When The Press Gets Political, The Politicans Get Lazy, The Country Gets Cynical

One of the most critical institutions required in a democracy is a strong, vigorous, unbiased, and free press. While ordinary citizens are often too busy just trying to get through their hectic days to keep politicians in line, an active free press should step into that void to make sure that politicians and the government entities they are operating are doing so in an efficient, fair, effective, and non-criminal manner.

And for many years, decades, and centuries, that was the case in America. From the early pamphlets in Revolutionary times through people like Mark Twain and up to Woodward and Bernstein and their Watergate investigations, the press has kept democracy and integrity alive in the halls of government.

Unfortunately, there does not seem to be many Woodwards, Bernsteins, Twains and others of their ilk today. Different news agencies today seem to take sides in the political tugs of war, favoring their side over the other side, as opposed to presenting both sides in an unskewed, unbiased manner. As a result, major political misdeeds across a large variety of sins often go unreported by many news outlets lest they shine an unfavorable light on their “side” of the political spectrum.

We will discuss this denigration of news reporting and journalism today, concentrating on how the so-called mainstream press always seems to side with the Democrats in general and particularly our current President. If Woodward and Bernstein were still in their hey day of investigative journalism, they would be smacking their lips at the scandal buffet: the IRS blocking First Amendment rights of conservatives, the destruction of IRS internal emails in violation of laws, the Justice Department impeding first Amendment rights of journalists, the NSA and other government entities shredding the fourth Amendment rights of ordinary citizens, the scandal of the Benghazi murders and cover up, the unconstitutional military involvement of the U.S. in the Libyan civil war, the supplying of Egypt with military equipment in violation of established law blocking such actions after a military coup, and on and on and on.

The scandals are endless but the reporting is just a trifling when it comes to most of today’s news outlets reporting bad news about Democrats. There are Pulitzers prizes to be won, the tree of scandal has a bumper crop of low hanging fruit but still the transgressions of Democrats and Democrats’ actions and quotes often get little sunshine from their friends in the press. 

And if the press is going to allow politicians of any type to get away with greed, ineptness, cronyism, illegal actions and such, then you can rest assured that the politicians of this era will do just that. And maybe that is why government operations do not work properly today, why politicians get very wealthy once they get into office, why no issues ever get resolved, and why the country continues to sink into a state of disrepair and less and less freedom.

Before we discuss the many examples of Democrats getting air cover and free passes from the mainstream press, let me state up front a few political facts about myself:

• I have been voting in national elections since 1972.
• During that whole time, I have never voted for a Republican for President.
• Up until 2010, I had never voted for a Republican for any national office.
• For a while, while living back in New Jersey, I was officially registered as a Democrat.

That should prove that the following insanity is not a witch hunt or hatchet job on Democrats. But what it does show is that Democrats are just as obnoxious and disgusting as any other type of politician, they just do not get the press coverage from the mainstream press for their misdeeds as Republicans or other do.

The following insanity is based on an August 19, 2014 article written by Geoffrey Dickens who was writing for the Newsbusters website. Newsbusters does a really good job of pointing out the bias and skewed reporting that often goes on by main stream media outlets, outlets that are supposed to be journalistically neutral but are much more often than not favoring the Democrats when it comes to news coverage.

Ask yourself how much you have been told by the mainstream media of these pretty distressing scandals by Democratic politicians in addition to the ones we listed above:

- Did you know that Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is accused of illegally funneling campaign funds to his granddaughter? That this issue was raised by a formal investigation by the Federal Elections commission or that Reid ended up repaying at least some of the funds as a result of the investigation?

You probably do not know about this incident since ABC, CBS, and NBC gave it absolutely no news coverage, according to the Newsbusters article, despite the fact it involved the Senate Majority Leader.

- Did you know that Democratic Governor of Illinois Pat Quinn allegedly used an anti violence state government budget as his own private slush fund? Did you know that his use of the funds is under criminal investigation by both the FBI and state agencies? 

You probably do not know since ABC, NBC, and CBS news gave it no coverage despite it involving major corruption potential in one of the biggest states in the union, the home state of the current President.

- Did you know that Democratic Senator John Walsh had to drop out of the Montana Senate race after it was found that he had plagiarized major portions of his master’s thesis while at the Army war College?

- Did you know that current Democratic U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu broke campaign funding laws when she billed the American taxpayer $3,200 to fly 400 miles round trip within her state of Louisiana to attend a campaign fund raiser luncheon? While CNN reported on her lawbreaking, ABC, NBC, and CBS devoted zero news time on the transgression.

- Did you know that earlier this year New Jersey Democratic Congressman Rob Andrews resigned from Congress to take a job with a Philadelphia law firm and spend more time with his family? Or did he really leave Congress to dodge allegations that for years he violated House Of Representative rules and Federal law for allegedly using campaign funds to pay for personal trips to Scotland and Los Angeles and for using a graduation party for his daughter to illegally raise campaign cash? 

