Shooting the Messenger: The Chronicle, The Catholic Church, and Gay Militants

On October 6th, two members of the gay militant group Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence entered mass at Most Holy Redeemer Church and took communion. Dressed in drag with full face paint their goal was to no doubt mock the proceedings. They even went so far as to film their deeds. This was not only a sacreligious act but an act of vandalism and trespassing. If this had been done in a mosque or a synagogue, the media attention would have been overwhelming.

Since it was done in a church, the only media attention was from Bill O'Reilly of the O'Reilly Factor

Another outrage in San Francisco and this one is very hard to believe. As you may know, San Francisco is run by far left secular-progressives who despise the military, traditional values and religion. Not everybody in San Francisco feels that way, but certainly the power structure does. Time and again, we have brought you stories of outrageous behavior on the part of militant people living in that city.

Now, things have reached critical mass, no pun intended. Last Sunday, at the Catholic Church of the Most Holy Redeemer, Archbishop George Niederauer was celebrating mass. As part of that ritual, holy communion is given to Catholics by the celebrants. Two gay militants in bizarre dress took communion from the archbishop in an attempt to mock the mass and the man. — The people who did this are members of a militant homosexual group that runs around San Francisco dressed as nuns.

All city officials are aware of the group because in the past they have publicly demeaned Christianity. The Mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom, has refused to comment.
The District Attorney, Kamala Harris, says she is waiting for a complaint to be filed.
The Catholic Church says it will do its own investigation and doesn't want the police involved at this point. The archbishop has apologized, saying he's embarrassed and sorry he gave communion to people committing sacrilege.

But it really is not the archbishop's fault. — He is an elderly man who was taken by surprise. The fault here lies with the leadership of San Francisco. Mayor Newsom has consistently avoided criticizing behavior that is harmful.

Anyone that watched any of the reporting by O'Reilly knows there was genuine rage at this act. The rest of the media was in total blackout however. In fact, the local paper, The San Francisco Chronicle, didn't say a word until ten days later (no doubt under the pressure that O'Reilly was creating) when they finally wrote this.

It was a typical Sunday Mass until two men in heavy makeup and nuns' habits received Holy Communion from San Francisco's top Catholic official.

On Oct. 7, Archbishop George Niederauer delivered the Eucharist to members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence - an activist group whose motto is "go forth and sin some more" - prompting cries of outrage from conservatives across the country and Catholics in San Francisco.

In response to a request for comment, Niederauer released a letter of apology addressed to "Catholics of the Archdiocese of San Francisco and to Catholics at large" in which he said he did not realize his mistake until after the Mass at Most Holy Redeemer Church in the Castro district.

In fact, the story was largely uncritical of the militants who intruded upon mass in order to mock and ridicule the proceedings. The Chronicle really only had any strong criticism for one person, Bill O'Reilly, as they quoted their mayor, Gavin Newsom.

"This debate really is about San Francisco values. The Bill O'Reillys of the world are threatened by San Francisco because we value diversity, universal health care and civil rights for all. They will exploit any controversy to attack our values."

In fact, San Francisco values are the larger story. In San Francisco, The boy scouts are shunned because of their policy against openly gay scout leaders. They also shun the U.S. navy. They even shun the Junior ROTC. In fact, their school board commissioner once said that we don't need a military.

SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: Should we give up our weaponry? Should we give up
our war, our tools of war?

GERARDO SANDOVAL, SAN FRANCISCO CITY SUPERVISOR:
You know that's a very complicated question, but I would say, if you forced me to answer, I would say, yes, we should...

(CROSSTALK)

ALAN COLMES,
CO-HOST: Let me ask you a question, Gerardo. This is Alan in New York.

SANDOVAL: Hey, Alan.

COLMES: Should we not have a
military?
SANDOVAL: I don't think we should have a military.

