Bogus Obama "We will help you with your Credit Card Companies"

Main Stream Media (aka "State Run Media") and the White House were recently trumpeting a meeting that Obama had with Credit Card companies, that he was going to reign in charges that the credit card companies were fostering upon credit card holders. What they did not report was how credit card companies were going to get around this. By raising the fees they charge the merchants for processing each card transaction.

Today in Dallas, TX I saw petitions at the check out counters of merchants asking the general public to sign those petitions that are to be sent to Washington DC asking for representatives to act stop the increases in the Merchant Fees. Good luck with that. Congressional representatives no longer represent the general public. They are nothing more than mindless Obama-bots who simply rubber stamp anything he wants.

Did Obama know of how the credit card companies were going to make up for reducing fees upon the card holders? Very, very likely. Obama and his administration are very deceptive. If they can come up with a plan that works for the credit card companies that they think will give them political points with the public but at the same time allows for under the table adjustments by the card companies such as the increase in fees upon the Merchants, then that is fine with them. However, those fee will be passed on to the consumer.

What Obama did anticipate was the public response by these activities by the merchants.

IRS Tax Revenue Plunges 34% - National Sales Tax Proposed

As the Democrats and Obama continue to fail at everything they do, the United States Federal Government takes another major leap towards poverty. Recall the Democrats - Impeach Obama.

IRS tax revenue falls along with taxpayers' income

By John Waggoner, USA TODAY

Federal tax revenue plunged $138 billion, or 34%, in April vs. a year ago — the biggest April drop since 1981, a study released Tuesday by the American Institute for Economic Research says.
When the economy slumps, so does tax revenue, and this recession has been no different, says Kerry Lynch, senior fellow at the AIER and author of the study. "It illustrates how severe the recession has been."

For example, 6 million people lost jobs in the 12 months ended in April — and that means far fewer dollars from income taxes. Income tax revenue dropped 44% from a year ago.

"These are staggering numbers," Lynch says.

Big revenue losses mean that the U.S. budget deficit may be larger than predicted this year and in future years.

FIND MORE STORIES IN: Baby Boomer | Moody's
"It's one of the drivers of the ongoing expansion of the federal budget deficit," says John Lonski, chief economist for Moody's Investors Service. The Congressional Budget Office projects a $1.7 trillion budget deficit for fiscal year 2009.

The other deficit driver is government spending, which, the AIER's report says, is the main culprit for the federal budget deficit.

The White House thinks that tax revenue will increase in 2011, thanks in part to the stimulus package, says the report from AIER, an independent economic research institute. But it warns, "Even if that does happen, the administration also projects that government spending will be so much higher each year that large deficits will continue, and the national debt held by the public will double over the next 10 years."

The government may have a hard time trimming spending to reduce the deficit when the recession ends. The 77 million Baby Boomers— those born in 1946 through 1964 — will start tapping their federal retirement benefits soon, which means increased government outlays for Social Security and Medicare.

"It will be doubly difficult for federal government to reduce expenditures and narrow the deficit as rapidly as they did following previous recessions," Lonski says. At the end of the last major recession, in 1981, Boomers were in their 30s. Their incomes were expanding, as was their appetite for goods and services.

The Boomers now are in their 50s and 60s and unlikely to keep increasing incomes for long, which means that revenue from income taxes could flatten in the next few years. Also, Lonski says, they are more likely to save for retirement than spend — and consumer spending is a big driver of the economy.

"The American consumer led us out of previous recessions with some semblance of gusto," Lonski says. "They're too old to do it now."

Once Considered Unthinkable, U.S. Sales Tax Gets Fresh Look
Levy Viewed as Way to Reduce Deficits, Fund Health Reform

By Lori Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 27, 2009 M

With budget deficits soaring and President Obama pushing a trillion-dollar-plus expansion of health coverage, some Washington policymakers are taking a fresh look at a money-making idea long considered politically taboo: a national sales tax.

Common around the world, including in Europe, such a tax -- called a value-added tax, or VAT -- has not been seriously considered in the United States. But advocates say few other options can generate the kind of money the nation will need to avert fiscal calamity.

At a White House conference earlier this year on the government's budget problems, a roomful of tax experts pleaded with Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner to consider a VAT. A recent flurry of books and papers on the subject is attracting genuine, if furtive, interest in Congress. And last month, after wrestling with the White House over the massive deficits projected under Obama's policies, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee declared that a VAT should be part of the debate.

