A Conservative Viewpoint - Prejudice Needs A Little Christmas

Article by Bob Steinburg
- Edenton, North Carolina: Cradle of the Colony

The late Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne wrote the music and lyrics to “The Christmas Waltz,” which celebrates in song the wonder, joy, awe and love of this very special time of year. “It’s that time of year when the world falls in love, every song you hear seems to say, Merry Christmas ….” The magic of the season is everywhere, allowing most of us to place our problems, fears, and even our prejudices on hold until after the New Year.

Last weekend our town bedazzled visitors and locals alike as private homes and public buildings were showcased in holiday splendor during Edenton’s annual Christmas House Tour. This small historic town of less than 5,000 grew to twice that over the weekend. Folks milled about during the day in the brisk seasonal air, going in and out the many quaint shops that line our main street. Edenton’s waterfront setting enhances the beauty of the history that abounds here.

My friend Donald visits us each year to spend a couple of days and enjoy our town’s colonial holiday hospitality. He is a man of enormous talent-not only an accomplished musician, but a renowned vocalist. Donald has a massive physical presence but is one of the gentlest men I’ve ever known. On Friday evening, we visited the homes that were on tour, reveling in the majesty and splendors of Edenton’s holiday ambiance. As we neared the end of our pilgrimage, we entered a home with a piano next to a fire in the hearth. When the owners learned of Donald’s talent, they asked him to play a Christmas song or two. Not only did he play, but sang as well to the obvious delight of everyone. The owners were kind enough to invite us to stay for dinner, but my wife was preparing our dinner at home, two short blocks away.

I share this story because of an indescribable feeling that overwhelmed me as I observed Donald entertaining those inching ever closer to the piano. Donald is black. Looking around the room in this grand southern home there was no sense of the racial divisiveness that has often plagued this great nation; no-not on this night; not in this season of good will towards men.

Another black friend is Lenny, who does political commentary for Fox News in Charlotte. On a recent overnight visit, we had ample opportunity to sit and chat. While we rocked away on our front porch he said something that zeroed in on the progress this country has made in improving race relations between blacks and whites: “You know Bob, not that many years ago I would have never thought this possible.” My curiosity piqued. “What possible,” I inquired? “Sitting on the front porch of white folks as an equal in a small southern town,” he replied.

Lenny is correct about progress being made. But we still have a long way to go. Electing Barack Obama president indicates that many want to put the issue of race behind us. But even this historic election cannot change what still remains in the hearts of some: disdain, contempt and indifference to those whose skin is of a different shade. While racism may not be as overt as it once was, it can still be exhibited in various subtle ways.

I received an e-mail last week from an acquaintance that disturbs me. The sender was alleging that two black county commissioners recently elected to a neighboring county’s legislature were being victimized by racial slurs by some white commissioners behind closed doors. If true it’s a sad day for that county.

It is hard to believe too that there are still clubs, including national service organizations, which “discourage” blacks and even women from joining their ranks. A black ball system sometimes is in place that allows some club members to hide their prejudice in anonymity. If they were seen as overt racists their business or political interests might be negatively affected.

I know of private clubs admitting to membership a “token” black, so the group would look like it was open and thus impervious to any legal challenges. This type of hypocrisy is beyond the pale.

It would be unfair to suggest that racism is always white on black. It comes in as many flavors as offered in a Baskin-Robins ice-cream parlor. There are for example, blacks who have disdain for whites. Some of these folks complain incessantly about history being unjust toward their race, with some going as far as demanding reparations from the government for over two centuries of pain and suffering. It is hard to see how any significant progress can be made in closing the racial divide with this approach. America cannot be held hostage by the actions of her ancestors, no matter how regrettable.

When our children were young, my wife and I often volunteered to help staff our church nursery. These black, white, Hispanic and Asian children were too young to know anything about prejudice- and it showed. They were just being kids; God’s children enjoying the comfort and company of one another as equals.

While there still are many who view racial prejudice as a complex issue, our children do not. Maybe its time we model some of our behavior after them, instead of the other way around. And there is no better time to start than Christmas. It is after all “that time of year when the world falls in love”.

