Michelle Malkin
Encyclopedia
Michelle Malkin is an American conservative blogger, political commentator, and author. Her weekly syndicated
column
appears in a number of newspapers and websites. She is a Fox News Channel
contributor and has been a guest on MSNBC
, C-SPAN
, and national radio programs. Malkin has written four books published by Regnery Publishing
.
to Philippine citizens
Rafaela (née Perez) – a homemaker and teacher – and Apolo DeCastro Maglalang, who was then a physician-in-training. Several months prior to Malkin's birth, her parents had immigrated to the United States on an employer-sponsored visa. After her father finished his medical training, the family moved to Absecon, New Jersey. Malkin has a younger brother. She has described her parents as Reagan
Republicans
who were "not incredibly politically active".
Malkin was raised a Roman Catholic, and remains one to this day. She attended Holy Spirit Roman Catholic High School, where she edited the school newspaper and aspired to become a concert pianist
. Following her graduation in 1988, she enrolled at Oberlin College
. Malkin originally planned to pursue a bachelor's degree
in music
, but changed her major to English. During her college years, she worked as a press inserter, tax preparation aide, and network news librarian. While attending Oberlin, Malkin began writing for an independent, right-of-center student newspaper that was started by Jesse Dylan Malkin, a fellow student. Her first article for the paper heavily criticized Oberlin's affirmative action
program, and received a "hugely negative response" from other students on campus. She graduated in 1992, and later described her alma mater as "radically left-wing".
, working as a columnist from 1992 to 1994. In 1995, she worked in Washington, D.C.
, as a journalism fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute
, a free-market, anti-government regulation, libertarian
think tank
In 1996, she moved to Seattle, Washington, where she wrote columns for The Seattle Times
. Malkin became a nationally-syndicated
columnist
with Creators Syndicate
in 1999.
For many years, Malkin was a frequent commentator for Fox News Channel
and a regular guest host of The O'Reilly Factor
. In 2007, she announced that she would not return to The O'Reilly Factor, claiming that Fox News had mishandled a dispute over derogatory statements made about her by Geraldo Rivera
in a Boston Globe
interview. Since 2007, she has concentrated on her writing, blogging and public speaking, although she still appears on television occasionally, especially with Sean Hannity on Fox News and Fox & Friends
once a week. In December 2009, Malkin began writing for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat
.
In August 2004, following claims by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth
that presidential candidate John Kerry
had exaggerated his record during the Vietnam War
, Malkin appeared on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews
and stated that there were "legitimate questions" over whether Kerry's wounds were "self-inflicted". When host Chris Matthews asked her eleven times whether she meant Kerry had shot himself on purpose, she dodged the question, but ultimately said that other soldiers had made this claim. Malkin criticized Matthews and the MSNBC staff in her blog the following day. Georgia Senator Zell Miller
accused Matthews of "browbeating" Malkin.
.
described Malkin as one of the five "best-read national conservative bloggers", and Technorati
ranks MichelleMalkin.com consistently in its "Top 100 blogs of all types". The people search company PeekYou
claims Malkin has the largest digital footprint of any political blogger.
After Malkin criticized hip hop artist Akon
for "degrading women" in a Vent episode, Akon's record label
, Universal Music Group
, forced YouTube
to remove the video by issuing a DMCA
takedown notice, but decided to retract this notice after the Electronic Frontier Foundation
joined Malkin and Hot Air in contesting the removal as a misuse of copyright law.
In an interview with BusinessWeek magazine in July 2007, Malkin said, "We’re doing what few other blogs can do. We serve up terabytes of bandwidth... I'm shelling out for gold-plated servers. That's expensive, and we want to be able to withstand huge traffic surges."
