GOP MEDIA BIAS WILL BACKFIRE IN 2016

#MediaBias

DONALD TRUMP vs MEGYN KELLY during the first 2016 GOP debate on FOX NEWS.

Mainstream Media Bias vs The GOP

Why is the Media so Biased against 2016 GOP Candidates??

Will this targeted Media Bias against the GOP backfire on major Networks after the 2016 election?

Sources: The Wrap, YouTube

FERGUSON Race Riots Being Encouraged By Liberal Media Networks Like CNN

CNN vs FERGUSON:

INCITING RACE RIOTS FOR RATINGS

CNN wants the Citizens of FERGUSON and Protesters to create another Race RIOT.

Why??

To Achieve Higher Network Ratings So CNN Execs Can Attract More Sponsors!

Dear People Of Ferguson,

Please don't allow CNN'S Racially-Biased reporting to Brainwash your minds into committing more acts of Counterproductive Destruction, which may lead to VIOLENCE or more BLACK People being KILLED by FERGUSON'S Police officers as MICHAEL BROWN was.

Please THINK before you ACT!

I'm Praying for all of You.

Regards,

BLACK POLITICAL BUZZ

George Zimmerman Called Sheriff Dept. 46 Times! Frequently Described BLACK Male Youth (Racial Profiling Evidence)

Man who shot and killed teen has history calling 911: MyFoxORLANDO.com

Sheriff's Office releases more 911 calls made by George Zimmerman

The neighborhood crime watch volunteer who shot and killed Trayvon Martin last month, called 911 dozens of times in the months that led to the fatal shooting.

This afternoon six of the calls made by George Zimmerman were released by theSeminole County Sheriff's Office.

In four of the recordings Zimmerman called police to report "suspicious" persons — all of whom were black — in or near the Retreat at Twin Lakes neighborhood.

He called once to report his neighbor's open garage door. And in the sixth call, Zimmerman reports children are "habitually" playing in the street at dusk and running in front of cars. He asked dispatchers to take his complaint anonymously, but provided his name and phone number.

None of the newly released calls are related to the Feb. 26 shooting inside the gated neighborhood.

Many of the calls start the same way — Zimmerman mentions the recent rash of burglaries in the area and identifies himself as a member of the neighborhood watch.

"We've had a lot of break-ins in our neighborhood recently and I'm on the neighborhood watch," Zimmerman said during one call.

"There's two suspicious characters at the gate of my neighborhood, I've never seen them before. I don't know what they are doing. They are hanging out…loitering."

That day, the "characters" are two black men in a white sedan, Zimmerman tells the dispatchers. An officer is sent to check out the call, but it's unclear if anything suspicious was uncovered.

Another time he calls two report two black teens who match the description of suspects in recent break-in, who his wife saw and identified for police.

Zimmerman and his wife, who can be heard in the background, believed the suspects were back in the neighborhood and walking near the neighborhood's back gate. Zimmerman said he'd be waiting at the back gate to let an officer in.

On Feb. 26, Zimmerman called the non-emergency line to report a suspicious person — Trayvon Martin.

Zimmerman mentioned the break-ins, reported a young black male in his neighborhood who he didn't recognize and thought was acting suspiciously.

Minutes after that call, while officers were in route, Trayvon was shot and killed. Zimmerman said he acted in self defense. Officers have not arrested or charged him.

Records show Zimmerman, 28, called the cops 46 times between January 2011 and Feb. 26.

Many of the calls appear related to his crime-watch volunteer role. The most frequent reason for his calls — nine times — was to report a suspicious person, according to Sanford Police Department records released last week.

The calls released this afternoon were made to the non-emergency line. The Sheriff's Office handles dispatching for Sanford Police.

The Sheriff's Office received more calls, but the audio information is retained for six-months before it is destroyed due to space issues, said spokeswoman Heather Smith. The record and the call log are not destroyed.


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Sources: CNN, Fox News, Orlando Sentinel, Google Maps

Elizabeth Smart vs Missing Black Children: Media Coverage Disparity & No Amber Alerts! (Videos)

‎"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Why Does The Mainstream Media Intentionally Ignore & Refuse To Provide Continuous National Coverage For Missing BLACK & Latino Children, Youth & Women?
Why Do Local Law Enforcement Authorities Often Fail To Issue Amber Alerts For Missing BLACK & Latino Children?

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Missing Black Children: A Crisis of Media Neglect


Ke’Shaun Vanderhorst, Jeanine Barnwell, Jaycee Dugard and Caylee Anthony.

All four individuals have something in common: their lives were ended or altered tragically.

Philadelphia natives Ke’Shaun and Jeanine, however, differ from Jaycee and Caylee in three ways— they’re both Black, still missing and didn’t receive any national coverage compared to Jaycee and Caylee.“ As with anything, the media is based on sales. Black children aren’t just as valued,” said Gaetane Borders, president of Peas in Their Pods, a non-profit organization that educates the public about missing minority children. “Most people don’t realize how many children of color are missing, and make assumptions because they don’t see them on television.”

According to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, more than 2,000 children are reported missing in the United States each day. Nearly 20 percent of those reported missing are African-American — that’s 146,000 Black children reported missing each year.



Not often, though, do missing Black children and teens get national news coverage like North Carolina teen Phylicia Barnes. She was found dead in Maryland in April. While her death received some buzz in the news, it was too late.

“It’s definitely related to bias against African-American children,” said Borders. “They don’t think they will sell or are newsworthy enough.”

Borders said her organization created the Rilya Alert, similar to the Ambler Alert but for minority children, to counter the institutional biases in this country. Email alerts are sent to people who sign up for the Rilya Alert. Peas in Their Pods also hosts a weekly online radio show allowing affected families to tell their stories.

Michael Coard, Philadelphia criminal defense attorney and founder of Avenging the Ancestors Coalition, sees the biases in the media as well.

Regarding to the Casey Anthony trial, he wrote the following in a July essay on the Avenging our Ancestors website: “I am compelled to condemn the media for its racism. Why did they make this such a big deal… The answer is racism or at least racial indifference.”

Coard then notes the 2007 strangling and stabbings of four sisters by their mother in Washington, D.C.

“You didn't hear anything about this, did you? I wonder why?” he wrote.

Natalie Wilson, co-founder of Black and Missing Foundation, Inc., puts some of the blame on the lack of diversity in the newsroom.

“African Americans need to speak out and say we need to hear of people of color who are missing too, because we matter too,” she said.

Wilson notes the lack of national news coverage on the recent indictment of Antoinette Nicole Davis, who sold her 5-year-old daughter, Shaniya Nicole Davis, in 2009 into sexual servitude.

“Unfortunately the media has focused so much on Casey that they haven’t given any focus to other stories that really need attention. Shaniya matters too.”

Soroya Bacchus, a triple board certified psychiatrist based in Los Angeles, puts much of the blame on leaders of news organizations.

