Interesting commentary I ran across...


More Bias Coverage from the Liberal Media

I know I'm getting older each day and probably more conservative - so maybe there's nothing all that different about Global Media Inc. It just seems like the liberal media is getting more bias in its coverage of world events.

I seriously doubt it's possible for the press to act more imbalanced in their reporting of the Israeli/Arab semi-war without blowing their thin illusion of impartiality. The way Israel is presented by the liberal media you would think Yasser Arafat was the acting editor of all Middle East news stories emanating from the region.

Time and time again as fatalities are incurred on both sides of the conflict, the liberal media has a strange habit of giving special attention to Palestinian losses. The Western press was widely criticized for not wanting to show footage of Israeli soldiers being beaten to death by an Arab mob, while at the same time they had no reservations about showing a Palestinian youth being fatally shot while trapped in a crossfire situation.

You would have to be aware of the liberal media's bias to understand their position on the upcoming Timothy McVeigh execution. Before hand, the media would defend any criminal that had a death sentence hanging over his head. Because McVeigh cited patriotic reasons for the Oklahoma City bombing, the press just had to make an exception in his case. The denomination of McVeigh gave them an opportunity to bash right-wing groups.

I couldn't believe a news article a readers sent me that had the liberal media wining: If the execution was indefinitely delayed, local merchants in Terre Haute, Indiana would loose out on millions of dollars of business from the expected media horde. Mercy, is this the same press that would cry over the "cruel and unusual" execution of a guy that raped and brutally murdered a 78-year-old grandmother? - I guess it is.

I recently came across the following news parody that predicted how a news organization like CNN would handle the bombing of Pearl Harbor. It does a wonderful job of conveying how the press twists the truth:

PEARL HARBOR (CNN) -- US Navy officials reported earlier today that a number of Navy warships in the American settlement of Pearl Harbor suddenly exploded, with many of them sinking. Unnamed sources blamed the incident on a training exercise being conducted by the Japanese Navy nearby.

In Tokyo, Japanese officials said while some civilian fishing boats were in the area, they were unaware of any unusual activity. They repeated their commitment to the peace process, and said that any violence was the direct result of continued American aggression. The Japanese Ambassador, at a press conference in Washington, emphasized that only peaceful negotiations based on US acceptance of Japan's leading role in Asia could reduce the tensions between the two countries, and he called for an international inquiry to determine the cause of the incident.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt, leader of the hardline Democratic Party, accused Japan of a deliberate sneak attack on the American fleet. In an address before a joint session of Congress, he claimed that thousands of American soldiers had been killed on "a date that will live in infamy". There was no independent confirmation of those figures, which respected Japanese sources say are greatly exaggerated. Because of the belligerent tone of the American President's remarks, many Japanese consider him to be a war criminal. His inflammatory remarks further confirmed the suspicions of many ordinary Japanese who believe US intelligence operatives, acting on secret orders from President Roosevelt, set off the explosions in order to blame Japan.

Asia analysts are divided over who is to blame. Professor Michael Roberts, Director of the Pacific Studies Program at Lockard University in Boston doubts that Japan had anything to do with the explosions. "Since the moderate General Hideki Tojo became Prime Minister of Japan in October, it is highly unlikely that he would jeopardize the peace process that he himself had played such a prominent role in starting," Roberts said. Dr. Susan Randolph-Jones, Director and Senior Fellow at the Albright Institute's Center for East Asian Policy Studies, blamed hardliners within the Japanese military. "General Tojo can no longer restrain his people's anger," she said. "This simple fact should put pressure on all those who want to see peace in the Pacific. Japan and the United States are never going to resolve their disputes alone."

The region, in which the US has built hundreds of illegal settlements since its unilateral annexation of Hawaii, has been a flash point since US Commodore Matthew Perry first arrived at Japan in 1853. During his visit, Commodore Perry visited the Japanese capital, which some Japanese consider to have been a defilement of holy Japanese soil by an uncivilized foreigner. Japanese civilians have repeatedly called for spontaneous "days of rage" to protest the intrusions by the American military, which are against international law.



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Artist formerly known as Reindeer

Ha! That is great stuff!

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Man — every man — is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.
Ayn Rand

The sad thing is that is right on the money.

