NPR, The New York Times claim to love — are dead because of this.”
 
“Why isn’t that a national scandal?” he pleaded. “This is absolutely a — Iran-Contra didn’t rack up that kind of body count. Watergate didn’t rack up a body count. Sarah Palin’s daughter’s boyfriend’s mother, or whatever stupid story they were chasing around Wasilla for months, that didn’t rack up a body count. There were hundreds of dead Mexicans from a gun running program run by the United States.”

 
The rate of revelation regarding Fast and Furious has been steady (and steadily serious), but Steyn’s right: That’s no thanks to either the Justice Department, which has resisted Congressional inquiry into the matter, or the mainstream media, which has studiously avoided the subject with just a few exceptions. Must be because MSM news outlets are so “reasonable.” What we know about F&F, then, is a testament to the conviction and persistence of Congressional lead investigators Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), to the conservative media (even though the DOJ has consistently refused document requests from our sister site Townhall.com, as well as CNSNews.com and other conservative sites) and to CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson. Watching this news unfold has at times seemed like a horror show — when I first heard the death count in Mexico, for example — and at other times has seemed like a hopeful reminder that “the truth will out.” Stories like this just can’t lie dormant forever — and, in the end, the MSM ignores the news at its own peril. As more and more media consumers recognize which news outlets deliver relevant information and which news outlets don’t, those that ignore truly newsworthy events or feign objectivity as a thin disguise for agenda advancement will become less and less, well, mainstream.

ccp

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Re: Media Issues
« Reply #789 on: October 08, 2011, 10:22:46 AM »
"Why the lack of MSM outrage at “dead Mexicans”?"

Good question.

The stories coming out of Mexico are truly shocking.  The brutality, the cruelty is unbelievable.  And no one can stop it.
We in this country are doing the drugs that are feeding this.  Yet I hear no shame on our part, no guilt, no remorse.

Just blame the drug cartels for dealing us drugs.

The "fast and furious" guns trafficking is a big scandal with a big cover up probably all the way to Brock - However this is really only a small part of the overall problem.

The gang violence in the US is nothing like that seen south of the border in Mexico Central and South America.

I cannnot blame the Mexican government every time they point out the drugs are coming here and we pay for it.  Sure they are corrupt but so are we.

All we hear is the libs saying how we have so many people in jail for drugs when they should be getting "treatment".

What a joke.  That's not the answer either or is only a fraction of the answer.




DougMacG

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Re: Media Issues
« Reply #790 on: October 08, 2011, 10:49:46 AM »
GM,  Great Post.  Mark Steyn is very witty and persuasive when he gets going on the right issue.  Just coining the name of the scandal 'Dead Mexicans' ought to get someone else besides about 4 people here to ask WHY did this happen?

ccp

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Re: Media Issues
« Reply #791 on: October 08, 2011, 11:24:40 AM »
Well Fox and Hannity are asking.

The MSM won't until they have to of course.

They are not interested in morality as much as their political and financial interests obviously.

Yet the MSM pretend they are all about morality.  We have SoloDAD giving us more "Latino in America" nonsense.  Yet not a peep from the queen of feeling sorry for illegals when it comes to the Latinos budgeoned in the streets of Mexico. 

Then again if Bush were Prez she and the silver haired Rothschild would be on every day screaming ther outrage for the poor of South of the border.

Of course what gays go through here in the US is far worse then any suffering in Mexico due to the terror of these bastard drug cartels. :wink:




G M

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Nada from La Raza
« Reply #792 on: October 08, 2011, 11:33:14 AM »
I just checked the La Raza site and searched for "Fast and furious" and "ATF". Not one thing on "Gunwalker" it appears.

Imagine the outrage if Arizona cops checked 200 illegals for immigration status.

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Media mum about savage Muslim hate crime in the U.S.A.
« Reply #793 on: October 09, 2011, 07:28:51 AM »
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/star-of-david-carved-on-infidel%e2%80%99s-back-in-st-louis/?singlepage=true

Star of David Carved on Infidel’s Back in St. Louis

Media mum about savage Muslim hate crime in the U.S.A.

