For anyone who thinks liberals are calm and rational beings, free of bitterness and rage, we can always disprove that with the radio show of Mike Malloy. On Thursday, Malloy ranted and raved about the story that Fox News boss Roger Ailes is said to have told publisher Judith Regan to lie and conceal her affair with Bernard Kerik before federal investigators as Kerik was considered for the Cabinet. This was enough to send Malloy off the deep end:

Well, I would think it also would be that it would also be the basis of a criminal investigation against this lard-ass bastard — Rupert Murdoch's anti -American terrorist broadcast organization!

From there, Malloy ranted not only against Ailes, but against Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly, who apparently are all anti-American terrorists:

What a nest of snakes at the Rupert Murdoch terrorist organization. What a nest of snakes! Vile, filthy liars who are hell-bent on destroying America! They want to burn the country down! They want to burn it down! That's why they let that freak Glenn Beck loose every day! Right? I want you to go kill more people…I want you to blow things up! And the other freak on television — O'Reilly, who made it his business to ensure the death of a physician over and over again? Tiller the Killer! Tiller the Killer! Tiller the Killer! Like I said last night, these people should march over the edge of the United States and be told to start swimming!

Earlier on Thursday's show, Malloy also freaked out over a Mother Jones story on an attempt by Nebraska state Sen. Mark Christiansen to pass a bill protecting unborn children from violence.

In the Omaha World-Herald, Christiansen "said the proposal was inspired by a Michigan case in which a woman pregnant with quadruplets was charged with manslaughter after stabbing to death an ex-boyfriend who had punched her in the stomach. Christensen and supporters, including anti-abortion groups Family First, Americans United for Life and the Nebraska Catholic Conference, said the bill was just a natural progression from existing state laws that craft separate offenses for assaulting or murdering an unborn infant."

But Malloy called Christiansen not only a "Jesus-hating liar," but he insisted God was going to snap his head off and let the demons in Hell use it for soccer practice:

Hey dumb-ass, hey freak – hey un-Christian, Jesus-hating liar! You know you're breaking the 10th Commandment there because there are already laws on the books – someone who's attacked like, oh I don't know, pick somebody there Mr. Christiansen – how about – a pregnant woman! She has the right to kill the son of a bitch on the spot already. No, you're a liar and you're a coward, Senator Mark Christiansen, devout Christian and devout abortion foe! You're a liar and a coward!

You're one of those types that, when they great getting morning-up does come, according to your Holy Text, and you stand up for the Lord in Heaven – he's going to snap your head off and kick it into hell where the demons, devils, and haints will use it as a soccer ball for all of eternity and that's what's waiting for you, Mark!

Thursday, an odd warning emanated from the halls of the supposedly esteemed investment firm known as Goldman Sachs: If Uncle Sam spends $61 billion less during the second half of the current fiscal year, and ends the year with "only" $3.758 trillion in spending instead of the administration's anticipated $3.819 trillion, economic growth will be seriously harmed.

Yesterday, similar nonsense was put forth by Jeannine Aversa at the Associated Press in reaction to the government's report that economic growth during the fourth quarter was revised down to 2.8% from 3.2%, when experts (like the geniuses at Goldman) had expected the number to come in at 3.3%. The headlined whine: "State and local budget cuts are slowing US economy."

First, here is the Financial Times report carried at CNBC reporting on Goldman's federal spending gibberish:

Goldman Sees Danger in US Budget Cuts

 

The Republican plan to slash government spending by $61bn in 2011 could reduce US economic growth by 1.5 to 2 percentage points in the second and third quarters of the year, a Goldman Sachs economist has warned.

 

The note from Alec Phillips, a forecaster based in Washington, was seized in the ongoing US budget fight by Democrats as validating their argument that the legislation approved by the Republican-led House of Representatives last Saturday would do significant damage to the US recovery.

 

Chuck Schumer, the Democratic senator from New York, said: “This nonpartisan study proves that the House Republicans’ proposal is a recipe for a double-dip recession. Just as the economy is beginning to pick up a little steam, the Republican budget would snuff out any chance of recovery. This analysis puts a dagger through the heart of their ‘cut-and-grow’ fantasy”.

 

The Goldman analysis also points out that a potential compromise deal with $25bn in spending reductions this year – a more likely scenario – would lead to a smaller drag on growth of 1 percentage point in the second quarter.

The editorialists at Investors Business Daily smelled a rat — or, actually, dozens of them scurrying through revolving doors (bolds are mine):

… If it were anyone other than Goldman Sachs making the prediction, maybe we'd believe it.

 

… (Goldman's assertion) is true only if you buy into the Keynesian premise that a $1 increase in government spending leads to a greater than $1 increase in economic output.

 

That idea has been disproved and roundly criticized after the Obama administration blithely predicted $2.50 in economic activity for every $1 in added government "stimulus."

 

We've spent trillions more, but have little in the way of growth or jobs to show for it.

 

… The revolving door between Goldman and government is well-known. An investigative report last year by CBS News counted "at least four dozen former employees, lobbyists or advisers at the highest reaches of power both in Washington and around the world."

 

They include former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who crafted the stimulus plan and Wall Street bailouts; former Democratic House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt; and former SEC head Arthur Levitt, who as of last year was a paid lobbyist for Goldman.

 

No surprise, then, that Goldman Sachs would see even the modest cuts proposed by the GOP as a danger to the economy. With its shifting business ties to government, the cuts would certainly be a danger to them.

 

No one on Wall Street did better as a result of the government's massive, disastrous intervention in the U.S. economy the past two years. Goldman didn't just see its business grow. It also watched as government regulators selectively let some of its key competitors die.

Exactly. IBD also reminds readers that if $61 billion in spending reductions will really harm the economy, $821 billion in stimulus spending should have caused it to take off like a rocket. Of course, that's not what has happened.

Also, there has apparently been no word from Goldman as to the potential effect on economic growth of a few more years of trillion-dollar federal deficits followed by $500 billion-plus deficits as far as the eye can see.

