Requiem for the Mass Media, the Fourth Estate has Died.

The funeral for the main stream cable broadcast media is occurring today.  At this writing, note this post’s date and time of 2:05 PM EDT, the Mall in Washington, D.C. is filled with Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, and Independents.  TV pictures reveal that the Mall is tightly packed from the Capitol to the Washington Monument, with overflow, as  a CBS affiliate reports, onto Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House.

The Fourth Estate, aptly brought to life by Edmund Burke in the House of Commons on a particular session during the 19th century, is the press.  The clergy, nobles, and commoners being the other three.  These estates were essentially the makeup of the British government at that time.  He referred to the Fourth Estate as the most powerful of the estates present that day in the House of Commons—they were in the gallery.  Closer to home, our Founding Fathers believed the Fourth Estate was similarly powerful and sufficiently independent to keep the three branches of our new government in check.  This is why freedom of the press is clearly written into our Constitution.  They were depending on the press to keep government honest.  In no way did they ever believe that the press would become complicit with the government and withhold key pieces of news, slant the news coverage, and become the house organ of two of the three branches of government.

Incredibly, at this writing CNN is broadcasting a Barack Obama speech on reform before a large  partisan audience.  It is yet another speech by him in three or so days on healthcare reform—are they expecting him to say something new?  The President is stumping in relatively Democratic conclaves trying to repair the breach in his Party over health insurance reform—this breach has gone mostly unreported by CNN.  At this writing, MSNBC had planned a televised mystery / crime documentary which must be quite good and must serve the public interest to allow them to skip reporting about a long time planned event at the Mall in the nation’s capitol, now mostly filled with grass roots demonstrators made up of every day citizen protestors.  It now appears that MSNBC did manage to do some reporting of the event after all.  These protesters are mostly against big government and big spending, regardless of political party.  If this were an anti-war rally, MSNBC would be reporting.  If this was a Obama campaign rally, they would be reporting with flourishes.

The estimate for the attendance by the Park Police is 60,000.  Recently, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives, issued a memo claiming that 2 Million will show.  She was setting ultra high expectations, so she could later minimize any protest significance.  Well if the Mall is filled, depending on how tightly packed it is, it can hold anywhere between 1.7 Million to 2.1 Million people.  TV pictures indicate that the Mall is filled.  Remember CBS reported that crowd overflow filled Pennsylvania Avenue.  Of course, government estimates, the Speaker’s estimates, and the news media’s estimates will be substantially minimized to accommodate their agenda.  The Washington Post had an article written at the inauguration of President Obama about how many people the Mall can hold—Mall information found at the Washington Post click here.

Based on the broadbased main stream media failed reporting on the just broken high impact ACORN story and the failed or minimal reporting on the Tea Party protests around the country today, I can only state, if you are depending on this dead media for information, you are uninformed.  The exceptions are those of you who are getting your news from Fox or by searching the internet for real news, not a blog like mine, otherwise you are seriously in the dark and cannot make informed decisions about our nation’s future.  If you meet this uninformed criteria, then careful, you are being manipulated with all the news these “news” operations deem you should have, with the slant they want you to have.

This ideological conspiracy is an attempt at censorship plain and simple.  MSNBC and now apparently CNN among other complicit news organizations are attempting to feed the populace with what they want us to know and are withholding selected news.   If it weren’t for Fox News Channel and the internet—call it the Fifth Estate, they would be successful in using censorship to manage government propaganda.  Are we living in a free nation or are we in a government and media controlled society, like Venezuela and Iran?   

I for one will not be steered and will not comply.  Want more? Read The Acorn Story Truly Exposes Main Stream Media.

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Racism or Truth and Reality

The Washington Post has a piece today on Obama and the racism towards him and his supporters.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/12/AR2008051203014.html?hpid=topnews

What the piece fails to convey is that the national outlook about Senator Barack Obama changed due to the Senator himself. Early on, the junior Senator from Illinois conducted himself as a different candidate. He was a man with a vision and one who purveyed hope to those in political and financial despair. He was assisted by the media who portrayed him as a rock star politician, without bothering to vet him. His followers listened to him, believed him, hung on every word. They did not question his, out of nowhere, rise to a key national political role. His inexperience also was not considered by those impatiently seeking change, in fact it was considered a plus. Early followers were crying for change and ignored his inexperience and history of partisan legislation. They were enraptured with his oratory style promising what they wanted to hear. He engaged the young voters in mass – young voters who have no experience of rapture with a politician lacking the experience and dealing solely in ideals, without regard to the pragmatism of the real world – Jimmy Carter comes to mind.

Today, things have changed, post Reverend Wright and post Michelle Obama’s comments on how proud she is now, finally. Barack Obama’s handling of these distractions and his own comments on voter class, the “bitter” comment, have changed how he is viewed by some who have already voted for him, a substantial segment of the Democratic party, and a significat number of undecided independents, who have not as yet voted.

