Bloomberg Businessweek Apologizes for ‘Racist’ Magazine Cover

-By Warner Todd Huston

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s media group has apologized for its February 21 cover of Bloomberg Businessweek over complaints that it used racist imagery to illustrate the feature story on the housing market.

With a title of “The Great American Housing Rebound: Flips. No-look bids. 300 percent returns. What could possibly go wrong?,” the cover illustration featured Latino and African American American caricatures awash in a sea of government money.

The image was criticized as racist by several organizations and media outlets.

Ryan Chittum of the Columbia Journalism Review praised Bloomberg Businessweek for being “edgier than its predecessor,” but went on to say that the February cover was over the line.

“The cover stands out for its cast of black and Hispanic caricatures with exaggerated features reminiscent of early 20th century race cartoons,” Chittum wrote. “Also, because there are only people of color in it, grabbing greedily for cash. It’s hard to imagine how this one made it through the editorial process.”
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Bloomberg Businessweek Apologizes for ‘Racist’ Magazine Cover”


What They Said About Hagel’s Confirmation

-By Warner Todd Huston

Strangely, the Old Media establishment seemed to move on quite quickly after former Senator Chuck Hagel was confirmed as the new Secretary of Defense on the evening of February 26. Aside from the perfunctory stories of his confirmation, the media didn’t seem much interested in widespread analysis of what it all meant. It was as if few media outlets felt there was much news in the whole thing

However, there were a few horn-tooters happily proclaiming Obama’s victory.

For the Washington Post, columnist Dana Milbank felt that the whole confirmation process was one “Joe McCarthy would have admired.”

All the anti-Hagel points, Milbank thought, were built only on “innuendos” and “hoaxes.”

The New Yorker’s Alex Koppelman claimed that all opposition to Hagel was just a right-wing “tantrum.”

As far as Koopleman was concerned, this confirmation was an example of GOP “petulance.”
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What They Said About Hagel’s Confirmation”


Greens Fret Over Obama Admin Keystone Report

-By Warner Todd Huston

The State Department has released its much-anticipated report on the environmental impact of the Keystone Pipeline and, to the alarm of the green lobby, it seems to leave President Obama with little reason to continue delaying construction.

The 2,000-page report makes no final recommendation on whether or not to approve construction of the energy project, but does definitively say that the pipeline would have “no significant impacts to most resources along the proposed Project route.”

This runs contrary to the fears of environmental groups that have said the pipeline would be “essentially game over for the climate.”
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Greens Fret Over Obama Admin Keystone Report”


Investigation into Wis. Gov. Walker Ended, No Charges Filed

-By Warner Todd Huston

The so-called John Doe investigation into Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has now come to a conclusion with no charges filed against the Governor.

The probe has dragged on for three years netting a few of Walker’s associates from his days as Milwaukee County Executive and other tangential figures but the Governor himself was left untouched by the investigation. Retired Appeals Court Judge Neal Nettesheim signed the order to close the investigation on March 1.

“I realize the frustration on the part of some people with the length of the investigation. But I’m satisfied with how it went,” Judge Nettesheim said on Friday.

Reviewing the case, the judge pointed out that prosecutors interviewed and took testimony from hundreds of witnesses, and raided the homes of several Walker associates seizing documents.

“The whole purpose of the John Doe is to inquire whether possible criminal activity occurred,” said the retired judge. “The John Doe served its purpose. It’s to resolve uncertainty and to go where the evidence takes you.”
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Investigation into Wis. Gov. Walker Ended, No Charges Filed”


Perino: When Bush Admin Tried to Slam Bob Woodward, The Left Rallied For Him

-By Warner Todd Huston

In an appearance on Fox News, former Bush White House Press Secretary Dana Perino noted that when the Bush team tried to push back against Bob Woodward’s reportage it “failed miserably” because the media rallied behind the iconic reporter. Yet now, after harsh words about Obama, Woodward is being treated like a pariah by that same media.

