So You Heard about All This on TV and in the Newspapers, Huh?

Why has the media in the last century not reported many of the facts contained in real American history? To understand this, one must first understand the mindset of the American media. They are not investigative by nature, and generally report what they believe the public wants to hear. Official stories are easy, with facts that don’t require verification. Without Deep Throat leading Woodward and Bernstein from one source to another, Watergate would have been buried, President Nixon would have victoriously finished his two terms in office, and Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford would have had one less movie to their credit.

A story on the Federal Reserve System or any other act that strays from the official story requires official sources to come forward, “spilling the beans.” The famous investigative TV series 60 Minutes is more than free by CBS executives to rat out the tobacco or meat industry, report on a military scandal or the like, or as we’ve already shown, expose Congress for engaging in insider trading for decades. Yet this highly acclaimed investigative news team, on the air for almost half a century, has not reported on the abundance of ballistic and autopsy reports, and firsthand accounts, that significantly detract from the official story that Sirhan B. Sirhan was a lone gunman; nearly an impossibility that he assassinated arguably the next president of the United States (more on this later in “The Assassinations of MLK and RFK”). Media giants have a structure of news reporting that has been determined by their owners. Reporters have their stories filtered through this tightly-knit structure, and if it doesn’t fit, it’s out.

Furthermore, stories are generally assigned by the editors, rather than vice versa. How many articles have you read in newspapers that contain the byline “AP”? The Associated Press is a not-for-profit cooperative owned by American newspapers and broadcasters. Much of your news, both print and via the airwaves, is controlled by the AP. Control the AP, and you control the news that reaches a billion people in 120 countries.

Vincent Bugliosi (1934–2015), arguably one of the most acclaimed trial lawyers in the history of our country, was the winner of three Edgar Allan Poe Awards (the top honor for crime writers) and had three number-one true crime bestsellers. His book The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, published by Vanguard Press (then a member of the Perseus Group, now part of the Hachette Book Group), is quite possibly one of the biggest examples of literary manipulation of the media that this country has ever seen. It’s the perfect example of how the news networks and the talk shows introduce you only to the voices, opinions, and news stories that they wish to promote.

Bugliosi, who never lost a case as a prosecutor and defense attorney, argues quite convincingly that the president of the United States took the country into war under false pretenses, and as such, should be tried for murder for the four thousand-plus deaths of American soldiers in Iraq. The key here, though, is not whether former president Bush is guilty or not guilty—in this country, a person is innocent until proven otherwise—it’s that Bugliosi has presented a legal premise of sufficient evidence to not only possibly impeach (bring to trial before Congress), but to try Bush for murder in courts of law in each of the fifty states where a citizen soldier has been killed. And except for a few rare appearances such as Book Talk on CSPAN, the media never informed the nation and the world of Bugliosi’s evidence. No, not even 60 Minutes.

Opponents might argue that the presidency is the office, and not a man or woman, yet that meant nothing to Congress and the media when it came to tearing the presidency apart for approximately two years by impeaching Bill Clinton for lying about a consensual extramarital affair. With just a whimper of publicity, the book sold moderately well, bolstered by the Internet and some 100 radio interviews. But of the approximately 160 million Americans of voting age, only a fraction knew the book and the thesis existed, because the mainstream media gave it very little attention.

Another even more powerful example of the American people being manipulated and controlled by the media is one that involves President Ronald Reagan, then–vice president George H. W. Bush, and John Hinckley, Jr. Hinckley had fired several shots at Reagan in 1981, injuring several people including the president. In covering the story, the Houston Post and NBC News anchor John Chancellor reported that Hinckley’s brother, Scott, was an acquaintance of Neil Bush, the son of the vice president—the man who would have assumed the most powerful office in the world had Hinckley’s bullet been roughly half an inch closer to Reagan’s heart.²³ As a matter of fact, Neil and Scott were scheduled to have dinner at the Bush home the night after the shooting. But wouldn’t you know, the story vanished from the media, never reported again by CBS, ABC, the New York Times, Washington Post, or any other media outlet, except for a buried mention in the April 13, 1981, issue of Newsweek, on page 59.²⁴

Nathaniel Blumberg, Rhodes Scholar and former professor at the University of Montana School of Journalism, is the author of the self-published The Afternoon of March 30, a novel that takes the facts he has gathered and presents them as fiction. His purpose was not to suggest that there was a conspiracy to assassinate Reagan; rather that there was a conspiracy to prevent powerful information from reaching the public—information that every citizen should have had the opportunity to hear.²⁵

Neil Bush had told reporters in Denver that he had met Scott at a surprise party in the Bush home a couple of months prior to the assassination attempt, and according to one newspaper, the Bush and Hinckley families had social ties. Scott Hinckley’s oil business, Vanderbilt Energy Corporation, had been audited, and a pricing violation on sales of crude oil between 1977 and 1980 was discovered that could have earned penalties amounting to $2,000,000 by the US Department of Energy. In a meeting that broke up just an hour prior to the shooting, Scott requested some time to come up with an explanation as to how this happened.²⁶

A montage of the Reagan assassination attempt. Photos courtesy of the Ronald Reagan Library, 1981.

Ralph W. McGehee, author of Deadly Deceits: My 25 Years in the CIA, reviewed the novel and said it “epitomizes how our government serves the mighty and uses the trumped-up excuse of national security to trample our freedoms . . .” and helps “to understand the powerful forces controlling if not destroying our country.” Theresa Walla of United Press International interviewed Blumberg, and her story was distributed on March 9, 1985, by Helena UPI. Interestingly, the Seattle UPI bureau asked for a longer and more detailed piece, which Walla sent them. This expanded article was then sent by to the national UPI desk, where it was killed.²⁷ Just one more example that America’s free press is certainly free to print any bit of news that it wants, but that it also censors whatever news the media moguls deem unnecessary for the public to see.

