Attacks on Media Matters Backfire

The more I watched Fox News and the Daily Caller's endless campaign against Media Matters for American (MMFA), the more conservatives threw up all over each other.  In my last video and blog post, I only listed three myths the right wing throws against Media Matters. Now I'm going to go more in detail with the claims of illegality put on Media Matters by the right wing.

I was actually surprised to see Brent Bozell President of the Media Research Center (MRC) go on television to discuss to the recent stories the Daily Caller has put out about Media Matters.

During his interview with Sean Hannity, Bozell actually said he has a policy not to talk about MMFA “Well, let me first preface this by saying as a matter of policy I refuse to talk about this organization. I’m making an exception tonight because I do want to comment on it tonight,”Now that sounds similar to what happened nine months ago when the MRC dodged an appearance Roland Martin discussing the media's role in Obama releasing his long form birth certificate. Knowing MMFA would appear with them Martin said they declined saying "they don't debate Media Matters".

Now its important to know the difference between Media Matters and the Media Research Center  since both are considered to be counter parts of each other ideologically. MRC focuses on so called "liberal media bias" and MMFA focuses on conservative misinformation. In my last video and blog post I mentioned how MMFA played a role for me leaving the right wing. MRC also played a role when I compared the two organization. I realized accuracy in the news media is more important than the bias. I'll discuss more about the Media Research Center's propaganda model later.

Bozell made my point when he falsely claimed in order to make a case on MMFA's bias that MMFA took issue with Fox News' conservative commentators and found no bias in its "straight reporting," He said, “They (Media Matters) don’t talk about Bret Baier… they don’t talk about the news, they talk about the commentators.”  On the contrary, doing a simple search on their website, and you'll find hundreds of articles criticizing bias from “objective” hosts such as Bret Baier, Martha MacCallum, Megyn Kelly and others. So the word "research" in MRC's name must only be a brand name.

When Bozell was asked by Politico about the parallel between Media Matters and the Media Research Center given that they both criticize the media and they're both are tax exempt organizations, he said:

“Media Matters stands accused of violating its tax-deductible status, and I think that fact speaks for itself.” [Politico 7/1/11]

That was all Bozell had as a response. Apparently according to Bozell's logic until someone accuses his organization of violating its tax exempt status, then their is a parallel. Actually, you can find many parallels between the things the Media Research Center has been of doing and what the Media Matters is also doing that right wing claims is illegal.

Both are in full compliance with the law, but the right wing misinterpreting it much like they do the First Amendment is putting the Media Research Center in the rumble.

• Both organizations (MRC and MMFA) are 501(c)(3) tax exempt organizations.
• Both are ideologically partisan with what with they write about.
• Both have pressured advertisers of to drop programs for certain content.
• Both have agreed or had agreed that pressuring advertisers to drop an offensive program is not being anti-free speech or pro-censorship which is the charge as of now being put on Media Matters. 

Despite the right wing pounding on the organization they can still  nothing illegal, unethical, deceptive, or political in promoting or training candidates for office. Their just shooting themselves in the foot over and over and over again. You'd think they'd learn checks from their tactics, but they don't.

Koch Brothers Hate the Military and Want to Cut Defense Spending

According to the right wing argument that being fiscally responsible with defense spending is anti-military or anti-defense, the Koch Brothers fit the description. Not exactly a organization I'd cite, but if a right winger won't listen to me, maybe they'll listen to the guys running their movement. How much do conservative, liberal/progressive, and libertarian organizations want to cut the defense budget? Lets see:

Now in this cute graph (above), the Heritage Foundation is making the case that we don't spend all that much on defense by comparing it to domestic and entitlements spending. Look at that small seemingly insignificant red dotted line. It doesn't look like defense spending has increased all that much and therefore their is no spending problem in defense.

Here are the less abridged versions of our defense spending from the libertarian Cato Institute and the progressive Center for American Progress.

Even the conservative Koch Industries funded Americans for Prosperity has said defense cuts should be on the table. In their October 2011 Policy Paper, one of their suggested spending cuts includes $611 billion in defense cuts over ten years.

