murdoch gets letters

Beck claims 'I don't use [violent rhetoric] on or off the air': Oh really?
Beck claims 'I don't use [violent Rhetoric] on or off the air': Oh really? It sure seemed that everyone -- and I mean EVERYONE -- at Fox News was focused yesterday on beating down the horrifying idea that somehow Fox News' incendiary rhetoric might have played a significant role in fomenting Saturday's horrifying tragedy in Arizona. Of course, Glenn Beck -- being one of the chief purveyors of said incendiary rhetoric -- was out there leading the attack, devoting his entire hour to...

Media Matters Calls On Murdoch To Rein In Beck, Palin
In a letter delivered to News Corp.CEO Rupert Murdoch Monday afternoon, and obtained by TPM, Media Matters founder David Brock says the time has come for Fox News to take responsibility for its programming. Specifically, Brock is calling on Murdoch to make Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck tone down their Rhetoric on threat of termination -- or to be complicit in acts of political violence. "Beck and Palin are two of Fox's most recognizable figures," Brock writes. "Before this heartbreaking tragedy i...

Beck, Limbaugh respond to shooting
Conservative media figures like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh are raising fears that liberals could use the Tucson shootings as an excuse to clamp down on their voices, even as two prominent liberals made public statements urging that the FCC and Fox News do just that. Limbaugh and Beck, along with other conservative voices like Sarah Palin and Bill O’Reilly, had come under fire in the hours after the shooting from liberals such as Keith Olbermann and Paul Krugman, who accused them of us...

Media Matters For America Calls Out Rupert Murdoch, Fox News, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin
David Brock (r) and friends. (Hey, is that Bawney Fwank I see?) Oh please. Now David Brock has his panties in a bunch because Beck used vampire imagery and compared him to a “smelly kid in third grade.” (Media Matters) — Today, in response to the tragic shooting in Arizona and the increasing focus on the tone of political discourse, Media Matters for America founder and CEO David Brock issued an Open Letter to News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch asking him to rein in Fox News persona...

Media Matters new gay rights initiative names staffer
Trevor Thomas, director of communications for Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, is joining Equality Matters, a Gay Rights and advocacy offshoot of the liberal group Media Matters. Thomas has been named Director of Programs for the new group. The move comes as Media Matters grows and expands beyond media criticism into more direct advocacy. In October, Media Matters president David Brock told Politico that the group was slowly expanding beyond its traditional role, as it collected 15,000 si...

Vitriol spinners losing the battle for hearts and minds?
The view from our front porch at daybreak this morning: Deck cranes of the container ship "West Bay" out of Hong Kong catch the sun's early rays dockside at Eastern Minerals across the street. "It looks like the vitriol spinners are losing the battle for hearts & minds," we just twittered," referencing a brand new CBS News poll that finds "Most Americans Feel Rhetoric, Tucson Shooting Unrelated": Overall, 57 percent of respondents said the harsh polit...

Rush Limbaugh Poetry: Democrats Helping Jared Loughner Avoid Jail
Let’s throw it to our top Arizona legal analyst, Rush Limbaugh, Esq., sitting in a hole of Excellent Broadcasting on the other side of the country: “This guy clearly understands he’s getting all the attention and he understands he’s got a political party doing everything it can, plus a local sheriff doing everything that they can to make sure he’s not convicted of Murder.” Poetic! Rush Limbaugh is using this opportunity of pundits’ examining their rhetor...

Dem who called for Fla. governor to be shot now pleads for civility
Stumble This! Republicans do not hold a monopoly on violent political Rhetoric. A former Democratic congressman, who recently called for Florida's new Republican Governor Rick Scott to be "shot," now wants to restore "civility" in public discourse. "We all lose an element of freedom when security considerations distance public officials from the people," former Pennsylvania Rep. Paul Kanjorski wrote in Tuesday's New York Times. "Therefore, it is Incumbent on all Americans to create an atmospher...

