Media Matters/ConWebWatch

Predictably, left-wing hit man Eric Boehlert of Media Matters for America doesn’t like my article, “Obama’s Plan to Desecrate 9/11″ in today’s American Spectator.

Boehlert is entitled to his opinion, of course, but he doesn’t seem to understand the ethics of journalism.

Boehlert failed to disclose on his post that his boss, David Brock, a self-admitted professional liar, used to be a muckracking reporter for the American Spectator.

The oversight is understandable because Media Matters for America lacks both ethics and honor.

Post Script around 7 p.m.: The Blue Virginia blog is deliberately distorting my article. I tried to add a comment and their commenting system refused to let me post. It could be a malfunction. After a half dozen attempts, I’m giving up. Here is the comment (plus a bit I just added now) that I wanted to post:

You are deliberately taking the passage out of context. The left believes 9/11 is a “Republican” day, not me. That’s what I wrote. As I wrote, Keith Olbermann said the same thing last year. The week after the Republican Party convention last year Olbermann said:

But 9/11 has become a brand name. A Republican campaign slogan. Propaganda of the lowest form. 9/11 has become 9/11 with a trademark logo. “9/11 TM” has sustained a president who long ago should have been dismissed, or impeached. It has kept him and his gang of financial and constitutional crooks in office without — literally — any visible means of support. “9/11 TM” has made possible the greatest sleight-of-hand in our nation’s history.

Post Script around 7:45 p.m.: Welcome Alan Colmes, former liberal punching bag on the earlier incarnation of Sean Hannity’s TV show. Alan has difficulty understanding simple words. He claims I wrote the phrase “extremist radical” in the article. No, Alan. I referred to Color of Change as an “extremist racial-grievance group.” Extremist racial, not extremist radical. That would be redundant. Get a proofreader, Alan. In your zeal to condemn me you are making silly mistakes.

The left-wing media hit men at Media Matters for America can’t stop lying.

The absolutely loony Eric Boehlert who claims the media is somehow dominated by America’s right wing, now claims that Color of Change’s effort to have advertisers drop the “Glenn Beck Progam” is a “grassroots campaign.”

Ha!

If “grassroots” means run by a group founded by a communist who is one of the president’s czars, then yeah, it’s “grassroots.”

It’s kind of fun watching the paid professional liars at Media Matters for America spin their wheels trying to defend the Democrats’ indefensible healthcare proposals.

Sometimes denunciation by evil men is proof you’re doing the right thing.

Media Matters for America denounced me again, this time for a perfectly valid critique of ObamaCare.

This can’t be bad.

I wrote about the lying leftist reprobates at Media Matters in a recent Townhall magazine article and the wonderful Rondi Adamson profiled the group for us in the July 2007 Foundation Watch.

The left-wing character assassins at Media Matters for America highlight a brief July 13 segment from Glenn Beck’s radio show in an effort to make Beck look ridiculous.

Beck says

The ACORNs of the world, that’s not, that is not about voter registration. That is about framework. That is about community organizing. That is about getting people to stand up and extort other people. It is, in the future, those kinds of organizations will be about riots, planned riots.

In fact Beck is correct. He describes both the tactics of the leftist Machiavelli Saul Alinsky and the Cloward-Piven Strategy of orchestrated crisis that was long ago embraced by ACORN. ACORN founder Wade Rathke acknowledges at page 122 of his new book Citizen Wealth the debt that the so-called welfare rights movement owes to Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven for devising the “overwhelm the system” strategy for radical political change.

Rathke, who was booted out of ACORN last year for his role in covering up his brother’s nearly $1 million embezzlment from the group for eight years, calls the strategy “an exciting call to arms.”

Never forget that Media Matters, which I profiled in Townhall magazine (read the article here), was founded and is headed by serial liar David Brock.

Media Matters is the journalistic equivalent of a roving, extremely well-funded death squad.

Stop the presses!

Terry Krepel of ConWebBlog offers Capital Research Center some qualified kudos.

ConWebBlog, which previously called me a “sucky researcher,” praised me, sort of, for not bearing false witness. Alas, not lying should not normally be the basis for a compliment, however thin, but there it is.

