Rush Limbaugh was broadsided last week for attacking a star witness for the Democrats who demanded government force insurers to subsidize contraceptives. He called 30-year-old Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute.”

Let’s all agree Limbaugh crossed a line. He agrees. He posted an apology to Fluke “for the insulting word choices.” The scandal-ette should be over.

So why are the Left and the media still pushing and publicizing a campaign for advertisers to dump the Limbaugh show and end his career? Because it has little to do with his words. This is all about disingenuous politics. Liberals want this government-mandate controversy to be not about religious liberty, which is devastating, but about contraceptives, which works in their favor.

That is intellectually dishonest.

They want to position conservatives as “anti-women.” That’s as ugly as it is untrue.

But Limbaugh’s words gave them the opening they needed – and they pounced.

Just how sensitive are liberals to the plight of women, anyway?

Let’s see how they react when one of their own savages women in ways Limbaugh would never dream of doing.

Everyone remembers Ed Schultz calling Laura Ingraham a “slut” on his radio show.

MSNBC suspended him for a week, but none of Schultz’s advertisers dropped his show under media pressure. There was no pressure. Some of the same sponsors now pulling out of Rush’s show still support Schultz.

What Schultz said is nothing compared to his colleagues.

Fellow talk show host Mike Malloy hoped Sarah Palin “drives herself into madness” and insisted Michele Bachmann is an “evil bitch from Hell” who would have gladly supervised the Holocaust.

Montel Williams rooted on Air America for Bachmann to slit her own wrist or throat.

Randi Rhodes insisted that teenage boys weren’t safe from Palin’s advances if they stayed over at her house. There’s no news coverage or “war on women” narrative when the mud-covered women are conservatives.

Maybe these hosts aren’t prominent enough?

Then consider the case study of Bill Maher, who’s welcomed all over TV news shows.

A year ago on his HBO show, he called Sarah Palin a “dumb twat.”

He followed up days later in a Dallas stand-up routine by calling Palin the C-word.

Last July on HBO, he said Palin was “a bully who sells patriotism like a pimp, and the leader of a strange family of inbred weirdos.”

Last September on his show, Maher said Palin would have sex with Rick Perry if he was black.

Maher bragged on his show Friday critics can’t touch him because “I don’t have sponsors.” But that doesn’t mean he should be coddled, either, and yet he’s regularly honored across the media as a special guest, be it news networks or entertainment shows.

Days after he called Palin the T-word, he appeared with then-CNN host Eliot Spitzer, where Spitzer concluded, “Your show is brilliant. I love watching it.”

On Sunday, Democratic Party chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz huffed on “Meet the Press” that "I don't know any woman in America that thinks that being called a slut is funny." But two months ago, she accepted an invitation to sit on the set with the man who called Palin a “c—.”

President Obama placed a tender phone call to Sandra Fluke Friday to express sympathy for Limbaugh’s harsh words. He never called Ingraham, or Palin. But his super PAC did cash that $1 million check from Maher.

Some outrage is so, so….targeted.

Limbaugh has been singled out and condemned across the national media – ABC, CBS, NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, NPR, PBS, Associated Press, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and USA Today.

How many of these outlets have condemned Bill Maher with equal vigor for his attacks on Palin?

How many of these outlets condemned him at all?

A couple of years ago, “comedian” Louis CK “joked” on the Opie and Anthony radio show about Palin coming to the Republican convention “holding a baby that just came out of her f-ing, disgusting [C-word], her f-ing retard-making [C-word]. I hate her more than anybody,” he said.

On Twitter, this “comedian” attacked Palin in 2011 as a “f—ing jackoff [C-word]-face jazzy wondergirl” who “has a family of Chinese poor people living in her [C-word] hole.”

Guess which event this same fellow is headlining in June? — The Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner.

“We’re very excited about having Louis C.K. at the dinner,” said Jay McMichael of CNN, who chairs the Radio and Television Correspondents Association’s executive committee. “This is an evening you’ll want to experience. We’re shaking things up, showcasing the unexpected, and delivering lots of laughs.”

The Left honors their own pundits as “brilliant” for verbally assaulting women, then circulates petitions calling for advertisers to drop the Limbaugh show because his “anti-woman tirades are appalling.”

To the Left, this is simply an opportunity to put their attacks on religious liberty in a feminist frame, and an opportunity to try and shut down Limbaugh. It is all about censorship and hypocrisy.

Cross-posted at FoxNews.com

It wouldn't take more than a nanosecond for the establishment press and TV talking heads to rip into any white political candidate — Democrat or Republican — who carved out a web site devoted to "Whites for Candidate X."

