Thursday, June 28, 2007

Chris Mathews the feeble, overpaid, sputtering whore, gives hate-monger Ann Coulter prime-time platform to lie and spew....






In a desperate and feverish attempt to boost his ratings, Penultimate MEDIA WHORE Christ Mathews had the ghoulish Ann Coulter on for a prime-time live interview, and sure enough, Coulter tried to make a 'fashionably provocative" statement by - attacking John and Elizabeth Edwards on the death of their teenage son.

Mathews is the penultimate inside-the-beltway media whore... in the 1980s he had been a top advisor to DEMOCRATIC Speaker of the House 'Tip' O'Neill, but in the 6 or 7 years since Mathews started his "spit-ball slime-ball" MSNBC news-talk show, he must not have noticed the constant string of Republican anti-democratic abuses including criminal convictions (massive Republican vote fraud in Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004 to begin with) that must have Mr. O'Neill spinning in his grave. Mathews, like so many media whores, took the public's endless fascination for media scandal-mongering infotainment (the cable 'news' channels' coverage of the Monica affair/Clinton impeachment 24/7/365) as proof of their own journalistic expertise.

Well, as the Bush administration gives America and the world endless scandal fatigue (Crony contracts to Halliburton, anyone? Selling US ports to Dubai, anyone? Spying on American citizens without warrants, lying America into war, torturing anyone the vice president determines is an "enemy of the reich," and declaring "BRING IT ON!" & "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!" anyone?) CHRIS MATHEWS and his fellow inside-the-beltway media whores WANT TO TALK ABOUT WHATEVER the ghoulish Ann Coulter wants to talk about!

HEY MATHEWS, you cheap, overpaid, lying, pathetic, slobbering weasel little whore - why don't we just BRING BACK SLAVERY, and then you can have Ann Coulter on twice a week, commenting on the need to capture those evil escaped slaves, and the need to whip a few to death (to serve as an example to others, of course) every so often - JUST TO KEEP HER (and her couch-potato potato-chip chomping viewers) entertained.

There was BIG MONEY made in SLAVERY in the Americas for four centuries, so we know that in the name of PROFIT, ENTERTAINMENT, and VIEWER RATINGS, you will be more than rewarded by giving Ann Coulter live commentary time on your show for the latest live slave torture/murder/execution coverage, and then you and your network bosses will be all satisified and happy with having some meaningful stories to present to American viewers again.


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Reading The Pictures: [the] LEECHING Chris Matthews
by Michael Shaw
Posted June 27, 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-shaw/reading-the-pictures-em_b_53939.html

This post is not about Ann Coulter.

I try very hard not to feed the vampire, except for the occasional psychological profile. In this case, however, I have to make an exception -- in order to highlight a classic image of media intimidation.

Leaving aside the argument why hyper-Chris would stoop to give troubled Ann a platform in the first place, I was interested in what happened in yesterday's so-called interview immediately after Elizabeth Edwards called in to confront AC.

Matthews must have been terrified after Edwards challenged Coulter for making hay off the death of her child. After Edwards hung up, a journalist with any real substance would have immediately taken on his dissembling invitee for using Edwards as a pin cushion. So, where did the Hardball king go instead?

Well why, Chris suddenly wanted to know, did mean ole Ann attack Hillary for having "chubby legs?"

It got even more pathetic than that, though. Not only did Chris drop the subject of Edwards, asking a 2008% weaker question than Edwards asked, he lost his nerve completely when Coulter played dumb and demanded he quote her the exact sentence he was referring to. (You can see in the screen shot how she got off on it.)

The image that will stick with me is that scene on the left half of the screen. There's the flustered, angry and intimidated Matthews (his head comically juxtaposed with the Hardball tag line "First Read") submissively thumbing through Coulter's latest hate manifesto to actually find the quote!

See video at thinkprogress.

For more of the visual, visit BAGnewsNotes.com.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Fox 'news' Murdoch, pt. 2: INTIMATE CONNECTIONS and business deals with China Communist Party ruling officials

The American media mogul who most closely personifies the Right-Wing tendency to SMEAR and heap scorn on Democrats and "liberal" leaders as 'selling out' to foreign influences is, it turns out, a mogul who "CULTIVATES CLOSE POLITICAL TIES" to the very foreign nation (China) that could be considered a greater long-term threat to American security (and certainly American hegemony) than Islamic terrorists.

Rupert Murdoch, the former Australian newspaper owner who became an American citizen and media mogul, has been invited by China's former premier to become a Chinese citizen, and indeed has married a mainland-China wife.

But for the media mogul who thrives on tearing down America's liberal and (small 'd') democratic opponents in his papers and networks to have such close ties to Communist China officials does indeed raise questions - especially since Mr. Murdoch is now trying to buy control over THE very organ of American capitalist self-assurance, the Wall St. Journal.

NOTICE how the NEW YORK WHORE TIMES has been SITTING on this story of Murdoch's INTIMATE CONNECTIONS with China's Communist leaders (and business dealings with their family members) up until now. That is because the WHORE Times have been PARTNERS IN CRIME with Mr. Murdoch, spouting the election-stealing neo-con monopoly-markets Right-Wing dogma that portrays itself as the opposite (i.e. both Right-Wing neo-con 'news' organizations - the Times and Fox - portray themselves as supporting 'freedom' and 'democracy' and "free markets' and open public discourse, when in fact they support CLOSED monopoly markets because of the intense profits they generate, and despise the free and fair counting of votes as a threat to their elitist grip on power and profitability.)


==================================================

Murdoch’s Dealings in China: It’s Business, and It’s Personal
By Joseph Kahn
June 26, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/26/world/asia/26murdoch.html

BEIJING, June 25 — Many big companies have sought to break into the Chinese market over the past two decades, but few of them have been as ardent and unrelenting as Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation.

Mr. Murdoch has flattered Communist Party leaders and done business with their children. His Fox News network helped China’s leading state broadcaster develop a news Web site. He joined hands with the Communist Youth League, a power base in the ruling party, in a risky television venture, his China managers and advisers say.

Mr. Murdoch’s third wife, Wendi, is a mainland Chinese who once worked for his Hong Kong-based satellite broadcaster, Star TV. Her role in managing investments and honing elite connections in China has underscored uncertainties within the Murdoch family about how the family-controlled News Corporation will be run after Mr. Murdoch, 76, retires or dies.

Regulatory barriers and management missteps have thwarted Mr. Murdoch’s hopes of big profits in China. He has said his local business hit a “brick wall” after a bid to corral prime-time broadcasting rights fell apart in 2005, costing him tens of millions of dollars.

But as he seeks to buy Dow Jones, the parent company of The Wall Street Journal, his track record in China has attracted attention less because of profits and losses than for what it shows about his management style.

Mr. Murdoch cooperates closely with China’s censors and state broadcasters, several people who worked for him in China say. He cultivates political ties that he hopes will insulate his business ventures from regulatory interference, these people say.

In speeches and interviews, Mr. Murdoch often supports the policies of Chinese leaders and attacks their critics. A group of China-based reporters for The Journal accused him in a letter to Dow Jones shareholders of “sacrificing journalistic integrity to satisfy personal and political aims,” a charge the News Corporation denies.

His courtship has made him the Chinese leadership’s favorite foreign media baron. He has dined with former President Jiang Zemin in the Zhongnanhai leadership compound in Beijing and repeatedly met other members of the ruling Politburo in Beijing, New York and London. Television channels affiliated with Mr. Murdoch beam more programming into China than any other foreign media group.

“The reality is that the Chinese government is not going to let anything radical happen in media,” says Gary Davey, an Australian who once ran Star TV for Mr. Murdoch. “But we got a lot farther than anyone else did.”

News Corporation officials in Beijing and Hong Kong declined to comment for this article. After The New York Times began a two-part series on Monday about how Mr. Murdoch operates his company, the News Corporation issued a statement:

“News Corp. has consistently cooperated with The New York Times in its coverage of the company. However, the agenda for this unprecedented series is so blatantly designed to further the Times’s commercial self interests — by undermining a direct competitor poised to become an even more formidable competitor — that it would be reckless of us to participate in their malicious assault. Ironically, The Times, by using its news pages to advance its own corporate business agenda, is doing the precise thing they accuse us of doing without any evidence.”

China has never been a make-or-break proposition for the News Corporation, since its operations here represent a small part of the company, which is valued at $68 billion. But Mr. Murdoch pushed for nearly 15 years to create a satellite television network that would cover every major market in the world, including China.

He coveted the $50 billion in ad spending that flows mainly to China’s state-owned news media whose products, even after years of improvements, still reflect propaganda directives as well as consumer demand.

The News Corporation’s competitors in television and film, the Walt Disney Company, Viacom and Time Warner, also had to accommodate Chinese demands as the price of admission to the local market.

But Mr. Murdoch gave more, his associates said.

“The Chinese discovered that Rupert was a real emperor who controlled everything himself,” said H. S. Liu, who oversaw government relations for the News Corporation in China. “His rivals had big, cautious bureaucracies that could not always deliver.”

China has long meant more than business to the Murdoch clan. Mr. Murdoch’s father, Keith, wrote about China as a war correspondent in the 1930s. As a newspaper proprietor in Australia, he collected Ming dynasty porcelain.

When Rupert Murdoch visited Shanghai in 1997, Wendi Deng, then a junior News Corporation employee in Hong Kong, flew up to serve as his translator. Together they explored Shanghai, which was then emerging as a lively center of finance and commerce.

“He was knocked over by the place,” recalled Bruce Dover, a former China manager for Mr. Murdoch, “and by her.” Within two years, Mr. Murdoch had left his second wife, Anna Mann, and married Ms. Deng.

Clawing Back

Mr. Murdoch’s initial foray into China was disastrous. Shortly after he purchased the satellite broadcaster Star TV in Hong Kong for nearly $1 billion in 1993, he made a speech in London that enraged the Chinese leadership.