God I hate the news (but am still strangely attracted to it)

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Manu Narayan

Originally posted by Fordman50:
Then there would be the NEWMAX.COM and FOX news version:

"Today, Dec 2, 1942, The U.S. Military Industrial complex was sabotaged by leftist factions of the U.S. government with the help on the facist Japs! The ring leader is believed to be FDR himself! These peacenics will stop at nothing to stop the God fearing, patriotic hawks in control of our military! McAuther is proposing that we build detainment camps and round up all of the ememies of the state, starting with the Japs, the Democrats and then the Commie pinkos! Today McAuther was quoted as saying: If I had a secret magic bomb, I would blow Japan, DC, NYC and LA off the fuggin map."



Haha! Too true. I was just about to comment that it all depends where you get your news from. There are PLENTY of conservative slanted sources out there, most notable Fox News and anything owned by Rupert Murdoch. I did a research paper on all this stuff last year.

-Patrick

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"The difference between an individual terrorist and a government in some cases may be simply that the former has a bomb but doesn't have an air force."
-William Blum

The media is only as liberal as the rich conservative men that own it.

I was gonna mention Murdoch too http://discussanything.com/Ubb/smile.gif He's about as right wing as you can get!!

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Red 86 GT

I wonder if anyone has ever bothered to think that MAYBE the power elite actually want people to bicker over Democrat vs. Republican, left vs. right, purple vs. blue., etc. Why? Keep the people fighting and divided over trivial issues, while the power elite pushes through the agenda they really want.

Make no mistake... the corporate media is in effect the fourth branch of the government. Through the use of spin, slant, and outright lies, they bend public opinion so that they get the leaders in power that they want, and the public policies that they really want.

Fordman50 may think he's funny, but in reality, he's closer to the truth than many realize. My mother and her family were in Pearl at the time of the attack. My grandfather was working for Pan American at the time servicing/flying Navy sea planes. We knew that the Japanese were going to attack, we just didn't know when. Still, FDR didn't bother to take any precautions against a possible attack, like keeping troops on alert, or keeping the aircraft/battleships separated so that they would be less vulnerable to attack.

As far as the internment camps for the Japanese, it happened under FDR's watch... many of those Japanese were fiercly loyal to this country. Ironically, the most distinguished U.S. Army unit during the second World War were made up primarily of Japanese soldiers.

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Artist formerly known as Reindeer

I totally agree with you turbo, I see it more of an us vs. them thing. I usually just refer to mainstream media as "the corporate media", but then I always hear how it's biased towards Democrats or something. I mean, if that were true, they are missing out on alot of dirt on the Republican party. So I think it's like you said, I mean they convinced both Dems and Reps that WTO protesters in Seattle were the bad guys, the drug war is good etc.

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Red 86 GT

Then there would be the NEWMAX.COM and FOX news version:

"Today, Dec 2, 1942, The U.S. Military Industrial complex was sabotaged by leftist factions of the U.S. government with the help on the facist Japs! The ring leader is believed to be FDR himself! These peacenics will stop at nothing to stop the God fearing, patriotic hawks in control of our military! McAuther is proposing that we build detainment camps and round up all of the ememies of the state, starting with the Japs, the Democrats and then the Commie pinkos! Today McAuther was quoted as saying: If I had a secret magic bomb, I would blow Japan, DC, NYC and LA off the fuggin map."

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Winner of the "peoples Choice award" as supreme advocate for the people!

Heh, the sad part is that's probably right on the money.

I'm with you though, Turbo. I doubt the upper-echelons of power really care whether it's right wing or left wing so long as we're watching that instead of what's really going on.

I dont get it??? Is this insinuating CNN is biased against the USA? Whats politically liberal about Japenese sneak attacks?

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"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies." -Nietzsche

Originally posted by CodyChaos:
I dont get it??? Is this insinuating CNN is biased against the USA? Whats politically liberal about Japenese sneak attacks?



Nothing, unless seen through the eyes of a flaming conservative. I wonder if eanax wrote this article...

Teehee,
Patrick

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"The difference between an individual terrorist and a government in some cases may be simply that the former has a bomb but doesn't have an air force."
-William Blum

Originally posted by PatTheAnarChrist:
Nothing, unless seen through the eyes of a flaming conservative. I wonder if eanax wrote this article...

Teehee,
Patrick



No, CNN is just blatantly biased to the Left and skews storys that favor thier agendas. You dont think Ted Turner had a say in what was going on when he was running it?
Chrisine Amanpours husband was in the Clinton admin. Look how many of the Clinton croanies are now political "anaylists". Everything they anaylize is from the lefts perspective. And to try to say their all unbiased each network has 1 token conservative.