About a week ago, President Obama, with his powers of incumbency in tow, has decided to revive something he created back in 2007: "African-Americans for Obama." And, as seen in the Obama video which appears at the site and in what appears to be a new twist, the Obama campaign is driving a Mack through the alleged wall of separation between church and state by finding so-called "congregation captains" to maximize African-American support on his behalf. As would unfortunately be expected, the press has not covered campaign's move; A Google News search on "African Americans for Obama" (in quotes) returns only 17 results, only four of which are arguably mainstream media items.

The results for CNN and Mediaite are only listed because commenters at otherwise unrelated posts brought up the "AAs for BHO" launch. One found at Kansas.com simply lists readers' brief comments, and also isn't a result of the publication's original work.

The fourth mainstream result comes from the Times Herald in Vallejo, California. It too isn't a product of the papers journalists or editorialists, but is instead a letter to the editor from a Doris Robinson. It's worth posting most of it here, especially its delicious final sentence:

Of the million ways our first black president could have honored Black History Month, he chose to debut "African-Americans for Obama." Once again, this self-indulgent man plays the race card, creating social and political division, and ignores the many, many accomplishments of past and present black Americans.

Are you aware, Mr. President:

* That it was Republicans who supported the Civil Rights Act while the Democrats conducted a 57-day filibuster against racial equality. Sen. Robert Byrd, the late Democrat from West Virginia, spoke against the civil rights bill for 14 straight hours.

* That it was a Democrat governor (George Wallace) who blocked the schoolhouse door to keep out black students

* That the police chief of Birmingham, Ala., was Eugene "Bull" Connor, a Democrat and KKK member who ordered the police attack on thousands of peacefully demonstrating black children. They assaulted with high-pressure hoses, clubs and dogs and then jailed nearly a thousand children. "Bull" Connor was Alabama's Democratic National Committeeman and was later elected to statewide office.

* That it was a Republican federal judge, Frank Johnson, who in 1956 ruled in favor of Rosa Parks and who in 1965 ordered the Democratic governor, George Wallace, to allow Martin Luther King's voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery.

African Americans have suffered greatly at the hands of your political party, Mr. Obama.

… What have you really done for black Americans in the last three years? You have used them and their painful history to create your own personal playground while they stand outside the fence looking in.

You should be as ashamed of rallying "African-Americans for Obama" as I would be if Newt Gingrich was pushing "Whites for Gingrich" or Mitt Romney's campaign slogan was "Mormons for Mitt."

… you call yourself the "great uniter" while you systematically pit one half of your heritage against the other whenever it suits your political career.

Ouch.

It should also be noted that the 2007 version of "African-Americans for Obama" was marred by its original selection of a certain person to represent it in Nevada:

In other Mayweather news, it was reported by the AP last week that Floyd was MIA from a Las Vegas campaign event for Illinois Senator Barack Obama after the campaign had concerns about his rap sheet. He had been billed as the co-host of African Americans for Obama in Nevada.

In 2004, Floyd was convicted of misdemeanor battery for punching two women at a Las Vegas nightclub in 2003. He was given suspended prison sentences, $1,000 in fines, and ordered to complete impulse control counseling.

In 2005, he was acquitted of a felony domestic violence charge after his accuser, former girlfriend Josie Harris, changed her story. He was also convicted of misdemeanor battery for a bar fight in Grand Rapids.

This is the same Floyd Mayweather who recently tweeted is disdain for New York Knicks guard Jeremy Lin's sudden and unprecedented breakout success as follows: "Jeremy Lin is a good player but all the hype is because he's Asian. Black players do what he does every night and don't get the same praise." It shouldn't surprise anyone that Mayweather won't back down.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

One web site devoted to "fighting the smears" (i.e., pretending that what is true really isn't) apparently isn't enough for Barack Obama's reelection campaign. There are now three, plus so-called "truth teams" of activists whose mission it will be to serve as rapid-response purveyors of what will likely heaping helpings of fabricated refutations.

This news is now officially 24 hours old; its first appearance, at least per Google News, came via the Washington Post and appeared at the web site of the Minneapolis Star Tribune shortly after midnight Monday morning. To no one's surprise, a search of the Associated Press's national site on "Obama truth" (not in quotes) returns nothing relevant, as does an advanced search at the New York Times on "Obama truth team" (also not in quotes). Here are key paragraphs from David Nakamura's story as it appeared at the Washington Post:

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Obama’s ‘Truth Team’ aims to network its way to a reelection win

With his decision to embrace an independent super PAC last week, President Obama issued a plea for deep-pocketed allies to help his campaign fight back against Republican rivals in the increasingly expensive and sophisticated arena of television attack ads.

Now, the Obama campaign is putting out a call for its grass-roots network to join the battle for free.

