Ken Berwitz

Please read this commentary from Charles Johnson of www.littlegreenfootballs.com  It is about Dr. Mads Gilbert, who has been treating palestinian Arab patients at a hospital in Gaza -- and has also been a ubiquitous presence on US media for the last day or two:

Norwegian Doctor in Gaza Supported 9/11 Attacks

Middle East | Tue, Jan 6, 2009 at 3:58:57 pm PST

Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor in Gaza, is all over the mainstream media, claiming that Israel is indiscriminately and purposely murdering civilians. He’s given interviews to the BBC, CBS, NBC, CNN, ABC, the Independent, Sky News, and the New York Times, among others.

And in 2001, shortly after the 9/11 terror attacks, this supposedly impartial Norwegian doctor (actually a radical Marxist member of Norway’s Red party) expressed support for the hijackers.

In an interview with the Norwegian daily, Dagbladet, shortly after the attacks, Gilbert stated:

“The attack on New York was not surprising, after the policy that has led the West in recent decades. I am upset over the terrorist attack, but am equally upset over the suffering which the United States has created. It is in this context that the 5000 dead people must be seen. If the U.S. government has a legitimate right to bomb and kill civilians in Iraq, then there is also a moral right to attack the United States with the weapons they had to create. Dead civilians are the same whether they are Americans, Palestinians or Iraqis.”

When asked by Dagbladet if he supported the terrorist attack on the U.S., he replied:

“Terror is a bad weapon, but the answer is yes, within the context I have mentioned.”

Of course, not a single mainstream media report on the creep mentions any of this.

Remember what you just read the next time you see this scumbag being treated like some kind of humanitarian icon by our wonderful "neutral" media.

Ken Berwitz

Here, from Scott Whitlock of www.newsbusters.org, is the transcript of barney frank's whine-fest....er, intelligent interview with Chris Cuomo of Good Morning America today.  As you read it, please keep in mind that, politically, Cuomo is on frank's side of things:

On ABC, Dem Barney Frank Rages at 'Distortions' of Chris Cuomo

By Scott Whitlock (Bio | Archive)
January 6, 2009 - 17:46 ET

"Good Morning America" news anchor Chris Cuomo on Tuesday actually challenged liberal House member Barney Frank over how Congress has spent the bailout money. At one point, after the host implored Frank to think of the American taxpayers, the irritated congressman commanded, "I'm sorry, sir, but- I'm sorry, if you keep interrupting we cannot have a coherent conversation." Frank would later rage over Cuomo's "distortions."

The ABC News anchor kicked off the interview by observing, "You Democrats say you're gung ho, talking numbers in this stimulus plan." He then skeptically queried, "But, in light of all the spending that's been done already with the questionable results, what gives you the confidence that you can pass this?" Now, it should be pointed out that Cuomo often seemed to be pressing the Democratic congressman from the left. Regarding those Americans who took out loans for more than they could pay back, he asked, "Why didn't you look out for the little guy and make sure that first package, instead of $270 billion to financial institutions, went to the people holding those mortgages?" The host continued, "Went to the working men and women? Why didn't you do that first?"

However, Cuomo should be given credit for not allowing Frank to simply blame the Bush administration. After one such attempt, the journalist attacked, "Mr. Chairman, your title is Chairman of the House Financial Committee. I mean, certainly, this isn't just about you looking to the administration. You have a role in this also."

Towards the end of the segment, Cuomo again provoked the ire of Frank. Speaking of the American taxpayer, he questioned, "You seem to be saying that you're powerless in this. Why should they have confidence in the new administration?" Frank angrily shot back, "No, I'm not saying that. Excuse me. I'm sorry, this is terribly distorted! I didn't say I was powerless." The back and forth continued and, as Cuomo attempted to end the interview, the powerful Democrat complained that "responding to your distortions takes some time."

A transcript of the January 6 segment, which occurred at 7:41am, follows:

CHRIS CUOMO: We're hearing a lot about this new economic stimulus plan. Unimaginable numbers. $700, $800 billion. And it makes us think. Well, what happened to that other $700 billion bill that Congress passed already? Where's that money going? What do we know? What is really the option going forward? Who knows better than the man who is about to join us from Washington? Massachusetts Representative, Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. Good morning, Mr. Chairman.

CONGRESSMAN BARNEY FRANK: Good morning.

CUOMO: Thank you for joining us. So, Congress is back. You Democrats say you're gung ho, talking numbers in this stimulus plan. But, in light of all the spending that's been done already with the questionable results, what gives you the confidence that you can pass this?

