Raleigh N&O As Biased As Ever

The McClatchy Company’s Raleigh News & Observer’s editorial page, once strongly pro-John Edwards, is now just as strongly pro- Barack Obama.

But John Drescher, the paper’s executive editor, assures readers the N&O goes to great lengths to make sure its editorial biases don't creep into its news columns.

With Drescher’s assurance in mind, let’s compare newsobserver.com’s coverage of yesterday’s pro-Obamacare rally in Raleigh with its coverage of the Apr. 15 Raleigh “tea party” rally.

Today’s headline

Pro-health reform rally draws 350

The headlines for the Apr. 15 rally:

"Tea party" gets pretty hot
Thousands of conservatives rally in Raleigh against taxes

As you can see, today’s headline gives no hint of the political orientations of the Obamacare supporters; and neither does the story which follows.

All the rally individual participants quoted today and all the sponsoring organizations are described, not by political orientations, but simply as supporters of health care reform and health care for all.

On the other hand, the N&O’s “tea party” headline makes the unqualified and unsubstantiated claim the rally participants are “conservatives.”

In the "tea party" story itself, the N&O uses the “conservative” label three more times.

Yet most Raleigh “tea party” participants were quick to tell reporters they had no strong party affiliation and considered themselves "unaffiliated" or “independents.”

But the N&O chose to spin what the participants said. Here’s an example:

At age 65, Jim Lewis had never been to a protest, but the nationwide wave of anti-tax "tea parties" -- and the dismay among conservatives with the Obama administration's spending plans and bailouts that sparked them -- finally gave him cause enough.

If Jim Lewis had said “dismay among conservatives” had led him to the rally, you can be sure the N&O would've eagerly quoted him instead of spinning to make it seem such “dismay” helped bring him to the rally.

Here’s another example of N&O political spin from the “tea party” story:

The protests -- which coincided with the deadline for income tax filings and were named to evoke the Boston Tea Party -- resonated with conservatives, who turned out by the thousands to more than 30 of the events around the state.

As polls measuring shifts in public support for Obama’s policies were showing then and continue to show, for the most part liberals were and are supporting his policies while conservatives were and are opposing them.

Its among independents that Obama’s support has dropped significantly.

So it seems reasonable to conclude the “tea parties” have resonated rather strongly among independents.

But the N&O can’t bring itself to tell readers that.

Instead it misleads them by misusing the “conservative” label.

A couple of other items - - -

In the N&O’s "tea party" report we find this:

The protesters were almost entirely white, a fact that hecklers in passing cars pointed out more than once. "All you white rednecks!" yelled one woman as she drove past the courthouse.

Today the N&O says nothing about the racial make-up of the Obamacare supporters.

Why not?

If it was proper to report the racial make up of the "tea party" participants, why not that of the Obamacare participants?

Also, many participants in yesterday’s rally were bused in from as far away as Wilmington and carried identical, professionally-produced signs. You can read more about all of that and view photos here at Conservative Nation.

But you won't read about any of it in the N&O.

The N&O has reported Dems' charges made with little or no proof that "town hall" meetings at which citizens have expressed outrage at the Obama administration's plans to socialize medical care are really just protests “organized” by GOPers.

But when there’s easily documented proof that an Obamacare rally, which took place just a few blocks from its office, was heavily organized by Democratic Party interest groups and the state's NAACP chapter, the N&O says nothing.

Editor John Drescher’s right when he says the N&O’s political biases don’t “creep” into its news columns.

They gush in.

Hat tips: Instapundit

Locomotive Breath

Why Are Obama's and Dems' Numbers Dropping

President Obama's MSM flacks include ABC's Charlie Gibson and NBC's Brian Williams who pump hard for him in what their producers call "our networks' news reports."

But Gibsons's and Williams' producers and Obama's other flacks such as Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman must be worried.

As hard as they pump, spin and outright distort for Obama and his Dem congressional allies, both the President's and his congressional Dem allies' approval numbers continue to drop.

Why?