October 6, 2011 - 12:00 am - by Jamie Glazov


A certain Arab author by the name of Mr. Alaa Alsaegh, an immigrant to the U.S. from Iraq, was attacked on August 14, 2011, by Muslims in the streets of St. Louis, Missouri. They stabbed him and carved a Star of David onto the flesh of his back. His crime? He published an Arabic language poem titled “Tears at the Heart of the Holocaust” on the website ArabsForIsrael.com. The poem expressed his love for the Jewish people and his sorrow over their fate in the Holocaust. The Muslim community in which he lived was outraged by this thought crime. He was called an infidel and received many threats for articulating his taboo feelings for the Jewish people. Alienated from the Muslim community, he continued to write his poetry, which contained the same themes which so upset his fellow Muslims.
 
In broad daylight and heavy traffic on Aug. 14, Alsaegh paid the price for expressing love for the Jews. And it happened in the streets of St. Louis, right here in the heart of America. Author and courageous freedom fighter Nonie Darwish describes the horrific event:
 

As he was driving at 10:30 in the morning on Compton St. near Park Ave., a small white car cut him off and hit his car, while another car stopped behind him. The occupants of the cars, some of whom wore security guard-type uniforms, quickly entered Alsaegh’s car, pointing a gun at him. They pushed his upper body down against the steering wheel, stabbed him and pulled off his shirt to expose his back. Then, with a knife, they carved the Star of David on his back while laughing as they recited his pro-Jewish poem.
 
Alsaegh thought that the perpetrators were Somalis; he was taken to the hospital and the photo of his injury was taken there.
 


The FBI has concluded that this was a hate crime. Question: apart from the Nonie Darwish article, and a handful of other reports, where exactly is this horrific story of Sharia street justice in America being reported? It is nowhere in the media.
 
Rodney King became a household name. The inhabitants of one American city rioted over what happened to that man. President Obama quickly reacted to the arrest of Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates and, without knowing the incident’s specifics, accused the police of acting “stupidly.”
 
Will Alaa Alsaegh become a household name? Will the inhabitants of an American city riot over his case? Will Obama say something? Henry Louis Gates didn’t have his flesh violated by the police. Might Alsaegh prove worthy of one ounce of Obama’s moral indignation?
 
We know the answers to these questions.
 
Three more questions:
 
[1] What if Alaa Alsaegh was a Muslim who was attacked by Christians in St. Louis who carved a cross on his back? Do you think this story would make it into the media?
 
[2] What if Alaa Alsaegh was a black man who was attacked by skinheads who carved KKK or a swastika onto his back? Do you think this story would make it into the media?
 
[3] What if Alaa Alsaegh was a Jew who expressed love of Muslims and was attacked for that by Jews who carved a crescent moon and star, a recognized symbol of Islam, onto his back? Do you think the story would make it into the media?
 
We know the obvious answer to those three questions. We also know that not only would these scenarios lead to mass media coverage worldwide and spark anti-American hysteria, but that scenarios 1 and 3 would most certainly lead not just to U.S. congressional committee investigations, but also to entire UN commissions.
 
Why is our media silent when a Muslim infidel has a Star of David carved on his back in a hate crime perpetrated by Muslims? Why is the literary culture silent? Where is Hollywood? Why is even our own president silent?
 
The answer is because of a monstrosity called the Left. The Left shapes and controls the boundaries of our society’s discourse. The Left’s mantle of multiculturalism and the belief that all religions and cultures are equal (except the ones it hates) have been internalized by our society, and there are severe punishments for crossing the boundaries of permitted speech. For example, if you condemn the Muslims for inflicting violence on Alsaegh, then you would have to accept that, in terms of the ingredients of their crime, that they are clearly acting out of the mandates of their Islamic faith (i.e., the obligation to hate infidels and Jews etc. is irrefutable). But to condemn their acts and the teachings on which they are based violates the sacred cow of leftist beliefs (i.e., Islam is a Religion of Peace) and, therefore, makes one an Islamophobe, something that, thanks to the Left’s victory in our culture, most people are now terrified of being accused of.
 
This phenomenon explains why Ilan Halimi, a Jewish boy in France, was kidnapped by a Muslim gang several years ago in Paris, held in a secret Muslim concentration camp and barbarically tortured for 23 days until he died (with the torturers calling his mother and reciting Koranic verses to her while she heard his screams), and his name is still to be spoken in our media.
 