BARNEY FRANK: Well, first, I am struck when people like yourself , Chris, talk about all the great spending that nobody mentions the Iraq war. And I think we really lose perspective here. You know, in 2001, we were trying to get the budget balanced. We got committed to an enormous increase in military spending. And I was opposed to that. I think it's been a great waste. I hope we can cut that back. And obviously, all spending is relevant. But I wish people would not ignore the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of billions, probably ultimately more than a trillion, that will go to that war. Secondly, we are talking about two different things. We've had two different crises. And I do think intelligence analysis looks at what the problem is and what you try to do for each problem. First, we had a credit crisis in which people having, in the private sector, and this is a private-sector-caused problem, they made bad investments. Unwise investments. And then they sold each other these bad investments. Unfortunately, you had in Washington at the time, during the past ten years, the philosophy that the market knows best. And regulation wasn't present to give people some safeguards. As a result of having bought a lot of bad stuff, people wouldn't buy good stuff. The Bush administration came to us and said if you don't give us $700 billion right away, they'll be a collapse. Now, we have a problem, because the initiative is with the administration. But, it hasn't been $700 billion. We did vote the authorization. But we said that after they spent the first half, they were going to have to notify Congress before they can spend the second half. We are sufficiently dissatisfied with what the Bush administration did with the first half.

CUOMO: But, Mr. Chairman-

FRANK: So, as of now, that second 350 is frozen and not being spent until we come to some agreement with the Obama administration about how to spend it.

CUOMO: Mr. Chairman, your title is Chairman of the House Financial Committee. I mean, certainly, this isn't just about you looking to the administration. You have a role in this also.

FRANK: Well, one, technically-

CUOMO: You approved the T.A.R.P plan. You approved the spending. And the question is, where is the accountability? Do you know where that money went?

FRANK: Well, I'm trying to explain that. No, in part, we don't- first of all, this is not just a technical thing since you're stretching the title. It's the Financial Services Committee. I say that because there is a Senate Finance Committee that deals with taxes. Yes, we know in part where it went. We are unhappy with that. We set up a mechanism to monitor it. And because we are unhappy with it, we have frozen the second half of it.

CUOMO: But just think about that as the taxpayers out there, Mr. Chairman-

FRANK: I'm sorry, sir, but- I'm sorry, if you keep interrupting we cannot have a coherent conversation. These are not subjects that can be answered in 18 seconds. You asked me what's happened, I told you. They spent the 350 differently then they told us. We expected them to spend a lot to spend on diminishing foreclosures. They refused to do that. As a result, we have froze the second half. And we won't unfreeze it until we get an agreement, and I think we will, because we have a different and, I think more flexible, administration.

CUOMO: Let me ask you a different question here. We said we have two different crises, credit crisis, consumer crisis. But ultimately, they both come down to the citizens who put up their money to help with these problems. Why didn't you help them first? Why didn't you look out for the little guy and make sure that first package, instead of $270 billion to financial institutions, went to the people holding those mortgages? Went to the working men and women? Why didn't you do that first?

FRANK: We tried to do that. We thought we were doing that. When we wrote the bill in the House- and there is a problem because you have an administration and they have got the initiative- That's the way the American system of government works. When we wrote the bill, we wrote it very differently than they asked us. And we instructed them to, in fact, do exactly that, to provide a larger amount of money for mortgage foreclosure. To our surprise, the administration refused to do that. Now, under the American system of government, when you give people the authority and tell them to do things, the courts will not order them to do that. They say, well, that's discretionary. So, in fact, if you looked at this, and we've had hearings, by the way. We had a hearing once it was clear the administration was not going to use the authority we gave them to reduce foreclosures, we called Secretary Paulson up. We complained about that. He refused to do it. We had one option, which was to freeze half the money. So, it's not a $700 billion program at this point. It's a lot of money. But it's only half. And we're not going to release any more money until we get the Obama administration, which is much better on this, to commit to do that. We've tried very hard to push the Bush administration to use the authority and the funds we gave them to reduce foreclosures. They refused. And that's why things are on hold until we get a new administration.

CUOMO: The American taxpayer, well, the American taxpayer is hearing all this.$10 Billions in bonuses. Golden Sachs and Morgan Stanley, alone. You seem to be saying that you're powerless in this. Why should they have confidence in the new administration?

FRANK: No, I'm not saying that. Excuse me. I'm sorry, this is terribly distorted! I didn't say I was powerless.

CUOMO: You said the administration proposed it. That there's a method of doing things. That you didn't like it, but that's the way it is.

FRANK: No, I'm sorry. This is the worst kind of distortion! In the first place, I don't think it's powerlessness to say, instead of spending $700 billion, you're only going to be able to spend half of it and we will freeze the second half. I am saying, yes, when we have a president in power, and he's named the Secretary of the Treasury, Congress cannot under the Constitution directly administer programs. We can create the programs. We can authorize the administration to do it. This is an administration that has defied congressional authority in a number of cases. Finally, we had one option, which was to stop it. That's not powerlessness. I don't think freezing $350 billion is not doing anything, and holding it until the Obama people get there. And if you think that Congress can simply take over and run the program, that simply isn't the way the American Constitution works. So, yes, it is the case that is the case that we authorized-

CUOMO: I don't mean to cut you off. I don't mean to cut you off.

