Category Archives: Media

Blood On Their Hands

“It’s not an illegal alien story; it’s a drunk driving story,” Geraldo Rivera once asserted on “The Factor,” following the slaying of an innocent American in a familiar way. The argument made by open-immigration fundamentalists, left and right—from (Tamar) Jacoby to Geraldo—is that the illegality of the perp is irrelevant to the crime. These advocates would thus dismiss as redundant to the facts of the case the illegal status of “Carlos Martinelly-Montano, 23, whose Aug. 1 collision in Prince William seriously injured two Benedictine nuns and killed a third, Sister Denise Mosier, 66, all of Richmond.” (The Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Promulgators of this tack are serious, although they should not be taken seriously. For this crushingly stupid claim to stick, you would have to demonstrate that had this drunk, illegal alien been stopped at the border or been deported, his victims would have nevertheless suffered the same fate. AGAIN: For this conceit to fly, open-border fetishists would have to show that had Martinelly-Montano (and all the others) been deported or jailed, his victims (and all the others) would have nevertheless suffered the same fate at the hands of another drunk driver (murderer, child molester, etc.)—a deeply silly suggestion.

The Times Dispatch reports that,

Judicial Watch, a public disclosure group, said today that it has a received a copy of the report by the Department of Homeland Security that was kept secret after Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano had declared her office would thoroughly investigate the Prince William case and make it public.
The 35-page report deals with the criminal history and legal status of Carlos Martinelly-Montano, 23, whose Aug. 1 collision in Prince William seriously injured two Benedictine nuns and killed a third, Sister Denise Mosier, 66, all of Richmond.
Martinelly-Montano is scheduled to go to trial March 28 on six indictments, including felony murder, maiming resulting from driving under the influence and involuntary manslaughter.
Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, said the report, which his group sought through a Freedom of Information Act request, shows how this country’s patchwork of policies toward illegal immigrants and deportation can “blow up in our faces.”
He called the report “a clear indictment of Obama’s lawless approach to illegal immigration. An innocent person lost her life because local police officers and immigration officials couldn’t be bothered to enforce and obey the law.”

In case you don’t know, Bob Clark, director of one of the most delightful films ever made, “A Christmas Story,” and his 24-year-old son, would probably be alive today if not for a drunk, unlicensed, illegal alien careening down Pacific Coast Highway (not that you’d know it from this report; which deploys the passive form of the verb, as if to imply that Clark combusted spontaneously, or something)

UPDATE II: Media’s Sickening Sentimentality On Egypt

Conspiracy, Government, Iraq, Journalism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Middle East, Reason

The following is an excerpt from my new WND.COM column, “Media’s Sickening Sentimentality On Egypt”:

“… I’ve finally figured out what it was that repulsed me so about American opinion-makers’ slobbering response to [the revolt that began in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, and swept the Egyptian president, Mohammed Hosni Mubarak, from office.]

It was not so much that the media ignored the likely possibility that democracy in a country that has become progressively more Islamic since the 1950s might not have a happy ending.

It was not that the media pretended that the Muslim Brotherhood, also the “best organized opposition force in the country,” would not field a viable presidential candidate.

It was not that, in their jubilation, Anderson Cooper (CNN), Neil Cavuto (Fox News) and Christiane Amanpour (ABC) failed to mention the precedent set in Lebanon, where Hezbollah has deployed the democratic process to get the better of the country’s Maronite Christians.

It was not even the fact that the journalistic imperative to provide nuance, detail, and an economic and historic backdrop to the unfolding events was replaced, by the journalistic jet-set, with the telegenic drama of the man on the street.

None of this bothered me as much as the patronizing position these American reporters adopted; the neat bifurcation they managed to maintain between “Us” (the “free” men and women of America) and “Them” (those pathetic, shackled Egyptians).

The fact is that the heroic movement for democracy in Egypt dovetails with an ongoing flirtation with fascism in the U.S.; the twilight of individual sovereignty in the U.S. contrasts with its rise in Egypt. …

Read the complete column, “Media’s Sickening Sentimentality On Egypt,” now on WND.COM.

UPDATE I (Feb. 18): To the letter writer below: I am not a conspiracy theorist. Here is a post that explains why conspiracy is usually irrational.

“The premise for imputing conspiracies to garden variety government evils is this: government generally does what is good for us (NOT), so when it strays, we must look beyond the facts—for something far more sinister, as if government’s natural venality and quest for power were not enough to explain events. For example, why would one need to search for the “real reason” for an unjust, unscrupulous war, unless one believed government would never prosecute an unjust war. History belies that delusion.” …

UPDATE II (Feb 19): Daine: No; there are no conspiratorial. What we have are The Takers-–tax consumers—who want the Makers—the so-called rich—to support their parasitical life style. And the Über-parasites, the politicians, who make the most of this human nature.