He said that modern communications technology had “proved an unambiguous threat to totalitarian regimes everywhere.” Star could beam programming to every corner of China, and Murdoch had paid a big premium for the broadcaster for that reason.

Prime Minister Li Peng promptly outlawed private ownership of satellite dishes, which had once proliferated on rooftops. Star TV faced a threat to its viability.

Chinese leaders rebuffed his attempts to apologize in person — a ban that lasted nearly four years. But he sought to placate them. One target was Deng Xiaoping, then retired but still China’s senior leader.

HarperCollins, Mr. Murdoch’s book unit, published a biography of Mr. Deng written by his daughter, Deng Rong. Although it mainly recycled propaganda about Mr. Deng, Mr. Murdoch threw an elaborate book party at Le Cirque in New York. The book sold poorly.

He also cultivated ties with Mr. Deng’s eldest son, Deng Pufang, who is disabled. Mr. Murdoch chartered a jet to ferry a troop of disabled acrobats that the younger Mr. Deng had promoted to perform abroad, according to a former News Corporation official.

Star TV overhauled its programming to suit Chinese tastes. In 1994 it dropped BBC News, which had frequently angered Chinese officials with its reports on mainland affairs.

Mr. Murdoch said the decision was made for business reasons, not political reasons. Mr. Davey, who then ran Star TV, agreed that cost was a primary consideration.

But he said he had pressed the British broadcaster to stop showing a video of a man facing down a tank outside Tiananmen Square — an indelible image from China’s crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in 1989 — during its on-air programming breaks. He said the BBC refused, calling the video a “journalistic presentation.”

“The BBC never got the sensitivities of the situation,” Mr. Davey said. “It was relentless and stupid. Neither party was too upset about ending the relationship.”

If Star was a potential threat to the one-party state, it was also a new opportunity. Chinese officials disliked Western news media coverage of China and wanted to present their own face to the world. Mr. Murdoch provided the access they wanted.

In 1996, he entered a joint venture with Liu Changle, a onetime radio host for the People’s Liberation Army who had connections with propaganda officials. Their joint news and entertainment channel, called Phoenix, beamed programs to the small number of urban households permitted to see foreign broadcasts in China. Mr. Murdoch transmitted the same programming around the world on his satellites.

Phoenix imitated the fast pace and on-the-scene reporting style popular in the West and shook up the mainland’s staid news media, which still featured well-coiffed narrators reading scripts about meetings between senior leaders held that day. But Phoenix also tended to steer clear of the most sensitive political topics and could be bombastically nationalistic.

Phoenix may have demonstrated that the Chinese news media could become more sophisticated and dynamic without threatening the party’s power. It also showed that Mr. Murdoch could be an asset.

“Officials realized he had a good intentions,” Mr. Liu said.

After Phoenix proved a hit, Ding Guangen, a hard-liner who exercised sweeping control over all Chinese news media as chief of the country’s Propaganda Department, granted Mr. Murdoch his first meeting. So did Zhu Rongji, then the prime minister.

Mr. Zhu noted that Mr. Murdoch had become an American citizen to comply with television ownership rules in the United States. He joked that if he wanted to broadcast more in China, he should consider becoming Chinese, a person who attended the meeting recalled.

Friendly Relations

The News Corporation’s outreach intensified. When Mr. Murdoch learned that China Central Television, known as CCTV, was struggling to develop a news Web site, he dispatched a team from Fox News to help design and operate one. Another News Corporation team brought People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party, online.

China also needed help encrypting satellite transmissions so it could develop a pay-TV service, a specialty of the News Corporation’s NDS subsidiary. NDS helped Beijing create a proprietary encryption system. It never realized sizable royalties, people who worked at the News Corporation said.

Similarly, the company brought delegations of Chinese officials to Britain, so they could study how Mr. Murdoch’s BSkyB unit had become a lucrative gateway for satellite television in Europe.

“Our thinking was that we would show off our technology and they would contract News Corporation to do the same for them,” said Mr. Dover, Mr. Murdoch’s former China manager. “Their thinking was, ‘We want this for ourselves.’ ”

“It ended being more of a giveaway,” Mr. Dover said.

In late 1998, President Jiang invited Mr. Murdoch to Zhongnanhai. The official Xinhua news agency, reporting on the session, made clear that the media baron had a new reputation.

“President Jiang expressed appreciation for the efforts made by world media mogul Rupert Murdoch in presenting China objectively and cooperating with the Chinese press over the last two years,” Xinhua said.

The Murdochs often echoed the Chinese government line. In a 1999 interview with Vanity Fair, Mr. Murdoch spoke disparagingly of the Dalai Lama, whom the Chinese condemn as a separatist. “I have heard cynics who say he is a very political old monk shuffling around in Gucci shoes,” he said.

James Murdoch, who ran Star TV from 2000 to 2003, said in a speech in Los Angeles in 2001 that Western reporters in China supported “destabilizing forces” that are “very, very dangerous for the Chinese government.” He lashed out at the Falun Gong spiritual sect, which had just endured brutal repression in China, calling it “dangerous and apocalyptic.”

The Journal won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the suppression of the Falun Gong movement in 2001. Last month, seven China-based reporters for The Journal wrote a letter to Dow Jones’s current controlling shareholders arguing that the articles on Falun Gong “may never have seen the light of day” if The Journal had been owned by Mr. Murdoch.

News Corporation officials say such fears are baseless. While several reporters who worked in China for the company’s publications in the 1990s say Mr. Murdoch’s editors pressed them to tone down their coverage of delicate issues that could anger the Chinese leadership, reporters serving in such posts now say they have not come under similar pressures.

By the late 1990s, Mr. Murdoch was traveling several times a year to the country. He was often joined by Wendi Murdoch, who left her formal position in the company but continued to scout for investments in China and participate in strategy decisions there, several people who worked for the News Corporation said.

One of her roles: introducing her husband to Chinese entrepreneurs. Many of them had received business degrees in the United States, as she had at Yale.

The Murdochs invested about $150 million in half a dozen start-up Internet and telecom companies at the height of the Internet bubble between 1999 and 2001. Only one, Netcom, returned an appreciable investment profit, two former News Corporation executives said.

But one of the entrepreneurs the Murdochs befriended during the investment spree was Jiang Mianheng, the son of President Jiang. Ms. Murdoch and some other News Corporation employees argued internally that the younger Mr. Jiang could help Star distribute its broadcasts more widely, two former News Corporation executives said.

It is unclear what role, if any, Mr. Jiang played. But in 2002, the company became the first foreign broadcaster to receive “landing rights” to sell programs to cable systems in Guangdong Province, near Hong Kong.

The license came with a catch. The News Corporation again consented to transmit Chinese programs — this time, the English-language news, talk shows and cultural shows on CCTV’s Channel 9 — to the United States and Britain. Time Warner later agreed to similar terms. But the market appeared to be opening, with the News Corporation in the lead.

Prime Time

The News Corporation and its joint venture partners controlled 9 of the 31 foreign channels, including news, movies, music videos and sports, more than any other foreign media company. Officially, however, it could still reach only government and foreign compounds and luxury hotels, as well as homes in Guangdong. Mr. Murdoch wanted more.

Good news appeared to come in 2004. The authorities began allowing Chinese-foreign joint ventures to produce shows that could be broadcast locally without the restrictions that apply to overseas content.

Mr. Murdoch interpreted the order liberally. The News Corporation allied itself with a state-run broadcaster in the western province of Qinghai. The arrangement covered not only production but also distribution. Through middlemen, the News Corporation also purchased prime-time slots in 25 Chinese provinces. It had become a backdoor national broadcaster.

Aware that the venture pushed the limits of what regulators allowed, the News Corporation sought to arrange political cover, people involved in arranging the deal said. It recruited a media and stock market entrepreneur named Ding Yuchen to join the venture as a partner. Mr. Ding’s father, Ding Guangen, was the longtime propaganda chief. A second partner was the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League, considered the political power base of China’s new top leader, Hu Jintao.

In comments to News Corporation investors in early 2005, Mr. Murdoch boasted of a “new venture,” which he did not name, “where we’ll have nearly 50 percent of a prime-time channel, which will have access to well over 100 million homes.”

It did not endure. The News Corporation used Qinghai to broadcast branded shows it had produced for its own, more limited channel. When they began appearing nationally, competitors complained that Mr. Murdoch was getting special treatment.

The Propaganda Department forced the News Corporation to end its involvement with Qinghai shortly thereafter. The cost of the debacle: between $30 million and $60 million, people connected to the company at the time said.

News Corporation executives said they felt the political winds had shifted against them. President Jiang, who retired from his final post as military chief in 2004, had lost much of his day-to-day influence. President Hu’s propaganda team pulled in the reins. Mr. Murdoch said publicly that he had hit a “brick wall.”

Mr. Liu, Mr. Murdoch’s partner at Phoenix, said the Qinghai venture “is not something I would have tried” because it ran afoul of media regulations. But he said Mr. Murdoch had not lost the good will of senior officials. “They still recognize his contributions,” he said.

When Mr. Murdoch visited China late last year, he met Liu Yunshan, Mr. Ding’s successor as propaganda chief, and Liu Qi, the party secretary of Beijing and the top coordinator for the 2008 Olympics.

The News Corporation also entered an alliance with China Mobile, the state-owned company that is the world’s largest mobile communications operator. Mr. Liu of Phoenix said the move “could open a new, lucrative highway” to provide media content to China’s 480 million mobile-phone users.

Wendi Murdoch has stepped up her role in China. She plotted a strategy for the News Corporation’s social networking site, MySpace, to enter the Chinese market, people involved with the company said. The News Corporation decided to license the MySpace name to a local consortium of investors organized by Ms. Murdoch.

