Corrupt Democrats Join Partisan Media In Violating Privacy Rights

The media tore into the personal and private lives of Obama “infomercial” Roberta Johnston, Larry Stewart, Juliana Sanchez, and Mark and Melinda Dowell, launching a massive investigative journalism war against the private citizens.  State officials joined in the effort to uncover every detail of the citizens’ lives, using state computers from public agencies to conduct thorough background checks.  Details began to come out immediately.  It was discovered that – contrary to her statement that she could only afford half a gallon of milk – Juliana Sanchez was seen buying TWO gallons of milk.  And, in an even bigger bombshell shocker, the Missouri mother that claimed that she couldn’t afford enough snacks for her children was caught buying a new pair of shoes with money that easily could have paid for an entire MONTHS’ worth of snacks.  With shocking developments like these, the effort of going through their trash and the use of state computers to dig up dirt was more than warranted.

Of course, that won’t happen.  It won’t happen because these people are Democrats supporting a Democratic candidate.  And the media is the official propaganda arm for the Democratic National Committee and for the Obama campaign.

Joe “the plumber” Wurzelbacher wasn’t nearly so lucky.  You see, when Wurzelbacher asked Barack Obama – who was walking past his house – a question that revealed that Obama was a socialist who liked to “spread the wealth around,” he became an instant arch-enemy of the Democratic Party and therefore of the media.  It was immediately revealed that his name wasn’t really even “Joe,” but “Samuel.”  “Joseph” is his MIDDLE NAME, which clearly proved that he had deep character flaws.  And THEN it came out that he isn’t really even a licensed plumber, but was working under his employers’ license while he prepared to take the ‘Master plumber’ examination.  They gleefully revealed that Wurzelbacher had a tax lien (conveniently omitting the fact that Obama’s campaign treasurer Martin Nesbitt likewise has a tax lien).  Every salacious detail – or at least every detail that could at least be made to sound salacious – was published and carried on every network and every news service.

Democrats attacked John McCain.  He hadn’t properly vetted Joe the plumber, they accused (which is another way of accusing the McCain campaign of failing to be as Stalinist as Democrats).  Joe the plumber is a private citizen.  Nobody SHOULD be “vetting” him.  All the man did was ask a simple question.  It wasn’t Wurzelbacher’s fault that Obama unmasked himself as a socialist with his answer.

It didn’t stop there.  Democrats are far too corrupt, hypocritical, and crazed to stop when it comes to unleashing the politics of personal destruction to annihilate anyone who gets in their way.  If Democrats had integrity, well, they wouldn’t be Democrats.

The Democrats and their media lackeys did a pretty effective job at convincing people that they had somehow trashed Sarah Palin even though they didn’t have anything on her.  Wicked lies about her pregancy and her family and violating her personal privacy by hacking her email account weren’t too low for Democrats.  Nothing is too low for Democrats.  They began by attacking her as a bad mother and then degenerated from there.

It turned out that Joe Wurzelbacher’s confidential information had been accessed via Ohio state computers:

Ohio’s inspector general is investigating why a state agency director approved checking the state child-support computer system for information on “Joe the Plumber.”

Helen Jones-Kelly, director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, confirmed today that she OK’d the check on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher following the Oct. 15 presidential debate.

She said there were no political reasons for the check on the sudden presidential campaign fixture though the Support Enforcement Tracking System.

Amid questions from the media and others about “Joe the Plumber,” Jones-Kelley said she approved a check to determine if he was current on any ordered child-support payments.

Such information was not and cannot be publicly shared, she said. It is unclear if Wurzelbacher is involved in a child-support case. Reports state that he lives alone with a 13-year-old son.

“Our practice is when someone is thrust quickly into the public spotlight, we often take a look” at them, Jones-Kelley said, citing a case where a lottery winner was found to owe past-due child support. “Our practice is to basically look at what is coming our way.”

Ohio Inspector General Thomas P. Charles confirmed today that he is investigating the incident to determine if “Joe”s” records were legally accessed by Job and Family Services employees.

But Joe the plumber HADN’T won the lottery.  And Roberta Johnston, Larry Stewart, Juliana Sanchez, and Mark and Melinda Dowell have ALSO been thrust into the public spotlight.  The least the media and the Democrats can do is give the Obama infomercial citizens the same microscopically-detailed proctological exam they have given Joe Wurzelbacher.  If one of these people didn’t pay a parking ticket 30 years ago, we should know about it as a “public service.”

Then it turned out that the state computer searches on Wurzelbacher were “more extensive than first acknowledged”:

A state agency has revealed that its checks of computer systems for potential information on “Joe the Plumber” were more extensive than it first acknowledged.

Helen Jones-Kelley, director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, disclosed yesterday that computer inquiries on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher were not restricted to a child-support system.

The agency also checked Wurzelbacher in its computer systems to determine whether he was receiving welfare assistance or owed unemployment compensation taxes, she wrote.

Jones-Kelley made the revelations in a letter to Ohio Senate President Bill M. Harris, R-Ashland, who demanded answers on why state officials checked out Wurzelbacher.

Harris called the multiple records checks “questionable” and said he awaits more answers. “It’s kind of like Big Brother is looking in your pocket,” he said.

Then we found out that Helen E. Jones-Kelly – who had been behind the searches – was a Democrat who had given the maximum contribution of $2,300 to the Obama campaign.  We can only surmise whether she made further contributions under aliases such as Mickey Mouse, Will Good or Doodad.

Jones-Kelly assures everyone that there’s no way she intended anything political out of her tactics.  Why anyone would think that anything turned up in the state computer searches would have somehow found their way to the media is anybody’s guess.

Democrat Gov. Ted Strickland – who appointed Jones-Kelly this past January – claims that he is satisfied that there are no political overtures to the check on Wurzelbacher, a spokesman said.  And we should disregard the fact that the Ohio Governor is about as partisan a Democrat as they come, the kind of guy who’d be as likely to cover up Democratic political hatchet jobs as he would be to engage in demagoguery himself.

Liberals should be THRILLED, shouldn’t they?  They tried to sue the Bush Administration claiming the government had spied on private American citizens, but the lawsuit was dismissed because the ACLU wasn’t able to find anyone who had actually been spied upon.  Now they finally have a guy: Democrat government officials caught red-handed spying on a private citizen!  We can go back to the massive abuse of FBI files compiled against enemies of the Clinton Administration to see what hypocrites these people are.

Democrats are the greatest hypocrites since Jesus took on the nastiest of the Pharisees.  They regard their unsubstantiated allegations against Repubicans as being far more serious than the times they themselves are caught red-handed.  The fact that Democratic voter fraud organization ACORN has now been nailed in 21 states (with the list growing all the time) means nothing; the fact that Democrats allege that Republicans are trying to suppress the vote means everything.  The downfall of Rep. Mark Foley was a terrible disgrace that proved Republicans were corrupt and served as the straw that broke the camel’s back in the 2006 election; but the fact that Rep. Tim Mahoney was nailed doing far worse in the exact same district – with top Democratic officals trying to save his seat – is merely another sex scandal that should be ignored as a “private matter.”

Tragically, it may take an Obama victory, combined with an unholy Barack Obama-Harry Reid-Nancy Pelosi trifecta and one party domination, to finally break the trend that has been building.  After Democrats ruin the nation with their excesses, their incompetence, and their depravities, the public will turn on them, and turn on the media propaganda machine that put them in power.

As much as I would love to see Democratic power broken for a generation and the liberal media driven out of business, I pray it doesn’t come to that.

AP Rips Obama Infomercial On Facts, Honesty

By and large, the media has utterly failed to analyze Obama’s fanciful rhetoric to check for facts or for honesty.  Study after study has shown a profound mainstream media bias favoring Obama and attacking McCain.  A prominent ABC journalist called this bias “a very, very dangerous game … with the Constitution.”

A brand new study by the Project for Excellence in Media came out yesterday with absolutely devastating results on rampant media bias.

We’ll quickly be able to see the media bias, as people appearing on Obama’s infomercial – such as Roberta Johnston, Larry Stewart, and Mark and Melinda Dowell – either get their lives microscopically investigated the way Joe the Plumber did or not.  The media witch hunt (a.k.a. “investigative journalism“) into the life of Joe the Plumber – who drew a vicious media backlash for merely asking Obama a simple question outside his own home – was an unprecedented intrusion into a private citizen by a media machine that was determined to dredge up dirt on him.  If they go after Obama infomercial’s citizens the same way (can she really only afford to buy half a gallon of milk?  Did that mother buy herself a pair of shoes rather than buy snacks for her children?) I’ll be very much surprised.