With Bob Woodward in the news over his report that someone in the Obama administration threatened that he’d “regret” writing so harshly about the President, Fox News talked about how the Bush administration dealt with the famed Washington Post reporter.

On the February 28 broadcast of Megyn Kelly’s America Live, former Bushie Dana Perino talked of the Bush administration’s reaction to Woodward’s 2006 book, State of Denial, a book that hit Bush over his prosecution of the war in Iraq.

Perino noted that they tried to discredit Woodward’s book, but to no avail.
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Perino: When Bush Admin Tried to Slam Bob Woodward, The Left Rallied For Him”


Rep. Maxine Waters Inflates Sequester to ‘170 Million’ Jobs Lost

-By Warner Todd Huston

Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D, CA) had a dire prediction for America due to sequestration claiming that 170 million jobs would be lost as a result of the policy. But according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics there are only about 140 million jobs in the whole country.

During a press conference on February 28, Waters told reporters of a visit by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke who told members of congress that sequestration is not the optimal way to cut the federal budget.

Talking of Bernanke’s comments, Waters claimed that “if sequestration takes place, that’s going to be a great setback. We don’t need to be having something like sequestration that’s going to cause these jobs losses, over 170 million jobs that could be lost.”

However, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Table A-9, Selected Employment Indicators, in January of 2013 there were 141,614 million jobs in the current American economy.

Using Waters’ math, the US would lose about 30 million more jobs than it had to start with.
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Rep. Maxine Waters Inflates Sequester to ‘170 Million’ Jobs Lost”


New Yorker Details Woodward’s ‘Downright Misleading’ Career

-By Warner Todd Huston

Now that it is OK for the Old Media to slam Bob Woodward, hit pieces on his work are coming out of the woodwork, if you will. One of the latest is from The New Yorker where Woodward’s oeuvre was termed, “revelatory, informative, incomplete, infuriating, and downright misleading.”

Only a few short years ago, attacks by fellow journalists on Woodward, the man that took down President Richard Nixon, would have been unthinkable. But after Woodward revealed that a highly placed White House operative warned him that he would “regret” writing negative stories on President Obama, that has all changed.

Now that it’s open season on the Washington Post reporter, John Cassidy wrote a long piece detailing many of Woodward’s shortcomings.

In the first half of his article, Cassidy set out to detail the “strengths and weaknesses of Bob Woodward” and went back as far as 1988 and worked forward.

Cassidy first pointed to Woodward’s eyebrow raising “deathbed confession” of CIA chief William Casey noting that some seriously doubt the story.
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New Yorker Details Woodward’s ‘Downright Misleading’ Career”


Sen. Feinstein Gushes Over CNN’s Anti-Gun Piers Morgan, ‘You’ve Been Wonderful’

-By Warner Todd Huston

California Senator Diane Feinstein appeared on Pier Morgan’s evening CNN show on February 28 to talk about her gun-banning bill that is currently on hold in the Senate Judiciary Committee. The interview ended in a gushing mutual admiration society as gun-banner Feinstein applauded gun-hater Morgan and vice versa.

“That gun culture is letting bad things happen,” Feinstein sonorously told Morgan at the tail of the interview.

“Well, you’re doing a fantastic job on this, Senator,” Morgan told her. “I absolutely applaud you and urge you to continue,” he added.

The mutual admiration continued as Feinstein said, “Oh, Piers, thank you.”

“You have been wonderful. Thank you so much for your help. It is uphill all the way,” Feinstein concluded.


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Sen. Feinstein Gushes Over CNN’s Anti-Gun Piers Morgan, ‘You’ve Been Wonderful’”


Bashing Benedict: Networks Slam Retiring Pope

-By Warner Todd Huston

A new study by the Culture and Media Institute of Pope Benedict’s retirement reveals constant attacks, ridicule, and repeated allusions to scandals as ABC, CBS, and NBC reported on Benedict’s final days.