As a local venture, MySpace China, which began operations in the spring, abides by domestic censorship laws and the “self discipline” regime that governs proprietors of Chinese Web sites. Every page on the site has a link allowing users or monitors to “report inappropriate information” to the authorities. Microsoft, Google and Yahoo have made similar accommodations for their Web sites in China.

The Murdochs will soon be able to call Beijing home. Workers have nearly finished renovating their traditional courtyard-style house in Beijing’s exclusive Beichizi district, a block from the Forbidden City. Beneath the steep-pitched roofs and wooden eaves of freshly coated vermillion and gold, the courtyard has an underground swimming pool and billiard room, according to people who have seen the design.

Plainclothes security officers linger on the street outside. One neighbor is the retired prime minister, Mr. Zhu, who invited Mr. Murdoch to become Chinese.

Monday, June 25, 2007

NY Whore Times cries about - "undue influence in media & government" of Rupert Murdoch! Takes one to know one...

<< But almost immediately he began looking for ways around that rule. >>

Just as, for the past dozen years, the LYING, WHORE New York TIMES has been "looking for ways AROUND" minimum standards of journalistic decency and honest reporting.

No doubt, this NYT article is a very good expose of Rupert Murdoch's use of cash and media to arm-twist (extort) legislation and favors that will benefit his empire.

But as Gene Lyons and Joe Conason detail in their book, "The Hunting of the President," the New York Times, itself, has been resorting to LIES and atrocious reporting for almost a decade-and-a-half in an effort to boost their (neo-con, media-conglomerate) agenda, whatever the cost to victims harmed by their journalistic lies. (Vince Foster driven to suicide by the bogus "White House Travel Office 'scandal,' Wen Ho Lee falsely accused of spying; Webster Hubbel convicted of "overbilling partners and clients" while the WHORE Times turns a blind eye to Cheney's Halliburton contracts and billions missing from Iraq war funding; American votes ROBBED of their votes while the Whore Times pretends Republican disenfranchisement and electronic vote theft don't exist, etc. etc. etc. etc.)

MEDIA WHOREDOM, thy name is "New York Times", and it is good to see you get all jealous and touchy about your long partner in press-media crimes, Rupert Murdoch.

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The Murdochracy
Mixing Government and Media

This article was reported by Jo Becker, Richard Siklos, Jane Perlez and Raymond Bonner, and written by Ms. Becker.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/25/business/media/25murdoch.html


In the fall of 2003, a piece of Rupert Murdoch’s sprawling media empire was in jeopardy.

Congress was on the verge of limiting any company from owning local television stations that reached more than 35 percent of American homes. Mr. Murdoch’s Fox stations reached nearly 39 percent, meaning he would have to sell some.

A strike force of Mr. Murdoch’s lobbyists joined other media companies in working on the issue. The White House backed the industry, and in a late-night meeting just before Thanksgiving, Congressional leaders agreed to raise the limit — to 39 percent.

One leader of the Congressional movement to limit ownership was Senator Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi. But in the end, he, too, agreed to the compromise. It turns out he had a business connection to Mr. Murdoch. Months before, HarperCollins, Mr. Murdoch’s publishing house, had signed a $250,000 book deal to publish Mr. Lott’s memoir, “Herding Cats,” records and interviews show.

An aide to Mr. Lott said the book deal had no bearing on the senator’s decision, and a spokesman for Mr. Murdoch chalked it up to coincidence. Still, the ownership fight showcases the confluence of business, political and media prowess that is central to the way Mr. Murdoch has built his global information conglomerate.

His vast media holdings give him a gamut of tools — not just campaign contributions, but also jobs for former government officials and media exposure that promotes allies while attacking adversaries, sometimes viciously — all of which he has used to further his financial interests and establish his legitimacy in the United States, interviews and government records show.

Mr. Murdoch may be best known in the this country as the man who created Fox News as a counterweight to what he saw as a liberal bias in the news media. But he has often set aside his conservative ideology in pursuit of his business interests. In recent years, he has spread campaign contributions across both sides of the political aisle and nurtured relationships with the likes of Bill and Hillary Clinton.

More than 30 years after the Australian-born Mr. Murdoch arrived on the American newspaper scene and turned The New York Post into a racy, right-leaning tabloid, his holding company, the News Corporation, has offered $5 billion to buy a pillar of the business news establishment — Dow Jones, parent company of The Wall Street Journal.

The sale would give Mr. Murdoch control of the pre-eminent journalistic authority on the world in which he is an active, aggressive participant. What worries his critics is that Mr. Murdoch will use The Journal, which has won many Pulitzer Prizes and has a sterling reputation for accuracy and fairness, as yet another tool to further his myriad financial and political agendas.

“It is hard to imagine Rupert Murdoch publishing The New York Post in Midtown Manhattan, with all of his personal and political biases and business interests reflected every day, while publishing The Wall Street Journal in Downtown Manhattan with no interference whatsoever,” James Ottaway Jr., a 5 percent shareholder and former director of Dow Jones, said recently.

Members of the Bancroft family, which controls Dow Jones, have sought elaborate assurances from Mr. Murdoch that he will preserve the independence of The Journal’s news coverage. Last night, advisers to both sides said they were close to reaching an agreement on editorial control, but it was unclear whether the Bancrofts would approve a deal. When he bought The Times of London in 1981 he gave similar assurances, but some former editors say he meddled with news operations anyway.

Mr. Murdoch declined a request for an interview, but has recently said he would preserve The Journal’s independence. Gary L. Ginsberg, a News Corporation executive, said it was “insulting” for anyone to suggest that Mr. Murdoch would compromise the integrity of “one of the world’s great newspapers” adding, “It’s not good business and it’s not good politics and it’s absurd on its face.”

From his beginnings as a proprietor of a single Australian newspaper, Mr. Murdoch now commands a news, entertainment and Internet enterprise whose $68 billion value slightly exceeds that of the Walt Disney Company.

The American newspaper industry has never seen a publisher quite like him. Mr. Murdoch has long been a pivotal figure in England and Australia, and in the dozen years since he has moved his base of operations to this country, he has insinuated himself into the political and financial fabric of the United States. His businesses have thrived in a highly regulated environment in part because of his remarkable ability to mold the rules to fit his needs.

This became clear in the regulatory fight over media ownership, a battle critical to Mr. Murdoch’s audacious creation of a fourth national television network, Fox. He has also turned his political clout on business rivals, as he did when he mounted a campaign recently against the Nielsen television rating agency.

“Rupert is sort of an 18th-century guy: the world is still forming, and he’s going to do what he can to hack out a place in the wilderness and defend it,” said Richard D. Parsons, the chairman of Time Warner, who both competes and socializes with Mr. Murdoch.

Political Relations

Shortly before Christmas in 1987, Senator Edward M. Kennedy taught Mr. Murdoch a tough lesson in the ways of Washington.

Two years earlier, Mr. Murdoch had paid $2 billion to buy seven television stations in major American markets with the intention of starting a national network. To comply with rules limiting foreign ownership, he became an American citizen. And to comply with rules banning the ownership of television stations and newspapers in the same market, he promised to sell some newspapers eventually. But almost immediately he began looking for ways around that rule.

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Saturday, June 23, 2007

The New York Times' YELLOW JOURNALISM - the modern Goebbels of America's neo-con propaganda...

What can we add to this article by Stephen Lendman (at SmirkingChimp.com) that we haven't already said, or that Mr. Lendman doesn't put in his commentary?

That the New York Times publisher and most editors and writers there are PROFESSIONAL LIARS with an agenda, and that they knowingly and willingly subvert American democracy and a free and independent media, for increased power and profit?

<< Dictionaries define "yellow journalism" variously as irresponsible and sensationalist reporting that distorts, exaggerates or misstates the truth. It's misinformation or agitprop disinformation masquerading as fact to boost circulation and readership or serve a larger purpose like lying for state and corporate interests. The dominant US media excel in it, producing a daily diet of fiction portrayed as real news and information in their role as our national thought-control police gatekeepers. In the lead among the print and electronic corporate-controlled media is the New York Times THIS PAPER'S PRIMARY MISSION is to be the LEAD INSTRUMENT OF STATE PROPAGANDA MAKING IT THE CLOSEST THING WE HAVE IN THE COUNTRY TO AN OFFICIAL MINISTRY OF INFORMATION and PROPAGANDA. >>

We here at MediaWhoresUSA will add only that, given that millions of Europeans fell victims to the hate and violence incited by Nazi propaganda before and during WWII (including of course 6 million Jews), one might hope that the Jewish-owned New York Times (owned by the Sulzberger family) might understand that they have a RESPONSIBILITY to honest and impartial journalism, above and beyond corporate profits and the state-uber-alles agenda, and that they would not copy that same aggressive state/corporate monopoly on power and public discourse that drove Germany to destroy the peace in Europe just 20 years after the end of the First World War.


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The Record of the Newspaper of Record
by Stephen Lendman
Jun 20 2007
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/8203


Dictionaries define "yellow journalism" variously as irresponsible and sensationalist reporting that distorts, exaggerates or misstates the truth. It's misinformation or agitprop disinformation masquerading as fact to boost circulation and readership or serve a larger purpose like lying for state and corporate interests. The dominant US media excel in it, producing a daily diet of fiction portrayed as real news and information in their role as our national thought-control police gatekeepers. In the lead among the print and electronic corporate-controlled media is the New York Times publishing "All The News That's Fit To Print" by its standards. Others wanting real journalism won't find it on their pages allowing only the fake kind. It's because this paper's primary mission is to be the lead instrument of state propaganda making it the closest thing we have in the country to an official ministry of information and propaganda.

Singlehandedly, the Times destroys "The Myth of the Liberal Media" that's also the title of Edward Herman's 1999 book on "the illiberal media," the market system, and what passes for democracy in America Michael Parenti calls "Democracy For the Few," in his book with that title out earlier this year in its 8th edition.