It is understandable, of course, why Halimi’s name is not spoken — or known — in our culture. If it were, then the fact would become well known that in the apartment building in which he was tied up and tortured, the myriad of dwellers in the building, all Muslims, heard Ilan’s screams. Not only did they not do anything to stop it, but many of them got in line to participate. And they took gratification and consolation from torturing their Jew, for Islamic theology dispenses numerous mandates and incentives for Muslims to hate, hurt, and kill Jews. To accept this fact annihilates the foundational structures of the leftist belief system; it takes the legs out from the progressive lies on which our culture is built. It is safer, therefore, not to acknowledge the names of Alaa Alsaegh and Ilan Halimi, let alone what happened to them and why.
 
The notion that his own society is unjust is the bedrock of the leftist’s vision. To recognize the evil of the people who carved the Star of David on Alaa Alsaegh’s back or who tortured Ilan Halimi, and to recognize the evil of the ideology that inspired them, is to admit the existence of pernicious adversarial faiths. Such an admission concedes that there are cultures and systems that are much more unjust than ours. This is an untenable step for leftists to take, because it means acknowledging that there is something superior about our civilization that’s worth saving and defending.
 
Showing compassion for Alaa Alsaegh and Ilan Halimi is, therefore, extremely dangerous for any leftist, as it would undermine his political faith. As I have documented in United in Hate, it would also expose him to potential excommunication from his social community — which is unfathomable for the majority of leftists, whose politics are, in the end, their social lives and, therefore, their sense of personal identity.
 
There is also a desperation in our culture and media for a “moderate Islam” (we talk about it more than Muslims do) — an Islam that many non-Muslims strenuously insist exists, but that somehow mysteriously eludes them. This moderate Islam will take all of our problems away, we are told, once the “extremists,” who are the “minority” in Islam, are consoled. Meanwhile, a real and actual “moderate Islam” is nowhere to be found; there is no school of Islamic jurisprudence that counsels Muslims to renounce the Qur’an’s teachings on Islamic supremacism and the obligation of violent jihad. And yet, to suggest the truth of this reality in our society earns one only the label of being a racist and an “Islamophobe.”
 
Roger Simon, CEO of Pajamas Media, wrote a piece awhile back that touched on this theme, analyzing why even various conservative thinkers have attacked Geert Wilders. In his view, these conservative individuals are rejecting Wilders because they are afraid that he might be right. Krauthammer criticized Wilders, Simon writes, not because
 

he thinks the Dutch politician is “extreme,” but because he is afraid the Dutch politician is right. Call it projection, but I believe this because I have the exact same fear. I think many of us do and we don’t want to face it. Who would? The resultant conclusions are too depressing.
 
Indeed, it is too depressing to consider the implications of Wilders being right and so a form of Stockholm Syndrome vis-à-vis Islam must enter the consciousness of our society – a Stockholm Syndrome clearly on display, in its own toxic form, in the shameless silence we are now witnessing of our media on the frightening and tragic fate of Alaa Alsaegh.
 
Jamie Glazov is the editor of FrontPageMag.com. He is the author of the new book United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny and Terror.

ccp

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Re: Media Issues
« Reply #794 on: October 10, 2011, 07:24:46 AM »
GM your point about media hypocracy also finds fodder with the Wall street thing.  Especially trying to compare it to the Tea Party.

The left wing media keeps making this into a left version of the Tea Party.  Yeah right this is just like the tea party.   Professional hippies and union thugs demading handouts from succesful people is not the same as those paying the bills having a beef:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2047168/Occupy-Wall-Street-Its-just-politics--Sex-drugs-love-brigade-hijack-Wall-Street-protest.html

I am not sure what to make of the media silence about the drone killing and American citizen.  Personally I am all for it.  Yet the uproar over water boarding yet silence over this is prima faciae evidence of a two faced liberal democrat party media complex.

G M

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Re: Media Issues
« Reply #795 on: October 10, 2011, 07:31:29 AM »
Of course. War was bad when BooooOOOOoooosh was president. Gitmo was a stain on American honor. Now, not so much.

Imagine if 200 Mexicans were killed as a result of a republican president's illegal program? The media would have the sobbing family member's tearful faces plastered on the tv 24/7.

