Category Archives: BBC – sickeningly biased at all times.

Reporting The US On The Bias

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“Cutting on the bias” in wood or textiles means cutting diagonally against the grain so that it accentuates the lines. That’s what’s going on at the BBC’s special section on the US 2012 election. It hasn’t been updated in a couple of days, and here’s how it appears now:

White House propaganda, White House propaganda, and more of it, with a couple of fluff pieces thrown in. The top story at the moment is the BBC’s explanation of the President’s first ad attacking Romney for his association with Bain Capital. It’s become more balanced than it initially was, as people here pointed out earlier this week, and presumably after somebody at the BBC realized it. It’s still not entirely balanced as they’ve got the President’s ad embedded right at the top of the piece, while including only a link to Romney’s rebuttal. The link below that is to a second attack ad on Romney on the same topic. No links to anything from Romney.

The “Latest news” section is slightly out of date, but the bias is still obvious. Besides the news brief about Ron Paul ending his “active campaign”, the other featured reports are about Hollywood feting the President for His recent endorsement of homosexual marriage, a piece about Romney reacting contritely to that Washington Post hit piece – now proven to be less than accurate, although the BBC has never bothered to inform you of that – about him allegedly bullying a homosexual a few decades ago (another score for the White House campaign machine), and a piece lamenting Sen. Richard Lugar’s defeat in the Republican primary for Senate in Indiana. We’re told by “correspondents” that this will make the Senate more partisan than ever. Translation: the Democrat majority won’t get their way so easily. This is a biased position, of course, shown to be all the more ludicrous since the Senate just rejected the President’s own budget proposal 99-0. You can’t get more bi-partisan than that, which is why the BBC has so far censored that news.

The video features also reveal the biased grain in the BBC’s perspective on the US elections. The section on Battleground States isn’t all that bad in general, and I won’t try to read too much into a perceived emphasis on Democrat optimism. But there is a blatant lie in the section on Wisconsin. You have to click on the State in the Battleground feature to read the following:

Barack Obama will be hoping to hold on to the sizeable majority he won in 2008, and will be helped by the state’s strong union movement. The unions have been leading the opposition to new Republican Governor Scott Walker’s controversial bid to restrict workers’ collective bargaining rights. The proposals led to mass protests and a successful attempt to trigger a recall election for Mr Walker’s job.

The bit I’ve bolded is, quite simply, a lie. What Walker did was restrict the right of public sector unions’ rights on collective bargaining. The BBC admitted that part when they first began reporting on this story, yet here they deliberately mislead you to think it’s an attack on all workers, full stop. I simply don’t accept the excuse that this was simplified due to space constraints or because it’s an unimportant distinction. And of course, by “controversial”, the BBC means that the unions didn’t like it. Another issue of bias here is that the BBC gives you only the Democrat unions issue, and not the budget disaster Gov. Walker faced upon taking office, which just as much a concern for voters. The budget concern is why Walker sought to restrict public sector union power and their burden on the State. It’s not all union workers everywhere, only the public sector ones, which is why I maintain that it’s an important distinction. As most people here will know, their coverage of the Wisconsin situation has been extremely biased and at times dishonest. Plenty of background can be found here, here, here, here, and here. I don’t expect the BBC to update this section with the news that the union-backed candidate lost the Democrat primary for the recall, which kind of puts a damper on the whole issue, making the BBC’s take even less useful.

The magazine piece explaining why candidates’ wives don’t win elections is reasonable, no bias there, for a change.

Next up is the piece by Justin Webb – Mark Mardell’s predecessor as North America editor, whose gushing reports about The Obamessiah during the 2008 election won him the coveted seat on Today – explaining why the Republicans aren’t ready to lead. My fisking of ol’ Justin’s piece is here.

Then you get Jonny Dymond’s biased piece telling you how the Republican Party is just for white men, freezing out Hispanics. It’s just one in a series of race-baiting pieces from Dymond, whose remit seems to be proving that Republicans and any opponents of the President are racist. See here, for example.

If you still aren’t convinced that Republicans/conservatives are awful, then you can move on to former Obamessiah activist Matt Danzico’s “bespoke” magazine piece about yet another one of those studies showing conservatives are inspired by negatives while liberals are inspired by positives. The study’s goal was to prove a biological and cognitive difference between liberals and conservatives. I won’t bother to address how this leads us down a path to eugenics, but suffice to say that it’s always liberals these days who want to use “science” to prove that they’re superior. Danzico, of course, slightly misrepresents the findings. Another way of describing the findings can be found in the University of Nebraska’s own school paper: conservatives tend to be more realistic while liberals tend to be more idealistic. I find it amusing that a student journalist spins the study less than an adult professional journalist.

And finally, there’s Adam Blenford’s piece worrying that too many people in the US aren’t registered to vote. Setting up the article by using a Republican as an example of a dedicated voter betrays the bias, if one understands that voter “disenfranchisement” is the primary motivation behind ACORN and Left-wing activists who encourage absentee ballots (Blenford uses the youth vote, another Left-wing target demographic, as his example there), same-day registration, and who attack laws requiring ID to vote, all methods behind voter fraud. Some people here may remember Newsnight hiring Left-wing activist and “investigative journalist” to do a special report telling you that only white Republicans engage in voter fraud, and specifically to disenfranchise black people. He also defended ACORN against charges of voter fraud by saying that, even though they do it, it doesn’t affect elections. If that’s not enough to convince you, just do an internet search with the term “voter disenfranchisement 2012” and see who’s worrying about it and what issues are the focus. It’s obvious.

While not every single report is riddled with bias, much of it is, and nearly every single piece on the BBC’s US Election 2012 page is written from a Left-wing perspective one way or another. There’s no memo handed down to make this happen, no directive from on high. It’s due to the BBC hiring what seem to be exclusively Left-wing staff. If they all think that way, there’s no need for an organized institutional bias: it will happen naturally.

BBC Censorship: Occupiers Arrested In Plot To Blow Up Bridge Edition

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UPDATE: The BBC just posted a news brief about it after all. But the association of the criminals with the Occupy Movement is censored. Instead, they quote a DoJ mouthpiece saying the plot had nothing to do with the anniversary of Osama Bin Laden’s death. LOL! We all know what this was going to celebrate, and the BBC won’t admit it.