The Associated Press's Aversa tried to sound similar alarms over state and local spending, again without basis. Especially catch the final bolded sentence in the third excerpted paragraph:

Deep spending cuts by state and local governments pose a growing threat to an economy that is already grappling with high unemployment, depressed home prices and the surging cost of oil.

 

Lawmakers at state capitols and city halls are slashing jobs and programs, arguing that some pain now is better than a lot more later. But the cuts are coming at a price – weaker growth at the national level.

 

The clearest sign to date was a report Friday on U.S. gross domestic product for the final three months of 2010. The government lowered its growth estimate, pointing to larger-than-expected cuts by state and local governments. The report suggested that worsening state budget problems could hold back the recovery by putting more people out of work and reducing consumer spending.

The report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis "suggested" no such thing. Here's what it did say:

The small fourth-quarter acceleration in real GDP primarily reflected a sharp downturn in imports, an acceleration in PCE, an upturn in residential fixed investment, and an acceleration in exports that were mostly offset by downturns in private inventory investment and in federal government spending, a deceleration in nonresidential fixed investment, and a downturn in state and local government spending.

A different sentence in the report says that "The downward revision to the percent change in real GDP primarily reflected an upward revision to imports and downward revisions to state and local government spending" — but that's a comment about the degree of January's downward revision, not the overall GDP result.

Table 3 at the BEA's full report shows that compared to the third quarter, on a seasonally adjusted basis, annualized state and local government expenditures fell by $9.1 billion. In a $13.3 trillion economy (in chained 2005 dollars), that isn't even a rounding error. Aversa's alarm has no basis in reality.

More importantly, as IBD noted with federal spending in previously unexcerpted text, studies by Harvard economist Robert Barro and Stanford's John Taylor show that "… more government spending, by taking money out of the private sector, is a loss to the economy and that taking money away from government is a gain." Sure, it may take a quarter or two for offsetting private sector gains to show up in the GDP numbers. But they will show up — or they will as long as the government doesn't let the leaden hand of overregulation prevent it from happening.

Goldman and the AP's Aversa fail to make anything resembling a case that growth will be held back indefinitely as long as spending reductions continue. 

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin and Center for American Progress’ Van Jones dropped by the MoveOn.org Union Solidarity Protest at DuPont Circle, Washington, D.C., February 26, 2011.

 [Video embedded after page break]

Why are Republicans waging war on contraception? It's not the first time the question has been asked, and it won't be the last. Truth be told, Republicans aren't engaging in battle on that front — but the phrase gets close to a legitimate fight.

Congress, for its part, held an unprecedented vote in the House in February to end funding of Planned Parenthood. It's not a permanent or final vote; it was attached to a short-term move to keep the government funded. The debate in Congress was given momentum by the Live Action investigatory videos, which raised significant questions about what exactly Planned Parenthood is doing; but the rest of us need to discuss why we've let Planned Parenthood step in as a mainstream Band-Aid, throwing contraception and even abortion at problems that have much more fundamental solutions.

While women may want love and marriage, they don't expect it. Justice Sandra O'Connor wrote in the Planned Parenthood v. Casey opinion that women had "organized intimate relationships, and made choices that define their views of themselves and their places in society, in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail." And why wouldn't they? Who, nowadays, encourages them to want more?

We've come to expect less for and from ourselves, and for and from one another. In part, it's the fruit of the contraceptive pill. New York magazine recently observed in a cover feature: "The pill is so ingrained in our culture today that girls go on it in college, even high school, and stay on it for five, 10, 15, even 20 years." That, of course, has had all kinds of fallout: a false sense of freedom, security. And it has ravaged women's fertility, as it seeks to mute exactly what women's reproductive power is all about.

That's why I want to turn back the clock — to a time when we valued love and marriage and didn't expect, support and even encourage promiscuity. Life and history don't work that way, obviously, there is no actual rewind. But we do have opportunities to learn from our mistakes

The spending fight over Planned Parenthood in Congress is about a number of things. It's primarily about good stewardship, as so much of the spending debate is. But beyond legislation, beyond anything Congress can or should do, it is a call to arms for a new sexual revolution. It's about wanting more for ourselves and for those whom we love. It's about ending the surrender to a contraceptive mentality that treats human sexuality as just another commercial transaction.

Perhaps nothing better illustrates that than a recent commercial for a contraceptive called Beyaz. Women walk into a store and literally shop for men. "It's good to have choices." A woman happily shakes her head at the stork and its offerings in a sassy "we girls can do anything" kind of way, promenading through an adult Barbie commercial complete with Ken, a dream house and a trip to Paris.

That commercial does not, needless to say, do justice to the pain and desperation many women suffer when they find themselves thinking about an abortion, or popping pills in pursuit of something that masks itself as satisfaction but is really just a bad substitute, oftentimes making true happiness all the more illusory.
As evidence of the reckless and dangerous callousness at institutions supposedly dedicated to women's health — failure to report the sex trafficking of minors, failure to report child abuse — continues to emerge, we can't afford to lose sight of another, more fundamental conversation that we've got to have, among friends, in our homes and churches — a talk about what it means to be human.

Kathryn Lopez is the editor of National Review Online (www.nationalreview.com). She can be contacted at klopez@nationalreview.com.

For general discussion and debate about politics, the economy, sports, or whatever else tickles your fancy.

The folks at MSNBC should be deeply embarrassed and ashamed of their prime time commentator Rachel Maddow.

Having been exposed by Politifact for lying last week about Wisconsin having a budget surplus, Maddow on Thursday hypocritically defended herself by playing nine cherry-picked words from the broadcast in question while disgracefully calling her critics homophobes (video follows with transcript and commentary):

RACHEL MADDOW, HOST: There are too many people who work too hard on this show for us to get slandered when we are in fact telling the truth.

Usually, somebody saying something untrue about MSNBC or about this show, usually, honestly, it doesn’t rise above the level of somebody being wrong on the Internet. But sometimes it’s real newspapers doing what looks like real fact-checking and they really get it wrong.

