Philzone.org - Philzone Phansite Community Discussion Board: Politics: Politics - Archive 2012: Not too bright, Oklahoma

Oklahoma GOP lawmaker believes food contains human fetuses

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/01/24/oklahoma-law maker-believes-food-contain-human-festuses/

An Oklahoma lawmaker is convinced that some food coming into his state contains portions of human fetuses.

According to the KGMG talk radio, state Sen. Ralph Shortey (R) has filed a bill that bans foods or products using aborted human fetuses.

“There is a potential that there are companies that are using aborted human babies in their research and development of basically enhancing flavor for artificial flavors,” he said.


Shortey said the decision to file was based on his own research. However, he didn’t provide any examples of food companies engaging in the practice.

Well at least they are not using fetal stem cells to save peoples lives.

How many McNuggets do you get per fetus?

Mmmm soylent mcmuffin

I was hoping to score some fried fetus at the State Fair!

Biotech company using cell lines from aborted babies in food enhancement testing
BY REBECCA MILLETTE
Tue Mar 29, 2011 09:38 ESTComments (12)Tags: Biotech, Boycott, Ethics, Fetal Cell Lines


 

Updated: 03/29/11 at 4:16 pm.

LARGO, Florida, March 29, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Pepsico, Kraft Foods, and Nestlé are among the corporations partnered with a biotech company found using aborted fetal cell lines to test food flavor enhancers, according to a pro-life watchdog group. 

The internationally recognized biotech company, Senomyx, boasts innovation and success in “flavour programs” designed to reduce MSG, sugar and salt in food and beverage products.  Senomyx notes their collaborators provide them research and development funding plus royalties on sales of products using their flavor ingredients.

Pro-life watchdog group, Children of God for Life (CGL), has called upon the public to target the major corporations in a boycott, unless the company ceases to use aborted fetal cell lines in their product testing.

“Using isolated human taste receptors,” the Senomyx website claims, “we created proprietary taste receptor-based assay systems that provide a biochemical or electronic readout when a flavor ingredient interacts with the receptor.”

“What they do not tell the public is that they are using HEK 293 – human embryonic kidney cells taken from an electively aborted baby to produce those receptors,” stated Debi Vinnedge, Executive Director for CGL, the watch dog group that has been monitoring the use of aborted fetal material in medical products and cosmetics for years.

“They could have easily chosen COS (monkey) cells, Chinese Hamster Ovary cells, insect cells or other morally obtained human cells expressing the G protein for taste receptors,” Vinnedge added.

Responses from major corporations to CGL’s letter campaign succeeded in warning the pro-life watchdog that these companies would need significant public pressure to admit involvement in and convince them of the need to change Senomyx’s unethical testing methods.

After three letters, Nestlé finally admitted the truth about their relationship with Senomyx, noting the cell line was “well established in scientific research”.

Pepsico wrote: “We hope you are reassured to learn that our collaboration with Senomyx is strictly limited to creating lower-calorie, great-tasting beverages for consumers. This will help us achieve our commitment to reduce added sugar per serving by 25% in key brands in key markets over the next decade and ultimately help people live healthier lives.”

“If enough people voice their outrage and intent to boycott these consumer products, it can be highly effective in convincing Senomyx to change their methods”, Vinnedge noted.  “Otherwise, we will be buying Coca-Cola, Lipton soups and Hershey products!”

Note: This article originally stated, based on information provided by CGL, that Solae and Campbell soup were also partnered with Senomyx. However, LSN has since learned that while both companies were in the past partnered with Senomyx, they no longer have a relationship with the company.

To contact the companies:

Kent Snyder, CEO
Senomyx
4767 Nexus Centre Drive
San Diego, California 92121
email

Paul Bulcke, CEO
Nestlé USA
800 North Brand Boulevard
Glendale, CA 91203

email

Jamie Caulfield, Sr.VP
PepsiCo, Inc.
700 Anderson Hill Road
Purchase, NY 10577
email

Irene Rosenfeld, CEO
Kraft Foods/Cadbury Chocolate
Three Lakes Drive
Northfield, IL 60093
email



http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/biotech-company-u sing-cell-lines-from-aborted-babies-in-food-enhanc ement-te/

this is only one of a long list of batshit crazy bills for this legislative session. It should be quite entertaining.

Using stem cells as sources of testing versus putting them into your food are to completely different things. My point is that the good senator is not too bright. Especially since he got his information from "an online article".

This is the same reason Oklahoma wants to ban Sharia law.

People don't think anymore (no offense rasta-not just Oklahoma). They just read articles from biased news sources and assume they are fact.

Again, not too bright

This is the ok state legislature.

Not national.

No offense taken. I rip on these crazy fuckers every day.

give this clown a listen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-gZQeucrLA

yeah, conservatives like to rip public broadcasters like PBS, NPR, etc because truth tends to paint them in a negative light.

