Sen. Whitehouse Blames GOP For Okla. Tornado, Storms, Rising Seas, Etc.
In remarks which will more than likely be ignored by the establishment press, Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse in essence blamed yesterday's deadly tornado which struck Moore, Oklahoma on Republicans who have "run off the climate cliff like a bunch of proverbial lemmings." Whitehouse was intensely upset because, in his view these red state ignoramuses who are allowing ever more intense, climate change-caused storms to occur because of their inaction expect the rest of the country to pay for disaster relief in their states as they deliberately inflict damage on blue states like his own and Oregon. As a free bonus, he threw in a detestable Cold War analogy.
The video of Whitehouse's speech as presented at the Senator's own YouTube channel and a transcript follow the jump. View the video; Whitehouse's condescending contempt for people who won't accept what history will likely record is one of the greatest attempted hoaxes ever perpetrated on mankind is a sight to behold (HT to FreeRepublic for transcript; some editing was necessary to match the actual speech; bolds are mine):
But of Course: For Bloomberg’s Al Hunt, ‘Scandal’ Is a ‘Misnomer’ for Benghazi, IRS Targeting and DOJ’s Snooping on AP
Old dog, same old tricks.
At Bloomberg Views, Al Hunt, formerly "the executive editor of Bloomberg News, directing coverage of the Washington bureau," referred to the controversies swirling around the White House as "faux scandals" and insisted that ... wait for it ... the Obama administration "is the most scandal-free administration in recent memory." No wonder Bloomberg News developed into such a hopelessly biased outfit while he was there. As much as I could stand to excerpt from Hunt's harangue follows the jump (bolds and numbered tags are mine):
AP Waits Until Carney Responds to WSJ Story on IG’s IRS Tea Party-Targeting Report, ‘Forgets’ to Mention WSJ Story
Well, it looks like I was right earlier this afternoon when I thought that the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, was among those holding off on reporting the Wall Street Journal's Sunday evening disclosure that Kathryn Ruemmler, the head of the Office of the White House Counsel, "learned weeks ago that an audit of the Internal Revenue Service likely would show that agency employees inappropriately targeted conservative groups" was "nervous about the Journal’s report, waiting for administration apparatchiks to tell them what to say, or both."
It turns out that the AP, in an unbylined report, waited until Jay Carney told them what to say and then pretended that the Journal's Sunday story didn't exist (the time stamp seen at story as carried at the AP's national site at the time of this post was 2:51 p.m.; the graphic which follows is of the identical story at Yahoo News):
WSJ Reports ‘Obama’s Counsel Was Told of IRS Audit Findings Weeks Ago’; Almost All But NYT So Far Ignoring
Saturday, David Espo at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, engaged in an execrable exercise in advocacy journalism entitled "Obama Agenda Marches on Despite Controversies."
Yesterday (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), I took apart Espo's claim that there is a "lack of evidence to date of wrongdoing close to the Oval Office" by showing that in at least five situations -- Fast and Furious, Benghazi, IRS targeting, AP phone snooping, and HHS's shaking down of insurance companies to fund ObamaCare promotions -- have all been known by people who directly report to the President, and are thus just one step away from him. On Sunday evening, the Wall Street Journal reported that in the case of the IRS targeting, it's a lot less than one step (bolds are mine):
AmSpec Scoop: Obama ‘Met With Anti-Tea Party IRS Union Chief the Day Before Agency Targeted Tea Party’
Jeffrey Lord at the American Spectator has reviewed the White House logs looking for a relationship between meetings listed there and the timeline found in the Inspector General's report on the targeting of Tea Party and conservative groups issued last Tuesday. Lord's work represents yet another example of alternative media scooping a lazy or negligent establishment press.
What Lord has found (single-page print version) is that President Barack Obama met with the President of the National Treasury Employees Union Colleen Kelley, on March 31, 2010. The NTEU is "the 150,000 member union that represents IRS employees along with 30 other separate government agencies." The Inspector General's report, blandly titled "Inappropriate Criteria Were Used to Identify Tax-Exempt Applications for Review," indicates that the IRS, in Lord's words, "set to work in earnest targeting the Tea Party and conservative groups around America" the very next day. Lord's work is a mandatory read-the-whole-thing item. Excerpts follow the jump (bolds are mine throughout this post):
Politico’s Gerstein Assumes GOP and Other Efforts to Get at the Truth Are About ‘Claim(ing) a Trophy Firing’
When a reporter makes an assertion about someone else's beliefs or motivations, he or she is supposed to offer something up as evidence, say a direct quote, something that person has written, or even something someone else close to him or her has said.
