Thursday 25 August 2016

The Canadian media’s view of the US Presidential elections



Many Canadians view Americans as arrogant, which may be true in many circumstances. But what we see in the Canadian media is the arrogance of Canadians who sincerely believe they are experts on Americans values and culture. The question is why?

The U.S presidential elections are getting much coverage in the media. Much of the reporting is biased towards support for Hillary Clinton.  Donald Trump has helped to damage his cause while committing many mistakes, which I define as ‘trumpicide” (the act of a neophyte politician who is unwilling or refuses to take advice from experts in the field). Despite the fact that some of these experts may be giving advice to either protect themselves or are believers in the status quo. Trump has made many statements which resonate with a large proportion of the people, but also alienates many people. Hillary Clinton on the other hand does not endear herself to many people either. For the first time in U.S electoral history both candidates carry more negatives than positives. Therefore it stands to reason that a leftist media finds itself in a real quandary:  How do we portray Clinton in a better light than Trump?

As the U.S media merrily obfuscates the Clinton past and demonizes everything that is Trump, it is the role of the Canadian media that I would like to discuss. Taking its information from liberal U.S media virtually every single Canadian media outlet continues to support a Clinton candidacy, because in their arrogant view it reflects an affinity to Canadian values. In other words more progressive and in tune with Liberal Canadian views. The problem with this type of reporting is that the majority of Canadian citizens get only one side of the story, and in essence makes Canadians more supportive of a Democrat than a Republican. This media approach automatically results in a continued aversion to conservative values, but in reality helps to import many dangerous progressive ideas from our Southern neighbours.

On immigration for instance, Canadian media has endorsed the Liberal government’s refugee policy, despite the fact that a majority of Canadians does not support massive acceptance of refugees from certain parts of the world, mainly because of the risk of terrorism. To support their position the media portrays Trumps’ immigration policies as xenophobic and racist, notwithstanding that a vast majority of Americans are seriously concerned about illegal immigration.

The debate on law and order goes even further. There is no doubt that the constant reporting of African Americans shootings by the police has become a source of major discussion. However, the Canadian media has taken the view to report many of these incidents as growing racial problems. They have often ignored that there is a real crime problem in many U.S cities; more importantly that the majority of gun related killings are Blacks on Blacks. More importantly that most of the killings happen in cities and States which have been under Democrat rule for decades. The result for Canada is that the media has given so much credence to a one sided story that now we have imported the Black Lives Matter organization suggesting that we have a real racial problem in Canada.

The progressive Canadian media in reporting the problems of the U.S as debated between Clinton and Trump is shaping a Canadian view that does not really exist. Comparing every Trump conservative view to a far right agenda they set themselves in the progressive Clinton camp; therefore automatically supporting Trudeau’s progressive agenda which is closer to that of Clinton’s.

While certain aspects of Trump’s campaign may not be good for Canada; e.g. trade, let us remind ourselves that a continuation of the Obama agenda by Clinton is not going to be good for Canada either. The climate change policies preventing the Keystone XL pipeline comes to mind as one detrimental policy for Canada. More importantly the media has not covered any of Clinton’s problems of erased e-mails kept on a private server, the co-mingling of the Clinton’s Foundation, the work of the of State Department and the influence of foreign government’s money.

In my opinion there seems to be a clear media plan to portray Trump in his worse light – they would love another extension to the progressive Obama’s administration, ignoring the fact that his presidency may go down as one of the worse since Carter. They ignore the dismal economy, the low rate of employment especially among African Americans. Obfuscation is great but statistics are real. The arrogance and bias in Canadian media reports of U.S issues are very dangerous in my view. While it is important to review and report the political climate of our neighbour’s, because of our proximity and economic ties, it is disingenuous to take sides and purport to know the psyche of the American population.

In supporting Clinton over Trump the Canadian media is making the same mistake that they made about the Brexit. The progressive bias ignores the reality that citizens are fed up with the liberal elite telling them what to do and how they should behave. The media’s arrogance in defining political correctness on virtually every issue tends to stifle debate and frees speech, and contributes to make the world a more dangerous place.

An unbiased reporting of the current U.S presidential election may well give Canadians a different perspective and may well reverse the huge adulation for Obama and the prospect of a Clinton presidency; ergo a less favourable view of Trudeau’s progressive government.

Monday 1 August 2016

Choosing the next U.S President



I must admit. I am a political junkie, so I watched both the Republican and Democrat Conventions. While people may have different opinions and conclusions, in my view there was a glaring factor: the media coverage. The mass media coverage was overtly biased towards the Democrats as they thrashed the Republicans and effused about the Democrats. Did the main stream media report the real story? The question is where does this leave the general public, and their decision making at election time?

Dark days in Cleveland

The Republican’s convention in Cleveland, was predicated to be a disaster, it was supposed to be marred by massive demonstrations and signs of disunity among conservatives. Let’s put it this way. Donald Trump’s campaign style left a lot of dead bodies along the wayside. His rhetoric offended many people. But the fact remains that he attracted the largest number of voters in Republican primary history. He defeated sixteen other candidates. There are many people who fear a Trump presidency for one reason or another. I for one do not like his lack of detailed policies, but I respect his decisions and strategy.

Despite the negative and less than truthful reporting by the media, the convention saw only one flag burning incident. Ignored was the fact that demonstrators were seen playing table tennis with policemen. Inside the convention, of course there were signs of disunity from some ‘Never Trump’ dissidents, but that was quickly dispelled by a floor vote. More importantly many sore losers did not attend the convention despite the fact that they signed a pledge to support the nominee. With the exception of Ted Cruz who made a speech which ended with a lack of a Trump endorsement.  He was booed off the stage and even rebuked by his Texas delegation at a subsequent breakfast meeting.