The survey reveals that the Catholic Church was repeatedly deemed “troubled,” the Church was attacked for not “modernizing,” the real-world Church was constantly compared to the fictitious world of novelist Dan Brown and his Da Vinci Code series of books, and late night TV hosts turned Benedict into a butt of jokes.

On February 11, Pope Benedict announced his retirement due to ill health setting off the big three networks into attack mode.

“From Benedict’s Feb. 11 resignation through the evening of Feb. 27, the day before it took effect, the networks referred to the Catholic Church as a troubled institution 122 times and aired the word ‘scandal’ 87 times in 112 reports. Anchors and reporters suggested that the Church must modernize (32 times) and pressed for change in issues regarding women (7 times) and gays (13 times). At times, they trivialized the first resignation of a Pope since the 1500s as ‘worthy of a Dan Brown novel’ (ABC’s Harris again.) and sensationalized it by entertaining theories about other reasons Benedict might be stepping down.”

On the lighter side, over the two-week period, network morning shows continuously aired jokes about Benedict staged by late night comedy shows such as Jimmy Fallon, David Letterman and Conan O’Brien.
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Bashing Benedict: Networks Slam Retiring Pope”


New York Times Complains ‘Austerity’ is Already Here ‘Killing’ Gov’t Jobs

-By Warner Todd Huston

Despite that no real cuts to government spending have yet occurred as a result of sequestration and that government spending is actually increasing, The New York Times is fearful that “austerity” has already come and it is “killing” government jobs.

Binyamin Appelbaum, opens his February 26 piece claiming that the federal government is already “cutting back at a pace exceeded in the last half-century only by the military demobilizations after the Vietnam War and the cold war.”

In keeping with his past support for growing government in times of economic downturn, Appelbaum went on to claim that government spending can “expand the nation’s economy, just as private sector transactions do.”

Even as Appelbaum characterized these policies as “austere,” several paragraphs down he did offer a counter point to the theme.

Total government spending continues to increase, but those broader figures include benefit programs like Social Security. Government purchases and investments expand the nation’s economy, just as private sector transactions do, while benefit programs move money from one group of people to another without directly expanding economic activity,” he wrote. (My bold)

Even with sequestration, federal spending is on track to increase by $5.9 trillion by 2023.

Appelbaum repeatedly uses the word “austerity” to describe the cost-cutting measures being considered–or merely threatened–in Washington. The definition of austerity is “enforced or extreme economy.” But proposed cuts to growth in federal spending amounts to as little as 2.3 percent. These are hardly draconian or “extreme” cuts.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson

Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.

For a full bio, please CLICK HERE.


Soledad O’Brien: Being Fired by CNN is a ‘Win-Win’

-By Warner Todd Huston

CNN recently canceled Soledad O’Brien’s short-lived morning show, Starting Point, but the anchor is now saying she’s not at all unhappy about it.

“I think it has worked out best for everyone,” O’Brien told reporters.

The anchor reports that she realized she had creative differences with CNN’s new chief, Jeff Zucker, and complained that her show never got “a lot of support” from CNN executives during its one-year run.

This is a far different world than that when Starting Point debuted. Then Executive Vice President and Managing Editor of CNN Mark Whitaker said in a press release that the launch of O’Brien’s show was “an exciting time to be relaunching our morning show.”
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Soledad O’Brien: Being Fired by CNN is a ‘Win-Win’”


After Millions in Tax Breaks for Hollywood, DreamWorks’ Jeffery Katzenberg Kills 350 Jobs

-By Warner Todd Huston

Despite some $430 million in tax breaks for Hollywood in last year’s “fiscal cliff” deal, DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg has announced that he is cutting 350 people by the end of the year.

After the disappointing box office for DreamWorks’ latest film, The Rise of the Guardians, Katzenberg said that the $165 million loss made him “go back and rethink everything.”