On Monday, the president’s reelection team will unveil a trio of Web sites dedicated to providing supporters with information on the president’s record — and more than a little dirt on his Republican rivals. The campaign has named it Obama’s “Truth Team,” and the goal is to arm millions of surrogates with the facts, figures and talking points they need to engage in ground-level political combat — on their Twitter and Facebook feeds and in old-fashioned conversations with friends and neighbors.

… Of the three Truth Team portals, just one, KeepingHisWord.com, could be described as positive in tone, listing Obama’s accomplishments. A sample page provided by the campaign has the headline “Fighting for the U.S. Auto Industry” and explains that Obama extended “emergency loans” to Chrysler and GM in 2009. Now, the Detroit auto companies “are creating jobs.”

The other two sites are far more negative. AttackWatch.com aims to rebut political attacks against Obama. A sample page deconstructs Romney’s contention that January’s upbeat jobs report was a byproduct of private-sector innovation, not Obama’s policies.

… The third Web site, KeepingGOPHonest.com, allows Obama supporters to play offense, providing damaging material about his rivals. A sample page ridicules Romney’s comment during a Republican primary debate in South Carolinathat he has lived on the “real streets of America” and lists his connections to Washington lobbyists.

… The Obama campaign has arranged for surrogates — including members of Congress and state politicians — to lead the Truth Teams in battleground states.

… the approach can backfire, as the Obama team learned last fall when it debuted AttackWatch.com and the site was ridiculed by conservatives for the over-the-top, alarmist design — red lettering on a black background. The Obama campaign said 1 million supporters signed up on the site, but it has since been redesigned for the re-launch Monday.

A Google News search at about 12:30 a.m. ET on "Obama truth teams" (not in quotes, with duplicates) returned 91 relevant items. Many of them appear to be ABC News TV affiliates who picked up portions of the Devin Dwyer's post at the network's "Political Punch" blog on Monday morning. This is extremely light volume for a story of this magnitude, and is surely a small fraction of what we would be seeing if a Republican or conservative attempted such an Orwellian maneuver.

It will be interesting to see how much coverage this gets on the Big Three news networks' TV shows. My prediction: very little.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

On Friday's Inside Washington on PBS, as the panel discussed the new Obama administration rule that requires Catholic employers to provide health insurance coverage for contraception to their employees, both liberal columnist Mark Shields and conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer hit Obama for the decision, while NPR's Nina Totenberg claimed that there were valid arguments in both directions as she made a flawed analogy between contraception and immunization as a defense of the Obama position.

But the blunt criticism directed at Obama by the liberal Shields, who is also a longtime regular on the PBS NewsHour, was the most surprising part of the show. After host Gordon Peterson noted that some Catholic leaders had supported Obamacare, and asked if they are "being hung out to dry," Shields responded:

They've been hung out to dry. I mean, this is a dissing, in common parlance, of Catholics. I haven't noticed thousands of people in groups lined up to provide services to the poor and the hungry and the left out and the left behind, and that's what Catholic Charities has done, that's what Catholic schools do in big cities.

And the idea that somehow that they're not doing societies – they aren't in it for the bucks. They're in it because they provide these services, and it's their mandate by their religion. I just, I don't understand Barack Obama on this, and I think that politically Catholics have voted on the winning side in every presidential election (INAUDIBLE).

Totenberg soon jumped in:

There's a very good argument that is being made by the Catholic Church, but if you take it out of the area of contraceptives and you said supposing you had a preschool that wouldn't do immunizations because its religion didn't allow immunizations, or wouldn't  insure for immunizations. We're not talking about paying here, we're talking about insurance and insurance that people can avail themselves of. The board of health would be in there. It's a very tricky question. There are very good arguments to be made on both sides.

Krauthammer ended up knocking down Totenberg's argument and attacked "liberal secular arrogance." Krauthammer:

Look, immunization is a matter of public safety; birth control is not. It's a huge difference, and what this is doing is saying, as Mark indicated, the Catholic Church isn't only a church. It's an institution that actually has outreach and social serviesa dn does good works. Liberals say, okay, "In the church, you can appoint anybody you want and we'll leave you alone, but once you step out into society, you have to be under our heel and you have to provide a morning after pill, which for Catholic, a believing Catholic in the hierarchy of the church, is an abomination. Otherwise, you're cut off, and that is liberal secular arrogance and has no place in this society.

Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the the Friday, February 3, Inside Washington on PBS:

GORDON PETERSON: New Obama administration policy requires all employers, including Catholic employers, to pay for FDA-approved contraceptives regardless of the Catholic Church teaching on this issue. Now, during the debate over the health care law, the president of the Catholic Health Association supported the President. Now, the President's critics say – Sister Carole Keehan and others who supported this bill – are being hung out to dry. Your take, Mark?