In his book, Herman writes about the "propaganda model" he and Noam Chomsky introduced and developed 11 years earlier in their landmark book titled "Manufacturing Consent." They explained how the dominant media use this technique to program the public mind to go along with whatever agenda best serves wealth and power interests. So imperial wars of aggression are portrayed as liberating ones, humanitarian intervention, and spreading democracy to nations without any. Never mind they're really for new markets, resources like oil, and cheap exploitable labor paid for with public tax dollars diverted from essential social needs.

In "The Myth of the Liberal Media," Herman explains the "propaganda model" focuses on "the inequality of wealth and power" and how those with most of it can "filter out the news to print, marginalize dissent (and assure) government and dominant private interests" control the message and get it to the public. It's done through a set of "filters" removing what's to be suppressed and "leaving only the cleansed (acceptable) residue fit to print" or broadcast electronically. Parenti's "Democracy For the Few" is democracy-US style the rest of us are stuck with.

Books have been written on how, going back decades, the New York Times betrayed the public trust serving elitist interests alone. It plays the lead and most influential media role disseminating state and corporate propaganda to the nation and world. In terms of media clout, the Times is unmatched with its prominent front page being what media critic Norman Solomon calls "the most valuable square inches of media real estate in the USA" - more accurately, anywhere.

Examples of Times duplicity are endless showing up every day on its pages. The shameless Judith Miller saga is just the latest episode of how bad they can get, but she had her predecessors, and the beat goes on since she left in disgrace. Through the years, the Times never met a US war of aggression it didn't love and support. It was never bothered by CIA's functioning as a global Mafia-style hit squad/training headquarters ousting democratically elected governments, assassinating foreign heads of state and key officials, propping up friendly dictators, funding and training secret paramilitary armies and death squads, and now snatching individuals for "extraordinary rendition" to torture-prison hellholes, some run by the agency and all taking orders from it.

CIA, as Chalmers Johnson notes, is a state within a state functioning as the president's unaccountable private army with unchecked powers and a near-limitless off-the-books secret budget we now know tops $44 billion annually. It menaces democratic rule, threatens the Republic's survival and makes any notion of a free society impossible as long as this agency exists. Not a problem at New York Times. It worked closely with CIA since the 1950s allowing some of its foreign correspondents to be Agency assets or agents. It no doubt still does.

The Times is also unbothered by social decay at home, an unprecedented wealth disparity, an administration mocking the rule of law, a de facto one party state with two wings and a president usurping "unitary executive" powers claiming the law is what he says it is making him a dictator. It practically reveres the cesspool of corrupted incestuous ties between government and business, mocking any notion of democracy of, for, or by the people. That's the state of the nation's "liberal media" headquartered in the Times building in New York.

The New York Times v. Hugo Chavez

This article focuses on one example of Times duplicity among many other prominent ones equally sinister and disturbing - its venomous agitprop targeting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez this writer calls the leading model democratic leader on the planet even though he's not perfect, nor is anyone else. That's why after "Islamofascist terrorists" he's practically "enemy number one" on the Times hit list and Washington's. Besides Venezuela being oil rich, Chavez is the greatest of all threats the US faces - a good example that's spreading. His governance shows how real social democracy works exposing the fake American kind.

That's intolerable to the masters of the universe and their leading media proponent, the New York Times. It always plays the lead media role keeping the world safe for wealth and power. So on June 6, it hauled out former Peruvian president and first ever indigenous Andean one in the country's history - Alejandro Toledo (2001 - 2006). His electoral campaign promised a populist vision for Peruvians, to create new jobs, address dire social needs of the country's poor, and end years of corruption and hard line rule under Alberto Fujimori, now a wanted man on charges of corruption and human rights abuses.

Toledo was little better, failing on all counts pushing the same repressive neoliberal policies he was elected to end. He was in tow with Washington's agenda of privatizations, deregulation, IMF/World Bank diktats, debt service, and overall contempt for the essential social needs of his people. He was also tainted with corruption, and during his tenure violence was used against protest demonstrators, criminal suspects in prisons were beaten and tortured, and dozens of journalists were threatened or attacked for criticizing local politicians or him.

No problem for the New York Times that published his June 6 op ed piece titled "Silence = Despotism." In it, he said "Political democracy will take root in Latin America only when it is accompanied by economic and social democracy (under) political systems....free and fair for all." As Peru's president, he thwarted efforts to do what he now says he champions. Toledo continued saying "our citizens" must be heard, and if free speech is silenced in one country, "silence could spread to other nations" pointing his hypocritical finger squarely at Hugo Chavez.

Venezuelans, he says, "are in the streets (today) confronting repressions. Courageous students raise the flags of freedom, refusing to mortgage their future by remaining silent." He quickly gets to the point citing Hugo Chavez's refusal to renew RCTV's Channel 2 VHF license saying "This is about more than one TV station. President Chavez has become a destabilizing figure throughout the hemisphere because he feels he can silence anyone with opposing thoughts (by) silencing them through repression or government decrees." He then called on other Latin American leaders to confront "authoritarianism" and "stand up for continent-wide solidarity" citing his own presidency and how "it never occurred to (him) to silence (critical) media outlets (or) nationalize them."

Toledo's tainted record as president belies his shameless pieties on the Times op ed page. He did more than try silencing critics. He stayed mute when they were attacked or when two or more of them were killed. The New York Times knows his record even though it suppressed the worst of it while he was in office. Yet it gave him prominent space to denounce Hugo Chavez's social democracy and legal right not to renew the operating license of a TV channel for its repeated illegal seditious acts. RCTV was a serial abuser of its right to use the public airwaves. It was then guilty of supporting and being complicit with efforts to foment insurrection to overthrow Venezuela's democratically elected government.

Toledo ignored this saying, as Peru's president, he was "always....respectful of opinions" differing from his own. He would "never agree with those who prefer silence instead of dissonant voices. Those....who embrace liberty and democracy must stand ready to work in solidarity with the Venezuelan people." He failed to say which ones he meant, surely not the 70% or more backing Chavez. And by failing to denounce RCTV's lawlessness, he showed he condoned it. He also forgot his successor as president, Alan Garcia, lawlessly silenced two Peruvian TV stations and three radio stations, apparently for supporting a lawful strike Garcia opposes.

The New York Times has an ugly record bashing Hugo Chavez since he was elected with a mandate to make participatory social democracy the cornerstone of his presidency. That's anathema to Washington and its chief media ally, the New York Times. Since 1999 when he took office, it hammered Chavez with accusations of opposing the US-sponsored Free Trade of the Americas (FTAA) without explaining it would sell out to big capital at the expense of his people if adopted.

Following his election in December, 1998, Times Latin American reporter Larry Roher wrote: (Latin American) presidents and party leaders are looking over their shoulders (worried about the) specter....the region's ruling elite thought they had safely interred: that of the populist demagogue, the authoritarian man on horseback known as the caudillo (strongman)."

The Times later denounced him for using petrodollars for foreign aid to neighbors, equating promoting solidarity, cooperation and respecting other nations' sovereignty with subversion and buying influence. It criticized his raising royalties and taxes on foreign investors, never explaining it was to end their longtime preferential treatment making them pay their fair share as they should. It bashed him for wanting his own people to benefit most from their own resources, not predatory oil and other foreign investors the way it was before Chavez took office. No longer, and that can't be tolerated in Washington or on the pages of the New York Times.

When state oil company PDVSA became majority shareholder with foreign investors May 1 with a minimum 60% ownership in four Orinoco River basin oil projects, the Times savaged Chavez. It condemned his "revolutionary flourish (and his) ambitious (plan to) wrest control of several major oil projects from American and European companies (with a) showdown (ahead for these) coveted energy resources...." Unmentioned was these resources belong to the Venezuelan people. The Times also accuses Chavez of allowing "politics and ideology" to drive US-Venezuelan confrontation "to limit American influence around the world, starting in Venezuela's oil fields."

It calls him "divisive, a ruinous demagogue, provocative (and) the next Fidel Castro." It savored the 2002 aborted two day coup ousting him calling it a "resignation" and that Venezuela "no longer (would be) threatened by a would-be dictator." It reported he "stepped down (and was replaced by (a) respected business leader" (Pedro Carmona - president of Fedecamaras, the Venezuelan Federation of Chambers of Commerce).

Unmentioned was that Carmona was hand-picked in Washington and by Venezuelan oligarchs to do their bidding at the expense of the people. He proved his bona fides by suspending the democratically elected members of the National Assembly and crushing Bolivarian Revolutionary Constitutional reforms, quickly restored once Chavez was reinstated in office. Carmona fled to Colombia seeking political asylum from where Venezuela's Supreme Court now wants him extradited on charges of civil rebellion. Unmentioned also was that the Times had to dismiss one of its Venezuelan reporters, Francisco Toro, in January, 2003 when Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) revealed he was an anti-Chavista activist masquerading as an objective journalist.

Back to the present, the Times claims Chavez is moving to consolidate his dictatorial powers by shuttering RCTV's Channel 2 and silencing his critics. It portrays him as a Latin American strongman waging class warfare with socialist rhetoric. It asks how long Venezuelans will put up with the destruction of their democratic freedoms? It points to "evidence Mr. Chavez's definition of the enemy has been enlarged to include news media outlets....critical of his government....extending his control beyond political institutions (alone)." This marks a "shift from the early years of his presidency, when he (also) faced vitriolic criticism" from the media.

The Times speculates how brutal he'll become silencing critics and quelling protests wondering if he'll use proxies to do it. It then questions whether Chavez overstepped enough to marshall large-scale opposition to him to push him past the tipping point that will inevitably lead to his loss of credibility and power. Might this be a thinly disguished Times effort to create the reality it supports by wishing for it through the power of suggestion.

