The Voice of Reason: The End of Freedom of Speech, Press in America?

While pondering yesterday evening how America could possibly elect a President with such a horrific record to a second term in office, I began thinking about how much the country I love so much has changed in just the last four years.

I thought back to the venom directed to actress Stacy Dash from the left when she announced she was supporting Mitt Romney, the lack of media coverage and the Administration's response to the killing of four Americans in Benghazi, the dearth of coverage about the horrible suffering in New York and New Jersey following Hurricane Sandy, the lack of context and depth in the media's coverage of economic issues facing this country, and the hate-filled responses I received on Facebook when I attempted to point out facts about the major issues facing our country.

It suddenly dawned on me.  Our First Amendment Freedoms of Speech and the Press, outlined in the Bill of Rights, are slowly being eroded through attempted censorship from within our own citizenry and by a media censoring its own news to avoid appearing to be negative towards their President.  Let me explain further. 

When the violence in the Middle East erupted on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the Obama Administration pointed to a YouTube video as the cause, calling it "despicable" and communicating that America had nothing to do with this slanderous video.  The President even spoke before the U.N., essentially apologizing for and attacking this anti-Muslim video.  A few weeks later, the person who made this video was jailed by the government on a probation violation charge.  A clear message was sent in words and actions by the Obama Administration:  No one can speak out against Muslims in America.

As this story began to unfold, Fox News was excluded from an intelligence briefing on Benghazi.  The one news organization that has had the courage to probe deeper into what happened and why it happened was excluded from this  briefing.  (This is something that would wouldn't have even occurred in the Nixon White House.) Again, a clear message was delivered by the Obama Administration:  Speak out against the government, and we will retaliate by limiting your access to news.

When Dash announced she was supporting Romney, you would have thought she had sexually abused a child.  Twitter was filled with hate-filled Tweets from the left, including threats.  Once more, a clear message was delivered by the left: How dare anyone in Hollywood speak out against our President.

The same type of hate-filled messaging was delivered to black conservatives who had the courage to vocalize and publicize their convictions. The same people who rightly rallied around those courageous enough to speak up for civil rights in the 60s were suddenly trying their best to keep other blacks from speaking up for their conservative views in the 2010s.

Even on Facebook, I and others were practically accosted for writing posts and posting links to articles that were less-than-flattering of the Adminstration's response to Benghazi, the facts about our economic recovery and FEMA's response to Hurricane Sandy.  One poster wrote sarcastically about how apparently I and others thought the President was a "Muslim bastard," while another defended the Administration's response to Hurricane Sandy when I compared the response to Katrina. Although I didn't mention the President even once in my post about the response to Sandy, the person responded that I was just trying to make the President look bad. Interestingly, those in New York and New Jersey themselves are comparing the slow response to Hurricane Sandy to the response after Katrina.  Another liberal friend on Facebook claimed that racism was the reason why people weren't supporting President Obama. 

Another Facebook friend posted a picture on Election Day indicating that she "Voted for Democrats."  This was the same Facebook friend who derided me in an e mail a couple of months ago for "liking" something on Facebook that she felt didn't represent the fair and reasonable person she had always found me to be.  And yet, she was proud that she only voted for those who are members of one political party, not the candidate or the issues? If this isn't hypocracy at its worst, I don't know what is.

In the 1960s, it became politically correct to fight against the government.  Today, it has become politically correct to attack anyone who says anything against the government. 

The reason why I and others wrote posts on Facebook or posted links was to inform Americans about issues that were not being covered by the national news media fairly and thoroughly. With 23 million Americans struggling to find work, 40-some months of 8%+ unemployment and an economy that has clearly not recovered, one would think that coverage of the economy would have dominated every evening newscast in the months leading up to the election. In the past, the news media would dive deeper into these issues, helping to put them into context for the average American.  Instead, as I pointed out in an earlier blog, the mainstream evening news most often focused on anti-Republican issues, while investing precious minutes of a newscast on such important topics such as Rosie O'Donnell taking an aspiran that saved her life or the death of Phyllis Diller -- instead of probing more deeply into our nation's economic or debt woes.

Has the media coverage been biased? A study from the Pew Research Center discovered that 19% of the coverage of President Obama was positive, while 30% was negative.  In comparison, only 15% of the coverage of Romney was positive, while 38% was negative.