The problem with the whole media in general, is that they have become too close to govt.
Govt can pass legislation favorable and unfavorable to them so they all cozy up together and treat each other nice nice.
Therefore it serves them to take it easy on govt officials and vice versa, you know, like approving giant media mergers.

I remember some of the Clinton Galas, half of the people were part of the liberal-elite media.
There is seriously something wrong when you have a known corrupt president being buddy buddy with the liberal elite media, having parties together.
You cant honestly think there is nothing suspect or shady about that can you?

And this is why Chinagate got NO coverage
And this is why the Broadderick rape allegation was not pursued.
And so on, and so on.

Ive got a great list of examples. I will have to throw it all together and post it.



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Man — every man — is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.
Ayn Rand

All The News That's Fit to Skip:
Network Apathy Toward Chinese Contributions and Espionage

April 26, 1999
By Tim Graham, MRC Director of Media Analysis


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Introduction: Where's TV News Judgment on National Security?

With the end of the Cold War, the networks seem to have abandoned the idea of covering threats to America's national security. Congress recently held a surprising bipartisan vote to rededicate our efforts to build a strategic missile defense. But the networks did not explain the the phenomenon that caused this stunning policy shift: reports of Chinese espionage inside the United States. Republicans and Democrats agree the communist government of China has made leaps and bounds in developing more sophisticated missile-guidance systems to improve their aim, and miniaturized multiple warheads to increase their deadliness.
The nation's most prestigious newspapers — the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Washington Times — have published scoop after scoop detailing the connections between Chinese contributions and espionage efforts. But the ABC, CBS, and NBC morning and evening shows have aired next to nothing of these reports. Since the start of the Asian fundraising scandal in 1996, the networks have behaved irresponsibly in a long-standing pattern which continues to this day. As newspapers break new investigative ground, the networks stay studiously silent.
Network apathy on Chinese espionage would seem less irresponsible and less unfair if the networks hadn't doggedly pursued foreign-policy scandals during Republican presidencies with a curiously partisan sense of geopolitics. These disturbing discoveries and their lack of TV coverage can be broken down into three subject areas:



1. China's Army Funds the Democrats.

When the Asian fundraising scandal story first gained traction in an October 8, 1996 Wall Street Journal article on the then-unknown John Huang, the primary concern was the acceptance of illegal foreign contributions. Strategic questions were very slow to surface.
When Fred Thompson's Senate Governmental Affairs Committee took up the matter in the summer of 1997, network coverage focused on alleged foreign contributions to both parties. When Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour appeared before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee to address Hong Kong-connected contributions to an RNC think tank, the networks provided their fullest day of hearings coverage that month, with the exception of the opening day. But when Democratic National Committee Chairman Don Fowler appeared on September 9 to answer questions about his favors for foreign donors, the networks blacked it out.
Sen. Thompson's opening statement noting intelligence reports suggested the Chinese government had attempted to influence the 1996 elections was presented as a blunder throughout the hearings. On September 9, the night they ignored Fowler, ABC's Linda Douglass noted: "Senator Thompson is clearly tired of taking a beating from the Democrats, who every single day point out the fact that he's failed to prove there is any Chinese plot in connection with the Democratic presidential campaign." Where were they when proof arrived?

May 15, 1998: Chung's Chinese Summer. The New York Times reported Johnny Chung told investigators that a large part of the almost $100,000 he gave Democrats in the summer of 1996 came from Liu Chaoying, who works on defense modernization for China's People's Liberation Army. Two days later, the Times added that Clinton overrode then- Secretary of State Warren Christopher's decision to limit China's ability to launch American- made satellites on Chinese rockets.
Network coverage? Would the networks who dismissed Thompson make up for lost ground? In the midst of heavy coverage of Frank Sinatra's death, ABC devoted 75 seconds to the story, CBS 27, and NBC 15. After Sunday's disclosures, ABC reported one story, but CBS and NBC ignored it. From May 15 to June 5, 1998, the network evening shows offered 15 full stories (featuring reporters in the field) on Chinagate, but 38 full stories on the Monica Lewinsky scandal. In the same time period, the network morning shows aired 40 Monica stories to only six on the China scandal. In three weeks, CBS and NBC each aired only one morning report on the fundraising revelations.

