Christiane Amanpour Omits Fuller Saying ‘You’re Dead’ to Tea Partier at ‘This Week’ Town Hall
January 16, 2011 No CommentNewsBusters asked Saturday if ABC's “This Week” would fully report a Tucson shooting survivor issuing a death threat to a Tea Party leader at a special town hall meeting taped earlier that day. Although host Christiane Amanpour, in a brief, 30 second after-thought at the close of Sunday's program, told viewers J. Eric Fuller's threat was directed at a Tea Party member, she omitted Fuller saying “You're dead” to Trent Humphries (video follows with transcript and commentary): CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: As our town hall concluded, one of the victims of the shooting in our audience became agitated and was detained by security. James Eric Fuller, who was shot twice last Saturday, appeared to direct a threat towards a member of the Tea Party in our audience when he spoke. Fuller was charged with a misdemeanor and involuntarily committed according to the Pima County Sheriff's office. And that was it. No mention that Fuller allegedly took a picture of Humphries while he was speaking and said, “You're dead!” Why did Amanpour and Company omit this detail, especially since “This Week” included a rather lengthy, unrelated statement from Humphries in Sunday's program: TRENT HUMPHRIES: Well, I mean, we talk about the other things too is we talk about how come nobody could be aware this man had a medical history of — of that. But HIPAA laws would prevent that. It's not just gun laws that are standing in the way of this happening. There are all kinds of laws that Congress needs to look at and — and I think there is a time for this debate. But for what we saw and felt right now, I'm not sure that applause and things going on are appropriate right now until we've had actually, maybe had the funerals finished for the people that have –that were (sic) suffered and died. My neighbor is one of those people. And — and I loved that man. And — and I want to see — I want to see some introspection maybe from the people before the national debate happens. You know, and those — and — and it's very well to have those things. But something's going to have to happen with — with everybody. And — and I just — I mean, it's — it's something that where as a country, we talk about political discourse and what's appropriate and what's not. I think that — that applies to everybody including the media who's — who's — you know, and not in this — this — this has been a very, very cathartic thing for everybody. Immediately after the shooting to see people jump to political angles. I just don't want to see that right now and I'm a very political person. So I — I would ask that maybe we — we have that discussion and it's a larger discussion and that — and that we have that just a little bit later. This therefore makes it twice in the past two installments of “This Week” that key elements involving the Tucson shootings were intentionally omitted. As NewsBusters reported last Sunday, when ABC's Pierre Thomas interviewed a friend of the assailant, he completely ignored that Caitlin Parker had told people via Twitter Jared Lee Loughner was a liberal. This raises an important question: exactly what kind of credibility does ABC News strive for its flagship Sunday political program if producers feel they can omit pertinent details from stories whenever they're inconvenient to the message? Consider that the transcript of Sunday's “This Week” available at ABCNews.com not only failed to mention the specifics of the death threat, but also ignored the Tea Party component: AMANPOUR: As our town hall concluded, one of the victims of the shooting, who was in our audience because agitated and was detained by security. James Eric Fuller, who was shot twice last Saturday, took offices at what another audience member had said and mumbled what seemed to be a threat. He was charged with a misdemeanor and involuntarily committed according to the Pima County Sheriff's office. To be sure, transcripts are often rushed. But this bears little resemblance to what Amanpour actuallly said. Also curious were changes made to an article about the town hall meeting posted at ABCNews.com Saturday. As NewsBusters reported , the following two paragraphs were at the end of a piece on this subject: Towards the end of an otherwise thoughtful town hall, there was a single incident: James Eric Fuller, who was shot at the Safeway last week, allegedly made a threatening comment to another audience member, Tucson Tea Party co-founder Trent Humphries. It is unclear whether Humphries heard Fuller and the two never engaged. According to the Pima County Sheriff's Department, Fuller used a cell phone to take a picture of Humphries and allegedly said, “You're dead.” Fifteen seconds after the conclusion of the town hall, law enforcement officials approached Fuller and led him to a side entrance. A moment later, Fuller could heard yelling, “What's the matter–with you–whores!” Fuller was charged with disorderly conduct and threatening and intimidation and taken to a local mental health facility, according to the Sheriff's Department. That is now followed by these paragraphs added some time after NewsBusters filed its report: In a statement Humphries said, “I was asked to give my thoughts on gun control laws and perhaps the passage of new laws. … A gentleman in the audience who I had never met before began booing and made the comment 'you're dead' while taking my picture. I was escorted from the location of the filming and spoken to by several deputies about the incident. I told them I was very hesitant to press any charges against this gentleman, but after they urged me to do so based on the gravity of the situation, and the lessons learned from the recent tragedy. I allowed them to proceed as recommended,” he said. “This is another sad piece to add to an already tragic set of events,” Humphries added in the statement. “My hope continues to remain that we as a community be allowed the ability to heal and focus on those things that will best help our city and its citizens recover from this deadly tragedy,” he said. With all this additional information at her disposal, why did Amanpour give “This Week” viewers such a brief, incomplete description of what happened at the end of her town hall meeting? Would Amanpour have made the same omission if Fuller was the Tea Party leader and Humphries the shooting survivor? Quite the contrary, it seems a metaphysical certitude that if a Tea Partier had issued exactly the same threat to a shooting survivor during this gathering, it would have been a huge focus of Sunday's program, and would likely have been reported by every other news agency in America. Unfortunately, a liberal threatening a Tea Partier just doesn't fit the agenda so-called journalists are advancing today.
