TALKS WITH IRAN BEGIN; WILL PUBLIC OPTION RETURN?, IRAQ WITHDRAWAL? AFGHAN DEBATE
September 30th, 2009 - by: danny
ATTENTION OREGONIANS: I will be speaking and holding a first preview screening of PLUNDER in Portland Oregon on Thursday Night as part of the ECONCONVERGENCE. It is happening at 7 PM at the First Unitarian Church (1011 SW 12th Ave.)
TALK TALK TALK
BERNIE GOLDBERG BLASTS FOX ON FOX
FAMILIES LIVING IN STORAGE UNITS
SO SAD ABOUT SUMATRA. I WAS THERE A FEW YEARS BACK. GREAT PEOPLE, JUST LIVING IN A SEISMIC HELL. SEVERAL HUNDRED DEAD SO FAR. HELP IF YOU CAN. DITTO FOR SAMOA. IS THERE A LINK TO CLIMATE CHANGE? EYES OPEN.
There was a three hour meeting/debate in the White House Wednesday on Afghan policy and whether to send more troops
BACKGROUND: Why Afghanistan Really Fell Apart
Washington 6 party begins talks with Iran. Other unilateral talks have been held with Burma, China and Cuba. Is it a talk surge?
IRAN
Now we know why we heard about Iran’s “secret plant” – no secret in intelligence circles. The info was leaked to give the US “LEVERAGE” in talks with Iran. Bloomberg reports:
Sept. 30 (Bloomberg) — Iran enters the first talks in more than a year on its nuclear ambitions facing world powers more unified in their demand for limits after the disclosure of a covert uranium enrichment plant.
The U.S. says it wants the meeting tomorrow in Geneva to be the start of a dialogue aimed at ensuring Iran doesn’t develop a nuclear weapon. Policy makers are exploring internally what sanctions might be appropriate at the end of the year should talks fail to ensure the nuclear effort is for peaceful ends, as Iran insists.
“The Obama administration is going into these talks with much more leverage than it’s had in a while,” said Gary Sick, who advised three U.S. presidents on national security. “The threat of enhanced sanctions, combined with some pragmatic offer to allow Iran to continue with limited enrichment, could lead to a deal.”
IRAQ: WITHDRAWAL STARTS?
WASHINGTON — AP: The top American commander in Iraq on Wednesday warned Congress against losing sight of that nation as a key Mideast ally, even as safer conditions have let him send home more U.S. troops faster than expected.
Army Gen. Ray Odierno did not directly address the impact that the war in Afghanistan is having on his mission as he makes sure Iraq’s military and political systems are stable enough to stand alone by the time U.S. forces leave at the end of 2011.
But Afghanistan was on the minds of lawmakers on the House Armed Services Committee who wanted to know whether U.S. troops and equipment were being shifted there.
MAIL AND GUARDIAN: By 2050, 25m more children will go hungry
Twenty-five million more children will go hungry by the middle of this century as climate change leads to food shortages and soaring prices.
BILL SCHER: Baucus Votes Against Public Option Because It Can’t Get 60 Votes, Yet Schumer Says It Can
The Senate Finance Committee, as expected, voted to reject two separate version of a public health insurance option. The three Democrats voting to reject both were Sens. Max Baucus, Kent Conrad and Blanche Lincoln. All three arrived to that position in odd ways.
MOVE ON: There aren’t enough Republicans in Congress to block the public health insurance option – unless they can find Democrats who are willing to help them do it.
That’s exactly what happened yesterday in the Senate Finance Committee, when three Democrats broke ranks and voted against the public option.
No matter what the headlines say, we’ve still got a good shot at passing the public option in the full Senate and House – it’s been included in all four other committee bills and it only narrowly failed in the Finance Committee.
Does Obama have a secret deal with insurance companies?