Still, every so often some reporter actually tries to be fair.  And in the aftermath of Barack Obama’s $3 million infomercial spectacular, in a campaign in which Obama is outspending McCain 4-1 after Obama broke his promise to accept public financing, a little bit of objectivity is better than nothing at all.  So it was refreshing that Associated Press writer Calvin Woodward finally took a critical look at claims that Obama has been making with virtually no media scrutiny for months:

WASHINGTON – Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was less than upfront in his half-hour commercial Wednesday night about the costs of his programs and the crushing budget pressures he would face in office.

Obama’s assertion that “I’ve offered spending cuts above and beyond” the expense of his promises is accepted only by his partisans. His vow to save money by “eliminating programs that don’t work” masks his failure throughout the campaign to specify what those programs are — beyond the withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

A sampling of what voters heard in the ad, and what he didn’t tell them:

THE SPIN: “That’s why my health care plan includes improving information technology, requires coverage for preventive care and pre-existing conditions and lowers health care costs for the typical family by $2,500 a year.”

THE FACTS: His plan does not lower premiums by $2,500, or any set amount. Obama hopes that by spending $50 billion over five years on electronic medical records and by improving access to proven disease management programs, among other steps, consumers will end up saving money. He uses an optimistic analysis to suggest cost reductions in national health care spending could amount to the equivalent of $2,500 for a family of four. Many economists are skeptical those savings can be achieved, but even if they are, it’s not a certainty that every dollar would be passed on to consumers in the form of lower premiums.

THE SPIN: “I also believe every American has a right to affordable health care.”

THE FACTS: That belief should not be confused with a guarantee of health coverage for all. He makes no such promise. Obama hinted as much in the ad when he said about the problem of the uninsured: “I want to start doing something about it.” He would mandate coverage for children but not adults. His program is aimed at making insurance more affordable by offering the choice of government-subsidized coverage similar to that in a plan for federal employees and other steps, including requiring larger employers to share costs of insuring workers.

THE SPIN: “I’ve offered spending cuts above and beyond their cost.”

THE FACTS: Independent analysts say both Obama and Republican John McCain would deepen the deficit. The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates Obama’s policy proposals would add a net $428 billion to the deficit over four years — and that analysis accepts the savings he claims from spending cuts. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, whose other findings have been quoted approvingly by the Obama campaign, says: “Both John McCain and Barack Obama have proposed tax plans that would substantially increase the national debt over the next 10 years.” The analysis goes on to say: “Neither candidate’s plan would significantly increase economic growth unless offset by spending cuts or tax increases that the campaigns have not specified.”

THE SPIN: “Here’s what I’ll do. Cut taxes for every working family making less than $200,000 a year. Give businesses a tax credit for every new employee that they hire right here in the U.S. over the next two years and eliminate tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas. Help homeowners who are making a good faith effort to pay their mortgages, by freezing foreclosures for 90 days. And just like after 9-11, we’ll provide low-cost loans to help small businesses pay their workers and keep their doors open. ”

THE FACTS: His proposals — the tax cuts, the low-cost loans, the $15 billion a year he promises for alternative energy, and more — cost money, and the country could be facing a record $1 trillion deficit next year. Indeed, Obama recently acknowledged — although not in his commercial — that: “The next president will have to scale back his agenda and some of his proposals.”

There are some facts to consider about Barack Obama’s health care plan that he failed to tell you last night:

One thing is extremely important to understand: Obama’s health care plan is modeled on the Massachusetts plan.  How are things going there?  Well, in the three years of the program’s existence, the tiny state is now already facing cost overruns of over $400 million.  Does that sound like a rousing success?  Massachusetts is facing a projected 85% increase in its costs by 2009 – which should set up a serious red flag that such programs are MASSIVELY underfunded.

Barack Obama’s health care plan is estimated to cost $1.6 trillion in 10 years.  But that doesn’t take into account the very sort of cost overruns and cost increases that are even now plaguing the very state that Obama is basing his own plan upon.  What is going to happen to our economy given the extremely real likelihood that Obama’s massive national plan runs into similar issues?  Do you believe our economy is strong enough to bear the brunt of these massive cost increases in this current climate?

In the aftermath of the unpopular $850 billion bailout of the economy, it is extremely relevant to question what Obama would do in light of a $1 trillion annual federal budget deficit and an over $10 trillion national debt.  That said, you’d probably want to hear about Obama’s sponsering of an $845 billion Global Poverty Act:

Sen. Barack Obama, perhaps giving America a preview of priorities he would pursue if elected president, is rejoicing over the Senate committee passage of a plan that could end up costing taxpayers billions of dollars in an attempt to reduce poverty in other nations.

The bill, called the Global Poverty Act, is the type of legislation, “We can – and must – make … a priority,” said Obama, a co-sponsor.

And it is also critical to realize that while Obama promises to provide alternative energy which will free us from dependence on foreign oil, his plan will produce nowhere near enough energy to even begin to end our dependence on foreign oil.  Obama has been part of the Democratic trifecta with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, and you simply cannot trust them to dramatically increase our production of domestic oil, which we desperately need.  Gasoline and heating oil have dropped recently, but it is only a matter of time before OPEC cuts its production in order to drive the prices back up, and the very real possibility of a crisis in the Middle East could cripple us at any moment.

It’s too bad that Woodward didn’t more critically examine Obama’s tax plan, and questioned whether it was a good idea to dramatically increase taxes on capital gains, and on corporations and businesses during a time when we need more jobs and a stronger economy.

All that said, it’s good that at least one journalist from one publication took a stab at taking a critical examination of Obama’s infomercial promises and claims.

Obama-Biden Will Come After Middle Class With Taxes

I still remember George H.W. Bush’s “Read my lips: no new taxes” promise that cost him his re-election bid against Bill Clinton.  Clinton made hay out of the fact that Bush had promised not to raise taxes FOUR YEARS EARLIER, but eventually did (thanks to a Democrat-controlled Congress that ultimately forced him to do so, but why blame Democrats when there’s a Republican around?).

Promises are important, at least if they are made by Republicans.  Democrats can apparently say anything they want, as far as the mainstream media is concerned.

Well, Obama  is doing a whole lotta hedging recently.  He’s already shifting on his promise, and he hasn’t even been elected yet.  Not that the media is holding him to any of his promises.

The Obama campaign’s homepage still reads, “Obama said he wanted to give a tax break to all families making under $250,000 per year.”  He’s been making big hay with that.  During his second debate with John McCain, Obama said:

“If you make less than a quarter of a million dollars a year, you will not see a single dime of your taxes go up. If you make $200,000 a year or less, your taxes will go down.”

Obama has repeatedly said he’d give a tax cut to 95% of Americans (and the fact that 40% of that group who don’t pay federal income taxes would get a welfare check merely amounts to an inconvenient truth).

Byron York puts it this way:

Obama’s position in the past was that he would raise taxes on families making more than $250,000 a year and individuals making more than $200,000.  But in his new ad, “Defining Moment,” he seems to lower it to $200,000 for families. “Here’s what I’ll do as president,” Obama says in the ad.  “To deal with our current emergency I’ll launch a rescue plan for the middle class That begins with a tax cut for 95 percent of working Americans. If you have a job, pay taxes and make less than $200,000 a year, you’ll get a tax cut.” That seems kind of ambiguous, but the graphic on the screen says clearly: “Famlies making less than $200,000 get tax cut.”

And then Joe Biden almost immediately moves the goal post yet again:

“What we’re saying is that $87 billion tax break doesn’t need to go to people making an average of 1.4 million, it should go like it used to. It should go to middle class people — people making under $150,000 a year.”

All this even as facts begin to trickle out of a media machine that has not wanted you to know the truth about Obama.

According to the 2006 IRS statistics published by the National Taxpayers Union, “95 percent of working Americans” only includes those making less than $153,542 per year.

The Wall Street Journal crunches the numbers, and it turns out that Obama’s tax plan is like Captain Crunch, the cereal that tastes good to ignorant children, but is terrible for you when it actually gets into your system.

We suspect what’s going on here is more than Mr. Biden’s normal gift of gaffe. As with his admission that a President Obama would quickly be tested by our enemies, the Delaware rambler was stumbling into the truth. An Obama Administration couldn’t possibly pay for a tax cut for 95% of Americans by raising taxes on a mere 5%. Those 5% don’t make enough money, or at least they won’t after they find ways to shelter more of their income when their tax rates rise.

