Christie Scandal Shines Light on Media & Political Hypocrisy

Onyx Truth Contributor:  J.S. Franklin

By now I’m sure most of you out there have heard of this latest political scandal involving New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. With MSNBC, CNN, Fox, CBS News and all the rest providing ceaseless coverage over the last week it’s been almost impossible to miss. But for those of you who may not know some emails have recently come to light indicating that a high ranking member of the Governor’s staff allegedly ordered the closure of the George Washington Bridge which connects Fort Lee, New Jersey to the Washington Heights district of Manhattan, New York. Supposedly the closure was ordered in retaliation since the mayor of Fort Lee, Mark Sokolich, failed to support the reelection bid of Governor Christie which he won in November of 2013. So far nothing has been proven to a certainty and Christie has denied any involvement and vowed to punish those responsible, if a violation did occur. Two days ago he fired his chief of staff Bridget Ann Kelly who was the apparent author of the emails in question and is believed to be the one responsible for the bridge closure.

I would like to state that if, in fact the bridge was ordered closed in an act of political retaliation then it does represent a massive abuse of power bordering on criminal depending on the details. If Kelly was responsible then she deserved to be fired and if it comes out that Christie is responsible then he deserves to be removed from office as well. However, what strikes me as most concerning (at the moment) is the massive display of hypocrisy we’re seeing not only from our political leaders but from the news media as well. Over the last few years the President of these United States has been embroiled in several controversies, all more serious than this and yet the media and the Democratic Party are treating this as the worst example of political corruption in US history. MSNBC, CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC and the like have been running this story non-stop since it broke and yet they hardly mentioned a word about any of the scandals President Obama has been involved in over the last few years.

Allow me to recap. First there was Fast and Furious wherein government law enforcement agents acting under orders facilitated the illegal smuggling of weapons across the border into Mexico. Not only was this a violation of state and federal law but of international arms trafficking laws as well. When the Congressional investigation began turning its sights on Attorney General Eric Holder President Obama used his “executive power” to seal all the evidence effectively shielding Holder from incrimination. The implications here are that the Attorney General of the United States ordered the facilitation of illegal arms smuggling across an international boundary and the President helped cover it up. MSNBC failed to report on this story even once until more than a year after it broke. CNN hardly ever mentioned it and when they did it was typically in passing.

Then there was the Benghazi embassy attack that occurred shortly before the 2012 Presidential election. The initial word from those on the ground and even from the CIA was that a planned, coordinated terrorist attack had occurred yet the Obama administration spent months denying it was terrorism. Memos were released indicating that spokespeople were being instructed to deliberately lie about the nature of the attack and that the Administration knew it was terrorism within the first 24 hours. Later we found out that numerous requests for additional security and troops had been made but were denied by the State Department. The implications here are that Obama lied about the nature of the attack so he wouldn’t have to explain a terror attack on US facilities right before the election; especially after he just got done telling America al Qaeda was on the run. CNN, MSNBC and the rest all swallowed the government story and ignored the rest.

Following that was the IRS scandal where it was revealed that the IRS was deliberately withholding 501c tax status applications submitted by politically conservative groups. Internal memos and testimony showed that dozens of groups had their applications held up for months or more based solely on their political views. The investigation revealed that this scandal seemed to go all the way to the top of the IRS, to a presidentially appointed official. The implications here being that the President or one his supporters deliberately ordered the IRS to withhold 501c applications from Republican affiliated political groups. This represents a massive abuse of power, even more so than the Christie scandal. MSNBC provided next to no coverage of this event while CNN usually carried it as a minor story. I will credit CBS for providing at least decent coverage of this.

Most recently we’ve been hearing about the ever expanding NSA spying scandal broken mostly due to the release of classified materials by Edward Snowden. We’ve learned that the NSA actively intercepts and records almost 100% of all domestic telephone and email traffic so that it can be stored and used for national security reasons at a later time if necessary; all of this being done without warrants. This is the single largest breach of the 4^th Amendment of the Constitution in the history of the country but you won’t find hardly a word about it on MSNBC, CBS or CNN. And to date absolutely nothing has been done about it. We all know it’s happening, it’s been admitted by the government and yet nothing has been done to stop it.

Some of the most egregious violations of state, federal and international law ever perpetrated by an executive administration have occurred within just the last couple years and yet the media, the Democratic Party and our elected officials continue to look the other way.  But when a bridge gets closed for allegedly political reasons it’s as though the world has come to an end. Where were all these political pundits and party officials when the Justice Department was smuggling guns into Mexico? Where were they when the IRS was turned into an agent of political thuggery? Where were they when the country was being lied to about the death of a US ambassador? The hypocrisy of this situation is absolutely sickening. This situation really serves to highlight the political bias and cronyism occurring between most of the mainstream media and the DNC.

The keen observed may have noticed that one news agency was generally left out of this article. However you may feel about them, Fox News has covered all of these stories from their beginnings and in extraordinary depth. Many people bad mouth them as a news outlet for being conservatively biased; it’s true they do maintain a right of center slant. But no other major news outlet in the country has covered stories on the numerous wrongdoings of our government with the attention and tenacity of Fox News. If you prefer to be one of those people who would rather go through life with their head in the sand thinking our government and elected officials are doing only wonderful things in Washington then by all means continue reading MSNBC and CNN. However if you’re like me and you value the Constitution and the rights afforded to us by it and you want to know when those rights are being violated by our elected officials, I suggest you click over to Fox every once in a while and find out what is really going on.