AG Holder fires back

[NickEllis]

Divide and conquer. Once the ATF and FBI and DOD working against each other to cover their collective backsides, that can only benefit freedom and liberty. Hopefully this is just the first.

 

[publius]

Cunningham is right to be concerned that he might face criminal charges over the February 4th response to Congress. The claim that ATF makes every effort to interdict illegal guns was a lie as we now know. The most recent claim, that the statement was "aspirational" and reflected goals but not actual policies is BS and would not be a legal defense if true. Senator Grassley was not impressed by that claim.

On December 2nd, the Justice Department’s latest spin was that its statement that “ATF makes every effort to interdict weapons” was “aspirational.” Nevertheless, that didn’t stop them from withdrawing the letter for inaccuracies. Perhaps the aspirational language should be saved for mission statements. Responses to specific and serious allegations should stick to the facts.

This was an oversight letter.

I was not asking for a feel-good, fuzzy message about what the ATF aspires to. I was asking for the facts. A U.S. Border Patrol agent had died. His death was connected to an ATF operation. Whistleblowers were reaching outside of the chain of command because supervisors wouldn’t listen. Instead of treating these allegations with the kind of seriousness they deserved, the Justice Department resorted to damage control.

It's always about the coverup in the end, and it looks like the end is approaching.

 

[Neverwinter]

Either the MSM is fair or it is not fair in your mind. Your unwillingness to stake a position is duly noted.

I hear binary black and white is all the rage these days, regardless of how well it models reality. This emphasis on the MSM as a singular, monolithic entity is the phenomenon which is covered in the UWisc paper.

...And simply sticking a link on your post, as if slapping down a royal flush and saying, "Read 'em and weep," doesn't work either. I gained my perception by watching ABC, NBC, and CBS for perhaps 45 years, and reading the WaPo, Newsweek, Time, etc., for nearly as long. I guess I learned the hard way.

The initial dismissal of the article was a dishonest attempt to refuse to confront information being provided to support a point under disagreement, by attempting to slander scholarly articles as a whole. The article studies the role that various media elites have been involved in with shaping perception regarding media bias, particularly that of the right wing media elites in forming the perception of liberal bias on the entire media industry(which now seems to exclude the now-mainstream FNC). The above quote discussion the generalization of the "mainstream media" into The Other only serves to support the observations of the paper. The anecdotal explanation for one opinion pales in comparison to the body of evidence.

You're bringing Obamacare into the discussion? What happened to thread drift, o mighty context policeman? Of course, you once again betray your leftist viewpoint -- or haven't you noticed a total assimilation of the Democrat party by the radical left wing in the past decade or so? Your radar only seems to point in one direction.

You wanted the evidence supporting a shift rightwards in the US political landscape, and I provided it by showing how some politicians in a right wing party no longer supported the position that they held years ago. The example even controls for party orientation of the acting president. This isn't an attempt to debate the merits of Obamacare, merely contributory evidence that the political landscape isn't what it was decades ago.

Don't even get me started on whether we should be using a multi-axis spectrum which isn't limited to two directions. Black and white is even worse.

Actually, I'd heard and read that number on a few occasions, and it stuck in my head. There are any number of sources that substantiate it.

Just one I happened to pull up:

http://www.mediaresearch.org/SpecialReports/2004/report063004_p1.asp

If you want to minimize any findings by saying they only apply to the Big 3, fine -- although I doubt you will find much support on this thread to deny that the same percentage likely doesn't hold true for other influential mainstream media outlets such as NYT, WaPo, Newsweek, Time, NPR, or PBS.

The majority of those seem to be using the candidate voting record as a measure of location along the political spectrum. While the results aren't useless, it does have some problems with the attempt to use a binary decision on D/R candidates which represent a multitude of positions on issues. It does make sense if you fall into the dichotomous thinking that regardless of the candidate's stances on issues, they are always exemplary cases of opposite ends of the 1D spectrum.

The Media Elite provides a better measure with the supplemental questions which ask the positions of the surveyed journalists on individual issues rather than relying on the catch-all measure of candidate party.

Even then, it still has the issues that Chomsky brought up; namely that the journalists work under the umbrella of their employers. It is the the company that decides the product(eg. reporting) that the channel/periodical produces. What those surveyed journalists working in the trenches believe is subsumed by the role they have in producing the product dictated by the highest levels of management.

Clever deflection -- segueing away from the admission that you can't distinguish between a primary and general election.

That conclusion doesn't make any sense unless one thinks that only Republicans and/or their supporters can be racist, when the evidence shows that the problem isn't isolated to them.

 

[publius]

journalists work under the umbrella of their employers. It is the the company that decides the product(eg. reporting) that the channel/periodical produces. What those surveyed journalists working in the trenches believe is subsumed by the role they have in producing the product dictated by the highest levels of management.

I think you may be right.

Who runs the Washington Post?

When did that paper first mention that the ATF walked guns? Last June, wasn't it?

 

[JFrame]

I hear binary black and white is all the rage these days, regardless of how well it models reality. This emphasis on the MSM as a singular, monolithic entity is the phenomenon which is covered in the UWisc paper.

You certainly have the capacity to assess the MSM collectively, and to conclude whether it, in general, is left-leaning or not. Your cherry-picking to refuse to state a conclusion is mere deflection because you know what the answer is.

The initial dismissal of the article was a dishonest attempt to refuse to confront information being provided to support a point under disagreement, by attempting to slander scholarly articles as a whole. The article studies the role that various media elites have been involved in with shaping perception regarding media bias, particularly that of the right wing media elites in forming the perception of liberal bias on the entire media industry(which now seems to exclude the now-mainstream FNC). The above quote discussion the generalization of the "mainstream media" into The Other only serves to support the observations of the paper. The anecdotal explanation for one opinion pales in comparison to the body of evidence.

Heh...I'm amused at how you use the term "dishonest," as if that means something to you. Your continued argumentation throughout this thread has been a compilation of dishonest presentations on everything from the media to Holder's cries of racism.

Again, I will stack up my observation accrued over, say, the past four decades to your "study." I trust me more than I trust any "studies" you would submit.

You wanted the evidence supporting a shift rightwards in the US political landscape, and I provided it by showing how some politicians in a right wing party no longer supported the position that they held years ago. The example even controls for party orientation of the acting president. This isn't an attempt to debate the merits of Obamacare, merely contributory evidence that the political landscape isn't what it was decades ago.

I guess we can agree then that you'll stop being a thread cop in the future, since you now admit that discussion items need to be drawn from all over in an attempt to support one's position. No need to apologize for your rudeness earlier.

Mitt Romney is currently leading in the race for the GOP presidential nomination. Do you want to keep discussing how "right wing" the GOP is?

The majority of those seem to be using the

..

Of course, I don't believe that everyone is a binary thinker. But whether a given journalist who voted Democrat has a range of issues on which he might vary, I have no doubt that when push comes to shove, he will be among those circling the wagons to defend Obama.

You are saying you really did not notice a massive shift by the MSM to go "all in" for Obama in 2008, and that they don't have an investment in him now? You're actually saying that?

That conclusion doesn't make any sense unless one thinks that only Republicans and/or their supporters can be racist, when the evidence shows that the problem isn't isolated to them.

My conclusion was simply that you misused the term "Primary" a couple of posts ago, made a snide remark to me when I responded to your mistaken reference, and I wasn't letting you off with your lack of admission as to your own ignorance.


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[Sam1911]

Not with a bang, but with a whisper...