Continue reading …John Kerry gave a speech last week at the Center for American Progress that should become the marching song for every liberal in this country. He was clear: The last 10 years have cost us too much, and if the hyper-partisan tone doesn’t change to one of true concern for the direction of this country, we will cede any chance to lead to others. He hits it all: Infrastructure, energy, debt, climate change. Every point. The one that hit home for me was when he talked about where we might have been, had Bush and the Republicans not unwound progress made during the Clinton administration. Here’s an example. We talk about how the Clinton tax rates generated a surplus, but we stop there. We don’t talk about the fact that if the Clinton tax rates had remained in effect, the entire national debt would have been paid off by 2012. Imagine what a difference that would have made in today’s dialogue. And more importantly, why aren’t we hammering this home every single time one of those self-righteous Republican buffoons stands up and talks about how our national debt is killing the country? Kerry points out that we would be at a point where our financial position would be at it’s strongest point ever. What would that have meant when (or if) the bottom fell out of the economy? Most assuredly, we wouldn’t have to be speaking of debt retirement and austerity. We need to start going there. This shouldn’t be swept under the rug. I can’t recommend this highly enough. Take an hour out of your day and watch Kerry’s speech. He really hits hard on the cost of NOT investing in the country and how it puts us behind on a global basis every single day. Check out this headline from January 26, 2000, just 11 years ago: Consumer Confidence Hits an All-Time High; Jobs Called ‘Plentiful’ : Clinton Sees An Early Payoff of U.S. Debt Compare it to today’s headlines ( this one, from the Wall Street Journal , one of the biggest tax-cut pimps): U.S. Ran $80 Billion Budget Deficit in December I think we need to give Republicans full credit for everything they did for to us. We should be at least as loud as the anti-hcr folks are, and we should repeat it every single day in public, especially to anyone who still thinks Republicans are fiscally responsible. (Aside: Here’s a giggle for you…check out the names on the Sunday news shows at the bottom of this Google news clipping . Even then, McCain was front and center.)
Continue reading …Tom Delay appeared on The TODAY Show with his lawyer to announce that The Hammer was convicted by a jury of his peers because the case was tried in the most “liberal city in America.” He called it the criminalization of politics . I think when you break the law using politics to launder money to people that actually makes one a criminal, doesn’t it? Delay: first of all, I was tried in the most liberal county in the state of Texas, indeed in the United States. Getting a jury — the foreman of the jury was a Greenpeace activist. I’m not criticizing the jury. The point is, that this is a political campaign, has everything to do that the district attorney used six grand juries before he found one just sworn in to indict me on laws that don’t exist in Texas . [--] Matt, you can’t — to have money laundering, you have to have proceeds from a criminal activity, like drugs or things like that. They never proved that these proceeds were illegal. They were legally raised corporate funds that were send to Washington to be used legally around the country and Washington sent legally raised funds back to Texas. That’s not money laundering . Does that make sense to you? And then he went hog-wild on the issue of gun control. Matt: You would have no different opinion in terms of the ban on assault weapons you didn’t allow to come to a vote in 2004. I’m not connecting dots that don’t exist here, Congressman, believe me. In that law would have prevented the new manufacture of things like this extended magazine used by this alleged shooter in this case. Delay: He still could have gotten an old one. No new thinking of the philosophical idea of that? Absolutely not. Guns and people that carry guns are a deterrent. Happened right here in Texas. We had a situation where people would bump into women in expensive cars and rob them right on the freeway. The day that a “concealed carry” went into law in the state of Texas, that all stopped because the robbers didn’t know if the women they were bumping into had a gun or not. This is all stuff we shouldn’t be talking about. What we ought to be talking about is the rhetoric in Washington , what people ought to be — how people should be treating each other civilly. Gun control and grandstanding doesn’t help anybody. What a fine example of armed citizens stopping crime. Tom Delay belongs in jail with his partner in crime, Jack Abramoff. I only wish we could throw away the key.