“$250,000.  No.  $200,000.  No, wait, $150,000.  Well, maybe it isn’t really $150,00, even though the numbers tell us we’re going to have to go after $150,000 in order to fund all the social spending programs we want.”  You better remind yourself that Barack Obama voted to raise taxes on people making $42,000 a year.  FactCheck put it this way:

Barack Obama Voted Twice In Favor Of The Democrats’ FY 2009 Budget Resolution That Would Raise Taxes On Those Making Just $42,000 A Year. (S. Con. Res. 70, CQ Vote #85: Adopted 51-44: R 2-43; D 47-1; I 2-0, 3/14/08, Obama Voted Yea; S. Con. Res. 70, CQ Vote #142: Adopted 48- 45: R 2- 44; D 44- 1; I 2-0, 6/4/08, Obama Voted Yea)

Democrats don’t have a very good record in even wanting tax cuts, much less at ever actually passing them.

I’ve got to put it this way: if you vote for Obama because you think he’s going to tax someone making more money than you and give it to you, I hope he raises your taxes.  That would be plain, simple poetic justice.  If you want someone else to pay more so you can have more stuff, it is only fitting that you should have to pay more so someone else can have your stuff.

There’s ALWAYS somebody with less.  If you make $42,000 a year, shouldn’t you pay more so that someone who makes $20,000 a year can have a piece of the pie?  And, if you make $20,000 a year, shouldn’t you pay more so that someone who doesn’t have a job have a piece of the pie?

Joe Biden earlier said:

Noting that wealthier Americans would indeed pay more, Biden said: “It’s time to be patriotic … time to jump in, time to be part of the deal, time to help get America out of the rut.”

The logic is that 5% of Americans should be patriotic and pay more in taxes, while the other 95% should be unpatriotic and pay less in taxes.  Don’t believe that crap: Obama-Biden will give as many people as they possibly can the opportunity “to be patriotic.”

In Biden’s version of Obama’s “spread the wealth around” moment, Biden told ABC’s Good Morning America, “We want to take money and put it back in the pocket of middle-class people.”  Or as Obama earlier called it, “reparative economic work,” and “redistributive change.”

To paraphrase the old garage-sale adage, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure”: One man’s middle class is another man’s rich.  You may wake up and find out that you’ve just been classified as “rich.”  And God help you then, because the Democrats in total control of the government sure won’t.

Obama once put it this way:

“…the African-American community, uh, are doing as bad, if not worse, and recognizing that my fate remained tied up with their fates, that, uh, that my individual salvation, uh, is not going to come about without a collective salvation for the country.  Um, Unfortunately, I think that recognition, uh, requires that we make sacrifices, and this country has not always been willing to make the sacrifices necessary to bring about a new day and the new age.”

But if you vote for Obama, “a new day and the new age” is coming.  Like it or not, you are voting “that we make sacrifices.”  You just may not know it yet.

I could end here (on that nice poetic flourish of Obama’s), but I have a little more to say.  Let me introduce The New York Sun’s editorial from April 18, 2008:

The big television networks take a lot of abuse for their supposed left-wing slant, but for a few moments in yesterday’s presidential debate on ABC News, anchorman Charles Gibson sounded like a charter member of the Club for Growth or Americans for Tax Reform. It came when Mr. Gibson questioned Senator Obama about the capital gains tax. Mr. Gibson quoted Mr. Obama as talking about raising the tax to 28% from 15%. “But actually, Bill Clinton, in 1997, signed legislation that dropped the capital gains tax to 20 percent,” Mr. Gibson said. “And George Bush has taken it down to 15 percent. And in each instance, when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased; the government took in more money. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28 percent, the revenues went down. So why raise it at all, especially given the fact that 100 million people in this country own stock and would be affected?”

Why, Robert Bartley couldn’t have put it better himself. Mr. Obama was totally flummoxed, betraying a fundamental lack of understanding of the Laffer Curve. The Democrat of Illinois spoke of the need to “finance health care for Americans who currently don’t have it,” and of the need to “invest in our infrastructure” and in “our schools.”

Mr. Gibson, to his credit, wouldn’t let the point go. “But history shows that when you drop the capital gains tax, the revenues go up,” he replied to Mr. Obama. Mr. Obama replied by changing the subject, to “a housing crisis that this president has not been attentive to.”

From the actual debate transcript:

MR. GIBSON: And in each instance, when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased. The government took in more money. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28 percent, the revenues went down. So why raise it at all, especially given the fact that 100 million people in this country own stock and would be affected?

SENATOR OBAMA: Well, Charlie, what I’ve said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness. We saw an article today which showed that the top 50 hedge fund managers made $29 billion last year — $29 billion for 50 individuals. And part of what has happened is that those who are able to work the stock market and amass huge fortunes on capital gains are paying a lower tax rate than their secretaries. That’s not fair.

Charles Gibson, and yes, John McCain, have been talking about growing and expanding the economy which in turn would create more jobs and build more wealth.  Call it “top-down,” or whatever you want, but it works.  Barack Obama talks about fairness.  He talks about reparative economic justice.  He talks about spreading the wealth.  He talks about “redistributive change.”  Call it bottom-up or whatever you want (I call it “socialism” myself), it doesn’t work.  Higher taxes, whether they be personal or corporate income taxes, or capital gains taxes, or several other forms of taxation, cause the economy to retract, not expand.

The simplest question: if Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi raise taxes on corporations and businesses, do you for one second actually believe that they won’t pass those increases on to you?

ABC Journalist Damns Whole Field Of Journalism Over “DANGEROUS” Bias

This is as powerful as it is frightening, coming from a fourth-generation journalist with ABC named Michael S. Malone.

ABC News
Media’s Presidential Bias and Decline
Columnist Michael Malone Looks at Slanted Election Coverage and the Reasons Why
Column By MICHAEL S. MALONE

Oct. 24, 2008 —

The traditional media are playing a very, very dangerous game — with their readers, with the Constitution and with their own fates.

The sheer bias in the print and television coverage of this election campaign is not just bewildering, but appalling. And over the last few months I’ve found myself slowly moving from shaking my head at the obvious one-sided reporting, to actually shouting at the screen of my television and my laptop computer.

But worst of all, for the last couple weeks, I’ve begun — for the first time in my adult life — to be embarrassed to admit what I do for a living. A few days ago, when asked by a new acquaintance what I did for a living, I replied that I was “a writer,” because I couldn’t bring myself to admit to a stranger that I’m a journalist.

You need to understand how painful this is for me. I am one of those people who truly bleeds ink when I’m cut. I am a fourth-generation newspaperman. As family history tells it, my great-grandfather was a newspaper editor in Abilene, Kan., during the last of the cowboy days, then moved to Oregon to help start the Oregon Journal (now the Oregonian).

My hard-living — and when I knew her, scary — grandmother was one of the first women reporters for the Los Angeles Times. And my father, though profoundly dyslexic, followed a long career in intelligence to finish his life (thanks to word processors and spellcheckers) as a very successful freelance writer. I’ve spent 30 years in every part of journalism, from beat reporter to magazine editor. And my oldest son, following in the family business, so to speak, earned his first national byline before he earned his drivers license.

So, when I say I’m deeply ashamed right now to be called a “journalist,” you can imagine just how deep that cuts into my soul.

Now, of course, there’s always been bias in the media. Human beings are biased, so the work they do, including reporting, is inevitably colored. Hell, I can show you 10 different ways to color variations of the word “said” — muttered, shouted, announced, reluctantly replied, responded, etc. — to influence the way a reader will comprehend exactly the same quote. We all learn that in Reporting 101, or at least in the first few weeks working in a newsroom.

But what we are also supposed to learn during that same apprenticeship is to recognize the dangerous power of that technique, and many others, and develop built-in alarms against them.

But even more important, we are also supposed to be taught that even though there is no such thing as pure, Platonic objectivity in reporting, we are to spend our careers struggling to approach that ideal as closely as possible.

That means constantly challenging our own prejudices, systematically presenting opposing views and never, ever burying stories that contradict our own world views or challenge people or institutions we admire. If we can’t achieve Olympian detachment, than at least we can recognize human frailty — especially in ourselves.

Reporting Bias

For many years, spotting bias in reporting was a little parlor game of mine, watching TV news or reading a newspaper article and spotting how the reporter had inserted, often unconsciously, his or her own preconceptions. But I always wrote it off as bad judgment and lack of professionalism, rather than bad faith and conscious advocacy.