April 4, 1999: Chung's $300,000 Link to the Top. The Los Angeles Times published an Easter bombshell. "The chief of China's military intelligence secretly directed funds from Beijing to help re-elect President Clinton in 1996, former Democratic fundraiser Johnny Chung has told federal investigators." Reporters William Rempel, Henry Weinstein, and Alan Miller reported: "Chung says he met three times with the intelligence official, Gen. Ji Shengde, who ordered $300,000 deposited into the Torrance businessman's bank account to subsidize campaign donations intended for Clinton."
Did the government belief Chung's testimony was credible? The Times also revealed the FBI monitored groups of Chinese visitors in California regarded as a possible hit squad: "more than 40 agents were assigned to guard Chung, his wife and three children for three weeks."
Network coverage? Nothing on any Big Three morning or evening show. None of these details, or the subsequent press conference and state dinner with Chinese premier Zhu Rongji later in the week spurred interest. ABC's Sam Donaldson got closest to touching the revelations five days late, reporting without even a raised eyebrow that Zhu "said he had no knowledge that the Chinese government had contributed money to Mr. Clinton's 1996 campaign."



2. China Acquires U.S. Missile Technology.

Policy toward China may have been affected not just by Chinese donations, but by donations from Americans with business in China. But the nexus between campaign cash and policy actions rarely became a question on the broadcast networks. Since April 1998, the total network evening show coverage of Missilegate? ABC: 7. CBS: 3. NBC: 2. ABC outnumbered these 12 stories alone in one day of promoting their Monica Lewinsky interview. Take these examples of ignored newspaper discoveries:

April 4, 1998: Loral's Loose Lips. New York Times reporters Jeff Gerth and Raymond Bonner reported, "A federal grand jury is investigating whether two American companies illegally gave China space expertise that significantly advanced Beijing's ballistic missile program, according to administration officials. But the officials said the criminal inquiry was dealt a serious blow two months ago when President Clinton quietly approved the export to China of similar technology by one of the companies under investigation." The Times noted that company, Loral, has a chairman, Bernard Schwartz, who was the largest individual contributor to the Democratic National Committee in 1996.
Network coverage? Six weeks went by without a single word from the networks, until the Johnny Chung allegations were published on May 15. As President Clinton prepared to visit China at the end of June, the networks stayed similarly silent.

June 11, 1998: Bush Basher's Reverse. Washington Post reporter John Mintz revealed, "Months after denouncing President George Bush in 1992 for coddling ‘familiar tyrants' in Beijing, newly inaugurated President Clinton endorsed his predecessor's policy in 1993 by approving deals with China to launch U.S.-made satellites. Clinton took the action, the first of many favored by U.S. companies, despite evidence that China had sold ballistic missile parts to Pakistan, declassified White House documents show."
Network coverage? Zero. The only network morning or evening mention of the satellite scandal in June came on NBC's Today June 11. Claire Shipman did not touch on the Mintz story.

June 13, 1998: New Communications Skills. New York Times reporter Jeff Gerth found: "For the past two years, China's military has relied on American-made satellites sold for civilian purposes to transmit messages to its far-flung army garrisons, according to highly classified intelligence reports. The reports are the most powerful evidence to date that the American government knew that China's army was taking advantage of the Bush and Clinton administrations' decisions to encourage sales of technology to Asian companies."
Network coverage? Zero.

June 15, 1998: Pakistan Proliferation. Washington Times reporter Bill Gertz found White House documents showed Clinton loosened the Bush export-control policy by allowing a November 1993 satellite launch while sanctions were in place for exporting missile parts to Pakistan: "Congressional investigators said the document, released last week by the White House, contradicts recent statements by Clinton administration officials defending satellite export policies and claiming they were following procedures set by the Bush administration."
Network coverage? Zero.

June 16, 1998: Helping Libya and Iran. Bill Gertz added more in the Washington Times: "China is discussing sales of missile test equipment to Iran and is helping Libya develop its own missile program, The Washington Times has learned...The reports contradict administration claims that Beijing has improved its record on weapons proliferation."
Network coverage? Zero.

June 18, 1998: The General's Son. Jeff Gerth reported in The New York Times that the Clinton administration was rethinking its approval of one of the largest satellite deals to that date: "Administration officials said concerns about the pending satellite sale had been deepened by American intelligence reports about Shen Rongjun, the Chinese Army general who oversees his country's military satellite programs. The reports quote the general as saying he planned to emphasize the role of satellites in gathering information."
Gerth added: "In an unusual arrangement, Hughes Space and Communications hired General Shen's son, a dual citizen of Canada and China, to work on the project as a manager. The company said it was aware of his familial ties; it is not clear whether the Clinton administration knew. Father and son were both directly involved in the project, and American officials said the intelligence reports said the general was pressing his son to move it forward."
Network coverage? Zero.