“So it makes you go back and rethink everything, not just the fact that it didn’t work–certainly we spent a lot of time reflecting on that–but more importantly saying, ‘Let’s look at everything and say, ‘What could we be doing better, smarter, more effectively to really position the company in the best possible way gong forward?’ And that’s what we’ve done, and that’s what restructuring is all about,” Katzenberg told the Hollywood Reporter.
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After Millions in Tax Breaks for Hollywood, DreamWorks’ Jeffery Katzenberg Kills 350 Jobs”


Assault Weapons Ban Could Get Senate Committee Vote Thursday

-By Warner Todd Huston

The wide ranging gun ban bill introduced by Senator Diane Feinstein (D, CA) could be voted out of committee and passed on to the full Senate as early as Thursday.

A schedule posted for the upcoming February 28 executive business meeting shows the Senate Judiciary Committee intends to discuss Feinstein’s and three other gun control bills, though the eight Republican members of the committee have the option to push the meeting off for another week.

The Feinstein bill bans up to 160 specifically named firearms but might have an uphill battle in the Senate as even some Democrat Senators have said it goes too far by banning too many firearms.

Less than a month ago Senate Democrat majority leader Harry Reid (D, NV) shied from supporting Feinstein’s bill directly, though he praised her “enthusiasm” for her gun banning bill.
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Assault Weapons Ban Could Get Senate Committee Vote Thursday”


Would New Federal Stalking Laws Have Snared Rep. Bill Foster?

-By Warner Todd Huston

This year the Violence Against Women Act is getting some stronger penalties for stalking, assault, and other crimes. With all these new provisions, one wonders that if this law were around 15 years ago, how it would have hit good old Congressman Bill Foster, a man who is guilty of abusing his wife?

The law, called The Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013 (S47), would most certainly have sent Foster to jail for a long time. You see the Illinois Democrat has a chequered history of violence against women.

Some of the additions to S47 include,
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Would New Federal Stalking Laws Have Snared Rep. Bill Foster?”


Hurray for Washington!

-By Mary Theroux

But it’s OK. The Obamas make us feel good about ourselves, and, after all, that’s what Hollywood, er, Washington, is all about.

The culmination of last night’s Oscars broadcast with a Live! feed from the White House with Mrs. Obama (hangin’ with her military BFs) marks the official recognition of the Presidency as theater: like the old Western sets, no substance required.

From the very beginning, President Obama was elected based on his strong delivery of stirring words, “Hope and change,” with no serious vetting of his record or policies. Having been awarded the presidency, as the Oscars follow the Golden Globes, Mr. Obama was next awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, solely for his well-scripted promises for peace…

Read the rest at The Independent Institute.


[VIDEO] Guns Didn’t Suddenly Become a Problem, Societal Decay Did

This is a must-see video of testimony on so-called “gun violence.”

Henson Ong, a resident of Waterbury, Connecticut, came before the Gun Violence Prevention Working Group at the legislative office building in Connecticut’s capital, Hartford. He gave excellent testimony on why guns are not the problem in America.


Slavery Flap Shows Emory University Professors are Morons

-By Warner Todd Huston

Earlier this month the President of Emory University wrote a piece for the school magazine about the efficacy of compromise. By the 24th he was forced to apologize for the piece because he mentioned slavery fully in context in his piece. The faux outrage that his comments caused proved three things: that no one at Emory has any grasp of American history, that the professors at Emory University are morons, and that the student body are utterly unable to employ critical thinking.

The segment that upset everyone was utterly innocuous and cited properly in context by Wagner, without hate or racism. Unfortunately, logic and context isn’t what the race baiters of Emory University are interested in, sad to say.

President James Wagner’s piece was meant to extol the virtues of compromise and meant his piece to explain that this vaunted compromise was as American as Apple Pie, baseball, and the restl. Pursuant to that, Wagner wrote the following:

One instance of constitutional compromise was the agreement to count three-fifths of the slave population for purposes of state representation in Congress. Southern delegates wanted to count the whole slave population, which would have given the South greater influence over national policy. Northern delegates argued that slaves should not be counted at all, because they had no vote. As the price for achieving the ultimate aim of the Constitution—“to form a more perfect union”—the two sides compromised on this immediate issue of how to count slaves in the new nation. Pragmatic half-victories kept in view the higher aspiration of drawing the country more closely together.