The right wing this week, for example, got very excited when a "St. Petersburg Times" project called PolitiFact called a piece of our reporting on the Wisconsin crisis false. It was specifically about Wisconsin’s budget. They said, quote, "Maddow and the others are wrong. There is indeed a projected deficit in Wisconsin."

Flashing red lights. Bells and whistles. Meter to red. Maddow lied. She said there is no budget shortfall in the state of Wisconsin. Roll the tape.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: There is, in fact, a $137 million budget shortfall.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: "PolitiFact" ran a whole article about me supposedly denying the existence of a budget shortfall in Wisconsin. They say, quote, "Here’s the bottom line: there should be no debate on whether or not there is a shortfall. We rate Maddow’s take false."

Tape?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: There is in fact a $137 million budget shortfall.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: "PolitiFact" says I am false, false, because I denied there is a budget shortfall in Wisconsin.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: There is in fact a $137 million budget shortfall.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: If you are somebody who does not bite your nails, but you would like to start, if you feel like reading the letters we sent to "PolitiFact" asking them to please run a correction on this, we have posted those letters on our blog so you, too, can share in our frustration. They have told us they do not intend to run a correction about their mistakes on this, which I should not find astonishing but I do.

"PolitiFact," you are wrong here on the facts and bluntly and you ought to correct it. Putting the word "fact" in your name does not grant you automatic mastery of the facts.

And that was her entire defense.

Rather than actually address the rest of her segment last Thursday, which as Politifact and NewsBusters reported did indeed inform viewers, “Despite what you may have heard about Wisconsin’s finances, Wisconsin is on track to have a budget surplus this year,” Maddow next went after Politifact for what she believed were prior mistakes in its findings about totally unrelated issues:

MADDOW: When Karl Rove wrote in "The Wall Street Journal" that Barack Obama had, quote, "The worst ratings of any president at the end of his first year," "PolitiFact" rated that mostly true, even though the approval rating Mr. Rove cited was 49 percent and Ronald Reagan posted a 48 percent approval rating at the end of his first year.

It did not matter to "PolitiFact" apparently. They rated that, the statement from Mr. Rove as mostly true. What? Yes. Because apparently the word "true" means a lot less than you think it means.

"PolitiFact" also said that Democratic Congresswoman Nita Lowey’s explanation of the Stupak Amendment, the abortion amendment to health reform, they called that a false analysis. When "PolitiFact" was challenged on that claim by the Web site "FireDogLake," "Politifact" reportedly conceded to "FireDogLake" that what Congresswoman Lowey had said about the bill, her analysis of the bill, they conceded that OK, what she said could be true in some cases. They just didn’t find it to be a likely predictor of what was going to happen in the future.

So, even though they apparently conceded it could be true, they decided to not run a correction and stick with their ruling that it was false. It could be true, but we’re going to call it false. Because what is true really? We have fact in our name.

I have no interest in defending Politifact on these issues for they are totally unrelated to the matter at hand. What Maddow did – and what her employers should be disgraced by – is defend herself with the classic misdirection of impugning the messenger while offering no real defense for being accused of lying other than the cherry-picked sentence, “There is, in fact, a $137 million budget shortfall.”

But what surrounded those nine words in her February 17 broadcast?

RACHEL MADDOW, HOST: I’m here to report that there is nothing wrong in the state of Wisconsin. Wisconsin is fine. Wisconsin is great, actually. Despite what you may have heard about Wisconsin’s finances, Wisconsin is on track to have a budget surplus this year.

I am not kidding. I’m quoting their own version of the Congressional Budget Office, the state’s own nonpartisan "assess the state’s finances" agency. That agency said the month that the new Republican governor of Wisconsin was sworn in, last month, that the state was on track to have a $120 million budget surplus this year.

So, then why exactly does Wisconsin look like this right now?

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)

MADDOW: Why is there a revolt in the American Midwest tonight? Why are we in day three of massive, massive protests — real upheaval in Wisconsin’s capital city of Madison? Why are we seeing what was described today by my friend John Nichols, a seventh-generation Wisconsinite, as perhaps the biggest protests that have been seen in that state since Vietnam? Why is this — look at this — why is this happening?

As the state’s own finances show, it is not happening because people who work for the state are the cause of some horrible budget crisis. It’s not because teachers are lazy and rich. It’s not because greedy snowplow drivers have bankrupted the state somehow.

The state is not bankrupt. Even though the state had started the year on track to have a budget surplus — now, there is, in fact, a $137 million budget shortfall. Republican Governor Scott Walker, coincidentally, has given away $140 million worth of business tax breaks since he came into office.

Hey, wait. That’s about exactly the size of the shortfall.

What is happening in Wisconsin right now has absolutely nothing to do with public workers. The headline here, the way this keeps getting shorthanded, is workers angry after state is forced by budget crisis to crack down.

That’s not what’s going on. The state is not being forced to crack down. A lot of states do have budget crises right now, but heading into this year, Wisconsin was not one of them.

Let’s be clear what came before and after the cherry-picked nine words that Maddow and Company used for her defense:

• I’m here to report that there is nothing wrong in the state of Wisconsin. Wisconsin is fine. Wisconsin is great, actually. Despite what you may have heard about Wisconsin’s finances, Wisconsin is on track to have a budget surplus this year.
• I’m quoting their own version of the Congressional Budget Office, the state’s own nonpartisan "assess the state’s finances" agency. That agency said the month that the new Republican governor of Wisconsin was sworn in, last month, that the state was on track to have a $120 million budget surplus this year.
• Even though the state had started the year on track to have a budget surplus — now, there is, in fact, a $137 million budget shortfall. Republican Governor Scott Walker, coincidentally, has given away $140 million worth of business tax breaks since he came into office.
• A lot of states do have budget crises right now, but heading into this year, Wisconsin was not one of them.