Politico's Josh Gerstein offered nothing of the sort in his coverage of Eric Holder's "you can't touch me" attitude, though he provides plenty of evidence to support my characterization of Holder's outlook. Gerstein, without a shred of support, wrote the following in describing what he believes Republicans and conservatives are trying to accomplish in pursuing the myriad scandals in the Obama administration which have burst forth during the past two weeks, along with others, including but not limited to Operation Fast and Furious, which occurred during the Obama administration's first term (bolds are mine throughout this post):
NYT’s Peters ‘Cleans Up’ Jonathan Weisman’s Original Report on Friday’s IRS Scandal Hearing
Clearly, the New York Times couldn't run with Jonathan Weisman's headline or opening sentence in the report he filed shortly after Friday's portion of Friday's testimony at a hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee in its Saturday print edition. And it didn't.
The original headline at Weisman's story, as seen here (HT Ann Althouse via Instapundit), was "Treasury Knew of I.R.S. Inquiry in 2012, Official Says." His opening sentence: "The Treasury Department’s inspector general told senior Treasury officials in June 2012 he was auditing the Internal Revenue Service’s screening of politically active organizations seeking tax exemptions, disclosing for the first time on Friday that Obama administration officials were aware of the matter during the presidential campaign year." Along came Jeremy Peters, who helped to "properly" frame these matters, turning it into yet another "Republicans attack our poor innocent administration" piece. That is what made it to today's paper -- on Page A12, naturally accompanied by a "better" headline. Meanwhile, except for excerpts captured at places like the indispensable FreeRepublic, Weisman's original has been flushed down the memory hole.
Video: Brent Bozell Cautions Media Will Quickly Revert to Defending Obama, Attacking GOP Over Scandals
The liberal media are not really "up in arms" with the Obama administration, but are simply having a "lover's quarrel" over the AP scandal in particular, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell told CNBC host Larry Kudlow on his May 16 The Kudlow Report program.
What's more, it won't be that long until "[t]he Bill Clinton syndrome is going to be upon us, where it's time to move on, we've covered it [the media will say] and they're going to turn the fire right on Republicans as being obstructionists. Mark my word," the Media Research Center founder predicted. [watch the full segment below the page break]
WashPost Reporters Mock ‘Insanity’ of House GOP Push to Repeal ObamaCare, Omit Poll Showing 42% Think Law’s Not on the Books
The House Republican caucus is an insane asylum divorced from reality.
That, essentially, was the complaint waged by Washington Post reporters David A. Fahrenthold and Ed O'Keefe in the first six paragraphs of their page A2 May 16 story, "A persistent GOP battle against health law":
Jon Stewart Slams Obama Claim He Learned About IRS Scandal ‘Last Friday’
It's easy to tell that President Obama is going through a scandal-ridden “tough time” since he's even under fire from Jon Stewart, host of “The Daily Show” on the Comedy Central cable channel, who said on Tuesday that the Democratic occupant of the White House “can't keep saying you found out about news at the same time as us!”
The liberal comedian said he found it strange that the president didn't learn much sooner about the Internal Revenue Service persecuting groups with “Tea Party” or “Patriot” in their names and the Justice Department confiscating phone records about Associated Press reporters.
WaPo Pity Party: Graphic Teases ‘Obama’s Disastrous Week,’ ‘Carney’s Tough Day’
It's just so unfortunate that such nice guys are going through such trying circumstances.
That's the impression one gets from graphic teases seen at about 9:30 this morning at the Washington Post, where the captions underneath the three left thumbnails read as follows: "President Obama’s disastrous political week"; "Jay Carney’s tough day"; and "Jay Carney’s day — in 7 faces." If you don't recall such an obvious outward show of sympathy during the final year of George W. Bush's presidency, you're not alone. A quick look at the underlying items follows the jump.