June 24, 1998: The Missing Circuit Board. The New York Times reported that China barred American monitors from a previous rocket crash site: "When the Americans finally reached the area and opened the battered but intact control box of the satellite, a supersecret encoded circuit board was missing."
Network coverage? Zero.

All these stories were never factored into the network coverage of Clinton's June trip to China. Imagine if, just a couple of months after the Iran-Contra affair broke, Ronald Reagan had planned a nine-day trip to Iran, with the President featured at a historic joint news conference with Ayatollah Khomeini. Then imagine if the networks helpfully said nothing about Iran- Contra, and praised the President for his "constructive engagement" toward a new "strategic partnership." That's what the networks did for President Clinton's China trip.



3. China Acquires U.S. Warhead Technology.

Then the newspapers began to piece together another story, of China stealing the technology to miniaturize their nuclear warheads. Put the two together — miniaturized nuclear warheads on improved ballistic missiles — and you have an American security nightmare. So did the networks leap at this horrendous security breach? No.

March 6, 1999: Miniaturized Multiple Warheads. The New York Times landed another shocking scoop: "Working with nuclear secrets stolen from an American government laboratory, China has made a leap in the development of nuclear weapons: the miniaturization of its bombs." The Times emphasized "The White House was told of the full extent of China's spying in the summer of 1997, on the eve of the first U.S.-Chinese summit meeting in eight years — a meeting intended to dramatize the success of President Clinton's efforts to improve relations with Beijing....a reconstruction by The New York Times reveals that throughout the government, the response to the nuclear theft was marked by delays, inaction and skepticism — even though senior intelligence officials regarded it as one of the most damaging spy cases in recent history."
Network coverage? In the first nine days of the story, the Big Three aired only 11 evening stories. The morning shows were worse, airing only six full news reports and one interview in the first ten mornings. As administration spokesmen went uninterviewed and unchallenged by the morning shows, ABC's Good Morning America had time for a half-hour on weight loss. CBS's This Morning asked O.J. Simpson lawyer Johnnie Cochran about his upcoming appearance on the CBS soap Guiding Light. Two networks urgently discussed the 40th anniversary of the Barbie doll. When the networks did touch the story, it came flattened by skepticism. Only NBC's Today aired an interview. On March 9, Katie Couric helped Energy Secretary Bill Richardson make excuses: "Isn't there a possibility that China could have done this on its own?" Since the first ten days, the Big Three have ignored several significant revelations:

March 24, 1999: Hand the Spy a Better Job? New York Times reporter James Risen revealed: "In spring 1997, Los Alamos National Laboratory chose a scientist who was already under investigation as a suspected spy for China to run a sensitive new nuclear weapons program, several senior government officials say. The scientist, Wen Ho Lee, asked that he be allowed to hire a research assistant, the officials said. Once in the new position, in charge of updating computer software for nuclear weapons, Lee hired a post-doctoral researcher who was a citizen of China, intelligence and law-enforcement officials said....the research assistant has disappeared."
Network coverage? Zero.

March 29, 1999: "The Penetration is Total." Submerged across the bottom of two pages of the March 29 issue, Newsweek correspondents John Barry and Gregory L. Vistica reported on a CIA probe of the compromised nuclear labs. Top nuclear experts "practically fainted" at how Chinese scientists routinely used U.S. lab phrases and concepts. One official announced: "The penetration is total...they are deep, deep into the labs' black programs." They also learned "Beijing recently got hold of two U.S. cruise missiles that failed to detonate during last fall's retaliatory attack on Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan," and officials want to know if the Chinese are copying that sophisticated technology.
Network coverage? Zero.

March 31, 1999: Only Lee's Wiretap Rejected. After several investigative news reports on the China connection by the Washington bureau of Investor's Business Daily, the newspaper's lead editorial on March 31 revealed: "As part of the probe, the [FBI] requested a wiretap on Lee. Justice denied it, arguing it did not have sufficient grounds to take to a federal court to get the tap approved. But a look at the Justice Department's record on wiretaps calls that argument into serious question. From 1993 to 1997, federal officials requested 2,686 wiretaps. For all its concern for probable cause and legal standards, the Justice Department turned down one request in those four years — Lee's in 1996."
Network coverage? Zero.

