Saturday, March 26, 2011

VICE-PRESIDENT BIDEN KIDNAPES, IMPRISONS REPORTER

Suppression of the Free Press has been attributed to Middle East or North African disctators. How about our Vice-President Biden being added to that list?

An incident at a Florida Democratic political fundraiser this week should be front page news in every paper in the country, and the lead story on TV newscasts, but it has been virtually buried…. until now


Here are the details.


On Wednesday morning, Vice President Joe Biden attended a fundraiser for Democratic Senator Bill Nelson. The event was at the home of billionaire real estate developer Alan Ginsberg, a long-time Dem supporter. Ginsberg’s enormous lakefront home is in an exclusive section of Winter Park, an uber-upscale Orlando suburb. To give you an idea of the size and opulence of the home, it was originally built for Orlando Magic and NBA superstar Horace Grant.


The Orlando Sentinel assigned longtime reporter Scott Powers to cover the event. But when he arrived, Biden staffers decided they didn’t want him mingling with the 150 guests who had forked over $500 to meet Biden, so they locked him in a closet! A member of the Biden advance team even stood guard outside the door to prevent Powers from escaping.


Powers has all the details, even pictures of the inside of the closet where he was held; but it appears the Sentinel editors have refused to let him report on all the details of what some are calling a kidnapping! There was a very brief, and very “vanilla” mention of the incident in Thursday’s paper. One attendee later emailed the Sentinel to say “I was in attendance at the Fundraiser and enjoyed a nice lunch. If I had known there was a reporter stuffed in the closet, I would have been compelled to stand up and demand answers. I would also like to know if this is actually legal to treat people like caged animals. I’m disgusted by these actions.”


Despite this outrage, Sentinel editors have dropped the story.


Some longtime journalists are furious with Biden’s team over the incident. Some are more angry at Sentinel editors for downplaying the story. Others are asking “where was the Secret Service when a crime was obviously being committed?” Others appear to have no problem with it, since it involves their “Administration that can do no wrong.”


So far, none of the DC papers or TV networks has covered the story, but of course, they are the first to cry in outrage when dictators imprison reporters overseas. What have we become: Cuba, Iran, Libya, or Stalinist Russia, that we would allow such police-state tactics to muzzle the media?


Does the “Free Press” still exist in America? Or are we relegated to the status of a Banana Republic where the media approves anything Team Obama does?


Some people saw this coming when then-Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden exploded and flatly refused to answer the insightful questions of an Orlando television reporter when she asked about Obama’s connections to ACORN, socialism and his “spread the wealth” comments to Joe the Plumber. Since then, Biden’s mandate seems to have changed from refusing to answer embarrassing questions, to imprisoning reporters who might ask them.

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