At the heart of journalism, theoretically, is the pursuit of the truth. If a journalist appears to have an opinion about a subject, well, that journalist can't be trusted to report the truth because he is no longer objective.

Take, for example, the case of Larry Conners of KMOV. Conners said that he may have been targeted by the IRS after a tough April 2012 interview with President Obama. For going public, he lost his job.

For KMOV, there is no higher cause than unbiased, objective news reporting. It is what our viewers expect and it is what we work very hard to deliver. We can accept no less. Larry is certainly entitled to his opinion, but taking a personal political position on one of the Station's Facebook pages creates an appearance of bias that is inconsistent with important journalistic standards.

Journalistic standards hold that any appearance of bias undermines the core mission of presenting to the truth to the news agency's viewers and readers.

One problem--it's impossible to cover newsmakers and events without forming personal opinions about it.

That leads to an interesting result--the truth is so important to the journalism profession that journalists must hide the fact that they have opinions. To be real truth tellers, they must hide the truth about their own biases.

Of course, it's perfectly fine to have biases. It's impossible not to. Like the rest of us, journalists have opinions, they get into the same political debates we do with relatives at Thanksgiving, and they vote for candidates they like and not for ones they don't.

When it comes to their reporting, however, they suddenly pretend none of that exists. For the sake of the truth, they cover that up.

Instead of pretending they don't have opinions, why not just disclose them, the way a financial reporter discloses if they own a certain stock their story is about?  If a reporter does a story on a political event, we're supposed to be kept in the dark what that person thinks about the participants in that event?

If I could flip a switch and see the political preferences of a given newsroom, I'd find that the objectivity-inducing journalism standards result in one political persuasion outnumbered by the other four to one.

Were it all exposed to sunlight--and don't journalists love sunlight--unbalanced newsrooms would feel compelled to balance out the staff and the coverage on their own, resulting in a better product for the public.

At the heart of journalism, theoretically, is the pursuit of the truth. If a journalist appears to have an opinion about a subject, well, that journalist can't be trusted to report the truth because he is no longer objective.

Take, for example, the case of Larry Conners of KMOV. Conners said that he may have been targeted by the IRS after a tough April 2012 interview with President Obama. For going public, he lost his job.

For KMOV, there is no higher cause than unbiased, objective news reporting. It is what our viewers expect and it is what we work very hard to deliver. We can accept no less. Larry is certainly entitled to his opinion, but taking a personal political position on one of the Station's Facebook pages creates an appearance of bias that is inconsistent with important journalistic standards.

Journalistic standards hold that any appearance of bias undermines the core mission of presenting to the truth to the news agency's viewers and readers.

One problem--it's impossible to cover newsmakers and events without forming personal opinions about it.

That leads to an interesting result--the truth is so important to the journalism profession that journalists must hide the fact that they have opinions. To be real truth tellers, they must hide the truth about their own biases.

Of course, it's perfectly fine to have biases. It's impossible not to. Like the rest of us, journalists have opinions, they get into the same political debates we do with relatives at Thanksgiving, and they vote for candidates they like and not for ones they don't.

When it comes to their reporting, however, they suddenly pretend none of that exists. For the sake of the truth, they cover that up.

Instead of pretending they don't have opinions, why not just disclose them, the way a financial reporter discloses if they own a certain stock their story is about?  If a reporter does a story on a political event, we're supposed to be kept in the dark what that person thinks about the participants in that event?

If I could flip a switch and see the political preferences of a given newsroom, I'd find that the objectivity-inducing journalism standards result in one political persuasion outnumbered by the other four to one.

Were it all exposed to sunlight--and don't journalists love sunlight--unbalanced newsrooms would feel compelled to balance out the staff and the coverage on their own, resulting in a better product for the public.

It turns out the Tea Party was right.

The raison d'être of the loosely affiliated grassroots organizations is that a big government threatens freedoms, especially if it's in the wrong hands. This week's revelations that the Obama Administration lied about the circumstances surrounding the death of the American ambassador at Benghazi, spied on the Associated Press, and intimidated conservative groups with the IRS clued in the mainstream media on what the Tea Party has known for years.

Not only has this administration rapidly centralized power but has turned the government against the American people in an unprecedented way, and it's not just the three scandals from this week.

Some liberals and libertarians deserve credit for raising concerns about sacrificing liberty for security in the wake of 9/11. We were fine when that power was pointed at our enemies in Al Qaeda. They warned us that in the wrong hands, it could be used against us.

Obama campaigned on ending some controversial Bush-era security programs. Liberals ate it up. Not only did he keep them, however, he expanded them and his administration has used them against his own country. Liberals didn't care.

Who did care, were the Tea Party groups. Many participants became disenchanted with Bush, especially in his second term. But size of his government was nothing compared to Obama, who showed a radical ideological streak that put no limit on the size of government--blended with nasty, brutal Chicago politics.

Thanks to an ill-informed public, an adoring press, and a golden tongue, Obama was able to get away with abuses of power. While the mainstream media may have just learned about his problems this week, conservatives reported it way back--but they were mocked and ignored, until now.

If the mainstream media was doing its job in 2008, there's no way Obama's campaign would have survived Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, and Tony Rezko, let alone his anti-American upbringing or heavy drug use.

The press ignored even the existence of the Tea Party at first, which caught fire in its opposition to Obamacare.  Without mainstream media help, the Democrats were able to push it through with shady maneuvers.

