The latest is Roseanne Barr, who last weekend wrote on her personal blog that Catholics who bring their children to church should lose custody. "Taking your kid where you know sex offenders hang out is inexcusable!!!"

This is but the latest example of vitriol directed at the Church in recent days, and just the most recent demonstration of Roseanne's deranged anti-Catholic views (h/t Big Hollywood headlines).

In a brief blog post, Roseanne wrote,

The pedo priests are trying to cover up the number of LITTLE GIRLS they have molested too, as if that doesn't matter as much as what happens to boys. Trust me, the number of girls raped and molested by priests is at least double the boys. They are trying to cover it all up so that they can end up purging gay priests, and laying the blame on them. The fact is pedos like to rape both boys and girls, and only a small number of pedos are exclusively into male children.

I am starting to think that any parent who takes their kids to catholic churches from now on should lose custody. Taking your kid where you know sex offenders hang out is inexcusable!!!

Roseanne also made headlines -- a rarity for her these days -- when she turned Maria Osmond's son's suicide into an anti-Catholic rant on her blog.

She has also dressed as Hitler and cooked "Jew cookies" for a photo shoot, as shown in the picture above, (plenty of additional craziness here), so she probably didn't need to do anything more to relegate her own political views to the realm of the deranged.

The Catholic Church has had to endure some pretty brutal attacks of late. On Monday, Rosie O'Donnell compared the Church to the Jonestown suicide cult.

Wondering how much faith the left has in your ability to run your own life? Chris Matthews was brutally honest today when he criticized that "idealistic notion" of self-reliance that ignorant conservatives insist on pushing.

Matthews apparently believes that without massive social welfare programs like Medicare and Social Security, there would be "poor people all over the place, old people lying in the streets," and the nation would look like "Calcutta."

He made these absurd claims -- and they are absurd -- on yesterday's Hardball, and went on to call for a more robust "social state," complaining that lefty bloggers had not done enough to make it seem more desirable to the American people (h/t Gateway Pundit).

Steve, that's part of the propaganda problem here. The problem is we don't think of what the country would be like if we didn't have medicare for our parents as they get very old, in their 80s for example, and they're still alive. They need health care, a lot of it, and have don't have any source of income. They're not working every morning. They're not making a paycheck.

We don't think -- What would it be like in this country, Calcutta? Poor people all over the place, old people lying in the streets. I mean we don't think about what it would be if we didn't have health care, if we didn't have Social Security for people at the age of 65. If we didn't have unemployment compensation. If we didn't have a progressive income tax.

There's a lot of things we don't think about and the right wing just pounds and pounds away at this idealistic notion of a cowboy country, where everybody's self-reliant. Well, part of self reliance is -- …

I think progressives for all their power in the blogosphere have not done a positive case for the advantages of some kind of social state.

Bill Press, who chaired the California Democratic Party for a few years in the 1990s, and who now hosts a radio talk show, demonstrated his total lack of serious journalistic credibility at yesterday's briefing.

He misquoted RedState's Erick Erickson to make it seem as if he was encouraging the listeners of his radio show to not fill out the Census, and tried to turn Erickson's statement into an attack on CNN, who recently hired Erickson as a political correspondent.

The exchange went like this:

BILL PRESS:  Robert, on the Census, Erick Erickson, a commentator for CNN, a couple of days ago, he said he was not going to fill out his Census form, and if a Census worker came to the door, he said he would “pull out my wife’s shotgun and see how that little twerp likes being scared at the door.” So my question is, do those remarks concern the White House? And are there any –

ROBERT GIBBS:  It should concern CNN — probably first and foremost. Probably concerns his wife as well.

PRESS:  Any thoughts about protection for Census workers?

GIBBS:  Well, I think there are a lot of people that get on cable TV and say stuff so that people will quote it back to other people.

