Follow The Money - PATownhall

A week or so ago, I stumbled across this website.  It's "PaTownHall - Pennsylvania's marketplace of ideas" and it describes itself as:

PA Town Hall is a cooperative project involving over 20 center/right organizations and columnists from throughout Pennsylvania. It is a "one stop shop" for readers to view the latest policy papers, news releases, newsletters, polls, blogs and columns as well as listen to radio programs produced by participating organizations.

The site piqued my curiosity, to say the least.  Where did it come from?  Who hosts it?  Who's paying for it?  And finally, HOW MUCH SCAIFE MONEY IS ENTWINED IN THE PROJECT?

So let's follow the money.

On the "About" page we learn that:

PA Town Hall is owned and operated by the Lincoln Institute of Public Opinion Research, Inc. The Lincoln Institute is a 501c3 nonprofit educational foundation based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The mission statement of the Lincoln Institute commits the organization to "the conduct of an extensive public information and educational program designed to foster federal and state public policy based upon traditional American values."

Ah, The Lincoln Institute.  According to the Bridgeproject, the Institute has received overall $1.428 million dollars over the last 20 or so years - 68% of which ($980,000) came from the Scaife controlled Allegheny Foundation.

But what about those "20 center/right organizations" that make up the project?

Let's take a look.  Here's the page titled "Member Groups".  Alot of the list is made up of individuals, so let's set them aside and just concentrate on the some of groups on the "Member Group" page that have received Scaife funding (all info from the BridgeProject):

• Allegheny Institute: $6.484 million total, 89% ($5.8 million) from Scaife foundations
• Commonwealth Foundation: $7.523 million total, 35% ($2.667 million) from Scaife foundations
• Foundation for Individual Rights in Education: $9.865 million total 14.7% ($1.45 million) from Scaife foundations

And so on.  I note that our good friend Salena Zito is also on the "Member Groups" list.  She's a staff writer and editorial columnist for the Tribune-Review

Here's a thought experiment: What would PATownhall look like had it never received 68% of it's foundation funding from the Scaife Foundations?  What would the political geography of the state look like without all that money coming from those three sources all controlled (until recently, of course) by one very rich white guy?

Here's a couple more: The next time Salena Zito mentions anyone else (individual or organization) on the PA Townhall "Member Group" (for example Senator Toomey) will she, in the spirit of full disclosure, mention their common membership on that list?  

Next time Lowman Henry is so lovingly profiled by the Tribune-Review, will they point out that their former owner shuttled hundreds of thousands of dollars Henry's way to fund the Lincoln Institute?

Follow the money.

Yes, But Is It TRUE?

I realize the conservative paper in town has to do something to try to put the best spin on last night's awful Romney debate performance, but this piece by Mike Wereschagin and Salena Zito shows the problem with the "he said/he said" school of "objective" journalism.

In not doing any real fact checking, Mike and Salena let Romney off the hook.  Perhaps that was the point.

The wrote:

“I think (Iran’s leaders) saw weakness where they had expected to find American strength,” Romney said. He revived his charge that Obama embarked on “an apology tour” around the world.

“Nothing Gov. Romney just said is true, starting with this notion of me apologizing,” Obama said.

Yes, but is it true?  They don't say.

Did the President go on an "apology tour" or not?  Nothing is gained by going "he said/he said" - those who think he did will disagree with Obama and those who think he didn't will disagree with Romney.

In reality, there was no apology tour.

From CNN:

Romney's claim is false. The president has mentioned past U.S. mistakes and flaws during speeches about the larger issues of building bridges to other countries. But he has never apologized or gone on an "apology tour."

Washington Post:

The claim that Obama repeatedly has apologized for the United States is not borne out by the facts, especially if his full quotes are viewed in context.

Obama often was trying to draw a rhetorical distinction between his policies and that of President Bush, a common practice when the presidency changes parties. The shift in policies, in fact, might have been more dramatic from Clinton to Bush than from Bush to Obama, given how Obama has largely maintained Bush's approach to fighting terrorism.

In other cases, Obama's quotes have been selectively trimmed for political purposes. Or they were not much different than sentiments expressed by Bush or his secretary of state. Republicans may certainly disagree with Obama's handling of foreign policy or particular policies he has pursued, but they should not invent a storyline that does not appear to exist.

But let's move on to something else they wrote:

The candidates sparred over defense spending, with Romney accusing Obama of presiding over a shrinking Navy and aging Air Force.

“Our Navy is smaller now than at any time since 1917. Our Air Force is older and smaller than at any time” since its founding, Romney said.

