University study finds Fox more fair and balanced than ABC/CBS/NBC

Dr. S. Robert Lichter of George Mason University studied bias in news coverage of the 2008 presidential race and found that liberals are right that Fox covered Obama much more negatively that the three broadcast networks. However, that is what makes Fox's coverage more fair and balanced:

Network	Coverage of Obama	Coverage of McCain
ABC/CBS/NBC	Positive by 68 to 32%	Negative by 64 to 36%
Fox	Negative by 64 to 36%	Negative by 60 to 40%

So, while Fox was negative on Obama, it was negative on McCain by about the same margin. By contrast, the fringe media (ABC/CBS/NBC) were one-sidedly in favor of The One.

The CMPA study compared the ABC, CBS, and NBC evening news shows with the first half hour of Fox News Channel's Special Report, a program which resembles its broadcast news counterparts. CNN and MSNBC were omitted because neither has any straight news coverage in the evening.

Hat tip: NewsBusters

RELATED: Newsweek no longer pretends to be unbiased but that doesn't stop its bias from being offensive and sexist. UPDATE: Stretching credibility to the breaking point, a Newsweek editor claims that the Newsweek Palin cover wasn't "sexist."

Democrats attack their own patriotism

Remember when BusHitler's military commissions were shredding the constitution? That is now so last year, as CNN reports:

Two-thirds of Americans disagree with the Obama administration's decision to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed in a civilian court rather than a military court, according to a new national poll. ....

"The decision to bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in front of a civilian court is universally unpopular - even a majority of Democrats and liberals say that he should be tried by military authorities," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. [Emph. added]

It seems that Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) didn't get the memo: He is still claiming that anyone who skeptical of Obama's plan to try the Al Qaeda bigwigs in civilian court is "un-American."

Hat tip: Astute Blogger.

Jim Lavery illustrates the Obama-Moran mindset:RELATED: One of the many problems of civilian trials of terrorists is the type of defense lawyer that is attracted to the cause, as Michelle Malkin details.

To protest Obamacare, San Francisco holds a sick-in

Liberals hold sit-ins. When protesting Obamacare, a 'sit-in' didn't seem appropriate: a 'sick-in' did. Carrying with them their crutches, bandages, and fake blood, a crowd gathered today by the Ferry Building in San Francisco to protest what Obamacare would do to our health.
The building on the left above is the Ferry Building. The suspension bridge in the background on the right is the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. Below is another shot of the crowd looking in the other direction:One woman made a point that I had to agree with: "If you're not outraged, then you are not paying attention":In the background above is one of SF's well recognized symbols, the clock tower on the SF Ferry Building, which can also be seen below in the portrait of a zombie:
If you watch movies, you know that zombies are nearly indestructible. This zombie makes the point that even he would get ill if he had to depend on PelosiCare.

The protester below, with the bandaged but still bleeding (fake) head wound, used a chart of the bureaucracies to be created by ObamaCare to explain what many think is the real agenda of Obamacare: it is an SEIU jobs program.
Another protester, also braving an Obamacare-induced head wound, made a related point about Obamacare being not a reform but a takeover:
During the campaign, candidate Obama famously said that matters of life and death were "above his paygrade." Now, as president, Obama seems all too happy to decide what medical care grandma deserves:This sign reminds us that Obamacare is part of the Obama deficit spending spree:The point of having a 'sick-in' is, of course, to emphasize that government-medicine will kill you:
If the "unbiased" media considers the people who value freedom of choice in healthcare to be an "angry mob," then this protester was proud to be a member of that mob:Actually, she is a very nice grandmother but don't let the "unbiased" reporters hear that.

As the protest went on, a double-decker tour bus went by:I suspect that the last thing that the tourists in that bus expected to see was conservatives and libertarians protesting in San Francisco.

This protest was organized by the San Francisco Bay Area Patriots.

WELCOME to Michelle Malkin readers! Thanks also to Bookwormroom, The Snooper Report, and Newsvine for their links.

PREVIOUSLY on the subject of local protests and tea parties:
A Tea Party greets Obama in San Francisco (Oct. 15)
Videos of the October 15 San Francisco Tea Party
San Franciscans speak to Nancy Pelosi (Aug. 14)
The San Francisco Tax Day Tea Party Protest in Pictures (Apr. 15)
Rep. Eshoo's health care town hall (Sep. 2)
Rep. Speier's town hall meeting (Aug. 23)
Million man Tea party

Rahm Emanuel on the Obamacare disaster

After reviewing several methods for lowering health care costs and noting that the White House plans to use none on them, James Capretta writes:

And so what’s the White House response to this alarming state of fiscal affairs? As recounted in the Times piece, Emanuel blames the limits of politics. “Let’s be honest,” Emanuel apparently stated in a recent interview. “The goal isn’t to see whether I can pass this through the executive board of the Brookings Institution. I’m passing it through the United State Congress with people who represent constituents.”