At the same time, tax payer money goes to support a gay street fair which used a poster to mock the Last Supper. Their homeless problem is out of control. Medical marijuana is available to anyone with any imagination. Now, we have gay militants mocking the Catholic Church. The media refuses to cover it, and the mayor attacks the one messenger that is covering it.

Damn right, Mayor Newsom, this is about San Francisco values, however to most of us, with sense, that is not meant as a positive.

In fact, folks anyone that wants to know what George Soros social vision would look like need only go look at San Francisco for direction.

The Washington Post: Covering or Slanting the News

Yesterday, I wrote about a despicable case of media bias. In that case, the author's own words gave them away. Most media bias is done in far more subtle ways. For instance, which stories are covered and even where each story is placed within the confines of a newspaper is the most common way in which the Media slants the news.

First, let's go through a basic third grade equivalent journalism basics. Since most people begin at page one, the most important stories should be placed there. Furthermore, since we all read from top to bottom, the most important story should furthermore be placed at the top.
The way in which many in the media slant the news through story placement is by placing important stories that run counter to their philosophy deep within the newspaper. This is called burying a story.

The worst offender, in my opinion, is the New York Times. Several examples come to mind. For instance, when Zapatero won the Spanish election for Prime Minister, the Times placed this story in the front of their newspaper. Zapatero is perceived to be a political opponent of George Bush of course. On the other hand, when John Howard, a Bush ally, got re elected in Australia, that story was buried on page 14. The worst example was when the Times buried the break up of the plot to bomb was buried in the metro section. The Times wanted any perceived victory for Bush in the GWOT to be buried where no one read about.

Well, in the latest installment of slanting the news through story placement, we have the Washington Post . They ran four different stories related to the Iraq war yesterday. The first which was not only at the top of page one but also had its headline highlighted in red was another in a series about roadside bombs.

On Aug. 3, 2005, the deadliest roadside bomb ever encountered by U.S.
troops in Iraq detonated beneath a 26-ton armored personnel carrier, killing 14
Marines and revealing yet another American vulnerability in the struggle against
improvised explosive devices.

"Huge fire and dust rose from the place of the explosion," an Iraqi witness
reported from the blast site in Haditha, in Anbar province. In Baghdad and in Washington, the bleak
recognition that a new species of bomb -- the underbelly, or "deep buried," IED -- could demolish any combat vehicle in the U.S. arsenal
"was a light-bulb moment for sure," as a Pentagon analyst later put
it.

Of the 81,000 IED attacks in Iraq over the past 4 1/2 years, few proved
more devastating to morale than that "huge fire" in Haditha. At a time when
coalition casualties per IED steadily declined, even as the number of bombs
steadily increased, the abrupt obliteration of an entire squad -- made up mostly
of reservists from Ohio -- revealed that the billions of dollars being spent on
heavier armor and other "defeat the device" initiatives had clear
limits.

Haditha provided a light-bulb moment for insurgents as well. During the
next year, underbelly attacks just in the Marine sector of western Iraq would
increase from a few each month to an average of four per day. By early summer of
this year, the underbelly IED -- considered a specialty of Sunni bombers -- was
killing more American troops in Iraq than all other variants of roadside bombs
combined.

Clearly, this story has a negative connotation and the Post placed at the top of page one. Then there was the story just below about Blackwater that ran just below the first.

Minutes after noon on Sept. 16, Ali Khalil drove his black motorcycle
toward Nisoor Square. Three days earlier, the 54-year-old blacksmith and father
of six children had felt safe enough in the capital to reopen his
shop.

Osama Fadhil Abbas, a 40-year-old car dealer, was approaching the square in
his white truck, on his way to wire $1,000 to Dubai.

Mehasin Muhsin Kadhum, a 46-year-old doctor, and her eldest son, Ahmed
Haitham, 20, were nearing the square in their white sedan, after a morning of
errands that included picking up college application forms for Kadhum's
daughter.

