ABC to Air Obama Healthcare ‘Special,’ Former ABC Staffer Now Obama Comm. Chief. Coincidence?

-By Warner Todd Huston

ABC has made the unprecedented move of giving prime-time programing air time to President Barack Obama for a “Healthcare Reform Special” to be aired next week. Uncommonly a major TV Network has turned over its airtime to what is essentially a White House infomercial on an important upcoming legislative effort.

But, perhaps it is not too surprising that Obama has landed himself some prime viewing time on ABC. After all, former ABC News correspondent Linda Douglass is now the Director of Communications for the Obama White House Office of Health Reform. Coincidence? One would be excused to suspect it.

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ABC to Air Obama Healthcare ‘Special,’ Former ABC Staffer Now Obama Comm. Chief. Coincidence?”


Why New WH Cybersecurity Focus is a Game-Changer — for the Internet and Net Neutrality

-By Scott Cleland

President Obama’s new approach to cybersecurity likely is more of an Internet game-changer than many appreciate. Initial reporting and commentary has been superficial and has not connected dots or analyzed the broader logical implications of this new policy emphasis and trajectory.

Why is it a game-changer for the Internet?

  • First, it formalizes a new leading priority for the Internet.
  • Second, it formalizes the lack of cybersecurity as the Internet’s leading problem.
  • Third, it practically redefines what “open Internet” means.
  • Fourth, it practically takes any extreme form of net neutrality off the table.

Moreover, the new cybersecurity focus will likely have a practical effect on the trajectory of Internet 3.0, which embodies cloud computing (where security has not been a primary priority by many); the Mobile web (where security has always been a very high priority); and the Internet of Things (where security will be imperative to prevent theft, intrusion, and sabotage).

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Why New WH Cybersecurity Focus is a Game-Changer — for the Internet and Net Neutrality”


Police Union Wants Anti-Union Employees Fired from Paper

-By Warner Todd Huston

Not long ago the San Diego Union-Tribune got bought up by a private Beverly Hills firm named Platinum Equity. Platinum was heavily invested in by the Los Angeles police pension fund. And so, because the police are large stake owners of the news paper, the police union has called for the firing of certain employees it considers anti-union.

So much for freedom of the press as far as this union is concerned!

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Police Union Wants Anti-Union Employees Fired from Paper”


Tapper Thumper: Is Obama ‘Preventing Actual Reporters’ From Covering White House?

-By Warner Todd Huston

On May 20, ABC’s Jake Tapper asked a few salient questions about coverage of an April 27 incident at the White House basketball court, a sort of event after the event that the White House press corps was barred from covering. Tapper wondered then why the president barred the press but it later became clear that Team Obama was creating its own little media report “complete with cuts, interviews, and chyrons identifying who’s speaking.”

Tapper subtly warned that the president’s penchant for controlling the message smacks of an Obama Ministry of Propaganda styled effort that excludes “actual reporters” from covering the White House and leaves the country with faux news that is free of any “uncomfortable questions” asked by probing journalists.

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Tapper Thumper: Is Obama ‘Preventing Actual Reporters’ From Covering White House?”


Christian University Decertifies Democrat Club, Why it is the Right Decision

-By Warner Todd Huston

Tell me President Obama, how many babies would Jesus kill?

Liberty University, a Christian college situated near Lynchburg, Virginia and founded in 1971 by Jerry Falwell, has this week decertified its college Democratic Party club over the singular fact that the National Democratic Party is a supporter of abortion. After the debacle of allowing a president that is a supporter of infanticide being invited to speak at the leading Catholic University in the nation, I can only say that Liberty University should be congratulated for standing up for its principles. At least these Baptists actually believe in something unlike the putative Catholics at Notre Dame.

But is this a violation of political free speech in a nation where the Democratic Party is a long-standing, historically important political force that is followed by half the electorate and currently holds a majority of the seats in our national government? Are these students having their speech illicitly quashed by Liberty University?

The simple answer is a resounding “no.”