The Coming Obama Wars
As the new GOP House leaders prepare to Probe the White House, ex-conservative attack agent David Brock offers lessons from the Clinton era—and why this time will be much worse....

Massacre, Made in America
Truthseeker, have you ever seen a website run by a Democrat that is ripe with incendiary "don't retreat -- reload!" Rhetoric while displaying a national map peppered with gun-sight crosshairs and shooting targets hovering over the districts governed by their opponents? Giffords was a literal target of Sarah Palin and the Teabaggers and she knew it, as Giffords herself remarked on MSNBC before the last election, "We're on Sarah Palin's 'targeted' list, but the thing is, the way she has it depic...

Barbara Walters: I cant shake the feeling that this isnt Sarah Palins fault
Via the Daily Caller, it’s depressing that we have to give Barbara credit for making an exceedingly rudimentary point — namely, that it might be hard to fully comprehend the motives of a guy who’s willing to smile for his Mug Shot after shooting 19 people. Once upon a time not so long ago, the left understood that. Remember Media Matters’ reaction back in September to the nut who went berserk at Discovery Channel HQ in the name of Environmentalism? Quote: “Discove...

Historian: Beck's Defense Of Three-Fifths Clause "Completely Wrong"
Beck Defends Three-Fifths Clause Beck: Three-Fifths Clause "Was A Way To Take A Step To Abolish Slavery." Discussing Republicans' decision not to allow parts of the Constitution that had been superseded by Constitutional Amendment to be read during a congressional session, Beck said: BECK: Yesterday -- or was it today? I don't even know. It was yesterday that they read the Constitution in Congress. It was today? Read the Constitution in Congress. And it was -- no, it was -- they edited the Con...

Tucson Shooting The Hatred And Hypocrisy From The Left
It would be merciful if, when tragedies such as Tucson’s occur, there were a Moratorium on sociology. But respites from half-baked explanations, often serving political opportunism, are impossible because of a timeless human craving and a characteristic of many modern minds. The craving is for banishing randomness and the inexplicable from human experience. Time was, the gods were useful. What is thunder? The gods are angry. Polytheism was explanatory. People postulated causations. And sti...

Morning Examiner: Watch your rhetoric
Environmentalists really need to tone down their Rhetoric, you never know what it could make someone do. Media Matters really needs to tone down the Rhetoric, you never know what it could make someone do. The Council for American-Islamic Relations really needs to tone down the Rhetoric, you never know what it could make someone do. Antiwar Activists really need to tone down their Rhetoric, you never know what it could make someone do. Pro-choice Activists really need to tone down their Rhetoric,...

Glenn Beck Removes Gun Pose Image From Website Rotation
On Monday night’s Countdown, host Keith Olbermann highlighted a Screenshot from Glenn Beck ’s website that featured an unfortunate juxtaposition: a photo depicting Beck saying “We must stand together against all violence,” and on the left sidebar, a picture of Beck holding a semiautomatic pistol. The image, first captured by Media Matters‘ Angelo “StopBeck” Carusone , has since been taken down out of “respect” for the events of this weekend, ...

Sheriff Dupnick undaunted by criticism from right, blasts Limbaugh
Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik has been under relentless fire from the right since his impassioned and impromptu plea for an end to hateful and violent Rhetoric. (Though as Media Matters points out at that link, they "repeatedly praised a different Arizona sheriff, Paul Babeu, who regularly engages in vitriolic attacks against President Obama and Democrats," and revere the Racist Joe Arpaio). Dupnik has been attacked by everyone from Red State and Malkin to his home State Senator, Jon Kyl....

Jim Hoft Falls for Obviously Fake Facebook Page to Link Loughner to Obama
Today, the world’s dumbest blogger, Jim “Dim” Hoft, in his crazed attempt to cast the shooter of Gabrielle Giffords as a “typical leftist nut,” actually found a Facebook page that proved he was right all along! He rushed to his computer and feverishly typed this title: “Whoops! This Changes Things- Loughner’s Hero Was Barack Obama!” Just one problem. The Facebook page was an obvious fake, with the shooter’s name misspelled. And when he finall...