She continued to contribute frequently to MichelleMalkin.com, and in June 2007, she revamped it, moving it to a larger server on WordPress
. With the new redesign, she re-enabled comments on her blog, which she said she had disallowed after February 2005 due to a high level of obscene and racist comments. Subscribed readers could once again post comments, although registration for the comments is rarely open. Malkin states her policy thus: "I may allow as much or as little opportunity for registration as I choose, in my absolute discretion, and I may close particular comment threads."
in over 60 stories about the Iraq war. The controversy started in November 2006 when the AP reported that six Iraqis had been burned alive as they left a mosque and that four mosques had been destroyed, citing Hussein as one of its sources. In January 2007, Malkin visited Baghdad, and stated, "the Iraqi Ministry of Interior says disputed Associated Press source Jamil Hussein does exist. At least one story he told the AP just doesn’t check out: The Sunni mosques that as Hussein claimed and AP reported as 'destroyed,' 'torched' and 'burned and blown up' are all still standing. So the credibility of every AP story relying on Jamil Hussein remains dubious." Malkin has issued a correction for her denial of Capt. Hussein's existence
, staged a protest against the presence of military recruiters on campus, and sent out a press release containing contact details (names, phone numbers and e-mail addresses) of three student leaders for use by reporters. Malkin included these contact details in a blog column entitled "Seditious Santa Cruz vs. America". Malkin claimed the contact information was originally taken from SAW's own website, but that later SAW had removed it and had "wiped" the "cached version". The students asked Malkin to remove the contact details from her blog, but Malkin reposted them several times writing in her blog: "I am leaving it up. If you are contacting them, I do not condone death threats or foul language. As for SAW, my message is this: You are responsible for your individual actions. Other individuals are responsible for theirs. Grow up and take responsibility."
SAW remarked: "Due to the continued irresponsible actions of some bloggers, members of the group have received numerous death threats and anti-Semitic comments through phone calls and emails." A blog war ensued. Malkin claimed that she received hostile e-mails then her private home address, phone number, photos of her neighborhood and maps to her house were published on several websites. The Santa Cruz Sentinel
reported receiving an email from Malkin saying that this forced her to remove one of her children from school and move her family.
Another controversy involving private addresses began on July 1, 2006, when Malkin and other bloggers commented on a New York Times
Travel section article that had featured the town where Vice President Dick Cheney
and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
owned summer homes. The article included a picture of Rumsfeld's long tree-lined driveway that showed a birdhouse and small portion of the housefront. Malkin declared that this story was part of "a concerted, organized effort to dig up and publicize the private home information of prominent conservatives in the media and blogosphere to intimidate them".
, a "conservative Internet broadcast network" went into operation, with Malkin as founder/CEO. She intended the blog to provide "content and analysis you can't get anywhere else on a daily basis–both on the blog and in our original video features". Her staffers included 'Allahpundit' and Bryan Preston, though the latter was replaced by Ed Morrissey
on February 25, 2008. In February 2010, Hotair.com was bought by Salem Communications
and is no longer administered by Malkin.
" is a term used by illegal immigration reductionists, among others, in the United States
to describe a child born in the U.S. to illegal aliens
. delivered by illegal aliens on American soil, undermines the integrity of citizenship. She argues that the custom of blanket birthright citizenship is supported neither by the Fourteenth Amendment
nor by legal precedent.
, in which local authorities do not enforce all national immigration law
s or coordinate with agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(ICE). Following the August 2007 execution-style murder of three college students in Newark, New Jersey
, she repeated her criticisms of politicians' posture towards sanctuary cities. In particular, she criticized former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani's
proposal for a tamper-proof identification card with this comment:
She supports coordination with federal authorities through the use of Section 287(g)
of the IIRIRA
to investigate, detain, and arrest aliens on civil and criminal grounds. Malkin supports the detention and deportation of some immigrants, regardless of legal status, on national security grounds.
on August 2, 2009, she explained why she opposed another 13-week extension of unemployment benefits: "if you put enough government cheese in front of people they are going to just keep eating it and kicking the can down the road... people will just delay getting a job until the three weeks before the benefits run out."
They married in 1993, and have two children. Jesse worked as an associate policy analyst and economist
focusing on healthcare issues for the RAND Corporation. In 2004, Malkin reported on her website that Jesse had left a "lucrative health-care consulting job" to be a stay-at-home dad.
In 2006, Malkin gave a lecture at Oberlin College discussing racism, among other topics. She refuted allegations that she had been insensitive to the "plight of minorities" by listing several racial epithets that had been used against her, and by relating a lesson she learned from her mother for which she is "eternally grateful". After returning home in tears because kindergarten classmates had called her a racist name, Malkin said her mother comforted her and told her "everyone has prejudice".
