As we have relentlessly stated here at MediaWhoresUSA, the New York Times, despite its "LIBERAL" reputation, is actually a rag with a DISTINCTLY RIGHT-WING, MORE WARS, TAX CUTS FOR THE WEALTHY bias.
No further proof is needed to support our assessment than for over a dozen years FORMER NIXON SPEECHWRITER - and UNREPETENT Nixon CRIMES APOLOGIST William Safire was the Times' #1. sydnicated columnist.
#2. After Safire departed the Times, he came back to pen an article, "FALUJAH MUST BE PUNSHED!" for the murder and body-burning of Blackwater mercenaries (oops! "security contractors") who had wandered into Fallujah without a decent respect for that hotbed of Sunni pro-Saddam resentment, or a sufficient US military escort.
Sure enough, Fallujah was POUNDED by US military might - if not erased off the map LIDICE style (all members exterminated or shipped off to death camps by Nazi SS units, the town levelled and erased off the map in retaliation for the assassination of SS General Reinhard Heydrich ) then certainly GUERNICA style, the city that inspired Pablo Picasso's famous mural after the Nazi air force bombed the Republican city resisting General Franco's forces during the Spanish civil war that was a prelude to the bombed-out cities of WWII.
WILLIAM SAFIRE, from the pages of THE NEW YORK TIMES, DEMANDED that US firepower be used on Fallujah to "root out terrorists" .. in the same exact way that the WARSAW GHETTO was "cleansed" of partisans and resistance during WWII - and people still have the impression that the Times is a "liberal" newspaper!
So, we here at MediaWhoresUSA are happy to report that the Times CIRCULATION is GOING DOWN.
ALL they have to do to REVERSE THAT COURSE, to REGAIN THEIR LOST READERS, is for the Times to START REPORTING HONESTLY -
#1. On Dick Cheney's vast CORRUPTION - his HALLIBURTON STOCK-OPTIONS portfolio, his vast corruption in crony, no-bid contracts, his "Secret Energy Task Force" of 2001 (which, duh, was dedicated to making America DEPENDENT ON OIL, thereby leading directly to America's TRILLION-DOLLAR DEFICITS;
#2. in Bush's MALEVOLENT ARROGANCE and incompetence re the FEMA DISGRACE when the FEDERAL LEVEES FAILED, flooding New Orleans...
#3. or here's a dynamite headline grabber the CORRUPT TIMES _REFUSES_ to investigate, the CORRUPTION and STOLEN ELECTIONS inherent in the corporatized, privatized, NO oversight voting machines. (By comparison, EVERY LINE of computer code for Law Vegas casino slot-machines are rigorously inspected by state inspectors, because it is SO EASY TO RIG THEM, to insert a few lines of code to siphon off a portion of the machine's take)
THESE are just THREE BLOCKBUSTER circulation-boosting Stories the CORRUPT, NEO-CON, WAR-MONGERING NEW YORK SLIMES under owner/publisher Aruthur Sulzberger, and his LYING, CORRUPT EDITORS, REFUSE to investigate!
THE STUPID, LYING, CORRUPT, THIEVING, ELECTION-STEALING BASTARDS at the New York Times would PREFER to talk about.... The Reverend Wright's statements, on endless loop, even though Rev. Wright (and millions of other African-Americans) RECALL THE ERA OF SEGREGATION, where they could indeed have been beaten, murdered, or arrested for trying to assert their 15th Amendment Rights!
They see the DEVASTATION and SMOKE from the destroyed 9-11 towers... and side with the Bush-Cheney White House "ALL that devastation IN OUR OWN CITY.... is a PERFECT EXCUSE to DEFRAUD the American public out of MORE MILLIONS OF DOLLARS, with the pathetic, farcical, 9-11 Commission white-wash! (The Commissioners have practically cried that, despite their commission powers, they weren't informed of CIA Director Tenet's July 2001 visit TO THE WHITE HOUSE, SPECIFICALLY TO inform the National Security Advisor and "other White House senior officials" that Al Qaeda was in ADVANCED STAGES of PLANNING AN ATTACK ON or in America!!)
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C03E2DB1139F935A25756C0A9649C8B63
IF the New York WHORE Times did some HONEST reporting on those GENUINE issues, they would see a ZOOM IN SALES, but their publisher and editors PREFER TO BE RIGHT-WING LIARS, who see it as their duty to HIDE and COVER UP the crimes of the Bush-Cheney White House. Which is exactly why we must publish this "MEDIA WHORES USA" website - because ARTHUR SULBERGER and his crew of neo-con HACKS at the NEW YORK TIMES are PAID PROFESSIONAL LIARS, who put the Neo-Con, deficits-and-slavery agenda ahead of the economic strength and welfare of the America people.
=========================================
New York Times Circulation Plummets
SETH SUTEL
April 28, 2008
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/28/emnew-york-timesem-circul_n_98991.html
Read More: New York Times, New York Times Circulation, Newspaper Circulation, Breaking Media News Show your support.
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NEW YORK — Circulation fell sharply at most top U.S. newspapers in the latest reporting period, an industry group said Monday, with the exception of the two largest national dailies, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal.
Those papers eked out gains of under 1 percent, while The New York Times, the No. 3 paper, fell 3.9 percent in the six months ending in March, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
Newspaper circulation has been on a declining trend since the 1980s but the pace of declines has picked up in recent years as reader habits change and more people go online for news, information and entertainment.
National newspapers like USA Today and the Journal have tended to hold their ground better, as have smaller-market dailies where competition from other media like the Internet isn't usually as intense.
Gannett Co.'s USA Today remained the top-selling paper in the country with an average daily circulation of, 2,284,219, up 0.3 percent, while The Wall Street Journal rose 0.4 percent to 2,069,463. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. bought the Journal's parent company Dow Jones & Co. last December.
The New York Times Co.'s flagship paper remained the third-largest with circulation of 1,077,256, down 3.9 percent from the same period a year earlier. That company also owns The Boston Globe and International Herald Tribune.
Metropolitan dailies have suffered the worst declines, a trend that continued in the most recent reporting period, with the Dallas Morning News reporting a 10.6 percent drop to 368,313.
The Dallas paper's corporate owner A.H. Belo Corp., newly spun out of broadcasting company Belo Corp., said as part of its earnings statement Monday that the company was culling back on less valuable circulation such as copies distributed through third parties.
Other metro dailies also posted steep declines, including The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, down 8.5 percent to 326,907, and the Star Tribune of Minneapolis-St. Paul, down 6.7 percent to 321,984.
Declines at other major papers were less severe, with the New York Daily News narrowly keeping the upper hand on its crosstown tabloid rival, Rupert Murdoch's New York Post. The Daily News posted a 2.1 percent decline to 703,137, while the Post fell 3.1 percent to 702,488.
Both Murdoch and Daily News owner Mortimer Zuckerman are going after Tribune Co.'s Newsday on neighboring Long Island. Newsday, meanwhile, posted a 4.7 percent decline in circulation to 379,613.
The twice-yearly report from the Audit Bureau includes figures from most major U.S. newspapers but not the entire industry. At the nearly 550 papers that reported comparable figures for both periords, average daily circulation fell 3.6 percent in the most recent period.
Several smaller to mid-size papers posted gains, including a Spanish-language daily in New York called El Diario La Prensa, up 7.6 percent to 53,856, while The Times in Munster, Ind., owned by Lee Enterprises Inc., rose 3 percent to 86.195.
The Chicago Sun-Times, reporting for the first time since being censured in 2004 for circulation misstatements, posted circulation of 312,274, but no prior-year numbers were available for comparison.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Tony Snow, former Bush WH press spokesman, joins CNN; "Democrat" Speaker Pelosi makes nice with Repub Demagogue Newt Gingrich...
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the nominal "leader" of the Democrat Party, joined with former Republican Speaker of the House NEWT GINGRICH to make a short ad urging viewers to take part in efforts to reduce global warming. But the TV ad probably did more to legitimize the Radical Right Republican agenda than it did to urge environmental action in America, because the same week that Pelosi cut her ad with Gingrich, Gingrich told Fox 'news' host Sean Hannity:
"the left wing of the Democratic Party, frankly, kind of admires American terrorists."
Video at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/19/gingrich-left-wing-of-the_n_97584.html
Well, that is TYPICAL of the 'Democratic' "leadership" of this past decade: DO WHATEVER IT TAKES to LEGITIMIZE and/or support the speakers who advocate the Radical Right-Wing agenda!
Speaking of, Tony Snow, the White House press spokesman who helped Bush and Cheney dodge so many scandals - (torture, lies-to-war, outing of CIA agents as part of a White House vendetta against a prominent war critic; and the perjury and obstruction of justice to cover up that scandal past the 2004 election, to name just a few)- is now a new CNN news talking head.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/21/tony-snow-joins-cnn-as-po_n_97824.html
<< Tony Snow is joining CNN as a conservative commentator, the network announced today. Snow, who spent 10 years at Fox News, left his job as White House Press Secretary in September, saying he needed to make more money to support his family. >>
Hat tip to Arianna Huffington, who caught the "Speaker Pelosi LEGITIMIZING demagogue Newt Gingrich 'Democrats love terrorists'" juxtaposition, and who sums it up perfectly here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/the-toxic-thinking-of-the_b_98040.html
<< As it happened, I first saw the Pelosi-Gingrich ad on the same night that I caught Gingrich telling Sean Hannity that "the left wing of the Democratic Party, frankly, kind of admires American terrorists." A more outrageous statement would be hard to find. But instead of consigning Gingrich to the slagheap reserved for the likes of Rep. Steve "al Qaeda Will Be Dancing in the Streets if Obama Wins" King, Pelosi -- who according to Gingrich is enamored of home-grown terrorists -- scooches in next to him, smiles for the camera, and enhances his legitimacy as a statesman and champion of reasoned compromise. >>
IF Speaker Pelosi had a GENUINE COMMITTMENT to reversing Global Warming, SHE COULD HAUL THE EXECUTIVES of CHEVRON corporation before Congress, and ask them "WHY DID YOU SUE Toyota and Panisonic companies to FORCE THEM TO QUIT PRODUCING NiMH batteries - that were working in a PRODUCTION Toyota SUV, the RAV4-EV, which got THREE TIMES BETTER mileage-per-energy-dollar than its identical looking gas-powered siblings?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_RAV4_EV
The Solution to America's ENERGY GLUTTONY is staring us in the face: SOLAR PANELS do NOT require a Manhatten Project, Apollo program, Cold War, much less WWII level of committment, investment, sacrifice, or research in unproven science: the TECHNOLOGY IS HERE, NOW, but any NATIONAL committment to creating huge solar farms is COMPLETELY CORRUPTED BY CONGRESS' DEPENDENCE on big corporate donors.
Google corporation is currently producing almost 30% of its "Googleplex" research complex energy needs... from SOLAR PANELS installed on the office building roofs.
Imagine how much power could be produced if the United States spent $500 billion - a fraction of the cost our our exporting war to the Mideast - on installing similar solar panels all over the country, and making the design, production, installation, and integration of those solar farms more efficient in terms of relentless improvements that large-scale research and production would bring?
http://www.google.com/corporate/solarpanels/home
"the left wing of the Democratic Party, frankly, kind of admires American terrorists."
