NYPD's Corporate Police?

Things Brian Williams(etc.), won't tell you.











In the wake of the mass arrest of anti-Wall Street protesters, a donation of $4.6million that JPMorgan Chase made to the New York City Police Foundation is getting renewed attention online, including on Occupy Wall St.'s website. According to the major bank's website, the gift was "the largest in the history of the foundation and will enable the New York City Police Department to strengthen security in the Big Apple.
~Ryan Grim, HuffingtonPost

'America Is NOT Broke': Michael Moore Speaks in Madison, WI -- March 5, ...

And an interview on Grittv about the blanket non coverage by our National corporate "News"


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Koch Whores: Anti-Union Gov. Scott Walker And ABC "News"

Caught the corporate news of ABC this morn. Wanted to post but had to be at work early for a long 8 hours.
SOoo finally here I am.
The talking head on ABC "News" was Ms...let's just call her, "what's her name" and she told me that there were going to be rallys in all 50 states in support of Wisconsin's public Union today organized by Moveon.org. Now if this were an actual "News" show I'd have seen an interview of someone at Moveon.org because that's a pretty impressive feat. Instead(surprise! not!) what I got was a quote by the Republican anti-union gov of Wisconsin Scott Walker, who was apparently concerned
that if he didn't bust the union the workers would have to be fired(or some B.S. like that). At this point the video changed to our intrepid journalist Ms. "what's her name" strolling with the Republican anti-union gov Scott Walker. Having seen corporate "liberal media news" before and knowing what was coming from ABC(Always Been Corporate) was going to be a commercial for Republican union buster Scott Walker I changed chammels. Goodbye corporate ABC "News", goodbye sharp reporter Ms. "what's her name", goodbye any chance of truth getting out on the tvs.
Meanwhile all you need to know about Republican anti-union thug Gov Scott Walker is right here. Talking to one of his main sugar daddies(or so he thought)


While I'm here here's Moveon's live stream of the protests. Not that it matters. Protests didn't matter in the build-up to the attack on Iraq and they won't matter in the busting up the final remnants of unions. Corporate "news" media will not allow it.

Watch live streaming video from moveonorg at livestream.com

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Rachael Maddow - Republicans and Media Using Same Narratives For Upcoming Elections

Surprise! The corporate "News" Media and the GOP are using the same storylines for "our" elections.


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Top 5 Social Security Myths

Or, things you won't learn watching corporate news. Thanks to MoveOn and Digby:

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Myth: Social Security is going broke.

Reality: There is no Social Security crisis. By 2023, Social Security will have a $4.3 trillion surplus (yes, trillion with a 'T'). It can pay out all scheduled benefits for the next quarter-century with no changes whatsoever.1 After 2037, it'll still be able to pay out 75% of scheduled benefits--and again, that's without any changes. The program started preparing for the Baby Boomers retirement decades ago.2 Anyone who insists Social Security is broke probably wants to break it themselves.


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Myth: We have to raise the retirement age because people are living longer.

Reality: This is red-herring to trick you into agreeing to benefit cuts. Retirees are living about the same amount of time as they were in the 1930s. The reason average life expectancy is higher is mostly because many fewer people die as children than did 70 years ago.3 What's more, what gains there have been are distributed very unevenly--since 1972, life expectancy increased by 6.5 years for workers in the top half of the income brackets, but by less than 2 years for those in the bottom half.4 But those intent on cutting Social Security love this argument because raising the retirement age is the same as an across-the-board benefit cut.


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Myth: Benefit cuts are the only way to fix Social Security.

Reality: Social Security doesn't need to be fixed. But if we want to strengthen it, here's a better way: Make the rich pay their fair share. If the very rich paid taxes on all of their income, Social Security would be sustainable for decades to come.5 Right now, high earners only pay Social Security taxes on the first $106,000 of their income.6 But conservatives insist benefit cuts are the only way because they want to protect the super-rich from paying their fair share.