Today is May Day, a prominent day in Communist history. Some non-Left blogs last year started calling this “Victims of Communism Day”, in remembrance of the tens of millions of victims of Communists in pursuit of their goals.

Today the BBC has done a quick hype of their darling Occupiers, who are using May Day to cause violence and disrupt civilized society. Of course, that’s not how the BBC tells it. The news brief is full of hype and positive vibes about these people.

Censored by the BBC:

Terror Plot Suspects Appear In Court

Federal authorities on Tuesday morning announced that five people were arrested in Cleveland for allegedly conspiring to use explosives to blow up a local bridge.

Steven M. Dettelbach, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, and Stephen D. Anthony, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Cleveland office, discussed the arrests and subsequent charges related to what they referred to as a “national security case.”

A news conference was held Tuesday morning at the Cleveland FBI headquarters at 1501 Lakeside Avenue.

Fox 8′s Stacey Frey reports that the suspects have been identified as Brandon Baxter, 20; Anthony Hayne, 35; Joshua Stafford, 23; Connor Stevens, 20; and Douglas Wright, 26. Baxter, Hayne and Wright were arrested Monday night by members of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force on charges of conspiracy and attempted use of explosive materials to damage physical property affecting interstate commerce.

A criminal complaint filed Tuesday morning states that Baxter, Hayne and Wright are self-proclaimed anarchists who formed a small group that considered a series of plots over several months.

Self-proclaimed anarchists? Try self-proclaimed Occupiers.

Brandon Baxter: Occupy Cleveland organizer

Occupy Cleveland May Day festivities cancelled because five of them were arrested

FBI met the at OWS event

Screenshots of all their Facebook pages

This must be more of that love for humanity and sense of civic duty Katty Kay was telling us about, and which Paul Mason is celebrating on Newsnight. I pretty much saw this coming after spending a few hours among these darlings of the BBC.

What I mean is that these people can keep doing this for a very long time. And eventually, they’re going to realize that it isn’t working.  Will they fess up and become a ready-made cadre of Obamessiah activists?  I don’t know. If not, the emotions will have driven many of them into a frenzied state over time. Fighting the man, speaking truth to power, getting arrested over and over again, and watching a seemingly endless stream of video clips of their comrades fighting with police, getting pepper-sprayed and bundled into police vans will not yield a happy result.  Like we heard from a couple people, they all seriously think that obstructing traffic and infringing on other people’s space and property is their right. Freedom of speech and right to peaceable assembly and all that. What they tragically fail to understand is that, unlike many blacks in the South before the Civil Rights movement, they can exercise their right to vote without fear, and all this glorious civil disobedience is unnecessary extremist nonsense.  The Tea Party movement has proven that they don’t need to do any of this. I found only a couple of people who even remotely grasped this point.  So I think the violent confrontation – always started by the nasty fascist police infringing on their rights, bien sur – will become a kind of ouroburossian (if that’s not a word, it is now) reality. They’ll continuously create situations which they’ll interpret as justifying their cause, projecting onto it false equivalences with everything from Wat Tyler to the German Peasant Rebellion to Gandhi to MLK and the Civil Rights movement. That’s when you’ll really start to see the stuff the BBC told you would never happen over here.

 

The BBC Sides With Illegal Immigrants While Pretending Otherwise

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Before I even get into this, I have to call attention to what appears to be the title for a series of reports: “Altered States”. This is bias right up front, as it’s a theme we keep hearing from the BBC and the Left-wing media in the US, that the US has somehow suddenly become more divided and vicious since 2008. I wonder why that is, BBC? Could it be that nothing has really changed except the occupant of the White House? Have we forgotten the constant outrage about Bush, and before him Clinton, and before him (skipping a Bush), Reagan, and before him….well, you get the idea.

In short, this is a BS Narrative being pushed by the BBC, in the long run-up to November, just to reinforce the notion that opponents to the President have made things worse. Not Him, mind you. It’s the fault of His enemies, those who want to tear Him down. Of course, that’s really about racism, right? So, with that in mind, let’s examine what’s sure to be a story involving a racial angle.


Illegal immigrants take taxis to avoid deportation

Here’s the blurb to this in the Top News Story featured links on the main news page:

Illegal immigrants take taxis because to avoid getting pulled over while driving and having their papers checked. “The BBC investigates why.”   I’ll tell you why, BBC: they broke the law. In other news, bank robbers avoid the police because they don’t want to get arrested for heroically redistributing wealth.



“They have their life blocked because of the immigration issue.”

And there you have it. No need to listen further, really, unless you just want to get hit over the head with it repeatedly. Their life is ruined because they broke the law, BBC. They all deliberately broke the law, in many cases repeatedly. Even if we’re to sympathize with the heroic idea that they’re just looking for a better life, I have to ask the BBC why Hispanics are elevated above my own family, who came here legally. There is no embargo, no blockade stopping these people from entering legally and going through the correct process. They don’t because people with whom the BBC sympathizes – and whom the BBC is abetting with this report – enable this illegal behavior.

In the tiniest possible gesture towards balance, we also hear from a white person who tells us about people from Kosovo, who had to go through the legal process. So that’s one voice on the side of the law. Next up, a man who is against the law. Then – the classic trick – a child, to appeal to your sympathy. Then another Hispanic who is against the law.

We next hear from another Hispanic taxi driver, who also shares his concern. And so on.

The blurb accompanying the video report itself says this:

But critics call it a civil rights issue and warn it stokes a climate of fear and division. Ironically, all eight of the cab companies in Gainsville are operated by Hispanics.

Ironically? And there’s the race angle. The fact that they have brown skin and speak Spanish is irrelevant to the legal issue. But that’s the real agenda here, the real Narrative from pro-illegal activists: that it’s about race. Typically, the racialist-minded Beeboids see ethnicity before they see a person’s character. There is a racial angle here, though: brown-skinned, Spanish-speaking people helping other brown-skinned, Spanish-speaking people to break the law. I’m not sure that’s ironic at all.

By the way, BBC, where are all the hand-wringing stories about illegal Chinese immigrants who get deported? Or don’t we care about them because they don’t have the same powerful activist base, and Chinese people don’t get the same sympathy about race discrimination?