FRANK: Well, it takes some time to- responding to your distortions takes some time.

CUOMO: It's a longer conversation. I want to get you that time. I promise I'll try. Thank you for joining us this morning. I appreciate it.

Did you happen to notice what portion of the time frank was speaking?  Do you think he didn't get a chance to voice his positions?

Simply stated, barney frank is correct 100% of the time, every one else is the screwup except him, and if he isn't doing all the talking he is being horribly mistreated.

Thanks, Newton Massachusetts, for re-electing this whining crybaby incompetent clown again.  The comic relief could have been great fun. 

Unfortunately, however, frank chairs the financial services committee.  So it isn't fun at all.  It's a disaster.  A disaster peppered with unending hissy-fits every time someone blames him for...frankly, for what he should be blamed for.

Maybe next time you can replace him with Fred Flintstone.  He's probably as competent as barney frank, almost certainly funnier, and with his inimitable level of diplomacy and savoir-faire he could even double as chief of protocol.

Yabba Dabba Doo.

Ken Berwitz

From John Hinderaker of www.powerlineblog.com:

French TV Shows Gazans Killed By Hamas, Blames Israel

 

January 6, 2009 Posted by John at 3:28 PM

Public television network France 2 has admitted that earlier today, it showed photos of dozens of bodies of members of Hamas and civilians who it said were killed in an Israeli bombing raid on January 1. Only problem: the photos were actually taken in 2005, and the people depicted were killed not by Israel, but when "a truck full of explosives blew up in the Jabaliya Refugee Camp." The terrorists, in other words, blew themselves up accidentally and took a number of civilians with them.

But I bet they check Israel's photos over and over again.....

Ken Berwitz

This story by Bob Owens, writing for www.pajamasmedia.com ,  purports to show how dishonest Reuters is in reporting about Israel's report on Gaza. 

Please read it, look at the pictures, and decide for yourself:

Reuters: In the Service of Hamas

The news giant is once again blatantly mislabeling defensive measures from Israeli aircraft as offensive weapons.

At least four Reuters photos released over the weekend purported to show Israeli aircraft deploying weapons against Hamas targets, when the photos clearly show that the helicopters and fighter aircraft were actually dropping flares to thwart possible surface-to-air missile attacks.

***

Actual scene: F-16 fighter, single flare

Reuters caption: “An Israeli F-16 fighter jet flies over the northern Gaza Strip after deploying a weapons system January 3, 2009. Israeli forces bombed the Gaza Strip from the air and sea on Saturday, and desperate residents of the Palestinian enclave sheltered in their homes as the offensive entered a second week.”

Actual scene: AH-64 Apache helicopter, single flare

Reuters caption: “An Israeli Apache gunship flies over the northern Gaza Strip after firing a weapons system January 4, 2009. Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants battled in Gaza on Sunday after Israeli troops and tanks invaded the coastal enclave in the most serious fighting in the conflict in decades.”

Actual scene: AH-64 Apache helicopter, three flares

Reuters caption: “An Israeli Apache helicopter flies over the northern Gaza Strip after firing a weapons system January 4, 2009. Israeli tanks and infantry battled Hamas fighters in the Gaza Strip on Sunday in a ground offensive launched after eight days of deadly air strikes failed to halt the Islamist group’s rocket attacks on Israel.”

Actual scene: AH-64 Apache helicopter, multiple flares

Reuters caption: “An Israeli Apache gunship flies over the northern Gaza Strip after firing a weapons system January 4, 2009. Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants battled on Gaza City’s outskirts on Sunday after Israeli troops and tanks invaded the coastal enclave in the worst fighting in the conflict in decades.”

***

This deception is particularly heinous considering that Hajj’s retouching of a photo of an Israeli F-16 and labeling defensive flares as offensive weapons was one of the reasons that he and a Reuters photo editor were fired and more than 900 of Hajj’s photos were withdrawn by Reuters in 2006.

There is simply no excuse for a Reuters photo editor to again allow such deception, considering the high-profile disinformation that stung that organization in 2006. Captions created by Palestinian photojournalists with an obvious pro-Hamas bias are being furthered without competent editorial oversight by a news organization that has been caught fabricating anti-Israeli propaganda on multiple occasions.

Two Reuters employees were fired in disgrace the last time the news organization was caught with its bias too nakedly exposed. Obviously, the lesson was not learned.

Owens is 100% correct about Adnan Hajj.  You would think his phony pictures - hundreds and hundreds of them - were so  devastatingly embarrassing for Reuters that the agency would be triply careful before letting it happen again.

Well, you just saw the pictures.  Is this another blatant fraud? 

It sure seems so.