Could she have been any clearer? This segment last Thursday was designed to dishonestly disprove the claim of a “$137 million budget shortfall” not support it, and that’s what Politifact accurately deemed was false:

[Maddow] added a kicker that is also making the rounds: Walker and fellow Republicans in the Legislature this year gave away $140 million in business tax breaks — so if there is a deficit projected of $137 million, they created it.

Maddow and others making the claim all cite the same source for their information — a Jan. 31, 2011 memo prepared by Robert Lang, the director of the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau.

It includes this line: "Our analysis indicates a general fund gross balance of $121.4 million and a net balance of $56.4 million."

We were curious about claims of a surplus based on the fiscal bureau memo.

In writing it when it was released, reporters from the Journal Sentinel and Associated Press had put the shortfall at between $78 million and $340 million. That’s the projection for the end of the fiscal year, June 30, 2011.

Walker himself has settled on $137 million as the deficit figure, a number reporters have adopted as shorthand.

We re-read the fiscal bureau memo, talked to Lang, consulted reporter Jason Stein of the Journal Sentinel’s Madison Bureau, read various news accounts and examined the issue in detail.

Our conclusion: Maddow and the others are wrong.

There is, indeed, a projected deficit that required attention, and Walker and GOP lawmakers did not create it.

More on that second point in a bit.

The confusion, it appears, stems from a section in Lang’s memo that — read on its own — does project a $121 million surplus in the state’s general fund as of June 30, 2011.

But the remainder of the routine memo — consider it the fine print — outlines $258 million in unpaid bills or expected shortfalls in programs such as Medicaid services for the needy ($174 million alone), the public defender’s office and corrections. Additionally, the state owes Minnesota $58.7 million under a discontinued tax reciprocity deal.

The result, by our math and Lang’s, is the $137 million shortfall. […]

Meanwhile, what about Maddow’s claim — also repeated across the liberal blogosphere — that Walker’s tax-cut bills approved in January are responsible for the $137 million deficit?

Lang’s fiscal bureau report and news accounts addressed that issue as well.

The tax cuts will cost the state a projected $140 million in tax revenue — but not until the next two-year budget, from July 2011 to June 2013. The cuts are not even in effect yet, so they cannot be part of the current problem.

Here’s the bottom line:

There is fierce debate over the approach Walker took to address the short-term budget deficit. But there should be no debate on whether or not there is a shortfall. While not historically large, the shortfall in the current budget needed to be addressed in some fashion. Walker’s tax cuts will boost the size of the projected deficit in the next budget, but they’re not part of this problem and did not create it.

We rate Maddow’s take False.

Indeed, and in her defense of her lies, Maddow on Thursday evening addressed none of the points made by Politifact instead just twice played for her audience nine words as a supposed declarative statement that were actually what the segment set out to disprove.

Pretty pathetic when you think about it, so pathetic that Politifact responded to her nonsense Friday:

Maddow's criticism in Thursday's show used artful editing and told an incomplete story. At issue is whether we checked the right factual claim. We examined her statement that Wisconsin "is on track to have a budget surplus this year." But she maintains that in the same segment, she made clear that she knew the state had a shortfall. (You can read a transcript of the entire segment here.)

We chose to examine her surplus claim because we had requests from many readers and it was the main focus at the beginning of her segment. It went on for nearly a minute. Her later statement about the shortfall was very brief and her main point seemed to be that the shortfall was created by $140 million in tax breaks for businesses. Still, we acknowledged in our article that she made that point.

In her criticism of PolitiFact Thursday night, Maddow misled viewers by repeatedly playing just a nine-word snippet of her saying that "There is in fact a $137 million budget shortfall." She neglected to include her full quote in context:

"There is in fact a $137 million budget shortfall. Republican Gov. Scott Walker, coincidentally, has given away $140 million worth of business tax breaks since he came into office. Hey, wait. That's about exactly the size of the shortfall."

That artful editing — plus the fact that she didn't mention the more lengthy quote that we checked — deprived viewers of the full context for her remarks and our reasoning for checking the claim we checked. We not only examined that claim, we also debunked the suggestion from Maddow and others that the tax breaks were the cause of the $137 million shortfall.

When her producer Bill Wolff e-mailed us earlier this week asking for a correction (his correspondence to us has been posted on the Rachel Maddow blog) we reviewed our work, watched the segment and decided no correction was warranted.

The Politifact article included some of those hysterical e-mail messages from Wollf. Readers are advised to get a good chuckle and review them

Unfortunately, there was nothing funny about Maddow's next offering during this segment Thursday:

MADDOW: Right now, on the Internet, there are people who are upset with a host at the FOX News channel whose name is Shepard Smith. They are upset because Mr. Smith cited the same data that I cited recently about big money outside contributors in the last election cycle.

According to opensecrets.org, which everybody cites, which tracks federal election filings and which nobody is impugning, here are those contributors. We’ve been talking about this for the last few days. Of the top 10 — seven of the top 10 from the last election, seven of the top 10 are contributing to the right. Only three of them are contributing to the left. And the only three that are contributing to the left are unions.

This I believe is a key piece of analysis for understanding why the Republicans are going after unions. If you can dismantle unions, if you can weaken unions and the sector in the economy where unions are strongest is the public sector, if you can weaken unions, that has clear partisan implications. There are only three of the top 10 contributors of big money of outside groups in the last election who are not contributing to right wing causes and they are the unions.
But the right wing is on fire right now about Shep Smith citing that same information I cited because I also cited it and therefore, it must be false.

Because this particular burst of anger is a pure right wing Internet phenomenon, if you have seen anything about this, you have probably seen it retweeted at some point as Rachel Maddow is wrong and she looks like a man. Also favorite Rachel Maddow is wrong and also gay.

You know, just because you don’t like the way it sounds when I say it or you don’t like my hair cut, or you don’t like that I’m gay, it does not mean that what we say is not true. Those are the real numbers from opensecrets.org. Those are the real big money outside contributors from the last election cycle.

It was true when Open Secrets said it. It was true when I said it. It is true when Mr. Smith over at the FOX News channel said it.

