Melanie Morgan

Turn About is Fair Play!

Written by RedState.com

Rush Limbaugh listeners Attack Media Matters for America for hiring Anti-Semite - Call Donors in Protest!

It takes a fair amount of panache to wag your fingers at others for being over the line and intolerant even while you are blatantly dismissing the same behavior in your own back yard. But that is exactly what Media Matters for America (MMFA) continues to do as they steadfastly unload their weaponry on Rush Limbaugh with “devastating” videos like this.

I guess where Media Matters comes from 10,000 views is a media blitzkrieg. The effectiveness of their campaign aside, it’s clear that MMFA wants everyone to know that Rush pulling an Ed Schultz and calling a public figure a slut is absolutely unforgivable. Apparently believing that there is a secret Zionist Israeli Cabal that manipulates American foreign policy, is a-ok however. At least that’s all one could assume from reviewing the stated positions of Media Matters “Fellow” M.J. Rosenberg.

Daniel Halper of the Weekly Standard gives some insight into Rosenberg’s views at Jerusalem Post:

He even often employs the term “Israel firster” to define an American politician or even pundit who he believes places Israel’s interest above his own nation’s. (The term itself was popularized by white supremacists.) For Rosenberg, support for Israel is tantamount to supporting a wouldbe murderous regime. “There is nothing Israel cd do to Arabs that Hoyer/Weiner/Ackerman/Berman/B erkley/Israel wd object 2.NOTHING,” Rosenberg tweeted, linking to a piece he had written that blasted Congress for welcoming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to deliver a joint session of Congress. Congressmen Steny Hoyer, Anthony Weiner, Gary Ackerman, Howard Berman, Shelley Berkley and Steve Israel are all Democrats – and Jews.

Rosenberg also pushes the supposed influence Jewish money has in politics, as well. “I wonder if any candidate in either party other than Joe L would slobber over Israel if it wasn’t for the $. Actually I don’t wonder,” Rosenberg said on Twitter last month. The reference was to Joe Lieberman, the former vice presidential Democratic candidate.

Rosenberg himself credits notorious anti-Israel polemicists John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, authors of The Israel Lobby, for creating a political environment friendly to his own political and personal beliefs.

I’m sure Rosenberg views all of this through the lens of moral equivalency and a false sense of objectivity. He thinks that support is tilted so unfairly in Israel’s favor and that it’s preposterous to claim merely being against a nation’s policy positions is inherently racist. But as was pointed out above, he’s already accustomed to using supremacist language such as “Israel firster.” And at some point he was even forced to confront the roots of this term and interestingly, became of the opinion that he had to curb that language. Totally coincidentally, The Center for American Progress (CAP) had come under fire for being anti-Semitic and, little known fact, funding for CAP & MMFA are tied to one another.

During 2008, Media Matters entered into a fundraising-sharing agreement with the liberal Center for American Progress, which is run by former Bill Clinton chief of staff John Podesta. According to the agreement, “both organizations agreed to collaborate to raise funds to create a definitive progressive nerve center,” and to “split, equally, all contributions raised for the progressive nerve center.”

As a result, Rosenberg ended up having to drop his white supremacist rhetoric. How do we know this? Well he emailed that very information to an MMFA distribution list:

I have been under assault by various people on the right for my vigorous criticism of AIPAC and its role in promoting confrontation with Iran. My critics are particularly irked that I use the term Israel Firster to describe people who, in my opinion, put the interests of the Israeli right above everything else. This includes politicians such as Newt Gingrich, who as far as I know, is not Jewish. Watching the AIPAC conference convinced me that I must recommit myself to fighting those who are working to lead this country and/or Israel to war in Iran.

But I will do so without using the term “Israel Firster.”

That must have been a sad day for him, as Rosenberg is quite proud of his work actually. He’s completely oblivious to the fact that it’s less about his poor choice of phrases, and more about his apparent disdain for the people of Israel who have, at every turn, worked for peace.