You probably do not know about the shenanigans since only CBS covered the alleged transgressions for 88 seconds within a larger 60 Minutes piece. None of the three major network news organizations gave this scandal a single second of coverage.

- Did you know that on March 26 the FBI raided the offices of three Democrats across the country? One of them, California Democratic State Senator Leland Yee, was arrested on theft, bribery and extortion charges. The Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) reported Yee was “tied to Chinese gangster Raymond ‘Shrimp Boy’ Chow and convicted Hillary Clinton bundler Norman Hsu.” The IBD went on to explain that Yee was “An outspoken advocate of gun control, Yee conspired to traffic in high-powered weapons in exchange for campaign cash, the FBI affidavit says.”

You probably did not hear about this scandal since while ABC’s Amy Robach, on March 27 edition of ABC’s Good Morning America, only talked about it briefly, never mentioning the Democratic party affiliation of Yee: “And a California lawmaker who pushed for gun control has been arrested in a gun trafficking scheme. State Senator Leland Yee is fighting those charges.”

There was nothing about Yee on CBS and NBC.

- Did you know that on March 28, California and Democratic State Senators Rod Wright and Ron Calderon joined Yee in being suspended by the California State Senate, forced to resign by Democratic Governor Jerry Brown? Wright is waiting sentencing in a voter fraud case while Calderon was caught “taking $100,000 in bribes, lavish trips and no show jobs for his kids in exchange for legislative favors."

There was absolutely no coverage by any mainstream news network.

- Did you know that as a part of same March 26 FBI raid that arrested California’s Yee, Demcoratic Charlotte Mayor Patrick Cannon was also arrested for accepting bribes? The IBD reported that Cannon, a friend of the President, allegedly took more than $48,000 in bribes, including $20,000 in cash from an undercover agent, who actually delivered the bribe inside a briefcase in the mayor’s office. 

During another payoff, Cannon placed the bribe money near his ear and fanned the bills, according to the Federal complaint. 

Big Three bews network coverage included:

• A 12 second mention by ABC’s Amy Robach on the March 27 Good Morning America, during which Robach failed to name Cannon as a Democrat: “Mayor Patrick Cannon accused of accepting more than $48,000 in bribes and then soliciting another million in bribes.”
• NBC’s Brian Williams on the March 26 Nightly News offered a 37 second report, in which he never disclosed Cannon’s party affiliation. 
• CBS never ran a story on Cannon.

- Did you know that on April 28 the Chicago Tribune reported that Illinois Democratic State Representative Keith Farnham was charged with “using both and state-owned computers to trade hundreds of images and videos depicting child pornography and engage in graphic online chats in which he allegedly bragged about sexually molesting a 6-year-old girl?"

Mainstream news coverage: 0 stories

We could go on and on but you get the idea. The Newsbusters article also covered the following Democratic politician misdeeds in detail that you can research for yourself:

• Democrat (Bruce Baley) Running for U.S. Senate in Iowa Insults Farmers. Big Three news network coverage: 0 stories
• Democratic Congressman (Bennie Thompson) Calls Clarence Thomas an “Uncle Tom.” Big Three coverage: 0 stories
• Democratic Candidate (Marie Strumolo Burke) for Mayor in New Jersey Uses the “N Word.” Big Three coverage: 0 stories

But we should not be surprised by this non-reporting. When a Demcoratic Congressman from Georgia publicly worried that the island of Guam was going to tip over in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the mainstream press ignored this idiocy. When a Texas Congresswoman asked out loud if the Mars Rover vehicle would be driving past the spot on the moon where Armstrong and Aldrin had landed, the mainstream press ignored this ignorance. When a Democratic Congresswoman from California exclaimed that 500 million Americans were applying for first time unemployment benefits every week, the mainstream press glossed over her highly deficient math skills.

Again, I am not out witch hunting Democrats. But it is pretty obvious that the main stream media has really been biased when it comes to not reporting negative news stories about Democrats. When Republican Vice President Dan Quayle misspelled tomato long ago at a school spelling bee, the mainstream press went crazy. When President Obama misspelled respect at an Aretha Franklin concert, no mention was made. This is just one example of the protection racket our journalists have devolved into.

When the press becomes the protector of politicians, of either party, rather than the investigator of politicians, democracy suffers, liberty suffers, and politicians more easily get away with the insanity that they have been doing over the past few decades. Thus, while this blog has always maintained that we are living through the worst set of politicians this country has every seen, it is partly because 1) the mainstream press has allowed them to get away with their lack of integrity, their greed, and their incompetence and 2) we have also taken “sides,” encouraging the press and journalists of our time to be what they are today: biased, lazy, and a tool of government and the political class.

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