FOX News doctors AP reports to mimic White House terminology

Since April 2002, FOX News has consistently doctored Associated Press articles featured on the FOX News website concerning terrorist attacks in the Middle East to conform to Bush administration terminology. Without any editorial notation disclosing that words in the AP articles have been changed, FOX News replaces the terms "suicide bomber" and "suicide bombing" with "homicide bomber" and "homicide bombing" to describe attackers who kill themselves and others with explosives. In at least one case, FOX News actually altered an AP quote from Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) to fit this naming convention, and then revised it to restore the quote without noting either the original alteration or its correction.

The Associated Press noted in April 2002 that FOX News first began using the term "homicide bombing" in its own reports immediately after Bush administration officials -- such as then-White House press secretary Ari Fleischer -- adopted the term. While other news organizations continued to use the term "suicide bomber," the AP reported, "Dennis Murray, executive producer of [FOX News'] daytime programming, said executives there had heard the phrase ["homicide bombing"] being used by administration officials in recent days and thought it was a good idea."

But Media Matters for America has found that FOX has applied the "homicide" terminology not only in its own original reports, but also in the AP reports that it publishes on its website. Readers are led to believe that the AP itself uses the "homicide" terminology, when in fact it does not. According to a Media Matters search, the AP has used the terms "homicide bomber" or "homicide bombing" when referring to terrorist attacks in only one article, published on May 7, 2004. These terms have otherwise appeared in AP articles only in quotations.

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Could George W. Bush Be Right?

By Claus Christian Malzahn in Berlin - SPIEGEL International, German Daily

Germany loves to criticize US President George W. Bush's Middle East policies -- just like Germany loved to criticize former President Ronald Reagan. But Reagan, when he demanded that Gorbachev remove the Berlin Wall, turned out to be right. Could history repeat itself?



Hat tip to: wfunk49

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CLEARWATER, Fla. (AP) - A judge Wednesday extended a stay keeping brain-damaged Terri Schiavo's feeding tube in place, saying he needed time to decide whether her husband, who wants to let her die, is fit to be her guardian.

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According to the Washington Times' Christina Bellantoni, the Republican-controlled Virginia General Assembly voted recently to approve a measure that would deny illegal aliens access to state and local public benefits, including Medicaid.

The bills would require people to prove their legal presence to local or state officials when requesting benefits. The documents that can be used to prove legal presence would match those required to obtain a driver's license under the law passed by the General Assembly several years ago.

"These bills honor legal immigrants who wait in line and follow all the rules," said Mr. Albo, Fairfax County Republican. "This bill could have been harsher, but it exempts people who are younger than 19 to make sure they are not punished because of the fact that their parents dragged them to this country."

Honor legal immigrants who wait in line and follow all the rules? What a fasinating concept. With California being the clear leader in numbers of illegal immigrants this type of legislation would be most helpful to reducing the state's deficits w/out putting innocent children of illegals at risk for denial of treatment.

Hat tip: Linda Savadian

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Congressman Maurice Hinchey of New York has an idea of who did it! The following quote was taken from Radio Blogger (Hugh Hewitt's engineer I think) from a CNN Inside Politics, Judy Woodruff interview.

Mr. Rove, for example, has been involved in a host of political dirty tricks that are traceable all the way back to the 1970's. 80's, 90's. Right on up to the present. The way in which he treated Senator McCain, for example, in the context of the 2000 election. So it doesn't take an awful lot of imagination, if you're thinking about who it is that might have produced these false documents, to try to mislead people in this very cynical way. It would take someone very brilliant, very cynical, very Machiavellian, and it doesn't take a lot of imagination to come up with the name of Karl Rove as a possibility of having done that.

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When Israel begins evacuating the settlers that now occpy land slated to go into the new Palastinian State, the question of where these settlers will go must be answered. One option is to have them join their political opposition in the communes or "kibbutz".

From The Associated Press:

Kibbutz members are willing to overlook the ideology because of the financial lifeline the settlers would throw them. Many kibbutzim have been in serious trouble for years, unable to maintain their housing and other facilities.

Settlers come with money - most families leaving the settlements are getting hundreds of thousands of dollars in government compensation.

For Karmiya, selling quarter-acre plots for new housing to the settlers would generate enough money to provide infrastructure for the new neighborhood, with enough left over to renovate kibbutz facilities, including the community's swimming pool, said Uri Sela, the kibbutz manager.

Another reason Kibbutz Karmiya would welcome the settlers is that the kibbutz residents want to boost the pullout, Sela said.

"We are certainly happy ... to join the process of helping and assisting the evacuees and helping them find a warm, comfortable place to live," Sela said.

To overcome the differences in lifestyle and belief, Sela said, the secular kibbutz has agreed to build a synagogue, and residents are willing to make other changes to accommodate the settlers. "The (political) right is strengthening the left," said Yaakov Rosenblatt, a resident of Homesh in the West Bank, a settlement set for evacuation.

In some interesting friction between the two ideologically opposite groups:

Extreme nationalists among the settlers announced that 10,000 soldiers had signed their petitions declaring they would disobey orders to evacuate settlers.

In response, the Kibbutz Movement cobbled together 10,000 people to volunteer to replace the rebellious soldiers.

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I kid you not!

A funnel cloud is seen over the Pacific Ocean off Venice Beach in Los Angeles Tuesday morning, Feb. 22, 2005. Waterlogged Californians braced for even more rain Tuesday as they struggled to recover from storms that have left at least nine people dead, triggered mudslides and tornadoes, and washed away roads and runways statewide. Despite brief glimpses of sun, a flash flood watch was in effect across much of Southern California on Tuesday. A tornado warning was also issued for coastal areas and waterspouts were seen off the coast, according to the National Weather Service. (AP Photo/Chris Kim)
Related Article: Nine Deaths Blamed on Killer Calif. Storms

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John T. Plecnik, a Duke University law student writes in yesterday's edition of TruthNews that liberal bias is more than just training students to be liberal. Mr. Plecnik opines that on many campuses there is a "Need Not Apply" message being sent to conservative professors seaking teaching positions. Here is a taste:

Our professors have at least four years to scare us Democrat, and they seldom waste an opportunity. Studies show that liberals hire liberals; the faculty at elite institutions like Duke and Yale fall to the Left of Hillary Clinton. More frightening, however, is the condition of our average campus. Along with the elites, most state schools are stacked with Democrats and Socialists. Perhaps conservatives are just too stupid for academia, as Dr. Robert Brandon, chairman of Duke's philosophy department, once asserted. Myself, I tend to believe that hiring committees prefer "fellow travelers." And as for self-selection, I think most Right-wingers are smart enough to see the "CONSERVATIVES NEED NOT APPLY" sign hanging beneath the ivy.

This is just not right. If the only professors are liberal professors then we can expect only liberal politics to be taught.

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Out brothers at Powerline have linked to this Washington Post article (registration required) which speaks to the beginning of a change of heart amongst some of those in the "Arab Street" that opposed the Iraq War. Registering for The Washington Post is free and vital. Here is a taste:

"It's strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq," explains (the leader of the Lebanese intifada Walid) Jumblatt. "I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, 8 million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world." Jumblatt says this spark of democratic revolt is spreading. "The Syrian people, the Egyptian people, all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it."

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