Like the whole "apartheid'" comments he made.

my state rep is the craziest of them all and she hasn't said anything stupid yet. I'm frightened at the prospect of her unleashing a wrath of craziness soon!

our local PBS has already been stripped down to almost nonexistence. The daily newscasts are no more and it's a weekly one-hour show now. Sigh...

No, we hate them , because there are 500 tv channels.
And the same on radio.

Taxpayers don't need to be subsidizing a liberal propaganda channel in what is a profitable and self sufficient industry.

why are you so angry?

Isn't the Oklahoma economy doing fantastic?

They must be doing something right.

Great state Oklahoma. . I always enjoy my time in okc and Edmond.

http://www.rmpbs.org/content/index.cfm/fuseaction/ schedule/date/2012-01-29

Liberal propaganda?

Yes.
Juan Williams FIRED: NPR Sacks Analyst Over Fox News Muslim Comments

I linked to PBS, not NPR

yeah, conservatives like to rip public broadcasters like PBS, NPR



Your original statement.

I asked if my link above showed liberal propaganda. Have you seen a PBS line up?

Juan Williams getting fired from NPR.

What if a white reporter on NPR said he got nervous on subways when there were black people?

Besides, Juan Williams could have been fired for being boring as hell

the JW thing doesn't make NPR. Liberal propaganda

Not going to list them all, but frontline is decidedly liberal. Garraffalo on an Abu gharib show?


Just google

Pbs liberal propaganda


and you will find tons of examples of liberal bias and propaganda.


Occams razor: Liberals don't want it defunded,

While I actually don't think NPR should get (or, really, even needs) public funding, where is the bias?

http://www.npr.org/

Find a story with a decidedly liberal bias and I'll concede the point.

I don't listen to NPR, but I sure miss my nightly broadcasts of ONR. It was the only local news on TV I could stomach. http://news.oeta.tv/

The truth is liberal propaganda.

NPR is the only radio news I've heard that spends more than 45 seconds on a story, and they bend over backward to let conservatives have their say. As for Juan Williams, the further we get from that little incident the more calculated the whole thing looks. Witness his signing a two million dollar contract with Fox the next week.

That LifeSiteNews page should be from Landover Baptist.

Of course you dont see the bias chance.


You are a moderate.




Here's the LIBERAL PROPAGANDA they put on PBS! And your Taxes are
paying for it!


Here's the SHIT they put on PBS! And your Taxes are paying for it!

Left Wing Radical Janeane Garofalo
Rants Like Madwoman on PBS

Posted at May 6, 2005 10:49 PM in Politics .


PBS' "weekly news magazine" (maybe it should be called the weekly
propaganda magazine?) had a very slanted, one-sided "torture" special
last week- where they interviewed a suspected terrorist who was at Abu
Gharib, and this week they started off their half hour show with left
wing radical talk show host, Janeane Garofalo. I watched her interview
by the HORRIBLE interviewer and host of the show, David Brancaccio. He
asked softball questions and never challenged her claims once. He
actually implied support on her outrageous claims.


Garofalo was asked about news media and if journalism is doing a
good job. She said that most news is entertainment value news, and
most of it wasn't about the truth. Air America, the network that airs
death threat jokes about President Bush, IS real news she says. Out
of the blue, she starts attacking Fox News, saying that it doesn't
even deserve to be talked about (yet, she will, indeed, talk about it)
because it's nothing but "tabloid" lies and it's not news at all...no
truth to what Fox News says. I wonder if it bothers her that Fox has
such high ratings, and Air America is on the verge of folding due to
horribly low ratings? With this information in mind, it would seem
that she thinks that she's somehow above the majority of us who
disagree with her outlandish views.

She mentions the "right-wing" probably 30 times in about 12 minutes
(a long interview for such a radical for what is, partly, a publicly
funded show that SHOULD be balanced), and she kept saying that the
right wing is ALL about lies. They're never honest about anything,
they use "disinformation" and they "redefine words" to mislead the
people. They want everyone to be uninformed. At the same time she
says the evil right wing changes the definition of words (there's no
such thing as partial birth abortion she says- tho she never mentions
she, herself, uses the word pro-CHOICE, which is absurd since it's
really pro-ABORTION.) She also changes the definition of words
herself, saying that Bush "LIED" about Iraqi intel, yet she's surely
aware that the intel was a MISTAKE (she herself has spent time
attacking the nation for having bad intel!!), so she has changed the
definition of "mistake" into the meaning of the word "lie." She
claimed Bush lied at least 5 different times during the interview.

She then turned her attack on Americans she called
"bible thumpers,"
and she said that if they had their way, no woman would be allowed
to vote, abortion would be illegal (god forbid we try to cut down on
millions of unborn children being aborted each year!), and that birth
control would be outlawed (a silly claim, considering most christians
don't have any problem with birth control.) Attacks on the religious,
which is the majority of the country, are just pointless, and Garafolo
shows her ignorance with such attacks.