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Myth: The Social Security Trust Fund has been raided and is full of IOUs

Reality: Not even close to true. The Social Security Trust Fund isn't full of IOUs, it's full of U.S. Treasury Bonds. And those bonds are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.7 The reason Social Security holds only treasury bonds is the same reason many Americans do: The federal government has never missed a single interest payment on its debts. President Bush wanted to put Social Security funds in the stock market--which would have been disastrous--but luckily, he failed. So the trillions of dollars in the Social Security Trust Fund, which are separate from the regular budget, are as safe as can be.


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Myth: Social Security adds to the deficit

Reality: It's not just wrong -- it's impossible! By law, Social Security funds are separate from the budget, and it must pay its own way. That means that Social Security can't add one penny to the deficit.1

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Today's Surprising(Not!) Fact

It's so totally weird how the teabaggers are no different than Republicans.














pic-Republicans & teabaggers

Who woulda thunk it? Everyone but other rightwing Republicans, and our National corporate "News" media obviously.
Hey, Let's ask DICK Armey! He'll know.
BWAHHAHAHA! Cough....

Actually I tend to agree with the floosie's shirt in many ways. Absolutely none of the ways she means it. But in many other ways...

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Your "Liberal Media"; Still Not Even Close to Being Liberal

Apparently to CNN(Conservative News Network) IOKIYAR*:

The day after a report that Democratic Senate candidate Richard Blumenthal had made false claims about his military service, CNN devoted 11 segments to the story. By contrast, CNN ran no segments on Republican Senate candidate Mark Kirk's admission that he had made a false claim about his military service in the two days after that story broke.

*It's OK If You're A Republican.
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Things to Amaze Republican Friends - Facts and Figures on HCR

I'm almost afraid to put "Republican" in a title post. Google Ads already often has some bizarre notion that this is a Republican site. Or maybe they just splash Repub ads to annoy me. It works..
Anyhoo, here's the Booman with those HCR figures.

For your wingnut friends, the White House just sent over an analysis of what health care reform will do district by district and state by state. Pass it along.

...

Every National corporate "news" channel this evening(exception Ed Shultz, MSNBC) were working their asses off to depict the loathsome teabaggers as American heroes linked to the founding father. After that old criminal Karl Rove was brought on NBC(National Breath of Conservatives) and prodded to bloviate about how the astro-turf/corporate funded teabaggers are patriots. I gave up and headed downstairs for some blessed Internet news with Ed Shultz in the background.
Also while I'm on Blog, Yes I do know that my nearly Republican Congressman Ben Chandler(RDem, KY) voted no on HCR every chance he could.

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Funny Vid | FAUX News Gets "Protested"

This is teh funny.
A "bubble headed bleach blonde" on FAUX News introduces boy reporter Griff Jenkins(yes that's the name) who is in Denver for the Democratic Convention. Fearless Griff starts "interviewing", or actually taunting the "leftist" protesters(they must be leftists to even protest you see) and for his troubles starts getting chants of "F*ck Fox News! F*ck Fox News!"
Needless to say it's cut short. Hilarious!



What's especially funny is FAUX News and Griff's comments about "protesters and leftists", lumping them all together. It's almost like watching a local tv news bit from 1970. except we get the happy ending of F*CK FOX NEWS!!

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On Ron Suskind's New Book

Also from This Modern World is this little item from Ron Suskind's new book "The Way of the World".
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CIA Agent Allegedly Involved in Forged Iraq Letter Ran Previous Operation to Create Pretext for War
In Ron Suskind’s interview on NPR today (and also in his new book), he names CIA operative John Maguire as one of the people allegedly involved in the Iraq letter forging..
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I saw ToadyToday Show's Meredith Vieira do a poor interview of Ron Suskind this morning. I believe more and more that to be a modern tv "journalist", you have to forget everything you know and wake up every day with no memory of what's been said or done the days before. I had a lot more written but Blogger just screwed me and threw it away. Just read the article and for heaven's sake don't get your news from corporate tv only.

