Media, Ministry of Truth Issues

[Crafty_Dog]

a) Someone correct me if I heard it wrong, but I heard somewhere that the DC circuit opening go back to Bush's presidency.  T or F?

b) My understanding is that the DC circuit has a low workload and is officially current.  In contrast, several other circuits are well behind.  This seems not to have engaged the Dems interest.

c) Bret Baier Special Report last night quoted some gems from two of the nominees.  The woman is a raving femi-nazi liberal fascist and the man quoted still has not absorbed Heller's holding that the Second is an individual right.   Both seem to me worthy of filibuster.

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/11/stunner-illegal-alien-heckler-was-invited-by-white-house-to-obama-speech-video/

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.dennisprager.com/live-world-lies/

[Crafty_Dog]

160 v 3 Media Reports?
According to our friend L. Brent Bozell, "When Crystal Mangum falsely accused several Duke lacrosse players of rape in 2006, there were 160 major television news stories in the first five days after the players were arrested, but in 2013, when Mangum was convicted of murder and sentenced to 14 years in prison, there were only 3 major television news stories, a difference in coverage of 5,233%." Another fine example of race-bait reporting preferences.

[DougMacG]

Does anyone have an update to this story, of when the MSM, ouside of a WSJ opinion piece, has properly covered this bombshell?

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304213904579093491966449908?mod=WSJ_Opinion_RIGHTBelowPepperandSalt

IRS Documents Reveal Agency Flagged Groups for 'Anti-Obama Rhetoric,' Big Three Refuse to Report

ABC, CBS and NBC have so far refused to report the latest bombshell in the IRS scandal - a newly released list from the agency that showed it flagged political groups for "anti-Obama rhetoric." On September 18 USA Today, in a front page story, reported the following: "Newly uncovered IRS documents show the agency flagged political groups based on the content of their literature, raising concerns specifically about 'anti-Obama rhetoric,' inflammatory language and 'emotional' statements made by non-profits seeking tax-exempt status."

Not only have ABC, CBS and NBC not reported this story they've flat out stopped covering the IRS scandal on their evening and morning shows. It's been 85 days since ABC last touched the story on June 26. NBC hasn't done a report for 84 days and CBS last mentioned the IRS scandal 56 days ago on July 24.
----------------------------

I tried searching NY Times - nothing.

[ccp]

I never heard this before.  How many other "journalists" are bribed to be spokespeople for interest groups?   I guess others are too with their ghost written books, speaking engagements etc. 

http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/unions-paid-msnbcs-schultz-177000-2012-75000-2013

[DougMacG]

PolitiFact, the Candy Crowley of online fact checking, called its own Lie of the Year "true".

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303932504579256300070093302?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion

PolitiFact's Forked Tongue
The site once vouched for its "lie of the year."
By James Taranto
December 13, 2013

PolitiFact.com, the Tampa Bay Times's "fact checking" operation, is out with its "Lie of the Year," and it's a doozy of dishonesty: "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it.' "

Just to show how fast the news can move, back in September this columnist tweeted: "If 'I didn't set a red line' isn't named 'Lie of the Year,' @PolitiFact is a state propaganda agency." "I didn't set a red line"--the reference was to Syria's use of chemical weapons, in case you've forgotten--didn't even make the top 10. Yet our September tweet proved to be mistaken: We cannot fault PolitiFact for the lie it chose instead.

Which isn't to say PolitiFact doesn't function as a state propaganda agency. For in the past--when it actually mattered, which is to say before ObamaCare became first a law and then a practical reality--PolitiFact vouched for Barack Obama's Big Lie.

In her lie-of-the-year write-up, PolitiFact's Angie Holan includes the following acknowledgment:

    In 2009 and again in 2012, PolitiFact rated Obama's statement Half True, which means the statement is partially correct and partially wrong. We noted that while the law took pains to leave some parts of the insurance market alone, people were not guaranteed to keep insurance through thick and thin. It was likely that some private insurers would continue to force people to switch plans, and that trend might even accelerate.

Her "half true" acknowledgment is itself a half-truth. As the Washington Examiner's Sean Higgins noted last month, in October 2008 PolitiFact rated the same statement, from then-candidate Obama, as flatly "true," on the ground that "Obama is accurately describing his health care plan here."

We're not making this up. PolitiFact actually rated Obama's promise as "true" on the ground that in making the promise, he was making the promise.

To be sure, there are some epistemological complexities here. The cancellation letters from insurance companies provide concrete proof that Obama's claim was false, evidence that was necessarily lacking in 2008, 2009 and 2012. Likewise, the reporting of our colleagues on the news side of The Wall Street Journal established with a previously lacking specificity that Obama told the lie with full knowledge and intent to deceive.

One might have reasonably suspected, in 2008 and certainly in 2009 and 2012, that Obama was lying. But one could not prove it, because it was not yet a factual assertion. In 2008 it was but a promise, which Obama might or might not have intended and might or might not have been able to keep. By 2012, we now know, it was a full-fledged fraud, but exposing it conclusively as such would have required a degree of expertise few journalists have.

In other words, it's not that PolitiFact was wrong to withhold its jejune "pants on fire" designation from the Obama statement in 2008, 2009 and 2012. It was wrong even to make a pretense of "fact checking" a statement that was, at the time, not a factual claim. Its past evaluations of the statement were not "fact checks" at all, merely opinion pieces endorsing ObamaCare.

Lots of people wrote opinion pieces endorsing ObamaCare, and some are still at it. Apart from the substance of the arguments, there's nothing wrong with that. But selling opinion pieces by labeling them "fact checks" is fundamentally dishonest. In this case, it was in the service of the most massive consumer fraud in American history.

[G M]

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/12/15/the-media-was-more-ideological-than-the-arapahoe-shooter/

The media was more ideological than the Arapahoe shooter


posted at 9:31 am on December 15, 2013 by Jazz Shaw






The latest school shooting to take place in the country, perpetrated at Arapahoe High in Colorado by Karl Pierson, lacked many of the elements we’ve come to expect from the inevitable media circus which follows such events. The shooter was a student, for one thing, more reminiscent of the Columbine event than the more recent Newtown or Washington shipyard attacks. Also, the extent of the carnage, while still horrible, was fortunately considerably more limited. Authorities are saying that he came equipped for and with the intention of causing widespread harm. He brought a pump action shotgun (model not released yet that I’ve seen) with plenty of extra shells, several Molotov cocktails and a machete. Yet in the end, he injured two students – one gravely – and lit one fire in the library before taking his own life.
 