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Christian University Decertifies Democrat Club, Why it is the Right Decision”


City Official Uses Office to Quash Website

-By Warner Todd Huston

Conneaut, Ohio’s City Manager, Robert Schaumleffel, Jr., is “tired of the dirt,” you see. And he claims that he’ll be the one to “put a stop to it.” Pursuant to his blustery de-dirting campaign, Manager Schaumleffel has decided to take a page out of the bag of tricks from his German ancestry and stomp down on the political free speech of a local website that features information about the city, its government, and officers. So, our esteemed city leader has had his legal department send a cease-and-desist letter to the site’s owner to put a stop to posts about city government.

This arrogant attempt to quash free speech by a local politician is an excellent example to remind us all that government abuse isn’t just something that happens in a state capitol or in Washington DC, but something that can happen right in our own home towns… and often does. It also serves to remind us all that as citizens we must fight zealously for our rights.

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City Official Uses Office to Quash Website”


The Oprah Winfrey Solution

-By John Armor

I have enjoyed Oprah Winfrey’s work on television since she showed up as the second banana on People are Talking with Richard Scher on WJZ in Baltimore, four decades ago. Now, she is the leading talk show host in the known universe. Although her audience has decreased from nearly 9 million in 2005 to 7.3 million in 2008, she is still the top of her profession.

Oprah’s success demonstrates that several efforts of the current Administration to restrict both freedom of the press, and freedom of speech are both wrong and unconstitutional. There is a proposed bill in Congress which would institute government controls on contents on the Internet. The FCC is pursuing two efforts, called respectively “diversity” and “localism.”
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The Oprah Winfrey Solution”


Girls Had Enough of Being Called ‘Hos’ In Rap Music, Organize High School Ban

-By Warner Todd Huston

Three energetic young girls from Arcadia High School have been successful in having 20 offensive Rap songs banned from their high school prom dance. The trio got 1,000 other students to sign a petition excoriating Rap tunes that employ against women derogatory terms such as “bitches” and “Hos.”

With their campaign the girls of the Arcadia High Women’s Health and Issues Club convinced school administrators to drop the songs from the prom music playlist.

Club members were not advocating for replacement songs nor for any particular genera of music, just to eliminate songs that featured abusive language toward women, presented women as objects, or treated women as “animals.”

Naturally, these girls are catching all manner of guff from other students. This junk Rap music is very popular with kids despite the misogynistic lyrics, the low level of intelligence celebrated in them, the bad language, and the low-class, thug lifestyles often pervading them.

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Girls Had Enough of Being Called ‘Hos’ In Rap Music, Organize High School Ban”


Library at Oxford Shows Its More Stoopider Side

-By Warner Todd Huston

Before we begin today’s lesson, let us review the purpose of a library, shall we? Are libraries not a compilation of knowledge in the form of books and visual aids brought together for the edification of students of humanity to be used a s a tool for their growth and enrichment? If it is, the earnest curators of the Oxford Library have somehow missed that definition.

Apparently, the librarians at Oxford, however, have been misled to believe that a library is more like a static piece of art. They must think that a “library” is a permanent arrangement of book-like objects, pleasingly arranged, yet immovable, set up to fill a particular space for the purpose of a sort of permanent exhibit. But, please, while you are staying reverently quiet as is traditional in a “library” setting, please remember not to actually touch anything, won’t you? After all, we have your safety to consider.

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Library at Oxford Shows Its More Stoopider Side”


Hey Jacqui, You May Already Be A Weiner

-By Ann “Babe” Huggett

Just imagine one morning you rise up bright and early, go get your usual cup o’ joe from the kitchen then plunk yourself down in front of your computer to pull up the Drudge Report only to find out that you’ve made headline news by being banned from a country that you never even intended to visit. Snap, crackle and ka-pow is not the best way to start the day but that is exactly how conservative and controversial national talk show host, Michael Savage, started his day earlier this week.

Savage, star of the talk radio show, The Savage Nation, and whose real name is Michael Weiner, read with growing outrage that he had been arbitrarily placed on a banned-from- UK traveling list by Labor’s Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, for no other discernible reason than she thought he was, “…someone who has fallen into the category of fomenting hatred, of such extreme views and expressing them in such a way that it is actually likely to cause inter-community tension or even violence if that person were allowed into the country”.

