No MSM bias to see here... move along..

[taman]

I never did understand the loathing this woman has evoked. Ok, Katie Kuric (sp?) made her look ignorant, I get that, but why such seeming animosity?

I'm not enamored with her by any means, and maybe this is just an area I am completly clueless about, but it just never made sense to me.

[kbohip]

It's strange to me as well. All they do with the constant bashing of her is keep her in the public mind. I would think they'd like to just see her go away since they hate her so much. They just can't stop talking about her though.

[tucker]

I think the dems/liberals are very, very afraid of Palin she symbolizes everything they hate. One example is Palin chose to give birth to a disabled child instead of taking the easy way out with an abortion. That’s completely foreign to partisan hardcore liberals.

[liteman]

One example is Palin chose to give birth to a disabled child instead of taking the easy way out with an abortion. That’s completely foreign to partisan hardcore liberals.

Find me one example of anyone credible saying that or I call BS.

[AMDScooter]

NPR calling out Fox's "bias"... oh the humanity of it all... lol..

NPR reporter pressured over Fox role

Executives at National Public Radio recently asked the network’s top political correspondent, Mara Liasson, to reconsider her regular appearances on Fox News because of what they perceived as the network’s political bias, two sources familiar with the effort said.

According to a source, Liasson was summoned in early October by NPR’s executive editor for news, •••• Meyer, and the network’s supervising senior Washington editor, Ron Elving. The NPR executives said they had concerns that Fox’s programming had grown more partisan, and they asked Liasson to spend 30 days watching the network.

At a follow-up meeting last month, Liasson reported that she’d seen no significant change in Fox’s programming and planned to continue appearing on the network, the source said.

NPR’s focus on Liasson’s work as a commentator on Fox’s “Special Report” and “Fox News Sunday” came at about the same time as a White House campaign launched in September to delegitimize the network by painting it as an extension of the Republican Party.

One source said the White House’s criticism of Fox was raised during the discussions with Liasson. However, an NPR spokeswoman told POLITICO that the Obama administration’s attempts to discourage other news outlets from treating Fox as a peer had no impact on any internal discussions at NPR.

Liasson defended her work for Fox by saying that she appears on two of the network’s news programs, not on commentary programs with conservative hosts, the source said. She has also told colleagues that she’s under contract to Fox, so it would be difficult for her to sever her ties with the network, which she has appeared on for more than a decade.

Liasson did not return phone calls seeking comment on the meetings. In an e-mail message, she declined to be interviewed for this article.

NPR spokeswoman Dana Rehm declined to discuss Liasson and her work on Fox.

“It isn’t our practice to comment about internal conversations or about personnel matters, and we’re not going to be changing that policy,” she said. “As part of our ongoing work we have internal conversations about talent appearances all the time that are part of our regular editorial evaluation.”

Rehm added, “There’s no relationship between the White House’s criticism of Fox and any discussions about Fox that we’re having.”

A Fox spokesperson declined to comment on specific questions about Liasson. However, the spokesperson, who asked not to be named, said in an email: “With the ratings we have, NPR should be paying us to even be mentioned on our air.”

The White House aide behind the campaign to denounce alleged bias at Fox, then-Communications Director Anita Dunn, said she had no discussions with NPR executives about the issue. However, in an interview with NPR in mid-October, she said, “We see Fox right now as the source and the outlet for Republican Party talking points.” Dunn recently left the White House communications post.

Liasson is one of the most high-profile journalists to appear as a regular guest commentator on Fox News. A bio of Liasson posted on Fox’s website describes her as a “political contributor” and says she joined the network in 1997.

Fox disputes White House charges that it is a conservative media outlet, saying it clearly differentiates between news programs and commentary from hosts such as Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly.

As the White House’s campaign against Fox heated up in October, Liasson’s work on Fox drew fire from Jacob Weisberg, the editor of Slate.

“By appearing on Fox, reporters validate its propaganda values and help to undermine the role of legitimate news organizations,” Weisberg wrote in an Oct. 17 Newsweek column, “Why Fox News Is Un-American.” “Respectable journalists — I'm talking to you, Mara Liasson — should stop appearing on its programs.”