Does your head hurt yet? Did you get the message? In case you didn’t, and that lone voice in favor of the law out of ten against somehow held your attention, the closing line is “We just gotta learn how to do it the right way.”

This is a propaganda piece, full stop. Paid for by you.

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Justin Webb Reveals His Bias And Dishonesty

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Justin Webb (Mark Mardell’s predecessor as BBC North America editor) has written a little piece about the current state of the Republican Party. He’s not pleased, of course, which is no surprise to those of us who remember him looking down from on high and declaring that the US had “moved on” from social conservatism. Now that there’s a struggle for control of the Party between – I generalize a bit – the recently ascending Tea Party-inspired small government/fiscal conservatives, and the Santorumite, Republican establishment, who love big government and spending out their ears, and see nothing wrong with legislating personal behavior, ol’ Justin simply does not know where to turn.

And so he sticks his head further up the ivory tower. His goal here is to show you how the Republican Party is simply not ready to lead the country, because they’ve become too extremist.

Right up front, we can see Webb trying to frame the Narrative, eliding facts to create the context he needs. When Henry Olson from the American Enterprise Institute says that the Republican Party is united in its opposition to “government”. He means the current Government’s far-Left policies, as in those of The Obamessiah. Spend a few minutes at AEI.org and decide for yourselves exactly what’s being opposed.

Rick Santorum is still close behind Romney because of all the social conservative/big-government types left trying to take control of the Party back from the Tea Party movement, who gained the momentum in 2010. Santorum is not a fan of personal freedom, yet he’s still getting quite a bit of support from Republicans anyway. Anybody trying to tell you that the whole Party is united against “government” is either lying, or is actually saying something else.

What really angers ol’ Justin is what he perceives to be how the Republican Party is being driven to the extreme right by the “deep south”. And – what a shock – he dishonestly describes the authority to whom he appeals for this.

Political writer Michael Lind left the party because he sees its modern unity as toxic. Too much based on the values of the deep south of the USA – and in particular a visceral and unquenchable dislike of any government by anyone, of anyone.

“The thing that holds together the modern Republican party is opposition to the government,” says Mr Lind.

Lind indeed left the Republican Party: in 1996.  The following year, he published a book entitled, “Up From Conservatism: Why The Right Is Wrong For America”.  In 2002, he published a book about George Bush and the “Southern Takeover of American Politics”. Does this sound like someone who’s talking about “modern unity”?  Yet ol’ Justin is using Lind’s decade-old song to prove that this is a new problem.

Of course, this also denies the fact that Texas is not part of the “deep south”, nor are Arizona and Utah. But I guess that’s beside the point, as he’s probably sort of referring to the fact that the agrarian southern Colonies were concerned about too much government power back when the US was founded, and that legacy continues to this day. Perhaps I’m giving him too much credit for having a clue about US history.

Even so, Bush’s Republican Party was big-government to the max. That’s why the Tea Party movement went after the incumbents in 2010. They were, and those still left are, social conservatives and not much else. But ol’ Justin hated them for that, and was happy about the “strange death” of that movement in the US. Except, of course, it that movement is very much alive, which is why Rick Santorum is still going.

To further support his argument, ol’ Justin points to Sen. Olympia Snow (R-ME) who has decided not to seek another term. He describes her as “moderate”, which means big-government, Republican establishment, exactly the kind of pol the Tea Party has been trying to get rid of for the last couple years. To those of us who get our news from outside the bubble, it’s no surprise that she’s decided not to accept a challenge for her seat from within her own Party, not because she’s unhappy that the Party has moved too far to the Right for her taste (which is a stupid reason to quit anyway), but because her husband is facing a major corruption lawsuit. Even the far-Left FireDogLake blog knows that Justin’s story is complete and utter BS. Snowe isn’t really facing a serious challenger yet, but has decided to drop out anyway.

So this is pretty much a total lie from Justin Webb.

Next he speaks with Matt Kibbe of Freedom Works, a major organization supporting the Tea Party movement. He really does talk about shutting down a few enormous, bloated government agencies, some of which have nearly the sacred cow status that the NHS has in Britain. Naturally, this frightens Webb, as his visceral inclination is that the State is All.

This is supposed to be the final proof that there’s something seriously wrong with the Republican Party. The thing is, the Party’s move to the right on this issue is a bad thing only if one is on the Left, and views small government as some sort of extremist position. Ol’ Justin is definitely making a value judgment here, and his personal political bias is on full display.

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BBC Bias And Wisconsin – Again

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So the Union-led petition to force a recall election against Republican Gov. Scott Walker has gathered 1 million signatures. That’s nearly twice what’s required to force the recall. Of course, that’s only if the signatures are valid. If you get your information on this story from the BBC, you’d have no idea there’s even a hint of impropriety. The BBC news brief sanitizes the whole thing, spins it to make Walker look bad, and even misleads the reader about the result of the recall elections from last summer.

Let’s start with how the BBC spins it to make Walker look bad.

The governor has become a conservative hero and put the Midwest state at the centre of the US labour rights debate.

The BBC News Online sub-editor decided to leave it as an anti-Unions thing, and censor the news that Walker balanced the state budget for the first time in ages. That’s actually what has earned Walker respect from conservatives. Curbing public sector union powers helped him do that, sure. But it’s about fixing the state economy, not just attacking unions. The BBC leaves out how this is about fixing the economy, leaving Walker looking like a villain. They do it again a couple sentences later:

The governor’s opponents are also angry at the $800m (£521m) in budget cuts to schools passed under him.

 But they leave out the fact that this actually improved things. Of course, the BBC has form on censoring news about this issue in Wisconsin. What the BBC didn’t want you to know at the time is that schools have saved well over $100 million since Walker cut down union power and passed his budget. In fact, one school district went from a major deficit to a budget surplus thanks to Walker’s plan. Instead, the BBC spins it so you think he hurt the schools. Does that sound familiar?
The BBC says this about the previous round of recalls:

Two Republican state senators were recalled in earlier elections.

What the BBC censors because it hurts the Narrative is that the other five Republicans kept their seats, and the Republicans kept their majority – albeit just barely – in the legislature. But that fact won’t help lead you to think that this new petition means the people of Wisconsin want the Republicans out, so the BBC leaves it out.