Alone, conservatives tried unsuccessfully to hold Obama's Attorney General accountable for the Fast & Furious gunwalking scandal.  They pointed out that his Green Jobs Czar was a self admitted 9/11 Truther and communist. They railed against the partial nationalization of the healthcare, auto, and financial sectors, to no avail. Solyndra didn't make a dent, and taxpayer money flowed to Obama backers. He supported the violent Occupy movement--can you imagine what the press would say if Romney backed the Tea Party and it turned violent? The press had nothing but praise for it. Then there was massive ammo purchases and an assault on the second amendment.  Don't forget about Obama's war on whistleblowers.  Or his war on Libya without Congressional approval that he said would last weeks but lasted months.

Either the flagging economy or Benghazi should have cost him reelection, but instead he sailed in. Rand Paul had to filibuster just to get him to say he wouldn't target American citizens in a drone strike.

All of it was ignored by everyone but conservatives.

But now that the election is over, we're starting to hear about Benghazi, the IRS targeting of the Tea Party, and the overly aggressive pursuit of whistleblowers, all of which took place before he was reelected.

Now, the mainstream media has finally validated only a few conservative fears of this corrupt administration, which is worse than Nixon's.  There's lots more. Can Obama's disciples spin the news cycle back to his advantage? Will the press lose interest and the public go back to sleep?

Probably.

But there's a chance that scandals' momentum will highlight his other, previously ignored ones. Whether or not Obama sustains permanent political damage, the Tea Party can at least be assured that they were in the right all along.

Another far-left cause, another riot and clashes with police.

Police used "flash bangs" and pepper spray against some protesters who pelted them with rocks and bottles late Wednesday, as violence erupted during May Day in Seattle.

Several dozen protesters, many using bandanas to cover their faces, began clashing with police in downtown Seattle hours after a peaceful immigrant-rights march ended.

The May Day protests in Seattle the previous year turned violent as well and in Los Angeles several years before. It's not just May Day either--let's not forget to mention the infamous Occupy Protests. There's something about anti-capitalism that brings out the worst in people.

When the "far right" protests? Millions of people in lawn chairs waving flags at Tea Party rallies.

That not only is strong evidence for the civility of their guiding ideology, but is an indictment on the media.

Can you imagine if a Tea Party rally turned as violent as a May Day or Occupy protest, with pepper spray and fires and vandalism? It would be front-page news for weeks.

But when the far left does it, it's just protesters being protesters. More of the usual--which is a sad commentary on that political ideology.

Last month I wrote that the problem with Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained was that the revenge film "seemed more like an attempt to be inspirational" and to the extent social messages exists in it they "irresponsibly exacerbate existing racial tensions." Fast forward a few weeks, and Southern California was paralyzed by former cop Christopher Dorner  and his revenge killings aimed at the "racist" Los Angeles Police Department.

In Django Unchained, Jamie Foxx--who later said it's "great" he gets to kill all the white people in the movie--murders those who enslaved him as well as their families. Dorner, who saw Django Unchained and complimented it in his infamous manifesto, began his killing spree by executing the daughter of a former LAPD captain, as well as her fiancé.

"I've never had the opportunity to have a family of my own, I'm terminating yours," Dorner wrote. "Look your wives/husbands and surviving children directly in the face and tell them the truth as to why your children are dead."

Dorner's writings also revealed he is a liberal, supports Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Piers Morgan, Chris Matthews, Tavis Smiley, and so on.

 Now, we learned from the Left that Rush Limbaugh's and Sarah Palin's political opinions inspired the Gabby Giffords shooting, making them responsible. That's even considering that Loughner never listened to either pundit and his rantings have a left-wing bent.

Can you imagine if a Tea Partier waged a campaign of terrorism against a law enforcement agency, after writing a manifesto that praised Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Palin, Michelle Bachmann, and Rand Paul? The Left would attempt to put all of them out of business, if not behind bars, let alone what would happen to any of them that made an inspirational movie encouraging such acts.

Of course, it's silly to blame Piers Morgan and Chris Matthews for what Dorner did. But that's the standard the Left created, as stupid as it is. I would love to hear a committed liberal's thoughts about this, but it's one of those things that's too inconvenient for them to discuss.

With a superstorm barreling down on the East Coast in the last week of the 2012 presidential election, both candidates find themselves in the same position of having to tone down the campaign rhetoric to give the proper responses to the impending disaster. The media isn't taking a break, however.

President Obama, who at times has looked less presidential than his opponent, sees in the storm an opportunity to take command and reassure the American public that they are in his good hands. The Los Angeles Times followed that lead in a story headlined, "Obama: 'We're ready' for Sandy, election will 'take care of itself'.

Obama spoke after meeting with top security and emergency officials in the situation room, where he was briefed on the trajectory of the hurricane and the coordination of the federal and state efforts to minimize damage. Obama said he had been in touch with governors and other local officials, and urged people to listen carefully to their warnings.

How presidential. What was Mitt Romney up to?  Remember, he's in the exact same position as Obama and has given the exact same response that the election needs to take a backseat to the storm.

However, the Times said he is "electioneering".

Hurricane Sandy's impending landfall, just eight days before Election Day, puts the GOP nominee in an awkward position.

Both men are in the same situation, having to suspend campaigning due to the storm as the election nears. But the Times put a more favorable light on Obama, and cast Romney in an "awkward position."