“National media is white male media, so they pay attention to issues in their tribe — white young girls and white women,” said Bacchus. “It’s not biased or racist, but it’s their comfort zone; it’s their cultural background.”

Bacchus said if there were more diversity in the newsroom, more minority stories would be heard.

“It goes back to the white male establishment — who are interested in what is happening to their women.”

Tracy Everbach, a journalism professor at the University of North Texas who teaches a class called “Race, Gender and Media,” agrees with Bacchus.

“The make-up of the media and most people in media are white and they may not be aware of what they’re doing,” said Everbach.

More open discussions about this issue and teaching young journalists to be aware of the content in the news are the answer, according to Everbach.

Additionally, a Kansas man has made it his mission for minority missing children stories to be told. After the 2001 beheading of a Kansas City girl, Alonzo Washington began to advocate for missing minority children across the country.

“If this was in a suburb it would be a national story,” he said. “It’s clear that there’s a disparity. And even in this day and age when we have an African-American president, these are issues that are not addressed.”

Washington and Borders said the old stereotypes of African Americans are factors in why Blacks don’t make national news.

“It’s the national image and the local image that the mass media promotes of crime. Crime is acceptable in the inner-city, and in most major cities, and it’s something that nobody deems as important,” said Washington.

“Many of our kids that go missing, the first thing that happens is they are listed as a runaway,” said Borders. “News stations don’t want to cover a runaway.”






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Sources: ABC News, Black Voices, MSNBC, True TV, Youtube, Google Maps

Haley Barbour: God Bless You! Pardoned Inmates & Forgiveness

When former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour recently Pardoned 200 Convicted Felons AFTER they Served their time for Criminal Acts, he demonstrated unbelievable examples of Courage, Forgiveness & Humanity.

In fact it took a lot of Courage for Haley Barbour to do what he did for those Inmates because too often Our Society treats Inmates like Animals.

Including many Inmates who have been Wrongfully Convicted & Wrongfully Imprisoned.

And while I empathize with families of the Victims, I can't forget that more than 50% of ALL Currently Imprisoned Men in American Prisons are BLACK & Latino Human Beings.

Since the Mississippi Supreme Court found NO Error in Haley Barbour's decision to Legally Pardon those 200 Convicted Felons, why continue all of this drama?

The Media should STOP wasting valuable time & resources Bashing Haley Barbour for doing something that was Completely Legal.

Considering the fact that each of those 200 Convicted Felons Served at least 20 Years in Prison, I ask again why is the Media choosing to remain focused on this situation?

Instead the Media should be focusing its attention on why 50% of BLACK & Latino Men living in this Country are Still being Racially Profiled, Wrongfully Convicted & Wrongfully Imprisoned in the 21st Century.

Society is always talking about how Many Southern WHITE People are Racist but than when they display Benevolent, Humane Behavior towards BLACKS & Latinos, we want to Bash or Shun them.

What about those hundreds of Wall Street Executives who Stole BILLIONS from the Federal Government from that TARP money?

Why isn't the Media jumping up & down over that Atrocity???

Let it Go!

Stop Hating!

God Bless You Haley Barbour!






Docs show murderers got special treatment from governor, wife


Investigative documents obtained by CNN show that former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, his wife and his staff may have given preferential treatment to two of the convicted murderers who were among the more than 200 former and current inmates he pardoned in January.

According to the documents compiled by the office of Mississippi's attorney general, the state's former first lady, Marsha Barbour, apparently called a car dealership regarding the purchase of two vehicles for two convicted murderers -- days before they were pardoned.

The cars were later delivered to the governor's mansion, two days before the men were released.

CNN has also learned that a member of the governor's staff took the same two men, David Gatlin and Charles Hooker, to get their driver's licenses while they were still in state custody, before their pardons were signed and made official.

"Yes, that's true ... I did take some of them," said Barbour's former security chief, Wayland Adams. "I knew that they were going to be paroled. I was assured of that and I just took them to get their driver's licenses.

"I thought that if I went ahead to get them a driver's license it would speed things up on getting them a job. And that was the only reason. I was just trying to help them."

Adams, who retired as security director of the Mississippi governor's mansion when Barbour left office in January, told CNN the former Mississippi governor did not ask him to take Gatlin and Hooker to get their licenses.

"No, I assume full responsibility for it," he said.

Adams admitted his actions were a bit unusual.

State law enforcement experts and legal experts told CNN that while this would be considered preferential treatment for any inmate, no state laws were violated.

"Unless a person has had his or her license revoked ... they are not prohibited from acquiring or renewing a driver's license while incarcerated as long as they had domicile in the state prior to imprisonment," according to a written statement from Mississippi Department of Public Safety spokesman Master Sgt. Johnny Poulos.

Poulos said his department was not aware of any directive from Barbour to provide licenses to the men.

Either way, Randy Walker is furious. Nearly 20 years ago, he survived a gunshot wound to the head by Gatlin moments after Gatlin killed Tammy Ellis, Gatlin's estranged wife. Gatlin admitted he shot her in the head as she held their 6-week-old child in her arms. Police found the infant, still in her arms, alive and covered with blood.

"Where is enough enough?" said Walker, who has recovered from his head wound. "It should be enough that they gave a convicted killer his life back."

During his last days in office in January, Gov. Haley Barbour issued pardons to more than 200 current and former inmates. Most of the pardons were granted to former inmates who had already completed their sentences and were free.

However, some of the prisoners were convicted murderers. Now, the legacy of the once popular two-term governor, who considered running for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, is being questioned by some Mississippians.

The pardons were challenged by Mississippi's attorney general, but last week the Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the legality of the pardons.

Five of the prisoners -- including Gatlin and Hooker -- worked as trusties as part of a state rehabilitation program that allows model prisoners to work as servants and handymen at the governor's mansion.

They had access to Barbour practically every day, according to people familiar with the program.

Barbour has said he believes the men are no longer a threat, that they are rehabilitated and deserve a second chance at life.

"That's what we as Christians believe. My wife and I are Christians," he told CNN's John King on his show, "John King, USA," weeks after issuing the pardons.

"When we have people who get rehabilitated ... they deserve a second chance.

It's the governor's job and the governor's job alone to let them have a second chance. That's why I'm very comfortable with this."

But no matter how one looks at this story, the benefits these convicted murderers received appear special.

"It's abhorrent that these people would be given this sort of treatment after the crimes they've committed," said Mississippi State Rep. David Baria.

Baria, a Democrat, sponsored several bills to change Mississippi's pardons process. The bills all died in committee last week. He said the victims in the cases have put up with too much already.

"Not only to turn these folks loose but to treat them like kings, essentially -- it's outside the bounds of common decency of what we expect of our government," he told CNN.
Gatlin and Hooker were released on January 8. They both had driver's licenses when they went to Gray Daniels Chevrolet in Jackson, Mississippi, on January 6.