From the southeast, along a road that leads from the Green Zone, a convoy of four armored Blackwater USA vehicles also made its way to the square.

Fifteen minutes later, the convoy sped away through a thick cloud generated
by smoke bombs, leaving behind a tableau of bullet-pocked cars and broken lives.
The events of that afternoon are still contested, but what is clear is that many
of those killed and wounded were civilians struggling with the vicissitudes of
their turbulent nation.

Again, we have a story with another negative connotation and both lead the coverage for the entire newspaper. The plethora of Iraq related stories found on page one of yesterday's
Washington Post wraps up with this poll that shows most Americans favor cutting off funding for Iraq.

Most Americans oppose fully funding President Bush's $190 billion request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a sizable majority support an expansion of a
children's health insurance bill he has promised to veto, putting Bush and many
congressional Republicans on the wrong side of public opinion on upcoming
foreign and domestic policy battles.

The new Washington Post-ABC News poll also shows deep dissatisfaction with the president
and with Congress. Bush's approval rating stands at 33 percent, equal to his
career low in Post-ABC polls. And just 29 percent approve of the job Congress is
doing, its lowest approval rating in this poll since November 1995, when
Republicans controlled both the House and Senate. It also represents a 14-point
drop since Democrats took control in January.

So, if we are keeping score, that is three negative Iraq related stories all in one day. Now, we find this story buried on page 14 about troop and civilian deaths being down sharply.

The numbers of U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians reported killed across the
country last month fell to their lowest levels in more than a year, a sharp
decrease in violent deaths that American military officials attribute in part to the thousands of
additional soldiers who have arrived here this year.

The death toll for Iraqi civilians fell sharply in September, according to
Iraqi government and U.S. military figures. One count from Iraq's Health Ministry put the monthly death toll at 827
civilians, a 48 percent drop from the total in August, according to an official
who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the
statistics.

The downward trend in victims of violence was mirrored by dropping
fatalities among U.S. soldiers. By month's end, at least 66 U.S. soldiers were
killed, the lowest monthly total since 65 died in August 2006, and about half
the number who died during the deadliest month this year, according to
icasualties.org, a Web site that tracks military deaths in Iraq.

There is a great anecdote: if a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it fall, did it really fall?
Well, if there is good news from Iraq, but no one reads about it, will it matter? Here is how Stanley Kurtz of the National Review saw it.

Today, on the front page of The Washington Post, we see the third in a
three-part series
on roadside bombs in Iraq. The stories in this series have been centered on the
top half of the page and highlighted in red (a device I don’t recall seeing
before). Next to that is a huge headline about allegations of killings In Iraq
by Blackwater. Below that is a headline that reads "Most in Poll Want War
Funding Cut." Meanwhile deep inside the paper, on page A14, we find the
following article: "U.S. and Civilian Deaths Decrease Sharply in Iraq: American
Military Credits Troop Influx." True, nestled between the other screaming
headlines on page one, there is a brief minuscule teaser for this far more
positive story about Iraq. Yet the bias here is clear.

If the top story is Iraq, then I don’t see how you can put those three
stories on the front page, while burying the other one on page 14.

I believe that we must confront each case of media bias head on. This is one of those cases. If you are as disgusted as I am, please go here and exercise your own first amendment rights.

Liars into Victims: The Continuing Misleading Mortgage Narrative

In these very pages, a while back I said this about the continuing narrative of the mortgage crisis.

I have been disappointed if not surprised by the media coverage of the sub prime
crisis. It has been filled with political correctness, condescending nebulous terms that even mortgage brokers don't understand, and very short on any analysis that let's the people know what happened.
...
the mainstream media would have you believe that evil mortgage brokers committed fraud on unsuspecting banks while innocent poor people stood by helplessly and put themselves in an untenable position that they had no control over.