Matthews: IRS Scandal Worth 5-10 Points To Republican Candidates
What will be the political fallout of the various scandals in which President Obama is ensnared? Chris Matthews thinks it will be huge.
Appearing on today's Morning Joe, Matthews mused that the IRS scandal alone would be worth 5-10 points to Republican candidates. He specifically mentioned Mitch McConnell, Tom Corbett and Ken Cuccinelli as Republicans whom the scandal would aid in their 2014 races. View the video after the jump.
After Over Five Years of Fawning, Politico Pair Writes That ‘D.C. Turns on Obama’
Imagine that. Politico has a very negative story on our second-term president.
After over five years during which the online publication has engaged in virtual non-stop fawning over the wonders of Barack Obama -- going all the way back to shortly after its founding in January 2007, when Ben Smith found someone who described him as "frighteningly coherent" -- Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei tonight employed adjectives and described personality traits of their beloved "44" and those surrounding hime which just about anyone with eyes, meaning everyone except all too many members of the establishment press and those who have been deceived by them, has recognized for a long, long time (bolds are mine):
Former Obama Press Sec Robert Gibbs Rips Obama On ‘Exceedingly Passive’ Response to IRS Scandal
Et tu, Roberto? It was bad enough for President Obama to have Andrea Mitchell jump ship this morning. But now someone who is—arguably—even closer to home has taken a resounding shot at the President's mishandling of the IRS scandal.
Appearing on Mitchell's MSNBC show this afternoon, former Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs condemned the president's "exceedingly passive" language in discussing the scandal. Obama had said there'd be consequences "if" wrongdoing were found, and spoken of "losing patience." Gibbs was scathing: that's what "I do with my nine-year old." Ouch! View the video after the jump.
NAACP’s Bond Calls Tea Party ‘American Taliban’, MSNBC’s Roberts Barely Challenges
MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts is an openly liberal host who frequently makes disparaging comments towards conservatives and the Republican Party. And as it the modus operandi at the network, he frequently brings on fellow liberals to bash conservatives, often without the benefit of giving a conservative equal time to fire back.
Following shocking revelations that the IRS has been selectively investigating conservative groups for some three years now, Roberts brought on Julian Bond, chairman emeritus of the NAACP, to discuss what Roberts believed, “brings to mind the agency's 2004 probe of the NAACP.” [See video after jump. MP3 audio here.]
Andrea Mitchell: IRS, AP Scandals Among ‘Most Outrageous Excesses I’ve Seen’—But Bernstein Still Bats For Obama
President Obama knows he's in trouble when Andrea Mitchell—Andrea Mitchell!—proclaims the IRS and AP scandals to be among "the most outrageous excesses I've seen" in all her years in journalism [which pre-date Watergate]. The strength of Mitchell's statement drew gasps from Scarborough and Brzezinski. Then Ron Fournier, former AP editor now with the National Journal, darkly described the White House being "consumed" if it turns out someone there or in the Obama campaign had been aware of the IRS targeting of conservative groups. It happened on Morning Joe today.
But hey, President Obama still has his hangers-on. Take good old Carl Bernstein. As we reported, on yesterday's Morning Joe Bernstein blathered that he "can't imagine" that President Obama coudl be involved in the IRS mess. And there was Bernstein again today. When Fournier spoke of consequences of White House or Obama campaign knowledge of the IRS targeting, Bernstein quickly burped out that "we have no evidence of that whatsoever." Joe Scarborough had to remind the former Watergate reporter: "that's why you have investigations. You know that." View the video after the jump.
MSNBC’s Scarborough and Geist on IRS Scandal: ‘This Is Tyranny’
As NewsBusters has been reporting all morning, the folks on MSNBC's Morning Joe almost unanimously came down on the Obama administration for using the Internal Revenue Service to intimidate its political opponents.
Putting an exclamation point on the outrage late in Monday's program were co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Willie Geist who shockingly agreed, "This is tyranny" (video follows with transcript and absolutely no need for additional commentary):
Tax-Funded NPR and PBS Bored at IRS Scandal; Instead, Mark Shields Trashes Sanford as Unforgivable ‘Jerk’
Both NPR and PBS skipped over the Obama-IRS scandal on Friday night’s “week in review” segments. Both led instead by wondering about whether conservatives would ruin immigration “reform” and then briefly touched on Benghazi.