Times business columnist Roger Lowenstein is on board to make it happen. He claims, with no substantiation, Chavez "militarized the government, emasculated the country's courts, intimidated the media, eroded confidence in the economy and hollowed out Venezuela's once-democratic institutions." Turn this on its head to know the truth Lowenstein won't report - that Chavez militarized nothing. He put his underutilized military to work implementing Venezuela's Plan Bolivar 2000 constructing housing for the poor, building roads, conducting mass vaccinations, and overall serving people needs, not invading and occupying other countries and threatening to flatten other "uncooperative" ones.

Venezuela's courts function independently of the democratically elected President and National Assembly. The media is the freest and most open in the region and the world with most of it corporate owned as it is nearly everywhere. Further, business is booming enough to get the Financial Times to say bankers were having "a party," and the country never had a functioning democracy until Hugo Chavez made it flourish there.

Times Venezuelan reporter Simon Romero is little better than Lowenstein or others sending back agitprop disguised as real journalism in his Venezuelan coverage, including RCTV closure street protests. He made events on Caracas streets sound almost like a one-sided uprising of protesters against Chavez with "images of policemen with guns drawn" intimidating them. He highlighted Chavez's critics claiming "the move to allow RCTV's license to expire amounts to a stifling of dissent in the news media." He quoted Elisa Parejo, one of RCTV's first soap opera stars, saying "What we're living in Venezuela is a monstrosity. It is a dictatorship."

He quoted right wing daily newspaper El Nacional as well portraying the RCTV decision as "the end of pluralism" in the country. Gonzalo Marroquin, president of the corporate media-controlled Inter-American Press Association (IAPA), was also cited saying Chavez wants to "standardize the right to information (indicating) a very bleak outlook for the whole hemisphere." He invented corporate-cooked polling numbers showing "most Venezuelans oppose Mr. Chavez's decision not to renew RCTV's license." In fact, the opposite is true and street demonstrators for and against RCTV's shuttering proved it. Venezuelans supporting Chavez dwarfed the opposition many times over. But you won't find Romero or any other Times correspondent reporting that. If any try doing it, they'll end up doing obits as their future beat.

Back in February, Romero was at it earlier. Then, he hyped Venezuela's arms spending making it sound like Chavez threatened regional stability and was preparing to bomb or invade Miami. Romero's incendiary headline read "Venezuela Spending on Arms Soars to World's Top Ranks." It began saying "Venezuela's arms spending has climbed to more than $4 billion in the past two years, transforming the nation into Latin America's largest weapons buyer" with suggestive comparisons to Iran. The report revealed this information came from the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) making that unreliable source alone reason to question its accuracy and what's behind it.

The figure quoted refers only to what Venezuela spends on arms, not its total military spending. Unmentioned was that the country's total military spending is half of Agentina's, less than one-third of Colombia's, and one-twelfth of Brazil's according to Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation figures ranking Venezuela 63rd in the world in military spending. The Center also reported Venezuela's 2004 military budget at $1.1 billion making Romero's $4 billion DIA figure phony and a spurious attempt to portray Chavez as a regional threat needing to be counteracted. At that level, he's also outspent by the Pentagon 500 to one, or lots more depending on how US military spending and homeland security readiness are calculated, including all their unreported or hidden costs.

On June 12, Venezuela Analysis.com reported, in an article by "Oil Wars," the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) indicated Venezuela's military spending for 2006 was $1.9 billion. The report's author voiced skepticism so compared this number to Venezuela's Ministry of Defense expenditures for that year in its "Memoria y Cuenta." It's figure was $1,977,179,179 thousand Bolivars that converted to US dollars comes to $919,618,000. To that must be added another $1.09 billion the Ministry of Defense got from Venezuela's FONDEN, or development fund. Adding both numbers together, of course, shows the country's 2006 military spending at $2 billion.

Based on The Independent Institute's Senior Fellow Robert Higgs' calculation of US defense spending for FY 2006 of $934.9 billion, it still means the Pentagon outspends Venezuela's military by around 500 to one. Higgs includes the separate budgets for the Department of Defense, Energy, State, Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security, Treasury's Military Retirement Fund, other smaller defense-related budgets plus net interest paid attributable to past debt-financed defense outlays. Even then, he omitted off-the-books budgets and secret intelligence ones for CIA and NSA.

Back to the Times' Romero and it's clear his reporting smells the same as Iraq's WMDs and Iran's legal commercial nuclear program being threat enough to warrant sanctions and a US military response. Romero is right in step with Bush administration World Bank president neocon nominee Robert Zoellick. He took aim at Hugo Chavez from Mexico City June 16 with warnings Venezuela is "a country where economic problems are mounting, and as we're seeing on the political side it's not moving in a healthy direction."

Romero reports similar agitprop and did it May 17 in his article titled "Clash of Hope and Fear as Venezuela Seizes Land." He began saying "The squatters arrive before dawn with machetes and rifles, surround the well-ordered rows of sugar cane and threaten to kill anyone who interferes. Then they light a match to the crops and declare the land their own." He continued saying "Mr. Chavez is carrying out what may become the largest forced land redistribution in Venezuela's history, building utopian farming villages for squatters, lavishing money on new cooperatives and sending army commando units to supervise seized estates in six states."

Violence has accompanied seizures, says Romero, "with more than 160 peasants killed by hired gunmen in Venezuela (and) Eight landowners have also been killed...." Since Chavez took office, there have been peasant and other violent deaths, but most of them have been at the hands of US-Colombian government financed paramilitary death squads operating in Venezuela.

Romero stays clear of this while making his rhetoric sound like an armed insurrection is underway in Venezuela forcibly and illegally seizing land from its rightful owners. What's going on, in fact, is quite different that can only be touched on briefly to explain. Hugo Chavez first announced his "Return to the Countryside" plan under the Law on Land and Agricultural Development in November, 2001. The law set limits on landholding size; taxed unused property; aimed to redistribute unused, mainly government-owned land to peasant families and cooperatives; and expropriate uncultivated, unused land from large private owners compensating them at fair market value. So, in fact, the government seizes nothing. It buys unused land from large estates and pays for it so landless peasants can have and use it productively for the first time ever benefitting everyone equitably.

Nowhere in his article did Romero explain this although he did acknowledge prior to 2002, "an estimated 5 per cent of the population owned 80 per cent of the country's private land." By omitting what was most important to include, Romero's report distorted the truth enough to assure his readers never get it from him. Nor do they from any other Times correspondent when facts conflict with imperial interests. That's what we've come to expect from the "newspaper of record" never letting truth interfere with serving wealth and power interests that includes lying for them. Shameless reporting on Venezuela under Hugo Chavez is one of many dozens of examples of Times duplicity and disservice to its readers going back decades.

Former Times journalist John Hess denounced it his way: I "never saw a foreign intervention that the Times did not support, never saw a fare....rent....or utility increase that it did not endorse, never saw it take the side of labor in a strike or lockout, or advocate a raise for underpaid workers. And don't get me started on universal health care and Social Security. So why do people think the Times is liberal?" And why should anyone think its so-called news and information is anything more than propaganda for the imperial interests it serves?

Robert McChesney and Mark Weisbrot explained it well in their June 1 CommonDreams.org article on "Venezuela and the Media" saying: "the US media coverage (with NYT in the lead) of Venezuela's RCTV controversy (and most everything else) says more about the deficiencies of our own news media than it does about Venezuela. It demonstrates again (it's more) willing to carry water for Washington (and the corporate interests it serves) than to ascertain and report the truth of the matter." At the Times, truth is always the first casualty, but especially when the nation's at war.
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About author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Washington Post's Richard Cohen shows his cowardly, lying, AIPAC neo-con stripes... blames FITZGERALD for Cheney's OUTING of CIA operation...!

Thank god for this awful op-ed by the Washington Whore Post's token "moderate"/"liberal", columnist Richard Cohen
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/18/AR2007061801366_pf.html


Cohen, like most writers and columnists from the Post, has of course long be an unabashed if slightly white-washed neo-con. You could not possibly work at the Washington Post and see the atrocious lies and frauds of the Bush-Cheney administration around you daily, without speaking out to the point of being exiled (fired), if you weren't a dyed-in-the-wool authortarian, imperial America-uber-alles neo-con.

Cohen, however, has been such the master of inoffensive, wishy-washy, "hear no evil, see no evil, for god's sake speak no evil' of the gross corruption in Washington of which he is part, that it has taken us 4 or 5 or 6 or more years to actually nail him down as the anti-democracy neo-con that he actually is and always has been.

Well, thanks to ConsortiumNews.com for bringing Cohen's neo-con coming out party to our attention. According to the whore Post's token "moderate/liberal" Mr. Cohen, Lewis 'Scooter' Libby's PERJURY and OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE _CONVICTIONS_ are all a case of an out-of-control federal prosecutor - Patrick Fitzgerald - harassing hard working and powerless White House officials, and poor Mr. Libby should be set free to OUT MORE COVERT US CIA OPERATIONS, OBSTRUCT MORE justice, and allow the SMEARING and INTIMIDATION of more administration critics. By obsttructing the FBI investigation into the Bush-Cheney-Rove White House's illgal outing of CIA agent, Mr. Libby DERAILED the investigation into that crime well past the 2004 election, effectively smoothering a re-election killing scandal until well past that presidential election of 2004.