The family lived in North Bethesda, Maryland
, but relocated to Colorado Springs, Colorado
in November 2008.
Print syndication
Print syndication distributes news articles, columns, comic strips and other features to newspapers, magazines and websites. They offer reprint rights and grant permissions to other parties for republishing content of which they own/represent copyrights....
column
Column (newspaper)
A column is a recurring piece or article in a newspaper, magazine or other publication. Columns are written by columnists.What differentiates a column from other forms of journalism is that it meets each of the following criteria:...
appears in a number of newspapers and websites. She is a Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel , often called Fox News, is a cable and satellite television news channel owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of News Corporation...
contributor and has been a guest on MSNBC
MSNBC
MSNBC is a cable news channel based in the United States available in the US, Germany , South Africa, the Middle East and Canada...
, C-SPAN
C-SPAN
C-SPAN , an acronym for Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network, is an American cable television network that offers coverage of federal government proceedings and other public affairs programming via its three television channels , one radio station and a group of websites that provide streaming...
, and national radio programs. Malkin has written four books published by Regnery Publishing
Regnery Publishing
Regnery Publishing in Washington, D.C., is a publisher which specializes in conservative books characterized on their website as "contrary to those of 'mainstream' publishers in New York." Since 1993, Regnery Publishing has been a division of Eagle Publishing, which also owns the weekly magazine...
.
Early life
Malkin was born in Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaPennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
to Philippine citizens
Philippine nationality law
Philippine Nationality Law is currently based upon the principles of jus sanguinis and therefore descent from a parent who is a citizen/national of the Republic of the Philippines is the primary method of acquiring Philippine citizenship...
Rafaela (née Perez) – a homemaker and teacher – and Apolo DeCastro Maglalang, who was then a physician-in-training. Several months prior to Malkin's birth, her parents had immigrated to the United States on an employer-sponsored visa. After her father finished his medical training, the family moved to Absecon, New Jersey. Malkin has a younger brother. She has described her parents as Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
Republicans
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
who were "not incredibly politically active".
Malkin was raised a Roman Catholic, and remains one to this day. She attended Holy Spirit Roman Catholic High School, where she edited the school newspaper and aspired to become a concert pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...
. Following her graduation in 1988, she enrolled at Oberlin College
Oberlin College
Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio, noteworthy for having been the first American institution of higher learning to regularly admit female and black students. Connected to the college is the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the oldest continuously operating...
. Malkin originally planned to pursue a bachelor's degree
Bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
in music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
, but changed her major to English. During her college years, she worked as a press inserter, tax preparation aide, and network news librarian. While attending Oberlin, Malkin began writing for an independent, right-of-center student newspaper that was started by Jesse Dylan Malkin, a fellow student. Her first article for the paper heavily criticized Oberlin's affirmative action
Affirmative action
Affirmative action refers to policies that take factors including "race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation or national origin" into consideration in order to benefit an underrepresented group, usually as a means to counter the effects of a history of discrimination.-Origins:The term...
program, and received a "hugely negative response" from other students on campus. She graduated in 1992, and later described her alma mater as "radically left-wing".
Career
Malkin began her journalism career at the Los Angeles Daily NewsLos Angeles Daily News
The Los Angeles Daily News is the second-largest circulating daily newspaper of Los Angeles, California. It is the flagship of the Los Angeles Newspaper Group, a branch of Colorado-based MediaNews Group....
, working as a columnist from 1992 to 1994. In 1995, she worked in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, as a journalism fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute
Competitive Enterprise Institute
The Competitive Enterprise Institute is a non-profit think tank founded on March 9, 1984 in Washington, D.C. by lobbyist Fred L. Smith, Jr to advance economic liberty and fight over-regulation by big government...
, a free-market, anti-government regulation, libertarian
Libertarianism
Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
think tank
Think tank
A think tank is an organization that conducts research and engages in advocacy in areas such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, and technology issues. Most think tanks are non-profit organizations, which some countries such as the United States and Canada provide with tax...