Continue reading …New York Times Profile Still Trying to Link Loughner to Right-Wing Extremism
January 16, 2011 No Comment
The New York Times simply can’t help themselves.
Continue reading …Bulls and Bears Panel Touts GM Incentive Pay for Hourly Workers While Trashing Unions
January 16, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media Fox is at it again, bashing unions . Of course the panel on Bulls & Bears thinks this is a fantastic idea other than their one out-gunned “Democratic strategist” — GM may link vehicle quality, employee pay incentives . This might be a good time for a reminder of just what it took for American auto workers to get rid of things like piece work in the first place. The historic 1936-37 Flint auto plant strikes : The feisty young United Auto Workers launched the first of a series of sit-down strikes against General Motors at Fisher Body Plant No. 1 in Flint. The goals were to earn recognition for the UAW as the bargaining agent for GM workers, and to make the company stop shipping work to plants with nonunion workers. The strike lasted 44 days and became the first of many union victories. On Nov. 18, 1936, the UAW struck a Fisher Body plant in Altanta. On Dec. 16, they hit two GM plants in Kansas City, and on Dec. 28, a Fisher stamping plant in Cleveland. Two days later they struck Fisher Body No. 1 in Flint. Within two weeks, approximately 135,000 men from plants in 35 cities in 14 states were striking General Motors. As the nation was emerging from the Great Depression, the striking workers enjoyed the sympathy of most of the people, including Michigan governor Frank Murphy and popular New Deal President Franklin Delano Roosvelt. Roosevelt had promised in his inaugural speech to drive out the “economic royalists,” a pointed reference to the General Motors officials. The News gave this account: “The guardsmen forming a line around the No. 4 plant were part of a contingent of 1,200 who formed a bayoneted ring of steel around the 80-acre grounds which house all 12 plants of the Chevrolet Motor Car Co. at Flint. Machine guns emplacements were at strategic approaches and except for a small group of pickets outside the gates of the No. 4 plant, all visitors were barred unless they had special military passes. “The guardsmen surrounded the grounds and ‘enforced peace’ on orders of Gov. Murphy, following the rioting.” The News also gave the union version: “Then company police and hundreds of thugs, armed with tear gas pistols, tear gas bombs, blackjacks and clubs manufactured in the Chevrolet woodshop, attacked all workers in the plant, using floods of tear gas. It was a clear case, apparently, of company thugs against the workers since all the injured workers were found in the plants and no one was injured on the outside of the company property. City police do not seem to have been involved.” The National Guard fixed bayonets and halted any delivery of food to the occupiers. But the governor never ordered the troops into action. The strikers vowed a hunger strike until their families could bring them food, or their demands were met. The sit-downers appealed to the governor. President Roosevelt asked GM to meet with the union once more. The tension subsided. General Motors signed an agreement with the UAW, giving the union bargaining rights in 17 GM plants shut by sit-downs. Employees at the 17 plants involved got 5 percent pay hikes and were allowed to speak in the lunchroom. The company agreed not to discriminate against union members and agreed to begin negotiations on other matters. A synopsis of the issues included in the union demands: 1. Recognition of UAW as sole bargaining agency. 2. Abolition of piece work in favor of straight hourly rates. 3. A 30 hour week and 6 hour day, with time and a half for overtime. 4. A “minimum rate of pay commensurate with an American standard of living.” 5. Seniority rights based on length of service. 6. Reinstatement of all employes “unjustly discharged.” 7. Mutual agreement on “speed of production.” The dramatic military style battles depict the times and the desperation of those involved. The outcome much later in time proved that both the union and the company could coexist and indeed prosper beyond anyone’s expectations. Those who made the cars could finally afford to buy them, pouring profits back to the stockholders. Spreading the wealth caused more to be created. The pension and wages won by the workers raised the standard of living for the whole country.