"There is a growing awareness of the need for fundamental tax reform," Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said in an interview. "I think a VAT and a high-end income tax have got to be on the table."

A VAT is a tax on the transfer of goods and services that ultimately is borne by the consumer. Highly visible, it would increase the cost of just about everything, from a carton of eggs to a visit with a lawyer. It is also hugely regressive, falling heavily on the poor. But VAT advocates say those negatives could be offset by using the proceeds to pay for health care for every American -- a tangible benefit that would be highly valuable to low-income families.

Liberals dispute that notion. "You could pay for it regressively and have people at the bottom come out better off -- maybe. Or you could pay for it progressively and they'd come out a lot better off," said Bob McIntyre, director of the nonprofit Citizens for Tax Justice, which has a health financing plan that targets corporations and the rich.

A White House official said a VAT is "unlikely to be in the mix" as a means to pay for health-care reform. "While we do not want to rule any credible idea in or out as we discuss the way forward with Congress, the VAT tax, in particular, is popular with academics but highly controversial with policymakers," said Kenneth Baer, a spokesman for White House Budget Director Peter Orszag.

Still, Orszag has hired a prominent VAT advocate to advise him on health care: Ezekiel Emanuel, brother of White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and author of the 2008 book "Health Care, Guaranteed." Meanwhile, former Federal Reserve chairman Paul A. Volcker, chairman of a task force Obama assigned to study the tax system, has expressed at least tentative support for a VAT.

"Everybody who understands our long-term budget problems understands we're going to need a new source of revenue, and a VAT is an obvious candidate," said Leonard Burman, co-director of the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, who testified on Capitol Hill this month about his own VAT plan. "It's common to the rest of the world, and we don't have it."

Seeking New Revenue

The surge of interest in a VAT is testament to the extraordinary depth of the nation's money troubles. While some conservatives have long argued that a consumption tax would provide a simpler and more efficient alternative to the byzantine U.S. income tax code, this time it's all about the money.

The federal budget deficit is projected to approach $1.3 trillion next year, the highest ever except for this year, when the deficit is forecast to exceed $1.8 trillion. The Treasury is borrowing 46 cents of every dollar it spends, largely from China and other foreign creditors, who are growing increasingly uneasy about the security of their investments. Unless Congress comes up with some serious cash, expanding the nation's health-care system will only add to the problem.

Obama wants to raise income taxes for high earners and impose new levies on business, but those moves would not generate enough cash to cover the cost of health care, much less balance the budget, and they have not been fully embraced by Congress. Obama's plan to tax greenhouse-gas emissions could raise trillions of dollars, but again, Congress is balking.

Key lawmakers are considering other ways to pay for health reform, including new taxes on sugary soda, alcohol and employer-provided health insurance. The last proposal could raise a lot of money -- nearly $1 trillion over the next five years, according to White House budget documents. But options on the table would raise a fraction of that sum. And while it might pay for health care, it would barely dent deficits projected to total nearly $4 trillion over the next five years and to grow rapidly in the future, as baby boomers draw on Social Security and Medicare.

Enter the VAT, one of the world's most popular taxes, in use in more than 130 countries. Among industrialized nations, rates range from 5 percent in Japan to 25 percent in Hungary and in parts of Scandinavia. A 21 percent VAT has permitted Ireland to attract investment by lowering its corporate tax rate.

The VAT has advantages: Because producers, wholesalers and retailers are each required to record their transactions and pay a portion of the VAT, the tax is hard to dodge. It punishes spending rather than savings, which the administration hopes to encourage. And the threat of a VAT could pull the country out of recession, some economists argue, by hurrying consumers to the mall before the tax hits.

A VAT's Bottom Line

What would it cost? Emanuel argues in his book that a 10 percent VAT would pay for every American not entitled to Medicare or Medicaid to enroll in a health plan with no deductibles and minimal copayments. In his 2008 book, "100 Million Unnecessary Returns," Yale law professor Michael J. Graetz estimates that a VAT of 10 to 14 percent would raise enough money to exempt families earning less than $100,000 -- about 90 percent of households -- from the income tax and would lower rates for everyone else.