Given Pierson’s current, room temperature status, we may never fully discern his intentions and motivations, but early investigations may provide some clues.


But students who witnessed the attack later clarified that it was the school librarian and debate team coach, identified as Tracy Murphy by NBC affiliate KUSA in Denver, who was the target of Pierson’s rage.
 
Steve Miles is an English teacher who taught Pierson as a freshman, told the Associated Press that Pierson had recently been cut from the debate team, but he didn’t know why…
 
“‘Revenge’ is the word that I chose,” [Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson] Robinson told reporters. “This is where our initial investigation is taking us. We know that there was some controversy between the student suspect and the teacher.”
 
In the end, this may have been a case of a sick individual seeking revenge who also decided to “make a big splash” on his way out. Whether his will to carry out a mass slaughter faltered when the moment arrived or alert response tactics by the school made targets largely unavailable may remain one of the unknowns. But we still can’t refrain from trying to read more into the shooter’s motives and defining them through the usual ideological lens.
 
What’s been discovered so far seems to indicate that Pierson was well and truly embedded in an early, liberal world view. His disparaging comments about Republicans on social media, combined with his self-professed love for Keynesian economics makes that much clear. But the circumstances of his attack make it difficult to think that he arrived at school that day hell bent on striking a blow for the progressive agenda. Far more likely was the Sheriff’s analysis that he was there to kill the debate team coach who he perceived as having wronged him.
 
But that doesn’t mean that some ideological tilt and bias wasn’t discovered. As Mediaite reported, the Denver Post was apparently busy making sure he didn’t come off looking too far to the left.
 

In a profile on the shooter in the Denver Post which focused on his “strong political beliefs,” several of Pierson’s classmates offered their impressions of the shooter. One of the shooter’s classmates described him as a “very opinionated socialist.” Shortly after that post was published, however, that description was edited out. The current copy simply describes him as “very opinionated.”

If his own friends testified that he was a self-described socialist, why not report that as part of the story? I think that question pretty much answers itself. You can read the current version of the Denver Post story here. As near as I can tell, they have still neither returned the copy to its original form nor made note of the deletion.
 
Finally – and this should go without saying – when the inevitable calls for more gun control begin in the wake of this tragedy, they can be entirely ignored. This was yet another case of a person with no reported criminal record legally purchasing a shotgun (not an “assault rifle”) and shells in accordance with even the most restrictive laws. No background checks or bans on magazines or “excessively dangerous” guns would have prevented it. So spare us the sanctimonious speeches and lets figure out how families, communities and churches can do a better job of spotting problem individuals and keeping them from arriving at this sort of juncture in the future.

[G M]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/13/arapahoe-high-school-shooting_n_4441538.html

Checked Huffpo and found no mention of the socialist orientation of the shooter. Why is that, BD? They sure were able to blame Sarah Palin for the Tucson shooting.

[DougMacG]

From Privacy thread:

I know that it is a mistake to link to the HuffPo, but I think might interest some of you. It is a talk given in March:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matt-murrie/what-if-technology-has-killed_b_3679320.html

I know you were chided for posting from Huffington Post.  I want to say I disagree.  I enjoy the freedom to post from right wing sources and hope to not have content dismissed just for that reason.  I want to know opposing perspectives and Huffington Post is more than a left wing source.  BD's posts are always well marked for source.  I appreciate that he reads and posts very interesting material from places that others like me would otherwise miss. 

This format makes it easy to rip back on the bias, accuracy or validity of any story and I plan to keep doing that, but hopefully not dismiss without considering the merits.

[Crafty_Dog]

Amen.

[DougMacG]

What is now the Lie of the Year, was then ‘We rate his statement True’.  They were off by roughly a hundred million health plans.

"PolitiFact’s pronouncements about Obamacare were widely repeated by pro-Obama reporters and pundits, and had a meaningful impact on the outcome of the election. Indeed, in 2009, PolitiFact won the Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the 2008 campaign."

"The highlight of Holan’s 2013 “Lie of the Year” article was that it completely ignored Holan’s own “True” rating of the “keep your plan” claim back in 2008."

“The promise was impossible to keep,” says Holan in her December piece. Now she tells us! But none of the key facts that made that promise “impossible” in 2008 had changed by 2013. The President’s plan had always required major disruption of the health insurance market; the Obamacare bill contained the key elements of that plan; the Obamacare law did as well. The only thing that had changed was the actual first-hand accounts of millions of Americans who were losing their plans now that Obamacare was live.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/12/27/in-2008-politifacts-2013-lie-of-the-year-that-you-could-keep-your-health-plan-under-obamacare-it-rated-true/

(read it all)  Strange that self proclaimed fact checkers seem to have the most bias and worst accuracy of all.

[DougMacG]

Politico has a headline for the ages up right now: “Management Experts Knock Obama.”  Management “experts” are just noticing now, after five years, that Obama’s lack of experience is significant.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/01/slow-learners.php
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/12/obamacare-obama-management-experts-101620.html?hp=t1

“No one asked you to write code or be a technical expert, but the expectation is you can set up a process,” said Kellogg School of Management professor Daniel Diermeier. “Companies do it every day.”
----------------------------

Maybe in year seven Politico will find discover he is dishonest.

[DougMacG]

Times reporter David Kocieniewski falsely accused two economists, Craig Pirrong and Scott Irwin, of corruptly “reaping rewards” by “defending Wall Street” as “one part of Wall Street’s efforts to fend off regulation.” Specifically, Pirrong and Irwin have contradicted, on academic and empirical grounds, the perennial left-wing canard that “speculators” drive up prices in commodities markets. Kocieniewski’s reporting is wrong, and not even consistent, as it relates to Pirrong and Irwin.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/12/the-ny-times-looks-in-the-wrong-place-for-corrupt-academics.php

Now Professor James Hamilton (UCSD) has entered the fray. http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2014/01/a_lack_of_ethic.html 
He reprises the attacks that others have made on the Times’s dishonest reporting. He begins:

    David Kocieniewski of the New York Times is guilty of some outrageously bad journalism in the form of a groundless ad hominem attack on the reputation of two professors for the sole purpose of reinforcing the prejudices of his misinformed readers.

