The True Human Cost Of War

Suddenly, the mainstream media doesn't care.

Remember the controversy over the Pentagon policy of not allowing the press to take pictures of the flag-draped caskets of American war dead as they arrived in the United States? Critics accused President Bush of trying to hide the terrible human cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"These young men and women are heroes," Vice President Biden said in 2004, when he was senator from Delaware. "The idea that they are essentially snuck back into the country under the cover of night so no one can see that their casket has arrived, I just think is wrong."

In April of this year, the Obama administration lifted the press ban, which had been in place since the Persian Gulf War in 1991. Media outlets rushed to cover the first arrival of a fallen U.S. serviceman, and many photographers came back for the second arrival, and then the third.

But after that, the impassioned advocates of showing the true human cost of war grew tired of the story. Fewer and fewer photographers showed up. "It's really fallen off," says Lt. Joe Winter, spokesman for the Air Force Mortuary Affairs Operations Center at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where all war dead are received. "The flurry of interest has subsided."

That's an understatement. When the casket bearing Air Force Tech. Sgt. Phillip Myers, of Hopewell, Va., arrived at Dover the night of April 5 -- the first arrival in which press coverage was allowed -- there were representatives of 35 media outlets on hand to cover the story. Two days later, when the body of Army Spc. Israel Candelaria Mejias, of San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico, arrived, 17 media outlets were there. (All the figures here were provided by the Mortuary Affairs Operations Center.) On subsequent days in April, there were nearly a dozen press organizations on hand to cover arrivals.

It Takes An Amateur

to do the job the mainstream news media is supposed to do.

Shared via AddThis

Not Even Jon Stewart Can Stomach ACORN And The Mainstream Media

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Audacity of Hos
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Healthcare Protests

Maybe this will help Charlie Gibson and the rest of the mainstream media catch up on this story.



Or maybe this will.

ACORN, calling the actions of some of its employees "indefensible," has suspended advising new clients as part of its service programs and is setting up an independent review to see what happened.

ACORN chief executive Bertha Lewis said in a written statement that she was "ordering a halt to any new intakes into ACORN's service programs until completion of an independent review."

Of course, to explain this to New York Times readers will be difficult, considering that this is all they've read about it.

One More Reason Why The Mainstream News Media Is Doomed

Should it be news when it is learned that a high ranking Obama Administration official is a communist, a nutcase radical and a 9/11 conspiracy theorist?

Apparently not.

The Truth About Obama's Belgrade, MT Obamacare Townhall

As it turns out, a friend of my parents lives near Belgrade, Montana. And his eyewitness account of the goings on there are very much at odds with the official, mainstream media version. In short, the affair was staged. It was a taxpayer funded infomercial. Here is his account.

By now you have probably heard that President Obama came to Montana last Friday. However, there are many things that the major news has not covered. I feel that since Bill and I live here and we were at the airport on Friday I should share some facts with you. Whatever you decide to do with the information is up to you. If you chose to share this email with others I do ask that you DELETE my email address before you forward this on.

On Wednesday, August 5th it was announced locally that the President would be coming here. There are many groups here that are against his healthcare and huge spending so those groups began talking and deciding on what they were going to do. The White House would not release ANY details other than the date.

On about Tuesday Bill found out that they would be holding the "Town Hall" at the airport. (This is only because Bill knows EVERYONE at the airport) Our airport is actually located outside of Belgrade (tiny town) in a very remote location. Nothing is around there. They chose to use a hangar that is the most remotely located hangar. You could not pick a more remote location, and you cannot get to it easily. It is totally secluded from the public. FYI: We have many areas in Belgrade and Bozeman which could have held a large amount of folks with sufficient parking. (gymnasiums/auditoriums). All of which have chairs and tables, and would not have to be SHIPPED IN!! $$$$$

During the week, cargo by the TONS was being shipped in constantly. Airport employees could not believe how it just kept coming. Though it was our President coming several expressed how excessive it was, especially during a recession. $$$$$

Late Tuesday/early Wednesday the 12th, they said that tickets would be handed out on Thursday 9am at two locations and the president would be arriving around 12:30 Friday.

