THE US REPORT

Astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell, an Apollo 14 veteran, says governments have covered up alien contact for years. The revelation came during an interview with an Australian Radio Station. News Digital Media (Australia) reported the story, 'Moonwalker claims alien contact coverup.' "It's been well covered up by all our governments for the last 60 years or so, but slowly it's leaked out and some of us have been privileged to have been briefed on some of it," he said. This echoes claims of past civilizations on other planets by respected author Richard C. Hoagland, whose book 'Dark Mission' makes a good case for governments keeping information about life on other planets from citizens because of potential widespread fear. Dr. Mitchell, along with Alan Shepard, holds the record for the longest moon walk, 9 hours and 17 minutes. I highly recommend Hoagland's book. Read other stories about this subject in our category, 'Space.' Dr. Mitchell joins others like Hoagland in claiming Earth has indeed been contacted by others from space.  NDM says Mitchell says, " ... our technology is not nearly as sophisticated as theirs and had they been hostile, we would be been gone by now. " 

  

Photo of Dr. Edgar Mitchell walking on the moon in 1971. Courtesy of NASA.

A huge conflict over global warming has erupted, with experts saying there is no consensus and that man-made emissions are not doing the harm some experts claim. Daily Tech broke the story today. Read my post about this at Red State. Enjoy the video below produced by Americans for Prosperity. I discovered the video at The Washington Examiner.

I've written a number of stories here at The US Report about global warming/climate change, with some recent ones in the Environment category.

I do believe America should develop alternative forms of energy. I do not believe we can do that overnight; politicians have put this off for the last 16 years. It will take time to reduce our use of oil. But the insane political frenzy about this subject is costing people in our country ridiculous amounts of money. In other countries where there are internal conflicts and corrupt leadership, food donations people depend on from us are being diverted for fuel. We have to do something, but it cannot be done overnight.

In the video below, the young man who says he advocates $8 a gallon gasoline took a cab to see  Al Gore who arrived with a motorcade. Gore's driver idled the engine for 20 minutes so the car would be cool.

Neither that young man nor Gore can begin to imagine what it is like for a senior living on a small fixed income or a single mother trying to keep a roof over her children's heads. I know what that is like because I have delivered food to people like that. In person.

The Associated Press, a brand long regarded as an impartial provider of news, has moved to a more opinionated approach, according to an article at Politico. The AP sells what has traditionally been billed as straight news to a majority of the nation’s newspapers. AP content is also carried by other media such as websites and radio.

Commenting on the Politico article, Warner Todd Huston at Red State wrote about new Washington Bureau Chief Ron Fournier, who “…decided that a more hard-charging, opinion oriented style of writing is the new direction the AP should take in this new Internet age and it's a direction that makes the AP's past bias even more pronounced.” Fournier began acting as chief in May.

I noted in my own column at Red State the differences in two AP stories dealing with the age of public figures. A story about Supreme Court Justices carried the headline, “No rush to retire black robes on Supreme Court.” The opening sentence pointed out that Justices John Paul Stevens (88) and Ruth Bader Ginsburg (75) stay physically active. No concerns were expressed about those justices coping with demands and rigors of their positions. Both justices are considered liberal. A headline for the other story dealing with Sen. John McCain’s age (71) blurted, “For some, Republican John McCain is ‘too old.’”

A backdrop for the AP’s new slant is a decline in revenue for newspapers. Digital Media Wire says 2008 may end up as the “worst on record for the newspaper advertising industry.”

Significant reliance on wire service stories results in homogenized content in newspapers across the nation, creating a challenge for a newspaper to distinguish its own brand from another’s. Newspapers do often try to edit so that the story carries regional significance, something that may be harder to do now that AP will focus on what I perceive as advocacy journalism.

Employees and independents in media, including leading Internet companies, have donated generously to Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. The US Report conducted searches of donations by individuals in specific positions as well as individuals at specific media and Internet corporations,  using an interactive tool at The Orlando Sentinel. The results of our search parallel results of a study noted by The Committee of Concerned Journalists in October, 2007.  The Project for Excellence in Journalism conducted the study. The study compared coverage of each candidate. At that time, results indicated of all stories run on Obama, 46.7 percent were positive and 15.8 percent were negative. Of all stories run on Sen. John McCain, 12.4 percent were positive and 47.9 percent were negative.

Our search for figures on individual campaign donations used identical terms for each candidate. The figures we found cover the first three quarters of 2007. Note on the term ‘reporter’ there were several entries by court reporters, but the majority are from media. The entry for Time, Inc., is for Time Magazine. Utilizing a different search tool may produce different results; this is by no means an official study. These cursory results, however, indicate overwhelming bias for Obama, in print and on the Web and suggest his narrative and possibly his presence on the Web are being shaped for the public by media who actively support his campaign.

Despite frequent calls from media for open government, little about media is open to the public. Should Obama win the election, we must ask ourselves will bias continue? Obama is often compared to John F. Kennedy. Writing about that president in his book 'The Dark Side of Camelot,' author Seymour M. Hersh noted, "The mythmaking and media wooing began soon after Kennedy took office. Newspapers and magazines were filled with articles and photographs, usually touted as exclusive, of family life in the White House...Even the most earnest publications fell prey." (pg.223)

The chart below lists total dollar donations from each type of employee or independent, with donations also listed for select, influential media and Web corporation employees or independents.

 

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*Text and chart by Kay B. Day. Disclosure: I am a supporter of and a donor to Sen. John McCain's campaign. I am not officially connected to his campaign in any manner.

**For additional reading and to access the interactive tool at The Orlando Sentinel, follow links in 'References' below.

 

Leftistas have traditionally blasted Matt Drudge for favoring conservative politicians with benevolent links on his news plaza website, but there’s a new question simmering in the pundit and strategist stew. Is Matt Drudge, icon of Web media, a supporter of Sen. Barack Obama for president? Politico did a story in June, quoting none other than Arianna Huffington who predictably believes the entire country including Drudge can now be safely categorized and filed under the label (I know this term is quirky but I’m tired of the phrase ‘left-wing’) Leftista.

Huffington, who has her own leftista website, spoke to Politico about Drudge:  “He does have a great grasp of the zeitgeist, and the zeitgeist has shifted. What used to be left-wing positions are now solidly mainstream and supported by the majority of the American people.”

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