Records show Hooker bought a white 2007 Ford Focus while Gatlin picked up a gray Chevy HHR. Both vehicles were paid for with bank checks from Bank Plus.

Both men put no money down. It remains unclear how the men were able to secure bank checks while still in the custody of the Mississippi Highway Patrol.

When reached by CNN at the dealership, the salesman who sold the men the cars refused to comment.
"I am not allowed to speak about any transactions," he said.

But the investigative reports compiled by Mississippi's attorney general's office show that Barbour's wife, Marsha Barbour, aided the transaction.

In the report, the investigator writes, "While at the dealership I spoke briefly with the salesman who stated that Marsha Barbour had contacted him regarding the purchase of vehicles for Hooker and Gatlin."

The details of the conversation were not available and it is not clear exactly what role Marsha Barbour played in the transaction, or the nature of her relationship with the pardoned men.

The report further stated that "the inmates had been brought to the dealership on January 6, 2012, in a black Ford Crown Victoria to complete paperwork for the sale and [the investigator] stated that the prisoners had paid with certified checks issued by Bank Plus."

According to the report, the car salesman also told investigators "he delivered both vehicles to the governor's mansion on the afternoon of January 6, 2012."

When investigators asked Gatlin how he got the car, he allegedly told them, according to the report, "I can't tell you."

When asked about the driver's licenses and the role of Marsha Barbour in the purchase of the cars, a spokeswoman for the former governor said the questions "were based on assumptions of fact which simply are not true."

Spokeswoman Sherry Vance did not elaborate on which aspects of this story were untrue, and has not responded to CNN's questions for clarification.

Walker, the victim who stared down the barrel of Gatlin's gun before he was shot in the head, said he's "baffled" by the allegations and believes Barbour is financially helping the men.

"Was it because he was a trusty at the governor's mansion and he had so much time with Barbour?" he wondered. "It's insane that he would do that. Where's my handout?"
"I mean, I had thousands upon thousands of medical bills that nobody helped me pay.

I'd like to get some of that money back that I wasted because David shot me. I didn't ask for David to come shoot me. Where's my handout?" he asked angrily.

CNN went to Hooker's home in Jackson several times and saw the White Ford Focus mentioned in the state investigator's report parked outside his house, but Hooker did not answer his door or respond to CNN's phone calls.

According to the investigative reports from the Mississippi attorney general's office, Hooker allegedly told investigators that his son helped him buy the vehicle, and that his son had already made three months of car payments for him.

CNN also went to Alabama to try to get Gatlin's side of the story, and found him living in the home of Ernest Jacks. His gray Chevy HHR was in the driveway, but Jacks said Gatlin refused to talk to us.

But Walker has a lot to say. He can barely contain his anger that the man who tried to kill him could get such preferential treatment.

"I've been trying for over two years, since 2009, to get a face to face with Barbour, and never got a phone call back," said Walker. "Gatlin must have made quite the impression on him."


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Sources: CNN, Google Maps

Left Wing vs Right Wing Journalism: Media Matters & Biased Reporting

Left Wing Gears Up To Fight Media Wars with Right Wing


From a glitzy new office in downtown Washington, the ideological war over the media is fully engaged.

Six years after its founding to counter what it said was “conservative misinformation,” Media Matters for America employs a staff of 70 that spends 19 hours a day monitoring newspapers, magazines, broadcast and cable television, talk radio, and the Internet to counter reporting or commentary it deems to be inaccurate or biased.

Lou Dobbs recently described the group as part of “the vast left wing conspiracy,” an ironic twist on Hillary Clinton’s famous description of the conservative infrastructure arrayed against her husband when he was president and fighting off attempts to impeach him.

In fact, just a few miles away and across the Potomac, in Alexandria, Va., one of the groups Clinton was talking about, the Media Research Center, founded in 1987 by L. Bent Brozell III, is engaged in a longer-running attack on the media from the right.

Shortly after launching Media Matters, founder David Brock said he hoped his group would some day be as influential as Bozell’s and that day appears to have arrived. They have roughly the same budget ($10 million) and staff, and are equally adept at provoking the other side.

The MRC, as a rule, doesn’t comment on Media Matters. Not so Conservative publisher Andrew Breitbart. “I’m 100 percent at war with those people,” he recently told POLITICO.

One of the bloodiest battles in that war occurred last fall, when Kevin Jennings, an openly-gay educator hired by the Department of Education to run an anti-bullying campaign, became a conservative cause.

Jennings was under fire from critics because of once describing how as a 24-year-old teacher he counseled a student having a sexual relationship with an “older man.” Several conservative outlets and commentators said that by law Jennings had to report the incident, claiming the student was only 15 years old at the time, and it constituted statutory rape.

Media Matters obtained the student’s driver’s license and proved he was 16 at the time, the age of consent in Massachusetts. While some may still question Jennings’ judgment, he didn’t break any law.

"This should put to rest claims made by Fox News and other conservatives that Jennings covered up 'statutory rape' or 'molestation,'” wrote Media Matters senior fellow Karl Frisch. “To continue reporting such reckless speculation is at best willful disregard for the facts and at worst journalistic malpractice."

The battle over Jennings convinced Media Matters that it needed to not only monitor other media but to do its own original reporting. On Monday, Joe Strupp, who covered the press for 11 years with Editor & Publisher magazine, will launch a new media blog after signing on as the group’s first investigative reporter.

Joining a partisan organization is a change for Strupp, given that his press coverage with E&P, or in appearances on “Fox News Watch,” was solidly non-partisan. However, Media Matters, he says, didn’t ask about his political beliefs when it hired him, and his goal remains to do “straight ahead reporting.” Still, Strupp acknowledges that he represents a “new sort of wing for their organization.”

Ari Rabin-Havt, vice president for research and communication at Media Matters, confirms that ideology was not discussed before he was hired. But don’t expect Strupp to be investigating “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” or Talking Points Memo.

More likely, he’ll focus on programs and outlets on the other side ideologically from Media Matters, or on hot-button issues the organization is interested in. “Joe knows where we’re coming from,” Rabin-Havt said.

“We never change the truth in what we’re covering,” Rabin-Havt said. “We do make choices here on what to cover. Every newspaper has editors that make choices about what they care about, which is why Fox News has very different stories than CNN, even in their daytime coverage.”

So while Media Matters may increasingly hire journalists with more traditional news backgrounds, the reporting and writing still fits in with the organization’s goals. Unlike a newspaper, Media Matters is not in the business of selling advertising, subscriptions or competing on a variety of beats. It also has a clear political agenda.

For instance, Media Matters hired Will Bunch, a veteran Philadelphia Daily News reporter and blogger, as a senior fellow last month. Bunch plains on remaining at the Daily News while also working on a book that seems well-suited for the Media Matters audience:“The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, Hi-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama.”

Media Matters was launched with about $2 million in seed money from wealthy liberal donors that shared Brock’s vision of combating of he called in a book “The Republican Noise Machine.”