She then talks about activist judges...and she claims that to
republicans an "activist judge" is merely one that goes with facts,
the truth, and the law. Another pointless attack from a radical with
no common sense. She says that, to Republicans, brown vs board of
education would be "activist" which is not only ridiculous but
offensive. Her clear attack is- Republicans are racist scum. I say to
Garofalo- try looking in the mirror to find the scum.


Garofalo says that conservatives aren't really
a majority in the US, liberals actually are, but
conservatives have lied to so many people and
"fooled enough people enough of the time" that
Americans only THINK they're conservative and
support conservatives. She offends the majority
of the nation by calling them too stupid to realize
what they actually think. Thank goodness we have
a fool from Air America to inform us that we don't
really KNOW what we REALLY think!
God bless you Janeane! What would we do without
you? The host says that Bush won the last two elections,
so that must mean something...Garofalo's reply was- "maybe." She then
attacks Bush and claims he wasn't elected in 2000...that he was
"installed" by Scalia (she neglects to mention the majority of SCOTUS
is considered more liberal than conservative- so her claim is,
liberals lied and 'installed' a conservative to the US presidency!
Does she think before she talks?!) She then talks about Ohio and says
Bush stole it in 2004, and that there was a conspiracy in 2000 to
steal Florida with the help of Katherine Harris. Here, she doesn't
mention the facts- the networks called the state for Gore, and
official studies have shown that this probably cost Bush around 1
million votes, since the polls in the panhandle wouldn't close for
another hour, which means hundreds of thousands in this area (a
republican stronghold) never voted, thinking it was pointless because
the state was called for Gore. She also neglects to mention the fact
that Gore wanted to toss out military votes, on a bogus claim that
these votes HAD to have a postmark, but that they didn't. He also
wanted selective recounts in selective democratic-strong counties in
the state. She also never mentions that the largest newspapers in the
US went down to Florida and did their own recounts and no matter how
you counted it, Bush won by a considerable margin.

She then keeps claiming Bush lied about Iraqi intel, yet the 9/11
commission said there were NO lies told, and that NO misleading was
done...AND that no one in the Bush administration coerced anyone to
change intel or bolster the case for war. This was a bipartisan
commission that was actually fairly slanted TO THE LEFT, so her claims
are clear lies, having been exposed as that many times.

Garofalo admits, she, herself, isn't ALWAYS a truth teller. No
kidding?!

She goes into the fact that news outlets use official sounding people
to support the war on the right and actors like her to protest the
war, which she says isn't fair. She couldn't possibly outdebate a
"fellow" from so and so foundation, and implies a right wing
conspiracy in the media overall. Of course, the great majority of ALL
reporters/journalists label themselves democrat and liberal, so this
destroys her silly argument. Maybe, it was the fact that mainly only
stupid actors like her protested the war. She claims that many many
people in the FBI and pentagon protested the war in Iraq, which makes
no sense. Pentagon officials against war- that's a novel concept!!

She says that she really doesn't like to speak out like she does (yea
right), but that no one else on the left will do it, so she has no
choice but to speak out. Should someone introduce nutjob Janeane to
the scores of other left wing radicals out there speaking out, so she
can stop speaking out like she wants to do?

Host, David Brancaccio, never once challenged anything she said, nor
did he ever want her to explain or back up any of her ridiculous
conspiracy theories. He interviewed her alone, and after this the next
guest was Bob Barr, who spent his time attacking the Patriot Act. So
much for overall balance in a program. It's not so much that it wasn't
exactly balanced- the main problem lies in the fact that Janeane
Garofalo is SUCH an unhinged radical leftist, and she goes totally
unchallenged. A show with a stated slant one way or another isn't all
bad, but when left unchecked, it leads to the disinformation Garofalo
claims comes from Fox News, the Bush administration, and others. Not a
good thing in my opinion.

Fair and balanced is a nice idea...just not a nice idea for
left-leaning PBS and NOW in particular (you'd think the show would
have improved with the departure of the completely unstable loon, Bill
Moyers). I should point out that the head of the CPB (a republican)
recently pointed out this unbalanced view from PBS, and that he wanted
it to change and become more balanced. This much proves his point.
Part of your tax money goes to fund a show like NOW, which is nothing
but left wing propaganda. I personally don't approve of that, and I
don't think many other Americans would approve either.


http://www.thebluesite.com/archives/2005/05/left_w ing_radic.html

NPR is the only radio news I've heard that spends more than 45 seconds on a story, and they bend over backward to let conservatives have their say.>>>>


Tavis Smiley, who once called pro-death penalty then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush a "serial killer," isn't a news analyst, and he works in public broadcasting on TV, not on radio. But consider this jaw-dropping -- but apparently non-newsworthy -- exchange on PBS between this left-wing host and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Muslim author, as she criticized Islamic terrorists:

Smiley: But Christians do that every single day in this country.

Ali: Do they blow people up?

Smiley: Yes. ... Every day, people walk into post offices; they walk into schools. That's what Columbine is. I mean, I could do this all day long. ... There are so many more examples, Ayaan, of Christians who do that than you could ever give me examples of Muslims who have done that inside this country, where you live and work.



