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Media Apparently Oblivious to the Fact that Texan Sen. Wendy Davis is a Pro-Abortion Extremist

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Photo Credit: APAccording to abortion advocates, Wendy Davis is a voice for America’s silent pro-choice majority. The Texas state senator’s recent filibuster of a bill to outlaw abortions after five months of pregnancy won her media plaudits and catapulted her from obscurity to political stardom.

But the frenzy over Davis’s failed quest to defeat the legislation — which most likely ended last week when the bill passed the Texas Legislature — is hardly proof of a national reservoir of support for late-term abortion. Rather, it is evidence of the deep disconnect between perception and reality when it comes to U.S. citizens’ attitudes about the procedure.

The media’s coverage of Davis’s opposition to the bill, which would also compel abortion facilities to follow the same rules and safety standards as ambulatory surgical centers, ranged from frivolous to fawning. Most media reports focused either on the pink sneakers Davis wore during her 11-hour filibuster or on how the resulting fame would affect her chances of winning the 2014 gubernatorial race.

Abortion advocates, meanwhile, asserted that Davis had given voice to the pro-choice views of Texas and the nation. One commentator referred to the filibuster as a “Texas spring,” a sudden awakening of the state’s pro-choice majority. Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood and daughter of former Texas Gov. Ann Richards, said, “My mother would have said, ‘I hear America singing.’” A writer at Salon.com asserted, “It’s a Wendy Davis nation now.”

Most of the coverage failed to mention an important detail: The vast majority of Americans don’t come close to sharing Wendy Davis’s support for late-term abortion. Numerous polls find that most Americans oppose abortion after 20 weeks, except in rare circumstances, such as when the mother’s life is at risk (a circumstance for which the Texas law makes an exception). A University of Texas/Texa

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The Perfect Leak

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Photo Credit: AP

In his dealings with the media, Edward Snowden played his hand like a pro.

Snowden, 29, was looking to disclose top-secret information about the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs to the world — and to do so he arranged a powerful one-two combination punch with the press that provided both mainstream credibility (Barton Gellman and The Washington Post) and someone who shared his ideological inclinations (Glenn Greenwald), according to media observers and whistleblower experts.

As more and more agenda-driven outlets, reporters and bloggers hit the media scene, leakers such as Snowden find themselves with a wealth of potential options to get their information out. It’s a seismic shift from the old media landscape, when would-be leakers had only one clear path to ensuring widespread attention for their stories: a successful pitch to a handful of national newspapers or TV networks.

But the traditional national security media heavyweights — led by The New York Times and The Washington Post — still have outsize influence on stories about intelligence gathering and potential overreach by the government.

So at the end of the day, experts told POLITICO, Snowden found a way to pull off what was in effect the perfect leak. He established parallel tracks with the MSM — The Washington Post and The Guardian — and also found a member of the media who was sympathetic to his cause. Snowden’s material was given widespread exposure and credibility in the traditional press and at the same time had the hand of a friendly journalist on the wheel for at least part of the ride.

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NSA Recording US Calls Since at Least 2008: Transformers Actor Tells Jay Leno That FBI Agent Played Phone Recording of Him 5 Years Ago (+video)

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Photo Credit: TIZIANA FABI/AFP/GettyImages

The leaks of previous whistleblowers have been recalled and compared to that of the former government contractor who leaked to the media classified documents of the NSA’s collecting of metadata from phone conversations. But these previous whistleblowers aren’t the only ones who tried to warn of government spying.

Hollywood actor Shia LaBeouf in 2008 during an appearance on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno detailed how he learned phone calls were allegedly being recorded.

Promoting the film “Eagle Eye,” which according to IMDb shows how “technology of everyday life [is used] to track and control,” LaBeouf told Leno that an FBI consultant for the movie said one in five phone calls made are recorded and logged.

“And I laughed at him,” LaBeouf said.

“And then he played back a phone conversation I’d had two years prior to joining the picture,” LaBouf continued.

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Don’t Fool Yourselves, the Media will Always Love Obama

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Photo Credit: Weekly Standard

Some conservatives think that the elite media are finally turning on Barack Obama and his administration.

The argument goes like this: The trio of scandals that have burst forth in the last couple of weeks—the events before, during, and after the deadly attack on the diplomatic outpost in Benghazi; the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups; and especially the Department of Justice’s secret subpoenas of Associated Press phone records and targeting of Fox News reporter James Rosen as a potential co-conspirator in a leak investigation—will mark an inflection point. From here on out, journalists will apply far more scrutiny to President Obama. His free ride is over.

