Media Matters Daily Summary 03-01-11

Right-Wing Media Push "Bogus" Argument That Collective Bargaining Correlates With State Deficits
Right-wing media have falsely suggested that collective bargaining for public unions is driving states' budget shortfalls. In fact, there is no correlation between collective bargaining and state budget deficits. Read More

Right-Wing Media Falsely Claim That Americans Do Not Support Unions
As rallies supportive of Wisconsin's public employees continue around the country, right-wing media have reacted by falsely suggesting that Americans support Wisconsin's Republican Gov. Scott Walker over the state's public employee union members. However, most public opinion polls suggest the opposite: that the majority of Americans stand in support of public workers, and the February 21 Rasmussen poll widely cited by conservatives has been criticized by polling experts as containing questions that "may have biased the responses." Read More

Glenn Beck Demeans Protesters As "Useful Idiots" Being "Played"
Glenn Beck claims that protesters in the United States and in Egypt are being duped and "have no clue" that they are unwittingly advancing a coordinated plot by communists and Islamists to destroy Israel and "the Western way of life" and install a global caliphate or a new world order. Read More

Fox Repeatedly Scrubs Backgrounds Of Guests Who Attack Wisconsin Protests
Fox News has failed to fully inform its viewers about the identities of guests it has hosted to criticize labor unions and the protests in Wisconsin. Fox has not disclosed guests' Republican Party activism in two instances and also hosted the CEO of a multinational company to criticize protesters for attacking "small businesses." Read More

Fox News reporter appears to have lied about being ‘punched’ by protester

RAW STORY

Fox News has been making a lot of hay about one of their reporters allegedly being "punched" by a protester in Madison, Wisconsin.

Turns out, that didn't happen.

Mike Tobin, reporting from amid the massive demonstration on Friday, claimed that one of the protesters "punched" him in the arm. In another broadcast, he claimed a man threatened to break his neck.

In both cases, supporting evidence for these claims was not broadcast -- yet still, Tobin's reports have been widely cited across conservative blogs that seem eager to depict union workers as hateful and violent.

What's worse, Tobin's allegation that he was assaulted might have slipped past without rebuttal were it not for a camera-equipped bystander, who captured the scene.

Turns out, someone merely touched his shoulder, as evidenced in the video below. The incident he claimed was a "punch" could instead be described as a pat, at most.

That was apparently enough for him to later declare that even after being "punched, he was just too nice of a guy to press charges............

Anti-Gay Activist Pastor Allegedly Caught Masturbating At Public Park

Rev. Grant Storms is apparently well known in New Orleans for wearing stupid Bible-American-flag t-shirts, donning ridiculous 1980s pedophile/hipster glasses, and walking through Southern Decadence, the city’s annual gay festival, with a broom. Apparently, though, he does not do this during the city’s annual boob festival, Mardi Gras, so it’s the gays he has a problem with, not sex in general.

Unfortunately for this preacher man, he was arrested at a public park Friday after two witnesses say they saw him sitting in his van “looking at the playground area that contained children playing, with his zipper down,” masturbating. An alternate lifestyle, if you will. READ MORE »

Walker budget repair bill unconstitutional, Milwaukee city attorney says

Steve Schultze of the Journal Sentinel

Gov. Scott Walker's budget repair bill provisions requiring workers to pay 5.8% of their salary toward pension costs is unconstitutional, according to Milwaukee City Attorney Grant Langley.

Langley states in a 15-page opinion released Monday that the bill doesn't pass constitutional muster for three reasons.

It interferes with the city's home-rule authority over its pension plan; it violates employees' contractual rights and the bill would violate workers' due process rights because it would violate terms of the city's global pension settlement with city workers from a decade ago.

Langley writes that because of a large body of case law striking down pay cuts that violate union contracts, "it is highly unlikely that the courts would uphold proposed (budget repair law) on this ground."...........

Plot to spy on Chamber critics prompts Democratic call for congressional probe

RAW STORY

Will congressional Republicans investigate their allies at the Chamber of Commerce over an alleged plot to spy on and discredit their most effective critics in the media?

Probably not, but that won't stop at least one group of House Democrats from mounting a very public call for inquiry.

In a letter provided in advance to The Washington Post, a group of Democratic lawmakers expressed concern that anti-terror tactics had been adopted for use against Americans by the private sector. The letter was authored by Rep. Hank Johnson and more than a dozen others, the Post noted.

The plan, which called for drawing up detailed social networks of progressive critics and sought to launch malware hacks against progressive organizations, was ostensibly created by data security firm HBGary Federal.

It was revealed when protest group "Anonymous" compromised the company's network and dumped tens of thousands of their emails onto the public Internet.................

ThinkFast: March 1, 2011

President Obama spoke out in support of public employees’ collective bargaining rights yesterday during a meeting with the National Governors Association, saying, “I don’t think it does anybody any good when public employees are denigrated or vilified or their rights are infringed upon. We need to attract the best and brightest to public service. These times demand it.”