Obviously, the census determines the representation you have in what we call a representative democracy.  I think it's why somebody like Karl Rove, who obviously I and others in this administration have disagreed with for going on many years, understands that the lunacy of ripping up your census form or not sending it in or, God forbid, the remarkable crazy remarks of somebody that would threaten somebody simply trying to ensure that they're adequately represented in this country.

First of all, Erickson did not say "he was not going to fill out his Census form," as Press claimed. In fact, during the same segment (full audio), he said the following:

Come on, people. It’s a Constitutional obligation. How can a 21st  century society function without knowing how many people are actually living in the country, legally versus illegally for that matter? What’s the harm with filling out the census? The Constitution — for those of you who say I’m not filling out the c — it’s in the freaking Constitution. You got to fill out your census.

Erickson's shotgun comment was referring to the American Community Survey, which the Weekly Standard's Daniel Friedman has described as "downright Orwellian."

It's quite telling that Press quoted Erickson as saying "pull out my wife’s shotgun and see how that little twerp likes being scared at the door." He actually said "pull out my wife’s shotgun and see how that little ACS twerp likes being scared at the door."

Leaving "ACS" out of the quote allowed Press to paint Erickson as one of those Census conspiracy theorists and as generally and vehemently opposed to any effort by the federal government to record information about its citizens.

(In addition to Press, the Washington Post's Right Now blog attributed this quote to Erickson without "ACS" included. The audio clearly demonstrates that Erickson did say "ACS twerp". The Post should issue a correction.)

In fact, he had just finished making fun of those wackos -- and the New World Order conspiracy theories to which they generally ascribe -- when he made the "shotgun" comment. So either Press didn't listen to the segment he was criticizing, or he was being completely dishonest.

Press also misleadingly called Erickson "a commentator for CNN" when he neither made the comments in question on the cable network, nor does the majority of his reporting there. Was Press was trying to hurt Erickson's standing with the CNN? Perhaps he still harbors some ill-will towards the cable network that canned him.

Of course Gibbs was more than happy to play along with his fellow Democrat and perpetuate the dual myths that Erickson made these comments on CNN and advocated "ripping up" Census forms or in any way avoiding the Census.

But Gibbs can be excused for not knowing the facts. He had no obligation to know what Erickson said going into that briefing. Press did have that obligation -- at least if he was determined to bring it up -- and he failed miserably to meet it.

The producer's article, simply titled "Reporter's notebook: What really happens at Tea Party rallies," recounted what he saw during five days of the Tea Party Express's convoy across the nation. He first summarized the slant often found in the media's coverage of the conservative protests: "Here's what you often see in the coverage of Tea Party rallies: offensive posters blasting President Obama and Democratic leaders; racist rhetoric spewed from what seems to be a largely white, male audience; and angry protesters rallying around the Constitution."

After recounting the alleged racial incidents against Representatives John Lewis and Emanuel Cleaver, Travis contrasted the stereotype with what he actually observed: "But here's what you don't often see in the coverage of Tea Party rallies: Patriotic signs professing a love for country; mothers and fathers with their children; African-Americans proudly participating; and senior citizens bopping to a hip-hop rapper."

Later in the article, the CNN producer recounted what the Tea Party Express rallies look like when the cameras are off and/or aren't looking:

Together, we beamed out images of the anger and the optimism, profiled African-Americans who are proud to be in the Tea Party's minority and showed activists stirred by "God Bless America" or amused by a young rapper who strung together rhymes against the president and Democrats....

Being at a Tea Party rally is not quite like seeing it on TV, in newspapers or online....It is important to show the colorful anger Americans might have against elected leaders and Washington. But people should also see the orange-vested Tea Party hospitality handlers who welcome you with colorful smiles.

There were a few signs that could be seen as offensive to African-Americans. But by and large, no one I spoke with or I heard from on stage said anything that was approaching racist.

Almost everyone I met was welcoming to this African-American television news producer.

And though speakers railed against the "lame-stream media," activists and their leaders praised CNN, especially for being the only national media outlet riding along for the post-weekend stops. Some of them e-mailed me after my trip, thanking our crew for fairly giving them a voice.