In 1996, she moved to Seattle, Washington, where she wrote columns for The Seattle Times
The Seattle Times
The Seattle Times is a newspaper serving Seattle, Washington, US. It is the largest daily newspaper in the state of Washington. It has been, since the demise in 2009 of the printed version of the rival Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Seattle's only major daily print newspaper.-History:The Seattle Times...
. Malkin became a nationally-syndicated
Print syndication
Print syndication distributes news articles, columns, comic strips and other features to newspapers, magazines and websites. They offer reprint rights and grant permissions to other parties for republishing content of which they own/represent copyrights....
columnist
Columnist
A columnist is a journalist who writes for publication in a series, creating an article that usually offers commentary and opinions. Columns appear in newspapers, magazines and other publications, including blogs....
with Creators Syndicate
Creators Syndicate
Creators Syndicate is an independent distributor of comic strips and syndicated columns for daily newspapers. It was founded in 1987 by Richard S. Newcombe, and is based in Los Angeles. Creators was one of the first syndicates to allow its clients to maintain creative control of their material...
in 1999.
For many years, Malkin was a frequent commentator for Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel , often called Fox News, is a cable and satellite television news channel owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of News Corporation...
and a regular guest host of The O'Reilly Factor
The O'Reilly Factor
The O'Reilly Factor, originally titled The O'Reilly Report from 1996 to 1998 and often called The Factor, is an American talk show on the Fox News Channel hosted by commentator Bill O'Reilly, who often discusses current controversial political issues with guests.The program was the most watched...
. In 2007, she announced that she would not return to The O'Reilly Factor, claiming that Fox News had mishandled a dispute over derogatory statements made about her by Geraldo Rivera
Geraldo Rivera
Geraldo Rivera is an American attorney, journalist, author, reporter, and former talk show host...
in a Boston Globe
The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...
interview. Since 2007, she has concentrated on her writing, blogging and public speaking, although she still appears on television occasionally, especially with Sean Hannity on Fox News and Fox & Friends
Fox & Friends
Fox & Friends is an American morning television show on the Fox News Channel.-History:The show begins at 6:00 a.m. Eastern Time with the latest Fox News Live headlines and analyzes the news of the morning...
once a week. In December 2009, Malkin began writing for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat
St. Louis Globe-Democrat
The St. Louis Globe-Democrat was originally a daily print newspaper based in St. Louis, Missouri from 1852 until 1986...
.
In August 2004, following claims by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth
Swift Vets and POWs for Truth
Swift Vets and POWs for Truth, formerly known as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth , was a political group of United States Swift boat veterans and former prisoners of war of the Vietnam War, formed during the 2004 presidential election campaign for the purpose of opposing John Kerry's candidacy...
that presidential candidate John Kerry
John Kerry
John Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to former President George W...
had exaggerated his record during the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
, Malkin appeared on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews
Hardball with Chris Matthews
Hardball with Chris Matthews is a talk show on MSNBC, broadcast weekdays at 5 and 7 PM hosted by Chris Matthews. It originally aired on now-defunct America's Talking and later CNBC. The current title was derived from a book Matthews wrote in 1988, Hardball: How Politics Is Played Told by One Who...
and stated that there were "legitimate questions" over whether Kerry's wounds were "self-inflicted". When host Chris Matthews asked her eleven times whether she meant Kerry had shot himself on purpose, she dodged the question, but ultimately said that other soldiers had made this claim. Malkin criticized Matthews and the MSNBC staff in her blog the following day. Georgia Senator Zell Miller
Zell Miller
Zell Bryan Miller is an American politician from the US state of Georgia. A Democrat, Miller served as Lieutenant Governor from 1975 to 1991, 79th Governor of Georgia from 1991 to 1999, and as United States Senator from 2000 to 2005....
accused Matthews of "browbeating" Malkin.
Books
Malkin has written four books, all published by Regnery PublishingRegnery Publishing
Regnery Publishing in Washington, D.C., is a publisher which specializes in conservative books characterized on their website as "contrary to those of 'mainstream' publishers in New York." Since 1993, Regnery Publishing has been a division of Eagle Publishing, which also owns the weekly magazine...
.