Don’t believe it.

In saying this, we don’t mean to suggest that journalists won’t ask tough questions or say critical things about the administration from time to time. But sooner or later they will—with a few impressive exceptions—revert to their ways. We are, after all, dealing with deeply ingrained habits and ideological commitments.

Take the New York Times. On May 17, in a story about how President Obama is trying to move beyond his current problems, the Times declared, “In the last few days, the administration appears to have stopped the bleeding. The release of internal e-mails on Benghazi largely confirmed the White House’s account.”

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Holder: Now Even Liberal Media, Democrats are Attacking Him (+video)

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The Republican criticism of Attorney General Eric Holder and the Justice Department — first, over the failed Fast and Furious gun-tracking operation and now, the subpoena of reporters’ phone and email records — is growing to include outcry from liberal media outlets and Democrats.

“It seems to me clear that the actions of the department have in fact impaired the First Amendment,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., said earlier this month. “Reporters who might have previously believed that a confidential source would speak to them would no longer have that level of confidence.”

The congresswoman has been joined in her concerns by Democratic commentators and the liberal-leaning Huffington Post, which recently ran a giant headline saying it’s time for Holder to go.

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Rush Limbaugh Offers to Sit Down With Obama

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Photo Credit: WNDBy Joe Kovacs. In the wake of news reports that President Obama is blaming Rush Limbaugh for the political gridlock in Washington, the radio powerhouse is now offering to sit down with the commander in chief to hold face-to-face discussions.

“In the spirit of doing whatever I can to move things forward in this country,” Limbaugh said Tuesday afternoon, “I would like to make myself available to the president of the United States to sit down and talk with him at a place of his choosing and discuss the problems facing the country, and maybe working together, since I am the opposition, since I am the obstacle, since I am the reason he can’t get things done.”

“I’ll be glad to sit down with him, any time, any place that he wants. Perhaps we can hash this out and come to a … mutual understanding or agreement of how to get things off the dime and to move things forward.”

On Monday, Obama reportedly met with top-name fundraisers including entertainer Justin Timberlake and his wife, actress Jessica Biel, as well as designer Tommy Hilfiger at the Greenwich Village home of producer Harvey Weinstein.

Obama complained about the lack of progress on his agenda, specifically blaming Limbaugh. Read more from this story HERE.
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Rush Limbaugh: I live in Obama’s head

By KEVIN CIRILLI. Rush Limbaugh taunted President Barack Obama on Tuesday, saying he lives “rent free” in the president’s head less than a day after Obama criticized the conservative radio host at a fundraiser hosted by Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.

“He simply cannot get me off his mind. I live rent free in his head. And he is using me as his convenient excuse for not being able to get anything done. He really thinks the Republicans would work with him if it weren’t for me,” the conservative radio host said on his program Tuesday, according to a show transcript.

Monday night Obama was in New York at a fundraiser that Weinstein hosted and celebrities like Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel attended. During Obama’s remarks at the fundraiser, Obama took a jab at Limbaugh. Read more from this story HERE.

Trustworthy? Fox News’ Shepard Smith Ranks Dead Last

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Photo Credit: Fox NewsAlthough he anchors the top-rated cable newscast in the nation, Shepard Smith of the Fox News Channel ranks last in a brand-new Reader’s Digest Poll listing the top 100 most trusted Americans.

“The results are revealing, hopeful, and sometimes shocking,” says the Reader’s Digest, which teamed up with the research firm Wagner Group to survey more than 1,000 Americans and discover which individuals and the ideals they represent have earned public confidence.

Smith, anchor of “The Fox Report,” was ranked at No. 100, just below New York Times columnists Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman, who are at Nos. 98 and 99 respectively. But since no other Fox journalist even made the top 100, Smith’s ranking could be viewed as good news for him.

The magazine provides a slideshow of photos and quotes for each person in its ranking.

The quote attributed to Smith is, “I’m a journalist; I run to the fire, that’s what we do.”

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Media Stumped: It's the Jihad, Stupid

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Photo Credit: Drew Zahn

Many in the mainstream media are mystified, unable to pin down a possible motive behind the Boston bombings despite a wealth of information that strongly suggests the suspects had ties to radical Islam.

For example, it was discovered early Friday that one suspect had a playlist on YouTube titled “Terrorist” and another called “Islam.” He also subscribed to a channel called “Allah is the One.”