The LA Times has ceased to be a serious news outlet and has instead churned out article after article hammering the Republican candidate. Its "journalists" pounce on anything they think they can spin against him as if they were seasoned political operatives.

Mitt Romney can't even make a joke without having the Times all over him. Almost a week after his wife's life was endangered when smoke filled the cabin of her airplane, Romney joked that he didn't know why "the windows don't open."

An initial Times article quoted him but failed to put it in the proper context that he was joking. We'll let that slide.

But a subsequent article, "Romney mocked for comment about jet windows" went for the kill. The Times would have you believe that a man who has successfully ran companies and a state didn't know why airplane windows don't open.

"The candidate cast doubt on the mechanical design of airplane windows, in a general sense," Times reporter Xiaonan Wang wrote, adding, "Romney's idea doesn't work scientifically."

No, the candidate made a joke. But that didn't stop the LA Times from acting as a forum for a quote from left-wing smear site Daily Kos.

"It'd be like the mile-high club for Seamus, with the added benefit of asphyxiation induced by the low oxygen levels at cruising altitude -- assuming that you manage to avoid having the plane rip apart due to the sudden loss of cabin pressure."

Someone trying to act so smart when it really turns out the comment wasn't serious. That's expected from a partisan hatchetmen, but real reporters? The Times continues:

The candidate's complaint about sealed plane windows quickly went viral on social media. Some are making fun of Romney for not knowing about the risks involved with an open window, while others think it might be just a joke.

At least they mentioned "others" who thought it might be a joke. The Times left room to retreat to the position of "hey, we're just reporting on something that went viral". Mmm hmm. And I'm sure they'd take an Obama joke out of context in the same way.

The Times COULD have talked to one of the "others" that was in the room. The Blaze did. But hey, they're not a respected news organization like the Los Angeles Times.

William Everitt, vice president of Investment Real Estate Associates (IREA), told TheBlaze that he was at the Romney fundraiser in Beverly Hills on Saturday. He said Romney was absolutely joking when he said he doesn't know why airplane windows don't open.

"Basically he was retelling the story and when he said 'I don't know why they don't have roll down windows on airplanes,' he looked at the audience and everyone laughed," Everitt told TheBlaze. "It was a clearly delivered joke...There were 1,000 people there that will tell you the same thing."

Tet Offensive. Watergate. Hostage Crisis. Iran/Contra.  Every administration has a major foreign policy crisis. Obama's was the murder of the American ambassador to Libya at the hands of jihadists. I say "was" because, at least for the moment, the mainstream media successfully spun Obama's massive problem into a Romney defeat.

First, the facts. On September 11, Ambassador Chris Stephens was killed along with three embassy "staff" when armed protesters attacked the American embassy in Benghazi.  He was only the sixth American ambassador to be murdered while in office, and the first since 1979.

Because President Obama has been dogged by criticism that, like one-term president Jimmy Carter, he's weak on foreign policy (particularly in the Middle East), the mainstream media leapt to his defense. Almost miraculously, it diverted all the negative attention onto Mitt Romney and Christianity.

The press effectively slammed the door on any high-profile investigations into the incident, even though questions are rife. Why was security at the consulate not beefed up for September 11^th? Why did we ignore the warning of a Libyan official three days before? If the attack spontaneously occurred over outrage over an anti-Islamic video, why did it seem so organized and why were the attackers so well armed? How did they know about Ambassador Stephens' safe house location? Why can't we get a straight story how he died? Isn't it a bit of a coincidence that the attacks happened on September 11^th? Was the attack perpetrated by people armed by the U.S. government during the Libyan civil war?

If this happened under George W. Bush's watch, would the media cut him slack if his administration ignored warnings over the attack? If he went to bed while the attack was ongoing, as President Obama is said to have done, would they offer some criticism? They'd be calling for his impeachment. They'd be digging into the story weeks and months later. After all, the New York Times ran 32 consecutive front page stories on the much less severe incident at Abu Ghraib.

Instead, they turned the story into a criticism on Mitt Romney's handling of the crisis. That's right--Mitt Romney, who isn't even president. He supposedly criticized Obama too early. Furthermore, they ignored radical Islamist violence and placed the blame for the region-wide violent protest on the video. Finally, they attempted to cast the couple of lunatics that made the video as representatives of mainstream Christianity. In one day, the Los Angeles Times published the following stories:

Christian charity, ex-con linked to film on Islam

YouTube's role at issue over video that incited Mideast violence

Mitt Romney's Libyan moment (Google+ hangout)

'Innocence of Muslims': Administration asks YouTube to review video

Beyond religion in the Middle East

None of the stories mention Obama's handling of the situation, and each makes excuses for the Mideast violence, namely the video. The "film", a cheesy low-budget high-school -quality YouTube upload, was made by a Coptic Christian--Egyptian-American Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, hardly the representative of mainstream American Christianity the media would have you believe.  Finally, the only time radical Islamist violence was mentioned by the Times in a headline was the lack of it (Iranians protest film mocking Muhammad; no violence reported).

The LA Times was not alone in covering for President Obama. Remember--the New York Times ran 32 front page stories on Abu Ghraib. The media completely ignored Obama's role in this current crisis even though questions abound. Reporters were even caught coordinating questions to pin down Romney down on his response to the gaffe the manufactured for him.

This week, the Obama campaign diverted attention from the foreign affairs crisis even more by leaking video of Romney saying that 47% of the American public is dependent on the government and is not going to vote for him.