And if you squint a little bit it is true, I do sometimes look like a dude, and I am definitely gay. Calling bullpuckey is fun. Calling bullpuckey is journalistically useful.

It is a neat idea to be able to call balls and strikes in facts and news, to fact check things you hear in the news and fact-check things you hear politicians and political figures say. People do get stuff wrong and it should be pointed out. When I confused the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution in terms of which one had a preamble, you may recall that I not only apologized for that. I sung and danced my apology to that.

When you get something wrong, it is both good practice and I find satisfying to own up to it. Say you got it wrong, learn something about it, and move on. But that should apply to everybody. That should apply to everybody even if you have the word "fact" in your name, or in what you say you are doing.

Calling somebody a liar when they are not lying is not the same as fact-checking. That is just bullpuckey, too.

Staggering nonsense.

As NewsBusters reported Wednesday, this all began with Maddow’s appearance on NBC’s “Tonight Show” the previous evening when she badly misrepresented data concerning campaign contributions during the 2010 elections:

MADDOW: But, if you look at like the last election cycle, of the top ten people donating money in that election, seven of them were giving to Republicans. It was all corporate interests and right-wing PACs and stuff. Seven of the ten were all right-wing. And the only three that weren't were unions.

As NewsBusters noted Wednesday, Maddow was wrong about this in a number of ways. Most importantly, with Leno, her term “top ten people donating money in that election” was proved false on several counts.

After a tip from a reader, more investigation was done, and it was determined that Maddow must have been talking about other data at the website Open Secrets which she proved by referring to it on Thursday.

As NewsBusters observed, when Maddow cited this data, she was either ignorantly or intentionally being imprecise. When she discussed this issue on her program Monday, she referred to "top ten big money contributors." But Tuesday on the “Tonight Show” she said "top ten people."

Defending herself from criticism Thursday, she said “big money outside contributors," but still has never said "top ten outside non-party committees" which is actually the data she’s been consistently citing without once identifying it properly.

In reality, there is a difference. Outside non-party committees are folks that contribute money for political causes but not specific candidates. That's why they're deemed "non-party." This is a smaller sub-section under the broader category of "outside spending groups."

If you look at all "outside spending groups" for 2010 at Open Secrets – which by Maddow's wording consistently has been the implication – you'll find that four of the top ten contributors were liberal with only two of them being unions.

This would have completely destroyed her point that unions are the only “big money outside contributors” giving to Democrats thereby invalidating her assertion that this is the reason Gov. Walker is trying to blame the “supposed” deficits on public sector unions in his state.

It appears that even after being exposed for this falsehood, Maddow still feels comfortable saying “big money outside contributors” even though the data she’s citing is “outside non-party committees.”

I guess “big money outside contributors” sounds much better than the truth. It also allows her to withhold from her viewers that by far the largest “big money outside contributor” in 2010 was the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Maddow's point would be further refuted if one looked at total contributions of "outside non-party committees" over the past several election cycles rather than just the most recent one when a conservative wave took over the nation.

It is indeed true that outside conservative non-party committees donated far more than liberals in 2010 – $190 million to $94 million – but in 2008, these numbers were $160 million liberal vs. $120 million conservative. In 2006 it was $39 million liberal to $20 million conservative. In 2004 it was $121 million liberal to $69 million conservative.

As such, in the limited segment of contributors that Maddow has been harping on the past week – though not properly identifying them – liberal groups out-donated conservatives three of the last four election cycles.

And, as John Romano noted Thursday, if you look at the broader "outside spending groups" data – which Maddow has been implying – since 2004, Democrats have nothing to complain about:

According to OpenSecrets.org Republicans received $267.3 million vs. $201.4 million for Democrats in 2010.  Sounds damning.  $66 million is a big advantage.  However, the facts show that this advantage vacillates between Dem. and Repub.  For instance, the situation was reversed in 2008 with Democrats receiving $319.2 million vs. the Republican take $243.5 million. [...]

In 2006, the spending was basically even, which is interesting as the Democrats ran the table: CON $144.9 million vs. LIB $144.8 million.  2004 was a different story altogether.  Outside groups gave heavily to the Democrats that year.  A hefty $279.1 million for the Democrats vs. a relatively paltry $158.6 million for the GOP.

As such, I guess "big money contributions" is only a problem when liberals get out-funded.

But also pathetic was Maddow playing the gay card.

During her segment Thursday, Maddow indirectly referred to an article at Johnny Dollar's website concerning herself and Fox News's Shepard Smith.

She went on to say (with a picture of JohnnyDollar.us on the screen):

MADDOW: Because this particular burst of anger is a pure right wing Internet phenomenon, if you have seen anything about this, you have probably seen it retweeted at some point as Rachel Maddow is wrong and she looks like a man. Also favorite Rachel Maddow is wrong and also gay.

You know, just because you don’t like the way it sounds when I say it or you don’t like my hair cut, or you don’t like that I’m gay, it does not mean that what we say is not true. [...]

And if you squint a little bit it is true, I do sometimes look like a dude, and I am definitely gay.

If you look at Johnny Dollar's piece or mine, you will see no references to her appearance or sexual orientation.

None.

I don't care what political commentators look like or who they choose to couple with. For Maddow to use the gay card to evoke sympathy from her viewers, as if the only reason she's being criticized is because of her appearance or sexual orientation, is disgraceful.

We've learned – and, of course, predicted! – that conservatives aren't allowed to criticize Barack Obama because he's black. Virtually all critiques of the 44th President by people on the right are automatically assumed by the Left to be racially-oriented.

If this is now going to extend to gay people such that any critique of someone like Maddow is presumed to be homophobic, it will be just another advantage the Left has in sheltering itself from criticism.

If the folks at MSNBC support this nonsense, they should be just as ashamed of themselves as Maddow should be for advancing it.

On a more personal note, I find Maddow's behavior this past week frightening. Although I strongly disagree with her views, I still have typically found her to be a hard-working, dedicated political commentator striving when possible to be factually accurate.

Unlike her hero Keith Olbermann, she typically is fast to respond to mistakes that she's made and address them, although not always to my liking.