A previous posting called, “The Real Barack Obama!”, talks to the transformation of Obama from a man running for office to a black man running for office. https://brokengovernment.wordpress.com/2008/03/28/48/ The media really want to perpetuate the racism issue as it is an enticing news story. In fact some in the media and perhaps Obama’s supporters want to perpetuate the racism issue in an effort to drive sympathy toward him and his campaign. As time goes by and Obama starts to really get vetted, his inexperience and idealism will predominate. His far liberal nature and voting record, when he actually voted; his view on taxes – no middle class tax increase, but maintain the tax on gas and diesel, increase the social security tax, and the dividend tax rate which all will actually tax the middle class reveal the impact he would have on the economy and jobs. His distortion of the truth in campaign ads and his comments toward his opponents, even after being corrected, steal away his veneer as the different candidate. Other than the idealistic young voter and the far left liberal, the voters previously supporting him will begin to peel away as the opposition shines the light of reality on Barack Obama.

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Voter ID – about time!

I am a citizen of the United States and take my PRIVILEGE to vote with profound awareness that more than half the world’s population does not have the same right to vote, in a truly free and democratic way, to pick their leaders. It is also a RIGHT bestowed upon citizens of this Nation by our founding fathers. This sacred right and privilege has been protected for the citizens of this Nation by the blood of millions of defenders of our Nation’s sovereignty. Protecting the integrity of the voting process by seeking proof that a person attempting to vote in an election has been granted this privilege just adds value to the privilege. Why then do we have an argument that we need to let anyone showing up to vote, vote? Shouldn’t we ensure that the person attempting to vote has been granted this sacred privilege as well; otherwise it is no longer a sacred privilege?

Excerpts found below are from a recent article in the Washington Post by Robert Barnes titled: High Court Upholds Indiana Law On Voter ID
6-3 Ruling Calls Measure Reasonable to Fight Fraud

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/28/AR2008042800968.html?hpid=moreheadlines

“The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that states may require voters to present photo identification before casting ballots, opening the way for wider adoption of a measure that Republicans say combats fraud and Democrats say discourages voting among the elderly and the poor.

The court ruled 6 to 3 that the requirements enacted by Indiana’s legislature were not enough of a burden to violate the Constitution. Because the law, which requires specific government-issued identification such as driver’s licenses or passports, is generally regarded as the nation’s strictest such measure, the ruling bodes well for other states that require photo ID and for states that are considering doing so…”

What is important about this opinion is the vote. It was 6 to 3. This means that a swing voter and a usually liberal voter both voted to uphold the law. The main consenting opinion was written by Justice Stevens, who is usually considered a liberal justice. According to the article he wrote: “The application of the statute to the vast majority of Indiana voters is amply justified by the valid interest in protecting the integrity and reliability of the electoral process,” he (Barnes) wrote.

“Three liberal justices — David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer — dissented. ‘Indiana’s ‘Voter ID Law’ threatens to impose nontrivial burdens on the voting right of tens of thousands of the state’s citizens and a significant percentage of those individuals are likely to be deterred from voting,’ wrote (Justice) Souter, whose opinion was joined by Ginsburg…”

This reasoning reeks of ideology and not a matter of rights and law. Today, we show valid picture identification to open bank accounts, obtain employment, rent a movie, and often to use a credit card. Obtaining a valid ID in Indiana is absolutely free, and all you need to do is to demonstrate that you have been granted the privilege to vote by our founding fathers. The article further states:“…But Democrats and civil rights groups say that millions of Americans lack the type of identification that Indiana requires, and that such laws discourage or even disenfranchise people who are least likely to have driver’s licenses or passports: the poor, the elderly, the disabled and urban dwellers…” These Democrats and civil rights groups fail to state that the reason these people lack the necessary type of identification required is that they never had it in the first place – I dare to guess that perhaps they are not citizens? The Democrats want to dilute and even negate the privilege of voting for their own benefit and this is certainly not in keeping with the intention of the founding fathers. Those on the no ID side do not hold the vote as sacred – it is merely a tool to social change. The more people voting without the demonstrated right to vote, the better the chance to have a fraudulent majority and to make the social changes they seek.

It used to be that dead and imprisoned people voted regularly. I believe that this still occurs, but the problem has swelled with the addition of 12 to 20 million illegal immigrants, and the huge numbers of people who are in this country with visas of differing types, who are also NOT entitled to vote.

The arguments against this law and the ruling validating it are not about voter disenfranchisement and its effect on the poor and elderly. The argument is that one side does not view the right to vote with the same awe and sacred nature as the other side. If something is sacred and limited to those who qualify, should safeguards be in place to ensure that it remains sacred and limited? Isn’t this self-evident? If civil rights groups and Democrats want to be sure no one is disenfranchised, then they should institute a program to help these folks obtain the correct ID, so they can exercise their 219 year old sacred, limited right.

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