And in a paper published last month in the Virginia Tax Review, Burman suggests that a 25 percent VAT could do it all: Pay for health-care reform, balance the federal budget and exempt millions of families from the income tax while slashing the top rate to 25 percent. A gallon of milk would jump from $3.69 to $4.61, and a $5,000 bathroom renovation would suddenly cost $6,250, but the nation's debt would stabilize and everybody could see a doctor.

Sales Tax Gains Momentum

Burman, who helped House Democrats craft an unsuccessful 2007 plan to repeal the alternative minimum tax, said he's received a number of phone calls from lawmakers interested in his idea, though "they can't quite imagine how to make it happen politically." Burman said the 25 percent rate has caused some sticker shock, and he's trying to figure out how to bring it down.

Graetz's proposal drew an endorsement from Volcker, who last year called it "a sensible plan for reform." (Volcker did not respond to a request for comment.) It also has piqued the interest of Conrad, the Senate Budget Committee chairman who argues that it could be modified to accommodate Obama's pledge not to raise taxes on families who make less than $200,000 a year.

"I think interest is quietly picking up," Graetz said. "People are beginning to recognize that the mathematics of the current system are just unsustainable. You have to do something. And a VAT has got to be on the table if you want to do something big and serious."

Still, the Senate Finance Committee declined to include a VAT among the options it is considering to pay for health reform. And even VAT supporters doubt the tax will find a place among the tax-reform proposals the Volcker panel has been asked to produce by Dec. 4.

Though the nation's fiscal outlook is grim, Burman said "the situation will have to get more desperate" before lawmakers are likely to consider a new levy aimed directly at the pocketbooks of every one of their constituents.

Most lawmakers are still looking for "a painless source of revenue" to overhaul the health-care system and dig the nation out of debt, Burman said. "Who knows?" he added. "Maybe the tooth fairy will bring that to them."

Texas Governor Rick Perry Says Texas Can Leave the Union

Rather than our children being forced to pay for massive liberal spending, Rick Perry offered Texans a solid choice. Secede from a bankrupt Union.

Perry fires up anti-tax crowd
By KELLEY SHANNON

Associated Press Writer


AUSTIN, Texas — Texas Gov. Rick Perry fired up an anti-tax "tea party" Wednesday with his stance against the federal government and for states' rights as some in his U.S. flag-waving audience shouted, "Secede!"

An animated Perry told the crowd at Austin City Hall — one of three tea parties he was attending across the state — that officials in Washington have abandoned the country's founding principles of limited government. He said the federal government is strangling Americans with taxation, spending and debt.

Perry repeated his running theme that Texas' economy is in relatively good shape compared with other states and with the "federal budget mess." Many in the crowd held signs deriding President Barack Obama and the $786 billion federal economic stimulus package.

Later, answering news reporters' questions, Perry suggested Texans might at some point get so fed up they would want to secede from the union, though he said he sees no reason why Texas should do that.

"There's a lot of different scenarios," Perry said. "We've got a great union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we're a pretty independent lot to boot."

Perry is running for re-election against U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, a fellow Republican. His anti-Washington remarks have become more strident the past few weeks as that 2010 race gets going and since Perry rejected $550 million in federal economic stimulus money slated to help Texas' unemployment trust fund.

Perry said the stimulus money would come with strings attached that would leave Texas paying the bill once the federal money ran out.

He said he believes he could be at the center of a national movement that is coordinated and focused in its opposition to the actions of the federal government.

"It's a very organic thing," he said. "It is a very powerful moment, I think, in American history."

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, also Republicans, have been outspoken against the federal economic stimulus spending and were supportive of tea parties in their states.

The protests, organized throughout the country by conservative groups and talk show hosts, were held on the federal income tax deadline day to imitate the original Boston Tea Party of American revolutionary times.

Conservative syndicated talk show host Glenn Beck broadcast live in San Antonio from outside the Alamo, a legendary symbol of Texas independence, with crowds packing the small plaza. Many waved signs or carried little yellow flags that read, "Don't tread on me." A local barbecue chain gave away free cups of iced tea.

Mike Smart, a 51-year-old oil field worker from West Texas, held up a white handwritten sign that said, "I'll keep my freedom, my $ and my guns. You keep the change."