Speaking of stereotypes, I did get a few curious stares as I pulled up to the rallies. But not because of my skin color. It was because of my car rental: a Volvo....

...[S]tereotypes can loom large when they're magnified through a television lens, on the radio, the pages of a newspaper or in the vastness of the Internet.

So, it's important that with a newsworthy, growing phenomenon like the Tea Party movement, viewers and readers fully understand what they see and what they don't.

Travis's article is a welcome breath of fresh air, especially when you consider that it was former CNN correspondent Susan Roesgen who lashed out at an early point against the Tea Party movement a year ago in April 2009.

[H/t: NewsBusters reader Dan Stirling]

White concludes so because Obama is getting flak from allies on his left and critics on his right. 

While it's true that in that sense, Obama is in the middle of criticism from both sides, in a broader historical sense, Obama is forsaking a post-Cold War bipartisan consensus on nuclear policy, hardly a "middle of the road" policy that tinkers around the edges.

Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Keith Payne explains the "Disarmament Danger" in the April 22 print edition of National Review (emphases mine):

The Obama administration has placed nuclear disarmament at the top of its foreign-policy agenda. Other possible goals, such as modernizing U.S. nuclear forces for deterrence purposes, are now considered either transitory or subordinate to taking steps toward “nuclear zero.” In itself, banning nuclear weapons is not a new U.S. goal; Ronald Reagan also supported it. But this prioritization is unprecedented.

In the past, Republican and Democratic administrations have maintained a balance between the parallel goals of modernizing U.S. nuclear programs for deterrence and pursuing nuclear-arms reductions when feasible. This balancing act can be seen in the Clinton administration’s policy of “lead and hedge,” which sought to lead in the reduction of nuclear arms while hedging against threats by sustaining a robust nuclear arsenal. Indeed, in pursuit of this balance, the Clinton administration successfully did what the Obama administration has now declared verboten in the push for nuclear zero: It developed and deployed new nuclear capabilities deemed necessary for deterrence. 

The George W. Bush administration sought to maintain a similar balance. It successfully negotiated the 2002 Moscow Treaty, which reduced U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear forces from approximately 6,000 to approximately 2,000 deployed nuclear weapons each. This two-thirds reduction was the largest in history.

The moral here is that in pursuit of a balanced nuclear policy, the Clinton administration did not ignore the need to advance U.S. nuclear-deterrence capabilities, and — despite the revisionist history now in play — the Bush administration was willing to embrace deep nuclear-force reductions.

Why should we be wary of the Obama administration’s shift away from this traditional, balanced dual track? Because nuclear zero cannot be achieved unilaterally, or even bilaterally. It will require many countries to make the strategic decision that nuclear weapons are unnecessary for their security. And despite the warm rhetoric inspired by the nuclear-zero vision, much of the rest of the world — including U.S. allies, friends, and foes — sees great continuing value in nuclear weapons.

For example, some close allies with centuries of painful experience recall the old non-nuclear world as a destroyer of nations. There were no nuclear weapons to deter those bent on war in 1914 and 1939. The result: approximately 40 million casualties in World War I, and 50 to 70 million casualties in World War II. This contrasts sharply with the decades since 1945, in which another such war did not erupt despite multiple crises and titanic conflicts.

The rapid succession of two world wars during the first part of the 20th century, and the absence of a third world war during the subsequent nuclear era, demonstrates in the most dramatic way possible the great deterrent value of nuclear weapons. Indeed, after centuries of annual slaughter, the percentage of the world’s population lost to war each year dropped dramatically with the onset of nuclear deterrence. Former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher poignantly observed that the casualties of World Wars I and II are silent testimony to this fact: “There are monuments to the futility of conventional deterrence in every village in Europe.” 