One last bit of anti-Walker spin is where the article mentions that he’s raised over $5 million for the fight, taking care to point out that half of it is from out of state. What the BBC doesn’t want you to know is that out-of-state Unions and other partisan PACs are pouring money into it for the Democrat cause. In last summer’s recall elections, Democrat-supporting groups from out of state even outspent Republican groups from out of state, to the tune of $23.4 million to $20.5 million. Does anyone think this time will be any different? So it’s grossly dishonest for the BBC to mention only Walker’s out-of-state money. But that helps the Narrative of “the hard-working innocent lambs against nasty Republicans and their moneymen”.

Now let’s look at the worst part of all this: the 1 million signatures. What the BBC doesn’t want you to know is that there’s most likely a massive amount of fraud going on.  The state board overseeing the whole thing has already admitted there’s going to be a problem with duplicate signatures. It sure doesn’t help matters that the far-Left group, One Wisconsin Now, actually encouraged people to sign multiple petitions, knowing that they won’t all be caught. One guy has even proudly claimed to have signed 80 times. Not a word about this from the BBC.

Then there’s the fact that the Government Accountability Board (GAB) is admitting they won’t be trying to dismiss all those Adolf Hitler and Mickey Mouse signatures if they have Wisconsin addresses and are dated properly. So there’s voter fraud built into the system, to help Democrats. But remember, kids, according to the BBC, only Republicans engage in voter fraud.  In fact, things are so bad that the GAB is hiring a bunch of temporary staff to sort through all this crap. The GAB, however, is an independent group. So when the BBC reports this:

Supporters of the governor are being trained to spot any duplicate or falsified signatures.

You have to say they’re lying. Only supporters of the governor are being trained? No, BBC, it’s the staff of the independent GAB. This is meant to create the suspicion in your mind that it’s only a Republican plot to disenfranchise honest Democrats, nothing to do with massive Democrat fraud. There isn’t even a hint of suspicion raised here, not a single eyebrow raised. Why do you think it’s going to take 60 days to sort this out?

Sure, it’s only an unsigned news brief, no time to mention all the details, right? So why are the details the piece does mention so dishonest? You can read about previous examples of BBC censorship and dishonesty about the goings on in Wisconsin here, here, and here. Don’t trust the BBC on US issues.

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One Year On From The BBC Using Mass Murder To Push An Agenda

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It’s been one year since an unhinged Arizonan killed several people in cold blood while attempting to assassinate Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. The BBC is silent on that matter today, which is slightly curious considering the big deal it was at the time, and what larger meaning they and their fellow travelers in the Left-wing US media tried to force onto it. They tried to blame Sarah Palin for inciting this act of mass murder. She had previously published a map with a cross-hairs on it, calling for supporters to “target” various Democrat opponents. Ignoring all common sense and the fact that this was a common rhetorical gesture, nothing to do with a call for violence, the BBC pushed the idea that Palin was to blame. But now…silence.

(UPDATE: See the bottom of this post.)

The easy “journalistic” defense is that the BBC has only such much time and only so much room to do stories, and the Republican race, the economy, and foreign policy developments take up the bulk of their time. The rest of the 55 Beeboids employed to cover the US are dedicated to producing more lightweight, magazine-style pieces and celebrity gossip, so hard news is outside their bailiwick.

Call it a straw man if you will, but then please give me an alternative reason for the BBC’s silence. My bet is that the agenda the BBC tried to push at the time has proved to be false, so they’ve ignored the story since there’s no special issue mileage to be gained. Also, if they bring it up again, they have to be careful not to remind you of their behavior at the time.

Let’s recall how the BBC, following the lead of their like-thinking brethren in the US media, tried to tell you that this act of mass murder was partially Sarah Palin’s fault. Let’s also recall how they pimped the President’s ill-advised attempt to use this tragedy to push His anti-gun agenda.

DB busted several Beeboids for their disgusting behavior at the time. BBC tv news editor Rachel Kennedy blamed Palin when tweeting:

The tweet has since been deleted. Down the memory hole, like so many other unfortunate tweets by BBC employees after they’re caught out.

As DB noted at the time, Katie Connolly (who later left the BBC to work for a Democrat strategy group) tried to smear the Tea Party movement with this by tweeting that the entire movement was Giffords’ enemy. Gavin Esler and a stalwart of the BBC College of Journalism were just two of the other BBC employees who joined in the fun.

The BBC’s top man in the US, Mark Mardell, also tried to smear Palin and the “rhetoric” of the Right for this tragedy. Sure, he opened with the “we don’t know the motives” disclaimer, but his entire post is dedicated to pointing the finger of blame. As I said in a post following the incident, this was drastically different from his behavior when Maj. Nadal murdered several people in the name of Islamic jihad.

Mardell further pushed his Narrative that Republicans engage in dangerous behavior in a later post, in which he promoted a speech by the President. The President also ran with the sick Narrative that Right-wing political rhetoric was to blame for the incident, and did a “we must all work together” speech.

It became apparent almost immediately to those who looked somewhere other than the BBC and the Huffington Post for their news on US issues that the mass murderer was mentally ill, and that partisan politics had precious little to do with his actions. The BBC took days to admit this, and not a single Beeboid apologized for their biased, inaccurate, slanderous statements.

Today, the BBC is silent. If they do whip up a news brief about it for tomorrow morning, they won’t be reminding you of their disgusting behavior at the time, won’t be reminding you of how their fellow travelers got it horribly wrong, won’t want you to recall how this tragic act was used to advance a political agenda.

UPDATE: The news brief is up. As predicted, no mention at all of the media hysteria, hoping you won’t remember the BBC’s disgusting behavior. One would have thought this would be a good moment to think about the dangers of divisive rhetoric, but then it’s only the Left doing it on this issue, so the BBC won’t touch it.

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Myth-Spinning From Detroit

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There’s yet another BBC North America correspondent pushing an agenda these days. Ian Pannell has gone to Detroit to spin a tale of woe and misery, blaming all of it on the current economic situation. He even clearly articulates the message one is meant to take away:

“The gap between the rich and poor in America is now bigger than it’s been for 30 years.”

Pannell closes the piece with this line, followed by a statement that “what we’ve seen” all over the US is a similar problem.  In case anyone didn’t bother watching all the way through, the message is spelled out equally clearly in the blurb accompanying the video.

