Author: Margarita Murphy

How come we never heard about Rev. Wright enough from the MSM?

By now, the sermons, lectures, and commentaries of Jeremiah Wright quoted, reproduced, and discussed by other sources, ranging from broadcast and cable television and radio, to print and, of course, weblogs and the Internet-based audio- and video-hosting platforms such as YouTube, have been so numerous that sheer scale alone makes it impossible to define where his allegedly “controversial” and “offensive” statements begin, and where they end. But the relative intensity of coverage tells part of the story. According to the Project for Excellence in Journalism, for the first 125 days of 2008 (January 1–May 4), the Wright-Obama relationship was the most frequently reported news item, receiving roughly 3.8-times more attention than did the second most frequently reported item, how the “superdelegates” were aligning in the primary process; it was covered 4.9-times as heavily as John McCain’s ties to lobbyists.13 Wright and his views also towered over the meager attention given to the views of Hagee, Parsley, and Robertson, and to their relationships with McCain. Media Matters for America reports that between February 27 and April 30—the 27th having been the date on which Hagee endorsed McCain in San Antonio while McCain was campaigning with Parsley in Ohio—the New York Times and Washington Post “published more than 12 times as many articles” mentioning Wright and Obama as they did mentioning Hagee and McCain. In terms of editorials and op-eds, the ratio was even greater—more than 15 to 1.14

Similar patterns were true across the board. For the ninety-six-day period from …

Our AIPAC-owned Congress

H. R. 2893: To prohibit Foreign Military Financing program assistance to countries that vote in the United Nations General Assembly in favor of recognizing a Palestinian state in the absence of a negotiated border agreement between the Government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

H. RES. 297: To withhold United States contributions to the United Nations until the United Nations formally retracts the final report of the “United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict.”

H. R. 2589: To prohibit certain activities in support of the Arab League boycott of Israel, and for other purposes.

H. RES. 297: Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the Secretary of State should withhold United States contributions to the regularly assessed biennial budget of the United Nations for purposes of the General Assembly of the United Nations if the General Assembly adopts a resolution in favor of recognizing a state of Palestine outside of or prior to a final status agreement negotiated between, and acceptable to, the State of Israel and the Palestinians.

H. R. 1609: To amend the War Powers Resolution to limit the use of funds for introduction of the Armed Forces into hostilities, and for other purposes.

(a) No funds available for the United States Armed Forces may be obligated or expended for introduction of the Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, in the absence of a declaration of war, specific statutory authorization or obligation

RedState.com blogger tells a whopper about Troy Davis’ “bloody shorts”

For the first time in 50 years the United States Supreme Court ordered a federal court to conduct an entire rehearing of all the evidence. The court did and found all the new stuff was, again, “smoke and mirrors,” including the retracted confessions. […] And then, if we really want to get into the weeds and talk about facts, consider this fact. Troy Davis immediately became the suspect and fled. Police roped off his house, obtained entry, and searched the home. In the laundry they found Troy Davis’s shorts from that night with evidence on the clothing directly tying him to Officer MacPhail’s murder — Officer MacPhail’s blood.

In re Troy Anthony Davis, No. CV409-130, (S.D. Ga. Aug. 24, 2010), p. 161, footnote 97:

The State introduced evidence regarding Mr. Davis’s “bloody” shorts. (See Resp. Ex. 67.) However, even the State conceded that this evidence lacked any probative value of guilt, submitting it only to show what the Board of Pardons and Parole had before it. (Evidentiary Hearing Transcript at 468-69.) Indeed, there was insufficient DNA to determine who the blood belonged to, so the shorts in no way linked Mr. Davis to the murder of Officer MacPhail. The blood could have belonged to Mr. Davis, Mr. Larry Young, Officer MacPhail, or even have gotten onto the shorts entirely apart from the events of that night. Moreover, it is not even clear that the substance was blood. (See Pet. Ex. 46.)

Yeah. Probably should try actually reading the …

Conservatives these days: Right for the wrong reasons

“Wall Street owns our government,” [Glenn] Beck declared in one rant this July. “Our government and these gigantic corporations have merged.” He drew a chart to dramatize the revolving door between Washington and Goldman Sachs in both the Hank Paulson and Timothy Geithner Treasury departments. A couple of weeks later, Beck mockingly replaced the stars on the American flag with the logos of corporate giants like G.E., General Motors, Wal-Mart and Citigroup (as well as the right’s usual nemesis, the Service Employees International Union). Little of it would be out of place in a Matt Taibbi article in Rolling Stone. Or, we can assume, in Michael Moore’s coming film, “Capitalism: A Love Story,” which reportedly takes on Goldman and the Obama economic team along with conservative targets.

–Frank Rich, NYT Op-Ed, 20 Sep. 2009

Far more interesting than Beck himself is the increasingly futile effort to classify the protest movement to which he has connected himself. Here, too, confusion reigns. In part, this is due to the fact that these “tea party” and “9/12″ protests are composed of factions with wildly divergent views about most everything. From paleoconservatives to Ron-Paul-libertarians to LaRouchians to Confederacy-loving, race-driven Southerners to Christianist social conservatives to single-issue fanatics (abortion, guns, gays) to standard Limbaugh-following, Bush-loving Republicans, these protests are an incoherent mishmash without any cohesive view other than: “Barack Obama is bad.” There are unquestionably some highly noxious elements in these groups, but they are far from homogeneous. Many of these people despised the Bush-led …

Zionists feign outrage over map on Palestinian web site

The logo of “the Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine to the United Nations” – on their website and on top of their official statements at the U.N. – shows the Palestinian Authority’s claim to a Palestine that stretches throughout the entire historical entity of the former Palestine mandate.

Absent from the logo is any hint that Palestine consists of anything other than Arab territory. No nod is given even to the U.N.’s 1948 decision to divide the region into Jewish and Arab sectors. As for the shape of Israel by the time it was forced into waging the defensive Six Day war in 1967: irrelevant. The logo illustrates that the Palestinian bid before the U.N. for support of a unilateral declaration of statehood is disingenuous and dangerous.

There is not too much left to the imagination here: Israel is “wiped off the map.”

London Underground ad produced by the Israeli Ministry of Tourism:

Palestine Solidarity Campaign:

Posters have recently appeared in London Underground tube stations advertising Israel as a tourist destination. The map on the advert depicts Israel as incorporating the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights.

As far as I’m concerned, anyone who calls the West Bank “Judea and Samaria” really has no right to complain about being “wiped off the map” anyways.…