"I just want the government to stay out of my way. I won't get in their way if they don't get in mine," said Smart, who described himself as conservative but not a Republican.

Government spending, going back multiple administrations, has reached a boiling point with the latest rounds of stimulus spending, he said. While the Bush administration spent heavily before he left office, the Obama administration has fast-tracked big spending, he said.

"Ol' George was going to the same destination. He just didn't want to tell anyone," said Smart.

Another protester, 38-year-old Melva Fried, said the forced ouster of General Motors Corp. CEO Rick Wagoner was the last straw for her — a symbol the federal government was moving toward socialism.

"When a president can fire the head of a company, that's too much," she said, holding a sign that read "Stop Rewarding Failure."

The sales associate, who considers herself a disaffected Republican, said she doesn't believe the government should bail anyone out, including banks and individual homeowners.

The crowd at the Austin tea party appeared decidedly anti-Democrat. Many of the speakers were Republicans and Libertarians.

One placard said, "Stop Obama's Socialism." Another read, "Some Pirates Are in America," and it showed photographs of Obama, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wearing pirate hats.

Rebecca Knowlton, 45, of Smithville, said she took the day off of home-schooling her three children and brought them to the rally to teach them about civic duty. She felt camaraderie at the demonstration.

"The movement is growing stronger," she said. "You're not alone."

___

Associated Press Writer Michelle Roberts contributed to this report from San Antonio.

President Barak Obama Orders Urgent Funding of Gaza, Controlled by Hamas

Presidential Determination No. 2009-15 of January 27, 2009

Unexpected Urgent Refugee and Migration Needs Related To Gaza

Memorandum for the Secretary of State

By the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, including section 2(c)(1) of the Migration and Refugee Assistance Act of 1962 (the ``Act''), as amended (22 U.S.C. 2601), I hereby determine, pursuant to section 2(c)(1) of the Act, that it is important to the national interest to furnish assistance under the Act in an amount not to exceed $20.3 million from the United States Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance Fund for the purpose of meeting unexpected and urgent refugee and migration needs, including by contributions to international, governmental, and nongovernmental organizations and payment of administrative expenses of Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration of the Department of State, related to humanitarian needs of Palestinian refugees and conflict victims in Gaza.

You are authorized and directed to publish this memorandum in the Federal Register.

(Presidential Sig.)

THE WHITE HOUSE,
Washington, January 27, 2009

On January 27, Israel had already pulled back from its invasion of Gaza after being attacked for months via Qassam missiles from Gaza.

However, Hamas and the Palestinians had again begun attacking Israel on January 27, the day that President Barak Obama issued the order above to bank roll Gaza which is controlled by Hamas. Just as the Holy Land Foundation was tried and convicted of funding HAMAS, a terrorist organization, I am demanding the Barack Obama also be tried and convicted for immediately abusing his power as President of the United States to fund the terrorist organization HAMAS.

Supporting Hamas in Gaza also is in keeping with the support of HAMAS by Barack Obama's "former" pastor, Jeremiah Wright. During the Presidential elections, Barack Obama supposedly distanced himself from the pastor and the pastor's stand on HAMAS. However, based on Barack Obamas order above, Barack Hussein Obama clearly lied to the American people.

MSM (Marxist Socialist Media) And Barack Obama

Five days after the inauguration I am calling for the impeachment of Barack Obama. Barack Obama, the President of the United States of America attacked free speech. Barack Obama, the President of the United States of America attacked Rush Limbaugh. During his campaign Barack Obama attacked Shawn Hannity and other individuals that voiced opposition to his policies. He now has renewed his attack on Americans who oppose his policies and is demanding that all people listen to HIM and no one else. This is sinister.

It is also clear that the current Main Stream Media must be brought down. They failed in thier responsibility of providing fair and balanced journalism during this election. Instead, they chose to trumpet nothing but support for Marxist, Socialist candidates.

The Republican Party in Congress in both houses must be stripped of their responsibilities. The response of the members of the Republicans in the meetings in which the President was criticizing the first amendment rights of certain individuals in America was apologetic and supportive of the Marxist, Socialist Barack Obama, the Chosen One of Americas New MSM (Marxist Socialist Media).