Thursday morning about 600 tickets were passed out. However, 1500 were printed at a Local printing shop per White House request. Hmmmm......900 tickets just DISAPPEARED. This same morning someone called into the radio from the local UPS branch and said that THOUSANDS of Dollars of Lobster were shipped in for Obama. Montana has some of the best beef in the nation!!! And it would have been really wonderful to help out the local economy. Anyone heard of the Recession?? Just think...with all of the traveling the White House is doing. $$$$$ One can only imagine what else we are paying for.

On Friday Bill and I got out to the airport about 10:45am. The groups that wanted to protest Obama's spending and healthcare had gotten a permit to protest and that area was roped off. But that was not to be. A large bus carrying SEIU (Service Employees International Union) members drove up onto the area (illegal)and unloaded right there. It was quite a commotion and there were specifically 2 SEIU men trying to make trouble and start a fight. Police did get involved and arrested the one man but they said they did not have the manpower to remove the SEIU crowd. The SEIU crowd was very organized and young. About 99% were under the age of 30 and they were not locals! They had bullhorns and PROFESSIONALLY made signs. Some even wore preprinted T-shirts. Oh, and Planned Parenthood folks were with them.....professing abortion rights with their T-shirts and preprinted signs. (BTW, all these folks did have a permit to protest in ANOTHER area)

Those against healthcare/spending moved away from the SEIU crowd to avoid confrontation. They were orderly and respectful. Even though SEIU kept coming over and walking through, continuing to be very intimidating and aggressive at the direction of the one SEIU man.

So we had Montana folks from ALL OVER the state with their homemade signs and their DOGS with homemade signs. We had cowboys, nurses, doctors you name it. There was even a guy from Texas who had been driving through. He found out about the occasion, went to the store, made a sign, and came to protest.

If you are wondering about the press.....Well, all of the major networks were over by that remote hangar I mentioned. They were conveniently parked on the other side of the buildings FAR away. None of these crowds were even visible to them. I have my doubts that they knew anything about the crowds.
We did have some local news media around us from this state and Idaho . Speaking of the local media...they were invited. However, all questions were to be turned into the White House in advance of the event. Wouldn't want anyone to have to think off the top of their head.

It was very obvious that it was meant to be totally controlled by the White House. Everything was orchestrated down to the last detail to make it appear that Montana is just crazy for Obama and government healthcare. Even those people that talked about their insurance woes........the White House called our local HRDC (Human Resource and Development Committee) and asked for names. Then the White House asked those folks to come. Smoke and mirrors...EVERYTHING was staged!!!!!!!!!!!

I am very dismayed about what I learned about our current White House. The amount of control and manipulation was unbelievable. I felt I was not living in the United States of America, more like the USSR!! I was physically nauseous. Bill and I have been around when Presidents or Heads of State visit. It has NEVER been like this. I am truly very frightened for our country. America needs your prayers and your voices. If you care about our country please get involved. Know the issues. And let Congress hear your voices again and again!! If they are willing to put forth so much effort to BULLY a small town one can only imagine what is going on in Washington DC. Scary!!



K.
Bozeman , Montana

Late May As Well Be Never. The Media Examine Obama, At Last

Now they tell us! Perhaps confident that the election is in the bag, here and there individual journalists are suddenly taking little peeks under the rocks and are discovering unsavory information about their Chosen One, Barack Obama. I doubt that this has as much to do with a sudden crisis of conscience as it has to do with grasping for a shred of post-election credibility.

A fine example was the exposé in the Washington Post this week about Obama’s sleazy fundraising. The Obama campaign intentionally disabled safeguards that any honest candidate would employ to prevent donors from evading contribution laws. One donor, calling himself “Doodad Pro” has donated about $17,000, well above the legal maximum of $2300. And who knows how much money this fellow has given under other pseudonyms. Another intentionally disabled safeguard would have prevented anonymous donors from contributing through untraceable prepaid credit cards. Theoretically, one ultra-rich Hollywood liberal could give vast sums of money through the purchase of these cards. For that matter, Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez could donate any amount of money to Obama’s campaign using prepaid cards. John McCain’s donation server automatically rejects such cards.

