The Gazette in Schenectady also has a blog post, and reporter Jeff Wilkin spoke with Al:

Roney said he was both humbled and amazed by the public support. He said he has e-mailed and telephoned listeners in the past; he appreciates the strong connections apparently made with people who stood up for him on a cold winter morning.

“That’s one thing that is really making this a lot easier to get through,” Roney said late Monday afternoon.
“Who gets that?” he said of the rally. “People will go home and tell their wives, tell their kids and then get into line at the unemployment office.
“It’s kind of humbling to see that anybody would really take time out from their days to go out and do that.”

And, Al, if you read this:  Over 300 people have searched your name in google and landed on my previous post about you.  Most were local, but others searched from as far away as California and British Columbia.

You are missed.

Note:  See April 5th update.

Al served us well, covering local issues that no one else would even mention, and he will be sorely missed in the capital region.

To WGY:  I no longer have a reason to tune in to 810.  Hope that helps your ratings.

Monday’s rally is scheduled for Monday from 9 a.m. to noon — the hours during which Roney’s show aired. WGY is located at 1203 Troy-Schenectady Road in Latham.

3/1 update on the rally, including a quote from Al Roney, here.

4/5 Al comments on his current plans here.

While the media seems to delight in the fall of Tiger Woods, gleefully making  announcements about every loss of sponsorship, Brit Hume has matter-of-factly offered Woods the way out of his mess.  Don’t miss this one.

So here are my top two stories that should have made headlines last year, but didn’t.

Based on sheer volume of hits, this is the top story for 2009:

Mainstream Media Ignores “Accidental” Bird Flu Contamination of Baxter Vaccine Shipments

Despite reports that Illinois-based pharmaceutical company Baxter International Inc. somehow managed to distribute flu vaccine contaminated with live bird flu virus to Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Germany

• Despite the report that this only came to light when a subcontractor in the Czech Republic inoculated ferrets with the product and they died
• Despite the report that Baxter confirmed the contamination, and the World Health Organization is “closely monitoring” the situation
• Despite reports that mixing the two viruses would make them extremely potent and contagious
• Despite reports from the medical community that the contamination could not possibly have been an accident
• Despite speculation in Czech newspapers that the contamination was a deliberate attempt to create a pandemic, for which Baxter would stand ready to profit through their vaccines
• Despite all these reports that have been circulating since March 3rd or before … I cannot find even one major news outlet that’s covering this story.

I normally avoid the “conspiracy” word, but …
can you spell c-o-n-s-p-i-r-a-c-y???

Here is my follow-up post.

Based on the story that most tore at my heart, here’s the other top story that MSM refused to report.  As of this date, the army still refuses to re-open the investigation.  In addition, Midtown Films is producing a documentary titled:  Lavena Johnson:  The Silent Truth.

Remember Pfc. LaVena Johnson? She’s Just Another Military Cover-Up

Back in August, I posted briefly about LaVena Johnson, quoting from a commentary by Elizabeth Higgs:

“According to the U.S. Department of Defense, Private LaVena Lynn Johnson killed herself on July 19, 2005, eight days before her twentieth birthday. Exactly how did she end her life? She punched herself in the face hard enough to blacken her eyes, break her nose, and knock her front teeth loose. She douched with an acid solution after mutilating her genital area. She poured a combustible liquid on herself and set it afire. She then shot herself in the head. Despite this massive self-inflicted trauma, she somehow managed to drag her then fully clothed body into the tent of a KBR contractor, leaving a trail of blood along the way and set the tent ablaze in a failed attempt to cover up her crimes against herself.

If this story sounds plausible to you, you may have missed your calling as an officer in the U.S. Army, because Army officers, speaking with a straight face, would have you believe that such a thing is not only possible, but actually happened.

In reality, LaVena Johnson was raped, beaten, and murdered by someone on a military base in Balad, Iraq, and the Army doesn’t want you to know about it.”

The Army doesn’t want her parents to know about it, either. Since LaVena died, they have had doubts about the suicide story. They had talked with her every day, and she had said nothing to lead them to believe she was emotionally unstable or even a little upset. And then her body was shipped home.

“In viewing his daughter’s body at the funeral home, Dr. Johnson was concerned about the bruising on her face. He was puzzled by the discrepancy in the autopsy report on the location of the gunshot wound. As a US Army veteran and a 25-year US Army civilian employee who had counseled veterans, he was mystified how the exit wound of an M-16 shot could be so small. The hole in Lavena’s head appeared to be more the size of a pistol shot rather than an M-16 round. He questioned why the exit hole was on the left side of her head, when she was right handed. But the gluing of military uniform white gloves onto Lavena’s hands hiding burns on one of her hands is what deepened Dr. Johnson’s concerns that the Army’s investigation into the death of his daughter was flawed.”