“We also have fewer horses and bayonets,” Obama shot back. The modern military includes aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines, he said. “The question is not a game of Battleship, where we’re counting ships. It’s what are our capabilities.”

Yes, but is it true?  They don't say.

Politifact has already debunked this one:

This is a great example of a politician using more or less accurate statistics to make a meaningless claim. Judging by the numbers alone, Romney was close to accurate. In recent years, the number of Navy and Air Force assets has sunk to levels not seen in decades, although the number of ships has risen slightly under Obama.

However, a wide range of experts told us it’s wrong to assume that a decline in the number of ships or aircraft automatically means a weaker military. Quite the contrary: The United States is the world’s unquestioned military leader today, not just because of the number of ships and aircraft in its arsenal but also because each is stocked with top-of-the-line technology and highly trained personnel.

But guess what I found for the sources of Romney's meaninglessness?  Politifact, again:

The Navy numbers

The Romney campaign didn’t get back to us, but we found their likely sourcing when we contacted the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

In January 2010, Heritage published a report titled, "The State of the U.S. Military." Citing data from the Naval History and Heritage Command, a part of the Defense Department, the report said that "the U.S. Navy’s fleet today contains the smallest number of ships since 1916. The total number of active ships in the Navy declined from 592 to 283 between 1989 and 2009." [Emphasis added.]

While it's not clear in the text, Politifact also cites that same Heritage Foundation report (you can read it here) in explaining Romney's Air Force claim.

And they add some context:

But what do those numbers mean? Not much, a variety of experts told us.

Counting the number of ships or aircraft is not a good measurement of defense strength because their capabilities have increased dramatically in recent decades. Romney’s comparison "doesn’t pass ‘the giggle test,’ " said William W. Stueck, a historian at the University of Georgia.

The context of the numbers makes Romney's claim ridiculous.

I think I see why Wereschagin and Zito would be reluctant to debunk these two myths.  They work at the Tribune-Review where their boss is Richard Mellon Scaife.  At one of their boss's other pet projects (the Trib being one, the Heritage Foundation another) these myths (the "apology tour" and "the shrunken military") have been around for years.

No one wants to be an EOD at the Trib, I suppose.

More On Salena Zito

From June of this year:

When Obama spoke of an America that wasn't blue or red in 2008, he touched upon a strand of American exceptionalism that extols nonpartisanship, pragmatic problem-solving and a presidency that serves all Americans.

However, through his bowing to foreign despots, his partisanship, his early overseas "apology tour" on which he refused to defend America's past, Obama undermined himself as a champion of the idea that America is special.

Too bad that "apology tour" just didn't happen.

But this isn't just my opinion.  Politifact gives it a "pants on fire" rating and Factcheck.org agrees:

Our fact-checking colleagues at PolitiFact and the Washington Post Fact Checker both pored over those speeches, and others, and wrote detailed analyses of the content of Obama’s words. Their conclusion: Obama never apologized.

We’ve read through the speeches as well. We’ve come to the same conclusion: Nowhere did we see that the president “apologized” for America. In some speeches, Obama was drawing a distinction between his policies and those of his predecessor, George W. Bush. In other instances, Obama appeared to be employing a bit of diplomacy, criticizing past actions of both the U.S. and the host nation, and calling for the two sides to move forward. [emphasis added.]

This is who the Tribune-Review has sent to cover the Democratic National Convention - someone in her opinion pages who dutifully spreads the republican talking points.

Yay - let's hear it for balanced, objective reporting.

Selena Covers (For) Romney. Again.

From today's Tribune-Review:

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney rallied supporters in this bellwether state on Tuesday by chastising President Obama for policies that cripple America’s energy industry and the families and small businesses whose livelihoods depend on fuel producers.

“His vice president said coal is more dangerous than terrorists. Can you imagine that?” Romney told a cheering crowd of about 2,600 people in the village of Beallsville, where 70 miners from American Energy Corp.’s Century Mine joined him onstage. “This tells you precisely what he actually feels and what he’s done, and his policies over the last three-and-a-half years have put in place the very vision he had when he was running for office.”

What a silly thing to say, coal more dangerous than terrorists??  What was Joe thinking?

Except he didn't actually say that.  In fact, when you look at the context (which Trib conservative columnist Selena Zito failed to do here) you'll find something entirely different.

CBS did their homework and has a description of what Biden actually said:

Campaigning in rural coal country, Mitt Romney on Tuesday revived a controversial five-year-old comment from Vice President Joe Biden as evidence that the Obama administration is insufficiently committed to energy from coal.