Such as it is, this is correct, straight forward, pure fact. It has not a whiff of controversy to it. Well, it wouldn’t have a whiff of controversy if an intelligent, informed person were reading that excerpt, anyway.

Instead of intelligent people, however, we ended up with dolts like Emory history “professor” Leslie Harris, halfwits like “professor” Leroy Davis, and racebaiters like student Jovanna Jones.
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Slavery Flap Shows Emory University Professors are Morons”


Firearms Manufacturers Refusing to Sell to States That Pass Strict Gun Laws

-By Warner Todd Huston

A number of firearms manufacturers and companies that sell firearms related products have joined a growing list of companies refusing to do business with states, counties, and other government agencies that pass new laws restricting citizens’ Second Amendment rights.

A list of some 34 of these companies has been posted at a website called The Police Loophole. The site informs visitors that the companies have publicly announced that they “will not sell items to states, counties, cities, and municipalities that restrict their citizens rights to own” the products they sell.

“There are some states, counties, cities, and municipalities in our great nation that fail to allow their citizens to fully exercise their right to keep and bear arms with restrictions such as magazine capacity or types of firearms that are widely available to citizens of other states, counties, cities, and municipalities. However, these government entities do not place these restrictions upon their own employees, such as police officers.”

The “police loophole” phrase is a take off on the so-called “gun show loophole” that gun control advocates use in order to push their anti-gun policies. One good “closed” loophole deserves another, as far as these website operators are concerned.
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Firearms Manufacturers Refusing to Sell to States That Pass Strict Gun Laws”


Illinois Middle Schooler Told Marines Themed T-Shirt is ‘Inappropriate’ at School

-By Warner Todd Huston

On Monday, an Illinois middle schooler was told that his U.S. Marines T-Shirt was “inappropriate” to wear in school and that if he didn’t take the shirt off, cover it up, or turn it inside out he’d be suspended.

The shirt Middle schooler Michael McIntyre, 13, wore to school featured a pair of crossed M16 rifles beneath the word “Marines.” The boy’s father, Dan McIntyre, feels that the teacher objected to the depiction of the rifles and that is what sparked her demand that the boy take off the shirt.

The demand was made by Teacher Karen Deverell, a reading and language arts teacher at Genoa-Kingston Middle School, on Monday, February 13. The boy’s father reports that his son followed the orders.

In an exclusive interview, Michael’s father, Dan McIntyre, said, “He’s worn the shirt before, so I don’t know why they said anything this time.”
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Illinois Middle Schooler Told Marines Themed T-Shirt is ‘Inappropriate’ at School”


Obama Fails to Register ‘OrganizingForAction.net,’ Hilariously, Site Re-Directs to NRA Homepage

-By Warner Todd Huston

At the beginning of the year, President Barack Obama’s new 501(c)4 political nonprofit, Organizing For Action, was launched with all the usual bells and whistles. But the tech wizards at OFA forgot one important rule in today’s Internet world: Register all the iterations of your website address before someone else does.

Now Obama’s team is filing complaints against the folks smart enough to get the addresses before he did.

As Obama’s OFA made its debut, no one in his purportedly Internet-savvy campaign had obtained the corresponding .com, .net, .org or .us sites, nor did OFA register other names that are close to its official one, as is the sensible practice. In the case of the .net address, a fellow named Derek Bovard had already registered the .net address by the time Obama’s team took notice.

Bovard has routed his new site to the homepage of the National Rifle Association.

So, whenever anyone goes to www.organizingforaction.net they end up seeing the homepage of the NRA.