So the question then becomes why?  Why would Reuters do it again?

-Is Reuters so pro-hamas that it is willing to act as a propaganda arm for the organization?

-Is Reuters so anti-Israel that it is willing to blatantly lie about its military actions?

-Is Reuters so fearful of the repercussions if it reports honestly that it will go this far to appease the terrorists and other assorted crazies in Gaza?

Your call.

Ken Berwitz

Remember those perfectly obnoxious ads featuring Joe Kennedy?  The ones in which he touts that noted humanitarian, hugo chavez, and his "free oil" program to poor people in the US?

Well, now that oil prices have come down to earth and it would actually cost Venezuela a little something to do this, I thought you'd be interested in chavez' slight change of policy. 

It comes to us from the Boston Herald:

Citgo pulls $100M in oil donations to Citizens Energy
Left out in the cold

Photo by Ted Fitzgerald

Joe Kennedy announced yesterday he’s laying off 20 employees and temporarily halting most of his winter fuel-assistance programs due to Citgo yanking $100 million in support for the nonprofit Citizens Energy.

Citgo, owned by the Venezuelan government led by leftist loudmouth president Hugo Chavez, recently informed Kennedy that it was “temporarily” suspending its oil donations for the low-income program.

Kennedy, who was clearly distraught by the unexpected decision, said Citgo’s move is apparently tied to the recent dramatic fall in crude-oil prices.

Hundreds of thousands of needy Americans in 23 states and on Indian reservations will have to go elsewhere to get heating fuel, because Citizens no longer has the resources, Kennedy said.

“I’m very hopeful we can turn this around,” said Kennedy, who vowed to try to meet with Chavez in Venezuela to pitch keeping the project.

He urged people to directly write to Chavez to appeal to him to restart the 2009 program, which was supposed to officially begin yesterday.

Citgo, which declined comment yesterday, has been providing oil to Citizens since 2005.

The Citgo donations have been controversial because of the perception that Chavez, a notorious anti-American, was using the program for propaganda purposes. Kennedy has countered that the U.S. gets much of its oil from far more controversial nations, such as Saudi Arabia.

At a press conference yesterday at Citizens’ South Boston headquarters, employees who will lose their jobs stood in back of the stunned Kennedy as he announced Citgo’s move.

Citizens will still run other energy-related programs, and Massachusetts homeless shelters and some needy individuals will get fuel delivered to their homes.

But Kennedy said Citgo’s support amounted to about 90 percent of the funding for Citizens’ fuel-assistance programs nationwide.

See, when chavez had more oil money than he knew what to do with, he was a great "humanitarian".  And did those TV cameras ever roll!

But now that he no longer is swimming in dough?   Let 'em freeze.  And where have you seen coverage of this news other than the Boston Herald?

There you have it:  the great "humanitarian" hugo chavez.....and our wonderful "neutral" media.

Ken Berwitz

The CBS Early show is a chronic ratings loser.  By plenty.  The Today show and Good Morning America are miles and miles ahead in viewership and have been for years.

Ann Coulter is a hugely successful author and speaker.

So when Ms. Coulter was dumped by Today and the rest of NBC because she had bad things to say about that (and pretty much every other) network, CBS jumped at the chance to interview her. 

As my mother says, "any port in a storm".  If you're down the crapper ratings-wise, you will book anyone who might boost those ratings - even someone you clearly hate.

This morning, when Ms. Coulter originally was to have been on Today, she instead was interviewed by Harry Smith of the CBS Early Show.

The problem?  Rather than doing a straight-up interview with Coulter, Smith decided to be rude, patronizing and insulting. 

Big mistake.

Coulter, who is no stranger to people like Smith, returned fire.  She gave him all he could handle and more.

Now you would never know this based on CBS' write-up of the interview, which is posted below.  You'd swear that Smith was completely professional 

But CBS also provided a video of the interview, so you could see for yourself. 

First watch the video, then we'll talk a bit about it:

Coulter, Harry Take Each Other On

Have Words On The Early Show About Her Mention Of Him In Her New Book, And Other Matters

Ann Coulter on The Early Show Tuesday (CBS)

(CBS) Ann Coulter says liberals should look in the mirror.

In her latest book, "Guilty: Liberal 'Victims' and Their Assault on America," the conservative firebrand stirs up controversy again, contending that liberals in America try to play victim when really, they're the bullies.

While she's at it, she points fingers at what she calls the liberal media.

"(The book is) basically about how victimhood is rewarded and everyone wants to be a victim," Coulter told CBS News. "It's about the rewards and praise you get for being a victim and the way liberals use victimhood and they oppress others."

At one point in "Guilty," Coulter remarks about an interview of Sen. Ted Kennedy by Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith in which Smith asks Kennedy if Barack Obama is at increased risk of being assassinated because he's African American. She dismisses the notion, saying presidential assassinations have been the work of left-wingers or people with no political leanings at all.