Smith went on to say, “We’ve got standards in this country, of the sorts of values that we expect from those who have the privilege of coming here. I think it’s right that we uphold those standards, that’s the basis on which we make decisions about unacceptable behavior. That’s the basis on which Michael Savage is on the list.”
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Hey Jacqui, You May Already Be A Weiner”


Democratic Efforts to Criminalize Blogs — Why Does Republican Mark Kirk Approve?

-By Warner Todd Huston

I hope I have this story all wrong, I really do. But it seems that Representative Mark Kirk has signed onto an effort that could criminalize the free political speech of bloggers or anyone else that uses the Internet to communicate. Kirk, a Republican who has been making noises about running for governor of Illinois, has his name attached as a sponsor to the Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act (HR 1966 IH), a bill in the House proposed by Rep. Linda T. Sanchez (D, CA), that would make it a federal felony to use the Internet to cause “emotional distress” through “severe, repeated, and hostile” speech.

Why is Representative Kirk signing onto a bill constructed with such overbroad language that it could criminalize bloggers?

Perhaps he doesn’t realize he’s doing so? The bill is supposed to stop “cyberbullying” and does not seem to be intentionally aimed at political blogs. The title refers to Megan Meier, the 13-year-old Missouri girl that committed suicide in 2006 over scurrilous messages that she found about herself posted on the Internet by Lori Drew, the mother of one of her classmates.

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Democratic Efforts to Criminalize Blogs — Why Does Republican Mark Kirk Approve?”


Ideological Civil War

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Democrat/Socialists started the ideological warfare in Congress with their slanderous attacks that blocked the 1987 Supreme Court nomination of Judge Robert Bork. Now they are upping the ante by considering criminal prosecutions against Bush administration officials for legal and policy opinions about interrogating captured Islamic terrorists.

The Wall Street Journal reports (Obama Open to Probe of Bush Officials Who Devised Interrogations, April 21, 2009):
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Ideological Civil War”


Shocker: Journalists on OUR Side For a Change

-By Warner Todd Huston

The folks at The Hill alerted me to the fact that the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) have decided to oppose any reinstitution of the inaptly named Fairness Doctrine. I know, imagine that… as lefty a group as the SPJ actually agreeing with conservatives that the Fairness Doctrine is an abomination of our Constitutional right to free political speech! You can knock me over with a feather, and all.

The Hill is right to quip that this makes for strange bedfellows, but it would seem like a no-brainer for anyone interested in Constitutional rights and a jealous protection of free speech no matter whose it is.

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Shocker: Journalists on OUR Side For a Change”


NBC Suits Warn CNBC Staff Against ‘Obama Bashing,’ Becoming ‘Too Conservative’

-By Warner Todd Huston

Are “the suits” looking for Rick Santelli’s head?

General Electric CEO Jeffery Immelt, thought to be one of Keith Olbermann’s biggest supporters, and NBC Universal President Jeff Zucker are reported to have called some of CNBC’s on-air talent to a secret meeting at least if the The New York Post’s Page Six column for April 16 has it right. The meeting was called to scold the cable yackers for being too harsh on the Obammessiah, with the duo ala Jeffs warning that CNBC is turning into “the Obama bashing network” and that the cable outlet is becoming “too conservative.”

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NBC Suits Warn CNBC Staff Against ‘Obama Bashing,’ Becoming ‘Too Conservative’”


7 Senate Republicans Reply to DHS ‘Rightwing Extremists’ Scaremongering

-By Warner Todd Huston

Seven Republican Senators have this week signed a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano asking for the proof upon which the Department of Homeland Security based its outrageously accusatory report on so-called rightwing extremism in the Untied States.

The seven scold the DHS and the Obama administration for its over-broad generalizations that seem to assume that nearly half the electorate is prone to becoming terrorists merely because they hold right of center political views.

The letter alludes to the central point in this whole episode: that the U.S. government has now determined that the traditional American beliefs of small government and adherence to the Constitution is now suddenly a determinant in forming citizens into homegrown terrorist groups. After 200 years, all of a sudden believing in run-of-the-mill American beliefs makes you a terrorist! These seven Senators want to know why.

