BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

By Rabble Rouser Reverend Amy Once again, revising history, and having their baseless meme become the theme of the week. That would be the Left, beginning with “Heckuva Job” Sheriff Dupnik, who kicked off the “report” of the shootout in Tucson as being the result of rhetoric. Oh, yes, you may not know this, but President Obama called Sheriff Dupnik to thank him. I just bet he did, since Sheriff Dupnik got the ball rolling blaming Gov. Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, and other Conservatives, for this heinous crime. There continues to be no evidence whatsoever that rhetoric had anything to do with this – in fact, quite the opposite. Surprisingly, though, some of the bigger media outfits refuse to correct the original unsubstantiated claims against Palin, et. al. I am not kidding. People like George Stephanopoulos refuses to issue a correction . Sadly, pathetically, he is not alone. How about this one: [snip] CNN’s Piers Morgan, who takes over longtime television newsman Larry King’...

The truth the media doesn’t want you to see in a concise nutshell. MAJOR HAT TIP: DEBBIE SCHLUSSEL

The Power and the Story The Obamas may have the smartest, most finely calibrated press operation in White House history, parceling out scoops (The New York Times), partisan talking points (the Huffington Post), and First Family tidbits (the celebrity mags) to a desperate media. Just don’t ask them to admit it. By Michael Wolff Bill Burton is the baby-faced political op with a little too much junk food under his belt—and, at 31, with one of the political world’s longest résumés in media relations—who runs the pressroom at the White House. He’s got possibly the littlest office in the West Wing, but it’s where you want your West Wing office to be, guarding somebody more important than you. Burton is guarding his boss, the president’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs—who guards the president—from me. The Obama presidency is striving to be the most open and available in modern history, hence—and I am here on the 98th day—its first 100 days of remarkable staging, including dogs, wife, children,...

So many other bloggers are doing a much, much better job of covering the current Middle East situation better than me. But suffice it to say I am sick sick sick of hearing what "horrible" people the Israelis are for PROTECTING THEMSELVES, AND THEIR PEOPLE - and for taking DECISIVE ACTION against terrorists who WANT THEM DEAD. Answer the clue phone, media. You're being used. Again. FROM THE AEGEAN STABLES: Whether by Israeli accident or Hamas engineering, expect a spectacular civilian massacre in the coming days, followed by an orgy of Pallywood photography, amplified by a compliant Western media, and even greater fury in the streets of the Muslim and Western world. It’s in the Hamas playbook… and will be until the media gets sober. Here’s the background, and the obscenity that will probably be played. Barry Rubin has laid out the various endgames open to Hamas, and how, when all else fails, it’s the media reserves you draw on to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. ...

The media's gang rape of Hillary Clinton continues unabated. Women in power are still scarier to the general public AND the media than ethnic minorities. Just look and see we really aren't that far away from the way Islamofacists treat women. ARE WE? We're just more covert about it. Unless you count the sexualization of women as objects in the media (tv, advertising)... why, women are only good for a couple of things -- right? And heaven forbid you have any physical flaws -- why you're just trash then. We aren't even thinking human beings, no matter how much lip service is offered towards women's equality. I see it. Very clearly. And this nonsense is close to putting someone dangerously wrong for America in the White House. Again. CNN's Castellanos on Clinton as "white bitch": "[S]ome women, by the way, are named that and it's accurate" Summary: Discussing Sen. Hillary Clinton's comments regarding sexism in the media...

by Sheila Gibbons The general election hasn't even begun yet but already we're getting early snippets of retrospection on the campaign coverage so far. In a look at the public's news interests over the past year the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that while women and men might not be on different planets, there's still plenty of statistical daylight between them. Women consistently express more interest in stories about weather, health and safety, natural disasters, crime and celebrity news. Men tend to be more interested in international affairs, Washington news and sports. However, men and women often express comparable levels of interest in the top news stories of the day, the study found. The presidential campaign, for instance, has attracted only modestly greater interest among men than among women. In five weekly news interest surveys in 2008, 37 percent of men and 32 percent of women say they have followed campaign news very closely. Inter...

BLOGGERS: WELCOME TO "MEDIA" & YOUR ANONYMITY A couple stories worth sharing in readers to the status of bloggers and their anonymity came up in the news - and I want to share them with my readers and the blogosphere. Political Bloggers: Welcome to the “Media” Political Bloggers can now “breathe a sigh of relief” according to Eric Sinrod on CNET. A ruling just came down from the Federal Election Commission that classifies bloggers as media and volunteers - doesn’t matter if you’re a big operation or working solo. From the article: Political bloggers can breathe a sigh of relief, as the Federal Election Commission (FEC) has just resolved two complaints by determining that Internet blogging activities are not within FEC regulation because such activities fall within media and volunteer exemptions to the Federal Election Campaign Act. The first matter resolved was in regards to DailyKos.com: The site has charged a fee to place advertising on its Web site. It also has...

MORE NEWS CHANNELS, LESS NEWS I used to be a news junkie. By the time I hit high school I was rivetted by the Watergate trials being televised and the Roe v. Wade trial. My friends couldn't understand that I really enjoyed the evening news. It made me think about the world outside of the small, oppressive little town I lived in. And somehow, I felt it connected me to the rest of humanity. But that's all changed. News is now slanted. Stories rise and fall in a few days with zero follow up. The public has a short attention span and big, smokin' ALL ABOUT ME attitude. Everyone's up for their 15 minutes or to cover their own ***. My father, of blessed memory, used to tell me it was the "hooray for me , scr*w you" attitude. He was so right. Nothing real gets covered unless someone up on the media food-chain approves it. Nothing. The news bores me now. It gives me sound bytes instead of facts. Its so blatantly downslid into some sort of sick tabloid-esq...

THE ASSAULT ON REASON I just got a copy of this and barely started. (I tend to have 2-3 books on the go at any one time minimum) This piece is pure Gore. He mentions the silence of Bush's Senate. Yes, of course they were silent - they were power hungry, money mad yes-men. The current administration surrounded itself with armies of rubber stampers and sycophants. These people work for us - and we still have no idea what the truth is. Bush will say one thing and do another; just whatever is best for him and his buddies at the time. Gore's on the money about Internet Providers squelching information. Its already happening as I posted HERE . People who run sites are also filtering, deleting, promoting, squelching and spinning their information too. (Which is why I believe its so important to read every side of the aisle's opinion and think criticially not emotionally about them.) Please read this one, even if you aren't a Gore fan. He makes some fantastic points a...