By Brent Budowsky, The Hill’s Pundits Blog
Progressives throughout the nation should rally in full force in favor of the public option, and progressives in Congress should say they will not support a bill without it. The public option still lives because it would save $50 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office, with a president and Congress that claim they want to save money. The public option still lives because it is the only check and balance against insurance-company abuses…
to this day the White House is keeping secret the logs of meetings from January through September when deals were made from the banking bailout to the healthcare bill. I strongly suspect the reason involves meetings about deals including pharma and insurers.
Was the fix in against the public option? I don’t know, but I do know this: If enough members of the House and Senate refuse to support a bill without a public option, the public option can still prevail.
I know this: A majority of the American people support the public option…
Michael Moore: Michael Moore Tells Democrats: ‘Find Your Spine’ on Health Care
ARUNDHATI ROY: IS DEMOCRACY MELTING
Michigan Messenger: STATE GOVERNMENT SHUTS DOWN
With the Michigan state legislature yet to pass a final Fiscal Year 2010 budget or continuing resolution, the threat of a government shutdown is becoming more and more real, as The Michigan Messenger is reporting tonight. Should no budget or continuing resolution be passed and signed by Governor Jennifer Granholm by midnight tonight, the Michigan state government will shut down at 12:01 AM.
As reported earlier today by The Michigan Messenger, Granholm sent a notice this afternoon informing state employees: “Because the Michigan Legislature has failed as of 2 p.m. today to meet its constitutional responsibility to enact a balanced budget for the fiscal year that begins October 1, 2009 . . . You are temporarily laid off effective 12:01 AM on October 1, 2009, until a spending plan is in place or you are otherwise notified.”
MORE AUTO LAYOFFS
GM to Shut Down Saturn
Decision is reached after an agreement with Penske Automotive Group Inc. to acquire the car brand fell apart.
See the whole Post / →
DAILY FINANCIAL CRISIS CAPSULE: WANNA LIVE IN A DRAIN PIPE OR STORAGE UNIT?
September 30th, 2009 - by: danny
OBAMA APPOINTS MONSANTO CHEERLEADER TO NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF FOOD AND AGRICULTURE
HEADS OF BANK OF AMERICA AND CHEVRON ANNOUNCE PLANS TO STEP DOWN.
LA TIMES:MAN SENTENCED TO l00 YEARS FOR PONZI SCHEME
Richard Monroe Harkless, who ran the operation from 2000 to 2003 through a company he called MX Factors, bilked investors of about $35 million, prosecutors say.
MORE ON MADOFF—FROM NEW BOOK BY BRIAN ROSS
EC watchdog pushes changes after Madoff failure
WASHINGTON – The watchdog of the Securities and Exchange Commission is recommending a new system for handling the thousands of tips and complaints the agency receives and other changes to prevent another breakdown like the one that allowed Bernard Madoff’s massive fraud to go undetected for years.
Bloomberg: Kohn: Fed is developing new exit tools
The Federal Reserve is developing some new tools for reeling in the extraordinary support it’s provided to the economy, Fed Vice Chairman Donald Kohn said Wednesday.
However, Kohn and Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Dennis Lockhart said they see no need to rush to boost interest rates because there are still risks to the unfolding recovery.
Kohn repeated the Fed’s renewed pledge from last week that the central bank will keep rates at a record low near zero for an “extended period.”
Many economists predict that will be through the rest of this year and into part of next year.
Deciding when to boost rates and rein in the support will be “challenging,” Kohn acknowledged during a speech at the Cato Institute in Washington.
PASTURES OF PLENTY, OUR AMERICA
700 LIVING IN LAS VEGAS STORM DRAINS
MIDDLE CLASS FAMILY LIVING IN STORAGE UNIT AFTER LOSING JOBS
HUGE NUMBERS OF AMERICANS ARE OUT OF WORK AND HOPE
BLIGHT COULD BE (COULD BE???) HERE TO STAY
MAN WALKS INTO MASSACHUSSETTS POLICE STATION AND ASKS TO BE DEPORTED
NACA SAVE THE DREAM EVENTS IN HEADING WEST (CHRONICLE)
It’s the day before a mammoth foreclosure-prevention event in Los Angeles and Marks, the CEO of Neighborhood Assistance Corp. of America, the Massachusetts nonprofit running the event, sounds stressed but buoyant.