From the AFP Policy Paper

Because AFP focuses on economic policy, we strive to avoid discussion of specific
equipment, facilities, and personnel decisions in the Department of Defense (DOD).
However, considering DOD funding makes up more than half of all discretionary
spending, any credible attempt to reduce deficits must carefully consider this part of the
budget. [AFP October 2011 Policy Paper]

What about President Obama's budget? Here's how Obama ranks:

1. Cato Institute ($1.2 trillion over 10 years)
2. Americans for Prosperity  ($611 billion over 10 years)
3. Center for American Progress ($559.6 billion over 10 years)
4. President Obama's Budget  ($487 billion over 10 years)

 Kind of factually inconvenient for the right wing narrative isn't it?

Conservative Paranoia about Google

The level of paranoia is astounding. The Media Research Center's Dan Gainor wrote a column about how major news outlets and one of the most well-known businesses in the world - Google - are "complicit in trying to destroy Santorum because he opposes gay marriage". He's referring to
Santorum's "Google problem" a Google bomb Dan Savage did in response to Santorum' expressing support of criminalizing gay sex (sodomy laws). Gainor did not mention that's why Savage did the Google bomb. Instead, Gainor said it was because Santorum was against gay marriage.

Gainor calls it an extensive lefty campaign to discredit opponents of gay marriage and claims Google is helping Savage by refusing to adjust the search results. Wouldn't that constitute internet censorship, the thing conservatives cry so much about? I wouldn't call the Google bomb dirty, but an attention getter into who Santorum really is and why he earned that definition.


"I suspect if something was up there like that about Joe Biden, they'd get rid of it," Santorum told Politico. "If you're a responsible business, you don't let things like that happen in your business that have an impact on the country."

Gainor also refers to the Google search result problem with"Jew," Google has responded by adding this disclaimer.  "If you recently used Google to search for the word 'Jew,' you may have seen results that were very disturbing. We assure you that the views expressed by the sites in your results are not in any way endorsed by Google."

Myths about Media Matters for America by the Right Wing

Media Matters for America (MMFA) is a self described progressive media watch dog organization dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. It was founded by former conservative journalist David Brock, famous for writing the book "Blinded by the Right". As a former Republican, I use to think as do many other right wingers, that Media Matters was a George Soros funded, free speech hating, smear website. However, this website had a profound influence on me coming to realize that my conservative beliefs and my way of thinking were based more on core ideology than by facts.

Hannity: Obama Did Not Want to Kill Bin Laden

Two nights ago on Hannity's Fox News show, Hannity once again was living in Republican fantasy world. He made a hilarious claim about about Obama's priority to kill Bin Laden.

HANNITY: I know the president will say, 'Well, we got bin Laden.' Putting that aside...LUNTZ: And the public gives him credit for that.
HANNITY: They do. The public does give him credit for that. But it wouldn't have happened if he had his way, and I think that can be proved as well on tape.

Ed Schultz wouldn't have it.

Uh... no Hannity, on the contrary Bin Laden would be alive today if John McCain, Hilary Clinton, or Mitt Romney became president. We never would have gone into Pakistan in the first place to get Bin Laden.

Uh oh, Mitt Romney has got this to bite him in 2012. In comments to the Associated Press, Romney even seemed to rule out the very idea of using US troops (like SEAL Team 6):

Instead of issuing threats, the United States should work with nations to root out extremist forces, Romney said. “We want as a civilized world to participate with other nations in this civilized effort to help those nations reject the extreme within them,” Romney said. “That doesn’t mean that our troops are going to go all over the world.”
Romney said the remarks were not helpful to the American effort.

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HBO's Game Change Looks Identical to Book

I just saw the new trailer for the HBO movie "Game Change" based on the book Game Change. Looking at the the new trailer, I'm seeing the visual images of Sarah Palin I imagined when I read the book. Its almost identical. The film is set for March 10th at 9:00pm.

Heartless Romney: "I'm Not Concerned with the Poor"

Mitt Romney in an interview with CNN said he's worried about middle-income Americans and that the "very poor" in the U.S. have a safety net. He adds he's also not concerned with the "very rich" yeah right. Never mind that the rich would get their taxes cut in half under his plan.