Coulter and Smith met face-to-face on The Early Show Tuesday, and didn't mince words about that issue or anything else.

Among other things, Coulter contended that liberals are at fault for the skyrocketing rate of out-of-wedlock births in the U.S.

Smith said, in one context, Coulter is a whiner, and accused Coulter of doing the very thing she claims liberals do: playing the victim.

For much more on "Guilty," click here.

The watchdog group Media Matters explored what it asserts are inaccuracies in "Guilty." To see that assessment, click here.

In case you don't remember exactly, here is Harry Smith's introduction, word for word:

SMITH:  "Conservative firebrand Ann Coulter is at it again stirring up controversy with her new book, 'Guilty, Liberal Victims and their Assault on America', and Ann is with us live in the studio this morning. Good morning.  

COULTER:  Good morning.

SMITH:  Uhhmm, y'know what, you want to be taken seriously.  I thi..I sense that.  Right?  Don't you?  Right? 

So before Ms. Coulter had a chance to say anything other than "good morning", Smith defined her as a conservative firebrand (dictionary definition:  "one who creates unrest and strife") who is stirring up controversy, then patronizingly, disdainfully talked down to her the way an exasperated parent might talk when admonishing a young child.

Little wonder that Coulter responded in kind, and nailed Smith later on in the interview. 

Smith's interviewing technique reminds me of hamas' strategy in Gaza:  initiate an attack against an enemy with far superior capabilities, then cry foul when the enemy successfully fights back.

Is it fair to say that what Coulter wrote about Smith - and so many others like him in mainstream media - is based on the attitude he so openly displayed in this interview?  I would think so.

And what about the end of CBS' article, which links readers to a hard-left web site that hates Coulter's guts? 

Is there any counterbalancing link to a right wing site that agrees with her?  Nope.  This is CBS. Mainstream media.  Why would you even begin to expect two sides here?

Ironically, in behaving this way, Smith and CBS provide chapter and verse of why Coulter's books sell so well. I wonder if that ever sinks in with these people, or if they even care.

Look, I've said many times in here that I'm no fan of Ann Coulter.  And despite my support of how well she took down Harry Smith, I'm still no fan.  I think of Coulter as the right wing version of Michael Moore (plus about 8 inches of neck and minus about 300 lbs). 

But I know a hit job when I see one.  And this was what Harry Smith set out to do. 

Too bad for Smith that Coulter is so much better at it than he is.  Maybe she should be doing the interviews on the CBS Early Show.  It certainly could use the ratings boost.

Ken Berwitz

This short piece is from, writing for www.americanthinker.com.  Please read it through and see if it affects your belief regarding "global warming":

January 05, 2009

What Disappearing Sea Ice?

Gregory Young
Despite the mountains of contrary evidence, concerns over disappearing sea ice and the unfounded position that the North Pole could melt entirely in 2008, pushed U.S. government bureaucrats to officially list the polar bear as an endangered species in May of 2008.  And then guess what happened....

By all means, click on the link to the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center.  Read its findings and look at the charting of  sea ice data since 1979.  You will see that the graph virtually flatlines throughout this 30 year period. 

I doubt that Al Gore and his apostles will notice, though.  Gore is too busy counting the untold millions he is making from "carbon offsets" to pay any attention to actual facts - especially facts that might adversely affect his global warming exploitatio...er, business.

But you probably are not selling carbon offsets, so I hope you will notice, and see this for the fraud that it apparently is.

Ken Berwitz

Democrats aren't the only ones feeling empowered these days.  With the one-party takeover of government now complete (President, senate, house and gubernatorial majority), it seems that at least a couple of the networks don't feel compelled to pretend they are neutral anymore.

Here are two stories.  One involves what NBC has decided to do regarding Ann Coulter, and the other involves what CNN did - and then undid - regarding Sarah Palin.

The Ann Coulter story comes from www.drudgereport.com:

NBC BANS COULTER FOR LIFE; CUT FROM 'TODAY' SHOW OVER BOOK'S CLAIMS, NO MORE CABLE
Mon Jan 05 2009 17:50:57 ET

The nation's top selling conservative author has been banned from appearing on NBC, insiders tell the DRUDGE REPORT.

Banned for life!

"We are just not going to have her on any more, it's over," a top network source explains.

NBC's TODAY show abruptly cut Ann Coulter from its planned Tuesday broadcast, claiming the schedule was overbooked.

But executives at NBC TODAY replaced Coulter with showbiz reporter Perez Hilton, who recently offered $1,000 to anyone who would throw a pie at Ann Coulter. Hilton is also launching a new book this week, RED CARPET SUICIDE.

Coulter was set to unveil her new book, GUILTY.

But one network insider claims it was the book's theme -- a brutal examination of liberal bias in the new era -- that got executives to dis-invite the controversialist.