In the past, NPR has caught flak over its personnel appearing on Fox News and has taken some steps to put distance in the relationship.

In February, NPR asked that journalist Juan Williams, who is a political analyst for the radio network, no longer identify himself as such when appearing on Fox’s “O’Reilly Factor.” The request followed a “Factor” appearance in January in which Williams said of first lady Michelle Obama, “She’s got this Stokely Carmichael in a designer dress thing going.”

NPR ombudsman Alicia Shepard wrote that she had received dozens of “angry e-mails” about Williams’s remark. However, she said NPR officials were “in a bind” because he is not a full-time NPR employee and instead works on a contract that gives him broad latitude over his non-NPR work. Williams later said he regretted the remark. In recent months, Williams has filled in on occasion as a guest host of O’Reilly’s show. Liasson has not taken such a role.

One source close to NPR executives said their discomfort with the Fox appearances by NPR personnel has been long-standing and has intensified over time.

“This has been a building thing. There has been a concern in the upper regions of NPR that Fox uses Mara and Juan as cover” to defuse arguments that the TV network is populated with right-wing voices, said the source, who asked not to be named.

One complaint from NPR executives is that this very perception that Liasson and Williams serve as ideological counterweights reinforces feelings among some members of the public that NPR tilts to the left. “NPR has its own issues in trying to convince people that, ‘Look, we’re down the middle,’” the source said. “This is a public and institutional problem that has nothing to do with Mara. Obviously, you can’t give Mara a hard time for what’s coming out of her mouth. ... She’s very careful. She isn’t trashing anybody.”

The White House’s more aggressive stance against Fox took shape back in September after officials became concerned that unfair stories were migrating from Fox to other news outlets, including The New York Times. By month’s end, the White House had gone from pointing out inaccuracies on Fox to using an official blog post to denounce “even more Fox lies.”

The anti-Fox campaign became more overt in an Oct. 8 Time story in which Dunn denounced Fox as “opinion journalism masquerading as news.”

White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod later escalated the fight by calling on other news outlets to reconsider their approach to Fox. “They are not really a news organization,” Axelrod said in an Oct. 18 interview on ABC. “It’s really not news, it’s pushing a point of view; and the bigger thing is that other news organizations, like yours, ought not to treat them that way.”

Last month, Dunn declared that the White House’s effort to raise other journalists’ doubts about Fox’s reports had succeeded.

“What was important was the idea that just because something gets aired on them didn't mean that they — that everybody else needed to go chasing it. And I think that if you looked at some of the fake stories that were created that the mainstream media felt they needed to go chase — because, you know, for whatever reason, they were getting pressure to, quote, ‘Why aren't you being balanced?’” she said at a conference sponsored by Bloomberg News. “I think it did — it did help people get a sense of perspective again ... to the extent that, you know, people took a step back and said, ‘Hmm, am I really wanting to go chase those stories?’”

“I kept saying to people, ‘You know, if you're going to go chase those stories, get a second source,’” Dunn said.

[AMDScooter]

Just keep repeating the lie....

WaPo repeats “inherited” deficit fallacy

Is it too much to ask that political reporters and their editors pass a basic civics test? Joel Achenbach isn’t the first reporter to refer to the ballooning federal deficits as something Barack Obama “inherited,” but one might have thought that the editors of the Washington Post might have finally flipped through a basic primer on legislation and spending, as well as recall when the FY2009 budget actually got passed:

But it may not be boring forever. The United States owes investors nearly $8 trillion. That number could more than double in a decade. The projected growth of the federal debt is widely viewed as unsustainable. It’s unlikely that the nation will ever default, but neither is that any longer unthinkable.

President Obama is expected to address the burgeoning debt in a major economic speech Tuesday in Washington. He inherited a huge deficit, and there’s nothing but red ink as far as the eye can see. The administration has estimated that there will be $1 trillion-plus shortfalls through 2011, followed by $700-billion-plus shortfalls through 2019.