Most of the convention reporting focussed on Trumps campaign’s so-called dark and fearmongering rhetoric. What the media ignores is that the world is in chaos. The world economy is virtually stagnating; unemployment is high in many industrialized countries, and especially among the younger generation. Terrorism perpetrated by Islamic Jihadists has become a nearly weekly or daily occurrence, and yet governments refuse to acknowledge the source of the problem. Free trade, which I strongly support, has unfortunately turned into manipulated trade rather than fair trade. Mass immigration, albeit legal or illegal, causes major social and economic problems which is being ignored and unfortunately promoted without any real scrutiny.

So when Trump brings these problems to the fore and makes them the corner stone of his campaign is, he is vilified for being a Darth Vader character. Many convention speakers made the case for Trump’s call for real change. Among them were survivors of terrorism, and war heroes, successful women, and a chief of police who explained the decrease in law and order and the growing attacks on policemen.  Totally ignored was Trump’s call for the recognition and protection of the LBGTQ community.
What the media misses is that if you do not acknowledge that there are problems, you cannot fix them. 69% of Americans believe that the country is heading in the wrong direction. Trump’s campaign is about exposing the failed policies of the past, more specifically those of the past eight years of the Obama administration, supported by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Sisterly love in Philadelphia

There is no doubt that the choice of Hillary Clinton as the first woman to be nominated for the U.S Presidency is of historic proportion. Just like the election of Barak Obama as the first African American President was historic. However historic milestones are not the reason to vote for somebody.

The Democrat convention was supposed to be a show of unity after a bruising primary between Clinton and Sen. Sanders. Well despite the media’s coverage it was far from being a love fest.

Outside there were massive demonstrations from the Black Lives Matter (BLM) who ask white participants to move to the back of the demonstration. The first day of the convention saw the resignation of the Democrats’ National Committee chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, when leaked e-mails that appeared to show the committee favored Clinton over Sanders, even questioning his faith.
 There were many Sanders’ supporters, who constantly booed and protested inside and outside of the conference. Yet on major news networks, they were rarely showed or the sounds were muted. Former CIA Director Leon Panetta was booed during his speech. After a show of reluctant unity Sanders endorsed Clinton’s nomination, but sat quietly during Clinton’s acceptance speech.  He departed the convention and returned to his constituency as an Independent.
The whole convention was supported by Hollywood stars and artists, most of them vacuous and insignificant in the grander scheme of things. Former President Clinton and President Obama extolled the virtues and qualifications of the nominee.
Most of the speeches were of a sunny day’s nature. They never acknowledged the real problems of the world mostly created by seven years of an administration of which Clinton was a major player. President Obama even told the audience that Hillary Clinton was the most qualified candidate, even better than Bill Clinton or himself. Ultimately the call was for a continuation of the Obama presidency. With the most Progressive Platform in party history, Clinton promised more entitlements to the masses: free college education, more and higher taxes and the continued litany of proven failed socialist policies.

The media coverage of these two conventions was, in my view biased, and for a reason. The liberal media would prefer a Clinton over a Trump Presidency period.
So the reports had to be slanted. When reporting about Trump, epithets like racism, xenophobia, homophobia and every other fear mongering labels are used. Trump’s rhetoric and delivery may be to blame for this. For example when reporting about Trump’s call for a ban on all Muslims immigrants coming into the country the media conveniently omits the following from his statement: ‘until we figure out what’s happening’.  

The race card was on full display at the Democrats’ convention. There was no real acknowledgement of the increasing shootings of policemen, but the mothers of blacks shot in incidents with policemen were on full display. Even to stage the grieving mother of Michael Brown who was shot in Missouri after running away from an attempted convenience store robbery.  One of the most reported speeches was from Khizr Khan the father of American Muslim soldier killed in by a car bomb in Iraq. Failure to salute bravery without recognizing that not all Muslims are terrorists, but that all terrorists are Muslims is a major obfuscation of reality. In addition Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi’s perpetuated the race card stating that Trump’s supporters are white uneducated men, who cling to the 3 Gs of conservatism: God, Guns, and opposition to Gays.

In an election where both candidates have more unfavorable than favorable numbers, the media will play a huge role in the outcome of this election. If the reporting continues to favor the Clinton presidency, it will be very hard to see how Trump can win. Another issue will be the reporting of polls and how the data are collected and analyzed.
To ignore the reality of the state of the world today, and continue to report on the greatness of a failed eight years administration is not good for democracy. What is required is for less rhetoric and more facts from the candidates, and less bias from the media.

The media’s failure to acknowledge that there is a movement around the world which no longer believes in the political establishment is bound to perpetuate the very obfuscation of a real agenda to change the world. A Clinton presidency will not bring change, just like her predecessor did not bring hope or change. The left wants to bring in a new world order which will move us closer to a one world order. This is not a conspiracy theory, Obama favored decisions made by the United Nations, Clinton will continue this, and trade agreements which are not fair will further prevent economic growth. Climate change policies placed in the hands of international bodies instead of national governments will continue to hurt people and the economy. The media plays a major role in perpetuating this radical movement towards world domination by the establishment elite. This agenda started a long time ago by people like Pierre Trudeau and Maurice Strong and it is getting closer to implementation. People are urged to acquaint themselves with reports and publications which are readily available yet not made public by the media. For your information watch these two videos: 


The upcoming election in November 2016 is not only about the future of the United Sates but of the world. For Canadians it will be more important than for other countries because of our economic ties, and shared borders.  Ignoring this election without informed facts may be the greatest disaster since World War II.
 Trump may be the lesser of two evils.