Video at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/19/gingrich-left-wing-of-the_n_97584.html
Well, that is TYPICAL of the 'Democratic' "leadership" of this past decade: DO WHATEVER IT TAKES to LEGITIMIZE and/or support the speakers who advocate the Radical Right-Wing agenda!
Speaking of, Tony Snow, the White House press spokesman who helped Bush and Cheney dodge so many scandals - (torture, lies-to-war, outing of CIA agents as part of a White House vendetta against a prominent war critic; and the perjury and obstruction of justice to cover up that scandal past the 2004 election, to name just a few)- is now a new CNN news talking head.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/21/tony-snow-joins-cnn-as-po_n_97824.html
<< Tony Snow is joining CNN as a conservative commentator, the network announced today. Snow, who spent 10 years at Fox News, left his job as White House Press Secretary in September, saying he needed to make more money to support his family. >>
Hat tip to Arianna Huffington, who caught the "Speaker Pelosi LEGITIMIZING demagogue Newt Gingrich 'Democrats love terrorists'" juxtaposition, and who sums it up perfectly here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/the-toxic-thinking-of-the_b_98040.html
<< As it happened, I first saw the Pelosi-Gingrich ad on the same night that I caught Gingrich telling Sean Hannity that "the left wing of the Democratic Party, frankly, kind of admires American terrorists." A more outrageous statement would be hard to find. But instead of consigning Gingrich to the slagheap reserved for the likes of Rep. Steve "al Qaeda Will Be Dancing in the Streets if Obama Wins" King, Pelosi -- who according to Gingrich is enamored of home-grown terrorists -- scooches in next to him, smiles for the camera, and enhances his legitimacy as a statesman and champion of reasoned compromise. >>
IF Speaker Pelosi had a GENUINE COMMITTMENT to reversing Global Warming, SHE COULD HAUL THE EXECUTIVES of CHEVRON corporation before Congress, and ask them "WHY DID YOU SUE Toyota and Panisonic companies to FORCE THEM TO QUIT PRODUCING NiMH batteries - that were working in a PRODUCTION Toyota SUV, the RAV4-EV, which got THREE TIMES BETTER mileage-per-energy-dollar than its identical looking gas-powered siblings?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_RAV4_EV
The Solution to America's ENERGY GLUTTONY is staring us in the face: SOLAR PANELS do NOT require a Manhatten Project, Apollo program, Cold War, much less WWII level of committment, investment, sacrifice, or research in unproven science: the TECHNOLOGY IS HERE, NOW, but any NATIONAL committment to creating huge solar farms is COMPLETELY CORRUPTED BY CONGRESS' DEPENDENCE on big corporate donors.
Google corporation is currently producing almost 30% of its "Googleplex" research complex energy needs... from SOLAR PANELS installed on the office building roofs.
Imagine how much power could be produced if the United States spent $500 billion - a fraction of the cost our our exporting war to the Mideast - on installing similar solar panels all over the country, and making the design, production, installation, and integration of those solar farms more efficient in terms of relentless improvements that large-scale research and production would bring?
http://www.google.com/corporate/solarpanels/home
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
The DISGRACEFUL, chronically LYING New York Times GETS THEIR COME-UPPANCE: Times in deep financial trouble. Serves the liars right....
"HELP!" Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger, his newspaper the GROUND ZERO of Republican (and DIN))neo-con LIES for the past decade, is seeking a big, strong investor to rescue his old grey whore of a newspaper.
from Wiki: "Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr. (born 22 September 1951) became the publisher of The New York Times in 1992 and chairman of The New York Times Company in 1997."
THE TIMES under Arthur Sulzberger has become THE MOUTHPIECE, THE MEGAPHONE, THE LIGITIMIZING press outlet for the LIES, STOLEN ELECTIONS, BUSTED BUDGETS, LOOTED TREASURY, gross dereliction of duty leading up to the 9-11 attacks, LIES-TO-WAR and illegal invasion of Iraq, the grossly incompetent post-invasion and GROSSLY CORRUPT occupation, TORTURE, JOB OUTSOURCING, TECHNOLOGY OUTSOURCING, FALLING DOLLAR, and ECONOMIC DECLINE of the United States of America - ALL the above the SIGNATURE AGENDA of the Neo-Con "TAX CUTS FOR WEALTHY in time of EVER-EXPANDING WARS under the Bush-Cheney administration.
EACH, and every one of the above issues would merit PULITZER-PRIZE WINNING JOURNALISM were the LYING publisher and editor of the Times to FORCEFULLY, AGGRESSIVELY, and PERSISTENTLY FOLLOW the DIRECT LINKS between Bush-Cheney-Republic neo-con policy and their inevitible deleterious effects on American security and the American economy. THIS the Mr. Sulzberger and the Times REFUSE TO DO (except for the once-weekly articles by Paul Krugman and Frank Rich).
THEREFORE, ANY ONE READING the New York Times - at least on its national and international 'news' coverage - IS READING A PACK OF LIES.
Lies intended to JUSTIFY that TAX CUTS FOR WEALTHY CORPORATIONS agenda, Mr. Sulzberger and minions putting the wealth and power of the establishment FAR OVER their committment to honest journalism, much less to the American public.
IF everything the Times writes and publishes about international affairs are Bush-Cheney-Rove whitewash LIES; and if their DOMESTIC REPORTING can't even uncover the LOOTING of the ENTIRE US TREASURY - for at least a decade in the future! - THEN WHEY THE HELL would anyone bother reading the Lyin' Times????
===========================================
Bloomberg says not interested in newspaper business
Mon Apr 21, 2008
By Edith Honan and Robert MacMillan
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2141377620080421?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews&rpc=22&sp=true
NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Monday dismissed media reports that he could be a suitor for the New York Times Co, saying he is not interested in getting into the newspaper industry.
"I am not going to go into the newspaper business," Bloomberg said when asked by reporters at a press conference to discuss city affairs. "I am not a newspaper person."
The comments come after intense speculation Bloomberg could join the ranks of billionaires who have the financial heft to rescue a deteriorating U.S. newspaper business.
The Times arguably may be the crown jewel of U.S. journalism, but it is dealing with a steady decline in ad revenue at its flagship paper and other papers such as the Boston Globe, a slump that has hit the entire industry.
The Times's financial performance and sliding share price has sparked anger among its outside investors, some of whom have publicly blasted its executives for poor management.
The New York Post reported on Monday that some members of the Times's controlling Ochs-Sulzberger family would be receptive to the idea of a protector.
Bloomberg, who founded financial news and information service Bloomberg LP before becoming mayor, has been encouraged by his close associates to make a bid for the Times and save it from shareholder anger, Newsweek said in its April 28 edition.
Bloomberg could take the company private and "help protect the brand" with his estimated $11.6 billion personal fortune, Newsweek said, quoting an unnamed source.
Speculation on Bloomberg and the Times has surfaced in the past, but the mayor scoffed at the idea on Monday.
"I don't know why anybody keeps pushing this," he said.
New York Times shares closed up 5.5 percent.
BLOOMBERG'S NEXT MOVE
Some of the conjecture stems from curiosity over Bloomberg's next move after his term ends in December 2009. Political observers thought for years he would run for U.S. president, but the mayor threw cold water on those plans.
Former New York Mayor Ed Koch said Bloomberg could still be expected to seek a big new role if he leaves City Hall.
"I cannot believe that he'll be happy just simply being the head of a $15 billion foundation, just giving out money," Koch told Reuters.
The Times is also facing a bold move by News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch to lead the U.S. news agenda with closer political coverage in his Wall Street Journal newspaper.
Bloomberg is considered one of the savviest business minds in the industry and even Murdoch has said he would not relish going up against him, according to Newsweek.
The family believes the company's current capital structure, which gives it control through a special tier of shares, is the best way to protect its editorial independence, a Times spokeswoman said. Analysts also downplayed the idea.
"All of this is just rumor-mongering in the first place," said veteran newspaper analyst John Morton.
Changing the family's control over the Times would be like a "snowball melting in hell," he said.
But the Times has already shown some signs of relenting to criticism. Last month, the company agreed to support two board nominees put forward by an outside shareholder, hedge fund Harbinger Capital Management.
If elected at a shareholder meeting on Tuesday, they would be the first outside directors at the company since it went public. Harbinger and board nominee Scott Galloway of Firebrand Partners have urged changes at the Times, including possibly selling off properties and accelerating its move into digital.
Thomson Reuters Corp competes with Bloomberg in providing financial news and information.
(Additional reporting by Paul Thomasch; Editing by Tim Dobbyn/Andre Grenon)
from Wiki: "Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr. (born 22 September 1951) became the publisher of The New York Times in 1992 and chairman of The New York Times Company in 1997."
<< "I am not going to go into the newspaper business," Bloomberg said when asked by reporters at a press conference to discuss city affairs. "I am not a newspaper person."
The comments come after intense speculation Bloomberg could join the ranks of billionaires who have the financial heft to rescue a deteriorating U.S. newspaper business [the New York Times]...
The Times arguably may be the crown jewel of U.S. journalism, but it is dealing with a steady decline in ad revenue at its flagship paper and other papers such as the Boston Globe, a slump that has hit the entire industry. >>
THE TIMES under Arthur Sulzberger has become THE MOUTHPIECE, THE MEGAPHONE, THE LIGITIMIZING press outlet for the LIES, STOLEN ELECTIONS, BUSTED BUDGETS, LOOTED TREASURY, gross dereliction of duty leading up to the 9-11 attacks, LIES-TO-WAR and illegal invasion of Iraq, the grossly incompetent post-invasion and GROSSLY CORRUPT occupation, TORTURE, JOB OUTSOURCING, TECHNOLOGY OUTSOURCING, FALLING DOLLAR, and ECONOMIC DECLINE of the United States of America - ALL the above the SIGNATURE AGENDA of the Neo-Con "TAX CUTS FOR WEALTHY in time of EVER-EXPANDING WARS under the Bush-Cheney administration.
EACH, and every one of the above issues would merit PULITZER-PRIZE WINNING JOURNALISM were the LYING publisher and editor of the Times to FORCEFULLY, AGGRESSIVELY, and PERSISTENTLY FOLLOW the DIRECT LINKS between Bush-Cheney-Republic neo-con policy and their inevitible deleterious effects on American security and the American economy. THIS the Mr. Sulzberger and the Times REFUSE TO DO (except for the once-weekly articles by Paul Krugman and Frank Rich).
THEREFORE, ANY ONE READING the New York Times - at least on its national and international 'news' coverage - IS READING A PACK OF LIES.
Lies intended to JUSTIFY that TAX CUTS FOR WEALTHY CORPORATIONS agenda, Mr. Sulzberger and minions putting the wealth and power of the establishment FAR OVER their committment to honest journalism, much less to the American public.
IF everything the Times writes and publishes about international affairs are Bush-Cheney-Rove whitewash LIES; and if their DOMESTIC REPORTING can't even uncover the LOOTING of the ENTIRE US TREASURY - for at least a decade in the future! - THEN WHEY THE HELL would anyone bother reading the Lyin' Times????