Given the broader historical context of U.S. nuclear deterrance policy, it's incredibly short-sighted and lazy of Newsweek, among other mainstream media outlets like the Washington Post, to simply chalk up Obama's NPR as "middle of the road" just because there is dovish objection on Obama's left and hawkish objection on his right or because Bush-appointed Secretary of Defense Robert Gates approves of the new policy.

The implications of such an historic policy shift deserve much more attention and debate. 

To that end, National Review has devoted an "NRO Symposium" to the question "Will the president’s new policy shift make America more or less secure?" Six defense policy experts answered that question for National Review here.

If you think the felony conviction is a more condemnable offense for a political candidate, you may want to give up your dream job as a Huffington Post columnist. In the bizarre world of Arianna Huffington, the master's thesis is apparently the more reprehensible offense.

HuffPo columnists relentlessly attacked now-Va. Governor Bob McDonnell for his "frightening" views on marriage and the family as expressed in his 1989 thesis. But lefty blogger Tim Russo, who is running for office in Cleveland, is just the victim of local media that "want him to pay for [his felony conviction] for the rest of his life," presumably by suggesting that soliciting sex from a minor demonstrates a lack of judgment unbecoming a public servant.

I know, really radical stuff.

HuffPo columnist Howie Klein wrote today,

Russo has the sort of leadership experience Cuyahoga County desperately needs at this dangerous, hopeful crossroads. But local media are doing their best to scuttle his campaign before it really begins. Why? Because in November 2001 he solicited sex from an FBI agent posing online as a minor and was made Pervert of the Day for an entire 24-hour news cycle. Local media want him to pay for that for the rest of his life.

"It's time to no longer be defined by our mistakes," says Russo. "This new legislature, in my own hometown, needs precisely the experience I can deliver, and I'm not going to let a stupid mistake I made almost a decade ago stop me from trying to deliver it. Not for one second."

Anyone tuned into Rust Belt politics learned about Russo's conviction long ago -- if not on the day of the arrest in 2001, then years later when Russo posted honest, revealing and specific details about the event and his life after it on his blog. He has never hidden from the charges, admitting it was the biggest mistake of his life. He never bothered to have it expunged.

Instead, Russo took some old Kennedy advice and hung a light on his problem, remaining transparent about it and trying to make up for it in his actions, in his efforts to make his city, country, and his world a better place in which to live.

Media coverage of Russo's candidacy in Cleveland has focused almost solely on the titillating nature of Russo's 9 year old "news."  On March 1, Channel 3/NBC investigative reporter Tom Meyer called his story, which was essentially based on Russo's own blog, an "exclusive." Cleveland's daily paper, the Plain Dealer, ran an article several days later that again rehashed the circumstances of his arrest nine years ago -- they even published the original prosecutor's notes and transcripts from the case online, a decision which led to persistent death threats.

The local media are rehashing Russo's felony conviction now that he is running for office? Oh, the horror! Who do they think they are to bring up a felony conviction from nine years ago. It's not like he wrote a politically incorrect master's thesis two decades ago. That, by HuffPo's standards, would qualify him for media scrutiny and derision.

Columnist Cecile Richards wrote for HuffPo last September,

While this thinking [evinced in McDonnell's master's thesis] is pretty frightening, most frightening is that Bob McDonnell is now leading in the Virginia polls. Like other extreme-right candidates, Bob McDonnell is working hard to distance himself from his voting record, public statements and actions, and now, his dissertation at Regent.

Polls indicate that Virginia women can and likely will make the difference in this election and their votes are very much up for grabs. Senator Creigh Deeds, 100 percent pro-women's health and 100 percent pro-working women, is gaining ground. Despite Bob McDonnell's predictions, working women have not been responsible for the demise of American society, but women may very well be responsible for the end of McDonnell's political career.

Not so much.

Very strange that none of the website's columnists consider Russo's crime "frightening," or grounds for the end of his career. Quite the opposite, actually.