Once again, the liberal media caught the pass and ran downfield with it.  Once again the LA Times to the rescue:

Romney: Obama, supporters 'more European than American' in outlook

Obama responds to Romney remarks in David Letterman interview

We, the parasites

New ad says Romney has 'tough luck' attitude toward middle class

Romney, personal responsibility and the '47%' (Google+ Hangout)

Romney advisor predicts 'victims' remark will blow over

Romney comments echo GOP push to have all Americans pay taxes

Conservatives divided on how Romney should speak to '47%'

White House letting Romney's '47%' comment speak for itself

Obama's unlikely ally in battleground state ad war: Mitt Romney

Romney questions viability of two-state solution in Middle East

Romney defends 'off the cuff' remarks on Obama backers as victims

Romney's common touch?

Romney slams Obama backers as dependent on government, tax dodgers

I think the Times' reporters are too busy covering that story than investigating any of the seriously troubling questions still unanswered in the wake of the ambassador's death.

With a turning point for America less than two months away, we should know as much possible about the unknown in the race--President Barack Obama.

It's ridiculous that we know so little about the radical past and ideology of the man that has 100% name recognition and that's been leading our country for the last four years. That's a failure of the media. But the information is available for those who seek it out. I intend to highlight individual tidbits over a series of posts leading up to the November election. You won't find far-out claims here or any birtherism, just facts that the media failed to report. We know all about Mitt Romney's dog and his hair-cutting days, but do you ever read in the liberal press that Obama thought of his grandfather as the N word? Or that Obama was raised by radical Marxists?  Or what his religion is? (Hint: He's not a Muslim.)

Let's start the series with the explosive claim that Barack Obama called his paternal grandfather the n- word after he found out he admired British civilization. Pretty explosive stuff. Does it make him a bad president? No. But it's a good example of how negligent the media has been--can you imagine them ignoring it if a prominent black conservative like Condoleezza Rice said it about her grandfather?

Obama's grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama, was a cook for British imperial forces during World War I. He was imprisoned by them for 6 months and tortured. While the experience apparently left him scarred, he had a grudging respect for Western culture.

Dinesh D'Souza, whose 2016 documentary is now the second biggest political documentary of all time, is one person doing the job that the mainstream media should have done four years ago. And it's not like it took a lot of digging--Obama calls his grandfather a "house n__" in Dreams from My Father. It's right there in the open. But we're just hearing about it for the first time, and it's still not talked about in the elite media.

"My image of Onyango, faint as it was, had always been of an autocratic man--a cruel man, perhaps. But I had also imagined him an independent man, a man of his people, opposed to white rule... What Granny had told us scrambled that image completely, causing ugly words to flash across my mind. Uncle Tom. Collaborator. House nigger."

Obama is disappointed that Onyango didn't oppose whites, and furthermore he's enraged that his grandfather held them in high esteem. D'Souza writes:

According to Sarah Obama, Onyango admired three things about the British. The first was their level of knowledge. "To him knowledge was the source of all the white man's power," she said. Onyango also considered the British to be generally fair-minded. "If you do a good job for the white man," he liked to say, "then he will always pay you well."  Finally, Onyango unfavorably contrasted African organization with Western organization.

 Onyango respected Western civilization a bit too much for Obama's taste. Far from being the race healer the media wanted him to be, Obama shows that he's coming from somewhere radically different than where we thought he was.  

Editorial pages should usually be shielded from charges of bias. After all, that's what the editorial is--an opinion of the paper on a subject.  But they shouldn't be partisans, and they especially shouldn't be partisan all the time.

When an editorial page consistently supports one party or ideology over another, that is cause for complaint if the paper continues to dishonestly claim it is objective and straight down the middle. Sorry, if you always have liberal talking points in your editorial you can't claim your paper is straight-down-the-middle. You can have your opinion, but be honest about what your publication really is.

Unfortunately for us, the nation's paper of record continues to spout timed Democratic talking points day in and day out on its editorial page (an ideology that permeates other pages as well, by the way). It's one thing to criticize a party or both parties for stupid things that parties do, but to do a hit piece that coincides perfectly with cheesy liberal campaign commercials is beyond the pale.

Democrats are attempting to score cheap political points by using Tropical Storm Isaac to conjure up images of Hurricane Katrina and juxtaposing it with GOP plans across-the-board spending cuts that include "disaster relief funding and weather monitoring systems."

William Russell, a guest columnist for the Orlando Sentinal, wrote:

Tampa and the Republican convention seem to have dodged the initial impact of Tropical Storm Isaac. But the full impact of its political spin has yet to be felt.

Issac is building power over the Gulf of Mexico as I write this, and the power of the political spin builds as the storm approaches the landfall areas of Hurricane Katrina. While no one wishes for Isaac to follow the map track of Katrina, those living in its path need to prepare for the wind, rain and storm surges. Those following its political track need to brace for the impact of the political spin to follow the storm. Never a group to let a disaster go to waste, the Obama campaign is waiting to unleash the fury of its spin on the storm with a maximum of political effects.

The spin is par for the course for the Obama Administration, but should be beneath the country's most respected newspaper. Coincidentally timed with anti-Romney political ads paid for by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and the Republican National Convention, the Old Gray Lady editorialized:

Tropical Storm Isaac is more than just a logistical inconvenience for Republicans gathered in Tampa: it is a powerful reminder both of Republican incompetence in handling Hurricane Katrina seven years ago, and the party's no-less-disastrous plans to further cut emergency-related spending.