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Re: Media Issues
« Reply #796 on: October 10, 2011, 10:29:08 PM »

ccp

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Re: Media Issues
« Reply #797 on: October 29, 2011, 10:22:16 AM »
What can I say.  It is so frustrating to read an article from a staunch Democrat liberal like Alter lauding Brock for being so ethical and even going so far to analyze how remarkable it is that Bamster is so teflon and how foolish Republicans look trying to make mountains out of mole hills.  Obivously the reason Brock gets away with it is precisely BECAUSE of people like Alter.  OF course a guy with his politcal blinders on is not going to simply be able to look in the mirror and see why Brock is getting more flack for scandal.  This is the double standard world we live in:

****Obama Miracle is White House Free of Scandal: Jonathan Alter
By Jonathan Alter Oct 27, 2011 7:45 PM ET 

Jonathan Alter was a senior editor, media critic and columnist for Newsweek, where he worked for 28 years and covered five administrations and seven presidential campaigns.

President Barack Obama goes into the 2012 with a weak economy that may doom his reelection. But he has one asset that hasn’t received much attention: He’s honest.

The sight of Texas Governor Rick Perry tumbling out of the clown car recently as a “birther” (or at least a birther- enabler) is a sign of weakness, not just for the Perry campaign but for the whole Republican effort to tarnish the president’s character.

Although it’s possible that the Solyndra LLC story will become a classic feeding frenzy, don’t bet on it. Providing $535 million in loan guarantees to a solar-panel maker that goes bankrupt was dumb, but so far not criminal or even unethical on the part of the administration. These kinds of stories are unlikely to derail Obama in 2012. If he loses, it will be because of the economy -- period.

Even so, the president’s Teflon is intriguing. How did we end up in such a scandal-less state? After investigating the question for a recent Washington Monthly article, I’ve been developing some theories.

For starters, the tone is always set at the top. Obama puts a premium on personal integrity, and with a few exceptions (Tim Geithner’s tax problems in 2009) his administration tends to fire first and ask questions later. The best known example is Shirley Sherrod, the Agriculture Department official who was mistakenly fired by her boss over a miscommunication that led higher-ups to believe -- wrongly -- that she had made inappropriate racially tinged remarks. In several other cases, the decision to give staffers accused of wrongdoing the boot was made within hours, taking the air out of any possible uproar.

Mixed Results
But the White House’s intense focus on scandal prevention has had mixed results. The almost proctological vetting process has ended up wounding Obama as much as prospective nominees. He gets cleaner but often less imaginative officials. The kind of swashbuckling figures from the private sector who might have, say, come up with a far more ambitious job-creation plan often don’t bother to apply for government service these days.

The vigilance about wrongdoing has worked better when it comes to oversight of the $787 billion stimulus program. The money might not always have been spent on the right things. But a rigorous process supervised by Vice President Joe Biden, and made transparent with the help of recovery.gov, has prevented widespread fraud and abuse.

A Media Problem
Unfortunately, we might not know of scandals in stimulus spending or elsewhere because of changes in the news business. For today’s media, talk is cheap and reporting is expensive. That means we get more chatter and less scrounging for official wrongdoing.

In the past, many of those scandal stories originally came from congressional investigators and others with subpoena power. But with the demise of the Office of Independent Counsel, a fount of information for reporters from the Reagan to the Clinton eras, the machinery of scandal-hunting began crumbling.

It doesn’t help that so much “news” coverage -- as opposed to commentary that is explicitly opinionated -- nowadays takes place in a partisan context. Fox News has tried to flog stories on manufactured controversies like “policy czars” in the White House (which go back to the 1970s) or whether it was wrong for Elizabeth Warren to consult with state attorneys general on their lawsuits against mortgage lenders. (It wasn’t.)

Every time Representative Darrell Issa, the Republican from California who leads a House investigative committee, calls the Obama administration “corrupt” without offering any evidence, he hurts his cause. It’s much harder to make a story register as a bona fide scandal when the political motivation is so obvious.

It’s also harder to find room for such stories when so much other news is breaking. Scandals like the Monica Lewinsky affair were almost a luxury of good times, when the nation could afford to obsess about a blue dress. Not these days.

These factors are all relevant, but the ultimate explanation can be found at the top. According to a metric created by political scientist Brendan Nyhan, Obama set a record earlier this month for most days without a scandal of any president since 1977. The streak probably won’t last, especially if he gets a second term, where scandals are more common. But the impression of rectitude will be part of the voters’ assessment of him next year. He’ll need it.

(Jonathan Alter, a Bloomberg View columnist, is the author of “The Promise: President Obama, Year One.” The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this article: Jonathan Alter at alterjonathan@gmail.com.****



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« Reply #799 on: November 04, 2011, 06:00:20 PM »