For more than three years, her father, Dr. John Johnson, and her mother Linda have done everything within their power to seek justice for their daughter – and the Army has fought them every step of the way. They have had to resort to FOIL requests to get copies of Army documents related to their daughter. They have had to call on their local congressman to pressure the Army to release these documents.

They have been interviewed by the media countless times. A website has been created in LaVena’s name. There have been multiple petitions signed, demanding a congressional investigation. (The latest is here, if you’d like to sign it.)

And there are many other women in the military who have died under suspicious circumstances. The Department of Defense’s own statistics state that one in three women who join the military will be sexually assaulted or raped.

Despite all this – despite the statistics, despite the efforts of the Johnson’s, despite the obvious attempts to cover up a horrendous crime – nothing has changed. The Army still calls her death a suicide. They have not re-opened the investigation. The Army is still protecting their own.

From the least to the greatest – from the murderer all the way through the chain of command to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and President George W. Bush – they are all guilty. And if we continue to blindly support our military, we are guilty, too.

So the next time you’re waving the red, white and blue for a country that condones and covers-up the rape and murder of one of its own; the next time you’re singing about this land where some are more equal than others; the next time you pledge allegiance to support the United States of America, no matter what they do – you might spare a thought for LaVena Johnson and her parents. You might ask God to move His hand and provide justice for this family – because the military sure as hell won’t.

Justice, and only justice,
you shall pursue,
that you may live and possess the land
which the LORD your God is giving you.
(Deuteronomy 16:20)

And once again, mainstream media is ignoring the story.  This information is from a five-paragraph note by the BBC.   Nobody else is touching it.  After all, supply has finally caught up with demand and the media has to brainwash convince people to get them.

He also told colleagues at America’s top military hospital that non-Muslims were infidels condemned to hell who should be set on fire. The outburst came during an hour-long talk Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, gave on the Koran in front of dozens of other doctors at Walter Reed Army Medical Centre in Washington DC, where he worked for six years before arriving at Fort Hood in July.

London Telegraph

Apparently we still have to get our news from out of the country.  Perhaps our government and media have been intimidated like the military doctors?

One Army doctor who knew him said a fear of appearing discriminatory against a Muslim soldier had stopped fellow officers from filing formal complaints.

I guess this is like the fear of being called a racist if you criticize Obama.

Major Nidal Malik Hasan worshipped at a mosque led by a radical imam said to be a “spiritual adviser” to three of the hijackers who attacked America on Sept 11, 2001

London Telegraph

Charles Allen, who the Telegraph says used to be an under-secretary at Homeland Security, reportedly said this imam supports al-Qaeda and targets US Muslims with “radical online lectures encouraging terrorist attacks from his new home in Yemen.”

Once again, MSM is ignoring a big story.  A search at the time of this writing finds zero American media outlets covering this story, one in England, and one in Canada – despite over 3,000 posts on the web. [HT to Michelle Malkin, which is where I found it.]

Whenever the silence on a big story is this deafening – like it was last spring when Baxter pharmaceuticals accidentally on-purpose spread flu vaccine contaminated with live bird flu virus around Europe  (here are some more posts about Baxter) – I am prone to speculate, “Why?”

Why … would MSM ignore a story this big, when they’ve been bombarding us with every sneeze associated with the Ft. Hood shooting?

Why … has no one from the government publicly renounced this iman and exposed his continued influence?

Why … doesn’t anyone in the media or the government acknowledge – out loud and in public – that violent jihadist rhetoric encourages the murder of anyone who won’t worship Allah?

Dear fellow Jews, what is so hard to understand about “we hate your guts, and will continue to kill and maim you”? Just last week, an “inter-faith” Rabbi, the guest speaker at an ISNA (Islamic Society of North America) conference was shocked … shocked to hear that one of the guest imams felt that Jews deserved the Holocaust because they turned their backs against Allah. What is so hard to understand about that?

Center for Faith and the Media

We are in danger of being subjugated to the ideology of Islamic world domination. The Jews are again in grave danger, and so are all Christians, along with the nations and societies that are democratic. The Ottoman Empire failed. Hitler’s “Final solution”and his Third Reich failed. The Islamic quest has no intention of failing a third time! “First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people,” is not simply their slogan, but their strategy!

Maureen Metcalf

Does anybody remember MSM’s investigative reporting on WMD’s in Iraq, the supposed justification for invading a sovereign nation and killing thousands of people? Of course you don’t, because there was none. MSM obediently parroted what Bush & Company told them. They didn’t present any opposing views, and they didn’t investigate squat.

National news is now defined as anything the President says to a reporter.

I realize I can’t counter ABC’s influence, and even though they won’t present any opposing views to Obama’s health care plan, those views do exist. So if you’re going to hunker down and watch their propaganda, take 8 minutes right now to watch Ron Paul offer some alternate solutions. It just might prevent another war over imaginary WMD’s.