Sure, being a child of the ’60s I saw a lot of subjective “New” Journalism, and did a fair amount of it myself, but that kind of writing, like columns and editorials, was supposed to be segregated from “real” reporting, and, at least in mainstream media, usually was. The same was true for the emerging blogosphere, which by its very nature was opinionated and biased.

But my complacent faith in my peers first began to be shaken when some of the most admired journalists in the country were exposed as plagiarists, or worse, accused of making up stories from whole cloth.

I’d spent my entire professional career scrupulously pounding out endless dreary footnotes and double-checking sources to make sure that I never got accused of lying or stealing someone else’s work — not out of any native honesty, but out of fear: I’d always been told to fake or steal a story was a firing offense & indeed, it meant being blackballed out of the profession.

And yet, few of those worthies ever seemed to get fired for their crimes — and if they did they were soon rehired into even more prestigious jobs. It seemed as if there were two sets of rules: one for us workaday journalists toiling out in the sticks, and another for folks who’d managed, through talent or deceit, to make it to the national level.

Meanwhile, I watched with disbelief as the nation’s leading newspapers, many of whom I’d written for in the past, slowly let opinion pieces creep into the news section, and from there onto the front page. Personal opinions and comments that, had they appeared in my stories in 1979, would have gotten my butt kicked by the nearest copy editor, were now standard operating procedure at the New York Times, the Washington Post, and soon after in almost every small town paper in the U.S.

But what really shattered my faith — and I know the day and place where it happened — was the war in Lebanon three summers ago. The hotel I was staying at in Windhoek, Namibia, only carried CNN, a network I’d already learned to approach with skepticism. But this was CNN International, which is even worse.

I sat there, first with my jaw hanging down, then actually shouting at the TV, as one field reporter after another reported the carnage of the Israeli attacks on Beirut, with almost no corresponding coverage of the Hezbollah missiles raining down on northern Israel. The reporting was so utterly and shamelessly biased that I sat there for hours watching, assuming that eventually CNN would get around to telling the rest of the story & but it never happened.

The Presidential Campaign

But nothing, nothing I’ve seen has matched the media bias on display in the current presidential campaign.

Republicans are justifiably foaming at the mouth over the sheer one-sidedness of the press coverage of the two candidates and their running mates. But in the last few days, even Democrats, who have been gloating over the pass — no, make that shameless support — they’ve gotten from the press, are starting to get uncomfortable as they realize that no one wins in the long run when we don’t have a free and fair press.

I was one of the first people in the traditional media to call for the firing of Dan Rather — not because of his phony story, but because he refused to admit his mistake — but, bless him, even Gunga Dan thinks the media is one-sided in this election.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of those people who think the media has been too hard on, say, Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin, by rushing reportorial SWAT teams to her home state of Alaska to rifle through her garbage. This is the big leagues, and if she wants to suit up and take the field, then Gov. Palin better be ready to play.

The few instances where I think the press has gone too far — such as the Times reporter talking to prospective first lady Cindy McCain’s daughter’s MySpace friends — can easily be solved with a few newsroom smackdowns and temporary repostings to the Omaha bureau.

No, what I object to (and I think most other Americans do as well) is the lack of equivalent hardball coverage of the other side — or worse, actively serving as attack dogs for the presidential ticket of Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Joe Biden, D-Del.

If the current polls are correct, we are about to elect as president of the United States a man who is essentially a cipher, who has left almost no paper trail, seems to have few friends (that at least will talk) and has entire years missing out of his biography.

That isn’t Sen. Obama’s fault: His job is to put his best face forward. No, it is the traditional media’s fault, for it alone (unlike the alternative media) has had the resources to cover this story properly, and has systematically refused to do so.

Why, for example to quote the lawyer for Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., haven’t we seen an interview with Sen. Obama’s grad school drug dealer — when we know all about Mrs. McCain’s addiction? Are Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko that hard to interview? All those phony voter registrations that hard to scrutinize? And why are Sen. Biden’s endless gaffes almost always covered up, or rationalized, by the traditional media?

Joe the Plumber

The absolute nadir (though I hate to commit to that, as we still have two weeks before the election) came with Joe the Plumber.

Middle America, even when they didn’t agree with Joe, looked on in horror as the press took apart the private life of an average person who had the temerity to ask a tough question of a presidential candidate. So much for the standing up for the little man. So much for speaking truth to power. So much for comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable, and all of those other catchphrases we journalists used to believe we lived by.

I learned a long time ago that when people or institutions begin to behave in a matter that seems to be entirely against their own interests, it’s because we don’t understand what their motives really are. It would seem that by so exposing their biases and betting everything on one candidate over another, the traditional media is trying to commit suicide — especially when, given our currently volatile world and economy, the chances of a successful Obama presidency, indeed any presidency, is probably less than 50/50.

Furthermore, I also happen to believe that most reporters, whatever their political bias, are human torpedoes & and, had they been unleashed, would have raced in and roughed up the Obama campaign as much as they did McCain’s. That’s what reporters do. I was proud to have been one, and I’m still drawn to a good story, any good story, like a shark to blood in the water.

So why weren’t those legions of hungry reporters set loose on the Obama campaign? Who are the real villains in this story of mainstream media betrayal?

The editors. The men and women you don’t see; the people who not only decide what goes in the paper, but what doesn’t; the managers who give the reporters their assignments and lay out the editorial pages. They are the real culprits.

Bad Editors

Why? I think I know, because had my life taken a different path, I could have been one: Picture yourself in your 50s in a job where you’ve spent 30 years working your way to the top, to the cockpit of power & only to discover that you’re presiding over a dying industry. The Internet and alternative media are stealing your readers, your advertisers and your top young talent. Many of your peers shrewdly took golden parachutes and disappeared. Your job doesn’t have anywhere near the power and influence it did when your started your climb. The Newspaper Guild is too weak to protect you any more, and there is a very good chance you’ll lose your job before you cross that finish line, 10 years hence, of retirement and a pension.

In other words, you are facing career catastrophe — and desperate times call for desperate measures. Even if you have to risk everything on a single Hail Mary play. Even if you have to compromise the principles that got you here. After all, newspapers and network news are doomed anyway — all that counts is keeping them on life support until you can retire.

And then the opportunity presents itself — an attractive young candidate whose politics likely matches yours, but more important, he offers the prospect of a transformed Washington with the power to fix everything that has gone wrong in your career.

With luck, this monolithic, single-party government will crush the alternative media via a revived fairness doctrine, re-invigorate unions by getting rid of secret votes, and just maybe be beholden to people like you in the traditional media for getting it there.

And besides, you tell yourself, it’s all for the good of the country…

PISS OFF THESE DISGRACES TO FAIRNESS AND TRUTH IN THE MEDIA; VOTE REPUBLICAN ON NOVEMBER 4!!!

I have been writing about the horrendous media bias – and how terribly destructive it is to democracy, and to the American political process – for some time.  My point has been: when the media – which has been charged with the Constitutional duty to keep the political process honest and fair – itself becomes the propaganda arm for one political party, it becomes impossible to sustain a democracy.  If the truth is misrepresented, or distorted, nor simply not reported, in the interests of advancing one particular political ideology, a fatal cancer is introduced in the democratic process.

We have seen the very likely death of two precious institutions during this campaign: 1) of the media’s integrity and honesty; and 2) of public campaign financing.

The media has stooped to misrepresentation, propaganda, demagoguery, and flat out lying, in order to elect Barack Obama for President.  And Barack Obama – in order to win election – abandoned his own promise to accept public campaign finance and – in the words of The Associated Press – “doomed” public finance.

What major candidate for President will ever again accept public funding if he realizes he might very well find himself or herself outgunned by a 4-1 margin by electing to do so?  Enter big money the likes the American political process has never before seen, thanks to one Barack Obama.

You can’t put either genie back into the bottle.  If media propaganda obtains its intended result, if massive campaign money obtains its intended result, both institutions are doomed forevermore.  And democracy itself is doomed along with them.

Of Homosexual Marriage And Teachers Unions

Proposition 8 is a big deal in the State of California.  The only political issue getting more campaign funding than Proposition 8 is the Presidential election itself.  If passed, it would re-impose the view of marriage overwhelmingly passed by California voters with 61% of the vote in 2000.  If it fails, homosexual marriage – which was imposed by judges ignoring the landslide result of Proposition 22 – would pass by a vote of the people.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom started the homosexual marriage ball rolling when – flouting the law he was supposed to uphold – he began to perform homosexual marriages.  Frankly Mayor Newsom should have been arrested and prosecuted.  And he would have been in any society that holds elected officials accountable to laws that other citizens are held accountable to.  Courts finally ordered him to stop, but homosexual couples waved their marriage licenses and sued.  And activist judges made homosexual marriage the law of the land by judicial fiat.