HuffPo also lent its megaphone to Virginia's Democratic candidate for Lt. Governor, Jody Wagner, who wrote, "The Associated Press wrote that the discovery of these statements by Bob McDonnell has the potential to 'shake up [this] race.' Together, we can make sure that it does."

And yet, HuffPo writers are now complaining that the discovery of damning facts about Russo is somehow unfair or promoting an illegitimate objection to his candidacy. Very strange, indeed.

Erick Erickson wrote at RedState,

If you search the entire article, one word is left out — one crucial, vital, relevant word. Can you guess what it is?

Felony.

Tim Russo was charged with and convicted of being a felony sex offender, charged with importuning (a fancy way of soliciting sex with a minor), attempted disseminating matter harmful to a juvenile, and possessing criminal tools.

Yeah one little detail — how could they ever have forgotten to put that in. But it’s okay. Russo wants everyone to know he did not have to register as a child predator. Seriously.

So because he did not have to register as a child predator, it is okay now? It is okay to serve in elected office?...

Sadly we are forced to take these people seriously simply because they are so unserious — what is good is bad and what is bad is good. Up is down and down is up.

Yes, the strange standards of the Huffington Post have the power to confuse even the most level-headed voters. 'Sexist Bob McDonnell bad. Sex offender Tim Russo good.' Bizarre.

"Helen Thomas," reported Lloyd Grove for the Daily Beast, "is worried that all the downsizing at media outlets will result in less-reliable coverage of the president." Thomas went on to lament the rise of new media as a viable alternative to traditional journalism.

With all due respect to Thomas and her distinguished career as a reporter, it is not at all clear that someone with views as liberal as hers -- placing her as they do well outside the mainstream of American political opinion -- is at all preferable an intermediary to a pajama-clad blogger or iPhone photographer.

The ability of non-credentialed citizen-journalists to report the news for themselves can potentially put an end to media gatekeepers who consistently side with the liberal left. For her part, Thomas has vehemently denied any liberal bent in the White House Press Corps, despite tremendous evidence to the contrary.

Thomas lamented a loss in "accountability," but who keeps Old Media accountable? She specifically targeted bloggers, saying,

They can ruin lives, reputations, and once you send something into the air, it’s going to land, and there’s nothing that can curb them from saying anything they want. Everybody with a laptop thinks they’re a journalist, and everybody with a cellphone thinks they’re a photographer.

And all those with printing presses and Columbia journalism degrees think they are entitled to a monopoly on information.

Sorry Helen, but according to the Pew Research Center only 29 percent of Americans believe that the press generally gets its facts straight. Only 26 percent believe the press is politically objective. An institution with such abysmal standing in the eyes of the public cannot credibly claim to be satisfying an indispensable social and political need.

Of course, 70 percent also think journalists try to cover up their mistakes, so Thomas's denial is predictable.

If anything, new media journalists must hold themselves to a higher standard if they wish to be successful. In general, they must start from a state of obscurity and build relationships with an audience. They are not granted an air of legitimacy simply by their existence.

As White House correspondent Bill Plante told Grove, the people who get "the decent information" are "the people who rely on trusted filters, whether they’re online or on the air."

There are still "trusted filters" among the tattered remains of the legacy of Cronkite and Murrow. But citizen journalists working with laptops and smartphones have to prove they are trusted filters. Old Media is consistently demonstrating that it comprises fewer of those every day, and Americans are turning to the alternative.

That is a fact to be rejoiced, not bemoaned.

New York attorney Eric Terkewitz told his blog's readers on April 1 that he had been hired as the White House's "official law blogger." Unlike the political bloggers at which the stunt was aimed, the New York Times apparently did not check the claim, and posted the story to its website.

The incident serves as a reminder that, as journos like to say, "if your mother says she loves you, check it out."

The Times wrote on its City Room blog last week,

...After all, as Mr. Turkewitz, a Manhattan lawyer, writes on his New York Personal Injury Law Blog, he is about to be sounding off on all manner of legal issues as the Obama administration's new White House law blogger.

