While reading the news last week you may have come to the
conclusion as I did that everyone in this country is lying. A more important
revelation is that most of these lies are coming from people in positions of
leadership and power. My mother has often told me that “there is nothing new
under the sun” but I am getting a sick feeling that we are progressing far
beyond a few lying politicians. The extent to which everything we are being
told is nearly devoid of the truth is to me frightening and becoming downright
dangerous.
Am I wrong to be so scared? Here is a review of some
highlights from just last week.
The week started with Brian Williams taking flak for not
taking flak when some Iraq veterans exposed his dramatic 2003 war story as a
lie. Williams had claimed for years that the military helicopter he occupied
was forced to land while taking RPG fire. This was not true, and once it was
reported the flood gates containing a myriad of William’s factual inaccuracies was
opened. By weeks end it was clear that
the NBC News anchor was more than someone who creatively embellished a story.
He appeared to have a seemingly pathological habit of putting himself into the
news events on which he reported. These included stories from hurricane
Katrina, the Brandenburg Gate, the Pope, Seal Team Six and one or more puppies
that he rescued from a burning building.
What is of greater concern here is the credibility of NBC.
The last shoe to drop before they suspended Williams was a report that the
network had known of his credibility issues for years and ignored them. This is
not the first time that the temerity of NBC news has been questioned. In 1993 they
were caught placing incendiary devices in Chevrolet trucks to prove they had an
exploding problem, and in 2012 they were caught inserting themselves into the
Trayvon Martin case by selectively editing George Zimmerman's taped 911 call. They
also employ Al Sharpton.
“The fiddling with
temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever” was the title of a story The
UK Daily Telegraph published the same week.
The story documents the extent to which official temperature records were
systematically “adjusted” to show the earth as having warmed much more than the
actual data justified. This story comes
just a week after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration claimed
2014 was the warmest year on record, a widely disputed allegation that made
headlines worldwide almost instantly. Apparently the taxpayer-funded agency
employed fudge factors and dubious temperature estimates rather than objective
global data. The “undisputed scientific
fact” of global-warming that has been
beaten into our heads for the past 30 years by educators, politicians, entertainers, government
agencies, movies, commercials, green businesses, the UN and whatever it is Al Gore has become is quite
possibly neither science or fact and could be, dare I say it, a great big fat
lie.
The credibility of the administration’s Bureau of Labor
Statistics (BLS) also made the news when the CEO of Gallup, Jim Clifton, wrote
an opinion piece on the organization’s web site stating that the number of full
time jobs in this country as a percent of the adult population “is the worst
it’s been in 30 years” and called the government’s 5.6 percent unemployment
figure “The Big Lie” in the article’s headline. These unemployment numbers are
published by the BLS every month and have been touted since the Great
Depression as an important economic indicator.
Of late they are being heralded by both the media and the administration
as proof that the US economy is doing just dandy even though most of us living in
it have very good personal reasons to believe that it is not. Mr. Clifton is not
the first to suggest that these numbers may somehow have become skewed to
support current economic policy and may be in the words of George W. Bush “misunderestimated”.
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Tom Wheeler
has acknowledged that the commission decided to avoid congressional input for
its new “Net Neutrality” program while adopting Franklin Roosevelt’s 1934
Communications Act to regulate the Internet. To hide this decision from those
who care about free speech, markets, and commerce, Wheeler “embargoed” the
release of any specifics. The President has touted the plan as a way to make
the internet “an even playing field”. Last
Thursday Ajit Pai, a Republican FCC commissioner inferred that the 332-page document
is really a scheme by the federal government to extract billions in new taxes and
enforce content regulation contingent with the progressive left’s idea of fairness.
The FCC’s actions include lies, cover ups, and a blatant act of disregard for
the Constitution, but if tyranny exists on an even playing field then I guess
its ok.
Midweek came revelations from a book written by former
presidential adviser David Axelrod claiming that President Obama lied about his
support for gay marriage before his election in 2008. Axelrod defended the
President’s “evolution” on gay marriage as a matter of political expediency
thus proving that the “most transparent administration ever” was off on the
wrong foot before Mr. Obama ever took office. Media indignation on this
reported lie was at best tepid. One can only assume this is due to the current
and widely publicized narrative that Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender
(LGBT) rights are without doubt among the most important topics of our time. So
it’s ok to lie a little.