Interestingly, though, up until before the President's abysmal performance in the first debate in early October, just one month before the election, news media coverage of the President was twice as positive as it was towards Romney.  Prior to that debate, 22% of the coverage of the President was positive, compared to just 11% for Romney.  This means that for months on end, when the vast majority of voters were making decisions about whom they would vote for, the coverage was twice as positive for the President as it was for the challenger, even though millions were out of work, millions more were forced into poverty and in some months more Americans went on disability than actually found a job.

http://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2012/11/02/study-romney-obama-both-get-negative-coverage
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/study-msnbc-had-more-negative-coverage-of-romney-than-fox-had-toward-obama/

Until the news media begin covering this President, the two major parties and the issues facing Americans thoroughly and equitably, Republicans will not have any chance at retaking the White House. Until fairness returns to journalism, Americans will only be given the news the media want us to learn.

Until fairness returns, it will be up to bloggers like myself, and Americans like you, to hold this Administration accountable and to let other Americans learn the truth about what is truly going on in our country. Twitter, Facebook and our blogs will become the source of news for Americans who want to learn all the news that's fit to print, to borrow from the slogan of the New York Times that clearly no longer applies to that newpaper or to the majority of media outlets in America.

Sadly, no one else is going to do it but us. We must fight just as valiantly and tirelessly as those who fought for civil rights in the 1960s.  This time, though, we'll be fighting for the soul and the future of the America we love so dearly.

 











  

News Media Selectively Report the News

Earlier this week, news media coverage of a major issue appeared in almost every newspaper and on nearly every television and radio broadcast.  The extensive  coverage pointed out the unbridled arrogance of former President George W. Bush when he was in office, providing readers, viewers and listeners with a number of stunning examples.

One example cited was Bush's recess appointments to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the National Labor Relations Board.  Although permitted by the Constitution to make appointments while the Senate is in recess to allow key positions to be filled, the President made these appointments while the Senate was in pro-forma sessions.  Bush clearly stretched the limits of the President's Constitutional power, pushing it further than the framers of the Constitution ever intended.

Another example revealed by the news media was Bush's "kill list," a list of suspected terrorists selected for execution by drones.  Without any trial by jury or evidence presented to a judge, the President and his team determined who would die and who would live.  If family members or other community members were found with suspected terrorists, Bush and his group of advisors often decided that they were up to no good, too, and ordered a drone strike, killing both the potentially innocent and those strongly suspected of guilt.  Dead men, women and children tell no tales.

Did you happen to see any of this coverage?  You didn't?   

The fact is that there has been little coverage about these issues because the President who has displayed this unequaled disregard for the Constitution, as well as American and international laws, has been Barack Obama, not George W. Bush.

Yes, it was Obama who made the recess appointments while the Senate was still convening.  Yes, it was Obama who has developed an ever-expanding list of suspected terrorists to kill, justifying the killing of potentially innocent people who just happen to be near the suspected terrorists.  It was also the Obama Administration who closed the gap between Church and State, telling Catholic institutions that they must provide birth control converage as part of the new health care law.

It was the Obama Administration that stretched the limits of the Commerce Clause in the Constitution, telling Americans that they must buy health insurance and would be penalized if they didn't.  For the first time in American history, the Commerce Clause is going to be used to penalize Americans for not participating in commerce?

This President and his administration also selectively decided who would be the winners and the losers in the bailout of General Motors, protecting the United Auto Workers and the dealerships of those who supported his election, while distributing pennies on the dollar to shareholders and bondholders and closing GM dealerships for most of those who strongly supported John McCain in the 2008 election.  Even in its selection of the "green" companies to support with stimulus dollars, the Obama Administration just happened to pick those who supported his candidacy the strongest.  What a coincidence.

But you haven't heard much about any of these issues because the mainstream news media wanted Obama to be elected, and wants him to serve another four years. 

But if it had been Bush who had done even half of these shenanigans, you would have seen extensive coverage on the front page of every major newspaper and news magazine, the lead story on every major television station's broadcast, and the main topic of every major radio station's news coverage. The mainstream news media, as well as the Internet, would have been abuzz with coverage and comments about how Bush was acting more like a dictator than a President. 

Sadly, the same Americans and members of the news media who vehemently condemned Bush for approving enhanced interrogation techniques on live prisioners are applauding Obama for having the courage to kill suspected terrorists and innocent people who may be near suspected terrorists.  The same voters and reporters who vehemently opposed the ability of the Bush Administration to obtain a wiretap quickly from a single federal judge in order to listen in on the phone conversations of suspected terrorists now undoubtedly support the Obama Adminitration's selection of who will be killed, without any legislative or judicial oversight.

To me, this is the height of hypocricy. It's past time for the news media and the electorate to quit giving this President a free pass in terms of accountability and to begin holding him to the same  standard as his predecessors.