David Axelrod couldn't have said it better.

That is not something you will hear Paul Ryan talk about this week at the convention, nor any of the other lawmakers who make simplistic promises about the power of slashing government spending. But the budgets assembled by Mr. Ryan and warmly embraced by Mitt Romney severely cut spending for emergency preparedness, exactly the kind of money needed in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and scores of other states for this and future storms.

They're not even trying to pretend they are partisans at this point. It's bad enough when they pump up one side all the time, but it's even worse when they mislead readers about the other side.

That is $1.8 billion that will not be available for evacuation equipment and supplies, communications gear that lets first responders speak to one another, and training exercises.

The Times said Mr. Ryan wouldn't want to talk about these cuts, but I suspect the Times doesn't want to talk about all the money that FEMA wasted. They dishonestly list all the good things the money was spent on, and conveniently ignore the bad, like all those debit cards that were handed out like candy.

GAO and Homeland Security audits found that up to 900,000 of the 2.5 million applicants who received emergency aid were "based on duplicate or invalid Social Security numbers or false addresses and names", according to MSNBC. That includes the infamous $2,000 debit cards that were used to buy football tickets, lap dances, and expensive hotel rooms.

What's 900,000 times $2,000? Exactly $1.8 billion, the amount Republicans want to cut.

The Times pulls this every day. It's a disgrace.

The LA Times wants you to know that Mitt Romney is too rich and you should vote for the other guy.

That was the underlying theme of the progressive newspaper's hit piece, "Ann Romney and dressage: A pricey private world", in which it devoted 1,300 words to Ann Romney's expensive hobby.

The Times dug up an old lawsuit that Romney is no longer a party to, which involved a dispute regarding horse she had owned.  In 2010 she was deposed in a "stuffy Simi Valley office building" and discussed how she kept her horse at a Moorpark Ranch, and how riding it helps her cope with MS.

The only reason the Times allocated resources to write this lengthy story and send a photographer to Moorpark to snap photos of the ranch, is to paint the Mitt Romney as a rich, out-of-touch, elite snob who cares little for working people. He's nothing like you, so you should vote for Obama.

As John Nolte points out, the Times devoted 1,300 more words to Ann Romney's horse than it has to the bribery accusation Jeremiah Wright made against President Obama's campaign, and it still refuses to publish a video tape it has of the president praising a man with close ties to terrorism.

Liberal media bias doesn't have to be blatant lies about Republicans. It can be subtle jabs made in concert with overt Democratic attacks on perceived Republican weak points while simultaneously ignoring anything that's bad for their party.

The casual news consumer looks at the news as simply stuff that happened that day. They have no idea that there are machinations at work behind the scenes that try very hard to present the daily events in a certain light. After studying politics for a certain amount of time, you start to see that the news is a form of theater--particularly TV news.

When the curtain goes up, I don't see a hard-hitting anchorman dutifully reporting the important events from around the world. I see actors, stages, scripts, directors, and producers.  Except they aren't there to entertain me--they are creating a program to manipulate us into viewing the world as they do

Why go through the effort of indirectly influencing us--can't they just come out and directly appeal to our reasoning abilities with straight facts? Unfortunately, liberal elites in the news tend to think of people as stupid, or uninformed, or unevolved, or too lazy to listen to reason. So, they need to be manipulated, as one manipulates a child.

Have you ever told a toddler to eat his vegetables like a big boy? Look, we adults ate all of our vegetables, don't you want to be like us?

That's how the media treats us, and here's an example.

I walked into a sandwich shop in Simi Valley Monday. Glancing up at a CNN anchor interviewing Jay-Z on a big screen hanging on the wall, I saw Jay-Z giving his support for President Obama's stance on gay marriage.

After Jay-Z finished, the anchor looked into the camera and said lots of people listen to Jay-Z, leaving the "and you should, too" part unspoken.

That's what you do to children. It's a tiny example, but it's still insulting to the intelligent. 

After more than 35 years in the Senate, Richard G. Lugar of Indiana was ousted Tuesday by a tea party challenger in a Republican primary that showed how hard it is for a veteran lawmaker known for his ability to compromise to win reelection in the current political environment.

The media narrative of the Trayvon Martin case is pretty clear. So far, it's been effective too--a new poll has three-quarters of Americans wanting Martin's shooter, George Zimmerman, to be arrested.

Zimmerman, an overly zealous neighborhood watchman, became suspicious of Martin only because he was black and white people don't want them in a gated community. He followed Martin, whose father lived in the neighborhood. Martin became scared and approached Zimmerman to ask why he was following him. Zimmerman used a poorly worded Stand Your Ground gun law as a loophole to legally shoot Martin point blank in the chest.

At least that's what the media narrative tells us, along with politicians who are eager to whip up racial hatred. However, some new information in the case may completely upend that story.

First, Zimmerman is a Spanish-speaking Hispanic Democrat. So the idea that this is a cut-and-dry example of white conservative racial profiling should have gone out the window pretty early. It didn't.

Next, police found Zimmerman with grass stains on his back, and a bloody nose and face. His lawyer says his nose was broken.

Some witness testimony has the much taller Martin throwing the first punch, knocking Zimmerman to the ground, getting on top of him, and repeatedly slamming his head into the pavement.

