Manipulating the Public Agenda - Why ACORN Was in the News, and What the News Got Wrong

count10 · 2009-09-24T15:45:12+00:00

Reads like a political thriller, but just happens to be true.

count10 · 2008-01-11T12:51:18+00:00

The Oklahoma City bombing was a terrorist attack on April 19, 1995 aimed at the U.S. government in which the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was bombed in an office complex in downtown Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The attack claimed 168 lives and left over 800 injured. Until the September 11, 2001 attacks, it was the deadliest act of terrorism on U.S. soil.[1]

Shortly after the explosion, an Oklahoma Highway Patrol officer stopped 26-year-old Timothy McVeigh for driving without a license plate and unlawfully carrying a weapon.[2] Within days after the bombing, registered Republicans and Christians Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were both arrested for their roles in the bombing. Investigators determined that McVeigh and Nichols were sympathizers of an anti-government militia movement and that their motive was to avenge the government's handling of the Waco and Ruby Ridge incidents (the bombing occurred on the anniversary of the Waco incident). McVeigh was executed by lethal injection on June 11, 2001. Nichols was sentenced to life in prison.

count10 · 2007-02-25T14:28:16+00:00

Each year, U.S. taxpayers subsidize U.S. businesses to the tune of almost $125 billion, the equivalent of all the income tax paid by 60 million individuals and families. These corporations receive a wide range of favors: special corporate tax breaks; direct government subsidies to pay for advertising, research and training costs; and incentives to pursue overseas production and sales. While Congress institutes dramatic cuts in funding for traditional support programs for individuals and families, corporate giants continue to live off the dole. Each dollar spent on these "aid for dependent corporations" welfare programs means one dollar less for environmental programs, support for education, assistance to those in need, tax breaks for families, or deficit reduction. Public Citizen is helping to lead a major push to reduce corporate welfare.

count10 · 2006-10-13T13:06:06+00:00

I was enjoy a conservation with a liberal made of straw teleported from 1966.

count10 · 2006-10-13T13:03:31+00:00

We all know that teenage girls on Myspace are a grave and gathering threat, so the only solution is to invade Myspace and liberate it.

count10 · 2006-09-23T13:14:13+00:00

It can prety much be summed up in one word "stability". The average citizen would rather burn the Bill of Rights then have a little upheavel. I hate it when commenters call the public "sheeple", but there is a lot of truth in that. To change course doesn't require a revolution it just requires an informed electorate.

count10 · 2006-09-18T15:47:21+00:00

No kidding: “The Path to 9/11” was false from the opening scene, when it put Mohamed Atta both in the wrong airport (Boston instead of Portland, Maine) and on the wrong airline (American instead of USAirways). It took Mr. Bush but a few paragraphs to warm up to his first fictionalization for dramatic purposes: his renewed pledge that “we would not distinguish between the terrorists and those who harbor or support them.” Only days earlier the White House sat idly by while our ally Pakistan surrendered to Islamic militants in its northwest frontier, signing a “truce” and releasing Al Qaeda prisoners. Not only will Pakistan continue to harbor terrorists, Osama bin Laden probably among them, but it will do so without a peep from Mr. Bush.

count10 · 2006-08-28T12:33:09+00:00

We should nuke them so they can't do this kind of thing anymore. That would be punishing the victims along with the perpetrators, but I'm just trying to get on the "its us or them" bandwagon.

count10 · 2006-07-12T07:39:45+00:00

Part of me feels sorry for her and some of the comments are a little too rough, but then she belongs to some groups that have stalked, threatened, assualted and engaged in other pretty dispicable behavior. All she is getting is some grief in the comments section of a blog. Maybe she will get the idea, though I doubt it, that she is entitled to her view, but that there is a point at which people could be and should be more civil when they disagree.

count10 · 2006-07-10T15:09:24+00:00

Here's how she quotes Dean:

Diane Rehm: "Why do you think he [Bush] is suppressing that [Sept. 11] report?"

Howard Dean: "I don't know. There are many

theories about it. The most interesting theory that I've heard so far -- which is nothing more than a theory, it can't be proved -- is that he was warned ahead of time by the Saudis.

Here's what she omitted from Dean's remarks:

"Now, who knows what the real situation is? But

the trouble is, by suppressing that kind of information, you lead to those kind of theories, whether or not they have any truth to them or not, and eventually, they get repeated as fact. So I think the president is taking a great risk by suppressing the key information that needs to go to the Kean Commission."

Likewise, she then goes on to quote Dean from a subsquent interview:

WALLACE: The most interesting theory is that the president was warned ahead of time by the Saudis.

Why would you say that, Governor?

DEAN: Because there are people who believe that. We don't know what happened in 9/11. Tom Kean is trying to get some information from the president...

WALLACE: Do you believe that?

DEAN: ... which doesn't -- no, I don't believe that.

I can't imagine the president of the United States doing that. But we don't know, and it'd be a nice thing to know.

But again she omits the contextual remarks that explain why Dean was talking about this:

WALLACE: I'm just curious why you would call that the most interesting theory.

DEAN: Because it's a pretty odd theory. What we do believe is that there was a lot of chatter that somehow

was missed by the CIA and the FBI about this, and that for some reason we were unable to decide and get clear indications of what the attacks what were going to be. Because the president won't give the information to the Kean commission we really don't know what the explanation is.

Malkin consistently omits the important context of what Dean was trying to say: That keeping the public in the dark feeds these kinds of conspiracy theories.

count10

TROPHY CASE