Assistance also came from the John Podesta-led Center for American Progress, a liberal policy and advocacy organization which includes billionaire George Soros as a major backer. The National Democratic Network, a think tank and advocacy organization, and progressive activist organization MoveOn.org, have also helped fund Media Matters. The New York Observer reported in December that last year it “received grants of at least $100,000 from more than a dozen foundations.”

While Media Matters president Eric Burns and senior fellow Eric Boehlert are more visible presences on cable news and talk radio, founder David Brock remains chief executive and major presence in the organization.

He plays a key role in strategy and fundraising, which supports the entire non-profit apparatus, and is typically at the office each day. "He guides us, gives vision,” Rabin-Havt said.

That Brock has anything to do with the organization at all is more than a little ironic given his own role as part of the right-wing conspiracy. Two of Brock’s notable contributions were his book “The Real Anita Hill,” and a 1994 American Spectator article that spawned “Troopergate,” leading to allegations that Bill Clinton, while Governor of Arkansas, used state troopers to arrange liaisons with women.

Brock later confessed that much of the Anita Hill book was false, apologized to the Clintons for the Troopergate article, broke with the right officially in a 1997 Esquire piece, and four years later explained his conversion in greater detail with his memoir, “Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative.”

At the time Brock started Media Matters, the main counter to conservative media groups such as MRC and the even more established Accuracy in Media, founded in 1969, was Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), a Liberal watchdog group that launched in 1986 to target media bias and censorship. While FAIR offers some analysis online each day, it doesn’t do so as comprehensively as the better-funded Media Matters, which has researchers posting clips of video and audio throughout the day along with frequently updated online content.

For the working reporters who often are targets of Media Matters as much as conservative talkers Rush Limbaugh or Bill O’Reilly, scrutiny from the Left is just as meddlesome as scrutiny from the Right, particularly when the group fixates on a single word in an article, which could be the result more of newsroom haste or simple carelessness than evidence of any greater conservative conspiracy.

For instance, in a blog item last week entitled: “New York Times, please define ‘splits,’” Boehert took issue with a Times headline that said the GOP “splits” over Senator Jim Bunning’s recent attempt to block an extension of unemployment benefits.

“But has the GOP really split?” he wrote. “In fact, couldn't the argument be made that the real news is that the GOP hasn't split, and that very few GOP voices are complaining about Bunning's increasingly odd behavior?”

Rabin-Havt, who like other Media Matters’ executives arrived at the organization after working for a number of groups affiliated with liberal advocacy and the Democratic Party, said he thinks Media Matters has been somewhat misunderstood by mainstream reporters.

“The culture here, in this office, and I think reporters would be surprised by this, isn’t one of sniping or disrespect towards the media,” Rabin Havt said, adding that “being a reporter is such an incredibly honored profession, and plays such a role in our society and our debate, and we want people to do the best job they can.”

Sources: Politico, Media Matters, Big Government, Youtube

Larry Kissell Blacklisted By NC Media For Voting No On Health Care

Congressman Larry Kissell (D) is being Black Listed and Pressured by North Carolina's local media including the Charlotte Observer, over his "No" vote on Obama's Health Care bill. (He previously voted "No".)

Now they are trying to destroy this man's reputation as a means of forcing him into voting "Yes" the second time around.

North Carolina's Media organizations are extremely Liberal, Partisan and Biased.

The Charlotte Observer happens to be losing customers and going broke because readers want FACTS but we keep getting Partisan Propaganda.

Quite often what the Charlotte Observer publishes is akin to "Big Brother" Brain Washing.

Its obvious on this Health Care issue someone from the Democratic Party is most likely paying Editorial staff to pressure Congressman Kissell.

They would rather Kissell vote to please them than vote for what's Fiscally right.

None of the Charlotte Observer staff has seen the entire health care bill or read the bill's language as Kissell has.

They are just listening to Pres. Obama's speeches, Mel Watt and Gov. Bev Perdue.

Pres. Obama doesn't want average American Voters to know what's in the Health Care bill because he doesn't want people to know the real truth about this so-called "Reform" legislation.

While Larry Kissell was on the campaign trail he supported Universal Health Care, however after being elected once he went to Washington and read this bill, he changed his mind as did several other Democrats.

As a Candidate Pres. Obama didn't say he wanted to take over Health Care, he said he wanted to Reform it and fix our broken Health Care System.

This particular bill is going to ruin our country with crazy, mind boggling Debt and give China & Russia total control over us.

Pres. Obama doesn't really care about providing Affordable Health Care as he proclaims, he just wants to help diminish America's power.

At one time I too was drunk from the Rhetoric of Obama's "kool-aid" but thank God now I see.

While I wholeheartedly agree our nation does need Health Care Insurance Reform, this particular bill is NOT the tool to accomplish that task!

I support Larry Kissell for his courageous stand.

I hope he places his trust in God Almighty and doesn't cave in to Dirty Political tactics from the DCCC.

Neither Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi takes the place of God.

Since none of them are listening to Voters, one day when they face God he'll will let them know how wrong they all were.

Check out the Charlotte Observer article below which proves how much pressure North Carolina's Corrupt Dems are placing on Congressman Kissell.



Larry Kissell Faces Pressure On Health Care



As President Obama and Congressional Democrats prepare their final push on health care overhaul, House leaders scrambling for votes are expected to turn up the pressure on members like Larry Kissell.

But the Montgomery County Democrat, who bucked his leadership in November, is poised to do it again.

"I continue to believe health care reform is necessary," he said in a statement. "However, my position has not changed on the health care reform proposal currently before Congress."

Today, Obama is expected to lay out a plan that includes several Republican-backed ideas. Aides say he's also likely to endorse a process requiring a simple Senate majority, not the current 60 votes.

That would throw health care back to the House, which narrowly passed one version in November. A switch of three votes would have killed it. Since then, one supporter has died, two retired and the lone Republican backer has hinted that he'll vote against it.

Kissell was one of 39 Democrats who voted against the bill, and one of three N.C. Democrats who did. Of those three, he's the only one from a district Obama carried in 2008.

"There's going to be plenty of pressure," said Norman Ornstein, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. "If they're one or two or three votes short, then I think he's going to feel a lot of heat."



Medicare money

Kissell, whose 8th District stretches from Charlotte to Fayetteville, was not available Tuesday. Asked about any pressure, spokeswoman Haven Kerchner said, "We often hear from folks on both sides of important national issues."

Kissell's Democratic primary opponent, retired educator Nancy Shakir, backs the House reform bill. After Kissell voted against it, she led a protest outside his Fayetteville office. She called it "Blow the Whistle on Kissell."

The six Republican candidates uniformly oppose Democratic health care proposals. One, Republican Lou Huddleston of Fayetteville, said he believes House leaders need Kissell's vote now more than before.

"I don't know that (House Speaker Nancy) Pelosi is going to have the wiggle room," Huddleston said. "I don't think Larry Kissell has felt the pressure yet."