A few minor notes on this issue of prejudice (which I think Bob has understated) that need to be addressed. 97% of blacks voted for Obama. 85% of blacks who usually vote Republican voted Democrat this year exclusively on the basis of racial bigotry. 88% of blacks think that it is okay for O.J. Simpson to slit the throats of a couple of whites and still insist to this day that he is “not guilty” because they were only honkeys. Around 30% of the black Atlanta Falcon fans refuse to attend Atlanta Falcon games this year because they replaced the dog killer Michael Vick with a honkey quarterback. Blacks made up 25% of the vote for Obama while only representing 13% of the population of America (does this allow anyone to honestly say that Obama is the President of ALL the people?).

I don’t see racism as getting better any longer. I think it is becoming more biased against whitey, a term that is thrown around quite often by blacks and which never gets an appropriate response because it is politically incorrect to respond. A large percentage of the blacks in America have voluntarily immigrated to our nation or are descendants of recent black immigrants. Yet many of them, coming here long after the wrongs they complain about ended, demand that whites give them reparations for injustice their ancestors never experienced here in our land.

Yet I guarantee that many blacks, reading this, will say I am the racist for daring to point out this truth they do not want stated aloud. Residual racism will not be overcome by fixating on this issue. It is time to accept some imperfections. Prejudice has always existed. Some will always exist. Until we start focusing on running our nation with concern for individual justice of today and simply ignore historical shortcomings, we are simply creating the basis for future resentment.

A Spencer Adams Christmas

The greatest part of living in Bertie County is the important role which family plays in our lives. Cities are where we make our living, but family is what keeps us connected, and what brings our kids back home to our rural area each year for the celebrations. I hear stories about the great Christmas celebrations that everyone has in our area, however my step-father's family does this Christmas thing as well as any I have heard about.

Every year they gather at the family homestead here in Bertie County a day or two after Christmas, a tradition started by Spencer Adams. That way all the parents can have Christmas for their kids at home and the family can still get together. And every year the gathering is better than ever. Let me tell you about a Spencer Adams Christmas.

The homestead is always innundated with Christmas trimings that set the mood.

Bonnie Fixes Up The Homestead Like A Christmas Fantasyland

Early In The Day There Is A Constant Stream Of Arrivals, Welcomed With Love

Each Car Is Unloaded And The Presents Placed Beneath The Tree

After Each Group Is Greeted, Everyone Returns To Finding A Seat And Sharing Stories, Some Of Them . . Uh . . Exaggerations, About What Has Happened Since Last Year.

The Crowd Always Overflows From The Living Room And Covers The House

First Time Arrivals Are Always The Center Of Attention

The Kitchen Is Jammed With Those Who Prepare The Meal

While Waiting For The Meal, We Go Outside To Compete In Annual Games, Always Including Skeet And Showing Off Newly Acquired Rifles And Pistols!




New Games Are Also Shared, Anything To Compete! This Is A New Variation Of Horse Shoes Played With Corn Bags Thrown At Holes In A Wood Target.

After A While The Meal Is Ready, Lots Of Hands Make The Work Easy

After The Fabulous Meal The Traditional "Adams Family" Festivities Are About To Start

Christmas Carols Are Sung . . Many Christmas Carols . . . Ending With The Famous Adams Family Rendition Of Dancing To The "Twelve Days Of Christmas".

Even The "Guys" Get Into It Before The End

Presents Are Passed Out To Everyone Before The Traditional Opening Of the Presents Starts, As Always With The Youngest Opening Their Presents First.

Grandmomma Nancy Loves Handmade Gifts

Two Traditions Are Maintained, The Names On The Boxes Inside The Wrapping Rarely Represent What Is Inside The Box!

In Addition The Annual Challenge To See Who Can Make It Hardest To Open The Present Is Held.

(This wooden box with seven screws was inside 3 boxes, each with wrapping paper that had to be removed in turn to find the next box inside. When the effort to remove the very long screws was done and the last screw removed, Larry was offered a power screw drill . . but carefully too late to help . . . leaving the whole crowd roaring with laughter! At least it was a nice present.)




This Package Was Glued Together, Making It Really Tough To Get The Paper Off.