At least part of the answer is that tens of millions of Americans no longer count on MSM to tell us "that's the way it is today."

Instead, more and more Americans are paying attention to citizen journalists like Mike Williams whose news letter report today, Sunday, Aug. 23, follows:

Obama continues to slip in the polls. Rasmussen reports that 27% of voters now strongly approve of his performance as president, while 41% strongly disapprove. This gives him an index rating of -14.

Obama’s ten-year budget deficit projection is staggering. On Friday he raised it by a mind-boggling two trillion dollars. Then he walked out the door for a summer vacation at Martha’s Vineyard.

Is it constitutional for Obama to require every American to have health insurance?

Is Sarah Palin right that Obamacare envisions “death panels” for end-of-life medical treatment? Obama says he’s offended, but others think Palin has a point. For sure America’s vets do.

Does Obamacare include taxpayer-funded abortions?

Did the White House illegally use taxpayer dollars to push Obamacare? More here.

Didn’t Bush try to tell us that Social Security is in trouble, and didn’t the Dems blow him off? Guess what?

Watch a Marine take Rep. Brian “Brown Shirts” Baird (D-WA) to the woodshed at a town hall.

Is Iraq in trouble? Maybe, maybe not.

Would you be surprised to learn that Greenpeace has been lying about global warming?

Did the UK release Lockerbie mass murder Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi as part of a commercial deal?

Is Obama trying to recreate America in his own image?

Is Obama in over his head?

Mike

"Obama as Hitler" Poster A Dem/Union Plant

At the BlogProf this morning - - -

BUSTED!: "Obama As Hitler" Poster Was A Democrat/Union Plant At John Dingell Townhall! UPDATED with video interview!

***scroll to bottom for an important update (after reading the post of course!)***

Watering the plants, as Glenn Reynolds would say. Nancy Pelosi, the dimmest bulb in the U.S. House, got things started with this absurd assertion last week:

Once she said this, all of a sudden Obama as Hitler posters started popping up at townhall meetings, particularly this one at John Dingell's townhall last Thursday:Note the black man holding up the poster. This screenshot was used in reports by the MSM who painted the protesters as Nazis. Here's the thing, though - that black man is a Dingell supporter!

Last Friday, Frank Beckmann on his show broadcast on WJR 760 AM interviewed an eyewitness that said not only were union thugs let in through a side door before anyone else was let into the venue, but that he clearly saw from his vantage point that very Obama as Hitler poster in that back hallway after the union thugs took their seats.

The interview was around 11:00am, but WJR chose not to post that audio (they only tend to select one or two clips a day to post). I thought it would have been bigger news, and needed more than just that to write a post, albeit an audio clip would have partially sufficed.

In any case, I've been scouring YouTube and the web for more info, and have finally found some. Here is one account that was posted Monday over at FreeRepublic:

A couple that were at Dingals TH meeting said there was a black man outside with a sign comparing Obama the Adolf Hitler. After the meeting ended and when everyone was leaving this same man was handing out Dingal campaign flyers. ...

The rest of the post's here.

Hat tip: Instapundit.com

Another Front-Page NYT Shill For Obama

Byron York at washingtonexaminer.com recalls Aug. 1992 when, with the country in recession and President George H.W. Bush and Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton in the midst of a presidential campaign, the government reported a one tenth of a point decline in the unemployment rate.

York continues:

"Jobless Rate Dips a Notch to 7.7% in Mixed Showing," was the front-page headline of the August 8, 1992 Times.

"The nation's jobless rate improved marginally last month, edging down to 7.7 percent from 7.8 percent," the Times reported. "But the improvement was not enough to signal a stronger economic recovery or to help President Bush as he heads into the Republican National Convention."

Even though the number of jobs actually went up in July 1992 (as opposed to the decline of 247,000 jobs in July 2009), the 1992 Times reported that the economic news "gave no suggestion that the economic recovery was breaking out of its painfully slow pace or, more important, that the job growth was picking up enough to push the unemployment rate down significantly before the election in November."