The President confronted another of our country’s crucial
issues during last week’s Grammy Awards presentation when he inserted himself
into the festivities with a PSA to bring awareness to rape and domestic
violence against women. This is especially poignant considering Kayla Mueller’s
recent death at the hands of ISIS. This is beyond a lie. It is an absolute
insult to the American people to tell us that we should focus on the ‘abuses’
against women committed by Our culture, Our laws, Our own people while true
evil is abusing, enslaving, raping, prostituting, torturing, and killing women all
over the rest of the world. Our President has no trouble discussing changing
"our culture for the better by ending violence against women and
girls" or for that matter the “terrible deeds” performed during the
Crusades but he seems unable to string together the words "Islamic Terrorist".
The Grammy’s also brought us more evidence of what a
colossal ass-hat Kanye West is as he rushed the stage to once again insult
another artist. You may remember Kanye from the fundraiser for the victims of
Hurricane Katrina when he ditched his lines to proclaim that "George Bush
doesn't care about black people". Mr. West did not mention New Orleans
Mayor Ray Nagin who let hundreds of busses go under water and hundreds of
thousands of people go un-evacuated. The former mayor is now doing a 10 year
stint in federal prison for corruption charges but hey, he meant well, everyone
knows that Bush was the real problem. I bring this story up because George Bush
has been gone for 7 years and yet the racism in this country apparently
continues. With the first black president and first black attorney general it
is interesting to see that it’s not George Bush but the nation’s police
departments who now “don’t care about black people”. Instead of putting an end to any perceived
race problems we had under the Bush administration, the Obama administration
has continued to instigate, foster, and support a narrative of racism in this
country, particularly with law enforcement.
It is at best a blatant misrepresentation of the truth. It is extremely
dangerous and it’s starting to get people killed.
Hillary Clinton has been strangely unobserved of late which
is making some curious considering all of the 2016 presidential posturing
that’s going on. This prompted RNC chairman Reince Priebus late last week to
send a letter to the DNC asking their chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz if the
Democratic Party has “suspended” Hillary Clinton in the same way NBC News
suspended Brian Williams. You see there is a striking similarity between
William’s Iraq helicopter lie and a whopper that Mrs. Clinton told in 2008
about having to do a corkscrew landing while taking sniper fire on a trip to
Bosnia as First Lady. She further embellished the story explaining that once on
the ground they were told to run for it. None of this was true and she later recanted
saying that she “misspoke” due to “sleep deprivation”.
Human nature tells us that someone who is exaggerating on
such a large scale for self-aggrandizement is quite capable of doing so for
other reasons, and when as Secretary Of State Hillary Clinton made a conscious
decision to repeatedly blame the sacking of our Benghazi consulate on a little
known internet video called “Innocence of Muslims” she was promoting a serious
and dangerous lie. And it is a lie that she may have taken part in fabricating.
But, as she said to Congress, “at this point what difference does it make?” Is
she right? If we continue to accept the
lies fed to us every day by the people that we elected (or those appointed by
the people we elected) to run this country then are we not just getting what we
deserve?
Last week ended with a story about the Federal Election
Commission (FEC) and their plans to
regulate the internet. It seems they cannot let the Federal Communication
Commission have all of the fun. The FEC is calling for burdensome new rules on
Internet-based campaigning that would in effect allow them to control content
on ‘political based’ web sites from The Drudge Report to Jib Jab. In the words
of FEC Chair Ann M. Ravel. “A reexamination of the commission’s approach to the
internet and other emerging technologies is long overdue.”
Ann Ravel’s statement may not be a lie, but the foreboding
conclusions one can derive from it create a chilling portent of a grave new
direction for this country, one where the very definition of the truth is
removed from the citizenry and placed firmly in the hands of the federal
government. Anyone else thinking of Orwell’s Big Brother? Be afraid, be very, very afraid…..
Buddy Walker