Proposition 8 – although currently slightly ahead in some polls – has faced an uphill battle, primarily because ultra-liberal Attorney General Jerry Brown re-worded the proposition to make it seem as intolerant and unpopular as he possibly could.  Rather than the statement,”only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California,” Brown imposed the harsher-sounding wording, “eliminates the right of same-sex couples to marry.”  People are far more in favor of “defining marriage” than they are “eliminating rights.”

One of the key issues is whether schools would begin teaching homosexual marriage to children.  The supporters of Prop 8 say YES; the opponents say it’s a flat lie.

An NPR article title has the right question: “If Gay Marriage Is Allowed, Will Schools Promote It?”

Other than the documented FACT that it has already happened in Massachusetts, where kids ARE indoctrinated into homosexual marriage and the courts have ruled, “public schools are not obliged to shield students from ideas which are potentially offensive to their parents,” there is another little issue to consider that should serve to prove that schools would promote homosexual marriage: namely, the fact that the California Teachers Union is the NUMBER ONE financial supporter against the Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage.

Ask yourself one question: if teachers don’t intend to teach homosexual marriage in California schools, then why in the hell do we have this:

California’s largest teacher’s union has given another $1 million to defeat a Nov. 4 ballot initiative that would ban same-sex marriage in the state.

The contribution recorded Tuesday makes the California Teachers Association the largest institutional donor to the No on 8 campaign. CTA also gave $250,000 in August to Equality for All, a coalition of gay advocacy and civil rights groups opposing Proposition 8.

They can’t WAIT to indoctrinate your little darlings into homosexual marriage.  They have proven complete failures at teaching children how to read, or solve simple math problems, but teaching your little boy that there’s nothing wrong with him being bent over and sodomized is another issue entirely.  They think they’d actually be pretty doggone good at teaching that.

The education “professionals” who say that California schools would not be required to teach homosexual marriage are incredibly deceptive.  In fact, schools wouldn’t have to teach homosexual marriage if and only if schools didn’t teach sex education.  It is technically true that sex education is a curriculum choice for local schools (Cal. Ed. Code 51933).  But the simple fact of the matter is that almost EVERY school teaches sex education.  And IF a local school district teaches sex education, THEN it falls under the rule that “instruction and materials shall teach respect for marriage and committed relationships” (Cal Ed. Code 51933(a)(7)).  And that would mean teaching homosexual marriages if homosexual marriage is legal.

AND OH MY GAWD, THEY’RE ALREADY DOING IT!!!

If you DON’T think teachers are rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of teaching sodomy to your children, then you get to explain why they are so massively funding the political campaign.

The second thing I keep hearing is, this is a human rights issue.  Well, no it isn’t.  Marriage is a privilege, not a right.  If marriage WERE a fundamental human right, then the government – which has the duty of guaranteeing human rights – would have to find me a marriage partner if I couldn’t find one myself.  After all, I have a right to be married! And if I have the right to marry who I choose, then I choose Teri Hatcher (whom I’ve always thought is real pretty).

Getting serious, if a person has a right to marry whoever he or she chooses, then how is a pedophile not having his right deprived if he wants to marry that little boy the schools got hold of and taught that it was okay to bend over and be sodomized?  What about the right of pedophiles to marry who they choose?  Isn’t age as subjective a criteria as gender?  The North American Man/Boy Love Association says they should have that right, and the same ACLU that supports gay marriage has supported NAMBLA.  NAMBLA has resolved to “end the oppression of men and boys who have freely chosen mutually consenting relationships.”  The Man/Boy Love Association belonged to the International Lesbian and Gay Association until the latter achieved United Nations status and had to dissociate itself from NAMBLA.   But the UN-approved ILGA had itself resolved that “young people have the right to sexual and social self-determination and that age of consent laws often operate to oppress and not to protect.”  How do you allow homosexual marriage and ban man/boy marriage?  What about that weird woman who wants to marry her German Shepherd that keeps trying to hump peoples’ legs?  What about that religious cult that wants to marry off a whole bunch of young girls to some 50 year old dude? What about that swinging group of 15 men and women who want to marry one another and move next door to you?

Teachers unions and schools have sided firmly with teachers and against children when sexual abuse has been alleged.  Schools routinely protect pedophile teachers by transferring them to other school districts.  The head of the National Education Association presided over the annual Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network conference which sought to push homosexual activism to kindergarten classrooms.

How do you decide to redefine the “one man, one woman” view of marriage that’s been around since Adam and Eve and hold the line at homosexual couples?  Legalizing homosexual marriage is just the tip of the iceberg, and justifying it will provide justification for all the rest.

The fact of the matter is, declaring that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California” doesn’t take away homosexual’s right to marriage: a homosexual man can marry any woman who would have him.  Same as me.  Homosexuals’ rights aren’t being “taken away”; rather, they do not wish to have normal sexual relations with a member of the opposite sex, rather like the pedophiles who do not wish to have normal sexual relations with an adult of the opposite sex.  That’s hardly my fault.  So don’t force me to sanctify this “Adam and Steve” thing.

I now understand why teachers are so pathetic at actually teaching children how to learn: they are moral idiots.  They don’t understand fundamental human realities.  They are ideologues who don’t even know how to think themselves, and therefore cannot possibly teach children how to think for themselves.  Obviously this frank damnation of teachers doesn’t extend to every individual teacher; but the fact remains that there are enough ideologues in the field of teaching to instill radical union leadership.

Sadly,  I’m really not exaggerating: teachers are being trained as “agents of change” who “question the legitimacy of a flawed social order.”

LA Times Suppresses Damaging Obama-Khalidi-Ayers Video

From Little Green Footballs:

Contact the LA Times and Demand the Rashid Khalidi Video

Politics | Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 9:24:57 am PST

We’re calling on LGF readers to contact the Los Angeles Times and their advertisers to demand that the Times release the videotape they are concealing, showing Barack Obama at a party with radical Palestinian activists, Bill Ayers, and Bernardine Dohrn, being praised by former PLO spokesman Rashid Khalidi.

They’re stonewalling, and giving people who contact them the runaround.

Please note: the existence of the tape is not in doubt; Peter Wallsten of the Los Angeles Times explicitly wrote that the Times had a copy of the tape, in an article about Obama’s ties to Rashid Khalidi: Allies of Palestinians see a friend in Barack Obama.

At Khalidi’s going-away party in 2003, the scholar lavished praise on Obama, telling the mostly Palestinian American crowd that the state senator deserved their help in winning a U.S. Senate seat. “You will not have a better senator under any circumstances,” Khalidi said.

The event was videotaped, and a copy of the tape was obtained by The Times.

The Los Angeles Times is hiding a potentially explosive video of a presidential candidate, during the final days of an election.

This is brazen, unethical media malfeasance.

Don’t let them get away with it.

Contact the Los Angeles Times.

Contact their advertisers.

If the media were fair, if they were unbiased, objective, and frankly, if they were honest, the Democratic Party would either look much different, or it would have gone the way of the Dodo bird.  As it is, the media has become the propaganda wing of the DNC, and they are biased to the core even as they falsely represent themselves as “objective journalists.”

Journalism has become a disgrace, and the entire industry would be ashamed of themselves if they still retained a functioning moral compass.

I found the following means of leaving a complaint at the doorstep of the LA Times:

Editorial Contacts
Readers’ Representative:
Questions or concerns about The Times’
journalistic standards and practices

(877) 554-4000

Don’t let them get away with this.  Let them know that YOU know that they are a disgrace.  There is no way in hell the LA Times would sit on damning video if it would have hurt John McCain instead of Barack Obama.

Frightening Obama Videos: The Afrocentric Socialist Redistributionist Radical President?

Some recent videos – especially in the aftermath of the “spread the wealth around” comment to Joe the Plumber – really fill out the vague, fuzzy, shallow, prettily-lit with halo aftereffects Obama economic and tax policy.  In his discussion with Joe Wurzelbacher, Obama said, “My attitude is that if the economy’s good for folks from the bottom up, it’s gonna be good for everybody. I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”

If you got your job from a homeless guy, Obama is right.  Vote for “bottom-up economics.”  If you got it from a business, Obama is wrong.  It is and always has been the wealthy who have created jobs with their investment and their leadership.  When you tax businesses and corporations, you punish the success which results in job-creation.  That is simply as obvious as it can get.

Obama has decried the charge that he’s a “socialist.”  His surrogates allege that merely calling a black man a “socialist” is racist to try to take it off the table.  It is frankly stunning how often the “transformational” candidate has played the race card.