MARK SHIELDS: They've been hung out to dry. I mean, this is a dissing, in common parlance, of Catholics. I haven't noticed thousands of people in groups lined up to provide services to the poor and the hungry and the left out and the left behind, and that's what Catholic Charities has done, that's what Catholic schools do in big cities.

And the idea that somehow that they're not doing societies – they aren't in it for the bucks. They're in it because they provide these services, and it's their mandate by their religion. I just, I don't understand Barack Obama on this, and I think that politically Catholics have voted on the winning side in every presidential election (INAUDIBLE).

PETERSON: Is it relevant or irrelevant that the vast majority of Catholics practice contraception in violation of this teaching?

SHIELDS: It is irrelevant because what you're doing is you're closing down Catholic institutions. That's what you're basically (INAUDIBLE).

NINA TOTENBERG, NPR: Can I just say something here? This has been the law actually  since 2000. There's an EEOC ruling; 28 states have laws like this. There's a very good argument that is being made by the Catholic Church, but if you take it out of the area of contraceptives and you said supposing you had a preschool that wouldn't do immunizations because its religion didn't allow immunizations, or wouldn't  insure for immunizations. We're not talking about paying here, we're talking about insurance and insurance that people can avail themselves of. The board of health would be in there. It's a very tricky question. There are very good arguments to be made on both sides.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Look, immunization is a matter of public safety; birth control is not. It's a huge difference, and what this is doing is saying, as Mark indicated, the Catholic Church isn't only a church. It's an institution that actually has outreach and social serviesa dn does good works. Liberals say, okay, "In the church, you can appoint anybody you want and we'll leave you alone, but once you step out into society, you have to be under our heel and you have to provide a morning after pill, which for Catholic, a believing Catholic in the hierarchy of the church, is an abomination. Otherwise, you're cut off, and that is liberal secular arrogance and has no place in this society.

The aforementioned facts are generally not known by people who don't closely follow the news, because not much was made of them. But from the point of view of ABC News, particularly the hatchet men disguised as investigative reporters Matthew Mosk and Brian Ross, Mitt and Ann Romney have a much bigger problem than the Gores, Bidens, and Clintons: They, and particularly Mitt through Bain Capital (dubious, as we'll see), have given too much money to a particular charity. Because the reporters apparently want readers and viewers to see this as something underhanded, they describe charity as "sending" instead of "giving":

---

Mitt Romney Sent Millions to Mormon Church

Underscoring the prominent, if little discussed role that Mitt Romney played as a Mormon leader, the private equity giant once run by the GOP presidential frontrunner carved his church a slice of several of its most lucrative business deals, securities records show, providing it with millions of dollars worth of stock in some of Bain Capital's most well-known holdings.

Romney has always been a major donor to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which requires that members "tithe," or give 10 percent of their income to the church. His family charity, called the Tyler Foundation, has given more than $4 million to the church in the past five years, including $1.8 million in 2008 and $600,000 in 2009. But because Romney, whose fortune has been estimated at $250 million, has never released his personal tax returns, the full extent of his giving has never been public.

Newly uncovered stock contributions made during Romney's Bain days suggest there is another dimension to Romney's support for the church — one that could involve millions more than has been previously disclosed.

As part of just one Bain transaction in 2008, involving its investment in Burger King Holdings, filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission reveal that an unnamed Bain partner donated 65,326 shares of Burger King stock to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, holdings then worth nearly $1.9 million. And there were numerous others, giving the church a stake in other Bain properties, such as Domino's Pizza, the electronics manufacturer DDi, the phosphates company Innophos Holdings, and Marquee Holdings, the parent to AMC Theaters.

… The Mormon church is distinct from many other American denominations in what it asks from adherents in money, time and commitment — and not just because it asks young Mormon males to spend two years proselytizing for the faith as missionaries, said Jan Shipps, a religion professor at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis, and one of the preeminent non-Mormon authorities on the church.

… Romney appears to have lived up to rigid financial requirements within the church that asks parishioners to contribute 10 percent of their annual earnings.

… Securities records show that Romney found ways to help include the church in some of the companies most lucrative deals, just as other executives at the firm found ways to generate support for their favored charities. Among the companies named on securities filings as "Bain charitable institution donees" were the Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston, The Boston Foundation Inc., Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund, and family foundations run by several top Bain executives.

… Romney's own family nonprofit, The Tyler Charitable Foundation, was also cut into numerous Bain deals. The nonprofit, run by Bradford Malt — the Romney personal attorney who oversees all of the candidate's financial holdings — passed those stock earnings along to a variety of other charities, including the church.