Whopper budget deficits for so many years will mean that the cumulative debt will creep up as a percentage of the nation’s gross domestic product. How much debt the country can handle is debatable. The problem is that, if investors think the United States isn’t fiscally responsible, they could start demanding much higher interest rates when they bid on Treasury securities. The feedback loop could get ugly. The nation could have to borrow hundreds of billions just to pay interest on what it owes. This has been touted as a classic path to irreversible national decline.

“Right now, this year, we have 1.6 trillion in debt coming due. That’s roughly twice individual income tax revenue. Our only plausible strategy for paying that back is to borrow more money,” says Leonard Burman, an economist at Syracuse University.

Well, that’s not exactly true, Dr. Burman. We could start cutting the size and cost of the federal government instead of expanding it. We could then use the money we save to start paying off some of our debt, as well as use the increased revenues from better economic performance that would result.

But back to the civics lesson. Budgets do not come from the White House. They come from Congress, and the party that controlled Congress since January 2007 is the Democratic Party. They controlled the budget process for FY2008 and FY2009, as well as FY2010 and FY2011. In that first year, they had to contend with George Bush, which caused them to compromise on spending, when Bush somewhat belatedly got tough on spending increases. For FY2009, though, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid bypassed George Bush entirely, passing continuing resolutions to keep government running until Barack Obama could take office. At that time, they passed a massive omnibus spending bill to complete the FY2009 budgets.

And where was Barack Obama during this time? He was a member of that very Congress that passed all of these massive spending bills, and he signed the omnibus bill as President to complete FY2009.

Let’s remind people of what the deficits looked like during that period:


If the Democrats inherited any deficit, it was the FY2007 deficit, the last of the Republican budgets. That deficit was the lowest in five years, and the fourth straight decline in deficit spending. After that, Democrats in Congress took control of spending, and that includes Barack Obama, who voted for the budgets. If Obama “inherited” anything, he inherited it from himself.

I remind folks of that last part a lot. You cannot "inherit" something you created.
The (D)imwits took controll of Congress in "06"...
Congress controls the $$$...
Look at what has happened to the deficit under their watch...

Now explain to me again how this is all GW's fault??

[liteman]

Just keep repeating the lie....

WaPo repeats “inherited” deficit fallacy



I remind folks of that last part a lot. You cannot "inherit" something you created.
The (D)imwits took controll of Congress in "06"...
Congress controls the $$$...
Look at what has happened to the deficit under their watch...

Now explain to me again how this is all GW's fault??

Simple, tax cuts that have to be paid for, something repubs never consider & two wars started by Bush Inc. amounting for $1+ B which are not paid for.

[AMDScooter]

Simple, tax cuts that have to be paid for, something repubs never consider & two wars started by Bush Inc. amounting for $1+ B which are not paid for.

The CBO has been doing the numbers the same for years.... explain how your statement squares with this chart...

[liteman]

The CBO has been doing the numbers the same for years.... explain how your statement squares with this chart...

Exactly...the wars aren't figured in and neither were the tax cuts, just another way to "fudge"the books.

[AMDScooter]

Ruh~roh... caught red handed... time for some spin...


Faked ‘Climate Journalism’ Is Not Pretty

From the lickspittle slaveys of the Associated Press:

AP IMPACT: Science not faked, but not pretty

By Seth Borenstein [photo at right], Raphael Satter And Malcolm Ritter, Associated Press Writers

December 12, 2009

LONDON – E-mails stolen from climate scientists show they stonewalled skeptics and discussed hiding data — but the messages don’t support claims that the science of global warming was faked, according to an exhaustive review by The Associated Press.

The 1,073 e-mails examined by the AP show that scientists harbored private doubts, however slight and fleeting, even as they told the world they were certain about climate change. However, the exchanges don’t undercut the vast body of evidence showing the world is warming because of man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

The scientists were keenly aware of how their work would be viewed and used, and, just like politicians, went to great pains to shape their message. Sometimes, they sounded more like schoolyard taunts than scientific tenets.

The scientists were so convinced by their own science and so driven by a cause "that unless you’re with them, you’re against them," said Mark Frankel, director of scientific freedom, responsibility and law at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He also reviewed the communications.