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7 Senate Republicans Reply to DHS ‘Rightwing Extremists’ Scaremongering”


AP Looking to Stop Unauthorized Internet Usage?

-By Warner Todd Huston

When you visit a blog and read a report taking the Associated Press to task for its continuous leftward bias, are you reading “stolen” AP content, or are you reading legitimate news? Is criticism of AP’s work fair use? What is “fair use,” anyway? Could the AP sue critics?

These questions might be on the AP’s radar if a recent report in The New York Times is any indication. AP is attempting to create new policies to govern who uses AP content and where it is used. The APs attention to these issues could have long range impact on blogs and newsfeeds on the Internet.

Thus far, the actual policies and goals for how the AP will tackle this aspect of its business have not been determined. Are they going to take on the definition of “fair use” to court? Is the AP going to go after any particular agency or news site for what it considers unauthorized use?

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AP Looking to Stop Unauthorized Internet Usage?”


Building upon a Strong Broadband Foundation — Part I in America’s Broadband Strengths Series

-By Scott Cleland

The combination of the severe recession and Congress’ requirement for the FCC to devise a National Broadband Strategy provides an excellent opportunity to inventory not only weaknesses, but also the many strengths, of the broadband sector and economy. Comprehensive analysis shows much that is going well that mustn’t be taken for granted in any new broadband plans. Unlike many other sectors of the economy, the American broadband sector is:

  • An exceptionally strong foundation to build upon;
  • On the right track with much positive momentum; and
  • Partnering to solve many of society’s most pressing problems.

I. Strong Foundation to Build Upon

America’s competitive broadband market has an exceptionally strong foundation of positives on which to build upon, enhance, expand and supplement.
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Building upon a Strong Broadband Foundation — Part I in America’s Broadband Strengths Series”


NYTimes Somehow Misses Obama ‘Special Olympics’ Jab

-By Warner Todd Huston

All day Friday the newspapers, TV stations, radio, and the Internet were abuzz with Barack Obama’s failed joke about the Special Olympics Thursday night on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno. In shades of John Kerry’s failed joke about the unschooled being “stuck in Iraq,” the president’s apologists said he was merely joking and didn’t mean to say anything disparaging about people with developmental challenges. Still, the incident stirred passionate discussion all day Friday. At least it did for everyone but The New York Times’s Helene Cooper. Cooper seemed not to even realize it happened if her review of the show is any indication.

One has to wonder, with the entire country talking about Obama’s Special Olympics quip, how did Cooper miss that part of the story? Why would she not even make a passing notation of the controversy the joke caused?

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NYTimes Somehow Misses Obama ‘Special Olympics’ Jab”


The Flawed Economics of Broadband Open Access in the U.S.

-By Scott Cleland

A post by a Google policy analyst yesterday attempted to make the economic case for open access in the U.S. and suggested reasons why American infrastructure providers should embrace a mandated open network model. This proposed theory warrants a strong practical rebuttal. The proposed case for the economics of open access does not hold up to close scrutiny because it has fatal flaws in both logic and economics.

I. The fatal flaw in logic in the case for the economics of open access:

Since the post assumes broadband markets everywhere are basically the same, it concludes that the open access experience in some European countries is relevant and applicable to the U.S. situation. The fatal flaw in logic here is the core assumption that European and U.S. markets are factually analogous. They are not. They are substantially different factually and structurally as I will explain in detail.
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The Flawed Economics of Broadband Open Access in the U.S.”


Free Speech For Students… Unless You’re Christian, That Is

-By Warner Todd Huston

Our institutes of “higher” learning are all about being inclusive. They are stridently for freedom of speech and stand 100% behind the concept of open political debate. Well, unless you’re a Christian, that is. Christians, you see, are the only group that our fetid colleges and universities have agreed to discriminate against.

Last week, another example of that well known “tolerance” our schools are so concerned with promulgating was seen in Pomona College in Claremont, California. There two Christian, pro-life students were banned from the Pamona campus. Their crime? Video taping a question-and-answer session with a Planned Parenthood representative invited to speak there.