It's hard to believe that ABC really bothered with the previous paragraph — or for that matter the entire report. What does "an unnamed Bain partner" donating stock to the Mormon church in 2008, nine years after Romney ceased his involvement in the business, have to do with anything? Romney still receives millions in annual distributions from Bain entities, but has represented in his financial disclosure statements that he has had no active involvement. Really, Matthew and Brian, those weren't "Romney's Bain days."

And what's with the use of dealmaking words and phrases to describe charitable donations? There's "sent," "carved his church a slice," "include the church in … lucrative deals," and "cut into numerous Bain deals."

Here's part of Rush's take on this nonsense earlier today:

So what? Valerie Jarrett just broke the law! She went into a church and gave a political speech ripping into the Republicans and then after the church speech, they did a voter registration drive in a church. Romney's not breaking the law.

What's wrong with giving to your church? It's a charity! He didn't take all the money himself like the Clintons do. He's not hiding it in some family foundation where he can get access to it later, plus a charitable deduction off the top of the donation he's made. Zero interest in Obama from the ABC investigative unit. Zero. I don't know how much money Obama gave Reverend Wright. We don't know how much money Obama gave Reverend Wright. We don't know how much money Reverend Wright gave Obama.

Breaking the law by a Democrat isn't news; but a Republican being generous with his money to an entity which someone doesn't seem to like must be sinister in some way, even though it's clearly lawful. Makes perfect sense to me. (/sarc)

It seems that Ross might have taken the assignment to atone for his breakout report on Jeremiah "Go D**n America" Wright four years ago. If so: For shame, Brian — especially since you seem to be conveniently setting the stage for an all-out attack on Mormonism should Romney get the GOP nomination.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

In her profile of Kansas Governor Sam Brownback on Wednesday, the Washington Post's Annie Gowen went through the predictable leftist checklist of things that should supposedly cause the rest of America not to like him. A state taken over by "tea party fervor"? Check. "Slashed" funding for "schools, social services and the arts"? Check. Imply that his predecessor, radical proabort and ObamaCare implementer Kathleen Sebelius, is a "moderate," and that he is somehow breaking a tradition of moderation? Check. Finding an old-line Republican who thinks he's going too far? Check. Oh, and mentioning that the eeeeeevil Koch brothers, who like the guy and have given him money (that might have something to do with the fact that Koch is headquartered in Wichita)? Check.

Here are excerpts from Gowen's report (HT Norma at Collecting My Thoughts, whose reaction is "Something good is happening in Kansas"; bolds are mine):

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In Kansas, Gov. Sam Brownback puts tea party tenets into action with sharp cuts

If you want to know what a Tea Party America might look like, there is no place like Kansas.

In the past year, three state agencies have been abolished and 2,050 jobs have been cut. Funding for schools, social services and the arts have been slashed. The new Republican governor rejected a $31.5 million federal grant for a new health-insurance exchange because he opposes President Obama’s health-care law. And that’s just the small stuff.

… in Kansas, as nowhere else in the country, tea party fervor is reshaping government. The same political forces of the Republican Party driving the confrontation over taxes and spending in Washington are now completely in charge in Kansas.

The GOP now controls the state’s House of Representatives with the biggest majority in half a century. Emboldened by this power shift, Brownback — the state’s former two-term U.S. senator — has embarked on his overhaul at a breathtaking pace.

… The governor has said his main concerns are creating jobs, cutting taxes and bringing new businesses to the state, which has been losing population to domestic migration over the past decade and ranks near the bottom in private-sector job creation.

… at the state level, Kansans have routinely elected moderate Republican governors. More recently, the state elected Democrat Kathleen Sebelius, now President Obama’s secretary of health and human services.

… “For 40 years, we had this moderate Republican-Democratic coalition running the state, and suddenly it’s pretty much gone,” said Burdett Loomis, a political science professor at the University of Kansas.

… The Kansas Policy Institute, where Brownback delivered his recent speech to warm applause, is funded by the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch.

… The Kochs “have been handed the keys to the governor’s office,” said state Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, a Democrat.

… “I think a lot of people don’t realize the role government plays in their lives until it’s gone,” (said Bill Kassebaum, a Republican former state representative and son of former U.S. senator Nancy Landon Kassebaum). “They may not be happy with what’s left.”

Gowen also treats Brownback's personal faith-driven efforts to reduce abortions and strengthen marriage as something out of order and unusual, but of course says not a word about how Sebelius went to extraordinary lengths to defend even practitioners of late-term abortions when she was governor.

Even the writer of the article's picture caption tried to get in on the act, but the best that person could come up with as a criticism was: "Gov. Sam Brownback of Kansas is a career politician." Brownback spent several years as an attorney before he began his career in politics as the Sunflower State's Agriculture Secretary. When is the last time the WaPo or any other establishment press outlet called New York Senator Chuck Schumer, who really has never done anything except hold political office, a "career politician" in a supposedly straight news piece?