Kissell voted against the bill last fall because he said it would cut Medicare to help pay for health care reforms. "I made a promise and commitment that I would look out for Medicare, and I'm doing that," he said at the time.

Current Democratic proposals do the same.

"The method of funding makes it impossible for me to change my vote on that bill," he said this week.

Party-line pressure

Tricia Neuman, director of Medicare policy for the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation, said most proposals would reduce what some say are overpayments to private insurers who offer so-called Medicare Advantage plans. Of North Carolina's 1.4 million Medicare beneficiaries, 241,000 are in such plans.

She said the changes could result in fewer benefits, such as eye glasses, to some Medicare Advantage patients. But they also would extend the life of the Medicare Trust Fund, now facing insolvency by 2017.

"The idea that this is going to be a big hit to Medicare recipients is a stretch," Ornstein said.

Other Charlotte-area Democrats - Reps. Mel Watt of Charlotte and John Spratt of York - voted for the House plan once and are expected to again. Watt said he expects Kissell will be among those under pressure to line up with their party.

"I don't think it will be from me," he said. "It will be from the president and leadership and his own constituents."


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Sources: McClatchy Newspapers, Wikipedia, Youtube, Google Maps

North Carolina's Biased Media Responds To Politico's John Edwards Story

For Tabloids, John Edwards Saga Was Tailor-Made


During my 37 years of covering Tar Heel politics, I have known plenty of politicians with a roving eye. Big egos, nights away from home, and political groupies provide a lot of temptation.

But former Sen. John Edwards never had a reputation as a skirt chaser while he was in Raleigh. He was known as a workaholic lawyer who would hit the soccer fields with his kids in his spare time, not the bars cruising for women.

Even so, there were rumors.

As early as 2003, I asked Edwards about a rumored affair from his days as a big-time trial lawyer. Edwards denied it. His campaign spokeswoman called my boss to complain that in all of the years of working in the Clinton White House she had never heard such off-base questions. One of his chief political advisers threw me out of his office the next day.

From that point on, the Edwards campaign treated me as a hostile reporter. To this day, I don't know whether Edwards had an affair with the woman in question.

Proving sexual affairs is a difficult business, even if one is willing to engage in peephole journalism.

Usually one party has to acknowledge the affair, or the liaison is documented in legal proceedings such as a divorce or child custody fight. South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford acknowledged his affair after returning from an unexplained absence in Argentina. New York Gov. Elliott Spitzer's relationship with a call girl was disclosed during a federal investigation into another matter. New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey's affair came out when he put his boyfriend on the state payroll.

Some readers have wondered why it was The National Enquirer, and not some other news organization, that broke the Edwards sex scandal.

The Enquirer stories began in October 2007, bit by bit laying out the saga: how Edwards had an affair with Rielle Hunter, a woman he met in a New York bar; how Hunter had become pregnant; and how Edwards insiders concocted a plan to have a campaign aide, Andrew Young, claim paternity while campaign donors paid for Young and Hunter to go into hiding.

"We got a little lucky; we're also a little bit good," Steve Plaumann, senior executive editor of The National Enquirer, said when I appeared with him and ABC's Brian Ross on National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation" a while back.

The Enquirer had a good inside source or sources. We don't know who because they were anonymous - something that The News & Observer discourages and rarely uses in staff stories.

In his tell-all book, "The Politician," Young points his finger at Hunter or her friend Mimi Hockman as the likely source of the Enquirer stories.

Edwards might even have suspected his girlfriend. At one point, if Young's account is to be believed, Edwards asks him how The National Enquirer tracked Hunter from New Jersey to her hideaway in the Governor's Club in Chapel Hill.

"Just between us," Edwards is quoted as saying in the book, "I suspect she's [Hunter's] talking to them. Do you think so?"

"Hell yes," Young says he replied. "All she does is talk on her damn phone about you."

Whoever was talking, the Enquirer was paying - a practice that most news organizations don't engage in.

"They pay people to talk to them," said Ross, ABC's chief investigative correspondent. "We're not in a position to do that. Again and again in trying to pursue this story we would be asked by people who were central to it, 'What's in it for me? They [The Enquirer] offered me $50,000. What do you have?' We have a cup of coffee. So we're at a disadvantage there."

'Wiring' the story

As we say in the news business, The National Enquirer had the story wired. When Edwards showed up at the Beverly Hills Hilton to visit Hunter and their newborn baby, Quinn, The National Enquirer was waiting for him at the hotel, obviously tipped off by someone with inside knowledge.

The Enquirer was also willing to spend big money in pursuit of the story. It had a lengthy paparazzi-style stakeout in Chapel Hill to get a photograph of the pregnant Hunter. They waited days for her to leave her gated community to visit a doctor's office.

The initial National Enquirer story was easy to dismiss. It quoted an anonymous source saying Edwards had had an affair with an unidentified woman. The National Enquirer has a history of publishing questionable stories about the personal lives of leading political figures, including President George W. Bush and then-vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin - most of which are never followed up by other news organizations.

But this time, it became evident that the Enquirer was on to something, especially when it ran photographs of the pregnant Hunter.

The News & Observer and The Charlotte Observer pursued the story from the beginning, sending reporters to New Jersey and California to follow leads. But the story was a dead end because no one was talking, and Edwards and his staff were denying everything.

It was only long after Edwards' presidential campaign was over and his political career dead that some Edwards aides began to talk about what they knew about the Edwards affair in the best-selling book "Game Change." And even then, they are mostly quoted anonymously. Young went public only after the money dried up from the Edwards financial patrons who were buying his silence. Then, he saw a way to cash in with his story.

Most news organizations would have loved to break such a juicy political sex scandal. But this was a hard story for news organizations of all ideological stripes. Not only did The New York Times not break the story, neither did Fox News nor the conservative blogs.

Sex stories and politics always involve difficult choices.

Sexual innuendo has become a common weapon in political campaigns; candidates for major offices can now expect to be slimed. The initial Republican line of attack on Edwards was not that he was a womanizer but that he was gay. (See "Breck Girl" and conservative columnist Ann Coulter using a derogatory term for gays to describe Edwards.)

At what point do you pay attention to the whispering campaigns? At what juncture does a news organization put its full resources into investigating the sex life of a politician? That is a far easier call for The National Enquirer, whose meat and potatoes are sex scandals.

There is also this question: When is a candidate's sex life the public's business? There are no clear rules here. But clearly the Edwards scandal met that threshold because it told us something about Edwards' reckless nature and lack of judgment.

And it was the National Enquirer that got the story.

rob.christensen@newsobserver.com or 919-829-4532





Edwards Epilogue: Does The Press Really Vet Presidential Candidates?


Over the past few weeks, the world has learned quite enough about John Edwards – from the lies he told in trying to cover up an adulterous affair to the compulsive vanity that left some people close to him questioning his judgment and even his grip on reality.