- Her first book, Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign MenacesInvasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign MenacesInvasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces to Our Shores is a 2002 book written by political commentator and author Michelle Malkin. In it, she states that the U.S...
(2002) was a New York Times bestseller.
- In 2004, she wrote In Defense of Internment: The Case for 'Racial Profiling' in World War II and the War on TerrorIn Defense of InternmentIn Defense of Internment: The Case for 'Racial Profiling' in World War II and the War on Terror is a 2004 book written by conservative American political commentator Michelle Malkin...
, defending the U.S. government's internmentJapanese American internmentJapanese-American internment was the relocation and internment by the United States government in 1942 of approximately 110,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese who lived along the Pacific coast of the United States to camps called "War Relocation Camps," in the wake of Imperial Japan's attack on...
of 112,000 Japanese Americans in prison camps during World War IIWorld War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, and arguing that the same procedures could be used on Arab- and MuslimMuslimA Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
-Americans today. The book engendered harsh criticism from several Asian AmericanAsian AmericanAsian Americans are Americans of Asian descent. The U.S. Census Bureau definition of Asians as "Asian” refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent, including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan,...
civil rights organizations. The "Historians' Committee for Fairness", a group of professors, condemned the book for not having undergone peer reviewPeer reviewPeer review is a process of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards, improve performance and provide credibility...
and argued that its central thesis is false. As a result of the controversy, the Hawaii-based newspaper MidWeekMidweekMidWeek is a weekly United States tabloid shopper and advertisement periodical published in Honolulu, Hawaii and distributed throughout on the Islands of Oahu and Kauai. It is owned by Black Press and is a sister publication of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.- History :The shopper started in 1984 to...
dropped her column in August 2004; The Virginian-PilotThe Virginian-PilotThe Virginian-Pilot is a daily newspaper based in Norfolk, Virginia, and serving the Hampton Roads metropolitan area, southeastern Virginia, the Eastern Shore of Virginia, and northeastern North Carolina. The flagship property of Landmark Media Enterprises, The Pilot is Virginia's largest daily...
called her "an Asian Ann CoulterAnn CoulterAnn Hart Coulter is an American lawyer, conservative social and political commentator, author, and syndicated columnist. She frequently appears on television, radio, and as a speaker at public events and private events...
" and dropped her column in November 2004. Malkin responded: "I'm not Asian, I'm American." and described the comparison to Coulter as "a compliment". Critics of Malkin's theory attempted to get the Manzanar National Historic SiteManzanarManzanar is most widely known as the site of one of ten camps where over 110,000 Japanese Americans were imprisoned during World War II. Located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada in California's Owens Valley between the towns of Lone Pine to the south and Independence to the north, it is...
, (a former relocation and internment camp), to ban her book from their store, but failed.
- Malkin's third book, Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone WildUnhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone WildUnhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild is a 2005 book by conservative author Michelle Malkin. It is published by Regnery Publishing...
, was released in October 2005.
- Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and CroniesCulture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and CroniesCulture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies is a book written by conservative author Michelle Malkin. The book claims that the Barack Obama administration has had dozens of instances of corruption...
, Malkin's fourth book, was released in July 2009 and was a The New York Times Non-Fiction, Hardcover Best Seller for six weeks. Malkin said she hoped the book would "shatter completely the myths of hope and change in the new politics in Washington", described the Obama administration as run by "influence peddlers, power brokers and very wealthy people," and called it "one of the most corrupt administrations in recent memory." She later discussed chapter two of the book, "Bitter Half: First Crony Michelle Obama", on NBC's Today show. She described Michelle ObamaMichelle ObamaMichelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama is the wife of the 44th and incumbent President of the United States, Barack Obama, and is the first African-American First Lady of the United States...
as "steeped in the politics of the Daley machine" and as having based her professional career on nepotism and old white boy network connections.