But some recent footage from Barack Obama’s past puts all of this into clear perspective.  If you want to know who Barack Obama is and what he really believes, now you finally have your chance.

First, consider this (youtube link with audio available here):

I think that we can say that the Constitution reflected the enormous blind spot in this culture that carries on until this day and that the framers had that same blind spot. I don’t think the two views are contradictory to say that it was a remarkable political document that paved the way for where we are now and to say that it also reflected the fundamental flaw of this country that continues to this day.

The Constitution – you know, the thing our Presidents have sworn to uphold for more than 220 years? – is viewed by Barack Obama as having an “enormous blind spot.”  Our founding fathers were similarly blind.  There’s a “fundamental flaw” with the system of government that has made this the greatest nation in the history of the world.

Don’t worry: Barack Hussein Obama will fix what shortsighted figures like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and so many other men – who envisioned a nation “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal” – were just too ignorant to get right.

Now let us turn to a transcript of another statement from Barack Obama that reveals his attitude favoring “redistributionist change” (youtube video is here):

MODERATOR: Good morning and welcome to Odyssey on WBEZ Chicago 91.5 FM and we’re joined by Barack Obama who is Illinois State Senator from the 13th district and senior lecturer in the law school at the University of Chicago.

OBAMA: If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court, I think where it succeeded was to vest formal rights in previously dispossessed peoples. So that I would now have the right to vote, I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order and as long as I could pay for it I’d be okay.

But the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. And to that extent as radical as people tried to characterize the Warren court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as it’s been interpreted, and the Warren court interpreted it in the same way that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. It says what the states can’t do to you, it says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf. And that hasn’t shifted. One of the I think tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court focused, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributed change and in some ways we still suffer from that.

MODERATOR: Let’s talk with Karen. Good morning, Karen, you’re on Chicago Public Radio.

KAREN: Hi. The gentleman made the point that the Warren court wasn’t terribly radical with economic changes. My question is, is it too late for that kind of reparative work economically and is that that the appropriate place for reparative economic work to take place – the court – or would it be legislation at this point?

OBAMA: Maybe I’m showing my bias here as a legislator as well as a law professor, but I’m not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts. The institution just isn’t structured that way.

You just look at very rare examples during the desegregation era the court was willing to for example order changes that cost money to a local school district. The court was very uncomfortable with it. It was very hard to manage, it was hard to figure out. You start getting into all sorts of separation of powers issues in terms of the court monitoring or engaging in a process that essentially is administrative and takes a lot of time.

The court’s just not very good at it and politically it’s very hard to legitimize opinions from the court in that regard. So I think that although you can craft theoretical justifications for it legally. Any three of us sitting here could come up with a rational for bringing about economic change through the courts.

So even the most radical Supreme Court in history that created rights out of such fantasies as “penumbras formed by emanations” wasn’t quite radical enough for Barack Obama.  He refers to the failure of a “court focused” movement to bring about desired reparations and redistributive changes, most specifically the redistribution of wealth.  He is opposed to the very framework of the Constitution.  He doesn’t like the “essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution,” and bemoans the Warren Court’s failure to “break free” from the “enormous blind spots” of our founding fathers and in our Constitution.  The fact that the Constitution is framed in terms of limiting the power of the government to help or to harm, rather than specifying all the goodies that government must give you is deemed by Barack Obama as a tragedy.

Obama apologists are claiming that Obama repudiates an activist court; but he does no such thing.  He merely says that – as a practical matter – the Supreme Court has had a hard time trying to “legitimize opinions” and that certain radical judicial activist programs were “hard to manage” and “hard to figure out.”  His final sentence reveals that he is by no means through with radical judicial activism: “Any three of us sitting here could come up with a rational for bringing about economic change through the courts.”

Give him a chance to appoint three Supreme Court Justices – as many say he may well be able to do if elected (as older liberals retire) – and you will get a chance to find out what damage three young radical activists can do.  As a single example, Obama has repeatedly cited his opposition to homosexual marriage; does anyone actually believe he would do anything other than appoint judges who would impose the very homosexual marriage Obama claims to oppose on society?

But now let us further consider some further statements from Obama, found in earlier interviews and statements going back to 1995 (youtube link here):

OBAMA:  I worked as a community organizer in Chicago.  I was very active in low income neighborhoods, uh, working on issues of crime and education and employment, uh, and seeing that in some ways certain portions of the African-American community, uh, are doing as bad, if not worse, and recognizing that my fate remained tied up with their fates, that, uh, that my individual salvation, uh, is not going to come about without a collective salvation for the country.  Um, Unfortunately, I think that recognition, uh, requires that we make sacrifices, and this country has not always been willing to make the sacrifices necessary to bring about a new day and the new age….

OBAMA:  In the last year, African-Americans have lost their jobs at a faster rate than at any time in a quarter century.  That’s a wrong that needs to be made right. [snip] There’s a certain race weariness that confronts the country precisely because the questions are so deeply embedded and the solutions are gonna require so much investment of time, energy, and money. [snip] Unfortunately, we’ve got caught up in ideological battle where one party says, the only way to create job opportunities is through the marketplace and governments should not be involved at all, whereas my argument would be we also have to make sure that people are trained for jobs, that they’ve got child care, uh, so that they can go to a job, that there’s affordable housing in those areas where jobs are being created, that entrepreneurs in minority communities are getting financing to create their own businesses and to create jobs in those communities, and all of those involve not just individual responsibility, but also societal responsibility….

OBAMA:  Because I think of the problems that African-Americans face in this country, we tend to have a sanitized view in the African-American community about what is going on in Africa.  And the truth of the matter is is that many of the problems that Africa faces, whether it’s poverty, uh, or political suppression, uh, or ethnic conflict, uh, is just as prominent there and can’t all be blamed on, uh, the effects of colonialism.  What it can be blamed on is some of the common factors that affect Bosnia or, uh, Los Angeles or, uh, all kinds of places on this earth, and that is the tendency for one group to try to suppress another group in the interests of power or greed or, uh, resources or what have you.

Now you should start to remember many of the things that Barack Obama’s pastor and spiritual mentor for 23 years, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, said that become so incredibly relevant.  Obama may phrase his positions, views, and beliefs in more flowerly and non-threatening ways, but his worldview is basically identical to Jeremiah Wright’s – which is why Obama stayed in Wright’s church for 23 years while he preached:

“It is this world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white folks’ greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere … That’s the world! On which hope sits.”….

“The government gives them [African Americans] the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.”….

“We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost.”….

“We’ve got more black men in prison than there are in college,” he said. “Racism is alive and well. Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run. No black man will ever be considered for president, no matter how hard you run Jesse [Jackson] and no black woman can ever be considered for anything outside what she can give with her body.”….

“America is still the No. 1 killer in the world. … We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns, and the training of professional killers. … We bombed Cambodia, Iraq and Nicaragua, killing women and children while trying to get public opinion turned against Castro and Ghadhafi. … We put (Nelson) Mandela in prison and supported apartheid the whole 27 years he was there. We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God.”….

“We started the AIDS virus. … We are only able to maintain our level of living by making sure that Third World people live in grinding poverty.”

“The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. The government lied.”….

And I would argue that with friends such as Rashid Khalidi, Mazen Asbahi, Raila Odinga, Jeremiah Wright, and Obama’s own involvement with Louis Farrakhan (in addition to Obama’s longtime membership in a church which officially supported and awarded Farrakhan), we can also attribute the following Jeremiah Wright statement to Obama’s worldview:

“We supported Zionism shamelessly while ignoring the Palestinians and branding anybody who spoke out against it as being anti-Semitic. … We care nothing about human life if the end justifies the means. …”

We can also consider the radical educational and racial views that Barack Obama partnered with William Ayers to fund, and consider the extremely similar views championed by Jeremiah Wright.  They all championed an incredibly Afrocentric vision of education.

Barack Obama’s views – which he has NEVER been called to fully explain and defend by the mainstream media – are incredibly radical, just as are his open associations and partnerships with radicals (which have similarly been whitewashed by a shockingly partisan media).

There’s more.  The same Barack Obama who claimed that the United States was “fundamentally flawed” and that the Constitution of the United States “reflected an enormous blind spot” also compared the United States to Nazi Germany:

“…just to take a, sort of a realist perspective…there’s a lot of change going on outside of the Court, um, that, that judges essentially have to take judicial notice of. I mean you’ve got World War II, you’ve got uh, uh, uh, the doctrines of Nazism, that, that we are fighting against, that start looking uncomfortably similar to what we have going on, back here at home.”