Harsh words, but Hamilton backs them up. Having established that Kocieniewski smeared the two economists groundlessly, he goes on to address the underlying question: are speculators responsible for rising prices in recent years of, for example, crude oil? This is a question that Kocieniewski did not directly address, but the whole point of his hit piece was to try to discredit those who have demonstrated that one of the Left’s favorite talking points is false. Hamilton writes:

    Let me pose the question a little more precisely for anyone who actually wants to investigate this issue. Do financial speculators drive the price of oil to a value at which the quantity physically produced exceeds the quantity physically consumed? Because if the answer to that question is no, then it is fundamentals of supply and demand, not financial speculators, that are all you would need to know to calculate what the price of oil will be.

That is an empirical question that can be answered, and the overwhelming weight of academic research demonstrates that the New York Times theory of commodity prices is wrong.

[G M]

http://m.newsbusters.org/blogs/mike-ciandella/2014/01/02/frozen-out-98-stories-ignore-ice-bound-ship-was-global-warming-missi

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/08/30000-people-sign-petition-calling-for-washington-post-to-disclose-amazon-coms-cia-ties/

[ccp]

In my experience it is obvious the big IT companies were very willing partners in rigging IT systems to be hacked, tracked, and without any chance of privacy.

For years my experience has been it is totally impossible to keep a determined hacker out of one's system.  One can turn off the internet networking connections or take out the cards etc.  Still this will not totally work.  I remember speaking to someone 10 yrs ago from the David Gordon board that I suspected the private companies are using government sponsored terrorism strategies as an excuse to claim they HAD to be able to have ways to get into everyone's electronic devices.  I was right.  (I wish I could pick stocks as well  )

The IT companies all know what they were doing.  The are totally complicit. 

I am not sure that they were not already doing this before 911.   Some people still don't get it. 

I had one young man yesterday who is in IT say he doesn't see the big deal if anyone reads his emails.  "1981 so what"?

People don't get the freedom they are losing till it is gone.  Younger people will never even know what hit them. 

[Crafty_Dog]

All true, but better on the Internet or the Privacy threads , , ,

[Crafty_Dog]

http://nypost.com/2014/01/11/why-bridgegate-made-headlines-but-obamas-irs-scandal-didnt/

[ccp]

My question is who in their right mind pays 50 grand to hear THIS guy talk?

****The Mirror

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough: Is he violating a network rule?

At NBC, there’s a rule that if anchors give a paid speech to a for-profit enterprise — the kind they may be covering in their role as journalists — they have to give the money they receive to charity. It’s not a secret rule. It’s been in place for nearly 20 years to prevent conflicts of interest. Everybody knows about it. But is everyone following it?

How about Joe Scarborough?

According to a well-placed source at MSNBC, the “Morning Joe” co-host may have been pocketing the proceeds from some of his many highly paid speeches, in direct violation of network policy. That’s what some of his co-workers suspect anyway, and they’re resentful about it.



There’s no doubt Joe has been doing a lot of speaking lately. He is repped by William Morris Endeavor chief (and Entourage prototype) Ari Emanuel, and exclusive to the Leading Authorities speakers bureau in Washington. The details — and fee structures — are all over the web: If Joe speaks east of the Mississippi, he gets $51,000, swanky hotel not included. For a trip to the West Coast, the fee jumps to $56,000, again hotel not included. When he speaks in New York, Joe doesn’t need a hotel, since he already works there, but he still makes $45,500. Not bad for an hour of talking. His co-host Mika Brzezinski frequently joins him on stage.

That kind of money could make a host pretty sympathetic to the people who are paying him, some of whom might wind up in the news some day. You can see why the networks are concerned about conflicts. NBC laid down its policy in 1996, when it banned employees from accepting money from corporations and trade associations that lobby government or take public positions on issues. All paid appearances must be approved by management.

Does Joe follow these rules? The Daily Caller‘s Mirror blog reached out to Scarborough, as well as to MSNBC’s PR department with that question. Does Joe give the money to charity or keep it for himself? If he’s following NBC policy, could we see the relevant portion of his tax return? But they ignored us. Neither even responded.

They may have to respond in coming days. Spend just 10 minutes on Google and all kinds of questions about Joe’s speaking career arise. For example, is there a connection between paying Joe for a speech, and appearing as a guest on his show?

You decide. In late May of 2013, Joe and Mika gave what appears to be a paid speech at a conference sponsored by the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce. Exactly three months later, the Detroit chamber’s CEO, Sandy Baruah, appeared as a guest on “Morning Joe.” The show was broadcast live from the factory floor of one of the chamber’s most important member companies, Ford Motors. The discussion topic: What can Detroit do to earn more government bailout money


Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2014/01/13/msnbcs-joe-scarborough-is-he-violating-a-network-rule/#ixzz2qTezjcP0****

[G M]

This would be the same MSNBC that hired Al Sharpton ? Ethics?

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/01/21/the-one-fascinating-statistic-that-may-explain-why-theblaze-tv-isnt-on-your-cable-systemyet/

[DougMacG]

I'm sure it was a time constraint thing.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/jeffrey-meyer/2014/01/26/face-nation-edits-out-senator-cruz-condemning-obama-s-abuse-power#ixzz2rZ167RcB

2 different videos at the link.  Not aired:

 SCHIEFFER: “Will you run for President?”

CRUZ: “My focus is on the abuse of power of this President. Let’s take something like the IRS scandal-“

SCHIEFFER: “Do I take that as a yes or a no?”

CRUZ: “What you can take is that my focus is standing and fighting right now in the Senate to bring back jobs and economic growth. Let me tell you something that is deeply concerning—the abuse of power from this Administration. We’ve seen multiple filmmakers prosecuted and the government’s gone after them. Whether it’s the poor fellow that did the film that the President blamed Benghazi and the terrorist attacks on, turns out that wasn’t the reason for the attack but the Administration went and put that poor fellow in jail on unrelated charges. Just this week it was broken that Dinesh D’Souza, who did a very big movie criticizing the president, is now being prosecuted by this Administration.”

SCHIEFFER: “Senator-“

CRUZ: “Can you image the reaction if the Bush Administration had went, gone and prosecuted Michael Moore and Alec Baldwin and Sean Penn?”

[ccp]

Does anyone actually believe this is the top news search on Yahoo at this time.  There has to be some computer generated volley of contrived searches to get this promoted to the top so people will read this.  A form of advertising.  Does anyone believe anyone would otherwise care about this persons appearance on some up coming program?  I wonder how many other things we read on news is similarly so.  I wonder if Yahoo is paid for this or just the financiers behind this person have paid people to generate hits to promote this to the top:

https://news.search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=A0LEVw1gs.tSP0IAU5lXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTB0NTc0NGpzBHNlYwNzYwRjb2xvA2JmMQR2dGlkA1ZJUDMyMl8x?p=Dianne%20Wiest&fr2=cosmos

[Crafty_Dog]

Indeed, worth noting!