April 8, 1999: New Neutron Theft. New York Times reporters Jeff Gerth and James Risen began: "In early 1996, the United States received a startling report from one of its Chinese spies. Officials inside China's intelligence service, the spy said, were boasting that they had just stolen secrets from the United States and had used them to improve Beijing's neutron bomb, according to American officials." After repeated administration claims that all nuclear-weapons espionage happened in the mid-80s, the Times found espionage happening in 1995.
Network coverage? In a press conference that day with visiting Chinese premier Zhu Rongji, both the AP and Reuters reporters on hand asked about the Times charges. Still, the CBS Evening News ignored the story, except for one vague reference by Bill Plante: "Did China steal U.S. nuclear technology? Zhu Rongji said he didn't know a thing about it." ABC and NBC covered the subject, though NBC did not give credit to the newspaper and concluded by stressing the White House spin that "there's no evidence China's neutron bomb was improved
as a result."
The next morning, CBS's This Morning ignored it. ABC's Good Morning America gave the Times story two updates totaling 30 seconds, and NBC's Today awarded one 38-second brief. But NBC spent two minutes and 43 seconds on beavers gnawing down cherry trees on Washington's Tidal Basin.



CONTRAST: Network Coverage of GOP Foreign-Policy Scandals

If the networks don't trust congressional probes into foreign-policy scandals, as they have downplayed and dismissed the findings of House and Senate hearings into the China connection, then they ought to be devoting more resources and air time to investigating the charges for themselves. Clearly they did that in Republican administrations:

Iran-Contra. Network crusaders condemned the Reagan administration for sending TOW missiles to Iran in exchange for American hostages the networks had made famous. On the January 25, 1988 CBS Evening News, Dan Rather famously yelled at Vice President George Bush about selling arms for hostages to Iran: "You've made us hypocrites in the face of the world! How could you sign on to such a policy?" But when Rather secured the first exclusive post- impeachment TV interview with Bill Clinton, aired on the March 31 edition of 60 Minutes II, he asked nothing about fresh stories of Chinese espionage at U.S. nuclear labs.
David Frum compared that to the current China scandal in the June 8, 1998 Weekly Standard: "The essence of the Iran-Contra scandal was the charge that the Reagan administration had sold weapons to an unfriendly regime to raise money for illegal purposes. It now looks disturbingly plausible that the Clinton administration has over the past six years been engaged in something very similar: authorizing the sale of advanced military technology to China in exchange for dubious domestic and illegal foreign campaign contributions. The Reaganites, though, could at least offer this defense: However misguided, or even foolish their project was, it did not put the national security of the United States at risk." The TOW missiles were destined to blow up Saddam Hussein's armies.
By contrast, as Frum pointed out, the Clinton administration has allowed China to acquire technology — "super-computers to simulate nuclear tests, satellite technology that might help aim ballistic missiles more accurately — that could easily be used against the United States and its allies."

Iraqgate. Throughout 1992, the networks (especially ABC's Nightline and NBC's Dateline) devoted massive resources to investigating the since-refuted charge that the Bush administration armed the Iraqis before they faced American forces in the Gulf War. On October 28, 1992, Nightline host Ted Koppel declared that 18 months of ABC searching had revealed a series of "legal and illegal technology transfers" to Iraq, and presented a poll suggesting most Americans didn't believe George Bush's explanations. Two days before the election, CBS's 60 Minutes featured Democratic partisan Henry Gonzalez charging Bush was guilty of obstruction of justice and "principally responsible for arming Saddam Hussein." (In his November 1994 American Lawyer expose of Iraqgate coverage, journalist Stuart Taylor called the CBS piece "a 20-minute tag team number on the Bush administration littered with distortions.") Mike Wallace's first question was, "Who are the main players who have tried to stop your investigation?"
Today, the networks have feigned no interest in the increasing evidence of Chinese espionage, or in those who would attempt to sidetrack investigating reporters or politicians, even as House Republicans and Democrats alike have agreed on the harm it's caused American national security. When the subject comes up at all, it's dismissed as a partisan plaything. ABC reporter Linda Douglass suggested on the March 18 World News Tonight: "Republicans...believe they've finally found an issue that will stick to the President...The charge that Mr. Clinton is soft on China is red meat for conservatives." Why isn't an increased Chinese nuclear-weapons capability of interest to all Americans?



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Man — every man — is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.
Ayn Rand

Isn't it amazing how the elite escape true media investigation?

THE BUSH NAZI COKE MOONIE CONNECTION
by Nick Mamatas - November 09, 2000


This past April, Texas Governor George W. Bush proclaimed a week of remembrance for the Holocaust. He said, "I urge Texans to never forget the inhumanity of those who perpetrated the Holocaust, and reflect upon our own humanity and our responsibility to respect all peoples." Good advice. He should reflect upon his own family, if he is interested in reflecting on inhumanity.