Naturally, Obama and his fellow community organizers were furious. So furious, in fact, that they have replied by filing complaints against Bovard–and, apparently, a variety of other people who had registered domain names that OFA now wants.
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Obama Fails to Register ‘OrganizingForAction.net,’ Hilariously, Site Re-Directs to NRA Homepage”


Chicago Police Chief McCarthy’s Shocking Ignorance of History, the Law, and the U.S. Constitution

-By Warner Todd Huston

Chicago’s top cop is a shockingly ignorant man. Apparently what he knows of American history, the law, and the U.S. Constitution can be held in a thimble. This became glaringly obvious in a radio interview he gave to WLS Radio’s political reporter Bill Cameron.

Chief Garry McCarthy’s blather about the Second Amendment is amazing for its total lack of knowledge. For such a high-ranking official he displays an incredible lack of command on the subject. But, perhaps there is a reason? Perhaps it is less a simple lack of knowledge and more willful ignorance on his part, a purposeful dearth of knowledge he indulges to excuse his authoritarian, un-Constitutional desires to take away the natural, God-given rights of the citizens he polices?

His ignorance is so egregious the only proper way to reply to it is to take his “points,” such as they are, one at a time. So, the following is a transcript of the segment interspersed with my comments.

Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy on WLS, AM 890 with reporter Bill Cameron. 2//17/13

McCarthy: You know, I’m troubled by the special interest. I really, really am and I wonder if we looked at other parts of our society and if there was special interest influencing police work I believe that would be called corruption. So, if it has to do with donating money versus a popular vote I think we have a bigger problem in this country and somebody’s gotta wake up to that.

Even as it almost sounds logical, this is little else but a rhetorical smoke screen that is meaningless and is purposefully meant to both muddy the waters of the discussion and mislead the public. After all, a democratic republic is special interests guiding politicians. Our entire system is set up to operate this way. There isn’t anything shocking, new, different, or even necessarily dangerous about special interests. We’ve always had them.

It is even in the Federalist Papers, the articles written to encourage the people to vote yes on the U.S. Constitution. (Federalist Number 10)
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Chicago Police Chief McCarthy’s Shocking Ignorance of History, the Law, and the U.S. Constitution”


Visual Aid: The Stupidity of What Constitutes an ‘Assault Weapon’

-By Warner Todd Huston

First of all, there is no such thing as an “assault weapon.” But, despite that fact, when half-wit leftists try to define what an “assault weapon” is, all they really end up doing is describing what such a weapon looks like not what the weapon does.

Essentially you get this…

Note that the two weapons in the illustration above are both single shot muskets. But when all sorts of cosmetic bric-a-brac is added to the musket, it sure makes it appear more menacing.

All the fancy grips, plastic stocks, bayonet lugs, scopes, all this stuff is superficial, cosmetic, and none of them make the weapon any more dangerous than when it started out.

Well, this is where we are with the nonsensical “definitions” that liberals foist on us all as they attempt to define what an “assault weapon” is. All we get are what it looks like, not what it does.

As the photo above proves, ANY GUN can be made to LOOK LIKE an “assault weapon.” But what a gun looks like has precisely nothing to do with what it can do, how quickly it can fire, how supposedly “dangerous” it is.
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Visual Aid: The Stupidity of What Constitutes an ‘Assault Weapon’”


AFP Congressional Scorecard Released

-By Warner Todd Huston

Americans for Prosperity has launched a new project for Americans to track their congressmen. The new website is part of an interactive version of AFP’s congressional key vote scorecard, which includes AFP key votes from the past three congresses.

Eighteen House members and one senator rated an A+ conservative rating while twenty-one reps. and one senator rated an F.

The new scorecard can be seen at afpscorecard.org. (A printable version can be seen HERE).

“The AFP Scorecard is an easy way for our activists, the media, and the general public to keep an eye on Washington. Now that the Scorecard is available on an interactive website it will be even easier to keep an eye on Congress,” said AFP Director of Policy James Valvo.
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AFP Congressional Scorecard Released”


Obama Resorts to Local TV Interviews to Push Tax Hikes

-By Warner Todd Huston

President Obama has launched a campaign to push his tax hikes by granting interviews to local TV news programs in eight states that will likely be affected by budget cuts that are soon to be realized as a result of sequestration.