[Crafty_Dog]

http://dailycaller.com/2014/02/03/oreilly-part-2-obama-stammers-through-incoherent-explanation-of-why-fox-is-unfair/

[G M]

Huffington Post caught lying to attack gun rights




See also
media bias /
Huffington Post
 


Huffington Post Screenshot: Huff-Watch




July 23, 2012


A site called, "Huff-Watch," which tracks, exposes and confronts the Huffington Post's biased, openly left-wing reporting, has caught the partisan propaganda mill blatantly lying about the Dark Knight massacre to advance its radical anti-gun agenda.
 
On its main page at 7:45 a.m. on July 23rd, the Huffington Post had an image of a man standing in front of dozens of assault rifles, with the headline, "Suspected Aurora Shooter Amassed Huge Arsenal Online With No Background Checks." And when you clicked on the story, it took you to another page with the headline, "Aurora Shooting: Suspect Was Able to Buy Weapons, Ammunition Online Without Background Checks."
 
From Huff-Watch:
 
“
A reasonable reader could only infer from this headline that the Aurora madman was able to obtain the weapons he used in his massacre online --- with no background checks. And look at the picture of those scary weapons! Those must be the ones (or like the ones) that he... supposedly bought online, with no background check. Shocking!!!”
 
But these headlines are both flat-out lies. No one can buy guns on line without background checks, as Huff-Watch was quick to point out. The only thing James Holmes could have purchased for his killing spree that way is ammunition, which the fine print of the article goes on to explain is somehow what the headlines meant by "weapons."
 
This is a standard print media tactic: Outrageously misrepresenting what happened with fraudulent headlines and then counting on people not to read to the last paragraph of the story, where all the facts that debunk the entire rest of the media spin are always contained.
 
For the record, even after being confronted on this stunningly sleazy and dishonest attempt to deliberately misinform the public early on, the Huffington Post still has this outrageous partisan misinformation in its current coverage of the event (as I write this at 4:30 p.m. EST on July 23rd).
 
Additionally, as I have noted here and here, the news media's coverage of this atrocity has been egregiously one-sided and unapologetically partisan, but this has got to be the most jaw-droppingly erroneous attempt to distort the truth yet.

[objectivist1]

Obama Lied With Every Word

Posted By Daniel Greenfield On February 10, 2014

“My first thought was, he lied in every word.” So began Browning’s famous poem and so began Bill O’Reilly’s interview of Obama.

Obama’s game plan was to exploit Bill O’Reilly’s image by rebranding himself as a post-partisan politician with common sense solutions. Repeating his dishonest refrain, “That’s not a liberal or a conservative agenda” or “It’s not a Democratic or Republican thing” he tried to reinvent himself as a politician for all people to the FOX News audience.

Some of the policies that Obama kept insisting were neither liberal nor conservative, neither Democrat nor Republican, included raising the minimum wage, raising taxes and yet another stimulus plan. These policies may be archetypically liberal, but Obama carries his own reality with him, his own mathematics, his own history, his own dictionary and his own moral code which he adapts to the moment.

Julia’s sugar daddy, whose ObamaCare disaster comes packaged with a marriage penalty that can go as high as $10,000, insisted with a straight face that he is always campaigning for family values.

When Obama doesn’t like a question, he rephrases it. Challenged by Bill O’Reilly on the 72 percent out of wedlock birth rate among black women, he rephrased it as a question about the importance of men paying child support and taking responsibility for their children.

But he avoided the M word: marriage.

There was no marriage in the Life of Julia and no marriage mentioned in Obama’s long stumbling reply. No husbands and wives; only “men” like stray dogs being told to take responsibility for their children.

Instead Obama pivoted from child support to the economy to the lack of jobs to education, spinning around until the compass needle pointed right back to his welfare state agenda.

Obama’s policies punish married couples while rewarding single parents, promoting a culture where marriage is disposable and the family is only one option among many, and his solution to solving a problem created by the welfare state, by the collapse of industry, extended education regimens and generous social rewards for single motherhood, was more of the same.

According to him, the only way to put out the fire is with more gasoline.

Challenged on vouchers, Obama lied to protect the education union lobby and claimed that school vouchers don’t improve performance for minority students.

“Every study that’s been done on school vouchers, Bill, says that it has very limited impact if any,” Obama said. In reality, a recent study by Matthew Chingos of the Brookings Institution and Paul E. Peterson of Harvard showed that school vouchers increased black college enrollment by 24%.

That’s a dramatic difference but not one that Obama and his backers are interested in because they don’t care about black students except as counters in the welfare state’s bankrupt budget game.

Obama is willing to annoy teachers unions and public school fanatics by offering some limited support to charter schools, which is more than the new generation of left-wing extremist politicians like Bill de Blasio will do, but he isn’t about to risk the whole system that indoctrinates generations of voters and bestows union dues on Democrats running for public office.

Studies have shown that minority students stuck in failing schools have the most to gain from vouchers. Obama has spent enough time on education policy to know that truth, but instead he chose to lie on national television by claiming that not only some select studies, but that “every study” supports his education lobby anti-student position.

On Keystone, Obama challenged O’Reilly’s job numbers even though he had used the methodology of treating temporary jobs as “created jobs” when pitching programs. After the latest positive State Department report, with no remaining basis for further delays, Obama shifted responsibility over to Kerry, as if the Senator from Damascus were qualified to overrule the experts who had already spoken.

Last year Obama claimed that he was hindering the Keystone pipeline over global warming worries. Now that it has gotten the Warmist seal of approval, he’s building another wall of obstacles while pretending to be a disinterested party.

Asked if he was the most liberal president in history, Obama claimed that Nixon was more liberal than him because he started the EPA. Anyone else would have been laughed off the stage for that alone. The EPA had been assembled out of legislatively created organizations, and Nixon’s State of the Union in 1970 had emphasized clean water and air, not Obama’s warmist carbon fantasies.

“Street litter, rundown parking strips and yards, dilapidated fences, broken windows, smoking automobiles, dingy working places,” Nixon had said running down his list of things that needed cleaning up. And he concluded by emphasizing, “We need a fresh climate in America, one in which a person can breathe freely and breathe in freedom.”