===========================================
Bloomberg says not interested in newspaper business
Mon Apr 21, 2008
By Edith Honan and Robert MacMillan
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2141377620080421?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews&rpc=22&sp=true
NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Monday dismissed media reports that he could be a suitor for the New York Times Co, saying he is not interested in getting into the newspaper industry.
"I am not going to go into the newspaper business," Bloomberg said when asked by reporters at a press conference to discuss city affairs. "I am not a newspaper person."
The comments come after intense speculation Bloomberg could join the ranks of billionaires who have the financial heft to rescue a deteriorating U.S. newspaper business.
The Times arguably may be the crown jewel of U.S. journalism, but it is dealing with a steady decline in ad revenue at its flagship paper and other papers such as the Boston Globe, a slump that has hit the entire industry.
The Times's financial performance and sliding share price has sparked anger among its outside investors, some of whom have publicly blasted its executives for poor management.
The New York Post reported on Monday that some members of the Times's controlling Ochs-Sulzberger family would be receptive to the idea of a protector.
Bloomberg, who founded financial news and information service Bloomberg LP before becoming mayor, has been encouraged by his close associates to make a bid for the Times and save it from shareholder anger, Newsweek said in its April 28 edition.
Bloomberg could take the company private and "help protect the brand" with his estimated $11.6 billion personal fortune, Newsweek said, quoting an unnamed source.
Speculation on Bloomberg and the Times has surfaced in the past, but the mayor scoffed at the idea on Monday.
"I don't know why anybody keeps pushing this," he said.
New York Times shares closed up 5.5 percent.
BLOOMBERG'S NEXT MOVE
Some of the conjecture stems from curiosity over Bloomberg's next move after his term ends in December 2009. Political observers thought for years he would run for U.S. president, but the mayor threw cold water on those plans.
Former New York Mayor Ed Koch said Bloomberg could still be expected to seek a big new role if he leaves City Hall.
"I cannot believe that he'll be happy just simply being the head of a $15 billion foundation, just giving out money," Koch told Reuters.
The Times is also facing a bold move by News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch to lead the U.S. news agenda with closer political coverage in his Wall Street Journal newspaper.
Bloomberg is considered one of the savviest business minds in the industry and even Murdoch has said he would not relish going up against him, according to Newsweek.
The family believes the company's current capital structure, which gives it control through a special tier of shares, is the best way to protect its editorial independence, a Times spokeswoman said. Analysts also downplayed the idea.
"All of this is just rumor-mongering in the first place," said veteran newspaper analyst John Morton.
Changing the family's control over the Times would be like a "snowball melting in hell," he said.
But the Times has already shown some signs of relenting to criticism. Last month, the company agreed to support two board nominees put forward by an outside shareholder, hedge fund Harbinger Capital Management.
If elected at a shareholder meeting on Tuesday, they would be the first outside directors at the company since it went public. Harbinger and board nominee Scott Galloway of Firebrand Partners have urged changes at the Times, including possibly selling off properties and accelerating its move into digital.
Thomson Reuters Corp competes with Bloomberg in providing financial news and information.
(Additional reporting by Paul Thomasch; Editing by Tim Dobbyn/Andre Grenon)
Sunday, April 20, 2008
How the Department of Defense SPINS, WHITEWASHES torture in US media... by "independent" retired military officers...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/washington/20generals.htmlIn the "they must be experts... It takes one, to know one!" category, the NEW YORK TIMES (an even more essential component of the Bush-Cheney administration's Lies-to-War propaganda effort leading up to the March 2003 US invasion of Iraq, than even Fox 'news,' the Washington Times, and the Wall St. Journal put together) this weekend compiles an article about how retired military experts dominate the TV 'news' discussion on how TORTURE is being used at US prisons worldwide... even though those "independent" retired military hired-gun TV commentators often do lobbying for US companies with huge contracts with the Department of Defense.
CLEARLY, there is a potential for CONFLICT OF INTEREST if your main job is as a LOBBYIST for a large corporation seeking contracts or doing millions or billions of dollars worth of business with the Pentagon (the building that is the heaquarters for the Department of Defense), but you moonlight part-time as a TV "independent" anaylist on military and DOD issues... especially dealing with subjects or scandals within the top levels of the Department of Defense civilian and military leadership.
(i.e. "who knew what, and when, about TORTURE ORDERS being sent from the DoD to US military prisons worldwide?")
Yet in typical American "free market enterprise" fashion, those retired military experts can pretend that they are being fully objective and indendent observers in their part-time jobs as network commentators, while minimizing the possibility that their presentation (or agenda) is biased towards keeping their full-time bosses - in business or the DoD itself - happy.
The same, of course, could be said for "Liberal" experts who appear on network news - They, too, might be financially compensated for their appearance, while taking home a regular paycheck from their "liberal" organization.
BUT IN THE CASE of TORTURE being ORDERED and DIRECTED from the White House by the Bush-Cheney gang, via their subordinates in the Department of Defense, the retired military experts appearing in the network TV newscasts are less than outspoken (much less outraged) at the administration's cavalier, and premeditated, discarding of the Geneva conventions.
========================================
NY Times, "The Message Machine" -
Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand
[note the typical NYT confusing bureacrateeze headline for a story that could just as easily been titled "Retired Military Experts Shape TV news.. to Pentagon's Favor?"]
By DAVID BARSTOW
Published: April 20, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/washington/20generals.html
Thursday, April 17, 2008
ABC 'news" CHARLIE GIBSON, GEORGE STEPHANOPOLOUS, DISGRACE themselves "moderating" Democratic debate with INANE, TRIVIAL, DISTRACTION questions...
The performance of ABC "news" talking heads was so disgraceful, so inane and off-topic from what American voters want to hear about - issues that are truly impacting American lives such as soaring gas prices, soaring health care costs, unaffordable higher education, falling home prices, the falling dollar and rising US deficits, job losses, rising food prices, etc. - that as the network took a break for a last commercial after an hour of INANE, TRIVIAL, "gotcha" questions, the audience BOOED and HECKLED ABC debate "moderators" GEORGE STEPHANOPOLOUS and CHARLIE GIBSON.
HuffingtonPost.com writer Bob Cesca, in his widely repeated "PANDERING YELLOW JOURNALISTS" commentary, captures the essence of Stephanopolous and Gibson WHORING for their corporae masters:
<< Here we had two members of the very serious traditional media going after two Democrats in ways which they have never challenged members of the Bush administration -- despite the Bush Republican record of disaster after disaster after disaster. >>http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/the-very-serious-debate-s_b_97231.html
For a simple example of the TOUGH QUESTIONS (much less PERSISTENT FOLLOW-UPS) that the WHORE corporate media flunkies NEVER ask of President Bush (or, just as importantly, ALLOW him to WEASEL AWAY from with distracting non-answers), a week ago, in insisting that Congress take up and pass the COLUMBIA FREE TRADE bill, President Bush declared on national TV, "IT IS IMPORTANT THAT CONGRESS PASS THIS BILL, SO THE WORLD KNOWS THAT AMERICA _HONORS_ ITS COMMITTMENTS."
Apparently, there was not ONE COMPETENT MEDIA PERSON in one-thousand miles range who could ask Mr. Bush the OBVIOUS Question:
"Mr. Bush, HOW DARE you pretend concern about 'HONORING COMMITTMENTS" - when you have treated the GENEVA CONVENTIONS (and US Constitution as meaningless, disposable, subject to being ignored by your whims and your decrees?"
Over at writer Walter-C-Uhler.com, Mr. Uhler captures the four most inane "depate" questions Stephanopolous and Gibson asked the two Dem. candidates:
<< Yes, notwithstanding the many serious problems afflicting "Bushed" America, we got four nit-picking calumnious questions: (1) Did Obama's characterization of working-class voters as "bitter" indicate he's an out-of-touch elitist? (2) Does Obama believe in the American flag? (After all, he seldom wears an American flag pin.) (3) Can you tell us again, Senator Obama about your ties to the Rev. Wright we know from four controversial out-of-context quotes? And, thanks to question allegedly supplied to former Clinton administration spokesman Stephanopoulos by right-wing hate monger Sean Hannity, (4) What about Obama's association with former Weather Underground terrorist, William Ayers? >>http://www.walter-c-uhler.com/Reviews/barzun.html
--------------------------------
Mr. Stephanaopolous, former President Clinton press spokesman, has followed in the dismal footsteps of JAMES CARVILLE, who back in 1992, as leader of the Clinton-Gore campaign headquarters "WAR ROOM" was full of sound and fury and outrage over the Treasury-busting antics of the Bush Senior administration. But once Mr. Carville's candidate (Bill Clinton) won the White House in 1993, Mr. Carville moved to Washington, where he promptly became a multi-millionaire FAT CAT Washington lobbyist/consultant PR hack, who actually married a Republican spin-meister, Mary Matlin, who had spent her entire career ADVOCATING FOR those exact policies and taxpayer-ripoffs (by Republican officials and businessmen) that Carville had spent HIS career railing, shouting, and fulminating against!
For all of 1992, specifically, Carville, Stephanopolous and the Clinton campaign "war room" had been confronting and taking to task President George H.W. Bush's (Sr.) tendency to put industry lobbyists in top government positions to oversee those industries - functions that the former lobbyists set out to minimize or undo completely. The DEREGULATION or NO regulations agenda led directly to American taxpayers being forced to bail out PRIVATE bankers and rogue, unsupervised operators in the massive US SAVINGS & LOAN CRISIS - often friends and cronies of the Bush-Reagan administrations - to the tune of almost ONE TRILLION dollars, in late 1980s money. (President Bush son, and brother to the current president, NEIL BUSH, was a director on the Board of Colorado based SILVERADO Savings & Loan - which losses cost taxpayers one billion dollars, alone.)
Assuming the value of a dollar today will be almost double the value of a dollar ten years from now, the one trillion dollar losses of the Bush1 S&L crisis of the late 1980s would be almost THREE TRILLION DOLLARS in costs to US taxpayers in today's money - almost exactly what economist Joseph Stiglitz estimates the Current Bush2 (George W. Bush) US deficits are!http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/stiglitz97
In 1992 George Stephanopolous was also an outspoken, fighting campaign leader of the Clinton-Gore "war room", but fast forward 16 years, he is now a hopelessly corrupted MEDIA WHORE more concerned with satisfying his corporate masters in Washington and New York at ABC "news" (a subsidiary of Disney entertainment corp.) than he is with asking or delving in to the tough issues American citizens, voters, and news consumers want answers to.
Charlie Gibson is just an inane infotainment talking-head puppet for his corporate entertainment masters at ABC.... George Stephanopolous is WORSE, a PAID PROFESSIONAL LIAR who sees his purpose at his current job as trying to UNDO everything he worked for in his life, that got him his millions-of-dollars-per-year cushy gig with ABC for which he has no grace, class, credibility, or any degree of journalistic integrity.
NEW! - The essence of the Gibson-Stephanopolous "debate" "moderating" is captured in this anonymous (pseudonym) comment
<< "It took the moderators over an hour to ask a single question on policy. They may as well have had Britney Spears asking the questions. If Stephanopolous and Charles Gibson made up those questions, they should both be fired immediately. You did an absolute disservice to this great country. Shame on you ABC News." >>
http://www.theage.com.au/news/us-election/chair-lift-for-hillary/2008/04/17/1208025351372.html
"BRITNEY SPEARS" indeed, what an excellent metaphor for Mr. Stephanopolous, Mr. Gibson, and their bosses at ABC "news" - entrusted by the American people with providing the vital information needed to be good citizens and neighbors in this great land of ours, treat their responsibility to the American public the way Britney Spears treats her children - as props to be put in the back of her car, as she drives off in another drunken binge and tirade.