One witness, who has since talked to local television news reporters, told police he saw Zimmerman on the ground with Trayvon on top, pounding him -- and was unequivocal that it was Zimmerman who was crying for help.

Zimmerman then shot Trayvon once in the chest at very close range, according to authorities.

When police arrived less than two minutes later, Zimmerman was bleeding from the nose, had a swollen lip and had bloody lacerations to the back of his head.

Zimmerman might not have been the aggressor, if any of that was true. This might not have been "a killing that seems dangerously close to an execution." Trayvon also might not be the innocent the media portrayed him as. They ran pictures of a fresh-faced young man alongside Zimmerman's scary mug and America saw that he really could have been Obama's son, as the president pointed out. The media chose not to run a picture of Trayvon with a slight sneer than the teenager had posted on his Twitter profile. One tweet suggests Trayvon may have hit a bus driver.

The Miami Herald reported that Trayvon had multiple suspensions from school and a school official once found suspicious items in his bookbag after suspecting him of graffiti.

Instead the officer reported he found women's jewelry and a screwdriver that he described as a "burglary tool," according to a Miami-Dade Schools Police report obtained by The Miami Herald.

The day of the shooting, Zimmerman said Martin looked suspicious because he was looking inside windows of houses he passed.

It's starting to look like the media rushed to judgment, yet again, like they did with the white Duke -Lacrosse players who were accused of raping a black stripper.  That story also fit the media's desperation to find black people being abused at the hands of white people. The media looked silly by rushing to judgment in that case too. You might say they were prejudiced.

More facts about this shooting are yet to emerge. It may well turn out that Zimmerman murdered Trayvon. Or not. But it shouldn't be up to people like me to lecture season journalists on waiting for all facts to come out before hanging a guilty verdict on someone's head.

Portions of Simi Valley, including two schools, were locked down Tuesday afternoon due to a massive manhunt to catch three men who robbed a jewelry story on Sequoia Ave.

The Star reported that the men ditched a car then fled on foot into a neighborhood. Police cordoned off a wide area and brought in dogs and a helicopter to find the men, whom they considered armed and dangerous.

While ABC News reported "three African-American male suspects allegedly robbed" the store, the Star didn't feel compelled to include a complete visual description of the fugitives--one of whom is still at large--because that would bring up the sensitive issue of race. But do the residents affected by the manhunt deserve to have a full picture of what the suspects look like, for their own personal safety?

It depends, according to Star policy.

Joe Howry, the former editor of the Star, articulated why most newspapers don't repeat the race of suspects--even if most police departments do--in a 2009 editorial.

The Star's policy is to include ethnicity/race in suspect descriptions, provided there is enough detailed information that ethnicity/race is relevant and likely would be helpful in leading to an arrest.

If a large manhunt involving three armed suspects doesn't warrant such details, then you're not going to read many Star stories where race is mentioned (unless it's this or this). Howry tells us why the policy is in effect:

The Star believes that to include ethnicity/race in a general description perpetuates stereotypes and is not precise, accurate or fair. In other words, providing a very broad and general description of a crime suspect that includes race/ethnicity increases the chance that innocent people will be implicated and possibly harmed.

Howry acknowledged that reporting on race "tests the competence and ethics of journalists" particularly when it comes to the "most fundamental of reporting tasks: the description of crime suspects." But he ultimately dismissed critics' claims that excluding racial information from dangerous suspects is a form of political correctness.

"What may appear to be political correctness is, in truth, acting professionally and ethically to do what's right," Howry wrote.

Had the policy been borne of political correctness, it might be more understandable--race is a third rail that nobody wants to touch due to the special-interest firestorm that awaits anyone who does. Instead, the Star's policy is to not "perpetuate stereotypes" that "increases the chance that innocent people will be implicated and possibly harmed." In other words, it's their duty.

On the subject of protecting innocent people, don't the residents of Simi Valley deserve to know what the armed manhunt suspects in their neighborhood look like so they steer clear of them?

Adam Foxman, who reported on Tuesday's robbery, is no stranger to this criticism. In a 2009 Crime Blog entry, he wrote, "We often receive criticisms from commenters and law enforcement officials about our policy in regards to printing the description of a suspect's race..."

Foxman went on to explain--and I'm pararphrasing--that the Star did report that a suspect in a 2009 robbery was black because other descriptions given about the suspect were specific enough not to implicate all black men. Foxman wrote:

One reason we are cautious about printing racial descriptions is that there are potentially negative ramifications of using race as a descriptor. Unlike, say, height, race is not a hard and fast descriptor, and using it without other specific details could lead to profiling that negatively effects people and doesn't really help police, we believe.

Like Foxman, I've also heard criticism from law enforcement officials. Two Ventura County police chiefs complained to me about the Star's policy as well. I'm sure they're comforted to know that journalists are best equipped to decide what information helps the police catch suspects.

In effect, critics of such policies--the Star is by no means alone on this in the industry--contend that willfully withholding important facts regarding the physical description of suspects because of doubts as to whether its readers will form the correct conclusions is a form of advocacy.

That's a slippery path for journalists to tread. If a media outlet sees its role as selecting certain facts to make its readers reach a predetermined conclusion instead of reporting all the facts so they can reach their own conclusions, then we don't have journalists--we have activists, to the extent of which they engage in such practices.

Michelle Obama is leading a campaign to fight child obesity.