Frankel saw "no evidence of falsification or fabrication of data, although concerns could be raised about some instances of very ‘generous interpretations.’"

Some e-mails expressed doubts about the quality of individual temperature records or why models and data didn’t quite match. Part of this is the normal give-and-take of research, but skeptics challenged how reliable certain data was.

The e-mails were stolen from the computer network server of the climate research unit at the University of East Anglia in southeast England, an influential source of climate science, and were posted online last month. The university shut down the server and contacted the police.

The AP studied all the e-mails for context, with five reporters reading and rereading them — about 1 million words in total.

One of the most disturbing elements suggests an effort to avoid sharing scientific data with critics skeptical of global warming. It is not clear if any data was destroyed; two U.S. researchers denied it.

The e-mails show that several mainstream scientists repeatedly suggested keeping their research materials away from opponents who sought it under American and British public records law. It raises a science ethics question because free access to data is important so others can repeat experiments as part of the scientific method. The University of East Anglia is investigating the blocking of information requests.

"I believe none of us should submit to these ‘requests,’" declared the university’s Keith Briffa. The center’s chief, Phil Jones, wrote: "Data is covered by all the agreements we sign with people, so I will be hiding behind them."

When one skeptic kept filing FOI requests, Jones, who didn’t return AP requests for comment, told another scientist, Michael Mann: "You can delete this attachment if you want. Keep this quiet also, but this is the person who is putting FOI requests for all e-mails Keith (Briffa) and Tim (Osborn) have written."

Mann, a researcher at Penn State University, told The Associated Press: "I didn’t delete any e-mails as Phil asked me to. I don’t believe anybody else did."

The e-mails also show how professional attacks turned very personal. When former London financial trader Douglas J. Keenan combed through the data used in a 1990 research paper Jones had co-authored, Keenan claimed to have found evidence of fakery by Jones’ co-author. Keenan threatened to have the FBI arrest University at Albany scientist Wei-Chyung Wang for fraud. (A university investigation later cleared him of any wrongdoing.)

"I do now wish I’d never sent them the data after their FOIA request!" Jones wrote in June 2007.

In another case after initially balking on releasing data to a skeptic because it was already public, Lawrence Livermore National Lab scientist Ben Santer wrote that he then opted to release everything the skeptic wanted — and more. Santer said in a telephone interview that he and others are inundated by frivolous requests from skeptics that are designed to "tie-up government-funded scientists."

The e-mails also showed a stunning disdain for global warming skeptics.

One scientist practically celebrates the news of the death of one critic, saying, "In an odd way this is cheering news!" Another bemoans that the only way to deal with skeptics is "continuing to publish quality work in quality journals (or calling in a Mafia hit.)" And a third scientist said the next time he sees a certain skeptic at a scientific meeting, "I’ll be tempted to beat the crap out of him. Very tempted."

And they compared contrarians to communist-baiting Sen. Joseph McCarthy and Somali pirates. They also called them out-and-out frauds.

Santer, who received death threats after his work on climate change in 1996, said Thursday: "I’m not surprised that things are said in the heat of the moment between professional colleagues. These things are taken out of context."

When the journal, Climate Research, published a skeptical study, Penn State scientist Mann discussed retribution this way: "Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal."

That skeptical study turned out to be partly funded by the American Petroleum Institute.

The most provocative e-mails are usually about one aspect of climate science: research from a decade ago that studied how warm or cold it was centuries ago through analysis of tree rings, ice cores and glacial melt. And most of those e-mails, which stretch from 1996 to last month, are from about a handful of scientists in dozens of e-mails.

Still, such research has been a key element in measuring climate change over long periods.

As part of the AP review, summaries of the e-mails that raised issues from the potential manipulation of data to intensely personal attacks were sent to seven experts in research ethics, climate science and science policy.

"This is normal science politics, but on the extreme end, though still within bounds," said Dan Sarewitz, a science policy professor at Arizona State University. "We talk about science as this pure ideal and the scientific method as if it is something out of a cookbook, but research is a social and human activity full of all the failings of society and humans, and this reality gets totally magnified by the high political stakes here."