NACA’s Save the Dream tour has become a nationwide phenomenon, drawing more than 180,000 desperate people this summer to gigs in Cleveland, Chicago, St. Louis and Atlanta – where a 2-mile-long line of people waiting to get in wrapped twice around the Georgia Dome. The pitch: a mobile loan-servicing operation where struggling homeowners can arrive with their paperwork and leave with a more affordable mortgage.
After L.A., the tour will hit Phoenix and Las Vegas, then roll into the Bay Area Oct. 16-20, setting up shop at the Craneway Pavilion, a cavernous former Ford auto assembly plant on the Richmond waterfront.
“We expect to have over 50,000 people there,” Marks said. “You’ll have people coming not just from the Bay Area but from throughout California because word will get out after the event in L.A.”
He rattles off more statistics to a reporter: “Each of these events costs between $700,000 and $1 million. We have 80,000 square feet in the L.A. Convention Center, we’re flying in 360 staff, there will be 200 (bank representatives) here with over 1,500 more in back offices staffed up. We’ll get thousands of loan workout solutions done, same day.”
The NACA events are the largest and most visible sign of how foreclosure activities have become part of the zeitgeist. Just as Hoovervilles and bread lines were emblematic of the Great Depression, foreclosure gatherings may go down in history as the public face of the Great Recession.
With more than 1.5 million home loans currently delinquent, foreclosure-related happenings – ranging from mass auctions of bank-owned properties to mass protests targeting those same banks – continue to proliferate. Jesse Jackson held a prayer vigil outside the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank earlier this month. Religious groups sponsor rallies. Nonprofits offer workshops. Politicians hold hearings.
WILL LABOR FIGHT BACK?
Monthly Review, Labor: A Renewal of Solidarity and Struggle — or Continued Decline?
by Jerry Tucker, former International Executive Board
Member of the UAW and a founder of the New Directions Movement
See the whole Post / →
FACTOR THIS BILL: YOUR BUDDY BERNIE PISSED WITH FNC, MURDOCH PISSED WITH BRITISH PM
September 30th, 2009 - by: danny
I nearly fell out if my chair. I try to watch the Daily Show at llp but in their extended excruciating commercial breaks, forever repeating a combination of supid movie promotions and ads for Mercedes or Lexus, I flip over to the Factor on Fox to get annoyed by O’Reilly’s by now predictable shtick feigning out rage when other media outlets attack the Fair and Balanced boys, and their procession of blonde girl guests.
The line up is rant ready every night with Beck and Morris and Goldberg, MB&G, with Bernie Goldberg, the former CBS reporter taking out in his animus at being passed over for a promotion by building on a career in knocking the liberal bias of the people he used to work for. He soon became an apologist and shill for the first church of Rupert Murdoch. The tradeoff was that his appearances sell books. The more outrageous the claim the better/ But even he can’t take it anymore. He surprised benefactor Bill with an actual dissent. BERNIE WENT ROGUE….to use a term back in use. (Maybe it was because CBS, in all its arrogance, got Dan Rather’s law suit dismissed by an Appelate Court,)
Last night we saw a Bernie in apoplectic reflection with a rare bout of candor:
Huff Post noticed too:
Bernard Goldberg, a media critic who often appears on “The O’Reilly Factor” and can reliably be called upon to defend the cable channel against accusations of bias, unexpectedly said the network is responsible for some (although not much) of the criticism it receives, particularly during the promotion of the tea parties. Goldberg told O’Reilly,
Sometimes Fox brings on the criticism itself. There are some programs on Fox that are not only not fair balanced – they’re commentary shows, they don’t have to be – but they brag about how fair and balanced they are. They don’t cover rallies and tea parties; they cheerlead rallies and tea parties. And as a journalist I am totally against that. And to that extent the criticism is legitimate. By and large it’s not.
O’Reilly defended Fox News by saying it’s no different than editorial pages promoting Earth Day and protecting the environment. Goldberg replied that his main point is:
Don’t pretend to be objective… Don’t go on the air and say these tea parties are a cross section of America. They are not a cross section. Don’t pretend to be a journalist if you’re not a journalist
WHERE ARE THE ARTICLES ON MURDOCH AS HE AIMS TO CHANGE THE US GOVERNMENT?
Murdoch Aims to Change British Government
Politics.co.uk
The Sun, Britain’s top-selling daily newspaper, is delivering a blow to Gordon Brown’s effort to be reelected prime minister, declaring it is abandoning its support for the Labour party after 12 years. Owner Rupert Murdoch is said to be unhappy about the new Digital Britain strategy.
MEDIA INTEREST FADING ON WAR DEAD
PC MAG.COM—BOTNET THREAT
Last week Canadian security vendor Defence Intelligence reported that half the Fortune 100 companies have been compromised by a botnet they dubbed Mariposa. Discovered in May, Mariposa appears to have been built using the readily available butterfly bot kit. While the afflicted among the Fortune 100 haven’t stepped forward to corroborate this claim,
Commerce Department and ICANN Sign Historic Accord on Internet Governance
Washington, D.C… September 30, 2009… ICANN and the U.S. Department of Commerce have signed an historic Affirmation Agreement supporting the ICANN model of international multi-stakeholder and bottom-up governance of the global Internet addressing system.
“This new Affirmation marks an exciting new stage in ICANN’s development as a truly international entity and it confirms, once and for all, that the ICANN model of public participation works, and works effectively” said Rod Beckstrom, ICANN’s Chief Executive Officer. “It endorses a truly unique form of Internet governance, which is critical since every voice on the Internet is unique.”
More than a decade ago it was envisioned that the Internet’s addressing system would be coordinated by a private, multi-stakeholder, non-profit corporation, specifically ICANN. The rationale was that the Internet not be controlled by any single government, group of governments or special interest.
“A decade ago the US government was a catalyst for a global discussion on how to coordinate the vital resource that is the Internet’s unique identifiers,” said Peter Dengate Thrush, ICANN’s Chairman of the Board. “They understood that it needed to be coordinated not controlled. That vision has been affirmed in the model of private sector leadership that ICANN represents.”
LETTER
Andy Stiffhard (honest) writes from France:
Dear mr. Schechter, don’t believe too much that comes out of the French presidents mouth…here in France his acts don’t resemble any of his “COM”(communications) as they say here in France. Sarko has embraced the anglo-saxons model of political doublespeak, a la Blair etc and while the world hails the French socialist state, Sarko is busy dismantling it at a rate of knots….If you need further info then please feel free to contact me, Andy Stiffhard.
Gore Vidal: ‘We’ll Have a Dictatorship Soon in the US’ An Interview With Gore Vidal
The grand old man of letters Gore Vidal claims America is ‘rotting away’ – and don’t expect Barack Obama to save it.
I am off to Portland in the morning. Other speaking/screening trips planned later this fall in Berlin, Johannesburg, Brussels and Paris. Stay tuned for more. If you can, why not bring the News Dissector to your Church, Campus or Community!
For more on the film, Twitter @plundermovie
LISTEN: THURSDAY MORNING AT TEN–NEWS DISSECTOR RADIO FEATURING JESSIC B.LEE AND BOB FERTIK OF DEMOCRATS.COM
Streaming online at ProgressiveRadioNetwork.Com. Podcast up Later in the Day.
In the meantime, thanks to all who help keep Mediachannel.org alive. Your input and comments on blog welcome to dissector@mediachannel.org. Will try to post for Friday but its only if the creek don’t rise and my ailing computer cooperates.
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About Danny Schechter
Danny Schechter is an Emmy award winning journalist, television producer and independent filmmaker who also writes, blogs and speaks about media issues.
His latest film is PLUNDER The Crime Of Our Time.
Mr. Schechter is NOT the Godfather of Soul.
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