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Wednesday, June 22, 2016

The hidden Clinton bias in mainstream reporting works mostly by omission

To Bernie Sanders supporters, this article will come as no surprise. Dear Berners, I will not be offended if you roll your eyes on this one. But for others, especially Clinton supporters, take heed what is happening. If you think you can get Bernie Sanders supporters to line up behind your cherished Hillary Clinton, read this and think again.

The corrupting influence of money is what Hillary Clinton represents to us, the men and women who stand by Bernie Sanders. Take note now, that the mainstream media is complicit in this corruption by failing to report certain relevant facts about this election, another facet of what we see and oppose in Hillary Clinton.

I happened upon this article from the Washington Post, Rep. Chaka Fattah convicted in racketeering case, byline dated 2016-06-21. From the looks of it, it's just another case of a high-level politician finding a way sell access for money and going to the big house for doing so. But as I read through the article, I kept thinking to myself that I'd seen that name before. Fattah, Fattah...Where did I see it?

I don't remember where I saw his name before, but I know where to look. Here, Wikipedia has a fine list of Superdelegates with their declared voting intentions. They don't vote until July 25th, but the mainstream media has been polling them day and night for their intentions, so they can only declare what they plan to do. Fattah is a superdelegate who has openly stated that he plans to vote for Hillary Clinton at the Democratic National Convention. Isn't it nice to know that a convict will be voting for Hillary Clinton?

Perhaps the Washington Post didn't feel that that connection was a relevant aspect of the story. Neither did Politico. Neither did CNN. Not even NPR felt compelled to point that out. And I'm shocked, shocked, shocked! that FOX News failed to note that connection. I only have so much time to survey the field, but I suspect that if you go to any mainstream media site, you will not find a single major source of news reporting that Chakah Fattah is a Clinton supporting superdelegate who just happens to be going to prison soon.

I find Fattah's conviction ironic in the sense that he supports someone who has a well documented history of corruption. The irony goes deeper when I read those articles reporting his conviction to learn that he had been sold out by peers and subordinates who got also caught. They were able to get leniency for ratting out their friend for a lighter sentence, with what is known as a plea bargain. A plea bargain is a sort of a bribe to get perps to talk, yet another form of corruption.

I wrote this article not give you a survey of the bias in the media, but to show you how subtle the bias is in mainstream media. I believe that the vast majority of that bias in this primary season is by acts of omission. Bernie has been filling stadiums for his rallies, but did the mainstream media give any of them live coverage? They'd rather cover an empty chair at a Trump rally. When Sanders is still flipping counties in California as they count the remaining ballots, the press focuses on how dangerous Trump is. They dismiss any possibility that Clinton will be indicted for her private email server for espionage or racketeering, while focusing on the mounting pressure for Sanders to drop out. Who exactly wants Sanders to drop out and make nice?

You have to dig a little deeper to get to media sources that make the connection between the convict, Chakka Fattah, and his superdelegate status and his plans to vote for Clinton. You'd have to go to places like the Washington Free Beacon, and The Blaze (Associated Press), which wrote about the same story and referenced the former source, the Washington Free Beacon. Yet, every other organization that carried the story dropped the connection of Fattah as a Clinton-supporting superdelegate. They might be forgiven, except that the headline the Beacon ran with was as follows:

"Clinton Superdelegate Chaka Fattah Found Guilty on Corruption Charges"

It is now clear that most mainstream news organizations felt compelled to report the story to keep up with competing media sources. Yet they could not bring themselves to mention that all too important connection to Clinton's army of superdelegates. Curiously, all of those superdelegates who are known to be planning to vote for Clinton made their decision long before the first primary elections were held.

It is also well known that most of the top media organizations have made significant contributions to SuperPACs and PACs that support Hillary Clinton. This is the power of money in politics. Mainstream media is personified by Hillary Clinton and 90% of mainstream media is controlled by 6 parent corporations. They own a virtual monopoly, and if they have interlocking directorates where board members sit on multiple boards of directors for those 6 companies, then they have a monopoly.

For Bernie Sanders supporters, the overarching issue is to get the corrupting influence of money out of politics. This is why the fact that Chakkah Fattah is a superdelegate who supports Hillary Clinton is relevant to the story of his conviction. But mainstream media would like for us to believe that the corrupting influence of money is not the most important issue. To them, what is important is electing Clinton to defeat the evil Mr. Trump and electing Hillary Clinton as the first woman president in American history.

To know the story of American politics, we only need to follow the money. To restore our democracy, one person, one vote, we need to remove the money from politics. To make that narrative a mainstream media narrative, we must become the media. That's why I sit here most days writing about it and sharing about it. That's why I make time every day to share stories about people who support Bernie Sanders and Sanders himself. I support Bernie Sanders because he has made himself dependent upon the people and the people alone. Remember, he who pays the piper calls the tune.

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