Make no mistake what Gowen is up to. She is laying down a marker for future reference by the rest of the press so they can drum up a "far-right extremist" theme for Brownback should he ever try to return to national politics or even run for President.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

Late Friday afternoon, Todd Shields at Bloomberg News broke a story about some guy, who happens to be an Obama and Democratic Party donor (but not disclosed), against whom the Securities and Exchange Commission is formally considering an enforcement action (also not disclosed, though it was noted at the New York Times's Dealbook Blog five hours before Shields's report), whose "wireless service caused interference to 75 percent of global-positioning system receivers examined in a U.S. government test." Though it generated a fair amount of center-right blog discussion over the weekend, the establishment press largely ignored the stunning result.

Earlier this evening, Shields and Alan Levin reported even more troubling info (as carried at the San Francisco Chronicle; bolds are mine throughout this post):

---

Falcone's LightSquared Disrupts Plane Safety Gear in Testing

Philip Falcone's LightSquared service disrupted airplane safety equipment in U.S. tests of the proposed wireless network, government officials said.

Signals from LightSquared equipment caused "interference with a flight safety system designed to warn pilots of approaching terrain," according a statement from the Defense and Transportation departments distributed today by e-mail.

The safety gear relies on the global-positioning system. U.S. officials are testing for interference with GPS devices as they consider whether to let LightSquared operate its network. The service would let clients such as Best Buy Co. offer cheaper wireless services and products, LightSquared Chief Executive Officer Sanjiv Ahuja said in a Dec. 9 interview.

… LightSquared's effect on the air-safety system was the subject of a separate analysis by the Federal Aviation Administration, according to today's statement.

… The safety system displays any terrain or man-made obstruction in the path of an aircraft. If a plane flies too close to danger, the system sounds increasingly dire warnings urging a pilot to "Pull up!"

These devices have been required on turbine-powered aircraft since 2005 and are credited with nearly eliminating crashes in which pilots hit the ground in darkness or bad weather, according to the FAA. The system uses GPS to determine a plane's position, which it matches against a worldwide database of terrain, radio towers, buildings and airports.

Once again, Shields failed to report that Falcone is a heavy Obama and Democratic Party donor, or the existence of the SEC's consideration of enforcement action against Falcone, described thusly by the Times:

The Securities and Exchange Commission is putting Philip A. Falcone on alert.

Mr. Falcone, a hedge fund manager, received a Wells Notice from the commission on Thursday, according to a filing made by his firm, Harbinger Capital Partners. The agency typically sends those notices when it is considering an enforcement action against someone. Omar Asali and Robin Roger, two Harbinger board members, also received the notices.

The notices stem from possible "violations of the federal securities laws' anti-fraud provisions in connection with matters previously disclosed and an additional matter regarding the circumstances and disclosure related to agreements with certain fund investors," according to the filing.

Although the filing does not specify charges or allegations, the notice is likely related to a disclosure Harbinger made to investors. In April, the firm said it was being investigated for possible market manipulation in the trading of undisclosed debt securities from 2006 to 2008. Mr. Falcone has also been investigated over whether a $113 million personal loan he made to himself, using his firm’s funds, was disclosed to investors in a timely manner.

Such trivial matters are not news at all at most establishment press outlets, including the Essential Global News Network known as the Associated Press. A search on Falcone's last name at the AP's main national site comes up empty, and Lightsquared's name is mentioned only in passing in an unrelated AP article about Clearwire.

Hot Air's Ed Morrissey provided background the press has totally ignored on Saturday (links were in original):

If that was all there was to this story, then this would just be another commercial venture that struck out, with little interest outside the tech fields involved.  However, the overwhelming failure of LightSquared’s test puts allegations from last summer in a new light.  In September, four-star Air Force General William Shelton accused the White House of pressuring him in August to change his Congressional testimony to make his assessment of LightSquared more favorable.  Another Congressional witness told Eli Lake that the White House had “offered guidance” on how to testify favorably towards LightSquared.

Why is this important?  Philip Falcone is a big donor to the Democratic Party, and he has billions of dollars at stake in LightSquared’s approval.  Also, Obama himself was an investor in LightSquared at one point, as were or are a number of his associates.  The resounding failure in this test makes it look like the White House pressured witnesses to back off of exposing LightSquared’s product as exactly the kind of dangerous problem that critics had maintained all along — with the intent to mislead Congress into moving forward with LightSquared’s government contracts.

Is this administration really going to ultimately green-light LightSquared, thereby disrupting the GPS system, and even risking the safety of air travel, in the name of granting favors to a corrupt crony? We may be witnessing a high-tech "All My Sons" scenario conducted in broad daylight.