Pollster Peter Hart told the paper that, "There couldn't be worse political news for George Bush."

Under the sub-headline "Stagnant Period Seen," the Times reported that "most forecasters" predicted "more of the same: an economy that is just muddling along."

The Times looked deep into the data to find "disappointing" numbers everywhere; many of the new jobs were in the service sector, there weren't enough construction jobs, some of the improvement was the result of a government program. (The Times appeared less enthusiastic about government stimulus back then.) . . .

Now let’s flash forward to Aug. 7, 2009 and look at how, with a member of The Times’ own Democratic Party in The White House and the country in recession, The Times reported the government's announcement of a one tenth of a point decline in the unemployment rate.

York reports that now:

The front page of the New York Times is filled with hope about the nation's economic situation.

The lead story, "Job Losses Slow, Signaling Momentum for a Recovery," reporting a decline in the unemployment rate from 9.5 percent in June to 9.4 percent in July, begins by declaring that, "The most heartening employment report since last summer suggested on Friday that a recovery was under way -- and perhaps gathering steam."

"Employers are no longer in a panic," one expert tells the Times.

The paper reports that Obama administration officials "credited the stimulus package" for the improvement, and "some said" job losses would be far worse had the $787 billion stimulus not been passed.

The paper quotes President Obama saying his administration has "rescued our economy from catastrophe."

Put that together with earlier data that the economy shrank at a one percent annual rate in the second quarter, and the Times reports that the news has "convinced many forecasters that when the history of the Great Recession is written, these summer months will be the big turning point, when the economy started to grow again."

Of course, there's some "unsettling information" in the new economic data, but overall, the message of the Times story is: Good news -- the recovery is underway. …

York’s entire report’s here.

The NY Times continues to insist it doesn’t shill for President Obama and the Dems.

And millions of liberals and leftists say that’s true.

But hey, millions of them also say they believe President Obama when he cliams "I never heard any of that stuff" that spewed for years from the pulpit of the anti-white, America-bashing Rev. Jeremiah Wright as Obama sat among the congregants.

Go figure.

Hat tip: Realclearpolitics.com

Obama Will Eliminate Private Health Care -- The Video

Hat tip: Drudge Report

Obama- Gates-Crowley Picture Not To Be Missed

Obama's revealing body language (updated and expanded) by Thomas Lifson

This picture truly is worth at least a thousand words.

I am stunned that the official White House Blog published this picture and that it is in the public domain. The body language is most revealing.

Sergeant Crowley, the sole class act in this trio, helps the handicapped Professor Gates down the stairs, while Barack Obama, heedless of the infirmities of his friend and fellow victim of self-defined racial profiling, strides ahead on his own.

So who is compassionate?

And who is so self-involved and arrogant that he is oblivious?

***************************************

The rest of Lifson's post is here.

I wonder how many MSM newspapers will run the photo.

And how will they caption it?

Hat tip: AC

New Black Panthers, Beer, & Our Health Care

Mike Williams' letter today is a "don't miss."

You North Carolinians may recall that about 40 New Black Panthers invaded Durham

during the early days of Duke Lacrosse:

"This is a hate crime, and we want a conviction," declared Malik Zulu Shabazz, the national chairman of the New Panthers, a black separatist group based in Atlanta that is disavowed by the original Black Panther Party. "We are mad and fired up. We demand justice, and we will have justice, one way or the other."

Dressed in black berets and military-style fatigues, several in the group donned bulletproof vests and ammunition belts and holsters that were empty. At least two wore long knives in scabbards strapped to their legs.

This same group intimidated voters at a Philadelphia polling place during the 2008 elections, and three of its members were subsequently indicted by the Bush Justice Department. But the Obama Justice Department has now dropped the charges. Hans Von Spakovsky:

There is no doubt that this was one of the worst cases of voter intimidation the Department has seen in decades, but it was against militant black defendants, not white defendants. This is exactly the kind of situation that upsets the traditional civil rights community, which does not believe that federal voting rights laws should be used to protect white voters.