Now, before we get into the problems of Detroit, let me just say that I’m in no way denying that there’s a severe economic problem in the US right now. I’m on record here many times complaining about exactly that. In fact, I believe we’ve been in a Depression for the last 18 months or so, and will continue to be unless there’s a drastic change nationwide. So this post is not meant to challenge Pannell’s last sentence. Instead, I mean to challenge the agenda being pushed and the myth being spun specifically from Detroit.

Detroit, of course, is definitely a problem city. Unemployment in the Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn region is the worst in the nation  among what we call “greater metropolitan areas”. As of May 2010, Detroit had about 90,000 (!) abandoned homes or residential lots, and the city has had to spend money demolishing them. If that seems like an awful lot of homes emptying over a relatively short period of time (we’re meant to assume that this is all about the “downturn” since 2008), you’d be right to be suspicious. Yet Pannell wants you to believe that Detroit is just like the rest of the country, a victim of economic inequality thrust upon it by outside forces. Well-trained BBC audiences will already know the approved causes: greedy bankers and the evil rich appropriating more than their fare share of wealth.

Except it’s simply not true. Detroit has been going down the tubes for years and years. Here’s what Pannell and the BBC don’t want you to know, because it detracts from their agenda:
First of all, Detroit suffers from relying far, far too much on a single workhorse: the automotive industry. The fact that the industry has been in decline for a couple of decades or more – so bad that the President had to bail out the unions out GM and sell Chrysler off – is an inconvenient truth which interferes with Pannell’s tale, so he leaves it out. White flight and urban blight have been a problem for decades. How could Detroit’s struggles as portrayed by the BBC be largely due to a recent phenomenon if a site like “The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit” won a local award in 1998?  There were 12,000 abandoned homes as of 2005.  In 2008 – at the beginning of the economic crisis, mind – unemployment was at 21% in some areas, and criminals were re-offending to stay in the safety and comfort of prison rather than trying to get by in a disaster area.

Detroit’s population has declined by 25% over the last decade. This has very little to do with the “downturn” (it’s only a recession when conservatives are in charge, right?). Pannell provides none of this context. The problems of the last three years have obviously made things tougher, but to portray Detroit purely as a victim of the recent economic crisis is false. But it does help feed the class war mythology which the BBC loves to push.

Another Detroit problem Pannell doesn’t want you to know about is that Detroit was on the brink of insolvency by 2005. It was driven there by powerful unions and poor management from a series of economic denialist Democrat mayors, and capped off by a Democrat mayor who ended up in prison over a sex scandal. To be fair, I’m pretty sure Republican mayors in that area wouldn’t have done much better, considering the corruption and cronyism that went on, and that precious few Republicans over the last decade have been fiscal conservatives. Regardless of who was in charge, though, the city lost 39% of its manufacturing jobs – mostly in the auto industry – in the 1980s. Unemployment ten years ago was among the worst in the nation. This has nothing to do with the current economic situation.

As of 2002, five of the ten largest employers in the area were state-run organizations. Indeed, the top two employers were the public school system and the City government itself. Does that sound familiar? This is never a recipe for growth and success. The Post Office was the #7 employer, and I think we can all guess how that works out after the city loses a quarter of its population. Even a media studies graduate can do the math here.

But none of this context is provided to the BBC audience. All you see is a tale of woe, people struggling to survive in tough economic times. The struggle is real, but the direct cause presented to you by Pannell is false. Using Detroit like this to highlight the current economic crisis in the US is like using Grimethorpe to highlight what Tory Cuts have done over the last couple years without telling you about the closing of the mines.

This is the result of agenda-driven newsgathering and reporting. It’s a dishonest report, pushing a specific agenda, intended to support the BBC’s Narrative about income inequality. Don’t trust the BBC on US issues.

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Journalistic Double Standards at the BBC Due to Ideology

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As everyone here knows by now – but people who rely on the BBC for their information will not – the US Justice Department has collaborated with the Norfolk Constabulary and Metropolitan Police to seize computers and a router from UK citizen Roger Tattersall, who runs the truth-seeking blog Tallbloke’s Talkshop, under the moniker, “Tallbloke”. Tattersall is one of a handful of climate truth-seekers* who had a link to the ClimateGate2 emails posted by a third party on their blogs.

The BBC defined the first release of ClimateGate emails in 2009 as “stolen” and “hacked”. Even though they didn’t actually know what happened. As part of the investigation into what the BBC has described as the stolen emails, the UK authorities asked the US Justice Dept. to instruct WordPress, where Climate Audit is hosted, to hand over all blog records during the days leading up to “FOIA” posting a link to the emails. Tallbloke has posted the legal notice on his blog.

So far, there has been utter silence from the BBC. This is not exactly like WikiHacks abetting Pvt. Bradley Manning’s illegal acquisition – honest people would call it theft – of all that Dept. of Defense data, which was subsequently published by St. Julian Assange and his crew.  In Manning’s case, he was arrested for actually stealing the data, and Assange has been indicted for knowingly receiving stolen goods and publishing it. Even today, the BBC defines that data instead as “leaked:”. The double standard is clear. It’s an editorial choice, driven by the biases of the BBC staff involved. Anyone doing a search of “Manning” and “leaked” on the BBC website will see loads of evidence. The opposite is true for ClimateGate.

Tattersall has not stolen anything, has not published anything, and was not responsible for “FOIA” posting a link to it on his blog. All he did was report that it had happened, and report on the emails after he saw them. Just like the BBC did with the documents Manning stole and Assange published. Today, as it happens, St. Julian has gotten a break in his appeal against being extradited to Sweden, and the BBC is all over it, making sure everyone still has hope for this heroic figure. At the same time, Manning is back in the news because his pre-trial hearing is starting.  As I write this, the BBC News Channel just referred to his act as “leaking”. It now seems to be enshrined in the BBC style guide.

Now Mark Mardell is asking if Manning is a hero or a villain.We know that certain Beeboids think Assange is one.

Pte Manning is the intelligence analyst who US authorities suspect of being behind the hugely embarrassing Wikileaks releases. He was arrested in Iraq last May for illegally downloading material from America’s secret internet network.