============================================
The Debate: A Shameful Night for the U.S. Media
by Greg Mitchell, editor, Editor & Publisher magazine
Posted April 16, 2008
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/the-debate-a-shameful-nig_b_97122.html
In perhaps the most embarrassing performance by the media in a major presidential debate in years, ABC News hosts Charles Gibson and George Stephanopolous focused mainly on trivial issues as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama faced off in Philadelphia. They, and their network, should hang their collective heads in shame.
Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the health care and mortgage crises, the overall state of the economy and dozens of other pressing issues had to wait for their few moments in the sun as Obama was pressed to explain his recent "bitter" gaffe and relationship with Rev. Wright (seemingly a dead issue) and not wearing a flag pin -- while Clinton had to answer again for her Bosnia trip exaggerations.
Then it was back to Obama to defend his slim association with a former '60s radical -- a question that came out of rightwing talk radio and Sean Hannity on TV, but was delivered by former Bill Clinton aide Stephanopolous. This approach led to a claim that Clinton's husband pardoned two other '60s radicals. And so on. The travesty continued.
More time was spent on all of this than segments on getting out of Iraq and keeping people from losing their homes and -- you name it. Gibson only got excited complaining that someone might raise his capital gains tax. Yet neither candidate had the courage to ask the moderators to turn to those far more important issues. Talking heads on other networks followed up by not pressing that point either. The crowd booed Gibson near the end. Why didn't every other responsible journalist on TV?
To top it off, here is David Brooks' review at The New York Times: "I thought the questions were excellent." He gives ABC an "A." Of course, "A" can stand for many things.
*
Greg Mitchell is author of the new book, So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits -- and the President -- Failed on Iraq. It has been hailed by Bill Moyers, Glenn Greenwald, Arianna and others and features a preface by Bruce Springsteen. He is editor of Editor & Publisher. Email: gmitchell@editorandpublisher.com.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
More on the Washington Post's INVETERATE LYING to prop up the Bush-Cheney narative of endless war and tax cuts for billionaires...
The face of INCOMPETENCE in Bush administration Washington - aided and abetted by the WASHINGTON POST's REFUSAL to ask EVEN BASIC QUESTIONS of minimal journalistic competence!
Mr. Stephen J. Hadley, President Bush's current National Security Advisor, was DEPUTY NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR when the CIA informed him, before 9-11, that AL QAIDA WAS PLANNING ON HIJACKING US AIRLINERS
(official WH biography) http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/hadleybio.html
yet he did NOTHING - , even though, during that summer of 2001, Al Qaida had NOT BEEN PUNISHED by the Bush administration for the SUICIDE BOMB ATTACK on the USS Cole in a Yemen harbor just 8 months earlier in October of 2000.
For more details in the Washington Post's shameless complicity with the lies and incompetence of the Bush administration, INCLUDING A NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR who DOES NOT KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TIBET and NEPAL,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/13/bush-security-adviser-ste_n_96420.html
read on.
_________________________________________________
For more on the Washington Post's INVETERATE, WRONG on EVERYTHING LYING to prop up the Bush-Cheney narrative on the Iraq war (and their LIES TO WAR, STOLEN ELECTION, and WHITE WASH of GROSS DERELICTION OF DUTY leading up to 9-11-2001 in the first place) see ROBERT PARRY's "The Very Annoying Washington Post" http://consortiumnews.com/2008/041008.html
For the inside story of how DICK CHENEY URGED his Iraqi puppet strong man (also known as "Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki") to WIPE OUT the increasingly popular main Shiite OPPOSITION PARTY in advance of "free and fair elections" scheduled for Iraq this coming October (obviously, a propaganda move to give Republicans something to brag about in America's November 2008 presidential elections) see Ramzy Baroud, "The Other Half of the Basra Battles story" at Counterpunch.org. http://www.counterpunch.org/baroud04122008.html
For the GROSS IGNORANCE (twin sister to GROSS CORRUPTION) that infests the Bush-Cheney White House -
- the people who ALLOWED Al Qaida to plot 9-11, unmolested and unhindered, in the weeks before the 9-11 attack;
- the people who ALLOWED bin Laden to ESCAPE Tora Bora;
- the people who USED bin LADEN AS AN EXCUSE to ATTACK IRAQ... but profess not to care about bin Laden on the Afghan-Pakistan border (!!)
(President Bush declares "I'M NOT THAT CONCERNED ABOUT HIM [bin Laden] ANYMORE" - despite using a theoretical bin Laden-Saddam link as AN EXCUSE to ATTACK ANOTHER NATION! Mar. 2002 official WH press transcript, of WH press conference
Bush "he doesn't concern me that much anymore" comment 1/3rd way down)
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/03/20020313-8.html
or video -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PGmnz5Ow-o
- the people who pledged that the Iraq war and post-war occupation would only need 115,000 troops, cost American taxpayers only $6 billion dollars, and that the insurgency would last only 6 weeks...
see how Bush NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR Stephen J. Hadley CAN'T TELL the DIFFERENCE BETWEEN... TIBET and NEPAL!
(Hint: One nation is OCCUPIED by the COMMUNIST CHINESE ARMY; the other nation is not!)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/13/bush-security-adviser-ste_n_96420.html
Speaking of "GROSS INCOMPETENCE" (bordering on GROSS DERELICTION OF DUTY) before 9-11, here is a link to the official bio of Bush's current NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR, STEPHEN J. HADLEY, who the official White House biography informs us was the DEPUTY ASSISTANT NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR TO THE PRESIDENT, _before_ 9-11!
http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/hadleybio.html
A senior, experienced official (bio states that he was who was an Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Bush Sr., 1989-1993) who was undoubtedly "IN THE LOOP" the day those urgent CIA warnings came to the White House, "Al QAEDA HAS NOT BEEN PUNISHED for the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole, HERE IT IS JULY 2001, and they are PLANNING NEW, MORE SPECTACULAR ATTACKS on American targets, this time PROBABLY IN THE UNITED STATES, possibly involving attacks on airlines or passengers, or possibly a REPEAT ATTACK on the WORLD TRADE TOWERS, which Arab terrorists tried to destroy with a previous truck-bomb attack in 1993."
Don't take OUR word for it! Here's the New York Times David Sanger, writing in May of 2002 that BEFORE 9-11:
<< The White House said tonight that President Bush had been warned by American intelligence agencies in early August that Osama bin Laden was seeking to hijack aircraft but that the warnings did not contemplate the possibility that the hijackers would turn the planes into guided missiles for a terrorist attack. >>
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C03E2DB1139F935A25756C0A9649C8B63
As we all know, then NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR Condoleeza Rice was a POLITICAL APPOINTEE to that position with no, ZERO prior National Security experience. (Her sole qualifying item was her Ph.D. at Stanford University, with concentration on Russian Cold War era political-military affairs.)
BUT HER DEPUTY, Stephen J. Hadley, HAD BEEN IN THE DEFENSE DEPARTMENT as an Assistant Secretary of Defense! He undoubtedly received that "AL QAIDA PLANS TO HIJACK AIRLINERS IN AMERICA" briefing.. and did NOTHING about it????
THE WASHINGTON POST, which PURPORTS to be the nation's paper of excellence dealing with NATIONAL SECURITY issues, is nothing more than a PROPAGANDA PARTY RAG, covering up and glossing over GROSS INCOMPETENCE (if not abject corruption) AT EVERY LEVEL of the Bush-Cheney administration and US government!
=======================================================
The Very Annoying Washington Post
By Robert Parry
April 11, 2008
http://consortiumnews.com/2008/041008.html
One of the many annoyances about living in George W. Bush’s Washington is to read the commentaries about the Iraq War on the editorial pages of the Washington Post. Possibly never in modern times has a major newspaper been more wrong, more consistently with more arrogance than has the Post on this vital issue.
(continued: detailing the Washington Post's ABJECT LIES, JOURNALSTIC INCOMPETENCE, and EDITORIAL CORRUPTION would take an encyclopedia.) http://consortiumnews.com/2008/041008.html
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Washington Post Whores - "IRAN IS NEW ENEMY!" mantra for Bush, Cheney, Lieberman war-mongers...
.bmp)
"Ahmadinejad, Maliki MUST DIE!" America's war-lusting Neo-Cons sneer through their gnashing teeth.
America is currently trying to bribe Iraqi legislators with payments of $5 million apiece, to sign the American-rights to Iraqi-oil law, and in order to do so, the US military is pushing Prime Minister Maliki to KILL all Shiite opponents to his SCIRI-dominated coalition party... even though SCIRI is more CLOSELY ALIGNED TO IRAN, than the opposition party US bombs, bullets, and Iraqi army forces are trying to dispose of! Once America gets Maliki's SCIRI coalition to sign the oil law, then Maliki can be dispossed of... and for the next 1,000,000 years (according to Senator John McCain), America will have an IRREVOCABLE RIGHT to Iraq oil... just as the United States maintains it base in GUANTANAMO, CUBA, using an ancient treaty with a long departed government there.
Notice the Washington Post's WHORE EDITOR's headline on this story (below) and just imagine if the Post took a similar tack towards YOU.
"JOHN SMITH A TRAITOR ! US says."
Not even "John Smith a TRAITOR! US Officials declare."
NO, the WHORE Washington Post drops in to the PASSIVE "US SAYS" to confer legitimacy to the story, to PROMOTE THE NOTION that Bush-Cheney administration has 100%, ONE-HUNDRED PERCENT SUPPORT in America, to EXPAND THE IRAQ WAR in to Iran.
This is TYPICAL DEMAGOGUE WAR-MONGERING technique: CONFLATING the corrupt, election-stealing, Treasury-gutting, Justice-department corrupting Bush-Cheney administration with "the United States" in sum total as a nation.
One TINY, WAR LUSTING oligarchy (albeit with the backing of a full 27% of voters) is presented in the Whore Post's headline as REPRESENTING the ENTIRE NATION's DETERMINATION TO ATTACK IRAN - on behalf of "national security" and "defending the troops", of course.
This is the WASHINGTON WHORE POST's DEMAGOGUE WAR-MONGERING, RIGHT OUT OF THE NAZI Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels playbook: Screech "THEY ARE THE ENEMY who THREATEN THE FATHERLAND!" with all your might, then bury the actual facts of the story, under a laundry list of 1,000 - - - ONE THOUSAND - US officials who have some tidbit to chime in on the message, in a narrative that sounds like "evidence" in the officialese Washington Post report, but is acutally opinion masking as reporting.
<< "Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked,>>
and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." >>
http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Hermann.Goering.Quote.65D2
SEE Karen DeYoung's TEXTBOOK EXPOSITION of WASHINGTON WHORE POST WAR-MONGERING PROPAGANDA, below. And then realize, that a week after Vice President Cheney visited Iraq, the Iraq goverment STARTED ATTACKING Shiite militia positions in Baghdad, Basra, and elsewhere throughout Iraq, even though many of those militia supporters were more restrained with Iran's government, than the SCIRI forces who are now Maliki's core supporters.