On the PBS Newshour, all the outrage was saved for the end, as Mark Shields railed against Congressman-elect Mark Sanford as an unforgivable “jerk” for having his mistress with him at his special-election victory party next to his sons, and then trashed the GOP voters who elected him:
CBS’s Scott Pelley at Quinnipiac Luncheon: ‘We Are Getting Big Stories Wrong, Over and Over Again’
Scott Pelley deserves grudging credit for recognizing something obvious at a Friday luncheon in New York. Readers tempted to go beyond that point would be advised to visit the archive of Pelley-related posts at NewsBusters on his brand of so-called journalism, a few of which will be identified later in this post.
At said luncheon, Pelley received the 20th annual Fred Friendly First Amendment Award from the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University. In his acceptance speech (full YouTube; excerpt here; HT Weekly Standard), Pelley spoke of journalistic failures during the past few months. He wants to believe that the past few months have been extraordinarily bad to a supposedly unprecedented extent.
New Jersey Dems Caught on Hot Mic Wanting to ‘Confiscate, Confiscate, Confiscate … Their Little Guns’
How many times have we heard establishment press members, particularly broadcasters, insist that no one on the left side of the gun control discussion wants to take away anyone's guns? Just a few examples include CNN's Piers Morgan, CNN's Carol Costello, and MSNBC's Alex Wagner, even after New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was quoted in the New York Times before Christmas saying that "confiscation could be an option." Currently, New York, as Hot Air's Jazz Shaw noted in late April, actually is confiscating guns, based on "the exercise of reasonable professional judgment" of "mental health professionals."
Though I'm sure they'll try, the deniers are going to have a hard time explaining away what the Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs has reported with accompanying audio. After the conclusion of a hearing of New Jersey's Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee, an open mic captured the following discussion among three Democratic senators (HT PolitiChicks via Instapundit; internal link and bolds are in original):
Liberal Beinart Calls for Dems to Denounce Harpootlian’s Attacks on Gov. Haley; Harpootlian Doubles Down as Media Yawn
At the Daily Beast on Sunday, liberal Peter Beinart called on Democrats and liberals to "strongly denounce" former South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Dick Harpootlian's insult campaign against Palmetto State Governor Nikki Haley, or else "Democratic Party bigotry is likely to get worse."
It's too early to test Beinart's long-term prediction (such bigotry is bad enough already), but the denunciations he desires are nowhere to be found, even as Harpootlian has doubled and tripled down on his original wish to see Haley sent “back to wherever the hell she came from.” Meanwhile, the establishment press has virtually ignored Harpootlian's unhinged harangues.
Imagine That: Establishment Press Failed to Find or Report Colbert Busch’s Far-Left Tweets, Jailing For Contempt
In the race to the bottom event known as South Carolina's First Congressional District special election, Mark Sanford has defeated Elizabeth Colbert Busch.
Not that the establishment press didn't try to help Ms. Busch, to whose background they gave little or no scrutiny. And when two forms of scrutiny did arrive from independent quarters, first of her actual beliefs expressed in tweets before she or someone associated with her deleted them, and then this weekend of her past jailing on contempt charges during a messy divorce, they chose to ignore it.
Bill Richardson Says Ted Cruz Should Not Be ‘Defined as a Hispanic,’ Then Unsuccessfully Tries to Explain It Away
In a web interview after his appearance on ABC's “This Week” yesterday, former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, who suddenly withdrew after being nominated by President Barack Obama to be his first Secretary of Commerce in 2009, was asked the following about freshman U.S. Senator Ted Cruz: "Do you think he represents most Hispanics with his politics?"
His answer (video is at link) follows the jump:
Aurora, Col. Sentinel Editor Wants NRA’s ‘Guilty Monsters … Sent to Guantanamo Bay For All Eternity’
Time was, several decades ago, that local and regional news in many parts of the country served as a bit of an antidote against the relentlessly biased national establishment press.
