In my last blog I mentioned two kinds of media lies. Lies of omission and lies of commission. The rest of this post will cover these two types of lies, and the impact they have on Americans. I also mentioned a number of “referee” scenarios. My first example is an exhibit of bad refereeing. There were far more Dems. caught in the House Banking scandal than Repubs. For multiple years, culminating in early 1992, members of Congress were writing bad checks. Lots of them. Somewhere between 400-450 lawmakers wrote checks that were covered by you and I. The two worst offenders wrote over 900 of these checks, some of which were overdrawn for as long as 24 months! The most common excuse given by our adult members of Congress was, everyone did it. Ever hear that from your children? The question is why did it take nearly 3 years for the referees to throw a flag?
More recently 54 members of Congress, and more than 180 senior level congressional staffers, were caught failing to properly report financial transactions in 2021. The reporting procedure was mandated in the 2012 Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act. This law was widely covered by the media when it was passed. One year later the media didn’t say boo when Congress repealed those parts of the law that made it meaningful. Those who get caught are typically fined up to $200, if they are fined at all. Remember the media got special protections to watch for governmental and political corruption. These transgressions were not reported by the traditional media. They were reported by an obscure news outlet called Insider News. We might call it a citizens arrest. Apparently the main street media was too involved in reporting what flavor of ice cream our President was eating.
What follows are but a few media lies of commission. CNN, MSNBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, the USA Today, the New York Times, and the Washington Post, continued reporting that Trump had colluded with the Russians. Those reports continued even after the Mueller Commission comprised of 14-15 Dem. attorneys spent over 2 years, and in excess of $30 million dollars, said there was no evidence of collusion. The media shamelessly accused Nick Sandmann from Covington, KY. of being a racist. They said the teenager went out of his way to harass an innocent, elderly, Native American in D.C. The video proved the opposite. The media reported that rioters bludgeoned Capitol Police Officer, Brian Sicknick, to death with a fire extinguisher during the 1/6 Capitol riots. His family said they had talked to him after the riots were over. Even after the officer’s autopsy disproved their accusations they stuck with the false reports. Shameful. The media reported that Kyle Rittenhouse carried his rifle across state lines. They continued to claim he was a white supremacist well into his trial. Both allegations proved false. Journalism 101 professors surely instructed their students to avoid making defamatory claims without doing at least a minimum amount of investigation. In each of the above instances the media knowingly lied to create or protect a narrative. In a couple of the cases they may be paying princely amounts of money to those they defamed. I hope so.
Often it is the lies of omission that cause the most trouble, and are the most dangerous. The lack of journalistic integrity is pervasive. Instead of reporting the truth the media peddles feelings that support a Democrat narrative. If you get your news from any of the referees listed above it is a certainty that you are not aware of anything positive that President Trump did, or any of President Biden’s mistakes. I have been stunned by the number of “well informed” people I have debated who were surprised when I rattled off a long list of policy changes Trump initiated that benefitted the black and minority communities. If you rely on the above media outlets it is a certainty you are not aware of the many airplanes full of illegals who are being flown to airports in the middle of the night. Airport security, local law enforcement, even Mayors and Governors, are not informed of the “deliveries”. Have all of the passengers been tested, and vaxxed? Why shouldn’t Americans be informed of this illegal activity? The media knows we would be angry if we knew the truth, so they lie to cover for their Dem. partners
The media’s attachment to the Dems. could not have been clearer than in it’s reporting of the COVID pandemic. For all of 2020, when they were partnering with the Dems. to defeat Trump, the media reported the number of COVID cases, hospitalizations, and deaths, daily. Shortly after Biden took office the media stopped reporting the daily death count. When the number of deaths in Biden’s first year surpassed those of Trumps, there was nary a peep from the media. When Trump banned travel to and from China his enemies, including the media, called him a xenophobic racist. When Biden banned travel between the U.S. and Africa he was hailed as a protector of the people. There is no question the media’s slanted, biased, reporting was a factor in the election. That should never happen.
The For The People Act, if passed as proposed, will change our elections forever. It is critical that Americans understand exactly what this bill will do. Media reporting on the Act is dishonest and shameful. They’ll dedicate whole articles, and interviews, to talking about the 2 or 3 positive portions of the bill. They tell viewers and readers about the terrible voter suppression that the bill will address. There is zero data to support that voter suppression is a problem anywhere. If this bill passes, the federal government will rewrite election laws in all 50 states. It will remove the requirement for voter ID for in person, or mail in voting. It requires polls to be open 15 days prior to election day. It further requires precincts to count any mail in votes that are received up to 10 days AFTER voting day if they are postmarked on voting day, or before. It will require states to allow “ballot harvesting”. Ballot harvesting allows paid apparatchiks to go door to door to “help” people fill out their ballots. These are but a few of the dangerous provisions included in the bill. There are others. Our Constitution gives the writing of election laws to the state legislatures. So this bill, if passed, would be overturned by the SCOTUS. The point is that the failure of the media to report all provisions, blatantly puts its thumbs on the scales pushing misinformation. They are failing their viewers and subscribers.
Around 10% of those who voted for Biden in 2020 said in polls they may not have had they known about his underhanded dealings with his son Hunter, and a number of foreign leaders. The truth is the information was available, and reported, by the New York Post in October of 2020. They got the information from Hunter Biden’s laptop. The sad truth is that other news agencies said it was received from third party hacked information and refused to report it. Worse yet, social media outlets shut down the NY Post’s platforms, and those of anyone who mentioned them, calling them hacked information. They apologized, and reinstated all platforms, a couple of days before the election. That was too late for America. The election was almost certainly altered by the media’s actions.
When’s the last time you heard about drug overdoses from the Fentanyl that is being smuggled through out southern border? Did you know that over 100,000 Americans died from such overdoses last year? Why is the media silent? Does it have anything to do with Biden’s open border policy? When is the last time you heard or read a report about the heinous crimes being committed by illegals? Why not? The information is available. If you haven’t been watching FOX News, or reading the Epoch Times, there is a good chance you know nothing about them. In a country with a healthy media this would never happen.
There isn’t much we can do about the transgressions of the media. We can cancel our subscriptions to newspapers that print articles produced by the New York Times, The Washington Post, the USA Today, and the Associated Press. That includes most medium and larger city papers. We can stop watching the news provided by any of the outlets mentioned above. The good news is that is already happening. Newspapers circulation is dropping at nosebleed speed. Both MSNBC and CNN have lost more than 80% of their prime time viewers over the last year. This proves the old saying: You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time. But you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. American are tired of being lied to and are voting with their feet. If MSNBC and CNN have another year like last year they will become the first cable networks to have more employees than viewers. The only people responsible for media oversight are we citizens. Let’s keep up the good work. If you found this post interesting or informative please tell your friends about it. Thank you, Bob