The goal of Obama’s local interviews is to halt $85 billion in budget cuts. The five-minute segments were granted to stations in states that have a high military presence. Adding weight to Obama’s local TV interview campaign, the Pentagon announced cost-saving layoffs of up to 800,000 civilian employees who will be furloughed for 22 days.

In the interviews Obama warned of the potential job loss that might occur in those eight states and blamed Republicans for it all because of the sequestration that is soon to hit.
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Obama Resorts to Local TV Interviews to Push Tax Hikes”


MSNBC: Why Not Let Sonia Sotomayor Become The Next Pope?

-By Warner Todd Huston

On a February 17 broadcast of MSNBC Live, panelist Chris Smith thought it would be a great idea to have U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor replace retiring Pope Benedict as head of the Catholic Church.

Smith, a contributing editor of New York magazine, thought Sotomayor would offer a “trifecta” of liberal attributes.

“Here’s a trifecta: Latin, female, American. It would do a lot of good. I mean it’s ridiculous, we’re talking about a religion here where women can’t even become priests… but it would speak to some of the issues about how the Church needs to open itself up,” Smith said.

Smith also offered another reason that Sotomayor would be a great Pope. It is because she is a Puerto Rican who lived in the Bronx and is “someone who lived in the real world.” Smith felt this “real world” life is something that “would be good for whoever is Pope.”

Smith was the only one that offered a “fantasy pick” for the new Pope. The other panelists picked current cardinals.
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MSNBC: Why Not Let Sonia Sotomayor Become The Next Pope?”


NCIS: LA Paints Patriots as Terrorists

-By Warner Todd Huston

The February 19 episode of CBS’ NCIS: Los Angeles offered a veritable smorgasbord of liberal tropes–Tea Party types portrayed as terrorists, private healthcare insurance companies slammed and a potpouri of anti-capitalist themes.

The episode started off in an interesting direction when the NCIS team came across the murder of a 1960s leftist radical who had been on the run from the feds for inadvertently killing a fellow terrorist. But it wasn’t long before the idea of a ’60s-era radical became an attack on all things conservative.

As the team members entered into their investigation, they discovered a tie to a local college professor. The team decided to go undercover and, as Agent Kensi Blye (Daniela Ruah) began to socialize with students, she found one planning an Occupy Wall Street protest on campus.

All the talk about Occupy was entirely positive, of course, but in one scene as the peaceful Occupy gathering was in full swing, a group of violent thugs dressed in red and sporting bandana masks burst onto the scene. The thugs, wielding bats, assaulted the peaceful Occupiers and destroyed their displays.
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NCIS: LA Paints Patriots as Terrorists”


When Indicted, Networks Barely Mentioned Jesse Jackson, Jr’s Misuse of $750,000 in Campaign Cash

-By Warner Todd Huston

A survey of news coverage by the big three networks of the indictment of former Chicago Democrat Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. was sparse to non-existent for the first three days after the indictment was made public. Even when his trouble was reported, the fact that he is a Democrat went unmentioned.

Jackson was indicted on Friday, February 15, but as Friday, then the weekend rolled on, the big three networks didn’t seem much interested in covering the story. In fact, a survey of the coverage found that the big nets gave the story scant attention that Friday and, while there were a few ultra short reports on the indictment on Saturday, there was no coverage at all on Sunday.

On Friday, for instance, NBC’s Nightly News gave the story short attention. By Saturday, Good Morning America gave the story a whole 18 seconds. Worse, even when the network news shows did report the story on Saturday evening, Jackson’s party affiliation was never mentioned.

Interestingly, not one of the Sunday morning politics shows mentioned the indictment at all.
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When Indicted, Networks Barely Mentioned Jesse Jackson, Jr’s Misuse of $750,000 in Campaign Cash”