Sooshisoo has the video with further commentary of this unfortunate episode.  Suffice it to say Barack Obama would be the first U.S. President who ever trashed the Constitution which he would then swear to uphold, and the first President to compare the political philsophy of the country he would lead to “the doctrines of Nazism.”

When you combine the fact that we are facing a Congress led by Nancy Pelosi and a filibuster-proof Senate led by Harry Reid, along with the fact that the media has overwhelmingly proven that it is little more than an open apologist for liberal causes, we are facing a genuinely terrifying prospect for any but the very farthest members of the radical left.

Obama Camp Punishes RARE Reporter Who Asks Tough Questions

The Obama campaign has always had it pretty easy with the press.  It wasn’t too long ago that his extravaganza trip to Europe and Iraq were covered by the anchors of all three major networks.  John McCain couldn’t have PAID Brian Williams, Katie Couric, or Charles Gibson to accompany him on any of his trips to Iraq or Afghanistan.

The Center for Media and Public Affairs has followed the puppydog-like way the media has followed Obama:

The “big three” broadcast networks – NBC, ABC and CBS – remain captivated with Sen. Barack Obama, according to a study of campaign coverage released Tuesday by the Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University.

Numbers tell all: 61 percent of the stories that appeared on the networks between Aug. 23 and Sept. 30 were positive toward the Democratic Party. In contrast, just 39 percent of the stories covering Republicans were favorable.

“After a brief flirtation with Sarah Palin, the broadcast networks have returned to their first love: Barack Obama,” said Robert Lichter, the center’s president.

“John McCain has not been so lucky. He’s gotten bad coverage from the beginning. It has never varied from that,” Mr. Lichter added.

Unfortunately, the Washington Times decided this October 13, 2008 story titled, “Study: Big Three Networks Still Fixated On ‘First Love’ Obama” harmed “the One” more than they liked; they purged it.  But the fact of media bias for Obama remains whether stories pointing to it are purged or not.  It never ceases to amaze me how quickly articles critical of Democrats get taken down, while articles critical of Republicans stay up for years.

The Media Research Center is another media watchdog that has noticed that the media bias in favor of Barack Obama is pretty much disgusting:

A comprehensive analysis of every evening news report by the NBC, ABC and CBS television networks on Barack Obama since he came to national prominence concludes coverage of the Illinois senator has “bordered on giddy celebration of a political ‘rock star’ rather than objective newsgathering.”

The new study by the Media Research Center, which tracks bias in the media, is summarized on the organization’s website, where the full report also has been published. It reveals that positive stories about Obama over that time outnumbered negative stories 7-1, and significant controversies such as Obama’s relationship with a convicted Chicago man have been largely ignored.

Rich Noyes, the research director for the MRC, told WND Obama has “always received very positive press from the national media,” and that was a “huge boost to anyone seeking a national political career.”

That’s contrary to the normal “default position” for reporters of being slightly cynical and a little skeptical, he said. It is “not the normal professional approach you see in journalists,” he said.

And the most recent survey from the Project for Excellence in Journalism,  “Winning the Media Campaign: How the Press Reported the 2008 Presidential General Election” – Sep 6 – Oct 16, tells us that:

In short, Obama gets nearly 3 times more positive coverage than McCain, while McCain gets nearly twice as much negative coverage as Obama.  Does that sound fair to you?  How is McCain supposed to run against that?

It gets even WORSE for Sarah Palin, believe it or not; she received only 6% positive coverage, and 64% negative coverage!

Realize that John McCain has been routinely portrayed as “going negative.”  Aside from the fact that this is patently false – according to yet another media watchdog, the Wisconsin Advertising Project based at the University of Wisconsin – just what on earth is John McCain supposed to do?  The media is literally doing the lion’s share of Obama’s dirty work for him by negatively covering John McCain under the guise of “news.”  And then that same media attacks him when he goes negative!

Last week Colin Powell – in a powder puff ‘Meet the Press‘ interview – officially endorsed Barack Obama (after officially being one of his ‘advisors’ for months).  The kinds of questions I would have loved to see asked of Colin Powell, such as:

Mr. Secretary, given the fact that you were the man who made the case for war with Iraq at the United Nations – and given the fact that the man you are endorsing has called the war you supported one of the greatest foreign policy disasters in history – are you acknowledging your own personal incompetence.  Are you acknowledging that your judgment should not be trusted?

Mr. Secretary, given the fact that the man you are endorsing has opposed the surge strategy conceived of and carried out by General Petraeus as one that would fail, and which would actually INCREASE sectarian violence, are you stating for the record your belief that General Petraeus was wrong, and that Barack Obama was right?  Are you claiming that the surge has NOT been a military success? Should we take this as further evidence of your own personal incompetence and poor judgment?

Somehow never got asked.  Too bad Colin Powell got to talk with pompous liberal Tom Brokaw rather than having to deal with the likes of a Barbara West.

The amazing thing is that the Associated Press article by Nedra Pickler that acknowledged that the Obama had scrubbed his website of his criticism of the surge strategy has itself been scrubbed.  Fortunately I have preserved the article here.  Kind of reminds me of the great work done by the “Ministry of Truth” in George Orwell’s 1984.

So, what happens when some courageous journalist – looking at the total onslaught of pro-Obama bias and downright propaganda – decides to finally ask the Obama-Biden campaign some tough but legitimate questions?

Well, it finally happened, and the Obama campaign has come unglued over it.  Here is a transcript of WFTV anchor Barbara West’s interview with Sen. Biden:

WEST: I know you’re in North Carolina trying to help get out the vote but aren’t you embarassed by the blatant attempts to register phony voters by ACORN, an organization that Barack Obama has been tied to in the past?

BIDEN: I am not embarassed by it. We are not tied to it. We have not paid them one single penny to register a single solitary voter. We have the best GOTV operation in modern history. We’ve registered the voters ourselves and so there is no relationship. So I am embarassed for anybody in ACORN who went out there and registered somebody who shouldn’t be registered. I’m not embarrassed by our campaign because we haven’t paid ACORN a single penny to register a single voter.

WEST: But in the past, Sen. Obama was a community organizer for ACORN. He was an attorney for ACORN and certainly in the Senate, he has been a benefactor for ACORN.

BIDEN: How has he been a benefactor for ACORN? He was a community organizer. John McCain stood before ACORN not long ago and complimented them on the great work they did. Does that make John McCain complicit in any mistake that ACORN made? C’mon. Let’s get real.

WEST: Okay, moving onto the next question. Sen. Obama famously told Joe the Plumber that he wanted to spread his wealth around. Gallup polls show 84% of Americans prefer government focus on improving financial conditions and creating more jobs in the U.S. as opposed to taking steps to distributing wealth. Isn’t Sen. Obama’s statement a potentially crushing political blunder?

BIDEN: Absolutely not. The only person that’s spread the wealth around has been George Bush and John McCain’s tax policy. They have devastated the middle class. For the first time since the 1920’s, the top 1% make 21% of the income in America. That isn’t the way it was before George Bush became president. All we want is the middle class to have a fighting chance. That’s why we focus all of our efforts on restoring the middle class and giving them a tax break. And John McCain doubles down on Bush’s tax cuts and gives a $300 billion in tax cuts for the largest companies in America. We don’t think that’s the way to do it. We think give the middle class a break. That’s the way to do it.

WEST: You may recognize this famous quote. From each according to his abilities to each according to his needs. That’s from Karl Marx. How is Sen. Obama not being a Marxist if he intends to spread the wealth around?

BIDEN: Are you joking? Is this a joke?

WEST: No.

BIDEN: Is that a real question?

WEST: It’s a real question.

BIDEN: He is not spreading the wealth around. He is talking about giving the middle class an opportunity to get back the tax breaks they used to have. What has happened just this year is that the people making $1.4 million a year, the wealthiest 1%, good, decent American people, are gonna get an $87 billion tax cut. A new one on top of the one from last year. We think that the people getting that tax break and not redistribute the wealth up, should be the middle class. That’s what we think. It’s a ridiculous comparison with all due respect.

WEST: Now you recently said “Mark my words. It won’t be six months before the world tests Barack Obama.” But what worries many people is your caveat asking them to stand with him because it won’t be apparent that he got it right. Are you forewarning the American people that something might not get done and that America’s days as the world’s leader might be over?