Mr. Richard Cohen of the Washington Post is also a textbook example of the AIPAC sense of entitlement: "OF COURSE our agents and political allies can OUT an ENTIRE CIA UNDERCOVER OPERATION (Brewster-Jennings Energy Consultants co.) if that is required in the larger effort to get the US military fighting wars all through the MiddleEast - we own the US government, and if we destroy one CIA operation, it is because we are entitled to expend a portion of 'our' US military/defense/intel assets in pursuit of larger victories." While Libby, Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld and Bush may not be charter members of AIPAC, Cheney, Libby, and Rumsfeld most certainly were co-signers of the PNAC "use the US military towards 'regime change' in Iraq at earliest possible moment" manifesto - along with charter AIPAC/PNAC neo-cons Elliott Abrams, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Bill Kristol, and others.

http://newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm

http://newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm

His mild-mannered, inoffensive covered story blown to smithereens as he tries to SMEAR the US prosecutor who proved that ONLY OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE prevented the Bush administration from being completely blown out of office in 2004 (John Kerry's pathetic, anemic, punching-bag campaign not-with-standing), the Washington Post's token "liberal/moderate" op-ed columnist Richard Cohen reveals himself as the administration-enabling, smear-mongering-supporting, high-crimes ignoring, government-by-presidential-dictatorial-decree neo-con that he truly is.

===========================================================

Is WP's Cohen Dumbest Columnist?
Cohen accuses special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald of violating longstanding Justice Department guidelines


By Robert Parry
June 19, 2007
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/061907.html

Granted it would be quite a competition, but is Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen the dumbest columnist ever?

In his June 19 op-ed, Cohen joined the latest Inside-the-Beltway craze, the neoconservative media riot over the 30-month jail sentence facing former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby.

From reading the column, it does appear that Cohen has the skills at least to master and recite the litany of talking points that the neocons have compiled to make their case about the injustice of Libby going into the slammer for committing perjury and obstruction of justice.
[continued]

===================================================================


Washington Whore Post columnist RICHARD COHEN whimpers and whine for - Lewis 'Scooter' Libby - the PRESIDENT's SENIOR ADVISOR _AND_ Vice President's Chief of staff - at the very heart of the illegal outing of a CIA agent (and her entire undercover CIA supporting cover operation) as a means of SMEARING a vocal administration war critic in the weeks shortly after the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The Runaway Train That Hit Scooter Libby
By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, June 19, 2007; A17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/18/AR2007061801366_pf.html

(this WHORE-iffic example of Washington Post LIES, SMEARS, INNUENDOS, and nation-gutting falsehoods isn't worth reprinting a single paragraph.)

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Media whores IGNORE full extent of Abu Ghraib TORTURE investigation...

Although USA Today is running this excellent op-ed about how pervasive was the culture of ABUSE, SADISM, and TORTURE in US run prisons in Iraq (most notably at Abu Ghraib), overall, the American media has IGNORED this story, in a white-wash effort to maintain America's "moral values" high ground through sheer deception.

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Army, or the Mafia?
USA Today editorial board...
20 June 2006
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/06/the_army_or_the.html


Early in 2004, one man — Army Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba — seemed to embody guarantees of a thorough investigation into the abuses at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison that so stained the USA's reputation.


Amid allegations that prisoners were stripped and sexually humiliated by U.S. guards at the notorious jail, Taguba was assigned to investigate the military reservists running the prison. He concluded — in a report and congressional testimony — that the "sadistic, blatant and wanton" acts depicted in the infamous photos pointed to "systemic and illegal abuse." In other words, responsibility extended beyond just a few bad apples on the night shift, as the Pentagon preferred to cast it.

Taguba's unflinching honesty showed the United States at its best: following blame wherever it led.

But that was the last the public saw of Taguba, and his brand of integrity.

The Pentagon quickly shifted the spotlight back to those at the prison. Seven low-ranking soldiers were convicted in courts martial, sentenced to federal prison time and dishonorably discharged from service. The military reserve commander was demoted.

End of story. Or is it?

This week, Taguba broke his subsequent silence to investigative reporter Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker magazine, which published the original photos in 2004. He described his ostracism after his findings pointed to wider blame. He told of how he was quickly ordered to a Pentagon desk job — then forced to resign in January this year. He confessed to feeling as if he had joined the Army, but wound up in the Mafia.

Taguba's remarks are a reminder that the scandal still lacks thorough investigation — one that might explain how abuses could have turned up not only at Abu Ghraib but also in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, if no higher-ups were culpable.

The U.S. justice system is in the process of reasserting fairer treatment for U.S. detainees, through cases in the Supreme Court and lower courts. A fuller understanding of what led to Abu Ghraib would help that effort — not to needlessly rake up the past but to establish clear standards for the future. For credibility's sake, it would even be interesting to see Taguba back on the case. But that, plainly enough, is not the way things work.

Posted at 12:20 AM/ET, June 19, 2007 in Criminal justice - Editorial, Military issues - Editorial, People - Editorial, Politics, Government - Editorial, USA TODAY editorial | Permalink
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Sunday, June 17, 2007

Media WHORES steadfastly DOWNPLAY and IGNORE the building IMPEACHMENT effort against Dick Cheney......

America's Media Whores are opportunistic vultures who are now thriving off the misery and desperation of millions of Americans. Katie Couric, for one, had a clause written into her CBS contract, "no hazardous or dangerous assignments."

How very "land of the free and home of the brave" American of you, Katie... you can always depend on the suckers down at the police department, the fire department, hospitals (exposure to deadly diseases and high stress) and of course those 'grunts' fighting a quagmire war for $3,000 per month to protect your precious multi-millionaire hide and media whore sense of entitlement.

Jones Radio network "liberal" talk show host Big Ed Schultz made a case that CBS's poor news ratings since Katie became lead anchor there have been a reflection of Couric's isolation from the big news stories that CBS covers. Schultz points out that no matter the story, Katie will not budge from her precious New York CBS corporate office news ste - which makes her little more than a glorified announcer and paper shuffler.

Americans want a lot more INSIGHT with their network news, than an overpaid "bubble headed bleach blond" (as in Don Henley's infamous formulation) can deliver - in our previous post we also quoted Eagles rock-band singer Don Henley's song "Dirty Laundry" about how the "bubble headed bleach blond ["if it bleeds, it leads" local news anchor] will tell you about the plane crash, with a gleam in her eyes." (Indeed, here is a link about Katie's new freshman status" as a high-roller living the high-life in the Hamptons, and how she is almost certainly projecting an aura of glam gal OVER serious news anchor: Katie Couric: Evening News Anchor or Calendar Girl? http://beach.curbed.com/archives/2006/08/11/katie_couric_evening_news_anchor_or_calendar_girl.php

We did not at all intend to make Katie Couric's preference for glam and zillionaire lifestyle over journalistic substance the centerpiece of this post, which is about how the MEDIA WHORES _IGNORE_ the growing groundswell in America for IMPEACHMENT of the Vice President who did NOTHING when told "Al Qaida is coming to attack in America" in person, by no less than three authorities: National Security Advisor Condi Rice, Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet, and 'National Counter-Terror Czar' Richard Clarke.

Tens of thousands of Americans have suffered greatly since Dick Cheney helped steal the elections of 2000 and 2004 - and Katie Couric and her fellow overpaid talking-head media millionaires could care less, or deign to notice. There are, after all, MILLIONS of CHUMP Americans out there to do Katie's dirty laundry, protect her home and estate, and do all the other hard, dangerous work that America's overpaid media pooh-bahs look down on.

=============================================



Dave Lindorff: Cheney Impeachment Watch: Now There are Eight
BuzzFlash guest editorial
Thu, 06/14/2007
by Dave Lindorff
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/1077


It's getting almost entertaining to watch how long it will take for the corporate media to finally admit to the American public that there is a serious move underway in Congress to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney for high crimes and misdemeanors.

Almost two months ago, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) submitted a bill of impeachment (H. Res. 333) against the vice president, charging him with lying about the reasons for invading Iraq, and for illegally threatening to invade Iran -- something we know that Cheney is still doing with a vengeance. Almost no major media outlet reported on the Kucinich bill. The New York Times only grudgingly mentioned it in passing while reporting on the first Democratic presidential debate, and then only because candidate Kucinich was asked about it.

The well-trained corporate media press corps in Washington have also politely refrained from asking House Speaker Nancy "Impeachment is off the table" Pelosi about the Kucinich bill. They haven't pressed House Judiciary Chair John Conyers either (though I suspect his wife, Detroit City Council President Monica Conyers, who rammed through a council resolution calling on the House to initiate impeachment proceedings against Bush and Cheney, does probably ask him every morning at breakfast when he's going to act on his own professed convictions).

This polite silence is as incredible as it is shameful and unprofessional -- the kind of thing you'd expect to see in a country with a state-controlled media such as China, or in a quasi-police state such as Russia, but not in a nation which boasts of its "free" press.

Over the past few weeks, members of a cowed, Pelosi-whipped Democratic congressional caucus have slowly been coming around to support Rep. Kucinich's bill. One by one, progressive legislators have signed onto the bill as co-sponsors. The most recent co-sponsor is Rep. Maxine Waters, a popular black congresswoman from Los Angeles who heads the House Out of Iraq Caucus and who has openly talked of impeachment of both Bush and Cheney in the past.

While six earlier co-sponsors signed on to H Res. 333 quietly, Waters announced her support for the Cheney impeachment bill on June 13 in a joint press conference with Kucinich. Her decision to support Cheney's impeachment will certainly embolden other members of Congress to sign on too.

Still, the Waters-Kucinich press conference received almost no mainstream press coverage. The right-wing Moonie paper The Washington Times was the only daily to report on the event.

One wonders how many members of Congress will have to become co-sponsors of the Cheney impeachment drive before the corporate media will finally treat it seriously as a news story. A companion question is how many members will have to add their names to the bill before the House leadership will feel compelled to bring the matter up in the House Judiciary Committee.

House Democratic leaders, along with their counterparts in the Senate, are recognizing that the American public is fast losing patience with their inaction and ineffectiveness since taking power after the November election that handed them control of the Congress. We have seen that 15 state Democratic Parties have now passed resolutions calling for impeachment, along with over 70 towns and cities and one state senate (Vermont). The public clearly wants an end to the Iraq War, and polls make it clear they also want action on impeachment. Yet the leadership remains enamored of a disastrous strategy of do-nothingism, hoping that the Bush administration and the Republican Party will simply self-destruct, if Democrats just keep their heads low.