MichelleMalkin.com
In June 2004 she launched a political blog, MichelleMalkin.com. A 2007 memo from the National Republican Senatorial CommitteeNational Republican Senatorial Committee
The National Republican Senatorial Committee is the Republican Hill committee for the United States Senate, working to elect Republicans to that body. The NRSC was founded in 1916 as the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee...
described Malkin as one of the five "best-read national conservative bloggers", and Technorati
Technorati
Technorati is an Internet search engine for searching blogs. By June 2008, Technorati was indexing 112.8 million blogs and over 250 million pieces of tagged social media...
ranks MichelleMalkin.com consistently in its "Top 100 blogs of all types". The people search company PeekYou
PeekYou
PeekYou is a people search engine that indexes people and their links on the web. The name "PeekYou" is explained as a contraction of People and Seek. Founded in April 2006 by Michael Hussey , PeekYou claims to have indexed over 250 million people, mostly in the US and Canada...
claims Malkin has the largest digital footprint of any political blogger.
After Malkin criticized hip hop artist Akon
Akon
Aliaune Damala Badara Thiam, better known as simply Akon , is a Senegalese American R&B recording artist and songwriter.According to Forbes, Akon grossed $21 million in 2010, $20 million in 2009 and $12 million in 2008. He rose to prominence in 2004 following the release of "Locked Up", the first...
for "degrading women" in a Vent episode, Akon's record label
Record label
In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...
, Universal Music Group
Universal Music Group
Universal Music Group is an American music group, the largest of the "big four" record companies by its commanding market share and its multitude of global operations...
, forced YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
to remove the video by issuing a DMCA
Digital Millennium Copyright Act
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization . It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures that control access to...
takedown notice, but decided to retract this notice after the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is an international non-profit digital rights advocacy and legal organization based in the United States...
joined Malkin and Hot Air in contesting the removal as a misuse of copyright law.
In an interview with BusinessWeek magazine in July 2007, Malkin said, "We’re doing what few other blogs can do. We serve up terabytes of bandwidth... I'm shelling out for gold-plated servers. That's expensive, and we want to be able to withstand huge traffic surges."
She continued to contribute frequently to MichelleMalkin.com, and in June 2007, she revamped it, moving it to a larger server on WordPress
WordPress
WordPress is a free and open source blogging tool and publishing platform powered by PHP and MySQL. It is often customized into a content management system . It has many features including a plug-in architecture and a template system. WordPress is used by over 14.7% of Alexa Internet's "top 1...
. With the new redesign, she re-enabled comments on her blog, which she said she had disallowed after February 2005 due to a high level of obscene and racist comments. Subscribed readers could once again post comments, although registration for the comments is rarely open. Malkin states her policy thus: "I may allow as much or as little opportunity for registration as I choose, in my absolute discretion, and I may close particular comment threads."
Jamil Hussein
Malkin was one of several bloggers who questioned the credibility and even the existence of Iraqi police Captain "Jamil Hussein" who had been used as a source by the Associated PressAssociated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
in over 60 stories about the Iraq war. The controversy started in November 2006 when the AP reported that six Iraqis had been burned alive as they left a mosque and that four mosques had been destroyed, citing Hussein as one of its sources. In January 2007, Malkin visited Baghdad, and stated, "the Iraqi Ministry of Interior says disputed Associated Press source Jamil Hussein does exist. At least one story he told the AP just doesn’t check out: The Sunni mosques that as Hussein claimed and AP reported as 'destroyed,' 'torched' and 'burned and blown up' are all still standing. So the credibility of every AP story relying on Jamil Hussein remains dubious." Malkin has issued a correction for her denial of Capt. Hussein's existence
Students Against War controversy
In April 2006, Students Against War (SAW), a campus group at University of California, Santa CruzUniversity of California, Santa Cruz
The University of California, Santa Cruz, also known as UC Santa Cruz or UCSC, is a public, collegiate university; one of ten campuses in the University of California...
, staged a protest against the presence of military recruiters on campus, and sent out a press release containing contact details (names, phone numbers and e-mail addresses) of three student leaders for use by reporters. Malkin included these contact details in a blog column entitled "Seditious Santa Cruz vs. America". Malkin claimed the contact information was originally taken from SAW's own website, but that later SAW had removed it and had "wiped" the "cached version". The students asked Malkin to remove the contact details from her blog, but Malkin reposted them several times writing in her blog: "I am leaving it up. If you are contacting them, I do not condone death threats or foul language. As for SAW, my message is this: You are responsible for your individual actions. Other individuals are responsible for theirs. Grow up and take responsibility."