That NPR receives public money -- in a world of hundreds of competitive television and radio stations -- is outrageous. More galling, they push a leftist worldview while taking tax dollars from non-liberals for the privilege.

What to do about National Pathetic Radio




If the resignations at National Public Radio continue at last week's pace, there may be no need for Congress to defund the aging dinosaur, because there will be no one left there to turn the lights on. The latest is Betsy Liley, NPR's director of institutional giving. Conservative activist James O'Keefe secretly recorded phone conversations between Liley and a man masquerading as a potential donor from a fictitious group called the Muslim Education Action Center, which the man said had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
The fake donor said his group was worried about a government audit. Liley told him that a $5 million contribution might not have to be reported to the IRS. Liley has been placed on administrative leave.

This incident followed the resignation of Vivian Schiller, NPR's president and CEO, and Ronald Schiller (no relation), another NPR fundraiser, who was caught on video calling Tea Party members "seriously racist."

Ronald Schiller also said, "Speaking of Zionist influence at NPR: I don't actually find it at NPR. ... No. I mean it's there in those who own newspapers, obviously; but no one owns NPR."

All of this is damning enough, but it begs the larger question of whether in a multimedia age the federal government should subsidize a network that could stand on its own if it wanted to.

The same people who are quick to allege bias when it comes to Fox News and talk radio are just as quick to defend NPR from liberal bias, claiming NPR is, to borrow a phrase, "fair and balanced."

The problem for NPR and other media is not only bias, but also blindness. Large numbers of Americans believe NPR and the broadcast networks are hostile to their beliefs. Rather than address that justified perception, the media deny what to their conservative critics is obvious.

NPR's interim CEO, Joyce Slocum, told the Associated Press, "I think if anyone believes that NPR's coverage is biased in one direction or another, all they need to do to correct that misperception is turn on their radio or log onto their computer and listen or read for an hour or two. What they will find is balanced journalism that brings all relevant points of view to an issue and covers it in depth so that people understand the subtlety and the nuance."

If that were true, would the ultra-liberal George Soros have contributed $1.8 million to NPR to, according to Fox News, "hire 100 new reporters for 50 of its member stations"?

Space keeps me from listing all the examples of NPR's left-wing bias. Here are a few, courtesy of the Media Research Center.

Rebutting the Republican rebuttal to the State of the Union address, "NPR's John Ydstie tried to claim both conservative and liberal economists disagreed with Paul Ryan on the notion there was a 'failed stimulus.' " That's called picking only those economists who reinforce your point of view and not naming them. It's like reporting, "some people say ..."

Also according to the MRC, "The NPR weekend game show 'Wait! Wait! Don't Tell Me!' did a mock interview using George W. Bush sound bites from his book tour to present him as a drunk in the White House."

And, "NPR's Neda Ulaby set out to criticize conservative critics of the National Portrait Gallery's "Hide/Seek" exhibit of LGBT art, and included zero conservatives in her piece."

There is much more, including the reliably liberal Nina Totenberg. In her "reporting" on Elena Kagan's nomination for the Supreme Court, Totenberg presented Kagan "as a modern-day Superman." Why not Wonder Woman?

In 1993, I wrote a column about comments made by Washington Post reporter Michael Weisskopf, who claimed that evangelicals were "largely poor, uneducated and easy to command."

When some of them flooded the newspaper with their educational and professional bona fides, Weisskopf said he meant to say that "most" evangelicals were "poor, uneducated and easy to command."

That triggered more protests. The Post ombudsman at the time, Joann Byrd, tried to defend Weisskopf, saying that readers needed to understand most journalists don't know any of "these people."

And the big media wonder why they are losing audience, money and credibility.


Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2 011/03/cal-thomas-what-do-about-national-pathetic- radio#ixzz1ks31Ye6g
.

Where's the picture of Jeremiah Wright, Bert?

And away we go.


Question answered. And here come the ad hominem attacks.


Why are you so angry?.

Occupation: social worker



Lol

>>Here's the LIBERAL PROPAGANDA they put on PBS! And your Taxes are
paying for it!

I asked about NPR, Blair.

Tavis Smiley is a PBS, not an NPR, program host. So why use an example from PBS to respond to my post about NPR. even the source you cut and pasted from admitted it was not the right fit. If NPR is as biased as you claim, you should be able to fill this thread with lots of examples of its bias.

Then Bert uses a story about the Washington Post to discredit NPR.

Really, guys, there's a saying about apples and oranges.

Occupation: social worker


Lol

--- what's the funny part? I help orphaned and abandoned children and adults with disabilities find homes and be a part of loving families.

Man, I'm such an asshole

Blair, pasting an editorial is not answering a question. Like Bluetrain says, if NPR is so godawful biased, find a story or two that show it.

http://www.npr.org/

Oh Jesus chance, google it.


You have a lot of unanswered questions in threads you have abandoned.

Wait...you say NPR is biased, and I should google to find out if it's true? That makes no sense.