That’s exactly right of course. But it’s also an indictment of the entire Obamacare enterprise. The health-care bills under consideration would hand over to the federal government nearly all power for organizing American health care. And yet there is not a shred of evidence that Congress or the administration can handle these tasks well.

MSNBC reports fake news

From NewsBusters:

On Friday's edition of Morning Meeting, host Dylan Ratigan featured fake photos of Sarah Palin during a mocking segment on why Americans are fascinated with the former vice presidential candidate. While listing the show’s top ten reasons, Ratigan showed a doctored photo of Palin’s head on the bikini-clad body of a woman holding a weapon.

These photos were not new: Snopes labeled them as fakes over a year ago.

RELATED:  The New York Times attacks Sarah Palin's new book as a "payback hit job."   John Hinderaker has more on the Times' snarkiness.

Who is Meg Whitman?

Meg Whitman is running for governor of California as a Republican. Who is she? For one, she is a "huge fan" of Marxist ex-czar Van Jones:
It is also reported that the 53-year old e-Bay billionaire did not register to vote until 2002 and did not register as a Republican until 2007.

UPDATE: Meg Whitman, through her campaign, has responded to the Van Jones video:

“My husband and I met him and many others on a cruise sponsored by National Geographic and The Aspen Institute. He talked about supporting job growth in California, but of course I did not do a background check of his past over dinner. As these reports have surfaced, it’s clear that he holds views that I entirely reject; any suggestion otherwise is ridiculous.”

That may be but I would prefer a Governor who could spot a con-man without needing a full background check.

MORE: Meg Whitman's campaign donations have been overwhelmingly to Republicans, by $212,101 to Republicans against $10,000 to Democrats. Her contributions to Democrats, however, were not to moderates: she gave to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA), Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Rep.Gary L. Ackerman (D-NY), and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA). These contributions all occurred before her decision to become a Republican in 2007.

Obamanomics fail

According to Bloomberg news, Kevin Griffis, a spokesman for U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, says the Obama administration is working hard to saving US jobs:

“This administration has made a significant commitment to U.S. manufacturing, including reforming the country’s health insurance system to bring down costs and make American companies more competitive globally,” Griffis said. [Emph. added]

What do US manufacturers think of that? Emerson Electric Co. makes electrical equipment, including the well-known InSinkErator
garbage disposals, and has an annual sales of $21 billion.  Emerson Chief Executive Officer David Farr explains the predicament that Pres. Obama has created for him:

“Washington is doing everything in their manpower, capability, to destroy U.S. manufacturing,” Farr said today in Chicago at a Baird Industrial Outlook conference. “Cap and trade, medical reform, labor rules.” ....

"What do you think I am going to do?” Farr asked. “I’m not going to hire anybody in the United States. I’m moving. They are doing everything possible to destroy jobs.” [Emph. added]

Hat tip: Instapundit.

NY23 race grows tighter

Althought polls seemed to show conservative Hoffman leading in the special election for New York's 23rd district, election night results showed a decisive victory for Democrat Owens. Now, as the count continues, the race appears to be tightening. Hoffman has not yet decided to contest the race officially.

That the US cannot count ballots better than this is a real scandal.

UPDATE: Hoffman has un-conceded and would win, according to the Hill, if he receives 65% of the uncounted absentee ballots. (H/T Instapundit.)

Harvard economist explains why Obamacare will raise premiums

The people in Congress seem to know nothing about how insurance actually works. Martin Feldstein, who is a professor of economics at Harvard University and the president emeritus of the nonprofit National Bureau of Economic Research, explains what should be obvious about the insurance market. In the Washington Post, he writes:

A key feature of the House and Senate health bills would prevent insurance companies from denying coverage to anyone with preexisting conditions. The new coverage would start immediately, and the premium could not reflect the individual's health condition.

This well-intentioned feature would provide a strong incentive for someone who is healthy to drop his or her health insurance, saving the substantial premium costs. After all, if serious illness hit this person or a family member, he could immediately obtain coverage. As healthy individuals decline coverage in this way, insurance companies would come to have a sicker population. The higher cost of insuring that group would force insurers to raise their premiums. (Separate accident policies might develop to deal with the risk of high-cost care after accidents when there is insufficient time to buy insurance.)