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Free Speech For Students… Unless You’re Christian, That Is”


Is Libel Law Turning Against Us, New and Old Media Alike?

-By Warner Todd Huston

This is not a story of bias in the media. It is a story, rather, that affects both the Old Media of newspapers, TV and radio, as well as the New Media of the Internet. Our disagreements with the Old Media aside, we both stand to see trouble if a recent court case in Massachusetts gains momentum or is applied liberally henceforth.

The Associated Press reports on a libel case in Boston that pits a fired employee of the Staples office supply chain against his former employer. Staples, as it happens, sent out an emailed newsletter informing its employees that salesman Alan Noonan was fired for padding his expense account. Noonan sued for libel. Alarmingly, even though the emailed newsletter was reporting the strict truth the court held that truth was no defense in this case.

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Is Libel Law Turning Against Us, New and Old Media Alike?”


Chuck Schumer: Liar, Propagandist, Anti-American, Killer of Free Speech

-By Warner Todd Huston

Usually I don’t go for the hard-edged treatment of politicians as my headline here does. I don’t often call individuals “liars” and the like, though I’ve been known to do so on occasion. Generally, I prefer to assume that those that oppose my views are truthfully advocating for deep held beliefs and not using lies and obfuscation to get there — some exceptions to that, of course. I am not really the biggest fan of the wild-eyed, Olbermannesque sort of bombast and name-calling.

But, after what Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said of his desire to push the ill-conceived “Fairness Doctrine” down our throats, I just can’t see any other explanation of his motives. Every single word he said on this issue was convoluted, unAmerican, illogical and meant solely as a cynical means to his ends of quashing free political speech so that his party could consolidate it’s domination of American politics.

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Chuck Schumer: Liar, Propagandist, Anti-American, Killer of Free Speech”

The Growing Privacy-Publicacy Fault-line — The Tension Underneath World Data Privacy Day

-By Scott Cleland

Given that January 28 was World Data Privacy Day, its instructive to examine why there is such increasing tension underneath the surface of the Internet over the issue of privacy. I believe there is a growing “fault line” between two opposing tectonic forces — one that believes in online privacy and the other which believes in the opposite — online publicacy.

I coined the term “publicacy” in my July 2008 House testimony on online privacy because Internet technology has created the need for an antonym to describe the opposite of privacy. Many in the Web 2.0 community believe in the “publicacy ethos” where if technology innovation can make information public, it should be public and that there should be no permission or payment required to access, use or remix this new “public”‘ information.
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Time Mag Photographer Works as Both a ‘Journalist’ AND Team Obama Employee?

-By Warner Todd Huston

The old joke about CNN in the 1990s was that it stood for the Clinton News Network. The current joke about the anti-Israel Associated Press is that AP stands for Allah Press. In the 70s, people joked that NBC really meant National Broadcasting for Communists. We’ve all heard the various joke acronyms before, of course. But, the presumed sentiment of the individuals working for these news agencies aside, these are just sarcastic jibes cast at journalists and the companies they work for. But, a current situation blurs the line between mere jokes and reality. Time Magazine has employed a photographer named Callie Shell that has apparently been doing double duty as both a “journalist” AND a member of team Obama, taking pictures subsequently sent out as official White House photos.

How is it that we can have someone thinking that bias cannot be presumed when that same person is working for both a news agency and at the same time the subject of that news? Is the love that the press has for The One so blurred that they cannot see a difference between covering Obama and working for Obama?

Michael Calderone reports in Politico of a situation that is embarrassing both Time Magazine, and Shell, the purported photo-journalist they’ve hired as a photographer. Naturally, Shell is claiming it’s all just a misunderstanding… just like a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Shell claims she was only doing a “favor” for the President and that she wasn’t “on duty” with Time Magazine when she was acting the part of the White House’s personal photog.

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YouTube banned videos: Censorship gone too far?

-By Luann Dawkins of the Birmingham Community Examiner

After numerous reports of videos being banned from YouTube, a Google Global Company, the need for answers became paramount.