"Excited about new blogging gig as White House law blogger," he tweeted this morning. "But hope I don't have to spend too much time in D.C."

Spoken like a true New Yorker.

The passage has since been taken down.

Turkewitz admitted the jest the next day, and revealed his motivations for writing it.

The basic idea was this: A bunch of law bloggers would try to punk the political bloggers, whose reputation is to grab any old rumor and run with it. Fact checking hasn't always been the strong suit of this community.

But the political bloggers, to their collective credit, didn't bite, despite wide dissemination of the story. Not on the right or the left. Instead it was the vaunted New York Times that ran with the story without bothering to check its facts. The Times, of course, had no sense of humor about it when the angry phone call came to me a couple of hours later...

At 4:45, I received a phone call from an infuriated "Andy Newman" from the New York Times demanding to know if this was an April Fool's joke. Unlike the classy Ashby Jones, Newman had zero sense of humor and demanded that I answer "as an officer of the court" or he would pull the post down.

I tried not to laugh, and told him that due to concerns in the White House about me jumping the gun on the story (as per Orin Kerr's post @ Volokh), I really shouldn't say anything and would clear it up tomorrow. This clearly wasn't good enough for him as he hung up on me, and down came the NYT post. The Times, I guess, doesn't like being punked on April Fool's Day.

Next time, perhaps, they will fact check April 1st stories involving small-time law bloggers suddenly becoming White House law bloggers. Next time.

Maybe Old Media will take this faux pas into consideration the next time it derides "Drudge-driven journalism." Maybe. Regardless, this incident is a cautionary tale for everyone, MSM or otherwise.

Of course, the term Easter Mass would connote a Catholic liturgical celebration, but the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) is a thoroughly Protestant denomination, as its articles of faith Web page makes clear.

For a closer look at the media's treatment of Obama's Easter church visit, check out this excellent post by Mollie Z. Hemingway of GetReligion.org.

Tuesday, a brick was thrown though a window at the Republican Party's headquarters in Marion, Ohio, 50 miles north of Columbus. 

It would appear fans of Gateway Pundit would be about the only ones outside the local area who would know this. Virtually no other establishment media outlet has been involved in reporting on this incident. Meanwhile, the fact that a window was broken at Hamilton County, Ohio's Democratic headquarters was reported nationwide.

Here are portions of the coverage at the Marion Star:

'Stop right wing' is message to local GOP
Delivered via brick through HQ window

Two Republican party officials were shocked to hear someone had thrown a brick through a window at their headquarters downtown — with a message directed at stopping conservatism.

"Stop the right wing," was written in purple ink on a piece of notebook paper.

"The bottom was torn off of it, maybe like they made a mistake or something when they were writing it the first time," said Kenneth Stiverson, president of the Marion County Republican Club.

Employees at the law offices next door to the headquarters, at 114 S. Main St., called party members to let them know the window had been broken Tuesday.

Police were called and took the brick and note as evidence.

Stiverson said he didn't think people in Marion would do such a thing. Republican party members who were helping to clean up found the note after they found the brick.

... "I'm a little concerned with regard to the message it sends out, especially to the young people getting involved in politics," he (Marion County Republican Central Committee Chairman John Matthews) said. "I thought Marion was above that. So much for the free flow of ideas and ideologies."

It may cost more than $600 to fix the window, Stiverson said.

Meanwhile, it's been patched with duct tape.

"We've never had anything like this happen before. In that part of town sometimes people will wiggle on the doors and try to get in, but we never had any vandalism before," Matthews said.

The story says that the Associated Press contributed to the report. The AP may have reported the item to area outlets, but a search at the AP's main site on "Marion" returns nothing relating to the brick throw.

A Google News search on "Marion brick (not in quotes) returns the Marion Star story as the only relevant link. Columbus Dispatch searches return nothing for "Marion brick" and "Marion GOP" (both not in quotes).

The double standard in reporting couldn't be more obvious.