The higher premium level would cause others who are currently insured to drop coverage, pushing premiums even higher. The result would be a spiral of rising premiums and shrinking numbers of insured.

In an attempt to prevent this, the draft legislation provides penalties for individuals who choose not to buy insurance and for employers that do not offer health insurance. But the levels of these fines are generally too low to cause a rational individual to insure.

Consider: 27 million people are covered by health insurance purchased directly, i.e. outside employer-based plans. The average cost of an insurance policy with family coverage in 2009 is $13,375. A married couple with a median family income of $75,000 who choose not to insure would be subject to a fine of 2.5 percent of that $75,000, or $1,875. So the family would save a net $11,500 by not insuring. If a serious illness occurs -- a chronic condition or a condition that requires surgery -- they could then buy insurance. Since fewer than one family in four has annual health-care costs that exceed $10,000, the decision to drop coverage looks like a good bet. For a lower-income family, the fine is smaller, and the incentive to be uninsured is even greater.

At the San Francisco Obamacare tea party last October 15, I listened to many liberals explain that insurance companies' treatment of pre-existing conditions was evil. Yet, when asked, none appeared to have thought about (a) how consumers would behave if insurance had to be granted regardless of pre-existing conditions, and (b) how that would require insurance rates to change. Pelosi and the House's other 219 supporters of Obamacare seem just as clueless.

More suppression of dissent at EPA

Two lawyers at EPA say that the cap-and-tax bill currently in Congress will work poorly. They produced a video explaining their position. Their video clearly states that they are presenting their personal opinions: "Nothing in this video is intended to represent the views of the EPA or the Obama administration." That, however, wasn't good enough. The EPA is threatening them with disciplinary action. The New York Times reports:

The Environmental Protection Agency has directed two of its lawyers to makes changes to a YouTube video they posted that is critical of the Obama administration’s climate change policy.

The agency, citing federal policies, told the two lawyers, Laurie Williams and Allan Zabel, who are married and based in San Francisco, that they could mention their E.P.A. affiliation only once; must remove language specifying Mr. Zabel’s expertise and their years of employment with the agency; and must remove an image of the agency’s office in San Francisco.

They have been told that if they do not edit the video to comply with the policy, they could face disciplinary action. [Emph. added]

Under Obama rules, EPA employee Mr. Zabel loses the right to his own resume!

Their video does not dispute anthropogenic global warming. Their argument is merely that cap-and-trade is an ineffective and counter-productive approach for dealing with CO2 emissions. The EPA attack on their video began after the Zabel and Williams published an op-ed on cap-and-tax in the Washington Post.

Hat tip: Michelle Malkin

PREVIOUSLY:
EPA silences economist and CO2 skeptic Dr. Alan Carlin
Environmentalists kill geese to prevent the geese from polluting the environment.

Democrats and Taxes

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that yet another prominent Democrat was caught cheating on this taxes:

Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums and his wife failed to pay more than $239,000 in taxes over a three-year period and have had a lien slapped on their property by the Internal Revenue Service, public records show.

Dellums, 73, and his wife, Cynthia, 55, who acts as his unpaid adviser, are named in an IRS lien filed with the Alameda County recorder's office Oct. 14. A lien naming Ron Dellums was also filed Oct. 22 in Washington, D.C., where he lived for more than 30 years as a member of Congress and a lobbyist.

The Alameda County lien says the couple failed to pay $124,198 in federal income taxes in 2005, $66,554 in 2006 and $48,246 in 2007, the year Dellums took office as mayor.

Mayor Dellums' city is also financially mis-managed:

A city report projects a deficit of $18.9 million in Oakland's general fund by the end of the 2009-10 fiscal year because of revenue shortfalls and some overspending from July through September.

What it means is more painful budget cuts for a city that faced an $83 million budget deficit going into the fiscal year and had to cut an additional $8.1 million out of the general fund at the end of July.

Prior to being mayor, Ron Dellums served in Congress where he had the distinction of being "the first avowed socialist in Congress since World War Two."

Clearly, Pres. Obama should take notice and appoint Dellums to be one of his czars.