Is the press, including Bloomberg, which is negligently sticking to the technical details without addressing the corruption — something which certainly would not be happening if a Republican or conservative were in the White House — really going to look the other way while all of this happens? If so, why do they bother coming to work every day?

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

Wednesday afternoon, Matthew Balan at NewsBusters noted that two of the three network morning shows failed to mention disgraced former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's Democratic Party affiliation.

Not that it's an excuse, but what was probably their primary raw material, namely three Tuesday reports from the Associated Press, completely failed to tag Blago as a Democrat, specifically the following (idea HT to NB commenter "trak65"):

• Don Babwin and Michael Tarm, as carried at Yahoo News — "After crime, punishment awaits ex-Gov. Blagojevich"
• An unbylined item carried at the Portland (ME) Press Herald — "Defense: Ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s actions were criminal" (currently dated December 7, but content is clearly from Tuesday)
• Michael Tarm, as carried at TriValleyCentral.com in Arizona — "Blagojevich hoping for light sentence"

Wednesday's coverage of Blago's 14-year sentence at the AP and the New York Times tagged him as a Democrat in the third paragraph, which beats nothing. But most short broadcast announcements won't get that far, and it's reasonable to believe that the journalists involved know that. Reuters waited until about Paragraph 15.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

Former Prince George's County, Maryland Executive Jack Johnson was sentenced today to over seven years in prison for, according to Eric Tucker at the Associated Press, "extorting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes during a tenure that prosecutors say was rife with greed, corruption and an unchecked pay-to-play culture." Tucker failed to identify Johnson as a Democrat.

The AP is not alone. A Google News Search on "Jack Johnson Prince George's County" (not in quotes, past 24 hours, without duplicates) returned 51 items at 11:40 p.m. tonight (the first page says 152, but it's really 51). The following number of results came back in the same search when I added the word "Democrat" (also after the jump — sordid details of Johnson's astonishing corruption):

Eight.

It's really even less than that. In at least three cases (here, here, and here), Johnson's upcoming sentencing was mentioned in a multiple-item roundup which didn't tag Johnson as a Dem but contained another item about a different Dem. A fourth result, at the Washington Times of all places, only came back with "Democrat" because commenters noted the related article's failure to identify Johnson's party

Going in the other direction, The Washington Post's coverage of the sentencing of Johnson and his wife Leslie labeled each of them as "(D)." Quaint.

But the real "Name That Party" failure is in Tucker's AP report. Here are several paragraphs from his coverage (bolds are mine):

Ex-Md. county leader gets 7 years for corruption

The once-powerful former executive of a suburban Washington, D.C. county was sentenced Tuesday to more than seven years in prison for extorting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes during a tenure that prosecutors say was rife with greed, corruption and an unchecked pay-to-play culture.

The investigation into Jack Johnson, who led Prince George's County, Md., from 2002 to 2010, came to light last year when federal authorities tapping his phone heard him direct his wife to flush down the toilet an illicit $100,000 check from a developer and to stuff nearly $80,000 in cash in her undergarments. FBI agents had arrived at the couple's home after witnessing Jack Johnson accept $15,000 from a developer.

Since the Johnsons' arrests in November 2010, prosecutors have revealed a sweeping investigation that has touched varied corners of county life and led to charges against his wife, a former county councilwoman, as well as police officers, liquor store owners, developers and county officials. Fifteen people have been convicted in investigations into county corruption, prosecutors say. Leslie Johnson is to be sentenced later this week.

"If Jack Johnson's story were a Hollywood screenplay," U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein said after the hearing, "critics would say it's too bizarre to be true."

The conviction marked a precipitous fall for Johnson, who put himself through college before becoming a lawyer with the IRS office of chief counsel, the county's top prosecutor and ultimately its powerful executive. Johnson, 62, said he was "haunted" by his actions and that he had destroyed the faith that his former constituents in Prince George's – the nation's most affluent majority-black county – had placed in him.

… Prosecutors said his schemes were numerous and varied, including steering millions of dollars in federal and local funds to certain developers in exchange for bribes; working to secure a job at the county hospital for an unqualified doctor at the behest of a developer who paid him bribes; and providing a series of favors, including favorable zoning changes and help with critical legislation, for a liquor store owner who paid him bribes and who agreed to contribute to his wife's campaign for county council.

Johnson and his co-conspirators extorted more than $1.6 million in bribes, prosecutors say.