That climate of freedom is the opposite of what Obama and his secretive and vicious EPA thugs who, carry out armed raids on Republican donors and use covert emails and secret coordination with activist groups to sideline the law while trying to regulate everything on the planet as a pollutant, represent.

Haltingly, Obama invoked FDR and insisted that the country needed to spend 2 trillion on infrastructure. “That’s not a liberal or conservative agenda.” Not unless you consider FDR’s New Deal a liberal agenda.

Obama insisted, “We could put people to work right now.” But he had already promised and failed to deliver on that in his first term. In his second term, he is still dishonestly promising to create shovel ready jobs, after already admitting that there was no such thing, while ridiculing Keystone’s jobs.

“We have not massively expanded the welfare state,” Obama claimed even as food stamp enrollment has increased by 70 percent under him so that 1 in 5 households are now on food stamps. Eight million people have been added  to the rolls and ObamaCare is set to increase the already bloated rolls by another 3 to 5 percent in some states.

The number of Americans on disability has increased by 23 percent under Obama. The 5.9 million added to the disability rolls represent more than double the number of jobs that he claims to have created.

“They gotta work hard, they gotta be responsible,” Obama finished. “That’s what it’s all about. That’s how you and I ended up sitting here talking.”

The culmination of all his absurd lies was the pretense that his elevation to the highest office in the land after spending not even a full term in the senate was on the basis of merit. Two years after going from the Illinois State Senate to the United States Senate, he had already launched a campaign for the White House making him the least qualified candidate put forward by a major party in a century.

In the White House, Obama hasn’t worked hard and he hasn’t been responsible. He has made it on the strength of his ability to string together one lie after another after another, covering each disaster with a fresh deception.  His interview with Bill O’Reilly represented that same politics of dishonesty.

[ccp]

"Obama Lied With Every Word"

Doesn't seem to matter much does it.

He is a Democrat after all. 

[G M]

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/370773/poof-scandal-disappears-mona-charen

February 11, 2014 12:00 AM
Poof: A Scandal Disappears
 The press has decided that the IRS’s targeting of conservatives is not newsworthy.

By Mona Charen

Remember the IRS scandal? It’s gone. Poof. So flaccid has press interest in the story become that President Obama made bold in an interview with Fox News to say that there was not a “smidgen of corruption” in the IRS’s conduct, and that the matter concerned only some “bone-headed decisions out of a local office.”

It requires terrific confidence in the passivity of the press to float the discredited “Cincinnati did it all” dodge since we know that IRS employees in that office were taking direction from Washington. We further know that IRS offices in California, Oklahoma, Washington, D.C., and other places have been identified as singling out groups with “tea party” or “patriot” in their names.


Obama’s confidence in the press is not misplaced. Despite juicy opportunities to delve into the story of government abusing its power, reporters have let the matter drop.

There was no “smoking gun” showing that Obama personally ordered the harassment of conservatives, some explain. Is that the standard? Because it seems that the press applied a different yardstick to Chris Christie. Well, there’s a “scandal attention cycle,” says the Columbia Journalism Review. To some extent that’s true. But there are different rules for Democrats, and particularly for Obama.

To review: When the behavior of the IRS was first revealed in May of 2013, the press furor was considerable. For a week or so, it was almost as if the press remembered how to cover the administration aggressively. The president was alarmed enough about the damaging story to hold a press conference. “If, in fact, IRS personnel engaged in the kind of practices that have been reported on and were intentionally targeting conservative groups,” he said, “then that is outrageous, and there is no place for it, and they have to be held fully accountable. . . . You should feel that way regardless of party.” He continued, “I have got no patience with it, I will not tolerate it, and we will make sure that we find out exactly what happened on this.”

Or not. Now it’s just “bone-headed decisions out of a local office.” This is tamely accepted. If it concerned just a local office, why did Obama fire the director of the IRS? Why did Lois Lerner plead the Fifth and resign? (Republicans on the House oversight committee erred by not granting her use immunity and questioning her intensely on what really happened. They could still do it.)

It was also a non-scandal when the Justice Department appointed an Obama donor to investigate the IRS. Nor did the press follow up on uncontested accounts of IRS employees leaking confidential taxpayer information — which is a felony. The donor list of the National Organization for Marriage was leaked by someone at the IRS to the Human Rights Campaign, a group that supports same-sex marriage.

Last week, Catherine Englebrecht, a small businesswoman from Texas who founded True the Vote and King Street Patriots, testified about her ordeal at the hands of the federal government. Though she had never been audited in her life before exercising her First Amendment rights, after she became politically active she was subject to personal and business audits by the IRS going back several years. Then the FBI came knocking to ask about someone who attended one of the meetings of the King Street Patriots. The IRS returned with an armamentarium of questions about True the Vote. Then OSHA showed up to examine her business with a fine-tooth comb. (They fined her $17,500.) Finally, the Englebrechts were graced with a visit from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

Englebrecht’s experience should chill anyone concerned about government intimidation, overreach, arrogance, and abuse of power. But most of all it should alarm the press — supposedly the fierce guardians of the First Amendment. The press made Sandra Fluke a household name when she testified before a House subcommittee about the terrible injustice she would suffer if taxpayers did not purchase her contraceptives for her. Yet Catherine Englebrecht, an ordinary person merely attempting to join with other Americans in petitioning the government for redress of grievances, was hammered by a succession of powerful government agencies. Not even a bleat from the press about this flagrant assault on free speech.

It is an article of faith that agencies will operate in a strictly neutral and nonpartisan fashion when enforcing the law. If they become politicized, we’ve entered banana-republic territory. The press, by failing to beat the drums on this, is complicit in corruption that goes far beyond a “smidgen.”

— Mona Charen is a nationally syndicated columnist.

[DougMacG]

You knew this was coming. 

During the February 13 broadcast of CBS This Morning, host Charlie Rose and his guest turned to the topic of this year's harsh winter, calling the extreme cold an example of global warming.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2014/02/13/Horrible-Winter-CBS-Says-Blame-Global-Warming

Did they mention no warming in the last 17 years, proving all alarmist models that rely on continuously compounding acceleration to make their conclusions are wrong.

I haven't heard yet if the southwest drought caused 20 feet of snow so far in Steamboat, upstream in the Colorado River basin.