Krepel works for the serial truth-killers at Media Matters for America, which is run by confessed serial liar David Brock. Like his master, Krepel is a practitioner of dishonest text-parsing and therefore arguing with him is generally a waste of time.

Disagree with the Media Matters line on anything and you’re branded a crank, a liar, or in extreme cases, a conservative!

Character-assassination factory Media Matters for America now has a daily “Red Scare Index.”

It tracks

…CNN, CNN Headline News, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, MSNBC and CNBC for uses of the following terms: Socialism, Socialist, Socialists, Socialistic, Communism, Communist, Communists, Communistic, Marxism, Marxist, Marxists, Marxistic, Fascism, Fascist, Fascists and Fascistic.

Presumably, Media Matters, which was founded by and is run by serial liar David Brock, created this index because it considers it an affront whenever anyone uses the above -ism words to describe the left’s program in America.

It appears I relied on outdated information in writing on June 5 that the Center for Independent Media and Media Matters for America shared office space in Washington, D.C. as of that date.

Paul Schmelzer of the Center for Independent Media’s Minnesota outfit, the Minnesota Independent, explains that CIM used to rent office space from Media Matters but no longer does so. Although there is an extensive (electronic) paper trail showing the two groups sharing the same address, I am told that information is outdated and given Schmelzer’s explanation this seems like a credible explanation to me, hence this correction. To put not too fine a point on it, the Center for Independent Media did not lie when it said it was not at that time sharing office space with Media Matters.

However, for the many reasons I provided previously, I continue to believe that the two legally separate organizations have significant ties.

An important distinction between the two is that the Center for Independent Media is the (nonprofit) parent company of several legitimate media outlets but Media Matters, which was founded and is now headed by serial liar David Brock, is the journalistic equivalent of a roving, extremely well-funded death squad. Media Matters tolerates no dissent in the media from the progressive line, but the Center seems more, well, independent.

Note: This item was corrected a few days later. The two organizations used to share office space but do not appear to do so now.

* * * * *

It appears I have outworn my welcome at the Minnesota Independent website. This kind of thing often happens in the blogosphere when lies are exposed. No matter. I waste far too much time on the Internet, anyway.

So, that left-wing site is no longer accepting my comments. I suspect it has something to do with an argument I was having with the contributors to the site over the relationship of the Center for Independent Media to Media Matters for America. (Minnesota Independent article and comments section)

I wrote earlier that the two organizations are joined at the hip. As an example of the closeness of the two entities, I pointed out that they share office space. They said I was wrong and mocked my research skills.

I just right now tried using different browsers to post a long, detailed response. The Minnesota Independent’s website would not accept this new comment regardless of how many pieces I broke it up into.

I would rather post the response over there but since I can’t, I’ll post it here. Here it is:

* * * * *

Now to this question about whether Media Matters for America and the Center for Independent Media share office space.

I did rely on the DiscoverTheNetworks.org entry when I wrote the above comment. For the reasons cited below, it looks like I made a good decision.

Let’s get into the details: It is claimed that the address of Media Matters is 1625 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, DC and that the address of the Center for Independent Media is 1825 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington DC.

However, in addition to a pile of evidence that the two organizations share office space, there certainly is a lot of overlap between Media Matters and CIM. It goes on and on and on.

CIM’s current help wanted page at idealist.org shows CIM’s address as 1625 Massachusetts Ave. NW. How can that be? That’s supposed to be the address of Media Matters. Check it out here. And don’t bother pulling a Carol Browner: I already made a screen grab.

Jeff Fecke writes (quoting someone else): “To clarify, the Center for Independent Media is not receiving funding from Media Matters. The only financial arrangement they have is to rent office space.” This same statement is repeated at the Wikipedia entry on the Minnesota Monitor which is now called the Minnesota Independent.

This document, which purports to be a CIM document, indicates CIM is located at 1625 Massachusetts Ave., 3rd Floor, Washington DC 200036. This seems to be a longer version of the same document.

I just did a “Locate a Business (Nationwide)” search on Nexis for 1825 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, DC. Interestingly, Nexis returned hits for both Media Matters and CIM at the Connecticut Ave. address.