Researching the videos that currently reside on YouTube took quite some time, they are seemingly endless. At first glance viewers would assume the prevalent theme is one of unity, especially on a site where anyone can join and add their own view. It becomes apparent very quickly, this is not the case, if that view is of a conservative nature. Granted, some remain with a definite bend to the right, but for a conservative looking through the glass that is You Tube, the majority of this glass house only contains left turning halls.

In the article Media mules pull Obama, a video was included by an admittedly conservative videographer named Zo. This video was obtained and used with permission from New Media Alliance Television (NMA TV). Several weeks ago, NMA TV sent out newsletters stating they had added a channel on their site for video’s banned from You Tube. Gary Schneider, President of New Media Alliance, Inc., and Heritage New Media Partners, Inc. says the problem is even larger than NMA TV, others not affiliated with his website have claimed YouTube is censoring items that adhere to the company’s guidelines for content, and have still been pulled. Google and YouTube, when questioned, give only automated responses, if any at all, citing copyright infringement, offensive content, abusive language etc, etc.

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Media Worried Obama Rules Them With Iron Fist

-By Warner Todd Huston

On January 22 the Associated Press posted an interesting little tidbit of news about how Team Obama is treating the press. Apparently, the Obama White House is trying to force news agencies to use Obama’s own, special, ostensibly “official” photographer’s photos taken at Obama press conferences instead of allowing news agencies to have their own photogs present to record the event. As a result of this attempt by Obama to control his image, the AP and Reuters are a bit miffed that Obama is trying to control the press with such an iron fisted move like this.

All I have to ask is: NOW they get worried that Obama is not too dedicated to freedom of the press? After Obama is fairly elected, NOW the Old Media is beginning to question The One on his treatment of them?

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Chicago Area College Fighting Over Adopting Student’s Bill of Rights

-By Warner Todd Huston

In the midst of the Obama coronation in Washington this week, school board member Sheila Patterson of the Jackson Public School System in Jackson, Michigan told teachers in her district that if they don’t show Barack Obama’s inauguration in the class room they should just “go home.” Patterson further told teachers that if they didn’t show the ceremony they “don’t belong in this school district.” Patterson also tsked such teachers sternly alerting them that she was “very, very disappointed.”

The news report of this incident notes that 43 percent of the school district is comprised of minorities. I suppose that means that the 57 percent that isn’t minority either does not deserve to have their opinions known, or is presumed not to have wanted to see the ceremony. Either way, we have what shapes up to be a school board member throwing the race card at what she is trying to paint as racist teachers.

It was later discovered that many teachers wanted to show the ceremony on their class computers, but the Internet of the District was overloaded and many couldn’t get a connection. No word if Sheila Patterson will apologize for her racist outburst and her assumptions that whites hate Barack Obama and didn’t want to celebrate his big day.

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Gaza & The One-World Media’s Propaganda

-By Frank Salvato

As the Israelis continue their push into Gaza; as they continue an offensive military campaign against Hamas, born of the need to protect Israeli civilians from rockets fired by Hamas jihadis, it is almost impossible to gather accurate information regarding the conflict, at least not from the mainstream media. The accounts advanced by mainstream news sources are so devoid of balance – and, thusly, devoid of a whole and honest truth – that their product reaches a caliber of propaganda not seen since the disinformation campaigns of the Third Reich. Goebbels would be envious.

It is next to impossible for someone seeking a full accounting of daily events in Israel and Gaza to divine them from the one-world media sources. This is because their coverage serves as an encore to the one-sided reporting they provided during the 2006 conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in the south of Lebanon.
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Bloggers Get Press Creds From NY Police Dept.

-By Warner Todd Huston

In a turn of events that should and will be used by bloggers all across the country, three news bloggers have prevailed over the New York City Police Dept. and received their press credentials despite being denied previously without explanation.

The New York Times City Room Blog reports that that Rafael Martínez Alequin, Ralph E. Smith and David Wallis filed a federal lawsuit when each of them were denied credentials, even though all of them had such credentials in the past.

In the face of the lawsuit, the NYPD changed their minds and issued the three their press cards, anyway. This move gives other bloggers across the country hope for legitimacy in the eyes of government officials.
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