However, it is clear by her antics in recent months that facts are no longer as important to Maddow as the agenda. Maybe this is due to the shellacking she and her ilk took at the polls in November, and like so many on the left she's fearing her dream of America becoming a socialist utopia is coming to an end.

To be sure, there were many who thought the exit of Olbermann was the beginning of a move by MSNBC to straighten its act out and actually become a news network.

The recent behavior of the remaining prime time hosts including Maddow – as well as the pathetic addition of the totally hapless Cenk Uygur whose program is totally unwatchable! – suggests this is not the case, and that MSNBC will continue to be the biggest joke in television journalism.

It's hard to believe the new owners at Comcast are happy about this.

Tuesday’s NewsBusters’ piece documenting the broadcast networks’ incredible double standard on protests — how reporters zeroed in on inflammatory signs to try and discredit the Tea Party while ignoring similar or worse signs at the left-wing union protests in Wisconsin — garnered national media attention.

On Tuesday evening, nationally-syndicated radio host Mark Levin cited the NewsBusters’ study as proving how the media “are a disgrace, absolute disgrace. You did everything you could to trash the Tea Party movement, and you do everything you can right now to protect the vulgarity and poison of the Left and the thugs in Madison, Wisconsin.” (Full transcript and audio link below.)

On Thursday night, during the “Grapevine” segment of FNC’s Special Report, anchor Bret Baier led off with our study (video and transcript below the fold):

Conservatives are alleging a double standard of media coverage of the labor protests. Signs have shown up in Wisconsin likening Republican Governor Scott Walker to Adolf Hitler and showing a target over his face with the slogan “Don't Retreat, Reload.” The Media Research Center analyzed all news stories on CBS, ABC and NBC from last Thursday to Monday. It found eight of the 53 stories on the Wisconsin protest showed one or more of the questionable signs, but none elicited a remark from network journalists. However, MRC points out, in past months Tea Party signs were repeatedly denounced by the networks as uncivil.

The study was also cited by onetime CBS correspondent Bernard Goldberg (now a frequent media critic) in his latest column, “The Lamestreams Strike Again — This Time in Madison,” and was published on the Wall Street Journal’s OpinionJournal.com page on Friday morning.

Towards the end of the first hour of his Tuesday radio program, Mark Levin used the NewsBusters’ study to tee up a segment on the national media’s “disgusting bias.” The audio is posted on MarkLevinShow.com (starts at 34:20); here’s the relevant transcript:

You know, over at NewsBusters, Rich Noyes points out the incredible media double standard, the incredible media double standard in the treatment of the NEA and the AFSCME and SEIU unions in Wisconsin, and the Tea Party rallies. And it is disgusting.

But it's also useful, because the people have turned on the statist media. That's what I called it in Liberty and Tyranny — the statist media. The people have turned on them. They rate lower than proctologists — and I have nothing against proctologists, as long as your hands are small.

But, that said, the bias is just stunning. The media in this country want massive big government. The media in this country want the massive big government to control competitive sources and outlets of information — the Internet, talk radio, and so forth. The media in this country is part of this crony capitalist notion, where they're taken care of by the likes of John McCain and the late Russ Feingold — late in terms of politics, of course — who are just like incumbents — they're protected, while the rest of us are the subject of endless torment.

The media are not interested, for the most part, in reporting information. Period. And, they get — do you ever see them on these public television shows, or sometimes on C-SPAN, these old-timers talking about the new media: "There's no governors on them, there's no editors."

Oh, really? Well, you guys are a disgrace, absolute disgrace. You did everything you could to trash the Tea Party movement, and you do everything you can right now to protect the vulgarity and poison of the Left and the thugs in Madison, Wisconsin. How do you explain that?

Well, you don't care. You don't have to explain anything. That's why you're going down, too.

Thursday, the Associated Press's Matt Gouras "reported" ("Tea party vision for Mont. raising concerns") on legislative proposals in Montana. It got the attention of Rush Limbaugh, who skewered it as only Rush can.

Gouras's opening paragraphs read like a press release from an opposition party:

With each bill, newly elected tea party lawmakers are offering Montanans a vision of the future.

 

Their state would be a place where officials can ignore U.S. laws, force FBI agents to get a sheriff's OK before arresting anyone, ban abortions, limit sex education in schools and create armed citizen militias.

His third paragraph uses the "some people" tactic, which more often than not is AP code for "people I found who agree with me":

But some residents, Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer and even some Republican lawmakers say the bills are making Montana into a laughingstock.

Limbaugh got wind of Gouras's gunk, and the self-described "America's anchorman" let it rip, and called out the wire service for selectivity in criticizing compliance with laws and the Constitution (link will go behind subscriber wall in a week; some paragraph breaks added by me; bolds are mine):

You want to hear something hilariously funny? This is from the Associated Press, State-Run out of Montana. Let me give you the headline: "'Tea Party Vision for Montana Raising Concerns' — …"

 

Now, this is not an editorial. It's supposed to be a news article. And when the AP writes that not everyone is buying their vision, or something, that means they disapprove of it and they manage to find a couple of people to quote who share their disapproval. It means the disapproval starts with AP, their premise and their narrative starts with them, and then they go out and try to find a couple people.

 

It's not that people in Montana are raising hell and AP hears about it and says, "Whoa, we got a story." This is AP creating a story. And what we have here is the Associated Press raging at a bunch of people who are passing laws which would, for example, ignore US laws.

 

What the hell is going on? We have the president of the United States himself saying, (paraphrasing) "That law doesn't count anymore, I'm not gonna defend that law, the Defense of Marriage Act." We have a president of the United States who himself is lawless. We went through this in great detail yesterday. Make no mistake. And it's not arguable. This is a lawless regime. And so here, the AP in Montana is about to have a conniption fit, they are having a conniption fit because of the Tea Party vision for Montana.