Is this a call for a revolution? Technically no. It is a call for Americans to defend the rights that Americans have been constitutionally guaranteed against those who have declared a revolution against us. MSM, Barack Obama, the Democratic Party, the Republican Party. All of these institutions must feel the rath of indignation that the at the very least 1/2 of the American people feel about the current state of those in power who voted against Barack Obama, before he begins marginalizing 1/2 of America.

CBS NEWS: Rick Kaplan

The following report by Lowell Ponte is of one of those in Main Stream Media who have hi-jacked major components of America's once non-partisan free press and proceeded to turn that component into a Democratic Party propaganda machine. Meet Rick Kaplan.

Keep these people in mind when the America we have known and America's people find themselves in the dark, deep abyss of despair either economically, militarily, or otherwise thanks to people like Rick Kaplan of CBS News. The Rick Kaplans of America who decided to walk away from truth and embrace anything Left Wing, lies and all, that have caused and will continue cause great damage to the American people. They very people a free press is supposed to inform with integrity, not with blind allegiance to one and only one ideology.

By: Lowell Ponte
Friday, March 9, 2007

CBS News quietly announced this week that it is hiring Rick Kaplan as new executive producer of the "CBS Evening News" to rescue ratings that have been sinking like a stone since last September when Katie Couric became its left-leaning anchor.

Kaplan, 59, who left MSNBC last June after two-and-a-half years of failure at NBC's cable news network, is recognized by many critics as a poster boy for liberal media bias.

Born in Chicago, Kaplan grew up a left-liberal Democrat. "He envisioned a life of political activism," wrote David Margolick in a January 1998 Vanity Fair profile, "and joined the 1968 presidential campaign of Sen. Eugene McCarthy as an advance man. A week later, when Bobby Kennedy won the California primary, Kaplan prepared to switch sides, and headed to Kennedy's hotel to meet him. He ended up that night alone on a Santa Monica beach, watching the waves, listening to radio reports about Kennedy's slow death. He contemplated a radically altered future outside politics."

Turning to broadcast journalism, Rick Kaplan was a producer for Walter Cronkite in 1977 when Susan Thomases introduced him to the obscure attorney general of Arkansas named Bill Clinton.

"Both gregarious, both personable, both deeply interested in politics, both news junkies, both charmers, both voracious eaters (their first encounter, appropriately enough, was in a restaurant), they hit it off instantly," wrote Margolick. "'I just remember he was a terrific guy,' Kaplan said. ‘Fun.'"

"If anything," wrote Margolick, "Kaplan was at least as close to Hillary, who shares his Chicago roots; he even hired her to work on coverage of the 1980 Democratic convention.

During the 1980s Kaplan helped talk Bill Clinton out of giving up politics to take a million-dollar job on Wall Street. After Clinton's much-ridiculed speech at the 1988 Democratic convention in Atlanta, writes Margolick, "it was Kaplan's shoulder Clinton cried on, over Chinese takeout . . ." and Kaplan who persuaded Clinton that his political career was not over.

After a stint during the 1980s as executive producer of ABC's "Nightline," Kaplan was promoted to executive producer of ABC's "PrimeTime Live." In 1992 he dispatched reporters to work undercover as employees at the supermarket chain Food Lion, then a target of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) trying to put the company out of business. The ABC reporters got Food Lion jobs by using credentials and references ABC faked with the help of the UFCW.

The resulting expose, aired by ABC around election time that year, depicted Food Lion as an unethical seller of outdated and contaminated foods. Food Lion sued, and a jury that saw the 45 hours of video from which Kaplan and ABC distilled a 10-minute hit piece awarded Food Lion $5.5 million in punitive damages for fraud committed by Capital Cities-ABC against the company.

Such a judgement is extremely rare because it requires clear evidence not only of wrong and false information but also of malice, a calculated and knowing use of falsehood by journalists to cause damage to an innocent party. These damages were greatly reduced by subsequent liberal judges, and a jury fine of $35,000 against Kaplan himself was overturned by a judge.

What the unaired videotape revealed was that in several instances the wrongdoing ascribed to Food Lion was actually committed by or at the direction of these ABC producer fake employees. In one instance, when a genuine Food Lion employee noticed and cleaned a dirty meat slicer that ABC was preparing to film as evidence, one of the ABC producers could be heard "muttering obscenities."

It was evident that ABC was covering the story with a pro-union, anti-company agenda and was stacking the deck to produce the propaganda it wanted to air. The man in charge of this leftist smear piece was the executive producer, Rick Kaplan.