"We want to eliminate this problem of childhood obesity in a generation," the First Lady told Good Morning America in 2010 to kick off her Let's Move nutrition program.

"We all know the numbers," she said. "I mean, one in three kids are overweight or obese, and we're spending $150 billion a year treating obesity-related illnesses."

I'm politically aware enough to realize that her campaign is all about politics, designed to showcase her leadership skills in a safe arena, in what's become a tradition for previous First Ladies, including Laura Bush and Nancy Reagan.

However, that doesn't take away from the legitimacy of the issue selected for Michelle Obama to crusade against. The CDC reports that childhood obesity has more than tripled in the past 30 years. American kids, like American adults, are fat. Food is easily obtainable and cheap, even for poor people.

Sure enough, a study from the Oakland-based nonprofit Children Now showed that 37% of low-income children are overweight or obese.

But while Mrs. Obama complains about kids eating too much, other Progressives say they're starving. Kids can't be fat and starving at the same time, can they?

In the Progressive world we live in, they can.

CNN reported that one in five children are "at risk of hunger." And no, they don't mean hungry the way fat people are always hungry--CNN means they're starving, and cited a report from Feeding America.

The nonprofit Feeding America, a network of more than 200 food banks around the United States, reports one in five children are at risk of hunger.

CNN also referenced a 2010 Department of Agriculture report that 14.5% of households in the United States "lacked the resources to provide enough food for everybody." Kids don't have access to food and are starving, they say.

Michelle Obama and Children Now says kids are fat. The USDA, Feeding America, and CNN say they're starving. So what's going on?

Despite the opposing messages, Mrs. Obama, CNN, the USDA ,and the nonprofit groups are coming from the same place--they're just using two different tactics.

The overarching concern of each of those Progressive entities is to lead you stupid people to do the right thing. You see, you're not responsible enough to take care of your children's nutrition. You feed them too much fast food and not enough veggie wraps like enlightened people do. You need to be nudged to do the right thing.

In a world of socialized medicine, we can't have a bunch of fat people increasing the cost for everybody. So, we're going to treat you like infants and, in Mrs. Obama's case, we'll teach you how to shop at a grocery store, and in CNN's case we'll lie to you and say that children are starving to get your attention to get you to part with even more of your taxpayer dollars to fund more government programs to tell you how to live your life.

Tragically, we waste time, money, and energy worrying about getting food into the mouths of people that are already suffering from obesity instead of committing those resources to helping truly starving people in other countries.

Things are never quite so disgusting while they're still happening. It's only when we look back when we see how bad things were. Had we read that in Ancient Rome well-fed Romans complained they didn't have enough food as they engorged themselves on lavish sofas while non-Roman children died in the street of starvation, we'd shake our heads in disbelief.

But the same thing is happening in the United States, it's just not obvious to most people, particularly Progressives. If Progressives were eating ants off an anthill in Africa to stave off starvation, however, they might see how disgusting it is to spend your time fighting to get more money to pay for food to go into the mouths of already-fat American children.

 Yet in our backwards society, those Progressive elites are the smart ones that we get our information from and lead us, even though a child has more sense than they do.

The Heritage Foundation provided a great way to visualize the media's biased coverage of the gaping chasm between how Tea Partiers and Occupiers behaved at their respective protests. The left-wing media was desperate for any examples of violence it could pin on the conservative movement, even blaming it for the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords by a disturbed young man who had no ties whatsoever to the Tea Party.

Any of the following events would be front-page stories for weeks if they happened:

• Tea Party Protester Defecates on Police Car
• Riot Police Arrest Tea Party Protesters
• Repairing Tea Party Damage to City Hall Could Cost $400,000
• Tea Party Protesters Sing 'F*** the USA'"
• Tea Party Speaker: Violence Will be Necessary to Achieve Our Goals
• Tea Party Protests Go Global; Riots in Rome
• Police in Riot Gear Clear Tea Party Protesters in California City

The media would be justifiably outraged if the Tea Party was guilty of any of the above. Instead, the media is guilty of hypocrisy for not crying out at all, because those acts were committed by Occupiers, not Tea Partiers.

Only the New York Times could bash a Republican candidate for something he didn't say.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was at the Reagan Library in Simi Tuesday night on a GOP fundraising tour. As he's done for the last year, the otherwise blunt politician deflected speculation that he might run for president.

In an article with the awkward headline "Christie Adds Little New, but Fails to Quell the Talk," the New York Times seems to put a lot of effort in making Christie's silence into the worst possible thing the rotund governor could do.

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey failed to address intense speculation about his presidential ambitions on Tuesday night as he delivered a foreign policy speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California.

Did he "fail" or did he succeed in doing exactly what he planned? Journalists have subtle ways of setting the tone of their articles and words like "fail" is part of the game.

Consider two headlines about the same hypothetical scenario. A man is arrested and tried for murder and then found not guilty. The journalist can write either of these two headlines:

1.  Man exonerated by jury

2.  Jury fails to convict alleged murderer

The first headline makes the man seem innocent, the second one implies he was guilty and got away with murder. The Times could have easily written:

"Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey succeeded in ignoring intense speculation about his presidential ambitions..."

Their choice of "fail" is telling, but we're just scratching the surface. The next paragraph reads:

With those close to the governor saying he was "reconsidering" whether to mount a bid, Mr. Christie's unwillingness to address his political future at such a high-profile event left some Republicans exasperated and worried that a protracted game of "will-he, won't-he" would be bad for the party's chances of retaking the White House.

