Things You Hear on NPR: Benghazi Investigations Found ‘no wrongdoing by the Obama administration’

NPR a few days ago, regarding the possibility of a Susan Rice pick for the Joe Biden ticket:

Things You Hear on NPR: No Idea How Anyone Could Think DACA Was Unconstitutional

NPR on DACA:

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, as it’s officially known, has broad support across the political spectrum. The majority of Democrats and Republicans tell pollsters that they support protections for immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children — called DREAMers.

Things You Hear on NPR: Kavanaugh Guilty until Proven Innocent

Well, this is just embarrassing.  NPR this morning had Kavanaugh supporter Sara Fagen on, but the “interviewer” was quick to respond to everything the guest said with “Although,” followed by various tendentious arguments for the Democrats’ narrative.  This isn’t an interview; it’s a debate.

Penultimately, the NPR interviewer made this brazen argument:

Things You Hear on NPR: If the Person You’re Interviewing Doesn’t Give You Quite the Quote You Wanted, Just Go Ahead and Say It for Him

NPR this morning, “reporting” on immigration policy (getting less subtle in its advocacy for one side and its chosen narrative):

[NPR’s Steve] INSKEEP: So for that symbolic prosecution, they’ve been diverting from drug cases. I get that. But I’m remembering when Jeff Sessions announced this policy. He didn’t say to prosecutors across the country, abandon drug prosecutions. He said prosecute everybody. And if you need more resources, let us know. Have prosecutors been getting more resources to handle these border-crossing cases?

Things You Hear on NPR: Overturning Marriage Laws Something to Celebrate, but Voting Reforms ‘Controversial’

Here’s how NPR began its story today on the upholding of Ohio’s latest voting reform:

An ideologically split U.S. Supreme Court Monday upheld Ohio’s controversial “use-it-or-lose-it” voting law by a 5-to-4 margin.

Here are the corresponding openings of NPR’s top two stories (according to their own measures) about Obergefell, the 2015 Supreme Court decision that forced states to redefine marriage:

Things You Hear on NPR: Yeah, Amnesty Did Lead to More Illegal Immigration; Let’s Do It Again Anyway

NPR reviews some of the history of American immigration law, and reaches some admirably honest conclusions:

The Simpson-Mazzoli Act was introduced as a way to end illegal border crossings once and for all. It had three parts: Give amnesty to those who had been in the country for at least five years, crack down on employers who hire people who can’t legally work here, and pump up border security to prevent future illegal crossings.

President Reagan supported the bill and signed it into law in 1986. Three million people were granted amnesty under the Simpson-Mazzoli Act, but by 1990 the number of unauthorized immigrants was back up to 3.5 million.

Things You Hear on NPR: Yeah, We’re Going to Accuse You of Racism No Matter What You Do

It’s the same old “racism” Catch-22—damned if you do, damned if you don’t.  Disney was criticized for years for supposedly not having enough black characters in their major movies, then for having black actors do some of the voices in the cartoon movie The Lion King.  (Critics said, What, Disney can only have black characters if they’re animals? as well as accusing Disney of casting black actors only as the voices of the villains, which isn’t even close—James Earl Jones played the central character of the king and father, Mufasa, and black actors also voiced Rafiki, Simba’s mother, one of the Nalas, and one of the Simbas’ singing voice.)  Then Disney made The Princess and the Frog, with predominantly black (and non-animal) characters, and was criticized for supposedly playing into racial stereotypes.

Things You Hear on NPR: Castro ‘A Complex Figure’

NPR’s first news story on Castro’s death a couple of days ago, as I remember it (I cannot find it on their Web site), was conspicuously neutral, concluding by calling him (I paraphrase from memory) a figure some saw as a dictator.

Give me a break.  Fidel Castro was a murderous dictator who jailed, tortured, and killed people just for speaking their minds, just for calling for democracy—even for being related to those who did.  Read about any of the brave Cuban democrats and dissidents.  Give them a break.

Things You Hear on NPR: Everything Is Political, Comrade

In observance of the Thanksgiving holiday, yesterday’s Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me quiz show on NPR was a clip show, a parade of past guests, interspersed with host Peter Sagal joking (several times) that you can avoid unpleasant arguments about politics around the Thanksgiving dinner table by claiming that you’ve just been listening to these Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me celebrity interviews all year.

And then of course politics came up over and over again anyway: making fun of Sarah Palin, agreeing that Dick Cheney is scary and awful—one of the guests had even literally teamed up with President Obama to make fun of a Republican congressman, apparently.  Of the ones I listened to,* most of the guests’ interviews ended up getting into politics—and of course guests, host, and panelists were all on the same page, identifying with the same team, with the left and against the right.

Things You Hear on NPR: ‘No Evidence’ of Clinton Foundation Influence Laundering

This is part of why we’re so annoyed about the liberal news media.  (Listen up, those of you who still don’t believe there is such a thing—I know you’re out there.)  This one isn’t just a little biased; this is either gross incompetence (difficult for NPR to plead—they’re not idiots, and they can do very good journalism when they want to) or infuriating, brazen dishonesty in the service of an agenda.