Democrats who seriously considered making Edwards the party’s 2008 presidential nominee could be forgiven for asking: Now you tell us?

The revelations about Edwards, contained in two best-selling books, have undermined one of the favorite conceits of political journalism, that the intensive scrutiny given candidates by reporters during a presidential campaign is an excellent filter to determine who is fit for the White House.

While the media “usually does well” in vetting candidates, said presidential historian Michael Beschloss, “Edwards is a good case” in which it didn’t.

And that failure is worrisome in a changed political world where politicians - be they Barack Obama or Sarah Palin - can burst upon the national stage and seemingly overnight become candidates for higher office.

The media, according to Beschloss, now has “a much bigger responsibility than it used to.” In the past, he said, the political establishment “would usually have known the candidate for a long time, and if there were big problems, they probably would have known about those, and tried to make sure those people wouldn’t be nominated.”

That did not happen with Edwards, even though as a Senator he had run for president once before, in 2004, ended up on the Democratic ticket as John Kerry’s running mate, and was a known quantity to many top Democrats.

In 2008, there were conversations among some Edwards staffers, according to “Game Change,” the new book by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, about the responsibility of coming forward with what they knew about Edwards, perhaps leaking to the New York Times or Washington Post, if it looked like he might win the nomination. But there is no evidence they ever did.

Two stories by the National Enquirer that ran before Iowa described Edwards’s affair with Rielle Hunter. But the mainstream media went to sources within the Edwards campaign to try to confirm the stories and got nowhere. No one in the campaign would confirm them.

Those staffers are the ones who should be held accountable, Marc Ambinder wrote in response to the question he posed on The Atlantic’s website: “Should Edwards Aides Be Shamed And Blamed?”

“It’s your responsibility to quit the campaign and not enable it,” he wrote. “If you enable it, you are responsible in some ways for the fallout. Your loyalty isn’t an excuse for that.”

The failure to follow up aggressively on the reporting by the National Enquirer, which has nominated itself for a Pulitzer Prize for its Edwards coverage, has served as fodder for conservatives and others convinced the media has a double standard when it comes to vetting Democrats and Republicans.

"I feel sorry for the liberals who were duped by Edwards,” said Cliff Kincaid editor of the right-leaning watchdog organization Accuracy in Media. “They were the real victims of the failure to vet Edwards.”

“Now we know that Edwards was a phony in more ways than one,” Kincaid added. “Our media, especially progressives in the media, were in love with Edwards because of his liberal views. But he wasn't in love with them. He was in love with someone else—and it turns out it wasn't his wife.”

Not everyone agrees that the media completely dropped the ball, including a former spokesman for Hillary Clinton, who might have had the most to gain from any Edwards disclosures.

“Edwards was pretty thoroughly vetted but there are limits to what the press can reasonably be expected to uncover, said Phil Singer, Clinton’s former deputy communications director, “and events that take place in the bedroom are probably at the top of that list.”

Nicholas Lemann, dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, said that there isn’t a “simple yes or no” answer when looking at whether Edwards was fully vetted. What news organizations can cover, he said, comes down to a question of resources.

“News organizations just don’t have the horsepower to go out when there’s fields of eight people in each party to do the level of vetting it would take to uncover that,” Lemann said of the Edwards affair.

And with numerous candidates in both parties to cover, it’s not surprising that news organizations largely ignored the report of a “love child” between Edwards and Hunter just a few weeks before the Iowa vote.

Still, simply because the media missed the affair doesn’t mean Edwards wasn’t given scrutiny as a candidate. Throughout 2007, there was a series of reports that undermined the image that Edwards had sought to project by contrasting his populist rhetoric and focus on poverty with the reality of a candidate with hedge fund ties and $400 haircuts.

“I thought we did a pretty good job back in ‘07,” said Washington Post reporter Alec MacGillis, “to the point where we were getting a lot of complaints from them.”

In April 2007, MacGillis and then-colleague John Solomon reported in a front page story how Edwards—who spoke of “two Americas” during the 2004 campaign—went to work for a hedge in October 2005. The Post story ran about a week after POLITICO’s Ben Smith reported on Edwards’s $400 haircuts at a top Beverly Hill stylist.

Then in August the Wall Street Journal reported that as an investor, “Edwards has ties to lenders foreclosing on Katrina victims.” It damaged Edwards not only because of the campaign’s anti-poverty theme, but because he announced the presidential run from New Orleans.

Christopher Cooper, who reported the story for the Journal, said that the theme of his story and others in 2007 was that “he was not the man his politics suggested.” And Cooper noted that Edwards “was in a pretty deep fade by October,” when the first Enquirer report appeared.

But the campaign went on, and staffers—largely unaware of the truth about Edwards’ relationship with Hunter—continued batting away infidelity rumors. Several former Edwards staffers told POLITICO that without direct knowledge of an affair, they passed on misinformation that came down to them from the top.

“I was told that it was not true by John Edwards and by others,” said one former staffer. “I fought back against the story going beyond the Enquirer; I just stuck with what I knew to be the facts. I didn’t make moral arguments.”

Andrew Young, the former aide who described his own efforts to help Edwards cover up the scandal in his book “The Politician,” said that based on conservations with top staffers, he believes knowledge of the affair was more widespread than ex-staffers will now admit.

“Anybody who was around Edwards and Rielle for those months,” Young said in an interview with POLITICO “it’s virtually impossible for any of them to claim they didn’t know something was going on.”

But he concedes they now have “plausible deniability” since Edwards staffers were not openly discussing anything specific about an affair.

Those within the Edwards orbit between 2004 and 2008 have gone on to a variety of careers in Democratic politics, advocacy organizations and the Obama administration: senior adviser Joe Trippi remains a top Democratic strategist: national press secretary Eric Schultz is now communications director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee; adviser Jennifer Palmieri is senior vice president for communications at the Center for American Progress; campaign manager David Bonior’s chairman of American Rights at Work, and deputy campaign manager Jonathan Prince is a spokesman for Special Envoy George Mitchell at the State Department.

POLITICO reached out to over a dozen former Edwards’ staffers who either would only speak without attribution, declined to comment, or were unavailable following multiple requests.

One former staffer said that in asking who should be shamed or blamed—the issue Ambinder raised on his blog—it’s difficult to draw a clear line of who knew and didn’t know.

“I’d say only a handful of people knew, and they didn’t truly know,” said the former staffer. “And those people, for whatever reason, were not involved in the campaign.”

Young as well as Heilemann and Halperin wrote that Josh Brumberger, Kim Rubey and David Ginsberg likely knew about Edwards’s affair with Hunter. All three stopped working for Edwards in 2006, though Ginsberg and Rubey came to Iowa in the days just before the caucuses.

Democratic strategist Bob Shrum, who ran the Kerry-Edwards campaign in 2004, doesn’t believe senior staffers should be held accountable for what they knew about their candidate’s behavior. “I would cast no harsh judgment on most of these folks, many of whom I know,” he said.