In a 2007 interview on HBO's Real Time With Bill Maher, Biden, then a 2008 presidential candidate, was asked which is more likely to contribute to Americans' deaths - air pollution from coal, high-fructose corn syrup or a terrorist attack. Biden responded: "Air that has too much coal in it, corn syrup next, then a terrorist attack. But that is not in any way to diminish the fact that a terrorist attack is real. It is not an existential threat to bringing down the country, but it does have the capacity, still, to kill thousands of people. But hundreds of thousands of people die and their lives are shortened because of coal plants, coal-fired plants and because of corn syrup." [emphasis added.]

Addressing a crowd in Beallsville, Romney attacked President Obama's energy policies and added, "His vice president said coal is more dangerous than terrorists. Can you imagine that? This tells you precisely what he actually feels and what he's done and his policies over the last three and a half years have put in place the very vision he had when he was running for office."

See?  The question Biden was answering is about which causes more damage not which is more dangerous.

What's happening here is that Romney misquoted Biden and Zito (who should know better)- let him get away with it.   CBS had the time to check, why didn't she?  We've seen this a few times (here and here) and I am beginning to sense a pattern.  Aren't you?

Setting aside the corn syrup part - and only because it's not a part of Romney's misquote - we should then be asking ourselves, "Is Biden telling the truth?  Does coal pollution kill more people than terrorism?"

Um, yea.  Take a look at this 2004 study from the Clean Air Task Force.  From the summary:

Fine particle pollution from U.S. power plants cuts short the lives of nearly 24,000 people each year, including 2800 from lung cancer.

So Romney misquoted and Zito failed to correct him.

This is how the Trib will be covering the Romney campaign.  Get used to it.

Zito Shills For The Romney Campaign. Again.

And remember, this is one of the people the Trib's news division has covering the Romney campaign.

She begins her opinion column with a bit of Romney-dishonesty:

Mitt Romney was fired up.

“The president actually said, if you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that, somebody else made that happen.” He paused and threw his hands up before adding: “Really?”

Ah, Selena. But that's not all the president said, did he?  As the good book says "the truth shall set you free" (John 8:32).  To see the truth, we have to take a look at what the president actually said.  There are two things to keep in mind here - how Romney lies about it and then how Selena Zito lets him get away with it.

The current Romney lie was snipped from a campaign speech in Roanoke Virginia:

[L]ook, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. (Applause.)

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. [emphasis added]

Now go back and look at how Romney characterized it.  Take a look at the middle paragraph.  Obama was
talking about various forms of infrastructure (roads, bridges, the internet), pointing out that a business' success is built upon the infrastructure that someone else built.

And yet, Romney, by snipping out the context, makes it sound as though Obama said that someone else built the successful business.  A lie.

Whatever the rhetorical distance you find between the truth and Romney's spin on it, is exactly the rhetorical distance that Zito allowed him to have - by not correcting him.

And this is a reporter that the Tribune-Review sends to cover the Romney campaign.

How The Trib Is Covering (For) Romney

Doing something a little different today - I think. 

In today's Tribune-Review, I find two pieces written or co-written by columnist Salena Zito. We've looked at Zito's writing before, by the way.  But today might be something new - or at least newish.

But before we go any further, let's see who Salena Zito is.  Here is her bio at Townhall.com:

Salena Zito is a political analyst, reporter and editorial page columnist. She has also reported on Pennsylvania politics for The Weekly Standard. A board member of the Center for Media & Public Policy at the Heritage Foundation, Salena Zito honed her skills working on the campaigns of George H.W. Bush, Senator Rick Santorum, Bush2000, Bush-Cheney 2004 served on the senate staff of U.S. Senator Arlen Specter. Salena Zito has interviewed one on one Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, CIA Director General Hayden, Homeland Security Director Chertoff, Attorney General Gonzales and First Lady Laura Bush. Zito spends a third of her time on the road interviewing legislators as well as current policy makers.

We'll try to ignore the conservative credentials when we read this news article about Governor Romney's visit yesterday to our fair city where Zito oh-so-subtly covers for him:

Mitt Romney repudiated President Obama’s attacks on his personal finances on Tuesday, calling it “a sad day when that is the course that the president takes.”

“I think it is beneath the dignity of the presidency for him to wage a campaign of personal attacks, and particularly when it is based on dishonesty,” Romney said in an interview with the Tribune-Review.

He referred to the Obama campaign’s two weeks of criticism of the former Massachusetts governor’s record at Bain Capital, a venture capital firm Romney founded in 1984 and headed until 1999, and his refusal to release more than two years’ worth of tax returns.