Continue reading …Ouch. Gibbs Bristles When Russian Journalist Suggests Gun Violence Is An American FreedomToo
January 16, 2011 1 Comment
Awkward! Outgoing WH Spokesperson Robert Gibbs had an uncomfortable moment when a Russian journalist suggested that gun violence is also an American freedom . Was the Arizona shooting rampage an inevitable byproduct of Americans having too much freedom? Andrei Sitov, a reporter for official Russia news agency ITAR-TASS, argued that the “quote-unquote freedom of the deranged mind to react violently: It is also America.” Gibbs told Sitov he “vehemently” disagreed. “That is not America,” Gibbs said Oh really? Far be it for me to go against the disinformation of the right wing noise machine and the NRA, but Sitov has a pretty apt point. The US leads by a huge margin the number of gun-related acts of violence among the industrialized nations. enlarge Sadly, sensible gun control seems to have replaced Social Security and Medicare as the untouchable “third rail” in politics today. I can’t believe that there is a credible argument for keeping extended magazines, allowing semi-automatic weapons 30 or more shots, or as Rachel Maddow showed on Friday, make automatic weapons a little less easy to get. So unfortunately, Mr. Gibbs, until we start having a truly honest discussion about gun control, the right for a deranged mind to act violently with guns IS an American freedom. The Legal Community Against Violence has published Ten Myths About Gun Violence (.pdf) for more information.
Continue reading …Geraldo Rivera: Town Hall Death Threat ‘Ironically Came from a Hard-core Liberal’
January 16, 2011 No Comment
On the evening of the tragic shootings in Tucson, Fox News's Geraldo Rivera, like so many other liberal media members, went out of his way to connect the event to the Tea Party. Seven days later, the host of “Geraldo at Large” told his viewers, “There was a very public death threat today in Tucson that prompted police action. Ironically, it came from a hard-core liberal” (video follows with transcript and commentary): GERALDO RIVERA: This is a Fox News alert. Despite Mr. Obama’s appeal to our better angels, there was a very public death threat today in Tucson that prompted police action. Ironically, it came from a hard-core liberal. At a town hall meeting packed with eyewitnesses, concerned citizens and a member of Congress, Eric Fuller, a well-known left-wing activist, took a close-up photo of the local Tea Party spokesman Trent Humphries. Then Fuller said, “You're dead.” He was promptly arrested. Before I get to my exclusive interview with Jeb Bush, for more on what went down in Tucson today, Jason Ogan, a deputy for the Pima County sheriff's department, joins us live alongside a familiar face, or at least a familiar hairdo, Steven Caits, friend of the alleged mass murderer Jared Loughner. Steven was at today's town hall meeting. Tell us what happened. Tell us what was said and what you saw, Steven. STEVEN CAITS, FRIEND OF JARED LEE LOUGHNER: Well, when the representative from the Tea Party stood up to speak and he announced that he was from the Tea Party, Eric turned around with his camera. Eric was in the front row and the Tea Party spokesman was in the fourth row. Eric turned around with his camera, took the picture of the guy from the Tea Party, and said, “You're dead,” like you had said. RIVERA: And did he mean it? I mean, did it sound to you like a death threat, Steven? CAITS: It sounded, it sounded like “You're dead.” I mean, it didn't sound like a joke at all. Throughout the rest of the time that… RIVERA: Had he been a pain in the butt during this, during this town hall meeting? Had this guy, had he really interfered with what was going on? CAITS: People, people seemed pretty shocked at what he had said. There’s, there’s lots of whispers and there was someone next to me that had turned to Eric and said, “You know, now is not the time. This isn't appropriate. You need to sit down and be quiet. This isn't, this isn’t the time or place for this.” And he kept saying things like that whenever Eric would boo or, or make an interrupting noise at whatever the man from the Tea Party was saying. Ironically indeed, for this is what Rivera said almost exactly one week ago: One by one, all the dishonest points made by liberal media members to convince Americans this tragedy was caused by violent rhetoric from the Right are deliciously crumbling before their very eyes. It's almost like the final scene from “Murder on the Orient Express” when Hercule Poirot, with all the suspects in attendance, describes who killed Ratchet. Frankly, it's so entertaining, one can hardly wait for the next shoe to drop. Thankfully, as Scarlett O'Hara said at the end of “Gone With the Wind,” tomorrow is another day.