 

… Well, where are you, AP, on the defense of marriage and this regime simply choosing to ignore laws it doesn't like? How about when a president ignores various federal court rulings? A federal judge has ruled Obamacare unconstitutional. No big deal, we're gonna keep implementing it. And you're worried about lawlessness in Montana? We've had an administration that's come out and said, "You know what, this Defense of Marriage Act, it's been around since the Clinton years, we don't like it. We're not gonna defend it anymore." Lawlessness! The president does not have such authority, and yet the AP wants to tell us how off the tracks and wacko they're getting in Montana.

 

… (The AP's Gouras writes) "Arizona, Missouri and Tennessee are discussing the creation of a joint compact, like a treaty, opposing the 2010 health care law." It's already been declared unconstitutional, AP. "Idaho is considering a plan to nullify it, as is Montana." Why, how radical. All of this is happening within the bounds of the law. They're passing legislation to do this. They are not unilaterally implementing things, such as our president is doing.

Though there may be an exception out there somewhere, the establishment press on the whole hasn't even entertained the idea that the Obama administration's brazen continuance of Obamacare implementation is even the least bit problematic in light of Judge Roger Vinson's ruling in Florida. Page 75 of that ruling makes it very clear that this is completely contrary to what the judge expects. What about "the declaratory judgment is the functional equivalent of an injunction” don’t they understand?

Outfits like the AP seem to believe that it's more important to create stories based on their own preconceived notions about those who are opposing the advance of statism than it is to explore the legality of the statists' actions.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

It's so easy to look at teenagers in general today and sigh. They’re more than a bit lazy, a bit spoiled, and more than a bit morally compromised. Two teenagers made national news. One showed common decency and sportsmanship, two virtues seemingly uncommon in that generation. Hope is restored.

Fifteen-year-old wrestler Joel Northrup faced a dilemma when he was scheduled to wrestle Cassy Herkelman, one of only two girls to make it to the state tournament. Even though he entered with a 35-4 record, Joel forfeited rather than violate his religious principles.

Cassy’s father, Bill Herkelman, praised the Northrup family: "That's their belief, and I praise them for sticking to it. This is the biggest stage in wrestling in the state, I would say, and they stuck to their beliefs when it probably tested it the most," he said. "It was probably a tough pill for him to swallow."

That’s putting it mildly. High-school wrestling is very popular in Iowa and other Midwestern states, where the state tournament is televised.

Joel Northrup then made the rounds of national TV talk shows to address the decision. “There’s no specific scripture or verse in the Bible that condemns wrestling girls,“ Joel told the “Fox & Friends” show. “It’s more of a Biblical principle of treating the opposite gender with respect… I don’t think wrestling should be a coed sport because of all the compromising holds and everything.”

Joel didn't say anything about discomfort over wrestling a girl because it was personally embarrassing, or sexual in any way. It wasn't about the bad publicity that would result if he gave her a broken forearm or a concussion. It was about elevating the woman: shoving a woman's face into the mat is undignified. He told CBS it gets “violent at times…I just don't feel it's right that a boy should engage a girl like this.”

Only in our stupid popular culture is such a position considered controversial. CBS put this question on screen: “Chivalry or Chauvinism?” But these aren't really opposites. For many years, the feminists have waged war on the idea that men would “stoop” to chivalry, like opening doors for women or giving up a seat on a subway train for them. Being a “gentleman” was another word for being a patronizer – a chauvinist.

Sadly, you knew some ink-stained wretch would think Joel's decision was sexist and demeaning and religiously obtuse. Enter ESPN.com columnist Rick Reilly, who slammed anyone and everyone who respected this moral decision, including Cassy Herkelman and her father: “Does any wrong-headed decision suddenly become right when defended with religious conviction? In this age, don't we know better? If my God told me to poke the elderly with sharp sticks, would that make it morally acceptable to others?”

In Reilly's moral universe, “Body slams and takedowns and gouges in the eye and elbows in the ribs are exactly how to respect Cassy Herkelman. This is what she lives for…She relishes the violence.” Cassy’s dad boasts: "She's my son…She's always been my son.”

Reilly then bizarrely claimed that it wasn't cruel to gouge her in the eye, it was cruel to send her into a “national media hurricane” — identified as about 20 sports reporters and columnists — to be asked not how she wrestled, but how she advanced without wrestling.

The ESPN columnist ended this sneering diatribe by suggesting this 15-year-old boy “wasted” his dream of a championship, and was just uncomfortable with girls being on Earth. After Joel was eliminated in an overtime match, Reilly wrote, “He was reportedly on his way back home to Marion, Iowa, where his mom was about to deliver her eighth child. For the kid's sake, I hope it's a boy.”

Joel Northrup didn’t deserve the wave of national abuse he received from so-called defenders of women. It was additionally unnecessary when his female opponent wasn’t offended. But it won’t be the first or the last time that sports writers from New York City come to Iowa to lecture the hayseeds.

No one, of course, seems willing to ask the other question: What was the Herkelman family doing encouraging their teenaged daughter for years to wrestle competitively with males – with every implication, physical and sexual.

Newsweek’s latest issue shouted from the rooftops that Tina Brown and the Daily Beast are now in charge. The cover story’s on George Clooney, and the cover headline is “Mr. Clooney, The President Is on Line 1: On the ground in Sudan with a new kind of statesman.”

Inside, the gooey story has a gooey headline: “A 21st Century Statesman: In the age of Twitter-shortened attention spans, fame is an increasingly powerful weapon of diplomacy. How George Clooney is helping to bring change – and a hefty dose of hope – to Sudan.”

It comes with Tina Brown touches, like focusing on what he’s wearing: “Clad in a khaki-colored ExOfficio vest, white safari shirt, lightweight pants, and worn hiking boots, Clooney doesn't look or act like a buttoned-up diplomat.”

Clooney is provided with pages of promotional goop, about how he was “determined to put the candy coating of celebrity on the serious substance of foreign policy.” This included constant tributes to his humility, including this quote about people on the ground in South Sudan: "I walk an uneasy line trying to bring focus to what they do, because there's a lot of self-congratulatory crap that makes you sick to your stomach."