The American public knows better. They know that the Bush administration is capable of anything, and that it is hell-bent on war and more war. And they are sick of this administration, with polls showing support for Bush falling still further, into the 20s (Cheney has been in single digits for some time now).

It has become a waiting game. Watch as the number of Kucinich impeachment bill co-sponsors rise.

At some point, a somnolent press corps will have to react and announce that impeachment is happening. At some point, Pelosi will have to start setting the table for impeachment hearings.

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION

DAVE LINDORFF is co-author, with Barbara Olshansky, of The Case for
Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office (St. Martin's Press, 2006), now available in paperback. His work is available at thiscantbehappening.net.

Thursday, June 07, 2007

Media whores sell hype, celebrity, & snake-oil to our "lizard brains" at expense of vital news of our world & nation... "PUSH vs PULL" programming

"Push vs Pull" news - Marty Kaplan at HuffPost details the media's bias to sell glitz, hype, celebrity - "a diet of FEAR, freakshows, and human interest stories.... that now drives [local] and cable news programming."

These << HYPE FEAR! >> stories - now dominate our most primitive brain and psychological responses, and now dominate America's "major media" news coverage.

For example, CNN's recent breathless coverage of the TB-infected passenger - CNN relentlessly hyping the "CDC Alert!" and "authorities on lookout for infected passenger!" angle of the story - without CNN bothering to tell viewers whether or not there was a single other human on the planet with that same hyper-contagious strain of TB, and why other individuals did not pose as great a threat as our own American "TB man" passenger - CNN's 'news' infotainment/celebrity/villain of the hour.

Psychologists have determined that a constant atmosphere of FEAR depresses people, depresses their immune systems, and leads to other near- and long term mental and social problems, but that is "OK" with America's major media conglomerates - there is MONEY to be made in FEAR, the most primordial of the human emotions, and as the Don Henley song "Dirty Laundry" vents, "the bubble-headed bleach-blonde [local or network news anchor]... will tell you about the plane crash, WITH A GLEAM IN HER EYE."

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<< Push-news is what media gatekeepers dangle to grab our lizard-brain attention. It's most apparent in the stories that dominate local television news, which an astonishing 70 percent of Americans say is their primary source of information: crime, celebrity, fires, freak accidents, cats behind drywall, and cross-promotion of network entertainment. This diet of fear, freakshows and touching human interest stories now also drives cable news programming, which has largely become the national version of local news, with bile-spitting national pundits filling in for happy-talking local anchors. >>

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Paris is Push; Baghdad is Pull
by Marty Kaplan
June 7, 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marty-kaplan/paris-is-push-baghdad-is_b_51135.html
Within 24 hours, no primate on the planet will be unaware of Paris Hilton's transfer from the pokie to the ankle bracelet, but it is a safe bet that within weeks or even months, relatively few Americans will know the big news going down now in Iraq.

It's because journalism is distributed in two flavors: push and pull.

Push-news is what media gatekeepers dangle to grab our lizard-brain attention. It's most apparent in the stories that dominate local television news, which an astonishing 70 percent of Americans say is their primary source of information: crime, celebrity, fires, freak accidents, cats behind drywall, and cross-promotion of network entertainment. This diet of fear, freakshows and touching human interest stories now also drives cable news programming, which has largely become the national version of local news, with bile-spitting national pundits filling in for happy-talking local anchors.

Pull-news is what people seek out. If you read a national newspaper or small-circulation magazines; if you've found non-MSM radio and television programming that values importance over sensation; if you seek out online news aggregators whose priorities you find nutritious; if you bookmark blogs whose hyperlinks take you off the beaten path -- if you've become your own meta-editor and meta-publisher, then you're among the minority who have filled the responsibility-vacuum abdicated by push-news.

This week, the Iraqi parliament "passed a binding resolution that will guarantee lawmakers an opportunity to block the extension of the U.N. mandate under which coalition troops now remain in Iraq when it comes up for renewal in December." But if you didn't read that in an exclusive alternet.org story by Raed Jarrar and Joshua Holland, or if you didn't get an email from a friend (as I did) saying, Didja see this?, you might not know that a majority of Iraqi lawmakers has now fashioned a two-by-four to thump President Bush on the head and end our occupation. But no doubt you would know about the girl locked in a tiny room in Connecticut.

This week, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's top political adviser said "he doubts the prime minister will be able to win passage of key legislation ardently sought by U.S. officials, including a law governing the oil industry and one that would allow more Sunni Arabs to gain government jobs." But if you didn't read that in Ned Parker's exclusive story in the Los Angeles Times, you might not now know that even the Iraqi government has given up on meeting crucial political benchmarks by September. But surely you'd be thoroughly familiar with the anorexia plague stalking starlets.

And as for military benchmarks, a few days ago al-Maliki said, "I have to watch the army, because those still loyal to the previous regime may start planning coups. Those people don't believe in democracy, and for that reason we are monitoring the status of the army very closely." A military coup - by the army we're training! But if you didn't see Lara Logan's exclusive interview with al-Maliki on the cellar-rated CBS Evening News, or watch the clip online, you wouldn't know how close our "freedom agenda" is to becoming a Musharaf-style "democracy." But you'd definitely know that the TB guy's bride is a hottie.

The upside of the ubiquity of Paris push-news is the inevitable -- I hope -- comparison with Scooter Libby. If he spends five days in the slammer bawling on the phone to Dick Cheney, will that get him a house-arrest (or will Dick duck the call)? The downside of the obscurity of Baghdad pull-news is that most of the 24/7 infotainment sewage we swim in remains bereft of reporting from Iraq beyond the repetitive, depressing, and depressingly numbing body-counts.

Democracy, said our Founders, depends on an educated citizenry. That's why they protected the news business with the First Amendment. On the other hand, it's a good bet that Spring Comes Early for Paris isn't exactly what they had in mind.

Media Whores STILL PRETEND NOT TO NOTICE BushCo LIE "Saddam did NOT allow IAEA Inspectors in..."

Media Whores STILL PRETEND NOT TO NOTICE BushCo LIE "Saddam did NOT allow IAEA Inspectors in..." In this case, REPEATED VERBATIM by Republican candidate Mitt Romney in last night's debate - with Wolf Blitzer TOO STUPID or TOO CORRUPTED to call him on it....


CNN, thy name is INCOMPETENCE, LIES, and journalistic CORRUPTION....

Mitt Steps in Shit; Media Says it Smells Like Roses
Paul Begala
Posted June 6, 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-begala/mitt-steps-in-shit-media_b_51019.html



In a 2000 debate, Al Gore said that during wildfires in Texas he'd met with the director of FEMA. In fact, Vice President Gore had met with the deputy director of FEMA. Although I had been at the meeting as well, I didn't remember it either. But the press, spoon-fed by the Republican smear machine, used the misstatement to damn Gore as a "serial exaggerator."


So I expected the 600 journalists covering the GOP debate at St. Anselm's College to spank Mitt Romney when, in answering the first question of the night -- knowing what you know now, would you have invaded Iraq? -- Romney said that if "Saddam Hussein had opened up his country to IAEA inspectors, and they'd come in and they'd found that there were no weapons of mass destruction...we wouldn't be in the conflict we're in."

Wolf Blitzer followed up, trying to get a straight answer. But again, Romney repeated this story: "You can go back and say, if we knew then what we know now, by virtue of inspectors having been let in and giving us that information, by virtue of if Saddam Hussein had followed the U.N. resolutions, we wouldn't be having this -- this discussion."

So, in Romneyland, Pres. Bush invaded Iraq because the Iraqi government would not allow weapons inspectors in. The lack of inspectors led Bush to believe Saddam had WMDs and was preparing to use them against us or our allies. So Bush had to invade.

Boy, oh boy, I thought, Ol' Mitt's gonna take some shit. Because everyone knows that Iraq did allow weapons inspectors in. Everyone remembers that day -- September 17, 2002 -- when Saddam capitulated to Kofi Annan and allowed inspectors in without conditions. (The CNN story that day was headlined, cleverly, "Iraq Agrees to Weapons Inspections.")

Everyone remembers Hans Blix and over 250 experts scouring the countryside, looking for weapons of mass destruction. Everyone remembers the Bush Administration deriding their work, Dick Cheney saying they provide false comfort, right-wingers darkly hinting that someone the International Atomic Energy Agency was secretly in league with -- or at least sympathetic to -- the evil dictator.

And everyone remembers that, after months of searching and finding nothing, the weapons inspectors asked for more time. Begged is more like it. But President Bush refused. On March 17, 2003 and kicked the weapons inspectors out, and on March 20 he launched his war.

So for Mitt Romney to say it was Saddam who kicked the inspectors out, well, I thought he'd be crushed for his ignorance -- or his dishonesty. I almost felt sorry for him.

But after the debate, nothing.

I couldn't believe it. I understood why Romney's Republican opponents didn't correct him. They need the public to believe the myth that Saddam wouldn't allow weapons inspectors in. In fact, Bush has repeated this same lie. Republicans want to blur the record, to revise history, so we don't have to confront the fact that if Mr. Bush had given the weapons inspectors more time to do their job, they would have concluded Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. No weapons, no threat. No threat, no war.

But I was -- and am -- stunned at the lack of scrutiny by the media. The New York Times found the space to correct some bit of arcana they believe Romney misstated about Z-visas -- a form of visa that does not exist, incorporated in a bill that will not become law. And yet the Times, like most of its colleagues and competitors, ignored the fact that Romney told a big, fat whopper about why Mr. Bush went to war -- and why tens of thousands of people are now dead.