=========================================================
Iran Top Threat To Iraq, U.S. Says
[CLAIMS the Washington Post, using senior officials in the Bush-Cheney dominated US military chain of command to make their weak case.]
"Focus on Al-Qaeda Now Diminishing"
By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 12, 2008; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/11/AR2008041101606.html?hpid=topnews
Last week's violence in Basra and Baghdad has convinced the Bush administration that actions by Iran, and not al-Qaeda, are the primary threat inside Iraq, and has sparked a broad reassessment of policy in the region, according to senior U.S. officials.
Evidence of an increase in Iranian weapons, training and direction for the Shiite militias that battled U.S. and Iraqi security forces in those two cities has fixed new U.S. attention on what Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates yesterday called Tehran's "malign" influence, the officials said.
The intensified focus on Iran coincides with diminished emphasis on al-Qaeda in Iraq as the leading justification for an ongoing U.S. military presence in Iraq.
In congressional hearings this week, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus said the U.S. military has driven al-Qaeda from Baghdad, Anbar province and central Iraq, and he depicted the group as now largely concentrated in a reduced territory around the northern city of Mosul.
During their Washington visit, Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker barely mentioned al-Qaeda in Iraq but spoke extensively of Iran.
With "al-Qaeda in retreat and disarray" in Iraq, said one official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record, "we see other obstacles that were under the waterline more clearly. . . . The Iranian-armed militias are now the biggest threat to internal order."
Partly in response to advice from Petraeus and Crocker, the administration has initiated an interagency assessment of what is known about Iranian activities and intentions, how to combat them and how to capitalize on them. The review stems from an internal conclusion, following last week's fighting, that the administration lacked a comprehensive understanding and a sophisticated approach.
President Bush reiterated yesterday that if Iran continues to help militias in Iraq, "then we'll deal with them," saying in an interview with ABC News that "we're learning more about their habits and learning more about their routes" for infiltrating or sending equipment.
But he also reaffirmed that he has no desire to go to war with Tehran. Saying that his job is to "solve these issues diplomatically," Bush suggested heightened interest in reaching a solution with other countries. "You can't solve these problems unilaterally. You're going to need a multilateral forum."
Iran has long been seen as a spoiler in Iraq, with such strong ties to all of the major Shiite political and militia groups, including that of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, that other Arab countries have begun to regard Iraq as almost a client state of Iran.
The recent fighting in Basra, which began when Maliki launched a military offensive against the Mahdi Army militia of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, revealed a threat and an opportunity, officials said.
U.S. military officials said that much of the plentiful, high quality weaponry the militia used in Basra and in rocket attacks against the Green Zone in Baghdad, where the U.S. Embassy and much of the Iraqi government are located, was recently manufactured in Iran. At the same time, the militia's improved targeting and tactics indicated stepped-up Iranian training.
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Arthur Sulzberger, William Safire, and their New York Times HAVE BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS.... LIES to WAR detailed and documented...
The MURDEROUS LIES of William Safire and his boss, Arthur Sulzberger - detailed and documented....
...THOUSANDS of dead and wounded Americans, and hundreds of thousands and dead and wounded Iraqis later.
That toll is just for the Iraq war.
All through the summer of the 2000 US presidential election campaign, the atrocious duo GAVE George W. Bush a FREE PASS for his history of "dumping" Harken energy stock after a fraudulent profit/loss statement, and in advance of the corrected P/L statement showing that Harken's previously stated "profits" were imaginary, and were actually massive losses.
(Note: Not only was Bush a member of the Board of Directors of Harken at the time, he was also a Harvard Business School graduate, and a PAID MEMBER of the company's Financial AUDIT COMMITTEE. Bush's protestations that he was unawares of Harken's losses before he sold his shares, is a primae facia plea of incompetence or fraud.)
SULZBERGER, SAFIRE, and their underlings at the New York Times also gave then Texas Governor Bush a FREE PASS for his "AWOL during Vietnam war" record - Bush NEVER REPORTED TO DUTY at his Alabama Air National Guard assignment as ordered, and he had been ordered to that non-flying ANG unit to get him out of Texas, where a COURT MARTIAL for his REFUSING to take a flight-medical exam as ordered would have been a scandal of major proportions for his rising-in-the-Republican Party father, who would be the RNC Chairman who told President Nixon it was time to resign in 1974.
All throught that long summer of the 2000 campaign, SULZBERGER, SAFIRE, and the Times IGNORED the MASSIVE BUDGET DEFICTS of Governor Bush's tenure in Texas. Instead, the Times prefered to write snears and innuendos about Vice President Gore.
Net result: 8 months after the stolen election of 2000, President Bush would REMAIN ON A ONE-MONTH VACATION at his Texas ranch, IGNORING CIA, FBI, and foreign intelligence reports that Al Qaeda was planning to attack IN AMERICA.
WITHOUT Sulzberger's NEW YORK TIMES _LYING_ all through the summer of 2000, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney would not have gotten within stealing range of the 2000 election... and the World Trade towers would almost certainly STILL BE STANDING in lower Manhatten.
WOULD Mr. Sulzberber, Mr. Safire, and their allies in the neo-con media, trade THOUSANDS of American deaths, and BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars, to have an endless American WAR in the Mideast?
If god were "just", he would make those two sons-a-bitches serve as medics or burial detail in Iraq - 24/7/365, so they could admire their murderous, lying handiwork first hand.
=======================================
How Douglas Feith and William Safire Transformed an Elvis Sighting Into a Case for War
by Vince Fiderer
By April 8, 2008
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-fiderer/how-douglas-feith-and-wil_b_95740.html
By 9/12 Mohammed Atta's face and story had been broadcast across the globe. The Egyptian-born al Qaeda hijacker had lived in Hamburg for three years prior to June 2, 2000, when he took a bus to Prague and then boarded a plane the next day for Newark, New Jersey. During the 15 months that followed, Atta traveled along circuitous routes within and outside of the United States, until the September morning when he flew a 767 into One World Trade Center.
Soon thereafter, Czech intelligence heard from a paid informant, a local resident of Middle Eastern descent, who claimed that he recognized Atta's face on TV. The informant said he observed Atta talking with an Iraqi diplomat and suspected spy, Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir Al-Ani, earlier that year in Prague.
To this day, there is no other evidence suggesting that Atta was in Prague during 2001. (The fact that some Czech intelligence officers still believe the informant's story is not evidence.) But right away, unnamed sources began piling on that single source's uncorroborated remembrance. In days following our 9/11 trauma, these differing reports contributed to an overall sense of unease. Today, those other stories -- each with a different twist on the details -- sound as phony as an Elvis sighting.
Those stories represented a key part of Douglas Feith's fraudulent case for war. Before Feith gave his notorious briefing to the White House -- the contents of which he concealed from the intelligence community -- his friends in the media conducted a massive disinformation campaign to promote the imagined Prague siting. Ground zero for the campaign was the op-ed page of The New York Times, under William Safire's byline. In each of his seven columns below, Safire asserted that an uncorroborated allegation was solid fact, and he smeared those who suggested otherwise. Here's an accounting of the journalistic counterpart to Douglas Feith.
A Foundation of Suspicious and Contradictory Stories
Laying the groundwork for Safire's first column, published on October 22, 2001, were a series of allegations from unnamed or dubious sources, which tended to contradict one another. But in the first weeks following 9/11, no one was scrutinizing the allegations carefully.
September 20, 2001
Bush Grapples With Iraq's Possible Ties to Attacks, The Wall Street Journal
September 23, 2001
Army alert by Saddam points to Iraqi role, The Sunday Telegraph
September 26, 2001
A Broader Campaign: Saddam Was Involved, The Wall Street Journal
October 5, 2001
Iraq 'Helped Atta'; Fight for freedom; Terror in America, The Sun
October 8, 2001
INC CLAIMS SADDAM LINKED TO BIN LADEN NETWORK, Radio Free Europe
October 12, 2001
Czech leader denies Atta meetings in Prague, Reuters News
October 12, 2001
Former CIA director exploring ties to Hussein, Knight Ridder News Service
October 14, 2001
US hawks accuse Iraq over anthrax - Five more test positive in Florida, The Observer
Needless to say, all of those unsubstantiated allegations from unnamed sources turned up nothing.
Safire's Columns Set Up the Premise Feith's Notorious Slide Presentation
In his seven columns touting purported Atta siting as a verifiable fact, Safire unleashed his vitriol on skeptics.
1. October 22, 2001
"What about a connection between Osama bin Laden and Iraq's Saddam Hussein? Because the Scowcroft set at the National Security Council is still in denial about its blunder a decade ago that permitted Saddam to stay in power, the C.I.A. professes to see no collaboration in Baghdad....
"[Consider] what is known... this summer's observed contacts of Al Qaeda's suicide-hijacker Mohammed Atta with Iraqi spies under diplomatic cover in Prague.
"...it is absurd to claim -- in the face of what we already know -- that Iraq is not an active collaborator with, harborer of, and source of sophisticated training and unconventional weaponry for bin Laden's world terror network."
2. November 12, 2001
"The undisputed fact connecting Iraq's Saddam Hussein to the Sept. 11 attacks is this: Mohamed Atta...flew from Florida to Prague to meet on April 8 of this year with Ahmed al-Ani, the Iraqi consul."
3. March 18, 2002
"Soviet propagandists used to touch up photographs to remove the face of a Kremlin official who had fallen from favor, making him a ''nonperson.''
"The same disinformation technique is now being used to wipe out the fact of a meeting in Prague in April, 2001..."
4. May 9, 2002
"A misdirection is in play in the CIA's all-out attempt to discredit an account of a suspicious meeting in Prague a year ago..."
"If the report proves accurate, a connection would exist between al-Qaida's murder of 3,000 Americans and Iraq's Saddam. That would clearly be a casus belli, calling for our immediate military response, separate from the need to stop a demonstrated mass killer from acquiring nuclear and germ weapons. Accordingly, high CIA and Justice officials -- worried about exposure of the agency's inability to conduct covert operations -- desperately want Atta's Saddam connection to be disbelieved."
5. August 22, 2002
"The C.I.A. has even stopped discrediting reports from Czech intelligence about a different point of Qaeda-Saddam contact: the meeting between the Sept. 11 hijackers' leader, Mohamed Atta, and a top Saddam spymaster in Prague."
Summer of 2002 - Feith Echoes Safire's Lies The White House, and Hides His Actions From the CIA
Senator Carl Levin publicly identified Feith's dishonest actions on July 8, 2004.
"In the summer of 2002, Under Secretary Feith prepared several versions of a classified
briefing on the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship. The briefing was given first to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, then to Director Tenet and the CIA in August, and finally to the staffs of the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the National Security Council (NSC) in September. The version of the briefing given to Vice President Cheney's staff included three slides that were not included in the version given to the CIA."
One of those slides, which has since been declassified at my request and is attached, was
critical of the way the Intelligence Community was assessing the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship. Under Secretary Feith has acknowledged to Armed Services Committee staff that he added two other two slides which concerned the Atta meeting issue, and which were not part of the briefing given to the CIA.