Things You Hear on NPR: All the News That Fits the Narrative

If you think a child this young (R) should get to radically redefine gender and parenting roles, maybe you’re the one with “gender-identity confusion”

If NPR were really interested in reporting the news impartially (as opposed to conducting a social-engineering propaganda campaign), they would probably report on this interesting development, reported by Life Site News (also covered at The Federalist Papers Project):

(Short version: Maya Dillard Smith was the interim ACLU director for a whole state; she’s impeccably liberal but resigned because she cannot support the militant new transgender activism.)

The African-American woman who leads a state chapter of the ACLU has resigned, citing her own daughters’ “frightened” reaction to biological males using the women’s restroom.

Things You Hear on NPR: Unintentionally Humorous Coverage of Women in the Military

If NPR can’t make it sound good, no one can:

It’s a recent morning out in California’s Mojave Desert, and Marine Lance Cpls. Paula Pineda and Julia Carroll are struggling to pick up and maneuver Carl. He’s a 220-pound dummy, and a stand-in for a wounded Marine.

Carroll’s knees buckle for a moment, but as a dusty wind picks up, the two women pull Carl off their light armored vehicle. They carry him to safety, careful not to let his head drag on the rocky ground.

So that’s something!

Things You Hear on NPR: Hillary Clinton’s Scandals Are All the More Reason She Should Get in the Race!

On Morning Edition last week:

LIASSON: That’s right. The Clintons’ family foundation took money from foreign governments while she was secretary of state. Now, most of them were ongoing commitments that had been made before she joined the Obama administration, but one donation — $500,000 from the government of Algeria for Haitian earthquake relief — was made during her tenure. And this has struck many people as a conflict of interest and, again, it revived all the old Clinton tropes — the rules don’t apply to them, they’re blind to appearances of impropriety, conflict of interest, it looks like pay-to-play, and it reminded people of the fundraising scandals of the 1990s.

Things You Hear on NPR: Forget about Legislative Intent, Let’s Get Back to Bashing Republicans

The Supreme Court last week heard oral arguments in King v. Burwell, in which the plaintiffs argue that under the text of Obamacare, the government can provide subsidies and inflict penalties only on people in states that have set up state-run insurance exchanges.  Here is some of NPR’s coverage of the arguments.

Some of the ways you know that NPR knew they were producing political propaganda, not a news story:

1.  They bring Scott Walker into their arguments about legislative history.

Things You Hear on NPR: Democrats ‘Suffered’ under Reign of Republican Minority

The whole tone of this NPR piece is in this vein, but this line takes the cake:

. . . Democrats who suffered under McConnell’s tactics over the past six years might be a little suspicious of Mitch McConnell . . . .

The Democrats have been the majority in the Senate for the last six years.  Mitch McConnell was the minority leader.

Bizarre.

Things You Hear on NPR: What Could Be Funnier than Losing Your Soul?

Over the weekend NPR played an interview between NPR’s Arun Rath and novelist Douglas Coupland (pronounced “Copeland”).  Coupland’s latest novel doesn’t exactly sound healthy for human consumption:

RATH: . . . I don’t quite know how I feel about this book—

COUPLAND: (Laughs)

RATH: —Meaning that it’s hilarious but it’s—it’s three hundred pages of vulgarity, almost without lapse.

Things You Hear on NPR: Unselfconscious Free Advertising for Corporations and Democrats?

Last week morning NPR reported this story, apparently unironically.  Excerpts:

IKEA recently announced that starting next year, the lowest paid workers in its U.S. stores will make a bit more. . . .

NPR asked an IKEA executive,

Was it a PR move? No, he said.

Oh, OK.

Things You Hear on NPR: We’re Pretty Sure These Cases We Didn’t Read Support Our Narrative

NPR this morning painted a picture in which Republicans twist the courts for partisan advantage:

By the same 5-4 vote, the court’s conservatives — all Republican appointees — prevailed over the court’s liberals — all Democratic appointees — on campaign finance regulations, union power and mandated contraceptive coverage for corporations under the Affordable Care Act. . . .

Things You Hear on NPR: Democrat Whistleblower Some Kind of Partisan Republican Ploy

Actually, if you only listen to NPR and other liberal media (which you shouldn’t), you might never know that whistleblowers like Gregory Hicks—a formerly high-ranking official of the Obama State Department and a “registered Democrat who voted for both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama”—have been testifying about how the administration failed to protect our diplomats in Libya and then tried to cover it up.

Things You Hear on NPR: Catholicism One Possible Direction for the Catholic Church?

NPR struggles to make sense of the fact that the Catholic Church and its understanding of human nature have remained essentially unchanged for several times longer than the United States has existed:

Well, first of all, let’s keep in mind that all the cardinals who are voting cardinals have been appointed either by Pope Benedict XVI or by his predecessor, John Paul II. So they all pretty much are — more or less follow the same kind of line of a conservative dogma, very traditional.

As if the Catholic Church might have gone in some totally different direction if only a different person had happened to be making the appointments this time around?