Mardell admits it was illegal, which is refreshing. Notice, though, the pathetic editorializing of referring to Defense Dept. classified documents as “America’s secret internet”.

To some he is a hero, to others a villain.

Many in America will feel, if he is guilty, it is quite clear that he is a traitor who has broken his vows to his country and deserves harsh punishment. Some have even said what he and Wikileaks have done amounts to terrorism.

The defence may choose to paint a picture of a disturbed young man, sensitive and gay adrift in a macho culture. They are likely to bring up allegations that he has been subjected to deliberately punitive detention in a military brig.

Get out the tiny violins, folks. None of this justifies breaking the law in any situation. It’s especially ridiculous to use “punitive detention” as an excuse for something he’s already done. But never mind that. The fact that Mardell and the BBC are happy to give voice to those who declare Manning – and by extension, Assange – a hero.  Can someone show me a single example of the BBC giving the same time for praise of a single climate truth-seeker or someone who says we have a right to see the UEA and other climate scientists’ data, as well as their work?

No, of course there isn’t any. The BBC Trust even declared that they don’t have to give time to those voices. And they got a Warmist to do a report saying they need to be even more biased. To the BBC, releasing the ClimateGate emails was wrong, and harmful, and we have no right to see any of it.

Again as I write this, the BBC is giving air time to someone declaring Manning as a hero, a champion for justice and the US Constitution. Another Beeboid in the US got the quote, and has made a separate report saying the exact same thing Mardell did.

Here’s Mardell again on Manning:

But it will be interesting if they put the main point of his many supporters – that what Manning did transcends legal rules and national interests, that information wants to be free, and that truth is more important than government’s desire to keep something secret.

Behind this is a specific allegation – that orders to Manning were illegal.

And there you have the BBC’s Narrative as well. Mardell is at the trial today, and has reported from there for the BBC News Channel as it gets underway. He repeated what he said in his blog, that the defense is that no damage was done by publishing the documents. Funny how that’s exactly the line ex-Beeboid and now Democrat strategist, Katie Connolly, tried to push a year ago. Manning wouldn’t have done this without knowing that Assange would publish it. What the BBC never told you is that Assange’s stated goal is to harm US interests. So it doesn’t matter whether or not any harm was done. An attempted crime is still an illegal act. Mardell knows this – he reads the Washington Post – but curiously leaves that out of his anaylsis. Only one side is given: Manning’s.

Manning and Assange are in the news, and the BBC sees no parallel between their cases and what has happened to Tattersall, someone who has neither stolen, nor published, nor abetted anyone doing either, emails which are not classified.

So where is the BBC reporting on the legal action taken against a UK citizen for being tangentially involved in the publishing of emails from the climate scientists? This is the top level of US government helping to seize personal property from a UK citizen for something someone else did, and over which he had no control. Nobody could have prevented “FOIA” from posting a link on their blog. It’s intimidation at best, oppression at worst. Where’s Rory Cellan-Jones on this? He’s all about freedom of publishing whatever one likes when it’s a paedophile handbook. One would have thought that the Beeboids who were so angry about the emails being published would be eager to jump on someone connected to it. Yet they haven’t made a sound.  Don’t want to give any more air time to “opponents of the consensus”, I guess, as reporting on it would open up discussion about what happened, and the fact that there is evidence of fraud contained within.

A clear double-standard of reporting on the publishing of non-public emails. It’s all driven by the personal ideology of BBC employees. They support St. Julian, so sanitize his publication of classified documents. They support Warmism, so demonize the publication of their emails. This latest round of releases sure hasn’t gotten much play by the BBC. They made a big deal about the arrest of Pvt. Manning for actually stealing classified documents, but are completely silent when international authorities collude to seize private property, as well as server records, of someone who did absolutely nothing, and was only a spectator of an act which may not even be illegal. I understand that there’s so much big news to report today that there isn’t time to do a main report on it.  But why isn’t this worth even the tiniest of news briefs on the website?

When will the BBC start honestly reporting about what’s been going on? If anything, Tallbloke and whoever “FOIA” is are the real heroes. They’re seeking the truth, and informing us all about real law breaking, real collusion to produce agenda-driven data with which to influence governments. They’re seeking truth about the data the UN and all of our respective sovereign governments are using to oppress us, to reduce us, and to control our behavior. The BBC abets this, and tries instead to demonize or suppress information to the contrary.  If it ultimately turns out that these truth-seekers are wrong, that still doesn’t make them criminals for seeking the truth. Yet that’s not how they’re treated by the BBC, in stark contrast to how they treat an actual criminal, and a man who has openly stated his desire to harm US interests.


UPDATE: Now I know why the US Government is involved. One key revelation in the ClimageGate2 emails is that the US Dept. of Energy was colluding with Phil Jones to hide data that harmed the cause, and would give fodder to truth-seekers. The same Dept. of Energy which has thrown $4.7 billion down the Green Energy toilet to Obamessiah moneymen was funding some of Jones’ research. It just gets worse and worse, doesn’t it?

* I refuse to use the term “climate skeptic”, as once one starts using one’s opponents terms, the argument has already been lost. From now on, I’m going to use the term “climate truth-seeker” or similar.

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Twitter Me This

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Ranting about biased Beeboid tweets has become something of a favorite past time around here recently, and deservedly so.  DB’s trap shooting in particular has provided some real gems, and several other people have brought biased tweets to our attention. The problem, though, is that, with one exception, ultimately the BBC employees revealing their bias remain unaccountable, unaffected by any controversy, and the biased behavior continues unabated.  They have no problem openly laughing at us.

We know that the official BBC guidelines abjure openly biased utterances on social media.  The catch phrase is “Don’t do anything stupid”.  They make a distinction between “official” Twitter accounts and personal ones.  Only the “official” ones (NB: pdf file), which require the approval of management and are allegedly monitored by a senior editor, are required to follow BBC guidelines of impartiality.  If we take a broad constructionist interpretation, this means that anything which is not strictly prohibited in the text would be permitted.  Thus, all those personal accounts can use the “opinions my own” disclaimer as a get-out-of-bias-free card, even though they openly state their positions at the BBC.  It’s pretty obvious that there’s a massive grey area here, and I seriously doubt that BBC management has spent much time trying to draw a line between them.