What happened to reporters just reporting the news.  Or why not use an honest moniker: CBS - Agenda Driven News

[ccp]

Recently Mobama was criticized for the cost of her dress at the white house party for the French guy.  So now we see her in a dress with advertisements on its low cost and how anyone else who wants one can buy it.  Why does her outfits have to be topics for news reports?  What is she a walking marketing gig for fashion designers now?  I expect this stuff from Hollywood celebrities walking their endless awards ceremonies to themselves but of our First Lady?   

****Michelle Obama's Black Jumpsuit on The Tonight Show: Get the Look!

Us Weekly
February 21, 2014 11:20 AM

Michelle Obama's Black Jumpsuit on The Tonight Show: Get the Look!
.
View gallery

Michelle Obama's Black Jumpsuit on The Tonight Show: Get the Look!
 
FLOTUS really can do no fashion wrong.

For her latest appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon on Thursday, Feb. 20, Michelle Obama looked incredibly chic in a black jumpsuit. She accessorized the cowl-necked one-piece with a wide black belt with leather piping and black pointy-toed kitten heels.

PHOTOS: The Obama family -- just like Us!


If the first lady's look has you jumping for a jumpsuit, try the similarly styled Mango Draped Neckline Jumpsuit. At $89.99, the sleeveless jersey piece features an elastic waist and a flattering cowled neckline. Finish the FLOTUS-inspired styled with the Three-Strap Sash Belt from Mango ($14.99) and a black heels.

Michelle Obama's Black Jumpsuit on The Tonight …
First Lady Michelle Obama rocking a black jumpsuit during an interview with host Jimmy Fallon on Feb …

Obama, 50, also showed off her comedy (and dance!) skills in the "Ew!" sketch with Fallon, 39, and Will Ferrell, both in drag. After a "triple hand hug," Sara (Fallon) says, "Wow, Michelle, you're pretty strong. You could totally be in the Olympics."

"Well, thank you, Sara. I do try to exercise every day," Obama replies.

"Really? Because I think exercise is ew," Sara says.

"Exercise is not ew. You just have to find an activity that is right for you. For example, I like to dance, play tennis, even do some push-ups," Obama explain. The group then breaks out into a dance party.

This article originally appeared on Usmagazine.com: Michelle Obama's Black Jumpsuit on The Tonight Show: Get the Look!

[Crafty_Dog]

http://web.archive.org/web/20050508002346/http://www.law.com/article.jsp.htm

[Crafty_Dog]

CNN's Don Lemon may have let the cat out of the bag when it comes to the
Leftmedia's cozy relationship with Barack Obama. We know that most in the
media agree ideologically with the president, and that sharing his goals means
carrying his water. But Lemon admitted that race plays a significant part,
too: "As journalists, you know, you weigh whether you -- how much you should
criticize the president, because he's black, what have you. But then you have
to do it, because ultimately you're a journalist." Except that the criticism
is rarely forthcoming, leaving Obama's race as a trump card. A former
president had a phrase for this sort of thing: "The soft bigotry of low
expectations."

[DougMacG]

,,,A former president had a phrase for this sort of thing: "The soft bigotry of low expectations."

That phrase works fine without the 'soft' qualifier.  Low expectations for an individual based on his or her race IS bigotry.

It is 2014.  When do we move to to being color blind, at least in our governance.

[Crafty_Dog]

 http://www.pakalertpress.com/2014/03/01/is-everything-in-the-mainstream-media-fake-6-examples-of-media-manipulation/

[Crafty_Dog]

Reporter Quits CBS Over Bias

CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson is calling it quits following months of contentious negotiations with the network, whose executives were becoming increasingly prejudiced against her work. Recall that Attkisson was virtually the only reporter in the mainstream media to investigate this administration's many scandals, most notably Fast & Furious and Benghazi. The veteran reporter has complained about CBS's liberal bias for some time now, while the network is accusing her of agenda-driven reporting. Leave it to the Leftmedia, who do their best to shield Obama from his many blunders, to accuse a single truth-seeking journalist of being biased.

[ccp]

Typical "editorial" piece that comes up on Yahoo "news".   Not will MSNBC cost the liberals elections.  Or is Huffington Post costing Democrats votes?
Or is Obama hurting the Democrat party?  No.  Only mocks of the Tea Party or anything conservative:

http://theweek.com/article/index/258089/speedreads-will-fox-news-cost-the-republican-party-the-2016-election

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.glennbeck.com/2014/03/20/did-a-reporter-just-admit-the-daily-white-house-press-briefing-is-a-sham/

[ccp]

Well, of course we know why......

Doug's point that Thomas Freidman won the Pulitzer three times made me wonder how many who hail from the right have won.   Bret Stephens was the first one in a decade according to this piece.  Gotta love this though:

"A January 2012 column on the latter topic helped contribute to his win. Entitled “The GOP Deserves to Lose,” Stephens eviscerated the GOP presidential candidates then..."

****************************

Conservative Columnist Bret Stephens Wins Pulitzer

By Matthew Sheffield | April 16, 2013 | 12:25
 
In a comparatively rare feat, a conservative writer has won a Pulitzer Prize, the most prestigious award in journalism. Bret Stephens, who writes a column for the Wall Street Journal primarily about world affairs is the first conservative to win the award in more than a decade.

Congratulations are certainly in order to Stephens for pulling off the win, especially since the very liberal Columbia University is in charge of the award.

While Stephens’s views on some social issues like gay marriage have not won him fans among devout conservatives, he certainly deserves the award. I’ve long been a fan of his prose, his independence, and his willingness to take on the conventional wisdom on topics like global warming and the complete disaster otherwise known as the Republican presidential nominating process.

A January 2012 column on the latter topic helped contribute to his win. Entitled “The GOP Deserves to Lose,” Stephens eviscerated the GOP presidential candidates then in the race and then condemned Republicans like Mitch Daniels, Chris Christie, and Haley Barbour for refusing to run.

“This was the GOP A-Team, the guys who should have showed up to the first debate but didn’t because running for president is hard and the spouses were reluctant. Nothing commends them for it. If this election is as important as they all say it is, they had a duty to step up. Abraham Lincoln did not shy from the contest of 1860 because of Mary Todd. If Mr. Obama wins in November — or, rather, when he does — the failure will lie as heavily on their shoulders as it will with the nominee.”

Stephens is the first conservative to win the commentary award since his Journal colleague Dorothy Rabinowitz won it in 2001*. That year was a rare one in Pulitzer history as it marked the second consecutive year that a conservative had won the award, something which had not happened since the 1970s. In 2000, Paul Gigot, also with the Journal, won the prize.