And would you believe there’s more? The judge presiding at John Hinckley’s trial was Barrington D. Parker. And in 2001, very soon after assuming office, President George W. Bush appointed Parker’s son as a Federal Appeals Court judge. Parker Jr. was subsequently unanimously approved by the Senate.

FBI photo of disassembled fireworks, which were recovered from a backpack inside a trash bag in a landfill near University of Massachusetts–Dartmouth campus. In an affidavit, the FBI alleges friends of the suspected marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev found the backpack and attempted to dispose of it for him. FBI, 2013.

And then there’s the horrific Boston Marathon bombing. I am not saying that Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev were not guilty. The brothers certainly may have committed those heinous acts of terrorism, murder, and dismemberment. But let’s study the “official story,” and look at the holes that have never been questioned by the mainstream media. And that’s very important—never questioned. There has been at least one book and several newspaper and magazine articles, that have purported that Tamerlan Tsarnaev made several trips to Russia prior to the bombing and that he may have been an FBI informant, but certainly that the FBI knew he was a potential jihadist. Daniel Morley, who had ties to Tamerlan, was found to have a stockpile of bomb-making components in his bedroom, possibly indicating that the Tsarnaevs did not make the two bombs themselves. And if that is the case, why wasn’t Morley prosecuted instead of being placed in three mental health facilities for two years? Why was he coincidentally released about a month after Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was sentenced to death, and why does he now have a state job driving a van which transports the elderly?²⁸ There is more:

• From the start, the FBI head in charge of the investigation publicly stated live on national television that no one should pay any attention to any marathon-related photos other than the official photos released by him. Did he perchance mean the photos online of the bomb-sniffing dogs at the start of the race? And why were they there in the first place? (This was corroborated by many of the runners and their family and friends.) What about the photos clearly showing known US government contractors near the finish line where the bombs were detonated, wearing backpacks almost identical to the ones allegedly used by the brothers?

• No one ever questioned why only one of the brothers wore sunglasses while they walked through the marathon crowds prior to the bombing. One would think that if they were smart enough to plan this horrific act, killing 3 and injuring 264 innocent victims, that they would either have worn disguises or would have at least been wearing sunglasses while passing by numerous video surveillance cameras on the way to their targets. The big question is, if they had, would they have been identified and caught?

• And speaking of that trek through the crowds, they sure as hell do not look like they are carrying backpacks filled with metal pressure cookers complete with nails and other deadly paraphernalia.

• A few days after the bombing, and presumably with the police having no idea of the location of the brothers, they allegedly killed Sean Collier of the MIT police department on their escape attempt from the Boston area. The officer was found dead, sitting in his patrol car with his gun in its holster. Why? What was their motive for this seemingly senseless ambush? All it did was bring police attention to the area, and the brothers didn’t even take his gun! No one, not one reporter, questioned that there was no reason for this senseless act.

• The Tsarnaevs then carjacked a Mercedes and kidnapped the driver, allowing him to escape so he could call 911 and again alert the police to not only their location, but their car and license plate! They had allegedly committed a terrorist attack against the United States of America and fatally shot a policeman moments before, so why didn’t they simply put a hole in the driver’s head, just as they did the MIT cop? If they had, they most likely would have been walking around Times Square a few days later, which is allegedly where they were headed to carry out further bombings. Instead, Tamerlan Tsarnaev died, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been sentenced to death.

• Then there’s the huge shootout between what seems like dozens of police and the brothers. Getting back into his SUV, Dzhokhar allegedly accidentally ran over his brother and drove away, not to be seen for hours until found hiding in a boat in someone’s backyard. Not one newsperson questioned why the police didn’t jump into their cruisers and chase Dzhokhar. Not one! True, it’s been reported that Dzhokhar presumably ditched the Mercedes soon after leaving the shootout, but could a severely injured driver have eluded police cruisers if they had taken off after him immediately?

• And it gets even more bizarre. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev ditched the Mercedes around four blocks from where he was finally found in a boat, injured and covered by a tarp. We know he was injured prior because police found a pool of blood near the Mercedes. With no weapons, in total darkness in the middle of the night, and obviously bleeding, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev allegedly wrote a note in pencil on the side of the boat—approximately 225 words, which is a little less than a normal double-spaced typewritten page, basically stating that the USA is killing Muslims, that it must be punished for its crimes, and if you hurt one Muslim you hurt all Muslims. Tsarnaev could hardly stand when photographed being removed from the boat, was covered in blood, and had a bullet to his mouth. Might he have had other thoughts on his mind? Did he really have the ability to write all of that under those difficult circumstances, in almost total darkness and relatively neat handwriting?

Why didn’t all the major network correspondents and interviewers ask these questions? The answer is that not only are they not allowed to question mainstream “official stories,” they are like robots in reporting the news. They question nothing that is not mainstream and the official story, because that is the accepted established American media methodology. Any variation from the official story is condemned as a conspiracy theory. The Boston Marathon suspects may well have been guilty as charged. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev admitted in court to their complicity in the bombing. But we’ll probably never know for sure, and almost certainly will never hear the answer to the questions posed above.

Never assume that the official story is accurate, or that there haven’t been important pieces omitted. You must always second-guess, because the news media is controlled beyond the imagination.

Oh, and by the way, the Hinckley/Bush relationship was never reported on by 60 Minutes.