A Challenge To Glenn Beck: Will He Cool His Paranoid Anti-Government Rhetoric?
On Sunday, federal officials charged Jared Lee Loughner on two counts of Murder and three counts of Attempted Murder in Saturday’s shooting rampage in Tucson, AZ that critically wounded Rep. Gabriel Giffords (D-AZ) and killed a Federal Judge and a Giffords Staffer, among others. In the wake of the tragedy, many are wondering what motivated Loughner — whether he was a mentally-ill lone wolf vigilante or inspired by something else. Information coming out about Loughner portrays the ...

Right focuses on Dupnik
RIGHT FOCUSES ON DUPNIK.... On Saturday night in Tucson, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik lamented societal factors -- most notably, the Toxicity of our political discourse -- that he fears may have contributed to the day's violence. "When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the Bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous," the sheriff said. "And unfortu...

True Face of Progressivism Exposed in a Tragedys Aftermath.
There is no proof yet that Christianne Amanpour is a child molester. Let that sink in for a second. Outrageous, right? Especially when simply said out of the blue like that. Yet that is how the media is treating the insanity of the left-wing progressive charge that Conservatives, Sarah Palin and the Tea Party are somehow responsible for the actions of a man who had been obsessed with his target since 2007, more than two years before the Tea Party was in existence. Amanpour, on her low-rated â€..

SLDN's Comm Director Trevor Thomas joins Socarides, Eleveld at Equality Matters
This evening I received an email from Trevor Thomas, the ace Communications Director at Servicemembers Legal Defense Network announcing his move to Equality Matters, the new rapid-response LGBT venture of Media Matters for America. He will serve as Programs Director alongside President Richard Socarides and online editor Kerry Eleveld; he starts at EqM on January 24th. (MetroWeekly): Socarides: "He is an incredible advocate and forthright spokesperson. We are excited he has agreed to join us ...

Open thread for night owls: More than rhetorical violence
In mourning for those who lost their lives in the Tucson massacre Saturday: To the survivors, including Congresswoman Giffords, go our wishes that their recoveries be swift and complete. President Obama has asked for a memorial moment of silence Monday at 11 a.m. Eastern time. • • • • • At Talk to Action, the Veteran watcher of white supremacist and anti-semitic groups Chip Berlet writes, The Becking of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. An excerpt: From a moral viewpoint R...

Plenty of blame to go around, but we know who the guilty party is already
Good, but overlooked, news about the Deficit -- from Media Matters. "Revenues through December totaled about $531 billion, $43 billion more than in the same period last year. Most of that net increase stems from higher withholding of individual Income Tax and social Insurance Payroll taxes, which rose by $33 billion (or 8 percent) in the First Quarter because of strengthening economic conditions. Revenues also increased because individual tax refunds were lower than the abnormally high am...

#rsrh Why you should read Le-gal In-sur-rec-tion.
Because William Jacobson successfully predicted Media Matters’ hypocrisy on the Tuscon attack months before it actually occurred.  I doubt that George Soros reads me, but if he does: George, you’re wasting your money on those guys.  They’re as predictable as the sunrise and a whole lot less aesthetically pleasing. Via Instapundit. ...

Leftists Upset About Huck Finn Censorship Have Only Themselves to Blame
As outdated as the Left claims the Constitution to be, when it serves their purposes they dramatically embrace the First Amendment. The Left loves a good Censorship Controversy, and there is seldom anything that brings out the leftist media’s self-righteous indignation more than the issue of literary censorship. They practically climb over each other in a rush to play the part of a persecuted Lenny Bruce or Allen Ginsberg heroically defying McCarthy era suppression. There is a recent censors...