By 1992 Kaplan had left any pretense of journalistic ethics or fairness behind. "Kaplan," wrote Tim Graham of the Media Research Center, "has been the prime example of a TV news producer who did not just blur, but demolished the wall between reporting on liberal politicians and openly helping them."

With Clinton at risk of extinction in the 1992 New Hampshire primary, Kaplan reportedly influenced ABC News to delay reporting for three crucial days its discovery of the 1969 Clinton letter to Col. Eugene Holmes.

This is the notorious letter, as described by Accuracy in Media, in which "Clinton confessed to having tricked Col. Holmes, getting him to violate federal law to get him ROTC deferment" and in which Clinton "said he loathed the military." The delay gave Clinton time to prepare damage control to blunt the letter's impact.

While executive producer of ABC's "PrimeTime Live," Kaplan in 1992 advised Clinton how to deal with the Gennifer Flowers affair issue, recommended that the Clintons appear on rival CBS program "60 Minutes," and advised the Clintons on how to handle that orchestrated interview.

In his 1994 book, "Strange Bedfellows," a study of press coverage of the 1992 campaign, Los Angeles Times reporter Tom Rosentiel described, in Margolick's words, "a frantic evening when Clinton called Kaplan repeatedly, baring his soul and seeking strategic advice."

"Weeks later," reported Graham, "when Clinton's campaign struggled in the New York primary, Kaplan rode to the rescue again, getting Clinton booked on the Don Imus radio show. Kaplan not only arranged the interview, he prepared him for it — and ABC cameras taped both ends of the conversation for airing on ‘Nightline.' Later, Kaplan did not deny a Spy magazine report that he boasted of attending Clinton campaign staff meetings and helped set up the campaign's press office."

On the eve of the 1992 election, ABC reporter Sam Donaldson had taped interviews with both President George H.W. Bush and Clinton. Kaplan ordered Donaldson to do a tag line to his Clinton interview "to make it clear that you don't hate Clinton." This tag, of course, weakened Donaldson's credibility and the power of his questions, leaving an impression that the reporter was somehow biased and that the interview therefore should be taken with a grain of salt.

The effect was to tilt the two interviews more in Clinton's favor.

Kaplan "played golf with Bill shortly before the inauguration," according to the liberal magazine the New Republic, "and watched movies with both Clintons at the governor's mansion."

In 1993 Kaplan spent the first of his nights in the Lincoln Bedroom in the Clinton White House. He was among those thus rewarded for services to the Clintons at least as valuable as the $100,000 they would charge mere political donors for a single night's stay in this public property.

In late October 1994, "Kaplan killed [ABC reporter] Jim Wooten's exclusive interview with an Arkansas state trooper who claimed a Clinton aide had tried to muzzle him," reported Margolick. "After that, Wooten refused to do any more pieces on Whitewater." Another "ABC News" producer told Margolick that "the bar kept getting higher" for such investigations into Clinton dealings with Whitewater.

By 1997, after Kaplan moved to Cable News Network as one of its chieftains, with evidence of campaign fund-raising improprieties threatening to submerge Clinton, CNN unleashed a Kaplan-produced special. "U.S. News & World Report" found that Kaplan had ordered CNN reporters to "limit the use of the word ‘scandal' in reporting on Clinton's campaign fund raising." The message to CNN reporters was clear: Go easy on the boss's friends in the White House.

As the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke in 1998, wrote Graham, "Kaplan leapt into action at CNN with two-hour specials attacking any and all Clinton critics. The programs included ‘Media Madness,' which asked ‘What the hell are you people doing' probing Bill Clinton's sex life?; and ‘Investigating the Investigator,' which described Ken Starr as ‘suspect' over his ‘religious and Republican roots.' In May, Kaplan devoted an hour to demonizing Rep. Dan Burton [a Republican], who was compared by reporter Bruce Morton to English despot Oliver Cromwell."

Kaplan saw to it that CNN gave softball coverage to the Clintons and threw hardballs at their enemies. Under his watch, CNN came to be known as the Clinton News Network for its pro-Bill and Hill bias. According to Bill O'Reilly of rival Fox News Channel, "financial reporter Lou Dobbs quit CNN because Kaplan was cutting into ‘Moneyline' to give Mr. Clinton some marginal coverage."