Continue reading …Sen. Bernie Sanders: President Obama, Keep Your Promise On Social Security
January 16, 2011 No CommentRemember when Obama used to sound like a Democrat when he talked about Social Security? From what I’m hearing everywhere, progressive groups are working hard to convince the president not to come out in favor of Social Security cuts in the State of the Union address. Bernie Sanders adds his voice to those others: Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Independent from Vermont, is pressing President Obama to keep his campaign promise not to cut Social Security benefits in a possible deal with Republicans. Sanders has joined a lobbying campaign by more than 200 labor unions and liberal groups pressing Obama to make a strong statement against cutting Social Security benefits in his State of the Union address, scheduled for Jan. 25. These groups fear that Obama may agree to cuts to Social Security in exchange for Republican support for raising the debt ceiling later this winter or as part of a broad agreement to reduce the deficit. Obama campaigned against raising the retirement age and cutting Social Security benefits when he ran for president in 2008. In recent weeks, however, he has stayed largely silent on the proposal to cut benefits put forth by the fiscal-responsibility commission he appointed. “I urge you to once again make clear to the American people that under your watch we will not cut Social Security benefits, raise the retirement age or privatize this critical program, ” Sanders wrote in a letter to Obama. “Social Security is a promise that we cannot and must not break.” Sanders, who caucuses with Senate Democrats, and other liberals are worried about whether they can trust Obama after he struck a deal with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) last year to pass an $858 billion tax package.
Continue reading …Newstalgia Reference Room – Rep. James B. Utt And The SIECUS Imbroglio – 1969
January 16, 2011 No Comment
enlarge Rep. James B. Utt – somehow convinced sex was a communist plot. Click here to view this media The roots of seething paranoia, ground out like sausage by right-wing radio evangelists like Dr. Burpo go deep and run long. I have run a couple of his other broadcasts in recent months, where he interviews some like-minded individual in Congress and today is not an exception. Representative James B. Utt was a Republican from the Santa Ana area of Southern California. During the time of this broadcast (1969) the big brouhaha was over a program called SIECUS being introduced into the California school system. It was all about sex education and it attempted to shed light on an area that had been woefully inadequate since schools began. Of course, the Dr. Burpos of the world would have none of it and so he enlisted the support of like-minded individuals in Congress like Utt and several others, to come on the radio and alarm listeners that all this talk about SEICUS was a communist plot and in fact, SEICUS was held by these people to be a communist front. Yes, it got like that. James B. Utt: “The whole thrust of SIECUS was to make pornography acceptable in the parlor at home. And the publishers of the SIECUS program are the greatest publishers and purveyors and distributors of pornography that there is in America. And why should we, the tax payers and the moral people of America be supporting the . .these pornographic uh . . mills that are making so much money in California in fact all over the United States. And I became concerned mainly because, time after time I was getting letters from concerned mothers enclosing some of the pornography . . .pornographic literature that they were receiving and that their children were receiving and wondering what they could do about it.” It was interesting to realize this controversy is still going on, some 41 years later. I’ve noticed a number of websites claiming SIECUS extols the virtues of homosexuality and godlessness and promotes moral decay . Hmm – 2011, moral decay, screaming evangelicals. Yeah – makes perfect sense . . . .
Continue reading …ABC World News Reports Threat at its Tucson Town Hall, Omits it Was Made to a Tea Partier
January 16, 2011 No Comment
As NewsBusters previously reported, a survivor of last week's Tucson shootings issued a death threat to a Tea Party member Saturday in the middle of a taping for a town hall meeting to be aired on ABC's “This Week.” For some reason, ABC World News Saturday in its report about the gathering chose to omit the seriousness of the threat and that it was made to a Tea Partier (video follows courtesy Mark Finkelstein with transcript and commentary): DAVID MUIR, ABC NEWS: And Christiane Amanpour joins us now. Pleasure to do the town hall with you today, and wasn't it something to see this community come together? No matter what side they're from, they want consensus. CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, HOST “THIS WEEK”: It's absolutely remarkable, and that's what has impressed so many people, how the community has reacted, how they’ve bonded, how they want to go forward, and how even though there are still differences of political opinion, today we saw them wanting to carry on an honest dialogue as they said, but a reasonable and rational one. MUIR: And we'll get into that dialogue about mental health and guns tomorrow morning, but one of the things that struck me today was all of this talk about ordinary Americans doing extraordinary things. AMANPOUR: Exactly, and so much is being said and so much is being made of these ordinary people who put themselves in the position of being real heroes. Now, they don't want to take that label, but each and every one of us wonders