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What the New York Times, USA Today, WaPo and WSJ Do NOT Want You To Know

March 30, 2016
By: Fred Weinberg, Western Journalism
March 30, 2016
I want to share a story with you which is sitting on spikes in the newsrooms of the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today and—at least on this subject—their ideological soul mate—the Wall Street Journal.
I have known Pat Choate since the early 1990s when he was Ross Perot’s economic guru. Were it not for Pat’s tutelage of Perot, we might not be discussing the national debt and the nation’s profligate spending even today.
Pat was against the North American Free Trade Alliance while it was being negotiated. He knows every sentence, comma and period in that agreement.
So in today’s environment, he is co-writing a book with Democratic Ohio Congresswomen Marcy Kaptur on trade. In that book is a point which Choate knows only too well. Donald Trump, if elected, could get us out of that agreement with a single sentence executive order. Which is also more than enough leverage to make Mexico sit up and take notice. Maybe even, umm, pay for the wall.
Speaking of taking notice, how about Ford Motor Company and Carrier, both of which have moved jobs to Mexico. And, let us not forget the new Mexican National Biscuit Company’s (NABISCO) Oreo plant.
As it turns out, about the only international agreement which Trump could NOT pull us out of is the one where we gave away the Panama Canal in the 70s. Everything else is an executive agreement because there were not enough votes in Congress to turn them into treaties.The President was authorized by Congress to negotiate and sign the deal and can amend and modify it as he (or she) sees fit.
So, in the run up to the release of their new book on trade, Choate and Kaptur sent out an op-ed (see below) pointing that out to those four august institutions of news. Choate has been published in all or most of those alleged newspapers in the past.
And what did they get with an op-ed breaking a bona fide news story?
Crickets. All four newspapers essentially said, don’t call us, we’ll call you.
(Ironically, the Wall Street Journal quoted Choate on that very same issue on its blog site last December.)
Because to acknowledge that Donald Trump (and, for that matter Bernie Sanders) is right and we DO have enormous leverage against nations which have been ripping us off is anathema to the leftist leanings of the first three alleged news outlets and the right leaning Wall Street Journal.
News is only news when it benefits their friends. Bi-partisan crony crapitalism.
Here’s the problem with that:
When that news IS broken widely, Trump gets closer to the GOP nomination, propelled by voters who no longer trust the establishment on either side AND who also no longer trust what Rush Limbaugh correctly has called the drive-by media.
Now, some of us do not see that as much of a problem.
In fact, a Trump win serves two purposes.
One, it puts what has passed for leadership of the Republican Party on the outside looking in. Perhaps they’ll learn something. Perhaps they’ll learn that the voters are at least as smart, if not smarter, than they are. It’s doubtful but hope springs eternal.
Two, and most important, is that we would at least have someone in the oval office who only owes his allegiance to the voters who put him there and not to the clowns who he displaced.
Then comes the gamble.
Will a President Trump write that single sentence executive order? Or at least make the threat until he gets what the American people want?
It appears to be a gamble that a majority of the voters might be willing to take.
The views expressed in this opinion article are solely those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owners of this website.