The two suspects are immigrant brothers from the Russian republic of Chechnya. The playlist belonged to 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed overnight in a shootout with police in the Boston area. Dzhokar Tsarnaev, 19, was taken into custody late Friday evening.

The older brother’s playlist also included “The Emergence of Prophecy: The Black Flags From Khorasan,” described as ”a key part of jihadist mythology: That one of the most significant battles fought against the ‘infidels’ will take place in the Khorasan, a geographic area that includes parts of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan” and has been increasingly mentioned in al-Qaida propaganda.

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Salon Magazine and White Males: It Warms My Heart to No End that They Want Me for Something…

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Photo Credit: AP

The smartest, most literate, most influential minds of America have something mordant and deeply wrong infecting the core of their souls. No publication epitomizes this sarcoma more completely than Salon Magazine. Salon Magazine’s commentary following the Boston Marathon Terror Bombing provides further evidence that America’s most well-educated and carefully trained minds are in the midst of the iniquitous process of turning our nation into just the sort of evil we used to stand up and fight.

Just as every INGSOC needs a Goldstein; every Progressive needs a good Boogeyman to make the proletariat perform another idiot dance. Salon Magazine wants a good, stereotypical, White Male. They would even prefer a Bible-believing Christian if available. They hope the Boston Marathon bomber is a !WHITE! American. Like all good Progressives, they have another racial quota to fill. Bigotry worthy of Reverend Al Sharpton follows below.

“White privilege is knowing that even if the bomber turns out to be white, no one will call for your group to be profiled as terrorists as a result, subjected to special screening or threatened with deportation,” writes author Tim Wise. “White privilege is knowing that if this bomber turns out to be white, the United States government will not bomb whatever corn field or mountain town or stale suburb from which said bomber came, just to ensure that others like him or her don’t get any ideas. And if he turns out to be a member of the Irish Republican Army we won’t bomb Dublin. And if he’s an Italian-American Catholic we won’t bomb the Vatican.”

It comes as no shock that David Sirota would have penned the article. He seems to have a history of imagining a burning cross and a Klan Rally every time he walks past a rack of white linens for sale at Macy’s. In a previous article Time to Profile White Men?* Sirota offered us up the following perverted version of Affirmative Action. If only we could smash White Privilege and lock them up in internment camps the way Japanese Americans were during WWII. Hey, let’s send a few White Gun-Owners to Gitmo for four years. That would make Amerika really fair!

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Pro-Life Democrat in USA Today Column: 'Infant Beheadings, Severed Feet' and Media Malpractice (+video)

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Photo Credit: YouTube

By Kirsten Powers. Infant beheadings. Severed baby feet in jars. A child screaming after it was delivered alive during an abortion procedure. Haven’t heard about these sickening accusations?

It’s not your fault. Since the murder trial of Pennsylvania abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell began March 18, there has been precious little coverage of the case that should be on every news show and front page. The revolting revelations of Gosnell’s former staff, who have been testifying to what they witnessed and did during late-term abortions, should shock anyone with a heart.

NBC-10 Philadelphia reported that, Stephen Massof, a former Gosnell worker, “described how he snipped the spinal cords of babies, calling it, ‘literally a beheading. It is separating the brain from the body.” One former worker, Adrienne Moton, testified that Gosnell taught her his “snipping” technique to use on infants born alive.

Massof, who, like other witnesses, has himself pleaded guilty to serious crimes, testified “It would rain fetuses. Fetuses and blood all over the place.” Here is the headline the Associated Press put on a story about his testimony that he saw 100 babies born and then snipped: “Staffer describes chaos at PA abortion clinic.”

“Chaos” isn’t really the story here. Butchering babies that were already born and were older than the state’s 24-week limit for abortions is the story. There is a reason the late Democratic senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan called this procedure infanticide. Read more from this story HERE.

Congressman: Gosnell an Abortion Predator Who Must be Exposed

By Steven Ertelt. Several members of Congress on Thursday afternoon took to the floor of the House of representatives to expose the horrors abortion practitioner Kermit Gosnell has committed and to decry the lack of media attention to them.

Congressman Marlin Stutzman, an Indiana Republican, was one of the members who spoke on the House floor this afternoon to call attention to the horrific crimes Gosnell engaged in at his Philadelphia, Pennsylvania abortion clinic.

The following is the speech he delivered and a video of it:

Read more from this story HERE.