I have my doubts because we know from Mark Mardell’s appearance at the BBC College of Journalism that they accept that their use of Twitter “doesn’t follow BBC guidelines” (@36:45).   I don’t know how much more proof we need.

The reason I bring this up is because there’s been a highly relevant incident recently at the Washington Post.

Jennifer Rubin, the lone non-Left voice at the paper (she’s a blogger and not even a reporter or editor), recently retweeted a blog post by “Bad Rachel” about the release of Gilad Shalit, which was full of rather unfortunate anti-Palestinian vitriol.  There was naturally a backlash, and Patrick Pexton, the WaPo ombudsman, chose to publicly chastise Rubin for it.  He admits that he always gets a load of complaints that the paper even allows a conservative voice in its pages, which is pretty funny.  But what he said was instructive. Remember, this is about a mere retweet, and not somebody telling George Osborne to f@#$ off or calling for support for Occupy Wall Street:

But how responsible is Rubin for it? She didn’t write it. It did not appear anywhere in The Washington Post — online or in print. It appeared on Abrams’s independent “Bad Rachel” blog, and then Abrams broadcast it on Twitter.


Some readers suggested that because an employee retweeted this link, The Post somehow condones genocide against Palestinians. That’s nonsense. The Post’s journalism and its editorials show a deep commitment to human rights around the globe, from Russia to China, to North Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and beyond.


It’s also worth noting that the rules of objectivity that apply to editors, reporters and bloggers in The Post newsroom do not apply to Post opinion bloggers and columnists. Post opinion writers are given greater leeway to say what they want. That’s how it should be. If the opinion section were too politically correct, it’d be dull.

So we see here a distinction between columnists and opinion bloggers.  But is the BBC’s distinction between “official” Twitter accounts and the rest of them equally valid?  I would say not, as people like Matt Danzico and Mark Sandell and Jane Bradley are not opinion bloggers or op-ed writers for the BBC.  Yet they reveal their bias and, in the case of Bradley, seem to be proud of it.

The Washington Post ombudsman then lays out the official guidelines:

Social-media accounts maintained by Washington Post journalists — whether on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or elsewhere — reflect upon the reputation and credibility of The Washington Post’s newsroom. Even as we express ourselves in more personal and informal ways to forge better connections with our readers, we must be ever mindful of preserving the reputation of The Washington Post for journalistic excellence, fairness and independence.

He again points out that writers hired specifically for their personal opinions are not included in the “journalistic excellence and fairness” bit, but that their public behavior reflects on the credibility of the WaPo nevertheless.

With this example in mind, one has to ask if the BBC should similarly be concerned about how the constant stream of biased tweets from Beeboids from a number of different departments and job levels reflects on their credibility.  Does the “opinions my own” disclaimer really excuse all of it?  Does the Washington Post – a paper so biased that the previous ombudsman apologized for their pro-Obamessiah bias during the 2008 election, and the publisher had to apologize for trying to organize dinner parties at her own home to provide personal access to Administration officials – have more integrity than the BBC?  Unless they rein in this partisan behavior, I would have to say yes.

If nothing else, the sheer volume of biased utterances from the Left and the fact that there has yet to be a single example of a Beeboid tweet from the Right shows that the BBC is full of Leftoids, and the groupthink is endemic. Intellectual diversity at the BBC seems to be practically non-existent, and their public behavior with social media proves it.

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The BBC’s Dishonest and Biased Questions For Republican Candidates

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Saturday night’s Republican candidates’ debate was on the topic of foreign affairs.  In that spirit, the BBC asked PJ Crowley, a former State Dept. flack, to come up with a list of what the media likes to call “3 am phone call” questions, after then-Senator Hillary Clinton’s campaign ad that was critical about her opponent, when she was running for President, not being ready for major foreign policy decisions.  As this is the BBC handling a US issue, before we even get to the questions there’s a glaring bit of bias and dishonesty.

Right at the top of the page, next to his photo, the BBC describes Crowley as “Former US Assistant Secretary of State”.  Partially false.  He was actually the US Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs. The White House officially used that title for him,  In other words, he was a mouthpiece, not a policy wonk or actual diplomat.  His career has been entirely in Public Affairs, not actual policy making. Even CNN referred to him as “State Department spokesman”.  What’s that you’re saying? That CNN link reveals something else the BBC casually left out about Crowley?  You’re right.  They forget to mention that Crowley was fired for criticizing the unfriendly detention treatment of Pvt. Bradley Manning, the Wikihacker who stole all those documents and gave them to St. Julian to publish, in the hopes of harming US foreign policy goals.

The reason the BBC redacted the key part of Crowley’s title is to give you the impression that his opinion carries more weight than it should.  I have a screen shot in case of stealth edit.  So this piece is misleading even before it starts.  They even forgot to mention that Crowley worked for The Obamessiah Administration. So he’s partisan as well, but the BBC doesn’t want you to know about it.  Once again, a vox pops presented as an innocent commentator is anything but the way the BBC wants you to think. (They did mention it at the very bottom, which I missed. My thanks to Craig for pointing out my error)

Now for the questions.  I’m not a Republican candidate, but I’m going to answer them as if I were, just to highlight the bias.

Actually, before getting to the questions, just have a look at the sarcastic, dismissive way Crowley misrepresents the candidates’ various answers.  He even spends a moment belittling the candidates as being ignorant and bashing Bush (calling Musharaf his “BFF”).  So even before you get to the substance, you already know where this is coming from: an attack on the President’s opponents, full stop.

Okay, now the questions.

1. The IAEA this week says that Iran more or less knows how to build a nuclear weapon. Assuming when you become president, there is not yet evidence of an actual weapon, what will your policy be? Will you continue to contain Iran and add pressure through sanctions until it is clear Iran is constructing a bomb? Or are you prepared to act preemptively to prevent Iran from acquiring a weapon?

This is a “gotcha” question.  “Preemptively” can mean many things. It doesn’t have to mean bombing the crap out of Iran, which is what the question obviously implies.  Under my Administration, the US would only act “preemptively” if we had real proof that Iran was about to acquire an actual weapon, or had just acquired one.  But as I said, that can mean many forms of action, both covert and diplomatic, not just bombing the crap out of them, which is what you’re trying to catch me out saying.  So the question is designed for one particular answer, sorry you’re not going to get it.