PREVIOUSLY:
Sen. Daschle caught not paying taxes
Rep. Charlie Rangel and unpaid taxes
57% of those who describe themselves as "very liberal" think it OK to cheat on taxes.
Taxes, Sen. Al Franken, Sen. Paul Wellstone, and Clinton's AG nominees
The rules apply only to other people

The incoherence of government health care

As illustrated by Glenn McCoy:

Obama's war on science

A huge number of scientists are on record as being skeptical of global warming hysteria. Pres. Obama does not consider their views to be legitimate, as he explained in a speech last month:

The naysayers, the folks who would pretend that this is not an issue, they are being marginalized.  But I think it's important to understand that the closer we get, the harder the opposition will fight and the more we'll hear from those whose interest or ideology run counter to the much needed action that we're engaged in.  There are those who will suggest that moving toward clean energy will destroy our economy -- when it's the system we currently have that endangers our prosperity and prevents us from creating millions of new jobs.  There are going to be those who cynically claim -- make cynical claims that contradict the overwhelming scientific evidence when it comes to climate change, claims whose only purpose is to defeat or delay the change that we know is necessary.

So we're going to have to work on those folks.

Stalin declared that the science of genetics was considered 'bourgeois.'  In the USSR, it was replaced by a Marxist theory of biology ('Lysenkoism').  In the US, over 30,000 scientists have publicly signed this petition skeptical of global warming.  Will Obama succeed in "marginalizing" them? Or, will he have to go "to work on" them?

RELATED: Patrick J. Michaels comments on the same speech here.  Separately, the EPA suppressed a report by Dr. Alan Carlin that was skeptical of the Obama administration's global warming claims.  The NY Times' defense of the EPA is here.

PREVIOUSLY:
Scientists failing to back Al Gore
More fraud in Global Warmist research?
Obama and the triumph of ideology over science
Global Warming and Cooling in Review
Global warming and the test of science, III
Global Warming and the test of science II
Global warming and the test of Science
NASA hypes false warming data
Science v. Gore

PBS says its attack on Fox News was wrong

PBS used its Government-subsidized Sesame Street children's show to attack Fox News as "trashy."  PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler says:

Broadcasters can tell parents whatever they think of Fox or any other network, but you shouldn’t do it through the kids.

White House war on Fox News continues

As those who watch it know, Fox News attempts to present both sides. This is done in part by having Democrats and Democratic consultants on to discuss issues. The Obama White House objects to this. They want Democratic consultants to stay off Fox, apparently in the hope that that will make Fox appear biased. The LA Times reports:

One Democratic strategist said that shortly after an appearance on Fox, he got a phone call from a White House official telling him not to be a guest on the show again. The call had an intimidating tone, he said.

The message was, " 'We better not see you on again,' " said the strategist, who spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to run afoul of the White House. An implicit suggestion, he said, was that "clients might stop using you if you continue."

In urging Democratic consultants to spurn Fox, White House officials might be trying to isolate the network and make it appear more partisan.

A boycott by Democratic strategists could also help drive the White House narrative that Fox is a fundamentally different creature than the other TV news networks. ....

But Patrick Caddell, a Fox News contributor and a former pollster for President Carter, said he has spoken to Democratic consultants who have been told by the White House to avoid appearances on Fox. He declined to give their names. ....

Caddell added: "I have heard that they've done that to others in not-too-subtle ways. I find it appalling. When the White House gets in the business of suppressing dissent and comment, particularly from its own party, it hurts itself." ....

Fox's viewership is not what worries the White House, though. More troubling to White House aides is that other news organizations may uncritically follow stories that Fox has showcased. [Emph. added]

The White House denies making such threats to consultants.

Hat tip: Anonymous commenter.

PREVIOUSLY on the Democrat's war on Fox News:
Possible WH endgame in war on Fox
Obama's war on Fox, updated
Obama's war on Fox
Fox News and Obama's Nixonesque enemies list
Obama White House has time to demonize Fox but not to work on Afghanistan
Rep. Sanchez (D-CA) proposes making dissent illegal

Obama vs. Fox; Also MediaMatters caught again

In the Wall Street Journal, Glenn Reynolds explains how Pres. Obama may be setting the ground work for prosecuting Fox News under campaign finance laws:

Bert Gall and Robert Frommer of the Institute for Justice have made a compelling case that the Obama administration's word choice is quite significant. They think that by branding Fox as something other than a "legitimate news organization," the White House is actually setting up a more brutal attack using campaign finance laws. News media organizations are exempt from campaign-finance laws' speech regulations. But if Fox is not a "legitimate news organization," then federal election authorities might be able to argue that its political speech can be regulated like that of any other non-news corporation.

Over at MediaMatters, Eric Boehlert concludes that Prof. Reynolds argument is "So dumb it hurts." How does Mr. Boehlert reach that conclusion? He uses dishonest editing.