In the past three weeks since the e-mails were posted, longtime opponents of mainstream climate science have repeatedly quoted excerpts of about a dozen e-mails. Republican congressmen and former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin have called for either independent investigations, a delay in U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulation of greenhouse gases or outright boycotts of the Copenhagen international climate talks. They cited a "culture of corruption" that the e-mails appeared to show.

That is not what the AP found. There were signs of trying to present the data as convincingly as possible.

One e-mail that skeptics have been citing often since the messages were posted online is from Jones. He says: "I’ve just completed Mike’s (Mann) trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (from 1981 onward) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline."

Jones was referring to tree ring data that indicated temperatures after the 1950s weren’t as warm as scientists had determined.

The "trick" that Jones said he was borrowing from Mann was to add the real temperatures, not what the tree rings showed. And the decline he talked of hiding was not in real temperatures, but in the tree ring data which was misleading, Mann explained.

Sometimes the data didn’t line up as perfectly as scientists wanted.

David Rind told colleagues about inconsistent figures in the work for a giant international report: "As this continuing exchange has clarified, what’s in Chapter 6 is inconsistent with what is in Chapter 2 (and Chapter 9 is caught in the middle!). Worse yet, we’ve managed to make global warming go away! (Maybe it really is that easy…."

But in the end, global warming didn’t go away, according to the vast body of research over the years.

None of the e-mails flagged by the AP and sent to three climate scientists viewed as moderates in the field changed their view that global warming is man-made and a threat. Nor did it alter their support of the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which some of the scientists helped write.

"My overall interpretation of the scientific basis for (man-made) global warming is unaltered by the contents of these e-mails," said Gabriel Vecchi, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist.

Gerald North, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University, headed a National Academy of Sciences study that looked at — and upheld as valid — Mann’s earlier studies that found the 1990s were the hottest years in centuries.

"In my opinion the meaning is much more innocent than might be perceived by others taken out of context. Much of this is overblown," North said.

[AMDScooter]

CONT^^^

Mann contends he always has been upfront about uncertainties, pointing to the title of his 1999 study: "Northern Hemisphere Temperatures During the Past Millennium: Inferences, Uncertainties and Limitations."

Several scientists found themselves tailoring their figures or retooling their arguments to answer online arguments — even as they claimed not to care what was being posted to the Internet

"I don’t read the blogs that regularly," Jonathan Overpeck of the University of Arizona wrote in 2005. "But I guess the skeptics are making hay of their (sic) being a global warm (sic) event around 1450AD."

One person singled out for criticism in the e-mails is Steve McIntyre, who maintains Climate Audit. The blog focuses on statistical issues with scientists’ attempts to recreate the climate in ancient times.

"We find that the authors are overreaching in the conclusions that they’re trying to draw from the data that they have," McIntyre said in a telephone interview.

McIntyre, 62, of Toronto, was trained in math and economics and says he is "substantially retired" from the mineral exploration industry, which produces greenhouse gases.

Some e-mails said McIntyre’s attempts to get original data from scientists are frivolous and meant more for harassment than doing good science. There are allegations that he would distort and misuse data given to him.

McIntyre disagreed with how he is portrayed. "Everything that I’ve done in this, I’ve done in good faith," he said.

He also said he has avoided editorializing on the leaked e-mails. "Anything I say," he said, "is liable to be piling on."

The skeptics started the name-calling said Mann, who called McIntyre a "bozo," a "fraud" and a "moron" in various e-mails.

"We’re human," Mann said. "We’ve been under attack unfairly by these people who have been attempting to dismiss us as frauds as liars.

The AP is mentioned several times in the e-mails, usually in reference to a published story. One scientist says his remarks were reported with "a bit of journalistic license" and "I would have rephrased or re-expressed some of what was written if I had seen it before it was released." The archive also includes a request from an AP reporter, one of the writers of this story, for reaction to a study, a standard step for journalists seeking quotes for their stories.

This Associated Press article in a nutshell represents everything that is wrong with our supposedly objective media. It is a propaganda piece from to bottom.

It starts with the AP’s now constant mantra that these emails were “stolen,” a claim that is belied by the obvious (and unreported) fact that all of the email addresses have been blocked out by XXXXs. (See the email below.)