As the standoff in Wisconsin continues to escalate, a New York Times/CBS poll has found a majority of Americans oppose efforts to weaken public employee unions’ collective bargaining rights by a margin of 60 to 33 percent. Those surveyed also said they oppose (56 to 37 percent) cutting the pay or benefits of public employees to reduce deficits.

The nonpartisan Moody’s Analytics released an economic analysis yesterday finding that GOP efforts to cut billions from the budget this year could result in the loss of as many as 700,000 jobs by the end of next year. Moody’s chief economist Mark Zandi projected that the GOP proposal would cut real GDP growth by 0.5 percent in 2011 and 0.2 percent in 2012.

According to a new poll, “Americans are divided over who would be to blame for a potential government shutdown.” While 46 percent said they’d blame congressional Republicans before the impending shutdown in 1995, today 36 percent say Republicans would be at fault and 35 percent would blame the Obama administration.

The U.S. “has blocked $30 billion in Libyan government assets since President Obama announced his executive order late Friday night imposing unilateral sanctions” on the Qaddafi regime. This “is the largest amount of foreign assets ever seized in an American sanctions action.”

Stating that Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi has “lost the legitimacy to govern and it is time for him to go,” the U.S. is providing refugee aid teams at the Libyan border. While Qaddafi insists that “my people love me,” the UN estimates that “more than 1,000 people have died in the Libyan uprising” and “almost 100,000 have fled.”

President Obama announced yesterday during a meeting with the nation’s governors that he is endorsing moving the state waiver for the federal health care law to 2014. This would allow states to opt out of the federal health care mandate if they are able to put together plans that provide just as much care — like Vermont’s proposed single payer program.

The gun used in the killing of a federal agent in Mexico this month has been traced back to Texas, where three people were arrested yesterday on suspicion of arms smuggling related to the shooting. The slain ICE agent was killed while traveling in an SUV with his partner, who was also shot, to Mexico City, where they were stationed at the American Embassy.

And finally: Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) needs a geography lesson about his own state. Speaking with reporters yesterday, Perry misidentified Ciudad Juarez as “the most dangerous city in America” — it is actually in Mexico. “After an aide informed the governor of his mistake, Perry clarified that Juarez indeed belongs to Mexico, not Texas.”

Commentary: Ciavarella gave kids to for-profit prison

By Leonard Pitts Jr

The trial of Mark Ciavarella Jr. took 10 business days.

He was represented by counsel, testified in his own defense, had his fate — guilty on 12 out of 39 charges — decided by a jury of his peers. He was accorded, in other words, due process. As it happens, that is precisely what Ciavarella, a former juvenile court judge in Luzerne County, Pa., denied children who came before his bench.

Like the 11-year-old boy who took his mom’s car for a joyride and had a wreck. No one was hurt. The boy, never in trouble before, faced the judge without an attorney. He was handcuffed and taken to a juvenile detention center where he spent two years.

Or the 15-year-old girl who appeared in court without an attorney after building a MySpace page mocking her assistant principal. The girl, a good student who had never been in trouble before, was sentenced to three months.

Or like Jamie Quinn, then 14, who had a minor fight after school. “It was my first time ever in front of a judge,” she told ABC News in 2009. “He didn’t let me talk. I was literally in front of him for only, like, four minutes. He barely even looked at me. All I remember was my mom grabbed onto my hand and hugged me and then they put my hands behind my back, handcuffed me and took me right away.”

Thousands of children came before Ciavarella for relatively minor offenses — throwing meat at mom’s boyfriend, shoplifting a jar of nutmeg. And in trials that lasted as little as a minute, child after child after child was shackled and led away without even being allowed to speak in their own defense or have a lawyer do so for them.

What’s more appalling than the “what” of this is the “why.” Ciavarella and another judge, Michael Conahan, shut down the county’s juvenile detention center by cutting off public funds. Then they funneled kids to two new detention centers, privately owned by the judges’ friends, who had given them nearly $1 million. Ciavarella has steadfastly denied a quid pro quo — cash for kids. He says the money was a “finder’s fee” for putting the jail’s owner in touch with a builder. However the arrangement is characterized, the fact remains that he and Conahan, who pleaded guilty last year, took money from the owners of a private prison to which they then sentenced children. You be the — no pun intended — judge..................................

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/03/01/109562/commentary-ciavarella-gave-kids.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_term=news#ixzz1FLdHp2vI

FEBRUARY 2012 RECEIVES 2 EXTRA DAYS

WASHINGTON – The Obama Administration has approved the addition of two days to the month of February in the 2012 calendar.

As we saw earlier this year when it was announced that a shift in the earth’s axis created a new astrological sign, now calendar makers around the world are faced with a new standard as well. Starting in 2012, February will receive 2 extra days, forever. 2012 was scheduled to be a leap...

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