After Each Present Is Opened, The "Prize" Must Be Shared And Passed Around For All To See. This Is The Most Fun Of All!

The Attention Is Sincere

Some Gifts Get Better Reactions Than Others

New Games Are Always Tried Out Immediately

To End The Day, Special Pictures Are Made Of The People That Came To Visit. This Is The "Cousins", The Next Generation Being Trained In A Spencer Adams Christmas

The Group Pictures Memorialize Another Special Time

The Christmas Tree Was Real And The Only Thing That Would Have Made The Entire Day Better Would Have Been A Real Kris Kringle!

It Was A Long Day . . And Fun. As We Leave We Take A Last Look Back At The Homestead With Its Decorations And Lights.

What a great time for all. It always is. Laughter and special feelings are the order of the day. This is what family and Christmas are meant to be. Spencer Adams was a great guy. Everyone who knew him thought of him as their best friend. He loved Christmas. His spirit is still alive with this special group of people maintaining what both family and Christmas mean . . . . here in Bertie County North Carolina.

Spencer Adams Will Always Live In Our Hearts

Thank you Spencer.

Home Grown Teachers

The above link does not take you directly to the article. You have to click on Home Grown Teachers at the Rural Education archive web page to read the article.

by Staff - December 2008 - Rural Policy Matters

An extensive locally developed and locally funded grow-your-own-teacher program is underway in North Carolina’s Bertie County, the state’s poorest school system in terms of local funding.

This isolated rural school district in the state’s northeast corner serves some 3,300 students, with a free and reduced lunch rate of 89%. Like most high-poverty schools, it has struggled with academic performance and staffing. According to Superintendent Chip Zullinger, “One of our biggest dysfunctions is keeping qualified teachers. Two of every five school days kids have a substitute.”

Congratulations to the Bertie County Board of Education and Superintendent Zullinger for finding a way to stop wasting our money on central administration and instead dedicating that money to our kid's futures.

Also a special thanks to Shaw University.

Great article. Great program. Great job!

Senator Dodd Calls For His Own Resignation

by William Kevin Stoos - December 10th, 2008 - Canada Free Press

Satire

Senator Chris Dodd--Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee--called for his own resignation today ...

“You know, I got to thinking…after presiding over the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac disasters--which cost the taxpayers billions and happened on my watch; after taking $133,900 in donations from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac at the same time I was supposed to be monitoring them, what kind of hypocritical, incompetent SOB would I be if I did not resign myself? After all, I am largely responsible for the current financial debacle facing this country. Therefore, to be morally consistent, I have, this day, called for my resignation as Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. I expect to hear from myself by the end of the day, as to whether to submit and accept my resignation."

ROTFL

Definitely worth reading to start the day with a laugh.

Semper Fi Bill

Freedom is a precious gift . . . which we sometimes forget is a rare gift and never free. It is easy to forget when we sit here in our great nation that little of the rest of the world has things as good as we have them. It is a surprise when you read history that most of mankind throughout most of history has aspired to what we have . . . . . and the conditions did not exist. Our freedom is a gift which we owe to a great number of patriots who have paid a heavy price on our behalf. This day I wish to remember one of those patriots, Bill Castellow, who died Thursday.

Bill Castellow Of Windsor North Carolina

In our own memories and the memories of a few of our neighbors the cost of freedom is still fresh. In the last century, the conditions for enslavement of one nation by another were nearly fulfilled on two occassions. The two great world wars of that time are growing dim though. There are only a handfull of survivors of the first war, and those who can tell us first hand about the second are getting fewer and fewer every year. A recent book, Flags of our Fathers, by James Bradley, is a reminder of one incident of that second war which speaks of the cost of freedom.

Taking Fire On The Beach Below Mount Suribachi, Bill Castellow Is The Second Soldier From The Bottom Right, Facing The Camera

The cost of freedom is always paid with the blood of patriots. The incident the book Flags of our Fathers reminds us of is the battle for Iwo Jima, a small island in the Japanese archipelago and the first battle of that war where we were on their soil. Some time back I visited with Bill Castellow of Windsor to talk about some patriots and heroes of that battle. Bill was there. And he knew a lot about those patriots and the cost they paid for us.