I know it's one of your little debate strategies, but it's invalid. If you say something is true, the burden of truth is not on anyone who might respond...it's on you.

I even gave you the link to the website.

Owsley, Blair thinks anyone who isn't kicking people out of their homes into the snow is a bleeding heart. His whole argumentative style is based on making fun of what you own, what you do for a living and the fact that you have less money than his dad.

By the way, I'm married to a social worker. She runs a residential program for mentally ill inmates.

Yawn.

Thanks Train. I need to remind myself to ignore the trolling. Sometimes there is good debate

She runs a residential program for mentally ill inmates.>>



is that how she met you?

that's pretty funny

my local PBS news show just ran 10 minutes on abuse of prescription pain killers and 10 minutes on a controversial Indian casino construction that is being protested by the local community.

nothing political, no slant, and both important stories that get no play on corporate "if it bleeds, it leads" local news.

Impressive,

>>>If NPR is as biased as you claim, you should be able to fill this thread with lots of examples of its bias.


Beware when the liberal media starts a "fact check" story on political speeches. Their "facts" often come directly from liberal policy wonks. On Wednesday's Morning Edition, NPR ran through a series of Obama claims without really saying he mangled a fact. Reporter Elisabeth Shogren suggested he was too optimistic about getting electric cars on the road with "this Congress" (ahem, not progressive enough). But reporter John Ydstie suggested Paul Ryan was wrong to suggest the stimulus failed, citing that "economists of both persuasions" agree Ryan was incorrect:

RENEE MONTAGNE, anchor: And the president also spoke of infrastructure projects, such as high-speed rail and expanding to most of the population high-speed Internet. John Ydstie, let's bring you back in. Investment was a big theme of this State of the Union speech. In the official Republican rebuttal, Congressman Paul Ryan had this to say about that.

Rep. PAUL RYAN: Since taking office, President Obama has signed into law spending increases of nearly 25 percent for domestic government agencies, an 84 percent increase when you include the failed stimulus. All of this new government spending was sold as investment. Yet after two years, the unemployment rate remains above nine percent, and government has added over $3 trillion to our debt.

The official NPR transcript of this fact-check piece identifies Ryan as a Republican from "Wyoming." Someone needs to fact-check the fact check: he said right at the opening of his State of the Union response that he's from Janesville, Wisconsin. But it continued:

MONTAGNE: A lot of numbers there. But, John Ydstie, Congressman Ryan's assessment, is it correct?

JOHN YDSTIE: Well, it's certainly an assessment many Republicans share. And there's no doubt that President Obama has presided over massive increases in spending, in order to stimulate the economy and keep it from slipping back into recession. Whether that's a failed stimulus or not is arguable, certainly. The economy is growing now. And I think economists of both persuasions agree that the stimulus spending played a big role in keeping the economy from sliding back into recession.

What Republican economist (as opposed to Republican big-city mayors or other "stimulus" beneficiaries) has praised the "stimulus"? NPR may be thinking of Mark Zandi, a media favorite. Columnist Larry Elder put the kibosh on that:

In a study widely cited by the stimulus-supporting media, economists Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi wrote: "We estimate that, without the government's response, GDP in 2010 would be about 11.5 percent lower, payroll employment would be less by some 8 1/2 million jobs, and the nation would now be experiencing deflation."

Case closed? Hardly.

Blinder is a liberal Princeton economist who advised President Bill Clinton and presidential candidates Al Gore and John Kerry. House Democrats happily call Zandi -- with whom they agree and who advised presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. -- a "conservative Republican economist." Democrats say that if a "conservative Republican economist" says the stimulus worked, why, it must be true!

Except Zandi himself says, "I'm a Democrat." Oops.

Zandi explains: "I didn't view (McCain) as a Republican or Democrat." Exactly. Neither did many Republicans.

But NPR surely knows Zandi has consistently supported the stimulus. Last August, NPR noted that Zandi was a stimulus supporter, and conservative economist Tyler Cowen was not. In interviews, NPR found neither had changed their mind over the first 18 months of Obama's presidency.


Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-graham/2011/01/27 /npr-cries-factual-foul-paul-ryan-saying-failed-st imulus-sotu-response#ixzz1ksw0ye8p


On this past weekend’s Fox News Sunday, panel member Mara Liasson - also of NPR - invoked the name of Winston Churchill as she recommended that House Democrats send off Nancy Pelosi "in a blaze of glory" after having "accomplished historic things," rather than keep her on as party leader in the House. Liasson:

Nancy Pelosi did two things for which she will go down in history. She was an incredibly effective majority leader when, and Speaker, there was an opposition President. She helped make the majority. And when she was in the majority, she was the hammer that got through President Obama’s agenda and sent it to the Senate. However, that is a completely different role than what she wants to do now. For which, I think she’s kind of like Winston Churchill. I mean, she accomplished historic things for the Democrats, and they should be sending her off in a blaze of glory and adjusting for this new regime.