how would we react in a similar situation, and I think they have really shown fortitude and courage and whatever we want to call it, they should be honored. MUIR: Christiane, thank you. And again, I'll join Christiane for a special edition of “This week,” “After the Tragedy: An American Conversation Continued.” That’s tomorrow morning right here on ABC. Another note tonight on today's town hall meeting, one of the victims of the shooting who was in the audience became agitated and was detained by security. It happened toward the end of the conversation. James Fuller who was shot twice last week, took offense at what another audience member was saying and mumbled what seemed to be a threat. Security did escort him out of the building, and he's been charged now with a misdemeanor. As NewsBusters reported earlier, this was apparently far more serious than what Muir conveyed. Here's Fox News's take on the matter: GREGG JARRETT, FOX NEWS: We are getting word now from Pima County Sheriff's office confirming to Fox News that one of the Tucson shooting victims a week ago today has allegedly today uttered a death threat during a taping of a town hall meeting for ABC’s “This Week” that will air tomorrow. Now, toward the end of the town hall meeting today, it was this morning, one of the shooting victims, his name is J. Eric Fuller, apparently took exception to comments by two of the speakers, Arizona state Representative Terri Proud, a Republican, and Tucson Tea Party spokesman Trent Humphries. And according to sheriff's deputies at the scene, Fuller took a photo of Humphries, again, the Tea Party spokesman, and said, “You are dead.” Fuller will and has apparently already been charged with a couple of things, threats and intimidation and disorderly conduct. Again, one of the survivors of the shooting a week ago is being charged now with uttering death threats and apparently it was either caught on tape or certainly seen by a crowd that included dignitaries at this town hall meeting being conducted. This is — all right, this is J. Eric Fuller who was one of the many people who were shot a week ago recovering from his injuries attending this town hall meeting with dignitaries there, as well as just citizens, witnesses to the shooting, as well as those who were affected by it, as well as first responders. A town hall meeting. Picks up a picture of Terry Humphries, a spokesperson for the local Tea Party group in Tucson, and says, “You're dead.” Now, under the law, according to law enforcement there, that constitutes a crime, a crimes of threat and intimidation, disorderly conduct for which he has now been charged. Why did ABC choose to omit these vital details? Such seems especially curious as even the New York Times offered readers a better picture of what transpired in an article published at The Caucus blog moments ago (h/t Finkelstein): The shooting victim, Eric Fuller, 63, became agitated as another man spoke in support of gun ownership, The Arizona Republic reported . He took a photograph of the speaker and said, “You’re dead.” The speaker was identified in other reports as Trent Humphries, a founder of the Tucson Tea Party. Fascinating that a Times blog provided greater detail about this matter than the news organization that was actually present for the entire thing. Even more surprising was that in the article ABCNews.com published concerning today's events at the meeting, greater details were given than on World News: Towards the end of an otherwise thoughtful town hall, there was a single incident: James Eric Fuller, who was shot at the Safeway last week, allegedly made a threatening comment to another audience member, Tucson Tea Party co-founder Trent Humphries. It is unclear whether Humphries heard Fuller and the two never engaged. According to the Pima County Sheriff's Department, Fuller used a cell phone to take a picture of Humphries and allegedly said, “You're dead.” Fifteen seconds after the conclusion of the town hall, law enforcement officials approached Fuller and led him to a side entrance. A moment later, Fuller could heard yelling, “What's the matter–with you–whores!” Fuller was charged with disorderly conduct and threatening and intimidation and taken to a local mental health facility, according to the Sheriff's Department. Again, why would World News opt to omit all this? Might it have gone counter to Muir's contentions that this was a community that has really come together. “No matter what side they're from, they want consensus.” This also wouldn't fit with Amanpour's claim, “It's absolutely remarkable, and that's what has impressed so many people, how the community has reacted, how they’ve bonded, how they want to go forward, and how even though there are still differences of political opinion, today we saw them wanting to carry on an honest dialogue as they said, but a reasonable and rational one.” A man issuing a death threat to a Tea Partier is hardly a picture of a reasonable and rational dialogue, is it? On the other hand, if Fuller was the Tea Party member, and Humphries was the shooting survivor, do you think ABC would have been concerned about presenting a unified community, or would this report focused extensively on a conservative making such a death threat? Seems a metaphysical certitude the latter would have been the case. Whatever the answer, Amanpour and Company sure seem comfortable editing out inconvenient information from their reports. When ABC's Pierre Thomas interviewed a friend of shooter Jared Lee Loughner's during last Sunday's “This Week,” her opinion about the assailant being a liberal was completely ignored . Makes you wonder what will be presented in Sunday's program. Stay tuned.
Continue reading …