The Power of the Media

What upsets me the most about politics these days is how much influence the mainstream media has over the public perception of government, and which party is responsible for gridlock.  This time it's over the funding of Planned Parenthood: Republicans want to defund it for a year so that an investigation can be conducted into its abortion practices.  This seems to be a reasonable request to me, given the awful practices that have come to light about them recently. Democrats in the Senate have already vowed to reject that request, and President Obama has vowed to veto any budget that excludes the funding, and yet the media asserts that it will be the Republicans who will be responsible for a government shut-down if it occurs. This is outrageous to me.  Why are we funding Planned Parenthood anyway? It is not a government program, it's supposed to be a charity. I can't think of another charity that is funded to this extent by the federal government. If there is a government shut-down it will be because the Democrats refuse to compromise yet again on anything that Republicans want, not the other way around, and yet, the media will continue to spin the truth in Obama's favor. Why can't more people see this?

The Politics of the Pope

As Catholics, we are taught that the Pope is God's Messenger on earth, the direct spiritual descendant of St. Peter.  He speaks for God, and his statements regarding religion are infallible. Some people mistakenly believe that this means that anything the Pope says is infallible, but this is not true.  How, then, to interpret  Pope Francis's most recent statements regarding global warming, which he believes is caused by humans, and the crisis of migrants in Europe, which he asserts is the result of humans worshiping the God of Money. Not once has he come out in opposition to the Islamist extremist terrorists who have precipitated this crisis. He keeps advocating a redistribution of wealth, rather than the pursuit of it, which is a Marxist doctrine, not a Biblical one. Throughout the Bible, especially the New Testament, Jesus advocates freely giving and sharing, not forced redistribution. I think that Pope Francis is overstepping his position as head of the Catholic Church and is making political matters into spiritual ones. I wonder what God thinks of all this?

The Double Standard in Politics

For at least the last ten or fifteen years, and maybe longer (I wasn't paying much attention to politics before that), there has been a double standard in politics, fueled in large part, I believe, by a media establishment that has become increasingly and obviously biased in favor of Democrat/Liberal/Socialist ideology. If you're a Democrat and you change your mind about some political or social issue, the media says you have "evolved", as when Mr. Obama changed his mind and decided that same-sex marriage was OK after all.  However, if you're a Republican and you change your mind about something, maybe even the same issue, the same media types accuse you of "waffling". The inevitable conclusion one must draw is that Republicans are weak and don't know what they believe, while Democrats are strong and evolutionary in what they believe. It's not just the media who do this, either: I cannot remember another president who has invoked as many negative and condemning epithets at the opposition party members, in this case Republicans, as Mr. Obama has. He blames Republicans for everything that does not go his way, conveniently ignoring the many times he declares that he will veto virtually anything that Republicans send to his desk. And I can't even count how many times Republicans have been accused of being against "Immigration", conveniently leaving out the adjective "Illegal", both by the media and by the Democrats. It's so unfair. Why are these people allowed to get away with this? Our Founding Fathers deliberately wrote into the Constitution the right and responsibility of  the Press to be the Watchdogs of Government: that's what a free press is supposed to do, and that is part of what the First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees.  a free press is not supposed to take sides, they're supposed to report the news and can criticize the actions of our government without fear of retribution, unlike many countries in the world, especially those in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. One of the things the press should be criticizing is the repeated tendency of this Administration to ignore and/or fail to enforce the Federal laws on the books, especially those regarding immigration, marijuana and even Obamacare, which was supposed to include the insurance requirement for businesses beginning in 2015, but which Mr. Obama unilaterally postponed by Executive Fiat until after he leaves office.  Very politically convenient, if you ask me.  No one in the Mainstream Media seems to be concerned about this, but if a Republican did this, the media would be all over it. The Double Standard. I fervently hope that this country finally gets smart and elects a Republican as the next president.  I can hardly wait to see what the mainstream media will do with that.