“I would assume that with the exception of a couple of people who did seem aware of the problem, and actually tried to do something about it, most people were either not aware or didn’t want to be aware,” Shrum said.

One former staffer thinks most people would agree with Shrum.

“I think, for the most, part people understand that we worked on the campaign for the right reasons, that we were trying to make a positive contribution to our country and to progressive causes,” the staffer said, “and that we weren't responsible for the bad personal (and public) judgment of the candidate.”


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Sources: Politico, ETOnline, McClatchy Newspapers, News & Observer, National Enquirer, Google Maps

Biased Media Only Vets Certain Candidates (GOP), Ignored John Edwards

Edwards Epilogue: Does The Press Really Vet Presidential Candidates?


Over the past few weeks, the world has learned quite enough about John Edwards – from the lies he told in trying to cover up an adulterous affair to the compulsive vanity that left some people close to him questioning his judgment and even his grip on reality.

Democrats who seriously considered making Edwards the party’s 2008 presidential nominee could be forgiven for asking: Now you tell us?

The revelations about Edwards, contained in two best-selling books, have undermined one of the favorite conceits of political journalism, that the intensive scrutiny given candidates by reporters during a presidential campaign is an excellent filter to determine who is fit for the White House.

While the media “usually does well” in vetting candidates, said presidential historian Michael Beschloss, “Edwards is a good case” in which it didn’t.

And that failure is worrisome in a changed political world where politicians - be they Barack Obama or Sarah Palin - can burst upon the national stage and seemingly overnight become candidates for higher office.

The media, according to Beschloss, now has “a much bigger responsibility than it used to.” In the past, he said, the political establishment “would usually have known the candidate for a long time, and if there were big problems, they probably would have known about those, and tried to make sure those people wouldn’t be nominated.”

That did not happen with Edwards, even though as a Senator he had run for president once before, in 2004, ended up on the Democratic ticket as John Kerry’s running mate, and was a known quantity to many top Democrats.

In 2008, there were conversations among some Edwards staffers, according to “Game Change,” the new book by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, about the responsibility of coming forward with what they knew about Edwards, perhaps leaking to the New York Times or Washington Post, if it looked like he might win the nomination. But there is no evidence they ever did.

Two stories by the National Enquirer that ran before Iowa described Edwards’s affair with Rielle Hunter. But the mainstream media went to sources within the Edwards campaign to try to confirm the stories and got nowhere. No one in the campaign would confirm them.

Those staffers are the ones who should be held accountable, Marc Ambinder wrote in response to the question he posed on The Atlantic’s website: “Should Edwards Aides Be Shamed And Blamed?”

“It’s your responsibility to quit the campaign and not enable it,” he wrote. “If you enable it, you are responsible in some ways for the fallout. Your loyalty isn’t an excuse for that.”

The failure to follow up aggressively on the reporting by the National Enquirer, which has nominated itself for a Pulitzer Prize for its Edwards coverage, has served as fodder for conservatives and others convinced the media has a double standard when it comes to vetting Democrats and Republicans.

"I feel sorry for the liberals who were duped by Edwards,” said Cliff Kincaid editor of the right-leaning watchdog organization Accuracy in Media. “They were the real victims of the failure to vet Edwards.”

“Now we know that Edwards was a phony in more ways than one,” Kincaid added. “Our media, especially progressives in the media, were in love with Edwards because of his liberal views. But he wasn't in love with them. He was in love with someone else—and it turns out it wasn't his wife.”

Not everyone agrees that the media completely dropped the ball, including a former spokesman for Hillary Clinton, who might have had the most to gain from any Edwards disclosures.

“Edwards was pretty thoroughly vetted but there are limits to what the press can reasonably be expected to uncover, said Phil Singer, Clinton’s former deputy communications director, “and events that take place in the bedroom are probably at the top of that list.”

Nicholas Lemann, dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, said that there isn’t a “simple yes or no” answer when looking at whether Edwards was fully vetted. What news organizations can cover, he said, comes down to a question of resources.

“News organizations just don’t have the horsepower to go out when there’s fields of eight people in each party to do the level of vetting it would take to uncover that,” Lemann said of the Edwards affair.

And with numerous candidates in both parties to cover, it’s not surprising that news organizations largely ignored the report of a “love child” between Edwards and Hunter just a few weeks before the Iowa vote.

Still, simply because the media missed the affair doesn’t mean Edwards wasn’t given scrutiny as a candidate. Throughout 2007, there was a series of reports that undermined the image that Edwards had sought to project by contrasting his populist rhetoric and focus on poverty with the reality of a candidate with hedge fund ties and $400 haircuts.

“I thought we did a pretty good job back in ‘07,” said Washington Post reporter Alec MacGillis, “to the point where we were getting a lot of complaints from them.”

In April 2007, MacGillis and then-colleague John Solomon reported in a front page story how Edwards—who spoke of “two Americas” during the 2004 campaign—went to work for a hedge in October 2005. The Post story ran about a week after POLITICO’s Ben Smith reported on Edwards’s $400 haircuts at a top Beverly Hill stylist.

Then in August the Wall Street Journal reported that as an investor, “Edwards has ties to lenders foreclosing on Katrina victims.” It damaged Edwards not only because of the campaign’s anti-poverty theme, but because he announced the presidential run from New Orleans.

Christopher Cooper, who reported the story for the Journal, said that the theme of his story and others in 2007 was that “he was not the man his politics suggested.” And Cooper noted that Edwards “was in a pretty deep fade by October,” when the first Enquirer report appeared.

But the campaign went on, and staffers—largely unaware of the truth about Edwards’ relationship with Hunter—continued batting away infidelity rumors. Several former Edwards staffers told POLITICO that without direct knowledge of an affair, they passed on misinformation that came down to them from the top.

“I was told that it was not true by John Edwards and by others,” said one former staffer. “I fought back against the story going beyond the Enquirer; I just stuck with what I knew to be the facts. I didn’t make moral arguments.”

Andrew Young, the former aide who described his own efforts to help Edwards cover up the scandal in his book “The Politician,” said that based on conservations with top staffers, he believes knowledge of the affair was more widespread than ex-staffers will now admit.

“Anybody who was around Edwards and Rielle for those months,” Young said in an interview with POLITICO “it’s virtually impossible for any of them to claim they didn’t know something was going on.”

But he concedes they now have “plausible deniability” since Edwards staffers were not openly discussing anything specific about an affair.

Those within the Edwards orbit between 2004 and 2008 have gone on to a variety of careers in Democratic politics, advocacy organizations and the Obama administration: senior adviser Joe Trippi remains a top Democratic strategist: national press secretary Eric Schultz is now communications director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee; adviser Jennifer Palmieri is senior vice president for communications at the Center for American Progress; campaign manager David Bonior’s chairman of American Rights at Work, and deputy campaign manager Jonathan Prince is a spokesman for Special Envoy George Mitchell at the State Department.