SAW remarked: "Due to the continued irresponsible actions of some bloggers, members of the group have received numerous death threats and anti-Semitic comments through phone calls and emails." A blog war ensued. Malkin claimed that she received hostile e-mails then her private home address, phone number, photos of her neighborhood and maps to her house were published on several websites. The Santa Cruz Sentinel
Santa Cruz Sentinel
The Santa Cruz Sentinel is a daily newspaper published in Santa Cruz, California, covering Santa Cruz County, California, and owned by MediaNews Group Inc....
reported receiving an email from Malkin saying that this forced her to remove one of her children from school and move her family.
Another controversy involving private addresses began on July 1, 2006, when Malkin and other bloggers commented on a New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
Travel section article that had featured the town where Vice President Dick Cheney
Dick Cheney
Richard Bruce "Dick" Cheney served as the 46th Vice President of the United States , under George W. Bush....
and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Henry Rumsfeld is an American politician and businessman. Rumsfeld served as the 13th Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford, and as the 21st Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2006 under President George W. Bush. He is both the youngest and the oldest person to...
owned summer homes. The article included a picture of Rumsfeld's long tree-lined driveway that showed a birdhouse and small portion of the housefront. Malkin declared that this story was part of "a concerted, organized effort to dig up and publicize the private home information of prominent conservatives in the media and blogosphere to intimidate them".
Hot Air
On April 24, 2006, Hot AirHot Air (news site)
Hot Air is a U.S. website providing news and commentary from a fiscally conservative and socially centrist point of view. It is written by Ed Morrissey, Tina Korbe and the pseudonymous Allahpundit and Jazz Shaw....
, a "conservative Internet broadcast network" went into operation, with Malkin as founder/CEO. She intended the blog to provide "content and analysis you can't get anywhere else on a daily basis–both on the blog and in our original video features". Her staffers included 'Allahpundit' and Bryan Preston, though the latter was replaced by Ed Morrissey
Ed Morrissey
Ed Morrissey is an American conservative blogger, columnist, motivational speaker, and talk show host.He goes by the nickname Captain Ed and he currently lives in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota....
on February 25, 2008. In February 2010, Hotair.com was bought by Salem Communications
Salem Communications
Salem Communications is a U.S. radio broadcaster, Internet content provider, and magazine and book publisher specializing in evangelical Christian and conservative political talk radio. It owns 99 commercial radio stations, 65 of which are in the top 25 markets. Salem is the fifth largest U.S....
and is no longer administered by Malkin.
Citizenship
Malkin believes that the custom of granting automatic citizenship at birth to children of tourists and temporary workers, and to "anchor babies""Anchor babyAnchor baby
"Anchor baby" is a pejorative term for a child born in the United States to immigrant parents, who, as an American citizen, supposedly can later facilitate immigration for relatives...
" is a term used by illegal immigration reductionists, among others, in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
to describe a child born in the U.S. to illegal aliens
Alien (law)
In law, an alien is a person in a country who is not a citizen of that country.-Categorization:Types of "alien" persons are:*An alien who is legally permitted to remain in a country which is foreign to him or her. On specified terms, this kind of alien may be called a legal alien of that country...
. delivered by illegal aliens on American soil, undermines the integrity of citizenship. She argues that the custom of blanket birthright citizenship is supported neither by the Fourteenth Amendment
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments.Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the Dred Scott v...
nor by legal precedent.
Immigration enforcement
Malkin also opposes sanctuary citiesSanctuary city
Sanctuary city is a term given to a city in the United States that follows certain practices that protect illegal immigrants. These practices can be by law or they can be by habit...
, in which local authorities do not enforce all national immigration law
Immigration law
Immigration law refers to national government policies which control the phenomenon of immigration to their country.Immigraton law, regarding foreign citizens, is related to nationality law, which governs the legal status of people, in matters such as citizenship...
s or coordinate with agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is a federal law enforcement agency under the United States Department of Homeland Security , responsible for identifying, investigating, and dismantling vulnerabilities regarding the nation's border, economic, transportation, and infrastructure security...