BIDEN: No, I’m not at all. I don’t know who’s writing your questions but let me make it clear to you. The fact of the matter is that everyone with knowledge, from Colin Powell on down, the next president, whether it’s John McCain or Barack Obama. The reason is our weakened position in the world. We’re stretched thin throughout the world. Our economy is in freefall right now. And they’re gonna be tested. And the point I was making is that Barack Obama is better prepared to handle any crisis than John McCain…

Here’s Obama’s response:

The Barack Obama campaign called Barbara West’s interview with Sen. Joe Biden unprofessional and combative.

The first time that someone actually asks real questions, the Obama campaign whines that the interview was combative. That’s what happens when they’re used to getting softball questions. It’s great to hear West isn’t just sitting back and taking it. Here’s her response:

“I have a great deal of respect for him. I have a great deal of respect for Sen. Obama. We are given four minutes of a satellite window for these interviews. Four precious minutes. I got right down to it and, yes, I think I asked him some pointed questions. These are questions that are rolling about right now and questions that need to be asked. I don’t think I was rude or inconsiderate to him. I think I was probing and maybe tough. I can’t believe that in all of his years in politics, and all of his campaigning and such, that he hasn’t run into some tough questions before. He’s certainly up to it in giving good answers.”

Well, apparently he isn’t.  And apparently you’re not allowed to ask the Obama campaign’s tough questions.

For one thing, he misrepresents Barack Obama’s own stated position:

“My attitude is that if the economy’s good for folks from the bottom up, it’s gonna be good for everybody. I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”

So when Biden said of Barack Obama, “He’s not spreading the wealth around,” he’s pretty much lying through his dazzlingly bleached teeth.  It’s too bad that Barbara West didn’t have four more minutes.

One would have to be incredibly determined to find a better 4-word definition of Marxism than “spread the wealth around.”  Biden’s response to an incredibly legitimate question was to lie, and then express his annoyance that anyone would dare to ask him a legitimate question.

For the record, the Obama campaign paid $820,000 to ACORN for “lighting” even as they were becoming involved in voter fraud in 15 states (and counting).  Biden says the campaign didn’t “give a single penny to ACORN.”  He’s right; they gave 82 MILLION pennies to them!  And citing the fact that John McCain once gave a speech to ACORN as a dodge for Obama’s years of involvement with ACORN doesn’t merit anything but contempt.

In any event, the Obama campaign didn’t like being asked hard questions – like McCain and Palin get damn near every time they do ANY interview (including ABC’s the View), so the arrogant and imperious Obama campaign arrogantly and imperiously decided to punish WFTV for West’s transgression:

The Obama camp then killed a WFTV interview with Biden’s wife Jill, according to an Orlando Sentinel blog.

“This cancellation is non-negotiable, and further opportunities for your station to interview with this campaign are unlikely, at best for the duration of the remaining days until the election,” wrote Laura K. McGinnis, Central Florida communications director for the Obama campaign, according to the Sentinel.

Of course, given the trend, overly-specific articles of this interview will likely be shortly scrubbed by the same Ministry of Truth that has already been hard at work in this campaign, anyway…

The really funny (in a sick, twisted, ironic way) thing about the Obama campaign is that they are willing to negotiate with the leaders of rogue terrorist states without preconditions, but they aren’t willing to talk with reporters who will ask them legitimate questions.

Under a Pelosi-Reid-dominated and even filibuster proof Congress, you won’t have to worry about that kind of interview much longer.  Conservative thought will be criminalized and punished under the Fairness Doctrine.  Nancy Pelosi has already said as much.  People who wish to punish free speech under the guise of “fairness” should be frightening.  But we see just how intolerant Democrats are to free speech given knowledge of the past.

Politico: Investors Ready For Dramatic Sell-Off If Democrats Win

Yesterday’s Politico story puts it this way:

Generally, financial analysts say the stock market likes Republicans more than Democrats. And while predicting market movements is as difficult as predicting the winner of the World Series in August, some experts say the market is already anticipating an Obama win on Nov. 4 and has at least partially accounted for it.

“Potentially, you could see a one or two-day rally on a McCain victory, and not much of a reaction if Obama wins, because that’s what’s expected at this point,” said Justin Fishkin, a partner at The Cypress Group, a financial services company in Washington, D.C. Fishkin, who earlier in his career was a hedge fund manager specializing in political, regulatory, and legislative event-driven investments, said the key issue on Wall Street minds is corporate taxation — which is why the market might prefer McCain and his promised rate cuts over Obama.

In other words, a significant part of the massive sell-offs we’ve already seen were inspired by the belief that Obama would win the White House and start screwing up the economy with socialism.

This adds to the fact that CEOs overwhelmingly (74%) fear that “an Obama presidency would be disasterous for the country,” that Obama would “have a negative impact on business and the economy,” and that “some of his programs would bankrupt the country within three years, if implemented.”  Oh, well, what do Chief Executive Officers know about business or the economy, anyway?

Politico isn’t the only major news source reporting on the fear of an Obma presidency by the people who understand money and finance.  MSN has an article titled, “Why Wall Street Fears Obama“:

Investors this summer have been placing their bets on an Obama presidency, and for the most part that hasn’t been good for the market.

Without giving him a chance to explain himself in detail on the campaign trail or at the Democratic National Convention, they are voting with their shares by tossing financial, health insurance, manufacturing and high-dividend stocks into the ash can, and are growing skeptical about energy companies as well.

It’s not that major institutional investors don’t like the man — far from it. He has many backers among the financial elite, including multibillionaires George Soros and Ron Burkle. And it’s not that there aren’t many other reasons for investors to sell stocks now, as the global economy tangles with the terrible twin beasts of bank deleveraging and inflation.

It’s just that Obama’s rhetoric on taxes and health care is scaring common wealthy people with large capital gains from investments made over the past decade, and a lot of them don’t want to wait around to see whether it’s just populist fluff that might be set aside once he takes office.

The real question for investors after an Obama win is the extent to which Democrats assume control of the Congress, and the more there are the less they like it:

Joe Lieber, a political analyst at the consulting firm Washington Analysis who scrutinizes elections for his clients at hedge, mutual and pension funds, said an electoral lurch that gave the Democrats 60 seats could prompt a dramatic sell-off on Wall Street.

“We’re getting a lot more questions about the Senate than the presidential [race],” Lieber said, “because there’s almost nobody on Wall Street right now who believes McCain’s going to win.” A filibuster-proof Democratic majority (three-fifths of the chamber, or 60 senators) would not be well received by Wall Street traders, he added. “A lot of investment professionals don’t necessarily want to give one party the keys to the entire city. Free markets like gridlock.”

Ah yes, the thrill of one party domination, with the in-the-tank media determined to tell the Titanic that everything is fine no matter how fast the country plows toward the giant iceberg.

An interesting question is to what extent conservatives and Republicans believe we should try to forestall the disaster we think will occur under the Union of Soviet Socialist AmeriKKKa (because that’s how Barack’s Marxist/anarchist/terrorist pal and his preacher for 23 years spelled ‘America,’ after all) or just stand back and let the meltdown commence.

New York Times Endorses Obama As Stock Tumbles To Junk Status

This is what they call poetic justice: the New York Times officially endorses Obama on the same day that Standard & Poor’s downgrade its stock to junk status.

If you’re going to nominate a junk candidate, you might as well make it offical and BE junk.

Maybe being in the tank for liberals, using unfair and deceitful tactics to smear Republicans, and being just generally a disgrace to journalism isn’t the best business model to build upon?  Maybe future newspapers might come to recognize that their readers might want at least an occasional dose of actual truth in their news?

The New York Times says in its endorsement:

Hyperbole is the currency of presidential campaigns, but this year the nation’s future truly hangs in the balance.

The problem is that “hyperbole” – and much worse – is also the currency of the New York Times.  And now whether the newspaper or its stock is worth more than toilet paper “truly hangs in the balance.”

Reuters begins its piece on this delicious bit of news by saying the following:

NEW YORK, Oct 23 (Reuters) – Standard & Poor’s on Thursday slashed its ratings on the New York Times Co (NYT.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) into junk territory and cited concerns about the newspaper publisher’s revenue outlook, after it posted a third-quarter loss.

Moody’s Investors Service also said it may follow the move, adding the publisher faces risks in refinancing its debt.

The New York Times posted a quarterly loss from continuing operations on Thursday and said advertising revenue at its news media group dropped 16 percent for the quarter. For details, see [ID:nN23398087]

Thus we can say with rather precise accuracy that the New York Times’ endorsement of Barack Obama is junk; heck, the whole paper is junk!

Bye bye, New York Times.  Say hello to the Dodo bird when you see it on the road to extinction.