The LA Times’s Andrew Malcolm reports that the FBI caught Massachusetts Democratic state senator Dianne Wilkerson “on videotape stuffing numerous $100 bills into her bra as alleged bribe payments during a meeting in a fancy Boston restaurant.”
You know, it’s 2008. Isn’t it about time female politicians feel free to carry their bribes in briefcases just like their male counterparts?
I was cleaning out my e-mail box yesterday and I ran across a forward of Pat Buchanan’s article, posted 3/21/8, on Humanevents.com titled A brief for Whitey. It began:
How would he pull it off? I wondered.
How would Barack explain to his press groupies why he sat silent in a pew for 20 years as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright delivered racist rants against white America for our maligning of Fidel and Gadhafi, and inventing AIDS to infect and kill black people?
How would he justify not walking out as Wright spewed his venom about “the U.S. of K.K.K. America,” and howled, “God damn America!”
My hunch was right. Barack would turn the tables.
Yes, Barack agreed, Wright’s statements were “controversial,” and “divisive,” and “racially charged,” reflecting a “distorted view of America.”
But we must understand the man in full and the black experience out of which the Rev. Wright came: 350 years of slavery and segregation.
Barack then listed black grievances and informed us what white America must do to close the racial divide and heal the country.
The “white community,” said Barack, must start “acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination – and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past – are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds … .
Buchanan then went on to postulate that “America has been the best country on earth for black folks” in that it enabled an initial contingent of 600,000 black people to grow into a community of 40 million, get saved, and become freer and see more prosperity than blacks had ever known. He went on about all the money spent on welfare, food stamps and a host of other government spending aimed at bringing blacks into the “mainstream”. He talked about Government discrimination against white folk in the form of affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas to advance black applicants over white applicants.
Everything he stated was fact, but this is what really pissed me off:
I got this from a good friend today:
“Dear Friend,
Jailing journalists is unacceptable in a democracy. But that’s exactly what is happening at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Award winning journalist and host of “Democracy Now” Amy Goodman was arrested by St. Paul police while covering a protest outside the Republican National Convention. Though clearly identified as press, Goodman was charged with “obstruction of a legal process and interference with a ‘peace officer.’” Two of her producers were arrested for “suspicion of felony riot.”
To tell you that this arrest was brutal and upsetting simply doesn’t do it justice. Watch this video to see for yourself. Then take action.
I just e-mailed the presidents of CNN and NBC News (which oversees MSNBC) to demand that their networks cover this important story. I hope you will too.
Please have a look and take action.”
Well, I watched the video and this was my reply:
“C’mon. You know me well enough to know that I don’t take this stuff lightly (being in the media myself). But this video shows she was arrested for violating a police perimiter. She was clearly offered the opportunity to avoid arrest following the directions of the officers (and from my point of view that was relatively mild treatment of a suspect). Of particular note is that someone in the background was yelling “release the accredited journalist now". Problem is, the officer was still trying to just get her back behind the perimiter line. To me it appears that an activist journalist was intentionally trying to get arrested, probably for the publicity, but I’ll post the video, plus your comments on my blog and let the viewer make up their own mind.
I was in law enforcement for 8 years and have since been in the media for over 20 years now and, contrary to popular belief, journalists are not entitled to unfettered acces to wherever we think we need to go. There are activists in every field who will push the envelope just to cause a scene and get arrested for the publicity, and there are those who are responsible reporters who will just report the news and not try to make it.
The fact that the mainstream media is not reporting on the alleged abuse of one of their own tells me there’s more to the story. Kind of a “deafening silence” type of thing. If there had actually been substance to a charge of false arrest, you can bet NBC, CBS, ABC and maybe even FOX would be screaming bloody murder about it. As for me I’ll try to follow the story and see what I can find out.”
Here’s what I found out: Amy is credentialed for the floor of the eXcel Center to cover the convention, which is where she was when she received a phone call that two of her journalists had been arrested. She immediately proceeded to attempt to find out what had happened, and why they were arrested and that’s what led up to the actions in the video above.
Ok readers, time for you to ring in. Should journalists be subject to the same restraints as the public to heed boundaries set by police, ostensibly for our own safety, or do you think our press credentials should afford us the opportunity to get to any scene at our own risk?
I’m very interested in your comments.
Been On Both Sides,
The BlacKnight
Link: http://www.sedaliademocrat.com/news/commission_10965___article.html/agenda_county.html
The Petis County Commission met on Tuesday. They turned down a proposal to house sexual predators in the county jail. That’s all well and good. But the issue wasn’t on the published agenda. News sources had no way of knowing that it would be discussed, so the meeting wasn’t covered by many of them. This is a violation of the “Sunshine Law".
When asked about it, Presiding Commissioner Rusty Kahrs said (quote credited to the Sedalia Democrat) “I should have looked at it, (the agenda) I Didn’t have this one in front of me. I glanced at it, but I didn’t sit down and give it a thorough read, and that’s my fault.”
With that in mind, We’re supposed to swallow that the Presiding Commissioner for the past (approx.) 8 years didn’t read or have a copy of the agenda in front of him in the meeting. He didn’t follow it and tick off each point as it was raised according to Robert’s rules of order.
I’m not going to sit here and say it’s not possible. That would be presumptuous of me. But it’s an awfully big pill to swallow.
(by a guest blogger)
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