SO-CALLED REPORTERS and their pseudo-news outlets are now finally admitting the dirty little secret that’s been known for some time. They are formally informing readers that they now allow our politicians and presidential campaigns to alter the very purpose of the free press. This has been a story unfolding beyond the headlines, which impacts you, the American citizen, a great deal.
From the New York Times about a week ago:
The quotations come back redacted, stripped of colorful metaphors, colloquial language and anything even mildly provocative. They are sent by e-mail from the Obama headquarters in Chicago to reporters who have interviewed campaign officials under one major condition: the press office has veto power over what statements can be quoted and attributed by name.
McClatchy’s Washington bureau has declined to play this game, unlike most every other news organization that you, the reader, once could trust, but is now altering quotes in order to get access.
As you are aware, reporters from The New York Times, Washington Post, Bloomberg and others are agreeing to give government sources the right to clear and alter quotes as a prerequisite to granting an interview.
[...] As advocates of the First Amendment, we cannot be intimidated into letting the government control our work. When The New York Times agreed with Bush Administration officials to delay publication of its story of illegal wiretaps of Americans until after the 2004 election, it did the nation a great disservice. Acceding to the Obama administration’s efforts to censor our work to have it more in line with their political spin is another disservice to America.
Glenn covered this last week.
On another note, as regular readers know, I’ve been attempting to get on the Romney campaign’s press list for months. So, you’ll love this one. All of a sudden I started getting emails from the Fairfax County Republican Committee! Still no press releases from the Romney’s national campaign; as if I’m interested in FCRC’s latest release: “Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli to visit new Springfield Victory Center! *Saturyday*.” Even George W. Bush was better than this. Even if I wanted to quote Mitt Romney’s stump speeches verbatim, side by side with Obama’s, I can’t, unless I search out a traditional news organization to do it. It’s truly pathetic.
This man calls himself a constitutional scholar. Several months ago there was a story in the NYT about immigration agents boarding trains in upstate NY about 100 miles from the Canadian border. They would board in the middle of the night, shine flashlights in peoples face and ask for their papers. He has spent the last four years rounding up illegal immigrants by the hundreds of thousands, going after leakers and whistleblowers, trying to muzzle and or censor the press and pretty much throwing everyone’s privacy rights to the wind. He has used his executive powers to interfere with FOIA requests and has used his government brown shirts to assault state drug laws. He had nothing to say when local police brutally assaulted OWS protesters, nor when his pal Rahm successfully pushed through draconian laws against protesting in downtown Chicago. He resembles something akin to a security state fascist and one can only wonder what four more years would bring.
Indeed.
Jill Stein 2012.
Stephanie Miller responds to pretty much every suggestion that Obama is acting outside the law with “Hel-LO, he’s a Constitutional Law Professor, people! Duh!” The assumption we are supposed to take from this is that the President, knowing what the law is, would never break it.
Miller might be willing to make this assumption during her daily three-hour Obama worship services, but I’ll pass.
And how is that any different from your playing a dummy for Taylor Marsh’s ventriloquism.
Yeah, you’re right….vote Romney, he’s a REAL Amerikan!!
Sadly Sec, it is not at all clear that Obama IS the lesser of two evils. He is doing a hell of a lot that we would have come unglued about if it had been Bush doing it.
He’s also not the only other choice.
For the uninformed who believe that Third Parties are a waste of time, representing only the “fringe,” and that voting for them is throwing your vote away, here are just a few “zany, fringe” ideas that originated with third parties:
The Federal Income Tax
Health Care
Social Security
Regulation of Railroads, Banks and other predatory industries
Ending Slavery
Women’s Suffrage
Yes, we would have been far better off if we had just ignored those crazy third-parties and their radical ideas!
Romney’s not a ‘Real American’. A real American would not have dodged the draft taking a religious exemption and spent the Vietnam War in Paris letting others do his fighting for him. Romney has no allegiances , his only loyalties are to the Mormon Church and global capitalism.
He’s also a serial liar and a flip-flopper on steroids.
That is total BS. Many, many “real Americans” tried (some succeeded) to dodge the draft for the foolish war in Vietnam. Fighting in stupid, senseless, purposeless wars does NOT make a person a “real American”.