In recent decades, the Journal has been the home to all of the few conservative writers who have been awarded a Pulitzer. Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer was the last non-Journal conservative to win the award in 1987.

For a full list of Pulitzer commentary winners going back to 1970, click here. You can find samples of Stephens's work here.

In less laudible Pulitzer news, the committee continued its tradition of ignoring conservative editorial cartoonists by honoring Steve Sack of the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

* Note: I am not counting Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker, the 2010 award winner, as a conservative. She is a right-leaning moderate.

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-sheffield/2013/04/16/conservative-columnist-bret-stephens-wins-pulitzer#ixzz2x7QJPh9m

[G M]

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2014/03/29/Leland-Yee-Blackout-After-Gushing-over-Wendy-Davis-CNN-Claims-They-Cover-State-Senators-About-Never

[G M]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/04/01/fbi-guns-leland-lee-column/7081115/

[ccp]

"Murdoch was defiant when asked if the right-leaning Fox News Channel’s editorial content has hurt the political discussion or even the Republican Party itself. "It has absolutely saved it,” he said."

I agree.  Without Fox or talk radio one half of the nation would have No voice.

*********
Rupert Murdoch speaks: politics, divorce and how Fox News 'saved' the political debate

Eric Pfeiffer
By Eric Pfeiffer 17 hours ago Yahoo News
 
Rupert Murdoch arrives at the 2014 Academy Awards in February (Reuters)
 
Media mogul and News Corp. Executive Chairman Rupert Murdoch sat down for his first interview in nearly five years.

The still very active and opinionated 83-year-old opened up to Fortune about a number of personal and political details during the interview, including his current favorite potential Republican candidates for 2016.

Murdoch told Forbes the 2016 presidential election “is between four or five people," and he places Jeb Bush and Paul Ryan atop his personal rankings. He called Ryan “the straightest arrow I've ever met.”

Some other highlights (Fortune subscribers can read the full Q&A):

Fox News Channel's slant

Murdoch was defiant when asked if the right-leaning Fox News Channel’s editorial content has hurt the political discussion or even the Republican Party itself. "It has absolutely saved it,” he said.

On how he's aging

He says, "My mother just died at 103, so that's a start. You should live 20 years longer than your parents. That may not be realistic, but I'm in good physical shape, according to the doctors. And don't worry — my children will be the first to tell me if I start losing some mental ability. That will be the time to step back.”

His biggest (professional) mistake

Primarily, buying MySpace for $580 million: “It was one of our great screwups of all time."

He also opened up about his 2013 divorce from Wendi Deng. “Everything has sort of come at once," he said. "But I was in an unhappy situation, and all I'm worried about ... is two beautiful little girls from that marriage. And they come and stay with me a great deal. I feel like I've turned over a new page in my life.”

On two of his most famous newspaper properties

Murdoch says the New York Post may go to an all-digital version within 10 years but that the Wall Street Journal will likely exist in both print and digital form for a longer period of time.

What he thinks people don’t understand about him

“They perhaps tend to think I've not got as thick a skin as I have. You know, I don't mind what people say about me. I've never read a book about myself," he said.

How he brought his son Lachlan back into the fold at News Corp.

"Lachlan and [younger son] James and I had a very serious talk about how we can work as a team. We had two or three hours together. Lachlan was not not going to come back. It was a question of how we would work together."

Follow Eric Pfeiffer on Twitter (@ericpfeiffer).

[DougMacG]

I don't know if anyone has followed this.  Post "journalists" were busted taking false Koch brothers Keystone XL talking pints directly from Dem party.  They keep correcting without correcting.  I recall that Dan Rather also ran up against Powerline fact checking, came up with the 'false but true' defense - and lost.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/04/my-questions-to-juliet-eilperin.php

My Questions to Juliet Eilperin, and a Message to Jeff Bezos, by John Hinderacker

Over the last few minutes, I sent the following four tweets to Washington Post reporter/Democratic Party propagandist Juliet Eilperin:

    Why won’t you answer my questions about whether your false reporting on Keystone is coordinated with the Democratic Party?

    You know perfectly well that Keystone has nothing to do with Koch. Why do you perpetrate a lie, along with Whitehouse and Waxman?

    You know that Keystone would damage Koch economically. Why do you perpetrate a falsehood based on 3% leasehold ownership?

    The public demands answers. You are going to have to account for your false reporting. Did you coordinate with the Dem Party?

If you follow me on Twitter @jhinderaker–as you should!–you can retweet these tweets. You can also tweet messages directly to Ms. Eilperin @eilperin. We are not going to let this rest until we get answers from the Washington Post and from Henry Waxman and Sheldon Whitehouse.

Finally, Jeff Bezos, this is for you: I have no idea what your political views are, but I assume you are a Democrat, like most rich people. Maybe you knew, when you bought the Washington Post, that it is nothing but a corrupt mouthpiece for the Democratic Party. If so, nothing about the Post/Keystone scandal will surprise you; on the contrary, you will probably applaud the Post’s latest effort to fool its readers so as to promote the Democratic Party’s interests.

But on the off chance that you thought you were buying a real newspaper, you should be shocked to learn that the Post cannot respond to a simple question: does the Post coordinate its reporting with Congressional Democrats, or does it not? If the Post were an honest paper–a real newspaper, part of an actual free and independent press–that would be an easy question to answer. That the Post is unable to respond speaks volumes. If this isn’t what you thought you were buying, you should clean house.

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/04/10/greta-van-susteren-backs-dem-candidate-into-a-corner-forces-him-to-admit-big-lie-after-he-accused-tea-party-of-dishonesty/

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50tOdbYxXpw

[ccp]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/17/dogs-meet-sister_n_3455235.html

[Crafty_Dog]

Yet Krauthammer’s other point about a lack of mainstream media interest is just as germane. Some of that lack may be driven by the reality that Ben Rhodes’ brother is CBS News President David Rhodes, who was not enamored with former CBS investigative report Sharyl Attkisson’s reporting on the attack, despite the fact that she had been one of the few reporters to follow the story wherever it led. Yesterday in interview with Glenn Beck, Attkisson said she was glad to see “a little more light” shed on that relationship, even as she bemoaned the incestuous relationship between Big Government and Big Media, and the increasing level of intimidation aimed at journalists who refuse to abide that collaboration.