Panel member Brit Hume took exception with Liasson connecting Churchill and Pelosi. After Hume argued that "the difference between her and Winston Churchill is that Winston Churchill was turned out after he led his country to a great victory," leading Liasson to respond that she agreed Pelosi "should be turned out," the exchange continued:

BRIT HUME: But she led her party to historic losses in the House of Representatives.

MARA LIASSON: After she did a lot of historic things. All I’m saying is-

HUME: I understand. The problem is the historic, if you’re going to do historic things, it is a good idea for the country and for yourself to do historic things that people like. She failed to do that.

As FNC host Bill O’Reilly discussed her comments during a segment on Monday’s The O’Reilly Factor, he informed viewers that Liasson had released a statement to his show backtracking somewhat on the Churchill reference which she called "an imperfect analogy." O’Reilly, quoting Liasson: "I used an imperfect analogy while trying to explain what I meant. I think Pelosi has done a good job throughout her term, was very successful."

Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the November 7 Fox News Sunday on the Fox network:

MARA LIASSON: Nancy Pelosi did two things for which she will go down in history. She was an incredibly effective majority leader when, and Speaker, there was an opposition President. She helped make the majority. And when she was in the majority, she was the hammer that got through President Obama’s agenda and sent it to the Senate. However, that is a completely different role than what she wants to do now. For which, I think she’s kind of like Winston Churchill. I mean, she accomplished historic things for the Democrats, and they should be sending her off in a blaze of glory and adjusting for this new regime.

BRIT HUME: Mara, the difference between her and Winston Churchill is that Winston Churchill was turned out after he led his country to a great victory. Nancy Pelosi wants to stay on and continue to head up banners flying after the-

LIASSON: That’s the point I’m making, that she should be turned out after she led-

HUME: But she led her party to historic losses in the House of Representatives.

LIASSON: After she did a lot of historic things. All I’m saying is-

HUME: I understand. The problem is the historic, if you’re going to do historic things, it is a good idea for the country and for yourself to do historic things that people like. She failed to do that.

CHRIS WALLACE: We have to take a break here. You know, I have to say, when I was envisioning this panel, it never occurred to me that we would be in an argument about whether or not Nancy Pelosi was or wasn’t like Winston Churchill. But who knows where it’s gonna go? Which is part of the fun of it


Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brad-wilmouth/2010/11 /10/fnc-s-liasson-send-pelosi-blaze-glory-churchil l-after-historic-accomp#ixzz1kswmvwnc


On the morning before NPR announced its internal review of its leftist purge of Juan Williams for appearing on The O'Reilly Factor, media reporter David Folkenflik was "reporting" that the problem with the American news media is its painful lack of bias. Come again? "Mainstream news reporters don't tell you what they think enough of the time." That came from the star of the Folkenflik story, journalism professor Jay Rosen, a favorite of Bill Moyers. On the website, the story was headlined: "American Media's True Ideology? Avoiding One."

Anchor Steve Inskeep began: Yesterday on this program, we heard a story from London about the boisterous world of British newspapers and how they, unlike their American counterparts, openly embrace a point of view. Today, NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik brings us an influential media critic who argues that mainstream American journalists do cling to their own ideology. It's not exactly on the right, not exactly on the left. He calls it the voice from nowhere."

It's not hard to imagine that Jay Rosen is "influential" in liberal media circles when he tells them they're not being liberal enough for him. Folkenflik set up his theory and his hopes and dreams for more bias:

DAVID FOLKENFLIK: What with websites and cable talk shows, it's hardly as though opinions are hard to come by in today's media landscape.>

KEITH OLBERMANN (MSNBC): In exchange, we're selling out a principal campaign pledge and the people to whom and for whom...[tiny clips of other shows, including Morning Joe]

JAY ROSEN (Media Critic): I'd like to know something about their background, like where they're from, who some of their heroes and villains are, any convictions - deeply held convictions - they've developed by reporting on the story over a long period of time.

FOLKENFLIK: Rosen is an associate professor of journalism at New York University. He says there would be a real benefit to such disclosure.

Mr. ROSEN: We can tell where the person is coming from and apply whatever discount rate we want to what they're saying. And I also think that it's more likely to generate trust. And this is the main reason I recommend here's where I'm coming from as a replacement for the view from nowhere.

FOLKENFLIK: The view from nowhere - that's the name Rosen gives to what he says is the media's true ideology, a way of falsely advertising that they can be trusted because they don't have any dog in the fight. For much of the conventional press that is, of course, crazy talk.

LEONARD DOWNIE (Former Executive Editor, Washington Post): I believe The Washington Post does make clear where we're coming from. Where we're coming from in our news gathering is no partisanship or ideology of any kind. We are transparent about where we're coming from. And our reporting speaks for itself. It is not coming from a point of view.

FOLKENFLIK: That's Leonard Downie, the Post's former executive editor and a leading advocate of impartiality in reporting. He went so far as to not vote when he was editor. Downie says true objectivity is an unrealizable goal but that dedicated journalists working together can carry out vital watchdog reporting without carrying a brief for any particular side. It's that impartiality that allows readers to trust his paper, Downie says.