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Corporate News "Russertathon" Continues

I tuned into NBC for the "Meet the press" time slot this morning just to see what kind of lovefest they'd put up for Big Tim Russert. As expected the beatification continued unabated. I told my wife that it's as if a sitting President or adored world leader had died.
The talking heads are stroking themselves through their continuous, adoring Russertathon. Jeebus I'd hate to be one of these people, they make millions but if they have an original thought in their head you'll never see it. The midwest drowning, Iraq still bleeding, US soldiers dying in Afghanistan, oil workers now allowed to harass, kill and torture polar bears. An endless horror list. But damnit that affable fellow, Big Tim Russert, Dick Cheney's favorite interviewer died. The brain dead leading the brain dead goes on. Barry Crimmons has the best take on this latest corporate news navel gazing I've seen:

"..The media wags that survive Russert are incapable of seeing the absurdity of their overkill of his death.."

"..The Russertathon establishes that talking heads matter more than many outstanding people, too. (At least as far as other talking heads are concerned.) In 500 years, who do you think will be considered more significant for his contribution as a chronicler of this age we live in? Tim Russert or Kurt Vonnegut? If Vonnegut got five minutes coverage on MSNBC when he died, I missed four minutes and forty-five seconds of it. Russert, on the other hand, has already had 30 times more airtime devoted to his life and death than all of the 129 journalists who have been killed in Iraq combined. It's exactly the kind of reporting we've come to expect during the era of a nice guy named Tim Russert.."

Link.

Related: Here's Bill Moyers interviewing Russert in April 2007 excerpted from the Moyers "Buying the War" broadcast:


This is all I'll ever have to say about Tim Russert. I never watched his show for the same reason I never watch any of these corporate cable news talks. They are "he said, she said, journamalism", skimming the surface of real information and the truth. R.I.P. Tim Russert, someone else will take your seat. Someone else probably even worse if I know the corporate info-tainment playbook.

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Freedom Riders | Wingnuts On Two Wheels?

Just a Note:
I think I've found a good chunk of that 28-29% of the American public that thinks George W. Bush is doing a bang-up job as Prez-dent. I sat down this evening to finish the newspaper and the wife had left the local news on. As I started reading the paper the announcer says: "That's all, have a good evening and stay tuned for NBC National News". I thought: Uh Oh, and looked around for the remote. Sure enough there it is across the room. I think to myself, well..I'll just keep on reading, they can't do anything to annoy me that quick? NBC started telling me about a HUUUGE biker protest in Washington DeeCee by the "Freedom Riders motorcycle club" for Veteran's rights and to support our military. Wow I thought, I hope "dumbya's" out of town these guys might just string him up. Then NBC gravely tells me that these "Freedom Rider" guys -that are just doing their damnest to support our military and veterans- were also going to give a leather coat of appreciation to...George W. Bush..! WTF! As you can imagine my jaw hit the floor, newspaper forgotten I stumbled across the room for the blessed remote. Trying to ignore the images of the "Freedom Riders" giving a fine leather coat of appreciation to the guy who has decimated our military with a false war, profiteering cronies, and overall indifference(except for photo ops). The guy who just a few days ago tried to have the new GI bill giving veterans a college education thrown out. The guy who's taking the finest army in history and laying it to waste. There's not enough room on the Internets to describe the damage George W. Bush has done, in everything he's touched. What he's done to our military(and country) for his corporate profits war in Iraq should be a war crime. The "Freedom Riders" think dubya's one helluva good ol' boy. That's all I need to know about the Freedom Riders.

I prefer these Freedom Riders.

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Pentagon Propaganda Documents Now Online

From prwatch.org
Don't hold your breath for the happily complicite corporate "News" networks to report on this

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Eight thousand pages of documents related to the Pentagon's illegal propaganda campaign, known as the Pentagon military analyst program, are now online for the world to see, although in a format that makes it impossible to easily search them and therefore difficult to read and dissect. This trove includes the documents pried out of the Pentagon by David Barstow and used as the basis for his stunning investigation that appeared in the New York Times on April 20, 2008.
The Pentagon program, which clearly violated US law against covert government propaganda, embedded more than 75 retired military officers -- most of them with financial ties to war contractors -- into the TV networks as "message surrogates" for the Bush Administration. To date, every major commercial TV network has failed to report this story, covering up their complicity and keeping the existence of this scandal from their audiences.