Well, two new articles have done nothing to change this narrative. Let's look first at this from
ABC News

"Donna Pearce is one of those homeowners struggling to keep her life from
unraveling. She is already four months behind on her high-interest loans from
New Century Financial.
She says New Century, now bankrupt, got her the loans
by lying about her income.

"After all of this blew up in my face, I realized that they falsified my
income," said Pearce, a 53-year-old nanny who earns $2,100 a month in
Connecticut. "It stated that I made way more than I actually make."

How much more? Pearce showed ABC News loan application documents that
listed her income as $5,500 a month.

"You cannot write a loan like this without knowing that absolutely this
person is going to fall behind," said Pearce.

This story is about those dreaded STATED LOANS. The story makes it seem as though the borrower was helplessly looking on unable to do anything while loans were created that they couldn't afford. How could someone get into a loan where the income stated is $5100 when they really made $2100 a month? Could this really done without their approval? Here is what I said about the situation.

The borrower is not without fault by a long shot. While the bank may think the
janitor makes sixty thousand a year, the janitor knows what he makes. He knows
if the mortgage payment is eating up to sixty percent of his monthly income. If
this person goes ahead and accepts the loan anyway, is it really the fault of
the mortgage broker when they go bad on it.

While Ms. Pearce makes it seem as though she was just an innocent victim, she actually signed several pieces of documentation attesting that the income reported on the application was in fact real. Furthermore, initial disclosures and final disclosures clearly laid out the payment involved. Why would she agree to the loan if she couldn't afford it? Most likely it is because the house she bought she just had to have and she convinced herself that she could. When it went bad, she blamed the evil, evil mortgage broker even though she was an active and willing participant in the fraud.

Then there is this,

Chanting, “Sharks bite, ACORN fights – predatory lenders, you’re not
right,” dozens of ACORN members on Sept. 26 stormed the offices of Ocwen Financial, demanding that one of the nation’s largest servicers of subprime mortgages modify those loans to keep families from losing their homes. Ocwen CEO William Erbey had ignored a July letter from Florida ACORN requesting a meeting, so members paid him a visit at work. Among the ACORN members were Olga and Paul Gant of Broward County, who told the Palm Beach Post they are facing foreclosure after their monthly mortgage payments jumped from $2,200 to $3,000 per month. ACORN is demanding that Ocwen enact a moratorium on foreclosures, modify loans according to borrowers’ ability to repay and lock in interest rates at pre-adjustment levels.

Similar demands were made in San Jose, Calif., at the offices of
Countrywide Financial, where scores of ACORN members gathered to protest that
company’s failure to work out loan modifications with homeowners. ACORN
estimates 1.8 million adjustable rate mortgages worth $900 billion will reset at
higher, unaffordable interest rates over the next two years. As many as 2
million families nationwide are in danger of losing their homes.

Let's state some obvious things. Mortgages closing documents are contracts. The term of the contract is laid out within the closing documents. ACORN would like the bank to disregard the contract simply because the people who agreed to make the payment now can't make the payment. Even though the fact that these mortgage are adjustable, meaning they can change, was laid out in the closing documents, ACORN wants the bank to just disregard that little tidbit now that it has come back to bite consumers who went ahead and signed anyway.

Isn't that nice? Let's sign a contract, and if we can't live up to the terms, we will just get the other party to agree to new terms. If the other party doesn't agree, then there will be all sorts of populist groups and media right there to make sure to demonize them.

What is the practical effect of all of this? Well, if Ocwen et al goes ahead and redoes all of these loans so that they become affordable, then they will lose more money on those loans. If Ocwen thought that redoing the loans rather than taking the property was the most cost effective, they would have already done it. If they lose even more money, then of course, they will need to make it up with all of their other loans, and thus, it will be the next batch of hopefully good borrowers that will have to pay with higher rates. Of course, no one will see it and no one will report it, so no one will know. It seems that ACORN thinks that contracts can be broken when one side can't live up to them with absolutely no negative consequences. Too bad reality doesn't actually work that way.