The Washington Post also discovered that the Obama campaign had accepted $174,800 from a single donor named Mary K. Biskup, of Manchester, Missouri. When contacted by the Post, Ms. Biskup denies ever giving a cent to Obama. Her credit card records back her up. Somebody “borrowed” her name to make scores of untraceable donations. It’s no wonder that two-thirds of the staggering $150 million Obama raised in September alone came through Obama’s intentionally porous internet.

In truth, the Washington Post did almost no real investigative journalism and discovered nothing that was not already widely known for months in the blogosphere. The Post itself credited bloggers with doing the actual investigative work.

The Pittsburgh Tribune also turned up a bit of information that would have been more useful to voters had it been looked for earlier. Ever since the spreading voter registration scandal regarding the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), the Obama campaign has denied any affiliation with the supposedly non-partisan group. Even his campaign’s donation of $820,000 to ACORN was waved away as something that happened when Obama was only 47 years old.

But, what the Pittsburgh Tribune discovered was that the Obama campaign had shared its donor list with ACORN with special emphasis given to those donors who had already given the legal limit (and had not resorted to prepaid credit cards), but who might be willing to contribute to Obama’s cause through ACORN.

In summary, Obama has been lying.

And reporters are coming out of the woodwork to criticize their brethren. John King of CNN admitted last week that the media had not adequately vetted Barack Obama. Michael Malone of ABC described the media bias in favor of Barack Obama as “appalling” and “bewildering.”

As a fourth generation newspaperman, Malone finds the media bias professionally embarrassing. “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,” he laments.

A glaring example had to be the disparity between two similar stories regarding Sarah Palin and Barack Obama. The media quickly a spread a rumor that Sarah Palin had once belonged to an Alaskan secessionist party. That was a lie. But, what is true is that Barack Obama belonged to the Socialist New Party. This is somewhat relevant as Barack Obama sneers mockingly at accusations that his wealth redistribution schemes are socialist.

Columnist Orson Scott Card probably penned the sharpest criticism of journalism’s decline into disinformation and propagandizing. A self-described Democrat, Card stood in awe of the mainstream media’s intentional campaign of disinformation regarding the mortgage meltdown. He points out that the Democrats obstructed efforts to reign in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He points out that the Democrats raked in the lion’s share of campaign contributions from the mortgage giants. And, considering Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s quasi-governmental status, he wonders how this would be different from the Pentagon contributing to congressmen who vote to increase the defense budget. He notes other well-known press disinformation campaigns and wonders what became of journalism’s commitment to truth telling.

I can help him with that. And I’m pretty sure he knows the answer. Economic insecurity favors the Democrats’ electoral chances this year, but only if the truth is kept from the voters.

Gwen Ifill And Mainstream Media Corruption

Has the term “journalistic ethics” become oxymoronic? When I read Wednesday that Gwen Ifill was to serve as moderator for Thursday’s vice presidential debate, I decided that it had. Ms Ifill has a book due to arrive in bookstores on January 20, 2009, not coincidentally the date when a new president will be inaugurated. The book’s title is “Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama.” Aside from the glaring political bias conveyed by the book’s title, how’s that book going to sell if John McCain is sworn in on that date?

Gwen Ifill doesn’t just have a political interest in the outcome of the election, but a fiduciary interest. Although she and her colleagues are doing all that they can to prevent it, it remains possible that January 20th will usher in the age of McCain and Palin. Does it matter that she has quite a chunk of change riding on the outcome? Former National Basketball Association referee Tim Donaghy is in prison for profiting from the outcome of games he officiated. Baseball’s all-time hits leader, Pete Rose is banned from baseball and the Hall of Fame because he placed bets on the Cincinnati Reds when he was the manager. Gwen Ifill has a large bet riding on the outcome of the election. And she has placed her bet on Obama. If only we could take choosing the leader of the world’s only superpower as seriously as we take sports.