(ICE). Following the August 2007 execution-style murder of three college students in Newark, New Jersey
Newark, New Jersey
Newark is the largest city in the American state of New Jersey, and the seat of Essex County. As of the 2010 United States Census, Newark had a population of 277,140, maintaining its status as the largest municipality in New Jersey. It is the 68th largest city in the U.S...
, she repeated her criticisms of politicians' posture towards sanctuary cities. In particular, she criticized former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani's
Rudy Giuliani
Rudolph William Louis "Rudy" Giuliani KBE is an American lawyer, businessman, and politician from New York. He served as Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001....
proposal for a tamper-proof identification card with this comment:
She supports coordination with federal authorities through the use of Section 287(g)
Immigration and Nationality Act Section 287(g)
Immigration and Nationality Act Section 287, codified at , was added to the INA by section 133 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act...
of the IIRIRA
Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996
The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, Division C of vastly changed the immigration laws of the United States.This act states that if an immigrant has been unlawfully present in the United States for 180 days but less than 365 days...
to investigate, detain, and arrest aliens on civil and criminal grounds. Malkin supports the detention and deportation of some immigrants, regardless of legal status, on national security grounds.
Unemployment benefits
During an appearance as a news analyst on the roundtable segment of ABC's This Week with George StephanopoulosThis Week (ABC TV series)
This Week is ABC's Sunday morning political affairs program.The Sunday morning talk show has aired on Sunday mornings on ABC since 1981; the program is initially aired at 9:00 AM ET, although many stations air the program later, especially those in other time zones...
on August 2, 2009, she explained why she opposed another 13-week extension of unemployment benefits: "if you put enough government cheese in front of people they are going to just keep eating it and kicking the can down the road... people will just delay getting a job until the three weeks before the benefits run out."
Personal life
At Oberlin, she began dating Jesse Malkin. Jesse was granted a Rhodes Scholarship to begin study at Oxford University in 1991.They married in 1993, and have two children. Jesse worked as an associate policy analyst and economist
Economist
An economist is a professional in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...
focusing on healthcare issues for the RAND Corporation. In 2004, Malkin reported on her website that Jesse had left a "lucrative health-care consulting job" to be a stay-at-home dad.
In 2006, Malkin gave a lecture at Oberlin College discussing racism, among other topics. She refuted allegations that she had been insensitive to the "plight of minorities" by listing several racial epithets that had been used against her, and by relating a lesson she learned from her mother for which she is "eternally grateful". After returning home in tears because kindergarten classmates had called her a racist name, Malkin said her mother comforted her and told her "everyone has prejudice".
The family lived in North Bethesda, Maryland
North Bethesda, Maryland
North Bethesda is a census-designated place and an unincorporated area in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. It borders the city of Rockville, and is closely associated with the city.-Geography:...
, but relocated to Colorado Springs, Colorado
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Colorado Springs is a Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and most populous city of El Paso County, Colorado, United States. Colorado Springs is located in South-Central Colorado, in the southern portion of the state. It is situated on Fountain Creek and is located south of the Colorado...
in November 2008.
External links
- Malkin's official site
- Michelle Malkin Features at Creators SyndicateCreators SyndicateCreators Syndicate is an independent distributor of comic strips and syndicated columns for daily newspapers. It was founded in 1987 by Richard S. Newcombe, and is based in Los Angeles. Creators was one of the first syndicates to allow its clients to maintain creative control of their material...
- Hot Air
- Archive of Malkin's columns at Townhall.comTownhall.comTownhall.com is a web-based publication primarily dedicated to conservative United States politics. It was previously operated by the Heritage Foundation, but is now owned and operated by Salem Communications...
- "Columnist isn't smiling over swastika in rally photo". Rocky Mountain News. February 19, 2009.
- "Michelle Malkin: Grace, gratitude, and G-d". Jewish World Review. November 24, 2004.
- Archive of Malkin's columns at Jewish World ReviewJewish World ReviewJewish World Review is a free, online magazine updated Monday through Friday , which seeks to appeal to "people of faith and those interested in learning more about contemporary Judaism from Jews who take their religion seriously."It carries informational articles related to Judaism, dozens of...