DOWNIE: I would be very disturbed if The Washington Post tomorrow became an avowedly conservative or avowedly liberal newspaper. But you make it seem like all we have to do is admit that's what we already are when, in fact, it would mean changing what we are.

Here's where Folkenflik should be suggesting someone is issuing "crazy talk." Downie was famous/infamous for saying he doesn't vote. But anyone who picked up a copy of The Washington Post would find a newspaper that "voted" for the Democrats with their reportage pretty much every day. Folkenflik didn't seek out legendary Ben Bradlee, the former Post executive editor who relished ruining Richard Nixon in Watergate who said at the height of the Iran-Contra scandal “I haven't had so much fun since Watergate.” It continued:

FOLKENFLIK [pictured at right]: Downie and Rosen agree on one thing: The principle of impartiality is an accident of economics. A century ago there were several newspapers in every big city and each allied to a political faction, but as papers died off, the surviving dailies sought to strip blatant opinion out of their news pages to appeal to a wider audience.

But those values are under siege. Rosen points to the decision of Peter S. Goodman to leave his job as national economics correspondent for The New York Times to become business editor at the liberal Huffington Post. Goodman says he's less sure his shift represents anything so grand.

PETER S. GOODMAN (Business Editor, Huffington Post): I mean, this is not about ranting. It's not about getting individuals elected. It's about the same mission that I think has been part of quality journalism forever, which is uncovering truths that aren't always so easy to uncover.

FOLKENFLIK: Then again, Goodman says his reporters will have some liberties other might not.

GOODMAN: I don't want them feeling like they just have to hand - you know, well, these people said this and those people said that; here, dear reader - you know, you figure it out. I would like them engaged in a process of getting to a satisfying conclusion.

So what you have here is a liberal (taxpayer-subsidized) media outlet reporting on how the media's problem is that it doesn't have a liberal bias, and the honored talking heads in the story are a liberal professor, a former Washington Post editor, and a New York Times reporter who joined The Huffington Post. Isn't the story missing a conservative? Folkenflik offered a quick sentence, so the conservative view could be quickly dismissed:

FOLKENFLIK: Conservatives have complained for years about what they see as a pervasive liberal sensibility in the media. This is different. Rosen says that view from nowhere too often limits political reporters to obsessing about winners and losers -- who's up or down -- rather than the harder work of determining who's telling the truth, or the effects of the policies those politicians adopt.

ROSEN: Removing all bias from their reports is something professional journalists actually aren't very good at. And they shouldn't say that they can do this, because it's very clear to most of the people on the receiving end that they fail at this all the time.

FOLKENFLIK: Jay Rosen argues that journalists will rebuild trust only if they reveal their beliefs, not suppress them. David Folkenflik, NPR News.

Rosen spent the Bush years arguing the Bush White House was trying to "decertify" reporters, to deny them their essential role as political actors. Here's the sentence in the Folkenflik story that absolutely floored James Taranto in his Best of the Web Today column for The Wall Street Journal opinion section:

Many old-line American news organizations are holding onto those values–-or at least want to be seen doing so. NBC News suspended Keith Olbermann and Joe Scarborough for failing to get approval to make contributions to political candidates, though both are opinion hosts on cable channel MSNBC. Their suspensions were widely considered to be relatively light, at just two days apiece. NPR terminated the contract of former news analyst Juan Williams for repeatedly voicing personal views in other news outlets.

Taranto underlined: "That's right, NPR is touting its firing of Juan Williams as evidence of its objectivity and lack of bias. OK, we suppose Rosen has a point. Here is at least one news organization that may as well abandon any pretense of being unbiased or objective."


Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-graham/2011/01/08 /npr-reports-us-liberal-bias-tilted-theorist-who-l aments-reporters-arent-#ixzz1ksx0mtJq


Perhaps the people at National Public Radio are worried that a new Republican Congress could threaten the lavishness of its federal subsidies again. Or maybe NPR is just a sandbox for the Left. But on Wednesday, the show Fresh Air spent most of its hour suggesting the Republican Party was dangerously infested with extremists. The guest was socialist Princeton professor Sean Wilentz, who has written that George W. Bush practiced "a radicalized version of Reaganism." Host Terry Gross was promoting Wilentz's article in The New Yorker on Glenn Beck and the Tea Party:

GROSS: Can you think of another time in American history when there have been as many people running for Congress who seem to be on the extreme?

WILENTZ: Not running for Congress, no. I mean even back in the '50s.

This is par for the course, since Gross promoted a New Yorker piece by Jane Mayer just a few weeks ago (on August 26) on how the Koch brothers were funding the Tea Party as part of a "war" on that secular saint, President Obama. What stuck out in this interview was the use of "extreme" labels for the conservative movement and the GOP -- twelve of them. In Sesame Street lingo, the hour was brought to you by the letter E for Extreme. Most of them came in Gross's restate-the-thesis (or in this case, restate-the-attack-ad) "if you're just joining us" reintroductions.