"We are just not interested in anyone so highly critical of President-elect Obama, right now," a TODAY insider reveals. "It's such a downer. It's just not the time, and it's not what our audience wants, either."

For the book, Coulter reportedly received the most-lucrative advance ever paid to a conservative author.

The TODAY show eagerly invited the author months ago, for her first network interview on GUILTY.

The exclusive was to air during the show's 7 AM hour. The cut came Monday afternoon.

Coulter was also to appear on the TODAY's fourth hour. A host even teased the segment saying the 'conservative pit bull and bestselling author' would be a guest.

NBC's cable outlet, MSNBC, will also become a Coulter-free zone, insiders explain. Morning host Joe Scarborough is said to be concerned with the new ban. "He's working to overrule it," tips a source.

Developing...

The Sarah Palin story comes to us from www.redstate.com:

CNN quietly scrubs Palin’s name from article

Posted by Josh Painter (Profile)

Monday, January 5th at 5:51PM EST

CNN must have felt the love.  The cable news network had included Sarah Palin with the likes of Rod Blagojevich, Elliot Spitzer, John Edwards, Ted Stevens and others in a year-end political review titled “Politicians who fell from grace in 2008.” As frequent RedState contributor Warner Todd Huston had pointed out at NewsBusters.com, every person named in the article, with the exception of Sarah Palin:

“have either been convicted of criminal actions, are indicted for corruption, lost their positions, been drummed out of their party, or are soon to face jail time.”

That there was no reason for Gov. Palin’s name to be associated with those of the seven criminals featured in the article seems to have been clear to everyone except the anonymous author of the CNN smear job.

An outcry immediately went up from the Sarah Palin blogging community, and other conservative bloggers quickly followed suit. Then Greta Van Susteren of CNN competitor Fox News Channel added her objection to the growing protests of outrage. Now, without posting an apology, retraction or even a single word of explanation, Sarah Palin’s name has been completely removed from the piece as it now appears on CNN’s website. Such “scrubbing” is a familiar tactic employed by the left, as they take their cue from the Communist Party style book. The damage has already been done, so a retraction wouldn’t mean much, except to demonstrate that CNN has at least a modicum of journalistic integrity left.

Apparently it does not.

Ann Coulter is banned from a network for daring to criticize it.  Sarah Palin is lumped with criminals, apparently because she fails the test by being unapologetically conservative and religious.

We talk a lot about overt media bias in here.  This is why.

And if you think "the fairness doctrine" won't be floated by these people to try to finish the job and shut out any dissent from Republicans or the right?  Think again. 

If they will do this, they will do that too.

-----------------------------------------------------

UPDATE:  I have read a report that NBC denies Coulter is banned.  If true, I'm guessing the reason is that, like CNN, NBC has been embarrassed into reversing themselves.  A media venue that would air the primetime hard-leftathon at MSNBC, wouldn't think twice about censoring Ann Coulter.

Ken Berwitz

I have been detailing how Norm Coleman's senate seat was being stolen for upwards of two months now.  But today I was challenged to "show specifics" (as if I hadn't been doing so all along).  The implication was that since the challenger found it too burdensome to scroll back, I should do it instead.  Fat chance.

But, fortunately for the person challenging me, the Wall Street Journal has put together the exact compilation that is being demanded.

With great thanks to WSJ, here it is:

Funny Business in Minnesota

In which every dubious ruling seems to help Al Franken.

Strange things keep happening in Minnesota, where the disputed recount in the Senate race between Norm Coleman and Al Franken may be nearing a dubious outcome. Thanks to the machinations of Democratic Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and a meek state Canvassing Board, Mr. Franken may emerge as an illegitimate victor.

AP

Mr. Franken started the recount 215 votes behind Senator Coleman, but he now claims a 225-vote lead and suddenly the man who was insisting on "counting every vote" wants to shut the process down. He's getting help from Mr. Ritchie and his four fellow Canvassing Board members, who have delivered inconsistent rulings and are ignoring glaring problems with the tallies.

Under Minnesota law, election officials are required to make a duplicate ballot if the original is damaged during Election Night counting. Officials are supposed to mark these as "duplicate" and segregate the original ballots. But it appears some officials may have failed to mark ballots as duplicates, which are now being counted in addition to the originals. This helps explain why more than 25 precincts now have more ballots than voters who signed in to vote. By some estimates this double counting has yielded Mr. Franken an additional 80 to 100 votes.

This disenfranchises Minnesotans whose vote counted only once. And one Canvassing Board member, State Supreme Court Justice G. Barry Anderson, has acknowledged that "very likely there was a double counting." Yet the board insists that it lacks the authority to question local officials and it is merely adding the inflated numbers to the totals.