G. W.'s grandfather and great-grandfather, Prescott Bush and George Herbert Walker, were among the chief American fundraisers for Germany's Nazi Party. Through industrialist Fritz Thyssen, the Bush-run Union Banking Company and W. A. Harriman & Company, the Bushes sold over $50 million in German bonds to American investors, starting in 1924. Thyssen in turn pumped money into the infant Nazi Party, which had proved its desire to rule and its willingness to use brute force in 1923's Munich Beer Hall Putsch.

George Walker, GW's great-grandfather, also set up the takeover of the Hamburg-America Line, a cover for I.G. Farben's Nazi espionage unit in the United States. In Germany, I. G. Farben was most famous for putting the gas in gas chambers; it was the producer of Zyklon B and other gasses used on victims of the Holocaust. The Bush family was not unaware of the nature of their investment partners. They hired Allen Dulles, the future head of the CIA, to hide the funds they were making from Nazi investments and the funds they were sending to Nazi Germany, rather than divest. It was only in 1942, when the government seized Union Banking Company assets under the Trading With The Enemy Act, that George Walker and Prescott Bush stopped pumping money into Hitler's regime.

George Bush, then an eighteen year-old man, held off entering Yale (a long-time Bush family destination, Prescott had graduated in 1917) to enter the military, perhaps to remove some of the tarnish from his family's honor. After the war, however, Bush joined the intelligence community and utilized his own connections to help fund drug runners from Laos to Panama. Most shocking was the so-called "cocaine coup" in Bolivia in June 1980, masterminded by fugitive Nazi Klaus Barbie, "The Butcher Of Lyons." Bush, as director of the CIA, had funneled enormous amounts of cash to drug runners including Manuel Noriega and helped in the destabilization of Argentina. Barbie, who had been previously secreted in Latin America by the CIA, began working closely with the Argentines and used drug money to finance a neo-Nazi cabal, one that succeeded in overthrowing the government. The troops swept through the capital wearing Nazi armbands, according to former DEA agent Mike Levine. They may as well have been wearing armbands portraying syringes, dollar bills and "Bush For President" buttons.

After the cocaine coup, the notorious Unification Church, the "Moonie" cult, began making inroads across Latin America. Among the first to arrive in La Paz after the Nazi/coke coup was Bo Hi Pak, Rev. Sun Myung Moon's right hand man. Moon had invested $4 million in the coup, it so turns out, and still had plenty of money left over to help finance George Bush's campaign for president in 1988. Moonie lieutenant Thomas Ward also acted as the go-between between Barbie and his CIA payrollers. The Moonies were also large funders of the Contras and heavy investors in Latin America generally. Bush is still in Moon's pocket: as recently as 1996, former President Bush flew to Argentina to appeal to Argentine president Carlos Menem to attend the gala celebration for Moon's latest right-wing newspaper. Bush has made hundreds of thousands of dollars stumping for Moon groups since leaving the Oval Office, and has been working to make sure GW Bush gets his share of drug-tainted, Nazi managed cult money for the latest Presidential campaign.

That is something we should all reflect on.





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Red 86 GT

Same old thing by the media..


Iran-Contra: Sweep It Away

Most of the major media reacted to George Bush's last-minute pardon of leading Iran-Contra figures with less than outrage.
The conventional wisdom in media circles for years has been that the scandal is old news and it should just go away. Robert
MacNeil of the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour (12/24/92) spoke for many in the media when he asked Tom Blanton of the
National Security Archive, "Mr. Blanton, why does this issue remain important? Clearly, the public is bored with it. The polls all
show that years ago they stopped being interested in it. Why not, as Mr. Bush describes in his pardon statement, why not bring
in the healing power of the pardon and sweep it away and sweep the bitterness away?"

Blanton pointed out that what polls actually show is that most voters did not believe that Bush was telling the truth about
Iran-Contra, and that this was a factor in Bush's electoral defeat. MacNeil then turned to his other guest, Richard Perle, a
former assistant to pardon-recipient Caspar Weinberger, and demonstrated what he considers asking tough questions of both
sides: "Mr. Perle, I believe you would sympathize with the president and his desire to sweep the bitterness away with the
pardon?"