PREVIOUSLY on Media Matters for America:
MediaMatters caught dishonestly editing Glenn Beck
Unbiased MSM gets its "truth" from Media Matters for America

PREVIOUSLY on the Democrat's war on Fox News:
Obama's war on Fox, updated
Obama's war on Fox
Fox News and Obama's Nixonesque enemies list
Obama White House has time to demonize Fox but not to work on Afghanistan
Rep. Sanchez (D-CA) proposes making dissent illegal

Barack Obama loves you!

At Gotham Avenue School, Fifth graders sing for their class performance:

We believe in Barack Obama
He loves you and he loves your mama
We believe in Barack Obama, yeah
With all the change he’s building
Gonna bring hope to the children
We believe in Barack Obama, yeah

BigHollywood has the video along with 10 other school songs. Among them is Powell Elementary School where the children sing:

Barack Obama there is none higher
Other politicians should call me sire
To burn my kingdom you must use fire
I create change till I retire!

Democratic Party come correct
...

Nothing like non-partisan education!

Why is this creepy?  Those of us who went to school when schools taught history, not Democrat-worship, remember that a turning point in Germany occurred when officials were required to swear an oath not to Germany, not to its government, but to Hitler personally.  Of course, Obama is no Hitler.  But, that, alone, doesn't mean that history lessons should be forgotten.

Hat tip: Ed Driscoll.

Are House Democrats racist?

Consider this:

The House ethics committee is currently investigating seven African-American lawmakers — more than 15 percent of the total in the House. And an eighth black member, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.), would be under investigation if the Justice Department hadn’t asked the committee to stand down.

Not a single white lawmaker is currently the subject of a full-scale ethics committee probe

If the people involved were not Democrats, a quota-obsessed liberal would consider that ratio to be proof of racism.  But then quota-obsessed liberals are usually wrong.

Last week, the ethics committee opened full investigations into Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Rep. Laura Richardson (D-CA),  Rep. Rangel (D-NY) is the subject of two investigations.  One of those investigation regards allegations that he accepted corporate money to pay for Carribean travel.  Rep. Carolyn Kilpatrick (D-MI), Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS.), Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ), and Rep. Del. Donna Christensen (D-Virgin Islands) are also being investigated for similar travel issues.

Hat tip: Legal Insurrection

More than half of US HUMINT on al-Queda came from detainee interrogations

Through FOIA, Judicial Watch has obtained more CIA reports confirming the importance of interrogations:

Notably, the June 1, 2005 report concludes that "Detainee reporting accounts for more than half of all HUMINT reporting on al-Qa'ida since the program began..." ....   All three reports conclude: "One of the gains to detaining the additional terrorists has been the thwarting of a number of al-Qa'ida operations in the United States and overseas."

It is no wonder that Pres. Obama did not want us to see these reports.

This new information is consistent with an even more astonishing statement that Vice President Cheney made during an interview on ABC News regarding the success of waterboarding of senior al Qaeda terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM):

“There was a period of time there, three or four years ago, when about half of everything we knew about al Qaeda came from that one source [KSM]. So, it's been a remarkably successful effort. I think the results speak for themselves.”

Pres. Obama is still promising to close the military prison in Guantanamo Bay:

"We are going to close Guantanamo. We are serious about this."

Everyone working for bin Laden must be breathing a sigh of relief.

How to buy a vote

If you are in a close race and election day arrives and you still need some more votes, you ask yourself: how much does a vote cost? From Hoboken, New Jersey, we have an answer: $10. John Fund explains the details:

In 2007, a former Hoboken zoning board president noticed a group of men outside a polling place being given index cards by two people. One of the loiterers later tried to vote in the name of a voter who had moved out of the area. When challenged by the former zoning board president, he ran out of the building and was caught. He later admitted to police he was part of a group from a homeless shelter who had been paid $10 each to vote using the names of other people.

Of course, if you want to avoid the risk of the derelicts getting caught like that, absentee ballots seem to be the preferred method for modern vote fraud, as explained below.

UPDATE with new lower price: The Ohio state Democratic party chairman is trying to put a stop to Athens County Democratic Party Chair Susan Gwinn's alleged attempt to pay students $5 to vote. Athens County authorities are investigating while a spokesman for Ohio University College Democrats denies misconduct.

PREVIOUSLY on the subject of vote fraud:
NJ Dems demand equal rights for fraudulent voters
Nevada accuses ACORN of 39 felonies
Three Obama supporters plead guilty
Another ex-ACORN worker pleads guilty
An insider's guide to vote fraud