In other cases, the board has been flagrantly inconsistent. Last month, Mr. Franken's campaign charged that one Hennepin County (Minneapolis) precinct had "lost" 133 votes, since the hand recount showed fewer ballots than machine votes recorded on Election Night. Though there is no proof to this missing vote charge -- officials may have accidentally run the ballots through the machine twice on Election Night -- the Canvassing Board chose to go with the Election Night total, rather than the actual number of ballots in the recount. That decision gave Mr. Franken a gain of 46 votes.

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Meanwhile, a Ramsey County precinct ended up with 177 more ballots than there were recorded votes on Election Night. In that case, the board decided to go with the extra ballots, rather than the Election Night total, even though the county is now showing more ballots than voters in the precinct. This gave Mr. Franken a net gain of 37 votes, which means he's benefited both ways from the board's inconsistency.

And then there are the absentee ballots. The Franken campaign initially howled that some absentee votes had been erroneously rejected by local officials. Counties were supposed to review their absentees and create a list of those they believed were mistakenly rejected. Many Franken-leaning counties did so, submitting 1,350 ballots to include in the results. But many Coleman-leaning counties have yet to complete a re-examination. Despite this lack of uniformity, and though the state Supreme Court has yet to rule on a Coleman request to standardize this absentee review, Mr. Ritchie's office nonetheless plowed through the incomplete pile of 1,350 absentees this weekend, padding Mr. Franken's edge by a further 176 votes.

Both campaigns have also suggested that Mr. Ritchie's office made mistakes in tabulating votes that had been challenged by either of the campaigns. And the Canvassing Board appears to have applied inconsistent standards in how it decided some of these challenged votes -- in ways that, again on net, have favored Mr. Franken.

The question is how the board can certify a fair and accurate election result given these multiple recount problems. Yet that is precisely what the five members seem prepared to do when they meet today. Some members seem to have concluded that because one of the candidates will challenge the result in any event, why not get on with it and leave it to the courts? Mr. Coleman will certainly have grounds to contest the result in court, but he'll be at a disadvantage given that courts are understandably reluctant to overrule a certified outcome.

Meanwhile, Minnesota's other Senator, Amy Klobuchar, is already saying her fellow Democrats should seat Mr. Franken when the 111th Congress begins this week if the Canvassing Board certifies him as the winner. This contradicts Minnesota law, which says the state cannot award a certificate of election if one party contests the results. Ms. Klobuchar is trying to create the public perception of a fait accompli, all the better to make Mr. Coleman look like a sore loser and build pressure on him to drop his legal challenge despite the funny recount business.

Minnesotans like to think that their state isn't like New Jersey or Louisiana, and typically it isn't. But we can't recall a similar recount involving optical scanning machines that has changed so many votes, and in which nearly every crucial decision worked to the advantage of the same candidate. The Coleman campaign clearly misjudged the politics here, and the apparent willingness of a partisan like Mr. Ritchie to help his preferred candidate, Mr. Franken. If the Canvassing Board certifies Mr. Franken as the winner based on the current count, it will be anointing a tainted and undeserving Senator.

I hope this clears things up for the person in question.  And for everyone else who was wondering just how badly this stinks.

Ken Berwitz

Today's Washington Post has a very sympathetic piece about the plight of civilians during Israel's attack on Gaza.

I find myself more than a little conflicted about this. 

First, here is the article -- then we'll talk about the points of conflict:

For trapped Gazans, few options for safety

'I see death everywhere,' one Palestinian says amid Israeli invasion

By Craig Whitlock and Reyham Abdel Kareem

updated 2 hours, 21 minutes ago

JERUSALEM - As Israeli forces attacked Gaza by land, sea and air, residents living in the congested coastal strip faced a fateful question: Flee the shelling and shooting, or hole up inside their homes and hope for the best?

The five-member al-Jarou family decided to make a break for it around midday Sunday. They abandoned their home in the Shaaf neighborhood east of Gaza City and dashed by car to a relative's house a mile and a half away, thinking it would be safer, according to interviews with family members and neighbors.

For a little while, it was. Then came a series of explosions. Concrete and debris hammered through the air. Hassan al-Jarou, 10, was struck in the head. "I was in the house, with my uncles, my dad and my grandfather, and I saw stones flying," he said as nurses attended to his injuries at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. "I don't know what happened after that."

‘I see death everywhere’
Hassan's grandfather and father were injured as well. Husam al-Shurafa, 26, a neighbor, helped rush them to the hospital. He said he had seen enough mayhem on the streets to persuade him to head back home and take his chances there. "I'd rather die with my family in my house," he said.

Like 1.5 million others in Gaza, Shurafa was trapped inside the territory with nowhere to go. He said life had become increasingly intolerable in recent years, with plenty of blame to go around. "I see death everywhere," he said. "If it's not the Israelis, it's Hamas and Fatah as well."