One slide in Feith's presentation addresses "Fundamental Problems with How Intelligence Community is Assessing Information." Since Iraq and Al Qaida have a motive to hide their relationship, contends Feith, "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." It's a pithy little aphorism that only makes sense if you are a paranoid crackpot.
Perpetuating the Fraud Post-Invasion
After Bush declared, "Mission Accomplished," the news media began to notice that the case for war was a sham, Safire and other neocon acolytes began resuscitating the bogus story about the Atta meeting in Prague. Safire also made a point of defending Feith.
6. November 24, 2003
7. June 21, 2004
"'Panel Finds No Qaeda-Iraq Tie'' went the Times headline.''Al Qaeda-Hussein Link Is Dismissed' front-paged The Washington Post. The A.P. led with the thrilling words "Bluntly contradicting the Bush Administration, the commission. . . .' This understandably caused my editorial-page colleagues to draw the conclusion that ''there was never any evidence of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda. . . .''
"All wrong. The basis for the hoo-ha was not a judgment of the panel of commissioners appointed to investigate the 9/11 attacks...
"What can the commission do now to regain its nonpartisan credibility?
Like Feith, Safire kept shifting around facts and pronouns like some elaborate three card monte in order to give the illusion that "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." But at the end of the day, Safire and Feith seemed to have "proof" of only one thing, that pathological fabricators are relentless.
...THOUSANDS of dead and wounded Americans, and hundreds of thousands and dead and wounded Iraqis later.
That toll is just for the Iraq war.
All through the summer of the 2000 US presidential election campaign, the atrocious duo GAVE George W. Bush a FREE PASS for his history of "dumping" Harken energy stock after a fraudulent profit/loss statement, and in advance of the corrected P/L statement showing that Harken's previously stated "profits" were imaginary, and were actually massive losses.
(Note: Not only was Bush a member of the Board of Directors of Harken at the time, he was also a Harvard Business School graduate, and a PAID MEMBER of the company's Financial AUDIT COMMITTEE. Bush's protestations that he was unawares of Harken's losses before he sold his shares, is a primae facia plea of incompetence or fraud.)
SULZBERGER, SAFIRE, and their underlings at the New York Times also gave then Texas Governor Bush a FREE PASS for his "AWOL during Vietnam war" record - Bush NEVER REPORTED TO DUTY at his Alabama Air National Guard assignment as ordered, and he had been ordered to that non-flying ANG unit to get him out of Texas, where a COURT MARTIAL for his REFUSING to take a flight-medical exam as ordered would have been a scandal of major proportions for his rising-in-the-Republican Party father, who would be the RNC Chairman who told President Nixon it was time to resign in 1974.
All throught that long summer of the 2000 campaign, SULZBERGER, SAFIRE, and the Times IGNORED the MASSIVE BUDGET DEFICTS of Governor Bush's tenure in Texas. Instead, the Times prefered to write snears and innuendos about Vice President Gore.
Net result: 8 months after the stolen election of 2000, President Bush would REMAIN ON A ONE-MONTH VACATION at his Texas ranch, IGNORING CIA, FBI, and foreign intelligence reports that Al Qaeda was planning to attack IN AMERICA.
WITHOUT Sulzberger's NEW YORK TIMES _LYING_ all through the summer of 2000, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney would not have gotten within stealing range of the 2000 election... and the World Trade towers would almost certainly STILL BE STANDING in lower Manhatten.
WOULD Mr. Sulzberber, Mr. Safire, and their allies in the neo-con media, trade THOUSANDS of American deaths, and BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars, to have an endless American WAR in the Mideast?
If god were "just", he would make those two sons-a-bitches serve as medics or burial detail in Iraq - 24/7/365, so they could admire their murderous, lying handiwork first hand.
=======================================
How Douglas Feith and William Safire Transformed an Elvis Sighting Into a Case for War
by Vince Fiderer
By April 8, 2008
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-fiderer/how-douglas-feith-and-wil_b_95740.html
By 9/12 Mohammed Atta's face and story had been broadcast across the globe. The Egyptian-born al Qaeda hijacker had lived in Hamburg for three years prior to June 2, 2000, when he took a bus to Prague and then boarded a plane the next day for Newark, New Jersey. During the 15 months that followed, Atta traveled along circuitous routes within and outside of the United States, until the September morning when he flew a 767 into One World Trade Center.
Soon thereafter, Czech intelligence heard from a paid informant, a local resident of Middle Eastern descent, who claimed that he recognized Atta's face on TV. The informant said he observed Atta talking with an Iraqi diplomat and suspected spy, Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir Al-Ani, earlier that year in Prague.
To this day, there is no other evidence suggesting that Atta was in Prague during 2001. (The fact that some Czech intelligence officers still believe the informant's story is not evidence.) But right away, unnamed sources began piling on that single source's uncorroborated remembrance. In days following our 9/11 trauma, these differing reports contributed to an overall sense of unease. Today, those other stories -- each with a different twist on the details -- sound as phony as an Elvis sighting.
Those stories represented a key part of Douglas Feith's fraudulent case for war. Before Feith gave his notorious briefing to the White House -- the contents of which he concealed from the intelligence community -- his friends in the media conducted a massive disinformation campaign to promote the imagined Prague siting. Ground zero for the campaign was the op-ed page of The New York Times, under William Safire's byline. In each of his seven columns below, Safire asserted that an uncorroborated allegation was solid fact, and he smeared those who suggested otherwise. Here's an accounting of the journalistic counterpart to Douglas Feith.
A Foundation of Suspicious and Contradictory Stories
Laying the groundwork for Safire's first column, published on October 22, 2001, were a series of allegations from unnamed or dubious sources, which tended to contradict one another. But in the first weeks following 9/11, no one was scrutinizing the allegations carefully.
September 20, 2001
Bush Grapples With Iraq's Possible Ties to Attacks, The Wall Street Journal
"U.S. officials say they are still examining a report that Mohamed Atta, a suspected hijacker on the airliner that struck the north tower of the World Trade Center, met with an Iraqi intelligence agent, evidently in Prague."
September 23, 2001
Army alert by Saddam points to Iraqi role, The Sunday Telegraph
"Since the attacks, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt that the Iraqi leader had been providing al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden's terrorist network, with funding, logistical back-up and advanced weapons training. His operations reached a "frantic pace" in the past few months, according to Western intelligence officials...The CIA also claims to have proof that bin Laden aides were in contact with Iraqi intelligence in the days before the New York outrage."
September 26, 2001
A Broader Campaign: Saddam Was Involved, The Wall Street Journal
"One of the terrorist hijackers, Mohamed Atta, met Iraqi agents in Prague in June 2000, according to Iraqi opposition sources who reported the meeting to U.S. authorities...Were U.S authorities unaware of the connection between bin Laden and the Iraqi regime? Not at all. News of such cooperation surfaced in U.S. circles very soon after the secret rendezvous based on information provided by dissident groups and informants. The meeting has since been reported on...But as former CIA chief James Woolsey says 'whether perpetrated by bin Laden and his associates or by others, [the attacks] were sponsored, supported, and perhaps even ordered by Saddam Hussein.'"
October 5, 2001
Iraq 'Helped Atta'; Fight for freedom; Terror in America, The Sun
"SUICIDE hijacker Mohammed Atta was handed fake passports by Iraqi intelligence agents, the CIA believes...A Czech official said: "This is not an isolated occasion where Iraqi intelligence agents were seen to be meeting with people in Prague. It is not disputed that Atta met an Iraqi agent on this occasion or perhaps on previous occasions. Atta was tailed by Czech agents at Prague airport. It is believed Iraq may have prepared bogus passports for all 19 hijackers."
October 8, 2001
INC CLAIMS SADDAM LINKED TO BIN LADEN NETWORK, Radio Free Europe
"The Iraq National Congress (INC) has linked Osama bin Laden's network with Iraq, according to a release by the INC. In December 1998 Faruq Hijazi, a senior Iraqi intelligence official, traveled to Kandahar tomeet bin Laden personally. He was accompanied by a group of Iraqi intelligence officers."
October 12, 2001
Czech leader denies Atta meetings in Prague, Reuters News
"Atta spent a day in the Czech Republic in transit at Prague's Ruzyne airport, but neither before nor after was he in the Czech Republic," Zeman told a joint press conference with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. "There's no reason to assume that his stay had any connection with the attacks on September 11."
October 12, 2001
Former CIA director exploring ties to Hussein, Knight Ridder News Service
"Senior Pentagon officials who want to expand the war against terrorism to Iraq authorized a trip to Great Britain last month by former CIA Director James Woolsey in search of evidence that Saddam Hussein played a role in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, U.S. officials said...The one-time CIA chief acted with the blessing of senior Pentagon officials, including Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Undersecretary for Policy Douglas Feith, said current and former U.S. officials."
October 14, 2001
US hawks accuse Iraq over anthrax - Five more test positive in Florida, The Observer
"AMERICAN investigators probing anthrax outbreaks in Florida and New York believe they have all the hallmarks of a terrorist attack - and have named Iraq as prime suspect as the source of the deadly spores...Last autumn Mohamed Atta is said by US intelligence officials to have met in Prague an agent from Iraqi intelligence."
October 16, 2001 Egyptians say anthrax spores gained by terrorist in Prague, CTK (Ceska Tiskova Kancelar).
LONDON, Oct 16 (CTK) - "The Egyptian government believes that one of the September 11 suicide terrorists, Muhammad Atta, received deadly spores of anthrax from an Iraqi diplomat when they met in Prague, the British daily The Guardian writes today."
Needless to say, all of those unsubstantiated allegations from unnamed sources turned up nothing.
Safire's Columns Set Up the Premise Feith's Notorious Slide Presentation
In his seven columns touting purported Atta siting as a verifiable fact, Safire unleashed his vitriol on skeptics.
1. October 22, 2001
"What about a connection between Osama bin Laden and Iraq's Saddam Hussein? Because the Scowcroft set at the National Security Council is still in denial about its blunder a decade ago that permitted Saddam to stay in power, the C.I.A. professes to see no collaboration in Baghdad....
"[Consider] what is known... this summer's observed contacts of Al Qaeda's suicide-hijacker Mohammed Atta with Iraqi spies under diplomatic cover in Prague.
"...it is absurd to claim -- in the face of what we already know -- that Iraq is not an active collaborator with, harborer of, and source of sophisticated training and unconventional weaponry for bin Laden's world terror network."
2. November 12, 2001
"The undisputed fact connecting Iraq's Saddam Hussein to the Sept. 11 attacks is this: Mohamed Atta...flew from Florida to Prague to meet on April 8 of this year with Ahmed al-Ani, the Iraqi consul."
3. March 18, 2002
"Soviet propagandists used to touch up photographs to remove the face of a Kremlin official who had fallen from favor, making him a ''nonperson.''
"The same disinformation technique is now being used to wipe out the fact of a meeting in Prague in April, 2001..."
4. May 9, 2002
"A misdirection is in play in the CIA's all-out attempt to discredit an account of a suspicious meeting in Prague a year ago..."