[ccp]

My second 'negative' pessimistic post of the day.  I wake up feel refreshed and then I go to Drudge just to get aggravated.  
The media had no problem with releasing the contents of an illegally recorded *private* conversation between Sterling and his essentially prostitute friend ("I should have paid her") because it fit their liberal narrative, but now suddenly how dare this guy release to the public Kerry's comments which are FAR more important to the world because it is not in *their* narrative:

****Josh Rogin 
Washington Bureau
  
05.02.14

Damn Right I Taped Kerry’s ‘Apartheid’ Talk

And if I had to do it all over again, I’d do it in the exact same way.

Ten years ago, when I was a rookie reporter for the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun, I looked up to Joseph Nye as a sacred figure, the preeminent American expert on Japan. So it hurt a little when Nye wrote to Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday to accuse me of “sneaking in” to a meeting of the Trilateral Commission last week in Washington, where John Kerry made explosive remarks warning that Israeli could become “an apartheid state.”




But I don’t blame Joseph Nye for accusing me of unethical journalism practices. He is not a journalist and he does not know the “rules” of journalism, both written and not so. I do. I’m a reporter. I know the rules and I follow them meticulously. In ten years of reporting for five different top news organizations, I’ve never broken an agreement with an official or a source and I never will. My living is dependent on that reputation and I worked hard to earn it.

If a reporter agrees that a conversation or event is off-the-record, then of course he cannot print what was said during that interchange. But the unwritten rule—the one that directly applies here—is that if a reporter enters an off-the-record event uninvited and has not agreed to the off-the-record terms, he is free to report what happens inside that event. It’s the responsibility of the event organizers to keep reporters from entering events without invitations. As long as the reporter does not misrepresent himself and does not attempt to conceal a recording device, the event is fair game. That’s the rule.

Did I enter the Trilateral Commission event with Kerry, tape it, and then reveal to the world what our Secretary of State is saying to influential world leaders behind closed doors?

Damn right I did.

Other outlets, including Politico, rushed to publish posts alleging I “sneaked” into the meeting and “secretly” recorded Kerry, based on the Nye letter. They reported “great frustration at the State Dept.” over the story. Politico also dredged up a story from 2009 when Jeffrey Goldberg accused me of being a bad Jew and worse for reporting on his interview of the Israeli ambassador at a local synagogue on Yom Kippur.

(I did issue a minor correction to that story. But on the charge of being a bad Jew? Like Hebrew National, I answer to a higher authority.)

The Daily Caller pointed out that even as Politico called me a “repeat offender,” its reporter acknowledged that although attendees agreed to keep the meeting off the record, “Rogin, who was not invited to the event, was not bound by this agreement.”

The Huffington Post pointed out that Nye didn’t actually present any real evidence that I was inside the meeting at all, saying only that I was recognized by a “friend” who was a member of the commission. The unnamed “friend” would not put his name in front of the accusation. Nye declined multiple times to explain why. But it really doesn’t matter.




“If Rogin attended and did not explicitly agree to any off-the-record ground rules, and did not misrepresent himself in the process, the comments are fair game to report.”

“If Rogin attended and did not explicitly agree to any off-the-record ground rules, and did not misrepresent himself in the process, the comments are fair game to report from a journalistic standpoint,” the Huffington Post explained.

Reporters can never reveal how they get their stories. Our processes, even our tricks, are sacred. They are the only advantage we have against the powerful people and organizations trying to keep information out of the public eye. They have hundreds of public affairs personnel, millions of dollars, and the ability to enforce tight control of media access to the leaders we trust with our national security and diplomacy. We have only our sources, our savvy, and our willingness to do what’s necessary to find out the things our government is trying to hide, within the bounds of the rules.

Nevertheless, in the interest of transparency, I will make this one time exception to my rule of never talking about my reporting process. Here is exactly what happened.

Friday morning I got a tip from a source that Kerry would be speaking at the Trilateral Commission meeting at the Mandarin Oriental hotel, a luxurious place just far enough away from downtown DC to avoid random foot traffic but still only 10 minutes from my office by taxi. The State Department had disclosed Kerry’s appearance there and marked it “closed press” in their daily scheduling note, but had not disclosed the location. I hopped in a cab.

I got there early so I parked myself in an empty room near the lobby and finished up another story I was working on. At about 2:30, the time of Kerry’s scheduled remarks, I walked over to the meeting room, walked straight to the front entrance of the room, nodded politely to the staffer at the door (she nodded back) and entered along with dozens of other people who were filing in.

Nobody ever asked me who I was. I didn’t have a name tag but many of the invited attendees weren’t wearing theirs so nobody thought anything of it. As the approximately 200 attendees got settled in for the Kerry speech, I found a seat in the corner, opened up my laptop, placed my recorder on my lap in plain sight, turned it on, and waited for the fun to begin.

A fellow journalist—I won’t say who, but you can read a list of the ones that attended the event here—spotted me in the hallway before the event. We made chit chat and talked about The Trilateral Commission in general terms. He mentioned that he was a member of the Commission. He didn’t ask me if I was a member or was invited and I didn’t volunteer any information either way. I have no idea if he is the “friend” who ratted me out to Joseph Nye.

Kerry stuck mostly to his script, but veered off at times, as he often does. I was focused on his remarks about Ukraine, when he seemed to reveal new information about intelligence collection on Russia and promised new sanctions. (I finished up a story from the room, and attributed Kerry’s remarks to “an attendee,” because there I was. Once I got home and had a chance to listen to the tapes, I sourced Kerry’s remarks to a recording obtained by The Daily Beast.) Kerry’s remarks on Israel were typical for him, until he dropped the now infamous A-bomb.

I left in the middle of the Q&A because I had another appointment. We will probably never know what else Kerry told the Trilateral Commission behind closed doors. I was proud to be able to bring my readers a story about what our top diplomat says about an important issue when he didn’t think the cameras were rolling. I expected some pushback and anger from the State Department. I was surprised that so many people bought the spin that I somehow I had done something unethical.

If I had to do it all over again, I would do it in the exact same way. Event organizers and public officials should be forewarned. The public disclosure of this episode may make it harder for me to enter rooms the powerful people don’t want me in, maybe not, we’ll see. If it does, no worries, I’ve got plenty of other ways to get important and true information about our government to my readers. I don’t have to break the rules to break news.

I will admit to one ethical indiscretion in the reporting of these stories. While I was waiting for Kerry to get to the meeting, I partook of the lunch buffet and made myself a plate of pork loin, chicken, and a very nice rice pilaf. Professor Nye, my apologies. Please send me a bill.****

[G M]

If the left didn't have double standards, they'd have no standards at all.