Bill Castellow's Scrapbook of Iwo Jima, Memories Of A Different Time

Bill enlisted late in that war, on May 11, 1944, 3 days before his 18th birthday. Bill had already had some exposure to the military, having been in the ROTC in high school, at the Georgia Military Academy in College Park Georgia. Bill had graduated early and already spent one year in college at Wake Forest.

Bill's Platoon - Top Row; Carlyle, Clark, Yarnick, Cater, Caro - Bottom Row; Clapper, Collins, Castellow, Casko, Woops - Only Yarnick, Cater And Castellow Survived Iwo Jima

Bill was called to active duty and reported for boot camp on June 23, 1944 at Parris Island South Carolina. After training he was placed in Company C of the 31st Replacement Battalion of the 5th Division, a Division that only existed because of the growth of the Marines during that War. 5th Division was disbanded at the end of the War and has not existed since. Bill was a Light Machine Gun Crewman when he was sent as a part of the battle for Iwo Jima.

Famous Picture Of Second Flag Raising

What that meant is best summed up by a quote from the Commanding General of 5th Division, Major General Keller E. Rockey. "Few times in history has a force kept fighting in the face of losses such as our division suffered on Iwo Jima. The Division followed attack with attack. It continued to assault the heavy resistance of a desperate enemy - until the last small pocket on the island was overcome".

Marine Corps Web Site Features Statue Of Iwo Jima Flag Raising Ceremony

In Bill's Scrapbook he wrote the following, "We shipped out on January 23, 1944 from Pearl Harbor on a big convoy. I was on an LST. Some trip! Arrived at Saipan, boarded a troop ship for the invasion of Iwo Jima. We landed on DDay about 9:30 AM on February, 19, 1945. My outfit was to unload on the beach the ammo and supplies from landing crafts. We were very near Mount Suribachi and under very heavy enemy fire from rockets, mortars, rifles and machine guns. From the beach we saw the raising of a small U.S. Flag on Mount Suribachi. Later that same day a larger U.S. Flag replaced the first flag."

Flags Of Our Fathers Movie Site

Another comment in the scrapbook mirrored Bill's comment, made a few times during our meeting. About his duties on Iwo Jima, "I went, with little time to be afraid. No hero. I just did what I had to do." Bill kept saying "Don't make this about me. I was no hero. This is about the guys that didn't make it."

Two Mementos Of World War II, Bill Castellow's Expert Rifleman Badge And His Dog Tag

After Iwo Jima Bill was in training for the invasion of Japan. It was expected that at least one half million American soldiers would die in that invasion, based on the experiences of the first battle on Japanese soil at Iwo Jima. However two atomic bombs took the fight out of the Japanese and that bloodbath was avoided.

Bill's Honorable Discharge At The End Of The War

For those who care about statistics, 6,821 Marines died in the battle of Iwo Jima. That is more than have died in the entire 7 years of our current conflict, including the 3,000 who died on 9/11. It is no surprise that the battle for Iwo Jima has become a major symbol for the courage of the Marine Corps, as shown in the famous flag raising ceremony.

Maybe Bill didn't think he was a hero, however he sure rated as a patriot and a hero in my book, along with all of his fellow Marines. Thank you for your service to our country. Thank you for my freedom. I thank all of you who pay the price for our freedom. I will never forget you. I will miss you.

From one Marine to another, Semper Fi Bill!

The viewing is today, Saturday December 6th at the Walker funeral home in Windsor, from 4 to 6 PM. The funeral is tomorrow, December 7th, Pearl Harbor Day, at 2 PM, Hiway 13 Cemetary outside Windsor.

Web site for movie "Flags of our Fathers" - http://www.flagsofourfathers.com/

A Conservative Viewpoint - Courts Repress Free Speech

Article by Bob Steinburg
- Edenton, North Carolina: Cradle of the Colony

Freedom of speech in America may not be dead. But if you live in an area that falls under the jurisdiction of the U. S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals headquartered in Richmond, Va., which includes the Eastern District of North Carolina, you could reasonably conclude justice is hemorrhaging.