Then this congratulatory profile ought to make Clooney ill for about a week.

The self-debasing author is John Avlon of the Daily Beast, who once wrote a book opposing “Wingnuts.” That’s clearly out the window, since Clooney admitted five years ago that he made the terrorists the most sympathetic characters in his conspiracy-theory movie Syriana, and mocked people like President Bush who would simplistically label al-Qaeda as “evildoers.”

Avlon and Newsweek/Beast want to suggest that Clooney not only almost single-handedly gave democracy to South Sudan, but he inspired the current democratic revolution in northern Africa. He is Super Clooney, more powerful that nation-states:

It's an ambitious avocation: Clooney has been leveraging his celebrity to get people to care about something more important than celebrity. South Sudan's January referendum for independence was quickly followed by uprisings that toppled North African and Arab dictatorships, with power moving away from centralized political bureaucracies and toward broader popular engagement. In this new environment-fueled by social networking-fame is a potent commodity that can have more influence on public debate than many elected officials and even some nation-states.

“It’s harder for authoritarian regimes to survive, because we can circumvent old structures with cellphones and the Internet,” says Clooney. “Celebrity can help focus news media where they have abdicated their responsibility. We can’t make policy, but we can ‘encourage’ politicians more than ever before.” Which was why, a few weeks ago, Clooney was being driven in a white pickup down a red dirt road under the watchful eyes of teenage soldiers armed with AK-47s. L.A. was half a world away, but the paparazzi were not far from his mind. “If they’re going to follow me anyway,” he was saying, “I want them to follow me here.”

Clooney was “pivotal” in remaking Sudan:

After witnessing more than 2 million people murdered-including the first genocide of the 21st century, in Darfur-South Sudan would finally be on the path to independence. It was an outcome that even three months earlier appeared unlikely. And Clooney, according to many observers, played a pivotal role.

Celebrity statesmen function like freelance diplomats, adopting issue experts and studying policy. More pragmatic than stars-turned-social activists in the past, they use the levers of power to solve problems. Clooney has Sudanese rebel leaders on speed dial. He's had AK-47s shoved in his chest. And when he's on movie sets, he gets daily Sudan briefings via email.

Now he's gone one step further-George Clooney has a satellite. Privately funded and publicly accessible (SatSentinel.org), this eye in the sky monitors military movements on the north-south border-the powder keg in a region the U.S. director of national intelligence described a year ago as the place on earth where "a new mass killing or genocide is most likely to occur." "I'm not tied to the U.N. or the U.S. government, and so I don't have the same constraints. I'm a guy with a camera from 480 miles up," Clooney says. "I'm the anti-genocide paparazzi."

No “self-congratulatory crap,” like “I’m the anti-genocide paparazzi”?

Political junkies might enjoy Clooney’s self-mocking talk of how he could never be a politician because he’s just too suave and irresistible to settle down with one woman, and likes illegal drugs:

But despite occasional overtures from the California Democratic Party, Clooney has rejected the constraints of conventional politics. "I didn't live my life in the right way for politics, you know," he said, sitting outside the Central Pub in Juba, scarfing down pizza. "I f–ked too many chicks and did too many drugs, and that's the truth." A smart campaigner, he believes, "would start from the beginning by saying, `I did it all. I drank the bong water. Now let's talk about issues.' That's gonna be my campaign slogan: `I drank the bong water.' "

Newsweek’s only dash of disagreement with its celebrity-statesman thesis arrived in paragraph 25, but only so the Clooney-as-pivotal theme can be repeated:

Clooney's celebrity-statesman strategy has its share of critics on the right and left. Prof. William Easterly of New York University, author of The White Man's Burden, says "the success in South Sudan happened in spite of the celebrities, and not because of them . It's unclear why we want celebrities to be in a diplomatic role. It's like getting someone who's trained to be an actor or a rock vocalist and having them fix a nuclear-power plant."

….Still, after Clooney launched a media blitz to mark 100 days to the referendum, English-language newspaper, magazine, and website mentions of the Sudan referendum spiked from six to 165 in one month. Between October and January, the referendum was mentioned in 96 stories across the networks and cable news-with Clooney used as a hook one third of the time. In that same period, 95,000 people sent emails to the White House demanding action on South Sudan. Valentino Achak Deng, the former "lost boy" known to Americans as the subject of a bestselling "fictionalized memoir" by Dave Eggers, What Is the What, says simply: "The referendum would not have taken place without his involvement. Never. He saved millions of lives. I don't think he knows this."

This was followed by Clooney pleading his own case:

Recovering from malaria, he was coordinating the release of satellite images and reflecting on Egypt's uprising: "We're so interconnected now that I can't imagine that the south voting for freedom against an oppressive government doesn't have some effect across the region." Adds Prendergast: "I don't think it's pure coincidence that protests took hold just days after the referendum was broadcast on Al Jazeera. Those images helped empower people. The breeze of freedom from South Sudan became a gale-force wind in Egypt."

In case anyone was in doubt that Newsweek was on a daring mission of globe-trotting celebrity massage, consult the Daily Beast picture gallery. It’s titled “Saint George.” (Um, the "Saint George" that's boinked too many women and drank the bong water?) Inside, the Daily Beasties twice celebrate Clooney, and how he’s so much more than the “Sexiest Man Alive.” Have they mentioned he’s the “Sexiest Man Alive”? Here's one caption:

George Clooney has again proven himself as more valuable than the throwaway label of "Sexiest Man Alive." Although his friends and fellow A-listers Bono and Angelina Jolie have largely been recognized in Hollywood for their humanitarian work, Clooney has quietly spent the last decade giving generously of his time and money to countless charitable organizations and fighting the crisis in Darfur.

If it's such a "throwaway label," why do they keep using it? Here's another:

In January 2008, Clooney earned a title far more valuable than "Sexiest Man Alive" when he was named a United Nations Messenger of Peace for his extensive work in Darfur. He and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel also met with members of the U.N. Security Council in 2006.