2. The Bush administration invaded Iraq to eliminate suspected weapons of mass destruction. The Bush administration negotiated an end to the Libyan WMD programme, one of its signature achievements. You all have strongly indicated that Iran should never gain a nuclear weapon. Is the ultimate solution to declare the Middle East a nuclear-weapons-free zone, as called for under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty?

That’s a nice dig at Israel, isn’t it?  Let’s be honest about the subtext of your question.  When you say the “Middle East” as a region, that includes Israel, which is the only country so many people on the Left and in the media are really worried about.  How many times have we heard the whining about hypocrisy in allowing Israel to have nukes but not wanting Iran to have them.  Please rephrase the question more honestly.  Still, such a treaty in that region is sheer fantasy anyway, and not because Israel has secret nukes.

3. Most of you have said that Libya was not a vital interest to the United States and that you would not have militarily intervened. Does that mean you would have preferred leaving Gaddafi in power? If not, then why was Obama wrong?

On this issue, my position was different from that of most of these candidates.  Libya is a vital interest to the US because of the threat of Islamic fascism taking over if Gaddafi was removed.  I think we all know by now that’s what’s going to happen.  But that means the President was wrong to sit on his hands until Secretary of State Clinton and her staff had to convince him that it wasn’t working, and that he was going to continue to butcher his people and plunge his country into chaos.  That’s never good for US interests. Plus, there’s always an economic component to vital national interests: if Libya ends up being a reasonable, stable country on the road to prosperity, that can only be good for everyone. Since the question of military intervention became moot once Britain and France and their coalition were going to do it anyway, it was in the US’s best interest to at least take the diplomatic lead with rebels and any other potential new leadership faction.  That didn’t happen.  We sat on our hands out of fear of the usual complaints of US Imperialism. And look where it got us?  Another potential Mullocracy.  That’s not good for US vital interests.

4. President Bush achieved regime change in Iraq, but at a cost of about $800bn (£502bn). President Obama’s intervention in Libya, achieving a similar result, cost just over a billion. Keeping in mind our current financial situation, as President, what are the lessons learned from both experiences?

Total apples and oranges here.  Regime change in Libya was due to a whole host of factors, only one of which was US strategic bombing.  There was no rebel army waiting to move against Sadaam.  There are huge geographical and tactical differences between the two countries.  There was no Arab Spring-type scenario going on in the region at the time.  The only lesson to be learned here is that this question reveals a willful cluelessness and that the questioner has an agenda to push.

5. If the deficit super-committee fails, defence will take an even bigger hit than the roughly $430bn already planned. Congress may delay sequestration until after next year’s election. In 2013, are you prepared to enact deeper defence cuts to balance the budget? If not, please explain how, if Ronald Reagan could not raise defence spending, lower taxes and balance the budget, results would be different in your administration?

Another apples and oranges question revealing cluelessness and an agenda to push.  Under my Adminstration, there will be all sorts of cuts and reform that will mean we won’t have to decimate Defense.  Repealing ObamaCare alone with save nearly enough money to render this question moot. Furthermore, reducing the Departments of Education, Energy, and Health to shadows of their current selves, along with a complete dismantling and redefining of the EPA will save tens of billions. Getting rid of the insane amount of regulations which harm small businesses and curtail most others will help increase revenues and growth.  Reagan had a completely different economic situation, and didn’t have the massive, sclerotic bureaucracies we have now.  It’s ridiculous to compare the two situations.

6. Will any troops be in Afghanistan in 2016? If so, doing what?

Who knows?  A million things could happen between now and then.  Nobody wants troops there just for the sake of it. Next!

7. You have all declared you are strong supporters of Israel. Are the foreign policies of the United States and Israel identical? If not, name one area where you believe Israeli actions are contrary to US interests. What will you do to encourage a change in Israeli policy?

Another dig at Israel.  One could just as easily say that the foreign policies of the US are virtually identical to those of Britain, France, Germany, South Korea, and Gambia. All those countries surely have one area where we disagree. This question is asked from the perspective that having very similar foreign policy goals to Israel is a problem.  Why?  Ask me a more honest question, and I’ll try to answer it.

(Remember, this anti-Israel mug was the Spokesman for the State Dept. No wonder so many people have been worried that The Obamessiah is going to throw Israel under the bus.)

8. Do you consider climate change a national security issue? If not, as president, what will you say to the president of the Maldives when he tells you that emissions of greenhouse gases by China and the United States threaten the very existence of his country because of rising sea levels?

Climate Change is only a national security issue in that all these draconian rules and regulations forced on us by Warmists are causing serious damage to the economy, and to those of our strategic allies.  If the President of the Maldives tells me that my country is dooming the existence of his, I’ll tell him he’s full of it and needs to find another way to get my country to redistribute wealth to his.

9. Some of you have indicated a willingness to militarily intervene in Mexico to control violence perpetrated by drug cartels. Those cartels are battling Mexican authorities using weapons purchased in the United States, including combat weapons like the AK-47. If the war in Mexico threatens the United States, should we on national security grounds first restrict the sale of combat weapons that cannot be plausibly tied to individual security before putting troops in harm’s way at significant cost?

The reason those drug cartels are using weapons purchased in the US is because the ATF made that happen.  How can you not be aware of this?  Operation Fast and Furious and the rest of it has lead to how many deaths now?  That whole scheme was created specifically to cause the exact trouble you’re now using to demand stricter gun control.  The current Administration has the blood of US border agents and hundreds of innocent Mexican civilians on its hands, and you’re asking me about stopping something that’s happening only because the current Administration made it so?  You bet I’ll stop it, but not what you’re hoping for. Unbelievable.

(Of course the BBC has misled the public on this issue, and engaged in suppressing news which might make you better informed. So they can get away with such an unbelievably, disgustingly biased question.)

10. Congress is considering legislation that would require all terrorism suspects to be tried in military rather than civilian courts. Do you support this legislation? If so, given the strong record of open trials and convictions in civilian courts, why do you think they are not the appropriate venue for at least certain kinds of terrorism cases?

 Yes.  We’re at war. Different ball game.

Thank you for having me here today.  Don’t trust the BBC on US issues.

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