December 1st the U. S. Supreme Court denied my petition to hear oral arguments to review a decision rendered by the U. S. District Court in Richmond and later upheld by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. The petition evolved after the lower courts denied me the right to a jury trial in a case where I alleged that the Chesterfield County, Va. Planning Board violated my First Amendment right to free speech.

I was arrested on Oct.18, 2005 for refusing to sit down before concluding my remarks at a meeting where I was leveling criticism at planning commissioners. I had spoken for less than two minutes before I was cut off. The District Court ultimately decided that the Planning Commission could in fact silence me because I was not addressing the agenda item, although my criticism was centered on the commissioners’ behavior toward two previous speakers who were. The U. S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the District court’s ruling, even taking it one step further by stating in their published opinion that Chesterfield County has every right to prohibit personal attacks of criticism. So much for freedom of speech in the Fourth Circuit’s jurisdiction.

The United States Constitution’s First Amendment clearly states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

Under its Fourteenth Amendment, Section One further states in part that no one shall be denied due process of law. Due process is the principle that the government must respect all of the legal rights that are guaranteed to a person according to the laws of the land. This means enforcing a citizens rights against alleged violations by the government.

In addition, the Constitution recognizes the right of every citizen to a trial by jury, declaring it a fundamental civil liberty or civil right.

Preserving our right to free speech is essential to preserving other constitutional rights. If we are silenced, we are unable to challenge any injustice, criticize any behavior, question any law or protect any previously bestowed freedom. We are then held in bondage by our government who then can do whatever it sees fit, right or wrong.

However, not everyone is granted his or her constitutional right to a trial by jury because of a legal procedure known as Summary Judgment. That basically means a judge makes the decision, with arguably limited information and limited input.

Those who endorse summary judgment say that it eliminates a lengthy trial process, which can be difficult and costly. But what it also does is to remove an individual’s right to be judged by a group of his peers. His fate instead is placed in the hands of a judge. Any party moving for summary judgment is usually attempting to eliminate its risk of losing at a jury trial. Chesterfield County was seeking a summary judgment

Many folks have contacted me since this decision was rendered, including several older blacks who told me they fully understand what can happen when an individual stands up-or remains seated in an act of civil disobedience.

On the evening of Dec. 1, 1955, in Montgomery Alabama, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a city bus to a white passenger. She was arrested for disobeying an Alabama law that forced blacks to relinquish their seats to whites when the bus was full.

What Rosa Parks did was monumental and changed the face of the civil rights movement in America. My “civil disobedience” will have no such impact. But it does point to how fragile the rights we think we possess under our constitution really are.

The ruling in my case was not what I had hoped. The anger and humiliation of being arrested and then handcuffed in an open public meeting is something I will never forget. Before this meeting others in Chesterfield County had been treated in a similar manner-disrespected with their comments and viewpoints often ignored. However, no one previously had ever been arrested. Since my arrest Chesterfield County has dropped their prohibition against personal attacks of criticism and have established an open comment period where citizens can speak about anything they wish.

Those who treasure the right to free speech and who live in the jurisdiction of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals have every reason to be concerned. With its decision in my case the court has now emboldened government to silence the citizenry on a whim. When we cease to have a voice, we risk losing all of our freedoms. Denying freedom of speech is the first step toward totalitarianism. In this case, we are well on our way. It was a shameful day for these “Men in Black.”

There is not much to add to this article. The act of declaring McCain-Feingold "constitutional" tells you everything that you need to know about the status of freedom of speech in America today. Our courts have become the bastions of government, not protectors of the people. Freedoms normally disappear fairly quickly after that point is reached.

Our Constitutional rights are no longer protections against government power, but are now being balanced against the need of government to control certain actions of an unruly and troublesome citizenry who actually dare to believe that freedom is supposed to mean freedom.

Old School

Obama's union-loving education guru

by Seyward Darby - December 24th, 2008 (Publication Date) - The New Republic

In November, Barack Obama bewildered education reformers by tapping Linda Darling-Hammond, a Stanford professor who had advised his campaign, to oversee the transition's education policy team. Their verdict was swift and harsh. "Worst case scenario," wrote Mike Petrilli, vice president for national programs and policy at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education think tank, the day after The Wall Street Journal leaked the news. "This is a sign that the president-elect isn't a bona fide reformer," he later told me. Kate Walsh, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, confirmed, "The reform community is scared to death."

