The US mainstream media including the local greater Minneapolis/St Paul
based Star Gazer Tribune use double standards in covering scandals such
as the one involving selling influence specifically senate seats, one in Minnesota
a GOP one by perhaps the senator himself and another one in Illinois by the
Democratic governor. Both cases are at this stage unresolved, but with the FBI
looking into both. But the one in Illinois where Rod Blagojevich, the governor is
under investigation for selling the senate being vacated by Barak Obama is getting
big time US mainstream media play, while the case of Norm Coleman in Minnesota
the current senator fighting for reelection and with the FBI looking into Coleman selling
at least some "stock' in his seat is getting virtually no national coverage by the US
mainstream media, even though the local Star Gazer Tribune, a full fledged member
of the US mainstream media has revealed that the FBI is looking into the case involving
a Texas business making payments of $75,000 to a company where Coleman's
wife is employed and by doing so funnelling money to Coleman. Obviously, news of political
corruption should get coverage no matter what party or ideology of the politician is
involved, but clearly in these relatively similar cases that hasn't been close to true.

Now why might that be? How about the fact that the US mainstream media is a big
business, and definitely includes the Star Gazer Tribune, and thus has the same interests
as the rest of big business and these interests will surely color their coverage of such
scandals, with the politicians perceived to be favoring big business getting less or even
minimal, if any coverage, as opposed to those politicians seen as being opposed to
the big business agenda, this is just plain old fashioned institutional analysis. It isn't
brain surgery.

A law school dean, who like law professors and lawyers should know more about the
law than others, has said he doesn't see that any conviction except for conspiracy is
at all likely based on what he's seen of the evidence, and that even with the conspiracy
charges, it might end up with an acquittal. In no way does he say what Blagojevich has
done is ethical. but then again how many US politicians would that be true of anyway?

On a similar note, Alexander Cockburn points out how all the screaming against Blagojevich
being such a bad example for US politics is just plain "nonsense." As he hits the old
nail right on the head, this is simply way of politics in this country outside such hard core
good government states such as the Dakotas and Washington, where a "social democratic
ethic" prevails. The whole idea of quid pro quo being so much a part of the US political
status quo is the reality, and this kind of thing as Cockburn says really is the best "check and
balance agaisnt the arrogance of power." Speaking of which the upscale neo con pimps on and
off Wall Street know how to do "arrogance of power," and their prostitutes in the mainstream US
media know how to defend same. Hell, they know which side their bread is buttered on.

Blagojevich has shown he favored the employees who went on strike in Chicago against
Republic Window and Doors, saying he would back the Illinois Department of Labor bringing
the issue into federal court if the employees failed to get the $1.5 million they owned under
federal and state law as well their contract. The governor said, "We're going to do everything
possible in Illinois to side with these workers." The governor had arrived at the plant only hours
after the Chicago Tribune ran a December 8 story apparently confirming employees' fears that
the company had moved its business to a non union outlet in Iowa, hiding behind a different
name, Echo Windows which officially is listed with the secretary of state's office.

In the case of Coleman, like the Blagojevich, the FBI is investigating, and similarly Coleman
hasn't been convicted of any crime. The main objective fact which is different is the fact that
law enforcement authorities have so far failed to arrest Coleman. But to the Star Gazer Tribune's
credit it did carry a story in its December 11 issue on its front page showing the FBI was investigating
the case. For some "reason" this country's mainstream media hasn't covered any of the Coleman
scandal, and even the Star Gazer Tribune refused to call it a scandal. I have to differ on that given
the fact that the FBI is investigating the matter as the Tribune story points out makes it a scandal.
Does it prove criminal conduct? No, it doesn't, but this is likewise true in the Blagojevich case,
and an arrest by law enforcement authorities sure as hell doesn't change the fact that this country's
system of jurisprudence holds, if I'm not mistaken, that an individual is innocent until proven guilty
not the other way around, which is at least the tone of the coverage of the Blagojevich case. The
fact that no less than the Wall Street Journal is already piling on with the guilt by association
McCarthyite style hot air that the Blagojevich scandal has now touched Jesse Jackson Jr, a
prominent Democratic congressman from Illinois, as he has made it clear that he would like
to fill Barak Obama's senate seat and got the word to Blagojevich. Now that would obviously
say Jackson is guilty of wanting to be one of two senators from Illinois and having the "nerve"
to let the governor, an individual with the authority to appoint said senator know about this,
thus making him clearly guilty of wanting to be a US Senator. Yes, this is a new McCarthy
era, as has been aptly pointed out by the Progressive, but this time the new McCarthy has
been the president not just a senator. The fact that Jackson's name came up during the FBI
investigation doesn't say anything at all. The same mainstream media nationally isn't at all
shy about being all out McCarthy/guilt by association oriented by talking about how the Service
Employees Union is also "touched by this scandal." Oh, is that right? Hey, if that unions' touched
by this "shocking" scandal, it sure as hell took the McCarthyite, bought and owned lock, stock
and barrel by the upscale big business pimps, on and off Wall Street, to make it the case. A
little bit of that old guilt by association smear sewage by the US mainstream media sure goes a
long way to put out so much damn hot air. That union got mentioned in the investigation, and
presto and that union is "touched." Maybe it's the mainstream US media that's a tad touched.

In the Coleman case, Paul McKim who founded and was the CEO of the Deep Marine contends
in a lawsuit that this company funnelled $75,000 into the insurance company where Coleman's wife is
employed, a company known as Hays Companies of Minneapolis, with Nassar Kazaminy the
man who runs Deep Marine having said he was doing this as Coleman didn't get paid enough as
a senator. McKim maintains that Kazaminy made these comments about Coleman not making
enough as a senator to company executives and saying that the payments were to help Coleman
financially. McKim also says that Hays didn't provide anything goods or services for said payments.

We may not get Cockburn's type of checks and balances against the arrogance of power, but if those who
are trying to "help" Minnesota's "poor old" Coleman get their way, at least we'll get a better "balance
for Coleman's checking accounts."

Of course, I don't see why this case in Minnesota with Texas business money coming into buy Coleman
or at least some stock in him is less important than a governor, if it's true, trying to sell a senate seat,
but to those in that same state. At least in Illinois all the money was coming from within the state and
would benefit somebody in that state.

This whole tone nationally of guilt by association harkens so much back to the age of Joseph
McCarthy's as to show the "good old" US mainstream media knows how to get hysterical and
blow smoke up people's booties with the wildest of charges supported by not one solid fact to
keep their agenda, that of big business going full speed ahead

The US mainstream media by not covering the Coleman case at all and by its absolutely heavy
handed coverage of the Blagojevich case has shown it has no problems with double standards
to promote its big business agenda.