To its credit, CNN (where I work as a political analyst) replayed the tape of Romney's fib -- or flub -- repeatedly. But when I pointed out Romney's blunder, the Republican pundits on the set with me vigorously disputed that Romney was even wrong. I yelled. In fact, my wife later called and said I was too aggressive. I was in full Crossfire mode.

Jon Stewart, whose show I love, gave Crossfire its epitaph when he said it was "hurting America." I thought then, and I still think, that was bullshit. Sure, we yelled a lot. But at least people like Carville and me yelled to try to stop George W. Bush from lying us into a war. When the smart set in the elite media were all repeating the Bush lies about war, the clowns on Crossfire kept saying there was no threat. And we yelled.

And so I yelled again last night when a leading Republican again lied about why we went to war. But with all respect to Jon Stewart, that's not what hurts America. What hurts America is when powerful media elites excoriate a Democrat for an insignificant error, but turn a blind eye to a campaign of lies about war.

UPDATE: John Dickerson of Slate did, in fact, call Romney on it. Sorry I missed it originally, but I'm happy to note Dickerson's perspicacity.

CNN caught WHORING - "teen, sex, prison" and other BS 'news' - while IGNORING critical world developments...


We here at MediaWhoresUSA have long noted that the top- and bottom-of-hour 'news' that CNN pimps on radio (as aired by ClearChannel radio) is the perfect exposition of the "Mainstream Media's" touting the corporate/right-wing agenda: FEAR of foreign terrorists and domestic rapists, all to create an atmosphere where the public demands MORE AUTHORTARIAN government control and "protection" for Americans - despite the fact that the corporate media doesn't care a whit for the millions of Americans who can't afford health insurance, or are poisoned by environmental toxins, etc. For example, CNN has toped even Fox "news" in HYPING the "TUBERCULOSIS groom INFECTING fellow passengers!" story as presented by the (US government) CDC.

NO WHERE do ANY of CNN's anchors and reporters ask THE OBVIOUS QUESTION: "Does ANYONE ELSE on planet earth harbor that SAME TB virus, and if so - WHY ARE NOT THEY, as well, a NATION-SHAKING CRISIS??"

Clearly, CNN is PIMPING or WHORING the "FEAR the TB passenger" story - "HE VIOLATED CDC government quarantine/defacto house arrest!"

Paul Rieckhoff at HuffingtonPost.com catches CNN whoring other, even more GARBAGE 'news'

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As The Turkish Army Storms Into Iraq, CNN Is Stupider Than Usual
Paul Rieckhoff
Posted June 6, 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-rieckhoff/as-the-turkish-army-storm_b_51064.html

Yesterday, when I heard that thousands of Turkish troops may have crossed the border into Iraq, I was extremely concerned. Turkey has been building up its military forces on the Iraqi border for some time. There has been intense debate in Ankara among political and military leaders about whether to attack separatist rebels of the PKK. When I heard of Turkey's latest move, I feared that the Iraq war was quickly spilling into a larger regional conflict, so I turned on CNN for the latest. And here's what I saw:

[screen-capture at top of this post]


That's right, CNN's headline: "Teen, Sex, Prison." I guess the producers couldn't find an excuse for "Live XXX Girls."

This story, about a teenager imprisoned for statutory rape, repeated throughout the morning. It wasn't until mid-afternoon that CNN provided any substantive coverage of the situation in northern Iraq. The coverage lasted for maybe five minutes - before CNN returned to footage of...yet another missing teenager.

It was just as bad at CNN.com. There I found a brief story on the incursion between headlines including "Man tries to jump onto popemobile," "Jumbo squid swarming off California coast," and "Jericho' fans assail CBS with 25 tons of peanuts." I really, really wish I were kidding.

Of course, Turkey has sent limited numbers of troops into Kurdistan before, as a part of its anti-terrorist policies. And, since reports are conflicted, it's not clear how many Turkish troops are in Iraq right now. But the possible consequences of foreign forces in Iraq are dire, according to the Iraq Study Group Report:

• "A broader regional war."
• "Humanitarian catastrophe... as more refugees are forced to relocate across the country and the region."
• "Ethnic cleansing"
• "A Pandora's box of problems--including the radicalization of populations, mass movements of populations, and regime changes--that might take decades to play out. If the instability in Iraq spreads to the other Gulf States, a drop in oil production and exports could lead to a sharp increase in the price of oil and thus could harm the global economy."

I can only hope that if these terrible (and increasingly likely) events do occur, CNN will break away from the intense coverage of issues like the judge who fixed divorce cases for cigars, and Paris Hilton's latest shenanigans. And I don't even want to know what will be on Fox.

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Jeff Gerth and New York Times - lynch-mob reporting that created scandals out of thin air....

<< By now, the Times’ imprimatur awes nobody. Besides, Gerth doesn’t work there anymore. He’s rivaled only by Judith Miller (of Iraqi WMD fame ) for concocting impenetrable conspiracies from the whispers of anonymous sources. Absent Gerth’s infamous Mixmaster prose, there would have been no six-year Whitewater investigation and no bogus Chinese spy crisis during Bill Clinton’s second term. Nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee needn’t have done 278 days in solitary for imaginary crimes. >>

Gene Lyons wrote the book - literally - on the New York Times' penchant for writing LYNCH MOB LIES during the entire 8 years of the Clinton administration - journalistic lies that effectively neutered, or VETOED, two elections the put Bill Clinton in the White House. Lyons' "The Hunting of the President," co-written with NY Daily News reporter Joe Conason, is an encyclopedic compilation of lies, innuendos, and "mixmaster prose" that Arthur Sulzberger and his editors at the Times (Abe Rosenthal, William Safire especially) used to AMP UP any allegation or criticism of the Clintons into front page, above-fold, screaming headlines.

For a one-page summary of Lyons epic documentation of the NEW YORK TIMES' self-granted LICENSE TO LIE, click our headline link or click here.....

Sunday, June 03, 2007

media whores IGNORE story "Tim Griffin RESIGNS as US Atty, Arkansas" after details link him directly to VOTE SUPPRESSION


The Media Whores - from the WASHINGTON POST to the NEW YORK TIMES to CNN 'news' to of course the stable of right-wing overtly Republican propaganda organs (Washington Times, Wall St. Journal, Fox 'news,' Rush Limbaugh, etc) is actively working to SUPPRESS the story: former KARL ROVE AIDE, and recent US ATTORNEY to Arkansas TIM GRIFFIN, has RESIGNED, because Congress was presented with compelling evidence that Griffin was actively and DIRECTLY involved in minority voter SUPPRESSION efforts.

America's MEDIA WHORES are SO INSANELY GREEDY, that they will ACTIVELY WORK TO RE-SEGREGATE AMERICA - at a time that the Bush administration and neo-cons are bragging about their "march to freedom and democracy" in other countries under the barrels of US guns!

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Former White House Communications Deputy Tim Griffin Resigns after Evidence Ties Him to Alleged Voter Suppression
by Jon Ponde
Jun. 3, 2007
http://www.pensitoreview.com/2007/06/03/former-rove-aide-resigns-over-caging-evidence/


The White House installed Griffin as U.S. Attorney without Senate approval using a provision they’d slipped into the Patriot Act.Big media is ignoring the story that former White House Deputy Communications Director — and former RNC Research Director — Tim Griffin resigned as the U.S. Attorney in Arkansas last week after evidence revealed he was directly involved in alleged voter suppression in the 2004 elections.
This may be the first time you’ve heard of the illegal tactic of “caging” voters, but if BBC investigator Greg Palast is correct, it will not be the last.

Caging is a form of voter suppression involving registered mail. Typically, campaigns send registered letters to voters who are are unlikely to respond — soldiers serving overseas, for example. A list is compiled of the voters whose mail is returned marked undeliverable, or “caged.” On election day, when people on the caging list arrive to vote, campaign operatives are on hand to float challenges to their residency in the precinct. Palast says caging is a felony.

Palast recently obtained hundreds of emails sent by White House officials to Bush-Cheney operatives during the 2004 campaign. Among these were emails containing caging lists sent by Griffin, apparently in his role as communications deputy. Late last week, Palast agreed to show Griffin’s emails to Rep. John Conyers, chairman of the Judiciary Committee. On Thursday, Griffin abruptly announced his resignation in Little Rock, citing an urgent need to work in the private sector. (Some sources say Griffin is in negotiations to join Fred Thompson’s presidential campaign; while one wag suggests Griffin resigned “to spend more time in jail.“)

Griffin’s name first surfaced nationally in the investigation into the Bush administration’s unprecedented firing of eight U.S. attorneys last December. He has been depicted as a protege of Karl Rove with no real prosecutorial experience who was chosen to replace Bud Cummins as federal prosecutor in the Little Rock office. His appointment created a controversy in Arkansas — and in the U.S. Senate — when it was revealed that the White House installed him without Senate approval using a provision on “interim” appointments they’d slipped into the Patriot Act.

Why would the U.S. Dept. of Justice replace a seasoned, successful prosecutor with a political operative whose last job was working for the White House communications department? Here’s how David Iglesias, the New Mexico U.S. attorney who was also fired in December, described why the Bushies wanted him out of the way:

“They wanted a political operative who happened to be a US attorney … and when they got somebody who actually took his oath to the Constitution seriously, they were appalled and they wanted me out of there. The two strikes against me was, I was not political, I didn’t help them out on their bogus voter fraud prosecutions.”

None of this is new, by the way. In 2004, Palast, working then as now for the BBC, accused Griffin and the GOP of caging the votes of African-American service personnel who lived in Florida but were serving in Iraq — but this, too went unnoticed by America’s corporate media.

Update: The story is even older than I indicated previously. Palast first reported it in 2004, not 2006, as I’d stated earlier. Thanks to Brad Friedman for the correct date.