"If the report proves accurate, a connection would exist between al-Qaida's murder of 3,000 Americans and Iraq's Saddam. That would clearly be a casus belli, calling for our immediate military response, separate from the need to stop a demonstrated mass killer from acquiring nuclear and germ weapons. Accordingly, high CIA and Justice officials -- worried about exposure of the agency's inability to conduct covert operations -- desperately want Atta's Saddam connection to be disbelieved."
5. August 22, 2002
"The C.I.A. has even stopped discrediting reports from Czech intelligence about a different point of Qaeda-Saddam contact: the meeting between the Sept. 11 hijackers' leader, Mohamed Atta, and a top Saddam spymaster in Prague."
Summer of 2002 - Feith Echoes Safire's Lies The White House, and Hides His Actions From the CIA
Senator Carl Levin publicly identified Feith's dishonest actions on July 8, 2004.
"In the summer of 2002, Under Secretary Feith prepared several versions of a classified
briefing on the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship. The briefing was given first to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, then to Director Tenet and the CIA in August, and finally to the staffs of the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the National Security Council (NSC) in September. The version of the briefing given to Vice President Cheney's staff included three slides that were not included in the version given to the CIA."
One of those slides, which has since been declassified at my request and is attached, was
critical of the way the Intelligence Community was assessing the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship. Under Secretary Feith has acknowledged to Armed Services Committee staff that he added two other two slides which concerned the Atta meeting issue, and which were not part of the briefing given to the CIA.
One slide in Feith's presentation addresses "Fundamental Problems with How Intelligence Community is Assessing Information." Since Iraq and Al Qaida have a motive to hide their relationship, contends Feith, "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." It's a pithy little aphorism that only makes sense if you are a paranoid crackpot.
Perpetuating the Fraud Post-Invasion
After Bush declared, "Mission Accomplished," the news media began to notice that the case for war was a sham, Safire and other neocon acolytes began resuscitating the bogus story about the Atta meeting in Prague. Safire also made a point of defending Feith.
6. November 24, 2003
"Two blockbuster magazine articles last week revealed evidence that Saddam's spy agency and top Qaeda operatives certainly were in frequent contact for a decade, and that there is renewed reason to suspect an Iraqi spymaster in Prague may have helped finance the 9/11 attacks.
"Deniers derogate as ''cherry picking' Feith's intelligence summary available to senators: ''The Czech counterintelligence service reported that the Sept. 11 hijacker [Mohamed] Atta met with the former Iraqi intelligence chief in Prague, al Ani, on several occasions.'"
7. June 21, 2004
"'Panel Finds No Qaeda-Iraq Tie'' went the Times headline.''Al Qaeda-Hussein Link Is Dismissed' front-paged The Washington Post. The A.P. led with the thrilling words "Bluntly contradicting the Bush Administration, the commission. . . .' This understandably caused my editorial-page colleagues to draw the conclusion that ''there was never any evidence of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda. . . .''
"All wrong. The basis for the hoo-ha was not a judgment of the panel of commissioners appointed to investigate the 9/11 attacks...
"What can the commission do now to regain its nonpartisan credibility?
Like Feith, Safire kept shifting around facts and pronouns like some elaborate three card monte in order to give the illusion that "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." But at the end of the day, Safire and Feith seemed to have "proof" of only one thing, that pathological fabricators are relentless.
Monday, April 07, 2008
US "major media" in a nutshell: RELENTLESS COVERAGE of the TRIVIAL and GOSSIP... gross NEGLECT for the issues...
Glenn Greenwald, at CommonDreams.org http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/05/8103/ captures the "major media" doing what they do best: SELLING CONTENTLESS VAPID, DISTRACTION STORIES - "LOOK, everyone, it is OJ's WHITE JEEP!" - while mentioning true issues of national importance rarely, and usually BURIED well off the front page.
=================================
The US Establishment Media in a Nutshell
by Glenn Greenwald
April 6, 2008
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/05/8103/
In the past two weeks, the following events transpired. A Department of Justice memo, authored by John Yoo, was released which authorized torture and presidential lawbreaking. It was revealed that the Bush administration declared the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights to be inapplicable to “domestic military operations” within the U.S. The U.S. Attorney General appears to have fabricated a key event leading to the 9/11 attacks and made patently false statements about surveillance laws and related lawsuits. Barack Obama went bowling in Pennsylvania and had a low score.
Here are the number of times, according to NEXIS, that various topics have been mentioned in the media over the past thirty days:
“Yoo and torture” - 102
“Mukasey and 9/11″ — 73
“Yoo and Fourth Amendment” — 16
“Obama and bowling” — 1,043
“Obama and Wright” — More than 3,000 (too many to be counted)
“Obama and patriotism” - 1,607
“Clinton and Lewinsky” — 1,079
And as Eric Boehlert documents, even Iraq — that little five-year U.S. occupation with no end in sight — has been virtually written out of the media narrative in favor of mindless, stupid, vapid chatter of the type referenced above. “The Clintons are Rich!!!!” will undoubtedly soon be at the top of this heap within a matter of a day or two.
“Media critic” Howie Kurtz in the Washington Post today devoted pages of his column to Obama’s bowling and eating habits and how that shows he’s not a regular guy but an Arrogant Elitist, compiling an endless string of similar chatter about this from Karl Rove, Maureen Dowd, Walter Shapiro and Ann Althouse. Bloomberg’s Margaret Carlson devoted her whole column this week to arguing that, along with Wright, Obama’s bowling was his biggest mistake, a “real doozy.”
Obama’s bowling has provided almost a full week of programming on MSNBC. Gail Collins, in The New York Times, today observed that Obama went bowling “with disastrous consequences.” And, as always, they take their personality-based fixations from the Right, who have been promoting the Obama is an Arrogant, Exotic, Elitist Freak narrative for some time. In a typically cliched and slimy article, Time’s Joe Klein this week explored what the headline called Obama’s “Patriotism Problem,” where we learn that “this is a chronic disease among Democrats, who tend to talk more about what’s wrong with America than what’s right.” He trotted it all out — the bowling, the lapel pin, Obama’s angry, America-hating wife, “his Islamic-sounding name.”
Needless to say, these serious and accomplished political journalists are only focusing on these stupid and trivial matters because this is what the Regular Folk care about. They speak for the Regular People, and what the Regular People care about is not Iraq or the looming recession or health care or lobbyist control of our government or anything that would strain the brain of these reporters. What those nice little Regular Folk care about is whether Obama is Regular Folk just like them, whether he can bowl and wants to gorge himself with junk food.
Our nation’s coddled, insulated journalist class reaches these conclusions about what Regular Folk think using the most self-referential, self-absorbed thought process imaginable. The proof that the Regular People are interested in these things is that . . . the journalists themselves chatter about it endlessly. In Great American Hypocrites, I described the process as follows in the context of examining the three-week-long media obsession with John Edwards’ haircut (to the exclusion of a whole array of revelations about what the government was doing or planning to do) and how they justified that coverage:
#1. Eric Boehlert, "Media TUNES OUT Iraq news... PRETENDS that viewers want inane gossip stories instead.
http://mediamatters.org/columns/200804020003
#2. Speaking of, INANE WP press whore HOWIE KURTZ compiles - FIVE PAGES of stories on Barak Obama's bowling skills! (Or lack theroof)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100587.html
#3. Margaret Carlson jumps on the "Obama bowling gutter-balls" story too..
http://bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_carlson&sid=aAa467CxhOvU
#4. TIME slimey whore JOE KLEIN joins the media conga line with his "PATRIOTISM IS MOST IMPORTANT STORY FOR ME TO WRITE ABOUT!" story, where he offers this sage advice: "But now, to convince those who doubt him, Obama has to make the implicit explicit. He will have to show that he can be as corny as he is cool."
Coming from a white guy who wouldn't know "cool" if it bit him in the...
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1727502,00.html
=================================
The US Establishment Media in a Nutshell
by Glenn Greenwald
April 6, 2008
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/05/8103/
In the past two weeks, the following events transpired. A Department of Justice memo, authored by John Yoo, was released which authorized torture and presidential lawbreaking. It was revealed that the Bush administration declared the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights to be inapplicable to “domestic military operations” within the U.S. The U.S. Attorney General appears to have fabricated a key event leading to the 9/11 attacks and made patently false statements about surveillance laws and related lawsuits. Barack Obama went bowling in Pennsylvania and had a low score.
Here are the number of times, according to NEXIS, that various topics have been mentioned in the media over the past thirty days:
“Yoo and torture” - 102
“Mukasey and 9/11″ — 73
“Yoo and Fourth Amendment” — 16
“Obama and bowling” — 1,043
“Obama and Wright” — More than 3,000 (too many to be counted)
“Obama and patriotism” - 1,607
“Clinton and Lewinsky” — 1,079
And as Eric Boehlert documents, even Iraq — that little five-year U.S. occupation with no end in sight — has been virtually written out of the media narrative in favor of mindless, stupid, vapid chatter of the type referenced above. “The Clintons are Rich!!!!” will undoubtedly soon be at the top of this heap within a matter of a day or two.
“Media critic” Howie Kurtz in the Washington Post today devoted pages of his column to Obama’s bowling and eating habits and how that shows he’s not a regular guy but an Arrogant Elitist, compiling an endless string of similar chatter about this from Karl Rove, Maureen Dowd, Walter Shapiro and Ann Althouse. Bloomberg’s Margaret Carlson devoted her whole column this week to arguing that, along with Wright, Obama’s bowling was his biggest mistake, a “real doozy.”
Obama’s bowling has provided almost a full week of programming on MSNBC. Gail Collins, in The New York Times, today observed that Obama went bowling “with disastrous consequences.” And, as always, they take their personality-based fixations from the Right, who have been promoting the Obama is an Arrogant, Exotic, Elitist Freak narrative for some time. In a typically cliched and slimy article, Time’s Joe Klein this week explored what the headline called Obama’s “Patriotism Problem,” where we learn that “this is a chronic disease among Democrats, who tend to talk more about what’s wrong with America than what’s right.” He trotted it all out — the bowling, the lapel pin, Obama’s angry, America-hating wife, “his Islamic-sounding name.”
Needless to say, these serious and accomplished political journalists are only focusing on these stupid and trivial matters because this is what the Regular Folk care about. They speak for the Regular People, and what the Regular People care about is not Iraq or the looming recession or health care or lobbyist control of our government or anything that would strain the brain of these reporters. What those nice little Regular Folk care about is whether Obama is Regular Folk just like them, whether he can bowl and wants to gorge himself with junk food.
Our nation’s coddled, insulated journalist class reaches these conclusions about what Regular Folk think using the most self-referential, self-absorbed thought process imaginable. The proof that the Regular People are interested in these things is that . . . the journalists themselves chatter about it endlessly. In Great American Hypocrites, I described the process as follows in the context of examining the three-week-long media obsession with John Edwards’ haircut (to the exclusion of a whole array of revelations about what the government was doing or planning to do) and how they justified that coverage:
#1. Eric Boehlert, "Media TUNES OUT Iraq news... PRETENDS that viewers want inane gossip stories instead.
http://mediamatters.org/columns/200804020003
#2. Speaking of, INANE WP press whore HOWIE KURTZ compiles - FIVE PAGES of stories on Barak Obama's bowling skills! (Or lack theroof)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100587.html
#3. Margaret Carlson jumps on the "Obama bowling gutter-balls" story too..
http://bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_carlson&sid=aAa467CxhOvU
#4. TIME slimey whore JOE KLEIN joins the media conga line with his "PATRIOTISM IS MOST IMPORTANT STORY FOR ME TO WRITE ABOUT!" story, where he offers this sage advice: "But now, to convince those who doubt him, Obama has to make the implicit explicit. He will have to show that he can be as corny as he is cool."