That certainly isn't the case in Aurora, Colorado, site of last year's horrible theater murders at the alleged hands of James Holmes. Dave Perry, the editor of the Aurora Sentinel, wrote a column on April 25 proving that he is not fit to hold his current position, especially when it comes to overseeing reporting on Second Amendment matters. Among other things, he characterized the National Rifle Association as "the real terrorist threat here in America" whose members are "guilty monsters" who should be "sent to Guantanamo Bay for all eternity" (bolds are mine; HT Instapundit):
HuffPo’s Horowitz Claims Nikki Haley ‘No Stranger to Scrutiny’ Because of Time Editor’s Race-Baiting Question About Taxi Tips
It's not often that yours truly visits Huffington Post. One of those rare occasions occurred early today as I was preparing the post (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog) about South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Dick Harpootlian relishing the idea that his party's candidate for Palmetto State Governor in 2014 might send current Republican Governor Nikki Haley "back to wherever the hell she came from."
In writing about Harpootlian's response to the controversy over his insensitive and arguably racist and nativist remark, HuffPo's Alana Horowitz, who serves as its Front Page Editor, wrote that Haley "is no stranger to scrutiny over her ethnic and religious background." To what sort of "scrutiny" did Horowitz refer involving Haley's "ethnic and religious background"? See after the jump:
S. C. Dem Chair: Send Nikki Haley ‘Back To Wherever The Hell She Came From’
The latest insensitive and arguably racist public utterance coming from the supposed party of tolerance and compassion comes from a Democrat in South Carolina. But not just any Democrat. This one is Dick Harpootlian, the Chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party. Harpootlian has a history of making outrageously offensive public remarks about South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, yet he remained as party chairman until (according to Politico) his term ended on Saturday.
Mediaite, Politico, and almost no one else in the establishment press has reported that Harpootlian, speaking at a Jefferson-Jackson dinner Friday night just before Vice President Joe Biden appeared, said while introducing South Carolina gubernatorial candidate Vincent Sheheen (as carried at Mediaite; HT Instapundit): "In about 18 months from now,” he said, “hopefully he’ll have sent Nikki Haley back to wherever the hell she came from."
Newspaper Guild Worried About Possibility of ‘Harsh Right-Wing Positions’ Influencing Tribune Coverage
Today, The Newspaper Guild & Communications Workers of America issued a statement which began as follows: "Recently you’ve seen many petitions asking that Warren Buffett and his executives not be allowed to buy the Tribune Company’s newspapers. We understand why Buffett's group breeds this distrust. They are active political proponents of harsh left-wing positions. We’re also not certain that Tribune will listen to anything but money when the final decision is made."
Of course, I'm kidding. The statement at the Guild/CWA, which we should never forget outspokenly supported, endorsed and for a time actively participated in the crime-infested, disgusting, violent Occupy movement during 2011 and early 2012, was about the eeeevil Koch brothers' apparent interest in purchasing the Tribune's group of publications (HT Jim Romenesko via Hot Air headlines):
AP Ignores South Carolina Dem Calling ObamaCare ‘Extremely Problematic’
How do you know when a Democratic politician's or candidate's quote will either hurt that person or hurt President Obama (in this case, it's the latter)? When the Politico reports it, and the Associated Press avoids it.
Elizabeth Colbert Busch, who is running against former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford for the congressional seat opened up when Tim Scott was appointed to replace Jim DeMint, apparently felt the need to appeal to those who oppose ObamaCare during a debate on Monday evening. Here's what she said, according to Politico's David Nather and Darren Samuelsohn:
AP’s Raum Seems Puzzled That ‘Economic Gains May Not Help Democrats Much in 2014′
You've got hand it to some (probably most) of the reporters at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press. Their story is that the economy is all right, and by gosh, they're sticking to it.
Tom Raum's dispatch yesterday is a case in point. Along the way, he pulled out several of the tired spin-driven claims which have long since been taken down but which haven't yet penetrated the skulls of low-information voters. Raum and AP seem puzzled that the supposedly okey-dokey economy doesn't seem to be helping President Obama or Democrats' 2014 congressional and senatorial election prospects (bolds and numbered tags are mine):