Did Romney actually leave Bain in 1999?  I hear there are some SEC documents that say otherwise.  But the  1999 date remains unchallenged by Zito.

And we'll also try to ignore Zito's conservative credentials in this other news article about Romney's fundraiser in North Huntington:

Mitt Romney sharpened his attacks on President Obama’s economic and health-care policies in appearances at a Westmoreland County business and a Pittsburgh fundraiser on Tuesday.

“He has to recognize that his policies have failed to get Americans work again,” Romney told a crowd of more than 1,000 people at Horizontal Wireline Services in North Huntingdon, which runs wires into gas and oil wells to help extract Marcellus shale gas. “I have an answer for him: liberal policies don’t make jobs.”

Later, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee and former Massachusetts governor attended a fundraiser at the Duquesne Club, Downtown, where tickets ranged from $2,500 for the reception to $50,000 for a private dinner. More than 300 tickets were sold.

In the piece Romney says Obama is out of touch.  I wonder how the construction of Romney's car elevator is going.

For the Romney campaign, they must be happy to know that they have such good friends in the news media.

Salena Zito and The Dixiecrats

Let's start, without comment, with something the Salena Zito of the Tribune-Review wrote.  Give her the first word, as it were, and then fill in the blanks:

Grantham, 47, reflects the once-proud Southern white Democrats that the party began bleeding in 1948 during a convention battle between civil-righters and Dixiecrat states'-righters. The Republican Party really didn't capitalize on that until 1952, when Dwight Eisenhower won some Southern states.

Richard Nixon developed the strategy of competing in the Deep South -- then, typically barren land for Republicans. While his results were mixed, his brilliant move marked the start of the South turning on Democrats.

Now, let's take a look at the Dixiecrat's party platform in 1948 - if only to see just what flavor of "states'-rights" it was.  There certainly won't be much controversy with how the platform begins:

- 1 -

We believe that the Constitution of the United States is the greatest charter of human liberty ever conceived by the mind of man.

- 2 -

We oppose all efforts to invade or destroy the rights guaranteed by it to every citizen of this republic.

- 3 -

We stand for social and economic justice, which, we believe can be guaranteed to all citizens only by a strict adherence to our Constitution and the avoidance of any invasion or destruction of the constitutional rights of the states and individuals. We oppose the totallitaran, centralized bureaucratic government and the police nation called for by the platforms adopted by the Democratic and Republican Conventions.

Ok, maybe that last paragraph has a bit more of an edge to it than we're used to seeing, but on the other hand, who would have been in favor of a "totalitarian, centralized bureaucratic government" then? Or now, for that matter?  I think that's what you'd call a "straw man" argument.

It's in the next three sections where the Dixiecrat reality becomes strikingly obvious:

- 4 -

We stand for the segregation of the races and the racial integrity of each race; the constitutional right to choose one's associates; to accept private employment without governmental interference, and to learn one's living in any lawful way. We oppose the elimination of segregation, the repeal of miscegenation statutes, the control of private employment by Federal bureaucrats called for by the misnamed civil rights program. We favor home-rule, local self-government and a minimum interference with individual rights.

- 5 -

We oppose and condemn the action of the Democratic Convention in sponsoring a civil rights program calling for the elimination of segregation, social equality by Federal fiatt, regulations of private employment practices, voting, and local law enforcement.

- 6 -

We affirm that the effective enforcement of such a program would be utterly destructive of the social, economic and political life of the Southern people, and of other localities in which there may be differences in race, creed or national orgin in appreciable numbers.

This is what Salena Zito boiled down into the simple and yet oh so misleading phrase "states'-righters."  Take a look again at what those Dixiecrats were against:

• Desegregation
• Interracial marriage
• Race-neutral employment and voting opportunities

In short, basic civil rights for African-Americans.  That's the tradition of "the once-proud Southern white Democrats that the party began bleeding in 1948" to the Republican Party.  And this isn't me saying it, it's an expert Zito herself quotes:

"As a new generation developed, the people who were conservative Democrats and Dixiecrats mostly became Republicans," explained Bert Rockman, Purdue University political science professor.

It wasn't until after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that the South turned solidly against the Democratic Party - at a moment, as we're told:

When Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, he told aide Bill Moyers that Democrats would face a backlash from the white Southerners who had been part of the Democratic coalition Franklin Roosevelt forged. "We have lost the South for a generation," he warned.

Now go back to what Zito wrote, think about all that you read above.  Who left the Democratic Party?  And where did they go?  Now imagine what Zito wanted you to think.

Now ask yourself: How different are those two ideas?