As if the New York Times cares if this is bad for the GOP.  But his "unwillingness" to announce his presidency "left some Republicans exasperated?"

We're left with the impression that all these Republicans are freaking out. But what is "some exactly?" Two Republicans? Fifty? Who knows, but it sounds significant, doesn't it?

Wikipedia identifies "some" (and "many") as "weasel words," which are "numerically vague expressions." It's OK for some blog to employ weasel words, but the country's newspaper of record?

But the Times left quality by the wayside a long time ago, reiterating that he's "failing to quiet the clamor to draft him..."

For such a failure, I wonder why so many people want him to be president!

The truth is Christie is succeeding masterfully--he's getting millions of dollars of free advertising just by floating his name as a possible contender (or rather, by letting others float his name). We see this every in every presidential campaign. Jesse Jackson knew he wasn't going to win, but he raised his profile. Ron Paul knows he's not going to win, but he runs to draw attention to libertarianism. Sarah Palin is still teasing the media, and they're still paying attention to her even though they hate her. Donald Trump--the master of personal branding--got to see his name in the papers earlier this year by talking about running for president.

Christie would be stupid not to do exactly what he's doing.

Newspapers are careful about how they present information to the reader. If something is widely accepted, the paper will print it without citation. If it's contested or is an opinion, journalists will often quote an expert, a politician, an activist, or a scholar.

The problem is that sometimes partisans contest obvious facts and rather than printing those facts as true on their face, journalists will treat it as a controversial idea.

Consider a recent Los Angeles Times article about the fed considering a third round of buying its own debt. The reporter is comfortable stating facts and making conclusions in the opening three paragraphs:

Nervous global investors can't seem to own enough U.S. Treasury debt, yet the Federal Reserve may soon make the bonds even more scarce.

With the U.S. economy struggling, Fed policymakers are expected this week to announce a new bond-buying plan specifically aimed at pulling long-term interest rates lower.

That could help some Americans buy homes or refinance mortgages. But Wall Street doesn't see much hope that the Fed can give a significant boost to the economy.

That's fine. But when it comes to discussing the idea that buying our own debt with printed money leads to inflation, the Times felt the need to demote that fact to a partisan opinion.

The difference this time is that most analysts believe that the Fed won't print new money to fund its purchases. If the central bank merely swaps shorter-term Treasuries for longer-term securities, the net amount of its holdings won't change.

Bernanke thereby might avoid criticism from Republican leaders, including Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who have said the Fed's efforts to pump more money into the economy could eventually stoke inflation.

Could? In the second round of "quantitative easing," $600 billion was printed. That's not definitely going to lead to inflation, L.A. Times? Even the government's owned cooked numbers showed inflation just ticked up.

This is not a knock against this journalist, and not even the Times so much. It's the culture of professional journalism--its weak spot is tying all the facts together for the reader. The truth hurts, and the industry sidesteps important issues to deliver milquetoast generalities. 

Only the progressive media could look at you straight in the face and tell you that a man who is putting his money--and his  life--on the line to stand in solidarity with Jews in Israel, is anti-Semitic.

Glenn Beck, whose rally last year in Washington, D.C. catapulted him from conservative talking head to the spearhead of an entire movement, took the world by surprise when he announced the sequel would take place in Jerusalem. Jews--along with conservative Americans--are being set up to be the 1930s-style scapegoats for a coming global economic collapse, according to Beck.

As he did in last year's Restoring Honor rally, Beck assembled a diverse group of religious leaders representing the world's major faiths to demonstrate that yes, we can all work together in peace to preserve human freedom. Israel is the canary in the coal mine, and considering that, like most Christians, the devout Beck believes Jews are God's chosen people, he elected to hold the Restoring Courage rally at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

That move shocked the Left, who always seem to be two steps behind the conservative firebrand. While they treated him like a talk-radio nut when he was on CNN, he was busy predicting the financial collapse of 2007-2008. When he moved to Fox News in 2009 (and quickly rose to the top of President Obama's enemies list) the Left painted the weepy Beck as an unhinged madman who fooled people into buying gold and who imagined socialists everywhere he went (even as the price of gold doubled and a top presidential advisor turned out to be a self-confessed Marxist). Beck outflanked them again with a tribute to Martin Luther King on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on the anniversary of his "I Have a Dream" speech. And after he departed Fox News this summer, the Left celebrated his demise even as Beck went global.

In Tempe, a pro-Israel student group is holding a Restoring Courage rally and viewing party at ASU with Rabbi Arthur Lavinsky and Pastor Eddy Paul Morris. Morris is the Arizona director of Christians United for Israel. The viewing party will be one of a thousand or so that are planned around the world. One wouldn't expect either man to support a blatantly anti-Semitic event.

However, that's just what the progressive Left is labeling Restoring Courage.

Media Matters noted that 400 George Soros-funded rabbis wrote an open letter criticizing Beck for cheapening the Holocaust by pointing out that Nazis were national socialists, and for suggesting the Soros collaborated with the Nazis (he did as a fourteen-year-old boy, something that Beck went out of his way to excuse).

Beck is also accused of exploiting Israel to "get back on top," and the Restoring Courage moniker is twisted to say that Beck believes Jews aren't courageous.  Some even are predicting he'll trigger a global calamity by holding his event during Ramadan celebrations. If so, it's curious why the mainstream media is doing their best to ignore the event.