Most news outlets have been so busy trying to "sweep away" the legacy of Iran-Contra that they never fully grappled with the
scandal -- and don't understand what really happened or who was involved. The coverage of the pardons provided proof of
this: The Chicago Tribune (12/26/92), trying to provide background on the arms-for-hostages deal, wrote, "There is no
evidence that Bush had any knowledge about the other part of the affair: a covert weapons pipeline set up to aid the
Nicaraguan Contras after Congress prohibited direct government assistance in 1984."

In fact, Bush's involvement with the contra operation is well documented. In 1986, then-Vice President Bush met with Felix
Rodriguez, an ex-CIA operative who coordinated the illegal airlift of arms to the contras from El Salvador; according to a
memo written by his staff briefing Bush on the meeting, the two discussed "resupply of the contras." Rodriguez was in frequent
contact with Bush's office; Oliver North wrote in his diary that Rodriguez was "talking too much about VP connection."

There was almost no hint of this record in any of the coverage of either the pardons or Bush's re-election campaign. In all the
'92 campaign coverage in the New York Times, the L.A. Times and the Washington Post, there was not a single story that
quoted the "resupply of the contras" memo. (The L.A. Times, 5/16/92, did refer to it once in passing in a story about former
Bush aide Donald Gregg, and the Washington Post mentioned it -- 6/20/92 -- in a theater review.) On the issue of illegal arms
to the contras, the leading U.S. newspapers seem to have given Bush a pardon of their own.



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Red 86 GT

Liberal Spin Prevails:
How CBS Led the Networks’ Charge Against the Bush Tax Cut

Executive Summary

Liberals have unloaded on President Bush’s proposed tax reduction package, condemning it as a risky scheme and a massive, budget-busting giveaway to the rich. Tax cut proponents have countered that by various historical measures Bush’s tax cut is hardly excessive, and argued it provides a greater percentage tax reduction to lower- and middle-income households than it does to wealthier families.

So which set of opinions has held sway on the three evening newscasts since the inauguration? To find out, the Media Research Center’s Free Market Project (FMP) analyzed all 93 tax stories that appeared on ABC’s World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, and NBC Nightly News from January 20 through March 31, 2001. Among the findings:

The networks quoted liberal critics who charged that the Bush tax cut was "massive" or "huge" five times more often than they quoted tax cut supporters making the opposite point.


Network reporters — led by anchors Dan Rather (CBS) and Tom Brokaw (NBC) — joined liberals in branding the Bush tax package as "big" or "very big," expressing the same judgment themselves on 30 different occasions. In contrast, no broadcast reporter ever labeled Bush’s cut as either modest or even small.


Complaints from liberal tax cut opponents such as Senator Tom Daschle that the tax cut is unfairly skewed in favor of the wealthy were relayed to network audiences twice as often (31 times) as the contrary point of view (15 times).


The CBS Evening News never once revealed data reported on both the NBC Nightly News and ABC’s World News Tonight demonstrating that Bush’s plan offered a greater percentage tax reduction to lower- and middle-income families.


None of the networks reported that the last income tax increase, passed in 1993, solely targeted higher income families, nor did any of the networks bother to tell viewers that the top five percent of earners currently shoulder more than half of the tax burden, while the top one percent of earners pay more than one-third (34.8%) of all federal income taxes.


The CBS Evening News was the least likely to relay comments from Bush or other tax cut supporters promoting the economic benefits of a significant tax cut, and instead gave the most time to the liberal claim that the tax cut would harm the nation or do a poor job of relieving the current economic slowdown.


Taken together, while all three networks tilted their coverage in favor of tax cut opponents, the CBS Evening News displayed a unique antagonism toward the tax cut and the arguments made on its behalf.
Given the anti-tax cut slant in the TV coverage, it is noteworthy that a majority of the public continues to support proposals to significantly reduce the tax burden. But this review of the coverage shows the three broadcast networks, especially the CBS Evening News, went out of their way to trumpet the complaints of liberal opponents of the Bush tax cut, and helped bolster those partisan claims with their own statements and selective reporting of the relevant statistic


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Man — every man — is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.
Ayn Rand

Well, we've certainly proven that you can find information to suit whichever side you choose (conservative or liberal). Every single thing any of us posts can be handily countered by the other side.

It divides us nicely as a nation, doesn't it? Pick one side or the other, but either way, the Dems & Repubs get us all. I'm glad I began voting 3rd party a few elections back.

What if CNN reported the bombing of Pearl Harbor?

I'd say it'd mirror Desert Storm coverage; toe the Government line until enough time has passed that when the truth does come out, it won't be worthy of front page coverage, & won't cause any real outrage among the population. Bidness as usual.

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-Curt

"There ought to be limits to Freedom."

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