CNN also came to be called the "Castro News Network" for its coverage unwaveringly favorable to the Cuban dictator. Kaplan and Castro have been good friends since at least 1978, Margolick reported, and during a Castro United Nations visit to New York while they were dining together, Kaplan invited Castro to come with him to a private dinner with President Clinton, Deputy White House Chief of Staff Harold Ickes, and Susan Thomases. "Castro paused, for what seemed like an hour, before declining," wrote Margolick. "He didn't want to embarrass Clinton, he explained."

In 1998 CNN President Kaplan also oversaw production of the first documentary for his new show "NewsStand." The documentary called "Tailwind," narrated by hyper-leftist journalist Peter Arnett, alleged that during the Vietnam War the United States had used poison gas against women and children in Laos. Challenged for proof by other journalists and the Pentagon, CNN's documentary fell apart like the tissue of lies it was. But that did not stop its use around the world as a tool of Marxist anti-American propaganda.

Kaplan's politicizing of the news did not end with the Clintons. "The November 20, 2000, Newsweek reported Kaplan had helped Al Gore prepare for a debate against Bill Bradley," wrote Graham. "At a rehearsal for a California debate on March 1, Kaplan joked, ‘Let's do the debate now.'" But as Graham notes, Kaplan "was still CNN president in March," while acting openly as a Gore partisan and enabler.

"I keep looking for what I should be ashamed of, long and hard," Kaplan told Margolick of those who question his Clinton sycophancy and lack of journalistic distance from those he covers, "and I just can't find anything."

Kaplan moved on to head MSNBC, which he reshaped into a network that, according to Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, slants its news and commentary in a partisan, liberal Democratic Party way.

Critics have a similar view of how Katie Couric covers news and politics. Couric's late sister Emily was a left-liberal Virginia state senator and chair of the state's Democratic Party.

Couric and Kaplan both have giant egos, but as ideological soul mates they could be happy together. Will viewers want to see even more leftist distortion of the nightly news through a single, left CBS eye?

Freedom of the Press

In a democratic nation, the importance of a free press assumed that such a press would be fair, balanced and focused on all aspects of all parties and issues within that society or nation.

Since the founding of this nation, no one ever expected that the press, even in a supposedly free and open society could be taken over so completely and re-tooled to become the propaganda machine of only one facet of our society. History will show that this point was reached in America in the year 2008.

Television, print media, a huge section of radio, the entertainment industry such as movie and music segments have almost completely dedicated all their resources to promoting a specific political doctrine. Therefore, instead of being a free press, they have become a propaganda machine for that specific doctrine, and as such supports that doctrine completely regardless of what the cost to our society will be. This propaganda machine supportive of one and only one philosophy will cover up mistakes made by those who are in office who govern according to the precepts of that particular political doctrine.

The press will now cover for those who share that doctrine and who wish to run for office. The press works to hide characteristics and virtues of that person that if viewed from a full range of perspectives regarding that virtue or flaw would appear to blatantly disqualify those individuals from office. This propaganda machine will go to this extreme especially for those they see as having strong personalities and traits that could enhance the specific doctrine the press supports in the eyes of the public.

We are not talking about possible situations here, we are talking about what has happened in the elections of 2008. And not what occured only in the Presidential election but to Congressional elections as well. This is not an apparition, it is now reality.

Even though the above actions are done in order to support and shore up that particular political philosophy, society overall may be damaged and even destroyed, including the press itself, from forces within or from forces outside America.

Large segments of people in that nation, facing the destruction of their nation overall and finding themselves either suddenly or slowly being burdened beyond their means in trying to maintain a good quality of life will ask "What happened". "What happened" was that the press only presented a biased view and never published views and critiques from ALL perspectives that could have exposed such dangers lurking on the horizon, because those perspectives were not the perspective of the ideology they supported.

If circumstances become dire, people may then ask "Who can help us now" when they find themselves in danger of losing property they spent a lifetime working to acquire, "for the good of others" per such political ideology. They may find themselves in a situation where their loved ones or they themselves face dangers such as what we saw on September 11, 2001, where thousands died in an attack on America, because the media refused to cover specific faults of the political party representative of its ideology sufficiently enough for such dangers to mature and become real.