POLITICO reached out to over a dozen former Edwards’ staffers who either would only speak without attribution, declined to comment, or were unavailable following multiple requests.

One former staffer said that in asking who should be shamed or blamed—the issue Ambinder raised on his blog—it’s difficult to draw a clear line of who knew and didn’t know.

“I’d say only a handful of people knew, and they didn’t truly know,” said the former staffer. “And those people, for whatever reason, were not involved in the campaign.”

Young as well as Heilemann and Halperin wrote that Josh Brumberger, Kim Rubey and David Ginsberg likely knew about Edwards’s affair with Hunter. All three stopped working for Edwards in 2006, though Ginsberg and Rubey came to Iowa in the days just before the caucuses.

Democratic strategist Bob Shrum, who ran the Kerry-Edwards campaign in 2004, doesn’t believe senior staffers should be held accountable for what they knew about their candidate’s behavior. “I would cast no harsh judgment on most of these folks, many of whom I know,” he said.

“I would assume that with the exception of a couple of people who did seem aware of the problem, and actually tried to do something about it, most people were either not aware or didn’t want to be aware,” Shrum said.

One former staffer thinks most people would agree with Shrum.

“I think, for the most, part people understand that we worked on the campaign for the right reasons, that we were trying to make a positive contribution to our country and to progressive causes,” the staffer said, “and that we weren't responsible for the bad personal (and public) judgment of the candidate.”


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Sources: Politico, ETOnline, Google Maps

Rachel Maddow Says She's Not A Biased Journalist; Wink, Wink

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Sharpens Focus On "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"


It was a dramatic moment for Lt. Dan Choi -- revealing his sexual orientation on national television -- but he couldn't resist paying tribute to the host.

"I love your show, Rachel," Choi said. And then, last March, he told Rachel Maddow why he was there: "By saying three words to you today -- 'I am gay' -- those three words are a violation of Title 10 of the U.S. Code. . . . Basically, they want us to lie about our identity."

Seconds later the satellite feed went down, and the glitch forced the Army lieutenant to come back to the MSNBC program the following night. But it was the start of a sustained effort that reached a milestone this month when the nation's top military officer said he wanted to abolish the hotly debated policy of "don't ask, don't tell" -- at a hearing attended by Maddow.

As one of the few openly gay television anchors, Maddow has kept the spotlight trained on the contentious issue of whether service members known to be homosexual should face discharge proceedings, as Choi did after that interview. But she doesn't view herself as mounting a crusade.

"I was an activist before I went into the media," Maddow says. "It is useful for me to tell my opinion on some things I cover. But I'm not trying to get people to march in the streets or call their congressmen. I don't believe that's my role."

Her executive producer, Bill Wolff, says Maddow gets just as exercised about wasteful weapons systems. "I don't think it's personal so much because she is gay and it's an issue of gay rights, but because it's an issue of military efficiency," he says.

Air America to MSNBC

Maddow has brought a distinctive style to the cable program she launched in the fall of 2008. A self-described "liberal" but "not a Democratic Party hack," she fuses passionate argument with a fact-laden approach reflecting her doctorate from Oxford. Rather than speaking out as a lesbian, Maddow frames the battle by stressing that 12,500 gay service members have been kicked out of the military under the 1993 compromise that allows them to serve if they keep their sexuality hidden.

"We don't really treat gay issues differently than other issues," Maddow says. The controversy, she says, is just "a great story."

Matt Lewis, a conservative columnist for AOL's Politics Daily, says the mainstream media are largely biased in favor of repeal. "Anybody who's paying attention knows that Rachel Maddow is a liberal," he says. "She's basically preaching to the choir. She's not going to have on a gay soldier who did create a morale problem."

If Maddow has an affinity for military issues, it may be because she is the daughter of an Air Force captain. She is writing a book on the military and politics. The key to her approach has not been standing on her soapbox, which would be predictable, but humanizing the issue by featuring men who want to serve their country -- and happen to be gay.

Maddow, who has a house in western Massachusetts with her partner, artist Susan Mikula, backed into broadcasting, moving from a local radio show to the liberal network Air America, which recently folded. "Air America gave me a shot and brought me to a national media audience from profound obscurity," she says.

An overnight sensation at MSNBC, Maddow has seen her ratings decline since the height of the presidential campaign. She averaged 892,000 viewers in the fourth quarter of last year, a 43 percent drop from the previous year, putting her slightly behind CNN's Larry King and far behind Sean Hannity, who drew 2.6 million on Fox News.

Maddow usually rips Republicans and backs Barack Obama, but she is happy to list the issues on which she has challenged the president, including the Afghanistan surge, the delay in closing Guantanamo Bay, torture prosecutions, nuclear power and a proposed federal spending freeze. And while she occasionally debates conservatives, her guests on the "don't ask, don't tell" policy have all been in favor of repealing it.

"I prefer having dissenting voices speak to Rachel on an issue," Wolff says. "We have a difficult time sometimes booking folks who don't agree with Rachel."

'It's not Activism'

As a longtime student of policy toward gay soldiers -- she did a 1992 term paper at Stanford on the supposed impact on combat readiness -- Maddow was primed when Obama vowed in his State of the Union address to abolish the current approach. After the Choi interview, she booked Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, a decorated Air Force pilot who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq, who was battling a discharge after being identified as gay. "You coming out has galvanized a lot of people," she told him.

One sign of the changing climate: Choi, whose discharge had dragged on, was recalled to drill duty last week by the unit from which he had been separated. Choi has obvious value to the military because he speaks Arabic.

In conducting the interviews with Choi and Fehrenbach, Maddow says: "I feel a real responsibility, that they've entrusted me in telling their story, in introducing them to a media audience. They trusted that we would do justice to their stories, to show that they are being screwed over by the country."

But she rejects the notion that she's explicitly pushing for change: "I think of it more in the tradition of muckraking. A lot of the best reporting since time immemorial has been driven by outrage about things not being the way they should be, by the shock at shameless, lying hypocrisy."

She adds: "For me it's a question of whether you're doing advocacy journalism or not. It's not activism -- you see a lot of that at Fox, using news coverage to inspire political participation."

Asked for comment, a Fox spokesperson says, "These feelings that she experienced about Fox News didn't stop her from applying for a job here."

While Maddow's approach to the issue once might have been seen as out of step with public opinion, a Washington Post-ABC poll last week found that 75 percent of those surveyed support gays openly serving in the military.

Having spoken out about Obama's slow approach to keeping his campaign promise on gay service members, Maddow felt she had to be at the Senate hearing where Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, opposed the current policy for forcing soldiers to lie about who they are. "I'm like a ninth-grade civics dork about this stuff," she says.

Maddow accepts the fact that some critics believe she must be biased on the subject. But she offers a simple response:

"I can't do the show as a non-gay person. I don't have that option."


Sources: MSNBC, Washington Post, Leftist Moon