Roger Aronoff

Media Misrepresenting Judicial Confirmations

The path to rule by executive order by the Obama Administration runs directly through the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. “There are few things more vital on the president’s second-term agenda,” Constitutional Accountability Center president Doug Kendall told The Washington Post last week. “With legislative priorities gridlocked in Congress, the president’s best hope for advancing his agenda is through executive action, and that runs through the D.C. Circuit.”

The Unaffordable “Affordable Care Act”

The apparent costs of Obamacare are going up. And up, and up. How much additional cost will the average private payer see in the coming year? The Society of Actuaries, according to The Wall Street Journal, has issued a new report “warning that the cost of medical claims in the new individual-insurance market could rise by an average of 32% per person over the first few years the law is in place” with changes “very different depending on the state” (emphasis added). The Associated Press describes the study as a “political headache” for the Obama Administration rather than a headache for the average American.

Media Expose Their Own Standards While Targeting Bachmann

In a clear case of the media’s double standard, CNN has been chasing Congresswoman Michele Bachmann around regarding her CPAC comments on the President’s lavish lifestyle. This, when the majority of her speech focused elsewhere: on Benghazi, the federal debt, medical innovations, and cyber attacks.

Arguing Over Argo

The left and the right agree on one thing. Argo, the film directed by Ben Affleck, greatly distorts the known history of what happened during the Iranian hostage crisis. But that’s where the agreement ends.

Obama’s NLRB Tells Court to Go…

Last month I wrote a piece about how, after a federal court found that President Obama lacked the constitutional authority to make three recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), White House spokesman Jay Carney called the decision “novel and unprecedented.” The issue was whether or not the Senate was in recess at the time, and if the President was authorized to make that determination.

AIM Interview with Christopher Horner of CEI About “The Liberal War on Transparency”

While the Obama administration has promised us “the most transparent administration in history,” they are proving to be anything but. And it’s not just Benghazi and Fast and Furious that they have tried so hard to cover up. In an interview with Christopher Horner, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), we discussed some other examples from his blockbuster book, The Liberal War on Transparency. He makes a powerful case demonstrating how the left, and specifically the Obama administration, goes to great lengths to avoid having to reveal the record of what they are doing at the expense of the American taxpayer.

Will the Media Save the Hagel Nomination?

In an interview on “Meet the Press” this past Sunday, host David Gregory apparently did not like the answers he was getting from his guest, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). Gregory was doing what virtually all of the “journalists” in the NBC family do—shilling for President Obama. The point of contention was the Republican speed bump that had been employed to slow down the nomination of former Senator Chuck Hagel to become Secretary of Defense until GOP senators got more answers. Answers on Benghazi, answers on Hagel’s confirmation-day conversions on questions related to Israel, Iran and Hezbollah. Answers on who has been feathering Hagel’s nest since he left the Senate.

Adm. James Lyons (Ret.) on Growing Benghazi Scandal

The nominations of John Brennan for CIA Director and Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense are being held up by Republicans in the Senate largely because of the unwillingness of the Obama administration to come clean on the what the President knew, when he knew it, and what he did during the seven hours that the Temporary Mission and the annex in Benghazi were under attack on September 11th and 12th last year.

Media Double Standard Protects Sen. Menendez

The Daily Caller (DC) has documented the incredible lack of interest in covering a story involving the FBI and an investigation linked to a prominent Democratic New Jersey U.S. senator. The Miami Herald is reporting, “Stringing up crime scene tape and using a locksmith, the FBI on Tuesday and Wednesday raided the West Palm Beach business of an eye doctor suspected of providing free trips and even underage Dominican Republic prostitutes to U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez — who has denied what he calls the ‘fallacious allegations.’”

The Obama-Media Love Affair

From early on in the Obama Presidency, it was apparent that the mainstream media were virtually an arm of the Democratic Party. At the White House Correspondents dinner back in May 2009, the President openly joked: “I am Barack Obama…most of you covered me…all of you voted for me.” They laughed with glee at the open secret that the mainstream media are biased in favor of the President.

Susan Rice’s Effort to Defuse Talking-Points Issue Backfires

Once again, CBS’s Sharyl Attkisson is leading the way among mainstream journalists. The winner of this year’s Reed Irvine Award for Investigative Reporting is making the obvious point—that the Obama administration can’t seem to get its story straight about many aspects of Benghazi-Gate.