The highly politicized American school system is unlikely to reform with a union loving socialist touting leader like Linda Darling-Hammond. The 40 year plunge in education in America is certain to continue on its downward course with Darling-Hammond in charge.

I am reminded of the assessment by Thomas Sowell, few education unions in America look anything like America in their composition. Where America is 22% liberal, 44% moderate and 34% conservative, school teachers are 20% extreme leftists (Marxists-socialists, a tiny 1 to 2 % faction hidden within liberals in the greater American population, but an identifiably significant group among teachers), 40% liberal, 30% moderate and only 10% conservative.

The major point to note is that there are twice as many Marxists-socialists as there are conservatives among teachers, the total of liberal groups are over-represented by a factor of 3 times their proportion of the American population as a whole and even moderates are under represented by nearly a third. The American education system is a socialism touting political force. Education unions see their job as subverting the American belief in free enterprise and denigrating America's history and culture. For 40 years it has worked. A huge percentage of American students leave school unprepared to be useful and effective workers or citizens.

Teachers are mostly to blame, along with parents who don't see a politicized anti-American public school system as a serious problem for their children's future.

The Carpenter’s Tools - In The Center Of His Will

Article by Pastor Wallace Phillips
- Ahoskie, NC


I read some amazing statistics recently that affirms the amazing manner in which God’s Word affirms He desires to be in the very center of our lives ---

The shortest chapter in the Bible is Psalms 117.
The longest chapter in the Bible is Psalms 119.
The very center of the Bible is Psalms 118, which is directly between the shortest and the longest chapters.
There are 594 chapters in the Bible that are before Psalms 118 and 594 chapters after Psalms 118.
Add these two numbers together (594 + 594) and you get 1188.

Now…what is the very central verse of the Bible? It is Psalms 118:8 which reads ….

“It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man.” Psalms 118:8

If you ever wondered what God’s will is for your life, you can find it in the center of His Word.


Merry Christmas to you and yours! Stay focused and check us out on the web at http://www.cscministries.com/ or http://www.wallacephillips.org/

Saturday Night Live "Bail Out" Skit

The funniest SNL skit ever!

The news from 2015: Senate Recount Is Settled At Last

by Katherine Kersten - December 2nd, 2008 - Star Tribune

In 2010, Coleman suffered a setback when the Supreme Court issued its first decision on the contest. In what became known as the "Franken's Fools" decision, the court held that even those absentee ballots that voters forgot to mail must be counted.

No forgotten ballots were ever recovered, but Franken's crack legal team assembled a group of Harvard psychologists who submitted expert testimony at trial establishing that the average Franken voter was twice as likely as the average Coleman voter to be chronically forgetful about life's basic tasks. Statisticians extrapolated on this disparity to convince the court that Franken had been unfairly deprived of 147 votes.

ROTFL

You have to read the whole thing. This is funny! It also proves two things. Al Franken is not just a comedian, he is a joke. In addition it proves the Democrat Party will do ANYTHING for political power. As if we did not already know that.

A Conservative Viewpoint - Obama Media Bias Was “Rampant”

Article by Bob Steinburg
- Edenton, North Carolina: Cradle of the Colony

During the months and weeks leading up to the presidential election, it was obvious to me and others that the press was in bed with Barack Obama. The mainstream media was in denial. My editor thought I was hallucinating and some friends thought my perceptions seriously missed the mark.

It now seems that some in the media admit that throughout the campaign concerns about bias toward Barack Obama were not without merit. Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell said on November 9th there was no doubt news coverage there showed rampant evidence of bias.

“The op-ed page ran far more laudatory opinion pieces on Obama, 32, than on Sen. John McCain, 13.” Negative pieces heavily featured McCain over Barack Obama, she said.

Adds Howell: “Stories and photos about Obama outnumbered those devoted to McCain. Post reporters, photographers and editors-like most of the national news media-found the candidacy of Obama, the first African-American major-party nominee, more newsworthy and historic. Journalists love the ‘new.”