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More On Our Darling Corporate media

I actually loved the shot of Hillary slugging down the booze. Here's This Modern World:



















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Once Again | Why I Never Watch Corporate News

Jeff Cohen's excellent article sums up the corporate news very well. Fortunately(for my sanity) I'd quit them years before. Sometime around the Bill Clinton impeachment debacle and when the internet started becoming a viable news option. The Internet has been and continues to be a life saver for me. The only escape from the alternate universe of the corporate infotainment business.
It's not getting any better. Dumbya appears as a guest on a game show, Laura "The Lump" hosts the Today Show with obsequent regulars. I only see these little items while reading through internet news sites. The day they stop the free flow of information on the Net is the final nail in the coffin of freedom. Here's Jeff Cohen on the run-up to dubya and our media's bloody Iraq folly:

Military Propaganda Pushed Me off TV

By Jeff Cohen

In the fall of 2002, week after week in debates televised on MSNBC, I argued vigorously against invading Iraq. I used every possible argument that might sway mainstream viewers - no real threat, cost, instability. But as the war neared, my debates were terminated.

In my 2006 book ""Cable News Confidential," I explained why I lost my airtime:

There was no room for me after MSNBC launched "Countdown: Iraq" - a daily one-hour show that seemed more keen on glamorizing a potential war than scrutinizing or debating it. "Countdown: Iraq" featured retired colonels and generals, sometimes resembling boys with war toys as they used props, maps and glitzy graphics to spin invasion scenarios. They reminded me of pumped-up ex-football players doing pre-game analysis and diagramming plays. It was excruciating to be sidelined at MSNBC, watching so many non-debates in which myth and misinformation were served up unchallenged.

Continue.

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The Joy Of The Psuedo-Liberal Newspaper

I sat down this morning to read my local dead tree paper The Lexington Herald-Leader. Now if you live anywhere near here you're used to hearing the occasional alternate universe wingnut growling about "that Herald-Liberal rag". You know the same ones who cry about the "Liberal Media" while they get their news from FauxFOX, CNN, ABC(the Sean Hannity debate network) , etc. Anyway there I sat with my coffee to round out the news with some in depth analysis from the columnists.
Sunday's the one day of the week that I actually read the H-L National News section. To much of a corporate bipartisan hack-fest the rest of the week. Actually the same on Sundays but I do try to wade through it today if only for tradition. So I skim their National News and then go to the columnists.
I've told conservatoids that I wish it were Liberal, just like I wish CNN(etal.) were Liberal. Why(they say)? Because if they were, "I'd watch them, I'd watch them every damn day!"
My original point and the gist of this rant. The "Herald-Liberals" columnists for my Sunday pleasure.:

John Stossel- Libertarian, corporate Ho, corporate hack, all around "Dick".
Maureen Dowd- Corporate hack, Media Ho, hater of Democrats.
Cal Thomas- Religion Troll, wingnut.
Mona Charon- Her name describes her politics, hardcore wingnut.
Eugene Robinson- I don't know what Mr. Robinson's politics are. He's a black man so I assume at worst that he's right leaning Democrat.

There you have it my Sunday morning reading pleasure. Since I only scanned the headlines I didn't have to read any further so I got to the breakfast table earlier, so there's that. There's a few local columnists such as Larry Dale Keeling, etc. that I like sometimes, but rarely a Liberal, or someone I(a Liberal) see as a Liberal voice in the pages of that "Herald-Liberal". More's the pity.

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Corporate Press | Lapdogs

This pretty much sums it up. Here's that Liberalcorporate media in all it's glory:



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Hello Media! | This Isn't Rocket Science

More of the MSM's delusional, other-dimensional spin on that Republican(Hello!) Filibuster in the Senate. The "News" folks just find it so incredibly hard to get it right.
Here's mcjoan at Kos:
..

The award for most misleading headline on today's Iraq vote goes to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, whose website leads with "Filibuster Fails to Force Iraq Vote."

We've seen a lot of that lately. Just to be clear, the Senate actually voted 52-47 for a withdrawal in Iraq by April 1, 2008. The Republicans were the filibusterers.
..

There was more there about Fox News, but why bother, "Faux" is a Republican propaganda network so I won't even show their devilry.

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