UPDATED: Poor Pollyanna & The Liberal Media (Logan Assault Cover-Up)

Crime, Feminism, Gender, Islam, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Middle East, Sex

CBS reports a shocker (not): The glorious revolution in Egypt was marred by the “brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating” of their chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan (via Erik Rush).

Someone has to say this: So deeply silly is the prototypical, progressive female in her fantasies of rescuing the world, that she discards reality. Logan’s rescuers, a couple of clever—presumably local—sisters, were no doubt clad in the traditional nosebags. Local sisters are not so careless as to dress immodestly in a country in which the majority (82 percent) supports executing adulterers. The left-liberal women of the West imagine they can walk around Africa or the Middle-East as free as birds, burdened only by overwhelming love for the locals.

The assault occurred on “the day Mubarak stepped down.” This poor, poor Pollyanna, and the men and women of the liberal media, will return armed with assorted rationalizations intended to solve inner-conflict: the rapists were Mubarak’s men; should be forgiven because of the circumstances, etc.

UPDATE (Feb. 17): Diana West questions the Logan assault cover-up, during which the 39-year-old journalist was called “Jew, Jew”:

Why CBS kept mum for four days about the brutal sexual assault of network correspondent Lara Logan by a Tahrir Square mob on Feb. 11 we just don’t know.

Did Logan, flown out of Cairo by a network-chartered jet to a U.S. hospital hours after the attack, request secrecy as a brutalized victim?

Were news executives, or even Logan herself, concerned that the bombshell news of the assault, which took place almost exactly as Hosni Mubarak was relinquishing all powers, would detract from the “jubilant” crowd’s “democracy” drama? Such a news blackout is hard to imagine if, for example, a star correspondent had been similarly violated by a mob of tea party-goers at, say, a massive Glenn Beck rally – and particularly if other correspondents had previously suffered unprecedented assaults and threats from the same crowd. A keening outcry would have arisen from the heart of the MSM (mainstream media) against the mob, accompanied by a natural zeal to investigate cultural or other reasons for the brutality. Not excuses. And not disinterest.

But in this singular Logan case we’ve seen both. First, only after news queries indicated the story was breaking did CBS on Tuesday release a brief rap sheet on the Friday crime. We were told of Logan’s accidental separation from her crew in the crowd. The prolonged assault by over 200 people “whipped into a frenzy.” The rescue by a group of women and 20 soldiers. What CBS didn’t mention – what was later attributed to an unnamed network source – was that as the thugs assaulted the 39-year-old journalist and mother of two, they shouted, “Jew! Jew!”

…

“Missing is any acknowledgement of the fact – the overwhelming, highly upsetting but nonetheless unavoidable fact – that Islam’s teachings on women and particularly Jews are literally hateful. And that’s the Quranic truth, as copiously expressed by the late Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, grand imam of Egypt’s Al-Azhar University, approximately Sunni Islam’s “pope.” As he put it, and with plenty of canonical support: Jews “are the enemies of Allah, descendants of apes and pigs.”

Read more: Media hushes up Islamic misogyny of Logan assault http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=264941#ixzz1EHiFNRTV

Barack’s Budget

Barack Obama, Debt, Economy, Media, Uncategorized

The man with the revere-Midas touch has submitted his $3.7 trillion budget, which he, age-appropriately, justified before a suburban Baltimore middle school, this morning. Barack Obama’s definition of fiscal conservatism is guarding the status quo. Obama’s budget is the same budget as last year’s. The tax proposals are the same. Entitlements (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and Defense) remain untouched, an exemption that included the new healthcare monstrosity. Discretionary spending Obama has vowed to freeze for five years at a very high rate, but, as Doug Holtz-Eakin, former Director of the Congressional Budget Office, reminded the Obama adoring Norah O’Donell, the president has a (short and savage) history of ferociously fighting the enforcement of the very freezes he proposes.

Holtz-Eakin: This budget is “a political documented oriented to getting him reelected. The American worker needs jobs. There is no greater threat to the economy than the accumulation of deb this budget promises. This budget is good political positioning,” which guarantees the continued issuance of debt at a rate of $50,000 a minute (the median income of the average American), or $12,000 per family.

With a flick of his forked tongue, Obama once beguiled media groupies such as MSNBC’s Norah O’Donnell. No longer. She seems persuaded by the warnings of former CBOaf to big spender President George W. Bush.