But Media Matters has continued to move further and further to the fringe on the topic of Israel, and Rosenberg has been happy to take credit.

“[Media Matters] is an amazing organization that is in the business of monitoring right-wing propaganda…until I got there they did not have any; they did nothing on foreign policy,” Rosenberg would tell an audience at the Palestine Center in Washington a year later on September 23, 2010. “They made this decision to hire me and hire me with my views because they wanted to be involved with this issue. They wanted to be involved in the Palestinian issue. They want to be involved in stopping war with Iran. And this is a big thing.”

So he’s the big man on campus over there I guess, and all the Media Matters cronies are following his lead, at least when they aren’t dealing with bizarre paranoid behavior from David Brock. Surely all of those MMFA donors must be pleased to know that they are subsidizing this man, this one man wrecking crew trying to ensure Iran’s dreams of the destruction of Israel. He calls his imaginary Zionist Cabal that controls everything “The Lobby.” Creepy. Sounds like a John Grisham novel. I guess he’d be the hero? The one man standing up for … uh… Iran? The “one-man Iran Lobby?” That’s getting into Steven Seagal title territory.

So who’s up for a good old fashioned revenge shaming? Maybe it’s time Media Matters had a heart to heart with their donors to explain why paranoid tales of Jewish Cabals isn’t as bad as saying a word used nightly on network television.

Well lucky you, there’s already been some people laying the ground work for this and they have phone numbers that you can call to get the ball rolling! Check their ad here.

And here’s some numbers you can call:

Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland 216-593-2900
Community Foundation of the United Jewish Federation of San Diego 858-279-2740
Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston 617-457-8500
Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco 415-777-0411
Jewish Community Fund 866-580-4523
Pritzker Family Foundation 312-447-6000
Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund 800-262-6039
Goldman Sachs Philanthropy Fund 800-787-3000

With the price for a regular gallon of gas topping $3.80 on Monday, angry politicians are blaming the higher prices on speculators and greedy oil companies.

On Friday, President Obama announced that he was “making sure that my Attorney General is paying attention to potential speculation in the oil markets.” 23 Senators and 45 congressmen, all Democrats http://cruise.sterlingtravelinc.com/melaniemorgan/except for one independent, are calling for urgent action against the “speculators” they hold responsible.

These members of congress want the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to use its new regulatory powers under a law Obama signed two years ago to limit the amount of oil that speculators can buy.

This isn’t a new concern.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama campaigned against "the special interest politics that put the interests of Big Oil and speculators ahead of the interests of working people," and surely implied that an Obama administration would end these high prices by clamping down on speculation.

Possibly that is why a new Washington Post/ABC News survey released on Monday shows that soaring gas prices have taken a toll on Obama, with 50 percent of American's strongly disapproving of Obama's economic performance -- the highest in the poll's history.

Unfortunately, neither the Democrats in Congress nor Obama appear to have a clue how markets work.

Everyone wants lower prices, but many politicians seem unable to understand that what speculators really do: they actually smooth out wild swings in prices. Speculators make profits by buying oil when the price is low and selling it when it is high.

When prices are expected to rise in the future, they buy oil today and sell it when they think the higher price occurs. They will keep doing this until the gap between today’s prices and tomorrow’s expected price virtually disappears.

Tensions have risen over the last few weeks as Iran threatens to block oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz if Israel attacks their nuclear facilities. With up to 20 percent of the world’s oil supply at risk -- an amount equal to the entire production from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates -- steep price increases are a real possibility.

The risk immediately increased oil prices. Speculators aren’t waiting for Israel to actually attack. By buying oil now in order to set it aside if supplies are interrupted if the conflict occurs, consumers are actually protected. Storing oil for this possible crisis will prevent what would have been even higher prices.

The Democrats obviously think speculators are not justified in their attempts to start bidding up prices. And, indeed, Israel’s attack might never occur. Yet, if speculators didn’t do that and oil shipments are halted, the much bigger increase in oil prices would surely cause these very same politicians to really call for the scalps of everyone in the oil business.