Tucker's failure is the most egregious because it's on the AP's national wire and, as has been frequently mentioned in past "name that party" instances, the wire service's own guidelines on identifying a politician's party affiliation essentially dictate that it should be done in these circumstances simply because it's expected that many if not most readers would ordinarily want to know it. But I guess the guidelines really only apply to Republicans and conservatives.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

Jonathan Alter, who spent 28 years at Newsweek, has been a columnist at Bloomberg News since early this year. Just this year, the reliably and insufferably liberal Alter, among many other things, called the Republican House's passage of Paul Ryan's budget plan in April an attempt "to throw Granny in the snow," and coldly calculated that in the wake of her shooting, Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was more valuable to Barack Obama's reelection efforts alive than dead.

In early January, Alter, appearing on an MSNBC program, took great offense at Rep. Darrell Issa's suggestion that the Obama White House is "one of the most corrupt administrations ever," claiming that "there is zero evidence" of it. The Washington Examiner's Tim Carney proceeded to identify seven such examples. Alter must have been saying "la-la I can't hear you" during Carney's chronicle, as his October 27 column was an exercise in sheer fantasy from beginning to end (bolds are mine throughout this post):

---

Obama Miracle is White House Free of Scandal

President Barack Obama goes into the 2012 with a weak economy that may doom his reelection. But he has one asset that hasn’t received much attention: He’s honest./p>

… Although it’s possible that the Solyndra LLC story will become a classic feeding frenzy, don’t bet on it. Providing $535 million in loan guarantees to a solar-panel maker that goes bankrupt was dumb, but so far not criminal or even unethical on the part of the administration. These kinds of stories are unlikely to derail Obama in 2012. If he loses, it will be because of the economy — period./p>

Even so, the president’s Teflon is intriguing. How did we end up in such a scandal-less state? After investigating the question for a recent Washington Monthly article, I’ve been developing some theories./p>

For starters, the tone is always set at the top. Obama puts a premium on personal integrity, and with a few exceptions (Tim Geithner’s tax problems in 2009) his administration tends to fire first and ask questions later./p>

… But the White House’s intense focus on scandal prevention has had mixed results. The almost proctological vetting process has ended up wounding Obama as much as prospective nominees. He gets cleaner but often less imaginative officials./p>

… The vigilance about wrongdoing has worked better when it comes to oversight of the $787 billion stimulus program. The money might not always have been spent on the right things. But a rigorous process supervised by Vice President Joe Biden, and made transparent with the help of recovery.gov, has prevented widespread fraud and abuse./p>

… Every time Representative Darrell Issa, the Republican from California who leads a House investigative committee, calls the Obama administration “corrupt” without offering any evidence, he hurts his cause. It’s much harder to make a story register as a bona fide scandal when the political motivation is so obvious./p>

It’s also harder to find room for such stories when so much other news is breaking. Scandals like the Monica Lewinsky affair were almost a luxury of good times, when the nation could afford to obsess about a blue dress. Not these days./p>

…. According to a metric created by political scientist Brendan Nyhan, Obama set a record earlier this month for most days without a scandal of any president since 1977. The streak probably won’t last, especially if he gets a second term, where scandals are more common. But the impression of rectitude will be part of the voters’ assessment of him next year. He’ll need it.

Here's Brendan Nyhan's hysterical definition of a scandal:

Nyhan says that political scientists generally see The Washington Post as a solid indicator of elite opinion — so for his study, a problem officially curdles into a scandal once the S-word is used in a reporter's own voice in a story that runs on the front page of the Post. Bush made it 34-months before he faced a scandal in the Post. And as of this morning, Obama has beaten that record.

You read that right. A scandal is a scandal when — and only when — the Washington Post says it's a scandal, and only on its front page. For what it's worth, the headline at Associated Press story (possibly supplied by the subscribing outlet) called Solyndra a scandal on September 17.

For the rest of us, here is what a scandal is:

1. a disgraceful or discreditable action, circumstance, etc.
2. an offense caused by a fault or misdeed.
3. damage to reputation; public disgrace.
4. defamatory talk; malicious gossip.
5. a person whose conduct brings disgrace or offense.

In advance of a column I wrote in September in response to American University history professor Allan Lichtman's claim that the Obama administration had to that point been "scandal-free", I compiled a by no means complete list of items which would fit one of the five areas just described. In the column itself, I added Solyndra, LightSquared, and Operation Fast and Furious. Scandal-free? It's more like scandal fatigue.

As to Obama's honesty, the contrived tale of his mother's supposed lack of health insurance during the time leading up to his death will do for openers. There are roughly three dozen more arguable lies identified here since his term began. Honest, schmonest.

Jonathan Alter is of course entitled to his opinion, but he's not entitled to his own comprehensive set of made-up facts. Bloomberg executive Washington editor Al Hunt should have laughed Alter's column out of the building — but as another bondafide far-lefty, the odds are he thought it was brilliant journalism.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.