Here are some of the hits:

Business Information
Company Name: CENTER FOR INDEPENDENT MEDIA
Address: 1825 CONNECTICUT AVE NW STE 625
WASHINGTON, DC 20009-5733
D.C. COUNTY
Contact Name: BENNAHUM, DAVID

Business Information
Company Name: CENTER FOR INDEPENDENT MEDIA
Address: 1625 MASSACHUSETTS AVE NW FL 3RD
WASHINGTON, DC 20036-2212
D.C. COUNTY
Contact Name: BENNAHUM, DAVID

Business Information
Company Name: CENTER FOR INDEPENDENT MEDIA
Address: 1625 MASSACHUSETTS AVE NW FL 3RD
WASHINGTON, DC 20036-2212
D.C. COUNTY
FEIN: 33-1137541

In the search results for 1825 Connecticut Ave., this address, namely 2040 S St. NW, Washington, DC, kept coming up.

I did a Nexis search for 2040 S St. NW. Here are the first three hits:

Business Information
Company Name: CENTER FOR INDEPENDENT MEDIA
Address: 2040 S ST NW
WASHINGTON, DC 20009-1110
D.C. COUNTY
Contact Name: BENNAHUM, DAVID

Business Information
Company Name: CENTER FOR INDEPENDENT MEDIA
Address: 1825 CONNECTICUT AVE NW STE 625
WASHINGTON, DC 20009-5733
D.C. COUNTY
Contact Name: BENNAHUM, DAVID
 
Business Information
Company Name: CENTER FOR INDEPENDENT MEDIA
Address: 1625 MASSACHUSETTS AVE NW FL 3RD
WASHINGTON, DC 20036-2212
D.C. COUNTY
Contact Name: BENNAHUM, DAVID

Farther down the search results page, the Media Matters address on Massachusetts Ave. pops up yet again in a hit about CIM:

Business Information
Company Name: CENTER FOR INDEPENDENT MEDIA
Address: 1625 MASSACHUSETTS AVE NW FL 3RD
WASHINGTON, DC 20036-2212
D.C. COUNTY
FEIN: 33-1137541

Let’s compare the Tax Year 2007 IRS Form 990s (tax returns) for the two entities. Here is the 990 for Media Matters. Here is the 990 for CIM.

The tax returns of Media Matters and CIM were prepared by the same firm, Drolet & Associates. (see page 9 of both documents) Both list Bonner Group, Inc. under the heading Compensation of the Five Highest Paid Independent Contractors. (see page 10 of both documents)

All in all, that’s an awful lot of evidence and an awful lot of overlap.

Unlike Media Matters most of the time, I would gladly correct the record if I were convinced I had made a mistake, but I’m not convinced.

Unburden your conscience, Minnesota Independent. It’s time to come clean. Media Matters and the Center for Independent Media are joined at the hip. How can you deny it?

I just found out that the Center for Independent Media and George Soros’s professional character assassins at Media Matters for America (headed by admitted liar David Brock) are bosom buddies.

Not only are they political allies that receive money from some of the same funders, they also share the same office space.

It must be very cost-effective. David Brock can just walk across the hall and give the Center for Independent Media, which runs a number of aggressively left-wing online media outlets such as the Washington Independent, its talking points every day. Now that’s smart management.

The Center for Independent Media has taken the following grants in in recent years:

$100,000 from Tides Center in 2007
$75,000 from Tides Center in 2007
$60,000 from Tides Foundation in 2007
$12,500 from Tides Center in 2006
$10,000 from Tides Center in 2007
$6,000 from Tides Center in 2006

That’s a total of $263,500 from Tides Center and Tides Foundation in the last three years alone.

Tides has long supported the most radical left-wing and progressive groups in America.

It is run by Drummond Pike, a radical leftover peacenik from the 1960s. After the brother of his friend Wade Rathke embezzled nearly $1 million from ACORN Pike came to the rescue of ACORN and paid off more than $700,000 in restitution owing to ACORN. Wade Rathke was on the board of Tides until fairly recently when news of the ACORN embezzlement scandal broke. Pike is also an officer of the Democracy Alliance, a George Soros-led donors’ collaborative that seeks to permanently move America to the left.

The Tides Foundation has given Media Matters for America a whopping $2,326,197 to date ($15,000 in 2007; $23,225 in 2007; $122,475 in 2003, and $2,165,497 in 2004).