Is Petraeus Scandal an Obama Scandal?

The news media are continuing to try to protect the Obama administration from a rapidly growing scandal. A November 13th article in The Washington Post by Scott Wilson argued that Obama “has been untouched by the unfolding investigation involving former CIA director David Petraeus,” a view that belongs on the opinion page under the heading, “wishful thinking,” not on the news pages.

Shameful Media Coverage of Benghazi Scandal and Cover-up

Regardless of the outcome of the presidential election on November 6^th, the most outrageous media malpractice of the election has been coverage of the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya on September 11th that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others, including two former Navy SEALs. From the outset, Obama and other people speaking for the administration claimed that the attack was the result of a spontaneous demonstration sparked by anger from an anti-Islamic video made in the U.S. But that was just the beginning.

Kudos to CNN for Fact Checking the Democrats

CNN’s Tom Foreman and Erin Burnett did a little “Reality Check” this week at the Democratic Convention that was bold and effective. Don’t they realize that they’re not supposed to call out Democrats who fudge the truth? Apparently not, and good for them.

Muslim Brotherhood Issues Raising Perplexing Questions

Many in the media are condemning Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and four other congressmen who sent a letter to the State Department Deputy Inspector General, and the IGs of four other agencies, calling for investigations into the possible infiltration by the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) of the State Department and other agencies. What’s gotten the most attention is the fact that the letter to the State Department singled out Huma Abedin, the State Department’s Deputy Chief of Staff, who has been a close aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton going all the way back to her time as First Lady, during the Clinton administration. Abedin is also the wife of the disgraced former congressman from New York, Anthony Weiner.

The Rise and Threat of Radical Islam: An Interview with Brigitte Gabriel

With so much media attention in this country focused on the presidential race and the Supreme Court’s ruling on ObamaCare, not enough attention is being paid to much of what is going on in the Middle East, and at the United Nations. Egypt has recently chosen as its next president Mohamed Morsi, who was the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood. He has since ended his association, at least officially, with that organization, which spawned Hamas, the terrorist organization that controls Gaza. And while Morsi has been congratulated by President Obama, and invited for a visit to the U.S., there is great concern by many that this development does not bode well for the advancement of peace and freedom for the people of Egypt and the region.

The Greatest Hoax? Global Warming, Says Sen. James Inhofe

The issue of global warming continues to be a fault line in this country and across the world. There are, on the one hand, those who believe, like Al Gore, that the earth is warming to a catastrophic degree, that it is caused by man’s overuse of carbon-based energy, and if we don’t hurry and do something about it we will face the melting of glaciers and ice sheets, biblical flooding, and increased tornadoes and hurricanes. Their holy grail is the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which they cite as confirmation of their theories.

Bill Clinton as Surrogate Causing Problems for Obama

Thursday night, former president Bill Clinton was a guest on Piers Morgan Tonight with guest host Harvey Weinstein. Weinstein, the well-known Hollywood producer, openly acknowledged that he is a big supporter of both Clinton and Barack Obama, and he was working it for all he could. But it may have backfired. Writing in The Caucus, the politics blog of The New York Times, Michael Barbaro referred to Clinton’s comments as “an unusually open show of defiance against the party’s presidential nominee.”

Media Obsess About Trump and Find Nothing Controversial on the Left

On a day that Barack Obama was giving the Presidential Medal of Freedom to a socialist, Dolores Huerta, who has praised Hugo Chavez; and just days after left-wing activist Al Sharpton was comparing Republicans to Hitler, the media were consumed with the horror of projected Republican nominee Mitt Romney sharing a stage with Donald Trump, who has raised questions about President Obama’s birth certificate and place of birth. The usual double standard is on open display.

Dershowitz Doubles Down on Trayvon Martin Case

As part of a recent AIM Report, I wrote briefly about the release of documents last week in the George Zimmerman case. Zimmerman has been charged with second degree murder in the death of Trayvon Martin. But more has come out since then, and attorney Alan Dershowitz has stepped up his criticism of the special prosecutor in Florida who brought the charges. Here is what I wrote: