The true measure of power is how much you can get away with, which makes the gangsters running the U.S. effectively all-powerful.
July 03, 2007
March 28, 2007
Investigations!
A while back I wrote on the Leiter reports:
Lieberman is indeed good for the GOP and Bush Gang, lending a veneer of "bipartisanship" (in the Norquist sense). But what tips the balance for me is that the propaganda value of controlling the Senate is tremendous, immensely outweighing this. The party in control of the Senate gets majority representation on every Senate committee, which means two things: first, legislation individual GOP Senators would prefer not to go on the record about can be brought to the floor for a rollcall vote, rather than buried in committee; and second, committees have subpoena power. Sick of the Bush Gang sweeping the politicization of science/intel lies about Iraq/warrantless spying and break-ins/torture/etc under the rug? I daresay the corporate media is not inclined to hype these issues on its own. But imagine the incalculable damage it could do to the GOP for decades to come to have the rancid sump of six years of their rule probed over in endless detail, day in and day out, for two years. I like the sound of that!
This is now what we're getting -- eg, the Senate GOP going on record in support of endless war and the Doan fun. As predicted, the American people are disgusted by what they are now learning -- facts which the heroes in the legislature have made impossible to cover up -- which seems to be making a long-term anti-GOP realignment.
November 02, 2006
Lieberman's "street money" starts to get press in CT
Backstory: the "endlessly hypocritical" Joe Lieberman reported $387K in undifferentiated "petty cash" expenditures in his September campaign expense disclosure. Petty cash is by FEC ruling limited to 100 bucks or under. What a huge lot of burgers and gas fillups that is! By comparison Ned spent under $500 in the same period (no cite, I don't recall where exactly I saw that latter figure). Also such disbursements are to be carefully itemized. So Joe's breaking the law. For a while, the story languished in the press.
Now apparently the CT press is getting on the stick. That's great. The most reasonable suspicion is that the missing $387K has gone for machine-politics style "street money". As the just cited blogger puts it, "street money is wrong. The public knows that instinctively"; so that if word gets out to the general public, "it would tank his campaign".
Spread the word.
Linky post
- Talk about reaction formation! This story is a real treat for lovers of one of Brian's favorite concepts. Apparently Ted Haggard, one of the fathers of the contemporary American Taliban, and the major player behind the theocratization of the USAF (his megachurch is right across from the Air Force Academy), has been involved in a sexual relationship with a male prostitute for the last three years, apparently also engaging in "p&p" or enhancing the experience by smoking crystal. Dude, stay off the crystal, that stuff will make your teeth fall out.
- Why is Stanford University, my alma mater, the lying right-wing propagandist Thomas Sowell -- who has recently lied about the anti-terrorism positions of a leading member of California's congressional delegation? Answer, Sowell a "fellow" -- translation, on a sinecure post -- at the Hoover Institution. Hoover certainly performs some worthwhile services -- eg their archives are tremendous. Still, providing Sowell and the even more odious and stupid Dinesh D'Souza with the sheen of a Stanford association damages Stanford's good name, as well as blurring the line in the public mind between serious scholarship and propaganda. (Incidentally, if you haven't yet read James Wolcott's devastating D'Souza dis, do so: it's archived here.) Financial pressure obviously won't do anything to get SU to disgorge this pair of goons: Hoover is self-funding -- or rather owned by the corporate and elite paymasters that benefit from its propaganda (ADM "supermarket to the world"; big oil and their auto buddies; big war; big FIRE; assorted individual plutocrats). Still, maybe moral pressure would induce Stanford, if not to pressure Hoover to get rid of these jerks, at least to issue a strong statement deploring their lies and distinguishing what they do from what Stanford is supposed to do. Maybe after the election ...
- US determined to be an "extensive surveillance socieity", with privacy protections just above those of China, Russia, and Malaysia.
- Last night I got round to reading Matt Taibbi's terrifying Rolling Stone piece on the historically dreadful 109th congress.
If you haven't read it yet, please do. I found I learned a great deal
about legislative mechanics -- also, in grueling detail, how the
Republican party has utterly destroyed this central system in US
democracy.
September 24, 2006
May 12, 2006
If he's against it, I'm for it
Surfing around in the astroturfy anti net neutrality website advertised on a lot of blogs here, I noticed this:
"Legislation should be free of so-called "network neutrality" provisions. We strongly urge Congress to continue the "hands off" approach to Internet regulation that has allowed the Internet to flourish for over a decade. A network neutrality provision would start down the dangerous path to Internet regulation and taxation. Further, network neutrality regulation seeks to address a problem that does not currently exist, as providers have a very real market incentive not to drive customers elsewhere by blocking or slowing down popular content."
Americans for Tax Reform and The Media Freedom Project letter to Chairman Joe Barton, dated March 16, 2006, signed by Grover Norquist, President, ATR, and Tom Readmond, Executive Director, MFP
Yes, that Grover Norquist. (Now why would good old Grover be interested in pressing for giant corporations to be allowed to control the flow of info through the internet?)
For the case made by the heroes, go here.
May 08, 2006
GOP carveout smoking gun: Jack Welch and Tim Russert
For a while, Jessica has been pressing the idea that the corporate news media "carves out" negative reporting on the GOP due to their financial interest, in the same way NYC papers carve out dirt on department stores to preserve ad revenue. In at least the case of Murdoch and Fox, there's an obvious intent to function as a right-wing propaganda organ -- no secret there. Still, the legacy news media (ABC, NBC, CBS, NYT, WaPo) have at least projected a more objective image, despite their obvious slant, and I at least haven't seen any evidence of direct pressure by the bosses on the newsroom. This article (h/t this dKos diary) provides the immediate causal link:
[GE, and thus NBC, boss "Neutron" Jack] Welch was absolutely determined to make his employees at NBC News finally genuflect to the most sacred words in his vocabulary: GE bottom line.
He perceived that there was a widely believed American myth of well-intended journalists selflessly seeking the truth, and that there would be hell to pay if a business leader like him were to overtly force reporters to be good corporate soldiers. So, being a very bright guy, he largely left the journalists at NBC alone.
Publicly.
In private, Welch was proud to have personally cultivated Tim Russert from a "lefty" to a responsible representative of GE interests. Welch sincerely believed that all liberals were phonies. He took great pleasure in "buying their leftist souls", watching in satisfaction as former Democrats like Russert and MSNBC's Chris Matthews eagerly discarded the baggage of their former progressive beliefs in exchange for cold hard GE cash. Russert was now an especially obedient and model employee in whom the company could take pride.
I strongly encourage all to read both the diary and the article from which the quote is pulled, which details how Rove convinced Welch to have his guys push for Bush in 1999.
April 30, 2006
April 27, 2006
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