Gwen Ifill isn’t unique. It’s old news that George Stephanopolous and the late Tim Russert moved directly from partisan Democratic Party politics to journalism. Move along, move along. No conflict there. And NBC’s Andrea Mitchell’s marriage to Alan Greenspan has not prevented her from reporting on the financial crisis, even though her husband bears a considerable share of the blame. The same goes for NBC’s David Gregory, who is married to Beth Wilkinson. Until very recently, Beth Wilkinson was the general counsel, executive vice president and corporate secretary for Fannie Mae. You don’t suppose that colors his reporting do you? I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want to come home and find his key no longer fits the locks. Going back to sports, this is like trusting East German and Soviet figure skating judges. Unfortunately, we can’t toss out the highest and lowest scores.

This is why the mainstream media are doomed. They have become thoroughly corrupted by their monopoly. In the evolving world of the new media, they must earn trust, and yet they flagrantly violate that trust. Like Dan Rather, they think that they can still win our trust with a grave expression and a rich timbre. While the media swarm all over Wasilla and Juneau, Alaska looking for every speck of dirt on Sarah Palin, only one, Stanley Kurtz of National Review, has bothered to travel to the University of Illinois, Chicago library to peruse the records of Barack Obama’s only significant executive experience, as chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.

Even if the press were incurious before Stanley Kurtz’s investigation, they should have been drawn to the flashing red lights when the university denied access to those records. What were they trying to hide? Who were they protecting? Inquiring minds want to know. But there were no inquiring minds at NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post, or anywhere else.

Once he finally gained access to the files, Kurtz tried to discuss his discoveries on a Chicago radio program. The Obama campaign instructed its drones to overwhelm the station’s telephone lines and e-mail. David Freddoso had a similar experience when he was invited to appear on the same Chicago radio program to discuss his book, “The Case Against Barack Obama.” Nothing to see here. Move along, move along.

In Missouri, Barack Obama encouraged the friendly prosecutors and sheriffs to prosecute his critics. Unless you happened to be in Saint Louis watching KMOW, you didn’t hear about that from the mainstream media.

This is why the mainstream, or fossil, media are doomed. You cannot learn what Stanley Kurtz found in those records by reading or listening to the mainstream media. Obama’s thuggery was scarcely covered by local media in Chicago and Missouri and ignored by the national mainstream media. The Gwen Ifill book story only dribbled into the mainstream media after it was widely disseminated in the new media. They tell us what they want us to know and still believe that they can keep us from learning what we need to know.

The MSM Runs Interference for Obama/Biden

Start the lies!

A Liberal Media Puppet Harasses Sarah Palin

When Candidates' Families Matter

On the day when the United States hand the Iraq's formerly lost Anbar province over to Iraqi administration, CNN concentrated its Labor Day coverage on Sarah Palin's daughter. So far as I could determine, CNN deemed Britol Palin's pregnancy even more important than the disappointing Hurricane Gustav.

Meanwhile, if anybody's family needs investigation, it's Joe Biden's. It seems that the financial giant MBNA was fattening Hunter Biden's bank accounts at the same time that Joe Biden was helping push through a bankruptcy reform sought my MBNA, but widely opposed by Democrats.

John McCain's Startling Discovery

John McCain has spent much of his career cultivating the approval of the mainstream media. He has now learned that they are and always be his enemy. Maybe that's why he's been a better candidate lately.

Barack Obama's Destitute Brother

Andrew Breitbart asks: "Does anyone think if Mr. McCain had a sibling living in a trailer park making minimum wage (892 times more than Mr. Obama's half brother's yearly income) that the mainstream media and the Obama campaign wouldn't notice?"

The Sunday morning shows parroted Mr. Obama's shocking discovery that the McCain family is well-off. Smarting Obamaniacs campaigning for their messiah are now scripted to ask voters in battleground states how many houses they own and participate in an official campaign contest, "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire: McCain Edition." Winners receive hope, change and fist bumps - spoils of the "new kind of politics."

Someone who made $4.2 million last year and lives in a mansion that a mobster helped pay for should not be throwing stones. When Mr. Obama's flesh-and-blood lives in squalor, raising the standard of living of his opponent's extended family is probably not a smart idea.

When even the mainstream media points the finger at itself for bias, well.......

"My colleagues in the national media are absolutely biased, in the tank supporting the Obama candidacy while claiming the mantle of objectivity,"