That strongly suggests that these files were processed by an insider for public publication, such as in response to the numerous freedom of information requests. The name of the file ‘FOI2009’ suggests the same. Why would a hacker do any such thing?

But the Associated Press will never let such details get in the way of their attempt to criminalize the release of this information.

The AP article ends with the disinformation that their reporters were simply reaching out for the other side of the story in their contacting the denizens of the CRU. That too is a lie.

As we were the first anywhere to report, when Mr. Borenstein appears in the CRU emails he is clearly begging for talking points from his masters:

On Jul 23, 2009, at 11:54 AM, Borenstein, Seth wrote:
Kevin, Gavin, Mike,
It’s Seth again. Attached is a paper in JGR [Journal Of Geophysical Research] today that
Marc Morano
is hyping wildly. It’s in a legit journal. Whatchya think?
Seth
Seth Borenstein
Associated Press Science Writer
[7]sborenstein@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
The Associated Press, 1100 13th St. NW, Suite 700,
Washington, DC
20005-4076
202-641-9454

There is simply no reason on earth to ever believe anything from Mr. Borenstein, or indeed, any of the AP’s so-called reporters.

They are not journalists.

They are zealots with an agenda.

[AMDScooter]

Uh.. ya.. about that..

2006: Nancy Pelosi and 'The Party of No'

It seems a day doesn't go by without a Democrat -- or one of the party's media allies -- leveling the charge that 'the Republicans have become the Party of No.'

Despite the fact that there are anywhere from 6 to 14 different Republican health-care reform proposals in the House, this meme constantly gets repeated with regard to health-care reform.

Back in August 2006, Time magazine's Perry Bacon Jr. wrote an article about then-Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, which included an overview of the political strategy of the then-Minority Leader in opposing Social Security reform in 2005.

Time's Bacon wrote, in part:

... Pelosi has embraced hard-knuckle partisanship, even if it means standing still. When Bush announced his Social Security plan last year, Pelosi told House Democrats they could never beat him in a straight-ahead, policy-against-policy debate because he had the megaphone of the presidency and was just coming off re-election. So the Democrats would thunderously attack Bush and argue there was no Social Security crisis and therefore no need for them to put out their own proposal. Some members were leery, concerned that Pelosi would make the Democrats look like the Party of No. As the spring of 2005 wore on, some pestered her every week, asking when they were going to release a rival plan. "Never. Is never good enough for you?"...

Time's Bacon wrote this about Rep. Pelosi's general overall strategy toward Republican legislative initiatives:

Throughout the past year, Pelosi has demanded that Democrats unanimously oppose g.o.p. bills. By denying the g.o.p votes from across the aisle, Democrats have forced moderate Republicans to back bills like those cutting Medicaid and other social programs that fiscally conservative Republicans have insisted on, votes for which Democrats have then attacked moderate Republicans in television ads. Pelosi has also ordered Democrats not to work on bills or even hold press conferences with Republicans whom the party is trying to defeat in November.

Memories about being 'the Party of No,' it would appear, have grown rather short since 2005-2006.

[AMDScooter]

Stephanopoulos sticking to the talking points from his morning call from Rhammy I'm sure...

George Stephanopoulos Repeatedly Warns Dean: Opposing ObamaCare Could Harm President

STEPHANOPOULOS: I’m doing well, thank you. You call this the collapse of health care reform. But, you see this now, united Republican opposition. The President's poll numbers at new lows. And a lot of leading Democrats believe that if this bill goes down, it will cripple the Obama presidency. Are you prepared to do that?

[AMDScooter]

Banner year...

Nine Big Stories the Mainstream Media Missed in 2009

From radical advisers in the Obama White House to hacked e-mails showing questionable work by climate scientists, 2009 has seen its share of scandals. But if you only followed the mainstream media, you might have missed some of the biggest stories of the year. Here's a list of the top nine stories the mainstream media ignored in the past year

[AMDScooter]

Guess the guy who turned things around in Iraq despite the best efforts of the left (including the messiah himself) does not make ole mushmouth's leg tingle.