Coming from a white guy who wouldn't know "cool" if it bit him in the...
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1727502,00.html
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Update: The Question the WASHINGTON POST, and Congress, FAILED to ask Oil Company Executives: the possibility to TRIPLE auto fuel mileage TODAY...
New: HERE is a question for the the Washington Post's intrepid reporters and editors to ask of Congress or the Oil Industry executives: "WHY does the Congress TOLERATE Chevron corp. PROHIBITING production and use of modern NiMH batteries - batteries that Chevron has PROHIBITED Toyota from using in their production RAV4 EV electric car - batteries that allow the RAV4 EV to get more than THREE TIMES as many miles-per-energy dollar as the RAV4 EV's sister, gas powered RAV4s.
<< The RAV4EV has 24 12-volt 95Ah NiMH batteries capable of storing 27.4kWh of energy....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_RAV4_EV ....Whether or not Toyota wanted to continue production, it was unlikely to be able to do so, because the EV-95 battery was no longer available. Chevron had inherited control of the worldwide patent rights for the NiMH EV-95 battery when it merged with Texaco, which had purchased them from General Motors. Chevron's unit won a $30,000,000 settlement from Toyota and Panasonic, and the production line for the large NiMH batteries was closed down and dismantled. Only smaller NiMH batteries, incapable of powering an electric vehicle or plugging in, are currently allowed by Chevron-Texaco. >>
Got that? Chevron/Texaco SUED Toyota and Panasonic, for THIRTY MILLION DOLLARS, to PREVENT Toyota from putting into mass production a fully functioning, 100% electric car, that, on the highway, was quite indistinguishable from normal that car's gas powered twins.
THE AMERICAN OIL COMPANIES are USING TEAMS OF LAWYERS, and the US "justice" system - to PREVENT vehicles that were BEING PRODUCED on a major automaker assembly line - from giving American auto consumers the choice of purchasing cars that get over THREE TIMES BETTER energy/gas mileage than exisiting autos of similar size!
AND BOTH THE US CONGRESS, and "major media" and Washington Post - PRETEND NOT TO NOTICE!
THAT is the devolution of American press, media and government under the eight yeas of the Bush administration: Congressional hearings that DON'T EVEN ASK simple, important questions!
===============================
<< The RAV4EV has 24 12-volt 95Ah NiMH batteries capable of storing 27.4kWh of energy....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_RAV4_EV ....Whether or not Toyota wanted to continue production, it was unlikely to be able to do so, because the EV-95 battery was no longer available. Chevron had inherited control of the worldwide patent rights for the NiMH EV-95 battery when it merged with Texaco, which had purchased them from General Motors. Chevron's unit won a $30,000,000 settlement from Toyota and Panasonic, and the production line for the large NiMH batteries was closed down and dismantled. Only smaller NiMH batteries, incapable of powering an electric vehicle or plugging in, are currently allowed by Chevron-Texaco. >>
Got that? Chevron/Texaco SUED Toyota and Panasonic, for THIRTY MILLION DOLLARS, to PREVENT Toyota from putting into mass production a fully functioning, 100% electric car, that, on the highway, was quite indistinguishable from normal that car's gas powered twins.
THE AMERICAN OIL COMPANIES are USING TEAMS OF LAWYERS, and the US "justice" system - to PREVENT vehicles that were BEING PRODUCED on a major automaker assembly line - from giving American auto consumers the choice of purchasing cars that get over THREE TIMES BETTER energy/gas mileage than exisiting autos of similar size!
AND BOTH THE US CONGRESS, and "major media" and Washington Post - PRETEND NOT TO NOTICE!
THAT is the devolution of American press, media and government under the eight yeas of the Bush administration: Congressional hearings that DON'T EVEN ASK simple, important questions!
===============================
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
"Liberal Media" IS A LIE! WashPost puts Repub Michael Gerson "Obama ABORTION EXTREMIST!" article in A-section, BURIES OIL EXECs before Congress story
WHICH issue has a BIGGER IMMEDIATE IMPACT on American lives: oil and gas prices reaching $4 per gallon for American motorists, and an OIL-MAN WHITE HOUSE that encourages GLUTTONOUS American energy consumption, and DISCOURAGES government encouragement of alternative energy investment or production...
or Barak Obama's stance on reproductive health, which is to say sexual,contraception, and abortion rights for women?
WELL, judging by the WASHINGTON WHORE POST putting FORMER REPUBLICAN SPEECH WRITER for President George H.W. Bush, Michael Gerson's "Obama an ABORTION EXTREMIST!" column in the A-SECTION... but putting the "Oil Execs Testify Before Congress" story way back in the D-section (albeit, we grudgingly concede, on the front-page of the D-section) - the WASHINGTON POST considers REPUBLICAN EFFORTS to DEFINE Democratic presidential campaign front-runner Barak Obama as "ABORTION EXTREMIST" to be MORE IMPORTANT than a nation currently STAGGERING under the TRIPLE THREATS of HUGE DEFICITS, a MASSIVE CREDIT MELTDOWN, and SOARING GAS PRICES brought on by America's energy gluttony and falling dollar.
ONLY IN FANTASY LAND can an paper be run by Republicans, who feature Republican former presidential speechwriters as their columnists, allow itself to be labelled as "liberal," so to assist in the right-wing Republican Party's relentless, continual efforts to dominate the discourse, and work towards ONE PARTY RULE.
#1: biography, Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson - CHIEF SPEECHWRITER to President George W. Bush, during the entire time that President Bush was LYING AMERICA INTO WAR against Iraq, based on evidence that was often BLATANTLY FALSE and FABRICATED!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/opinions/biographies/michael-gerson.html
#2. Gerson's flaming "OBAMA ABORTION EXTREMISM!" Republican campaign PROPAGANDA, MASKING as "Washington Post oh-so-measured, objective reporting."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/01/AR2008040102197.html?nav=hcmodule
While the US war in Iraq has directly led to THE DEATHS of OVER ONE MILLION IRAQIS who were alive before the US invasion... Mr. Gerson propagates the Republican Right-Wing FICTION that they are "concerned about unborn babies" - and the WASHINGTON POST ALLOWS HIM TO DO SO, in their "objective news" pages!!
#3. << Familiar Back and Forth With Oil Executives >>
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/01/AR2008040100157.html
REAL NEWS that American readers, consumers, and voters need to hear and know about - that Congress DOES HAVE OVERSIGHT over even America's multi-billion dollar oil companies - is BURIED in the pages of the D section, where busy working stiffs will have to slow down to find and read it. And it is written up (by Post "reporter" Steven Mufson) in the Post's favorite, "HE SAID, SHE SAID, LOOK AT THEM SQUABBLE!" narrative, which detracts from the big picture, that oil company executives ENCOURAGE GLUTTONOUS ENERGY CONSUMPTION, and spend a fortune investing in political campaigns and lobbyists, to keep it that way!
THE WASHINGTON POST _SUPPORTS AND ENDORSES_ the RIGHT-WING AGENDA of using DISTRACTION "moral values", identity politics issues and lame, bogus "he said, she said" narrative 'reporting', to keep American voters in a state of CONFUSION and HELPLESSNESS, as the US deficits soar, and we Americans become MORE DEPENDENT on oil, with NO major national programs being undertaken to revise or alter this increasingly grim picture!
or Barak Obama's stance on reproductive health, which is to say sexual,contraception, and abortion rights for women?
WELL, judging by the WASHINGTON WHORE POST putting FORMER REPUBLICAN SPEECH WRITER for President George H.W. Bush, Michael Gerson's "Obama an ABORTION EXTREMIST!" column in the A-SECTION... but putting the "Oil Execs Testify Before Congress" story way back in the D-section (albeit, we grudgingly concede, on the front-page of the D-section) - the WASHINGTON POST considers REPUBLICAN EFFORTS to DEFINE Democratic presidential campaign front-runner Barak Obama as "ABORTION EXTREMIST" to be MORE IMPORTANT than a nation currently STAGGERING under the TRIPLE THREATS of HUGE DEFICITS, a MASSIVE CREDIT MELTDOWN, and SOARING GAS PRICES brought on by America's energy gluttony and falling dollar.
ONLY IN FANTASY LAND can an paper be run by Republicans, who feature Republican former presidential speechwriters as their columnists, allow itself to be labelled as "liberal," so to assist in the right-wing Republican Party's relentless, continual efforts to dominate the discourse, and work towards ONE PARTY RULE.
#1: biography, Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson - CHIEF SPEECHWRITER to President George W. Bush, during the entire time that President Bush was LYING AMERICA INTO WAR against Iraq, based on evidence that was often BLATANTLY FALSE and FABRICATED!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/opinions/biographies/michael-gerson.html
» Columnist | Michael Gerson is a twice-weekly columnist for The Post, writing about politics, global health and development, religion and foreign policy. His column appears on Wednesdays and Fridays.
Gerson, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, served as a policy adviser and CHIEF SPEECHWRITER TO PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH from 2000 to 2006.. Before he joined Bush's presidential campaign in 1999, he was a senior editor covering politics at U.S. News & World Report. He is the author of the book "Heroic Conservatism" and a contributor to Newsweek magazine.
#2. Gerson's flaming "OBAMA ABORTION EXTREMISM!" Republican campaign PROPAGANDA, MASKING as "Washington Post oh-so-measured, objective reporting."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/01/AR2008040102197.html?nav=hcmodule
While the US war in Iraq has directly led to THE DEATHS of OVER ONE MILLION IRAQIS who were alive before the US invasion... Mr. Gerson propagates the Republican Right-Wing FICTION that they are "concerned about unborn babies" - and the WASHINGTON POST ALLOWS HIM TO DO SO, in their "objective news" pages!!
#3. << Familiar Back and Forth With Oil Executives >>
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/01/AR2008040100157.html
REAL NEWS that American readers, consumers, and voters need to hear and know about - that Congress DOES HAVE OVERSIGHT over even America's multi-billion dollar oil companies - is BURIED in the pages of the D section, where busy working stiffs will have to slow down to find and read it. And it is written up (by Post "reporter" Steven Mufson) in the Post's favorite, "HE SAID, SHE SAID, LOOK AT THEM SQUABBLE!" narrative, which detracts from the big picture, that oil company executives ENCOURAGE GLUTTONOUS ENERGY CONSUMPTION, and spend a fortune investing in political campaigns and lobbyists, to keep it that way!
THE WASHINGTON POST _SUPPORTS AND ENDORSES_ the RIGHT-WING AGENDA of using DISTRACTION "moral values", identity politics issues and lame, bogus "he said, she said" narrative 'reporting', to keep American voters in a state of CONFUSION and HELPLESSNESS, as the US deficits soar, and we Americans become MORE DEPENDENT on oil, with NO major national programs being undertaken to revise or alter this increasingly grim picture!
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