Tuesday, November 30th, 2010 at
1:25 pm
The U.S. government “ought to speak about the enablers in the American journalistic community” who have cooperated with WikiLeaks, syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer urged on Monday’s night’s Special Report on FNC, recommending that if you “collaborate” with WikiLeaks, then “we are going to look into possible prosecution.”
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Tuesday, November 30th, 2010 at
1:25 pm
The federally funded National Portrait Gallery, one of the museums of the Smithsonian Institution, is currently showing an exhibition that features images of an ant-covered Jesus, male genitals, naked brothers kissing, men in chains, Ellen DeGeneres grabbing her breasts, and a painting the Smithsonian itself describes in the show's catalog as "homoerotic."
The exhibit, “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture,” opened on Oct. 30 and will run throughout the Christmas Season, closing on Feb. 13.
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Tuesday, November 30th, 2010 at
1:25 pm
On Monday's Today show, NBC's Matt Lauer downplayed the criminal factor in the release of hundreds of thousands of classified diplomatic communiques by WikiLeaks, twice labeling the website as only a "messenger" for the documents. Both Lauer and NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell insisted the State Department "crossed a line" by ordering diplomats to spy on foreign diplomats at the United Nations.
The NBC anchor interviewed Republican Congressman Peter King seven minutes into the 7 am Eastern hour on this latest release of confidential documents by WikiLeaks. Midway through the segment, Lauer raised the espionage issue: "Were you surprised to hear that Secretary of State Clinton and her predecessor, Secretary of State Rice, asked their diplomats to, in effect, spy on diplomats at the United Nations, asking for things like credit card numbers, computer passwords, DNA, fingerprints? This does cross a line, doesn't it?"
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Tuesday, November 30th, 2010 at
1:25 pm
The New York Times has taken an admirable stand on the potentially-criminal release of diplomatic cables by the online "whistleblowers" at WikiLeaks. Said one Times reporter: "The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won't be posted here."
Oh, wait. That wasn't in reference to the WikiLeaks documents. That was the Times's former environmental blogger Andy Revkin discussing the so-called ClimateGate emails. The Times has, in fact, posted a number of American diplomatic documents obtained illegally by WikiLeaks, and containing massive amounts of sensitive diplomatic communications.
And so we get another glimpse of the amazing depths of the Gray Lady's hypocrisy.
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Tuesday, November 30th, 2010 at
1:25 pm
In a softball interview with retired liberal Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens on Sunday's 60 Minutes, correspondent Scott Pelley touted Stevens's opposition to the court ruling on the 2000 presidential election: "He thinks [Bush v. Gore] is one of the Court's greatest blunders….There were many people in this country who felt that the Supreme Court stole that election for President Bush."
Pelley introduced the segment by proclaiming that Stevens "has shaped more American history than any Supreme Court justice alive" and made "decisions that have changed our times." The decisions Pelley focused on were the Justice's most liberal: "It was Stevens who forced a showdown with President Bush over the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, and Stevens who tried to stop the court from deciding the presidential election of 2000."
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Tuesday, November 30th, 2010 at
1:25 pm
Good Morning America's George Stephanopoulos on Monday offered a sympathetic take on the decision of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to release potentially damaging U.S. security documents. The ABC host wondered if it was "important information for the public to have."
Talking to Congressman Peter Hoekstra, Stephanopoulos read a quote to the Republican, repeating the words of Assange: "If citizens in a democracy want their governments to reflect their wishes, they should ask to see what's going on behind the scenes." Stephanopoulos then emphasized, "He says he's performing a public service."
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Tuesday, November 30th, 2010 at
12:55 pm
The Toronto Globe and Mail profiled Arianna Huffington as she prepares to keynote the Canada's Most Famous Women summit, and D.C.-based writer Konrad Yakabuski underlines that the Huffington Post founder is mysteriously aligning herself outside the bubble of the super-rich with her book Third World America:
Ms. Huffington's 13th book is a cri de coeur bemoaning the evisceration of the U.S. middle class and America's slide toward Third World status. As she describes it to me, “that's really a country where there are the super-rich, who live behind gates with guards protecting their kids from kidnapping, and the rest of us.”
The rest of us?
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Tuesday, November 30th, 2010 at
12:38 pm
Joe Scarborough leveling harsh criticism at Sarah Palin: not news.
Joe Scarborough claiming that—off the record—"all" conservative leaders and talk radio hosts with whom he's spoken agree with his criticism: news.
Scarborough made his astonishing claim on today's Morning Joe in the context of commenting on his latest anti-Palin piece in today's Politico. This is far from the first time that Joe has taken shots at Palin. As I've reported, he has blamed the former Alaska governor for the GOP's failure to win the Senate, and claimed that Palin knows she can't win the presidency but is in it for the money.
Today's Politico piece takes Scarborough’s swipes a quantum leap further [see examples after jump]. But what makes this morning’s diatribe truly remarkable is Joe's repeated claim that "all" Republican leaders and conservative talk radio hosts with whom he's spoken have—off the record—agreed with his criticism of Palin.
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Tuesday, November 30th, 2010 at
9:07 am
An audio clip from about two months ago has been uncovered by The Blaze which clearly demonstrates that, even with all of his opining and public speaking skills, there is a reason that Howard Dean’s most notable quote will always remain a timelessly incoherent scream. Despite being a one-word definition of ignorance, Dean doesn’t mind discussing how to control the media in an effort to educate what he considers to be the ignorant masses – Americans.
What would he do about the media?
“I would bring back the Fairness Doctrine so you couldn’t have a spectacle of a Fox Flooze, which just makes stuff up and is a propaganda outlet. You would actually have to have some sanctioned human beings talking to the other side. And MSNBC would have to do the same. They would have to have some conservatives on there too. I think that’s much better for the country.”
Why does he want the government to control media?
“Americans don’t know what’s going on and therefore the media can have their way with them intellectually.”
If Dean is so concerned about propaganda outlets making stuff up, then perhaps he should be fact-checking his own statements. Such as…
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Tuesday, November 30th, 2010 at
5:01 am
With Thanksgiving behind us and Christmas before us, we are reminded once again of the integrated ways in which our Creator has had a role in our culture from the beginning. But will it stay that way?
As far back as the Declaration of Independence, our Founders affirmed together, "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."
Almost 235 years later, however, some media caught how President Barack Obama twice omitted the words "by their Creator" when reciting the declaration in speeches over the past several weeks.
But I discovered actually seven presidential "Creator" omissions in just the past few months!
—On Oct. 21 at a rally for Sen. Patty Murray in Seattle:
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