The Department’s weak and belated explanation for the dismissal of this suit is frankly absurd.

The Department’s spokeswoman says that “the facts and the law did not support pursuing the claims.” Really?

Then why is the Department refusing to allow the trial team who actually investigated the “facts and the law” or the chief of the Voting Section who supervised the investigation to brief members of Congress?

We all know why – because those lawyers would dispute the spurious claim being made by their political superiors….

The message from the Justice Department with this dismissal is that if you are a member of a black hate group, you can intimidate, threaten, and hurl racial epithets at white voters and poll watchers and the Justice Department will give you a pass.

We all know that if it had been the Ku Klux Klan or the Aryan Brotherhood at the polls in Philadelphia acting in this manner towards black voters, Associate Attorney General Perelli and Attorney General Holder would never have even considered dismissing the case.

They would be bragging in the press about their pursuit of a civil injunction against all of these defendants, and would be pressing the Criminal Division at Justice to indict them on criminal charges.

Which leads us to the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Gates and Obama’s Thursday evening swill. Bob Weir:

Now that the beer summit is a part of history, let's look at what was accomplished by the foregoing set of events that should have never been more than a routine police assignment. A white police officer, along with the entire Cambridge, Massachusetts PD, was maligned by a black Harvard professor and a black President of the United States.

A white woman neighbor of the professor, who called the police to report a possible burglary, publicly has been termed a racist and has been harassed to the point of breaking down in tears during a press conference.

Professor Gates has plenty of publicity to help him with his upcoming documentary on race relations in America and President Obama had a major photo op in an attempt to spin his shocking comments into something positive.

There was no handshake between the cop and the professor; no apology from the president or the professor; and there was no chance for the Press to interview the parties together. The only words spoken publicly after the beer fest were from Sgt. Crowley, who said: "We have agreed to disagree."

Well, wasn't that the state of affairs before they met over a couple of brews? Unless there were some clandestine plans made to improve race relations in the future, this was a waste of time.

Evidently, Obama, the man who was going to bring us together, didn't even have enough influence with his buddy Gates to convince him to press the flesh with his arresting officer.

And, speaking of that arrest for disorderly conduct, why has so little been said about the charges being dropped?

If there was ever a case in which political influence wiped its feet on the law, this was it….

Let’s end it for today with Cash for Clunkers, an Obama program that has been suspendedone week. Ed Morrissey: after it ran out of gas in

Somewhere in here, there’s a lesson to be learned about government distortion of private markets.

When government artificially inflate the value of a commodity in attempting social engineering, it usually either spends more money than they initially realize, leave the private sector holding the bag, and make themselves look foolish … at best:

The government suspended the explosively popular cash-for-clunkers program, fearing it would go broke before it could pay what it still owes dealers for a huge backlog of sales, according to congressional offices and a dealer group.

Suspension of the program was confirmed by Bailey Wood, legislative director for the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA), which had been called Thursday night by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which administers the program. Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich., confirmed as well, saying she had been told by congressional leaders.

Why was it “explosively popular”? It made worthless cars valuable again. The vehicles got $4500 for a brief window rather than their previous real value, in many cases a fraction of the government payout.

That inflated value prompted people to rush to their local dealers to use their government subsidy to buy new vehicles.

Unfortunately, Congress miscalculated how many people would be willing to squash their old car for that kind of boost in trade-in value. No harm, no foul, right?

Not exactly. …

Ed concludes:

Of course, no one has really explained why taxpayers should subsidize the destruction of gas-guzzlers (we do remember that we’re paying those ridiculous subsidies, don’t we?) that many of us couldn’t afford when they were sold as new, or that we had better sense than to buy.

No one explained why taxpayers should subsidize sub-prime loans for people who didn’t qualify to buy the houses they wanted ten years ago, either.

It’s yet another example of how government rarely learns from its own mistakes.

This one, fortunately, will be much less costly, but therefore also much less likely to teach people anything.

It’s this same crowd that wants to take over our health care.

Mike