Time Magazine, not exactly a conservative news outlet, admitted being biased toward Barack Obama. Mark Halperin, the magazine’s political analyst, called the media’s performance during the campaign “disgusting.” He added: “It was extreme bias, extreme pro-Obama coverage.”

Halperin also points to bias at the New York Times. He said they gave Michelle Obama the red-carpet treatment throughout the campaign while viciously trashing Cindy McCain.

Best - selling author David Limbaugh recently noted: “Never has media bias been clearer than in the 2008 presidential election, during which they are covering up rather than covering Barack Obama’s shady past and alliances, his deep-knee involvement in corrupt practices threatening the very core of our democratic system, and his many policy misrepresentations.”

And if anyone is looking for further examples of media-bias one doesn’t have to look very far- just examine the excessive and absolutely ridiculous coverage of Sarah Palin’s wardrobe, while ignoring the excess of money spent on the million-dollar Greek Coliseum backdrop for Barack Obama’s acceptance speech in Denver.

Pollster John Zogby surveyed 512 Barack Obama supporters after the election to see if media bias had any affect in this year’s presidential race. The 12 – question multiple-choice survey found questions regarding statements linked to John McCain and his vice-presidential running-mate Sarah Palin were far more likely to be answered correctly by Obama voters than questions about statements associated with Barack Obama and Vice-President-Elect Joe Biden.

• 57.4 percent did not know which party controlled Congress.
• 71.8 percent did not know Joe Biden quit a previous campaign for plagiarism.
• 82.6 percent could not correctly say Obama won his first election by getting his opponents kicked off the ballot.
• 88.4 percent did not know that Obama said his policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry and make energy rates skyrocket.
• 56.1 percent could not correctly say that Obama started his political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground.
• 47 percent did not know that Biden was the one who predicted Obama would be tested by a generated international crisis during his first six months as president.

And yet:

• only 13.7 percent of these same voters failed to identify Sarah Palin as the person on which their party spent $150,000 on clothes

• only 6.2 percent failed to identify Palin as the candidate with a pregnant teenage daughter

• And 86.9 percent thought that Palin actually said that she could see Russia from her “house,” even though that was Saturday Night Lives Tina Fey, parodying Palin.

Perhaps if voters for McCain were polled with these same questions there would be similar responses from some of them. That’s not the point here. What is the point is that the mainstream media plays a significant role in shaping our opinions. The responses clearly indicate just what was being reported by the media in this year’s presidential campaign, and what wasn’t being reported.

So, who is accountable for the “propaganda” that appears as news in many mainstream media outlets? The answer would have to be editors. They are ultimately responsible for the overall content of a book, magazine, newspaper or broadcast reporting. And many of these editors are not doing their jobs. They sift through the news to determine what fits their ideology or agenda, instead of giving their readers, listeners and viewers a balanced news product.

The Internet is stealing significant chunks of readers from newspapers that would rather maintain their political bias than to report the news evenly and fairly. Newspapers are doing their stockholders a disservice, but more importantly their readers and their country.

When former CBS news anchor Dan Rather thinks the media was biased in this year’s election, we should stand up and take note. Rather had to step down from his job at CBS because folks there thought he fabricated the facts in his `04 story about President George W. Bush’s National Guard service and the purported preferential treatment Bush was receiving as a guardsman. When CBS could not authenticate the documents that Rather used to substantiate his story, it became clear to most that this was certainly not journalism.

A free press is essential to a democracy. It is protected by the United States Constitution specifically because our founding fathers knew the importance of having the citizenry “fully” informed. The results of this year’s presidential election may have been different had most in the media done their jobs. Perhaps not, but because of their journalistic negligence, we’ll never know for certain.

To understand the coming disaster in America you really do not need to go any further than reading the first sentence in this last paragraph and honestly recognizing the truth we currently face. We no longer have a free press. We have a press that is dedicated to glorifying socialism and the Utopia it proclaims, ignoring all failures of this nightmare system. Our press has voluntarily chosen slavery for our people.

After socialism starts to fail here, a part of the press will probably try and change sides and criticize government. It will be at that point that the suppression of free speech and a free press will prove that our MSM did not just sell the average citizen into slavery, but sold the fourth estate into slavery as well.