Glenn Beck has described himself as restoring history, but my guest, historian Sean Wilentz, says that Beck and the Tea Party movement are reviving ideas that circulated on the extremist right half a century ago, especially in the John Birch Society....

Wilentz has an article in the current edition of the New Yorker titled "Confounding Fathers: The Tea Party's Cold War Roots." He asks why current Republican Party leaders have done virtually nothing to challenge extremist ideas in their party and a great deal to abet them...

If you're just joining us, my guest is Sean Wilentz. He's a professor of history at Princeton University, and he has a piece in the current edition of the New Yorker called "Confounding Fathers: The Tea Party's Cold War Roots." And he says in this piece that both Glenn Beck and the Tea Party's beliefs are rooted in extremist groups and thinking from the Cold War period....

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Im Terry Gross back with historian Sean Wilentz. We're talking about his article in the current edition of The New Yorker, in which he writes that Glenn Beck and the Tea Party Movement are reviving ideas that circulated in the extremist right half a century ago, especially in the John Birch Society. Wilentz is a professor of American history at Princeton University. His books include "The Rise of American Democracy" and "The Age of Reagan." His new book is called "Bob Dylan in America." Wilentz is the historian in residence of Dylan's official website. Wilentz's article in The New Yorker is titled "Confounding Fathers: The Tea Party's Cold War Roots."

So a question that youre asking in your article is how is it that the Republican Party managed to hold this kind of extremism at bay for decades.

WILENTZ: Right.

GROSS: And now that extremism is getting expressed in voting-booth politics.

WILENTZ: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: We hear candidates expressing these views. What's changed in the party that has opened the door to this kind of extremism?...

GROSS: So flash forward to today and to the midterm election of 2010.

WILENTZ: Yeah.

GROSS: What role do you see extremists playing now in the Republican Party, and do you see an equivalent of a Buckley character saying this extremism is going to be bad for the party?...

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Sean Wilentz. He's a professor of history at Princeton University. In the current edition of The New Yorker, he has an article called "Confounding Fathers: The Tea Party's Cold War Roots." And he writes about how the Tea Party and Glenn Beck's version of history are rooted in what he describes as extremist ideology that came out of the Cold War in the 1950s. One of the things I find really fascinating about Glenn Beck is that he has a kind of anti-intellectual stance.

WILENTZ: Yeah.

GROSS: At the same time he's always standing professorially in front of a blackboard. (Soundbite of laughter)

WILENTZ: Right.

GROSS: And he's telling you that, you know, the historians have lied to you but he's appointed himself, you know, America's truthful historian who is going to teach you the real story, so the whole thing seems to be rooted in such paradox, like intellectualism is bad but I'm here to be the professor.

WILENTZ: Exactly.

GROSS: Historians don't know what they're talking about but I'm here to be a historian....

GROSS: If youre just joining us, my guest is Sean Wilentz. He's a professor of history at Princeton University. In the current edition of The New Yorker, he has an article called "Confounding Fathers: The Tea Party's Cold War Roots." He's also the author of a new book called "Bob Dylan in America." And now I will ask you to make the connection between your piece... (Laughter) in The New Yorker and your Bob Dylan book, and that connection is a song by Bob Dylan that satirizes the John Birch Society...

WILENTZ: Right. Right.

GROSS: ...a group on the extreme of the right, which weve been talking about.


Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-graham/2010/10/17 /npr-if-youre-just-joining-us-republicans-are-dang erously-extremist#ixzz1ksxPQwYa

just a cursory glance at one website (said website is frowned upon & not recognized as credible by many on the zone) revealed the above

Very original Blair. Did you have to take a nap after thinking of that one.

Hill, allowing people to have their say is not bias. Interviewing people of different viewpoints is part of what news reporters do. Distorting facts is bias (it doesn't seem like a game breaker that someone identified Ryan as being from Wyoming and not Wisconsin. Hell, I know several people from Wisconsin who wish Ryan was from Wyoming). But letting Wilentz, who's a freelancer as far as I know, or Liasson to voice an opinion doesn't seem biased to me.

there needs to be an information source that is not commercially driven. NPR and PBS provide value to everyone.

They are not biased, righties just perceive it that way because they present information in a balanced way, without a conservative conclusion.

Yeah, that's it,

http://www.news9.com/story/16638935/report-oklahom ans-rank-low-in-building-wealth-avoiding-poverty

OKLAHOMA CITY - A new ranking of the 50 states shows Oklahoma comes in 33rd in the ability of residents to save and build wealth and avoid poverty.

The Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Corporation for Enterprise Development released its rankings. The group is focused on expanding economic opportunities for low-income families and communities.

It ranked the 50 states and the District of Columbia on five areas: financial assets, jobs, housing, health care, and education.

Oklahoma's highest ranking was 14th in housing and home ownership, which earned the state a "B" grade. The state scored poorly in health care, ranking 41st and in financial assets and income, where it ranked 38th. Oklahoma received a "D" in both of those categories.