As the ground invasion unfolded, Israeli military officials continued to ban foreign journalists from entering Gaza, making it difficult to ascertain conditions there. But reports from Palestinian journalists and other eyewitness accounts described scenes of widespread panic as people scrambled for refuge.

Confronted by electrical blackouts and worsening food shortages, some people risked emerging from their homes, only to find more trouble.

Early Sunday afternoon, Diyaa Abu Amrou, 22, said he carefully drove to a market near Gaza City to look for groceries for his family. His path was blocked when a mortar shell carved a crater into a nearby street. "I jumped out of the car and ran behind a wall to hide," he said.

After the dust cleared, Amrou drove instead to Shifa Hospital to be treated for minor injuries. He resolved to go back home and not come out until the fighting ends. He said that his family of nine lives near a Hamas mosque that he assumes will be targeted by the Israeli military but that they don't know where else to go.

"Yes, I'm worried," he said. "But we have candles and a radio. That's enough."

The wards and trauma rooms of Shifa Hospital were packed with injured Gazans. Many complained that ambulances were nowhere to be found and said they had risked further danger just to get medical treatment. Generators kept electricity flowing, but occasionally they faltered, momentarily leaving the hospital in the dark after sunset.

Hospital morgue fills up
The morgue also filled up, as rescue workers lay bodies on wooden benches and tables. Grief-stricken relatives moved from corpse to corpse to see if they could identify missing family members.

Beneath one sheet in the morgue was the body of a 17-year-old girl still dressed in a black head scarf, identified by relatives as Jehad Ahmed. They said the family had fled their home in the Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza, running from the sounds of artillery fire. But they then ran into shelling from another direction, they said.

Jehad sustained a severe head wound and was taken to the hospital. When her mother arrived later, relatives didn't have the heart to tell her that the teenager had died. "My daughter, oh, God, dear God!" the mother cried as she found her way to the morgue.

Ahmed Mutair, 21, and his brothers ventured outside their house in the al-Esraa neighborhood, north of Gaza City, on Sunday afternoon. He was shot in the chest by a sniper, according to his brothers and a neighbor. They screamed for an ambulance, but none came.

They carried Mutair to the hospital, where he underwent surgery. "My brother -- is he okay? Is he okay?" sobbed one of his brothers, Hassan Mutair, who was wearing blood-soaked cream-colored socks because he had lost his shoes in the chaos. Ahmed's prognosis, other relatives confided, was not good.

War is ugly beyond words -- as what you have just read demonstrates with crystal clarity.

But there is more to this story than the suffering of Gazan civilians.

-Gaza is ruled by hamas, a terrorist organization specifically committed, in writing, to the obliteration of Israel and the death of its Jews. 

-hamas was elected by the people of Gaza to a majority of seats in the "Palestinian" parliament.  In other words, Gazans explicitly voted their approval of hamas' aims. 

-After the elections, hamas violently overthrew the non-hamas part of Gaza's government and now rules it completely.  This was accomplished by threatening, wounding and killing countless civilians among its own people - exactly what hamas accuses Israel of.

What did the citizens of Gaza do to stop this?  What would they do, given their preference for hamas in the first place?  Nothing.

-Israel completely evacuated Gaza in 2005.  Since then it has been the target of thousands of rockets and mortars fired by hamas and other similarly disposed "palestinians".  Obviously these attacks are unrelated to any occupation, since no Jews - civilian or military - have been in Gaza for 3 years.  They are specifically for the purpose of killing Israelis within their own borders.

-Weeks ago, after a phony "truce" during which the attacks on Israel never stopped, hamas unilaterally declared the "truce" over and started firing hundreds of rockets at Israeli cities.  It did so without any concern at all for the civilian population.

-hamas makes a point of stockpiling and firing weapons from civilian areas, thus turning its own people into human shields.  Because they do so, the only way to take out hamas' weapons and firing locations is to attack those areas.  This is what runs up the civilian death toll.

For some strange reason, the Washington Post managed to write the above article with virtually no mention of this at all.

And then we have the incredible claim that "the family had fled their home in the Jabalya refugee camp...". 

Do you know what a refugee camp is?  It is a place where people who have fled their homes can stay until they are either able to go back or to find new homes elsewhere. 

The "refugee camps" in Gaza and Judea/Samaria (the west bank) are up to 60 YEARS OLD. 

Those are not refugee camps, folks, those are permanent living quarters.  Not because of Israel, which has almost a million and a half palestinian Arabs living within its borders, mostly in peace.  But because their fellow Arabs, with 22 countries and hundreds of times the land area of Israel, won't give them the time of day, let alone any place to live.

That's another part of the story the Washington Post somehow forgot to add in.

For these reasons, while I am sympathetic to innocent civilians in Gaza or anywhere else, facts cause me to temper my sympathy with the harsh realities of why Gaza is being attacked.

It would have been nice if the Washington Post had mentioned a word or two about those realities.