My Last Newscast Of The Year Going By: The Beat Goes On, Stories Of Import

December 31st, 2009 - by: danny

* * * * * BREAKING * * * * *

• 8 Americans, 5 Canadians dead in Afghan attacks

KABUL – A suicide bomber at a base in Afghanistan’s volatile east killed eight American civilians, U.S. officials said, the worst loss of life for Americans in the country since October. Four Canadian soldiers and a journalist were killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan’s south, NATO said. [More here Ã¢â€ â€™]

KARMA

• Talk radio show host Rush Limbaugh “resting comfortably” at hospital after suffering chest pains.

A right-wing radio host said to be the de facto leader of the Republican Party has been taken to hospital suffering from chest pains. Rush Limbaugh, 58, who is notorious for cajoling and inflaming the largest talk-radio audience in America, was taken to hospital in Honolulu in an ambulance. [More here Ã¢â€ â€™]

END OF THE YEAR NEWS OF NOTE

• Who’s Running the TSA? No One, Thanks to Sen. Jim DeMint

• TRUTH OUT: Jason Leopold | AIG Executives Failed to Repay Majority of Bonuses

“Despite previous promises, beleaguered insurance giant American International Group (AIG) has failed to return tens of millions of dollars in bonus payments the firm doled out to executives following the company’s spectacular unraveling and subsequent multibillion government bailout, according to a recent report by the special inspector general for the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).” [More here Ã¢â€ â€™]

• Report Says ACORN Didn’t Commit Voter Fraud or Misuse Federal Funding

Mary Susan Littlepage, Truthout: “The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) did not commit voter fraud, and it didn’t misuse federal funding in the last five years, according to a recently released report prepared by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), a nonpartisan investigational arm of Congress.”

• WASHINGTON POST: U.S. taking majority ownership of GMAC

The federal government said Wednesday it will take majority control of the troubled auto lender GMAC, providing another $3.8 billion in aid to the company, which has been unable to raise from private investors the money it needs to staunch its losses. GMAC, which already has taken $12.5 billion in direct federal aid along with other forms of government support, is the largest lender to General Motors and Chrysler dealerships and to their auto-buying customers.

• FIREDOGLAKE ON KUCINICH: I WILL INVESTIGATE FANNY/FREDDIE SCANDAL

Announcing it in a Christmas Eve news dump, think again. Dennis Kucinich just released this statement:

“As Chairman of the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, I’m announcing that the Subcommittee will launch an investigation into the Treasury Department’s recent decision to lift the current $400-billion cap on combined federal assistance to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, opening the way for additional, unlimited funds through the end of 2012. This investigation will include the role played by Fannie Mae chief executive Michael J. Williams and Freddie Mac chief executive Charles E. Haldeman in the decision, if any, and will seek to ensure that the additional assistance is used for homeowners and not Wall Street.”

“Many questions remain unanswered regarding this move by the Treasury. Why suddenly remove the cap? Indications are that Freddie and Fannie, even as millions of Americans lose their homes, have used just $111 billion of the $400 billion previously available to them. Is lifting the cap on assistance a back-door TARP?”

“Additionally, I want to determine whether Fannie and Freddie have a cohesive plan to buy up the under-performing mortgages that remain on the books of the big banks, at appropriate prices, and undertake a massive reworking of the terms of the mortgages so as to stem the foreclosure crisis that continues to plague our country. This new authority must be used responsibly and for the benefit of American families. This cannot be used simply to purchase toxic assets at inflated prices, thus transferring the losses to the U. S. taxpayers and acting as a back-door TARP.”

On Christmas Eve, they also announced $4-$6 million compensation packages for their top executives. But they’ll start foreclosing on homeowners again in January.

• REUTERS: l0 BIGGEST FINANCIAL SCANDALS OF THE YEAR

• IAN WILLIAMS INTERVIEWS JUDGE RICHARD GOLDSTONE ON GAZA

• FLASHPOINTS RADIO (KPFA) FROM THE GAZA FREEDOM MARCH

• RELIEF WEB: CRISIS IN THE CONGO

I could go on but I won’t. This is supposed to be a week off. It’s hard for me to pass over important news and commentary but even obsessed news dissectors deserve a rest

Thank you for being here this past year. We mark our official 11th anniversary online on Feb 1st, also the anniversary of the student sit-ins that kicked off the 60s civil rights movement.

Your comments and New Year’s greetings welcome: Dissector@mediachannel.org

LETTER:

Hartley Pleshaw writes from the Commonwealth of MA:

Thank you so much! May the coming year be a very happy and prosperous one for you as well–and for Globalvision. 2010 marks the 40th anniversary of my first hearing you on WBCN. I can’t think of too many people who have been a part of my life for so long. So much has happened since then–including, of course, the death this year of the radio station that meant so much to us all. But, you and Charles and Sam and so many others carry on. THAT’S the real WBCN: not the call letters or the frequency, but the spirit. And it will go on for as long as we do.

No, 2009 wasn’t a vintage year. Obama was a disappointment, but even his meager efforts brought out the haters and the crazies, and showed just how powerful they can be. The unemployment lines grew, the debts exploded, more troops marched off to war. The Empire, it seems, keeps expanding from without, even as it rots from within.

As for the media…why bother? The people who should be chronicling all this now only seem to enable it What’s really depressing is that some of our old friends now flirt with the Dark Side.

Nat Hentoff has joined the Obama-is-Hitler crowd, and contends that G.W. Bush and Dick Cheney were basically nice guys who went a little overboard–or is that waterboard? (Hentoff now shares a website with David Horowitz and Ann Coulter; alas, it’s now where he belongs.) And Joe Klein’s heart now melts at the sight of a man in uniform. (Particularly one wearing General’s stars.)

Meanwhile, paradoxically enough, some of yesterday’s Dark Siders continue to give off some much-needed light. The departed Bob Novak may have been a nasty old red-baiter, but he was also a rare mainstream voice for justice for the Palestinians. Pat Buchanan remains, as he has been for the past 20 years, a powerful voice for anti-imperialism. (And by all means, check out the wonderful book “Ain’t My America” by his American Conservative colleague Bill Kauffman; it’s a very lively and entertaining history of the too-often neglected, distorted and ignored anti-imperialist Right.) And from 9/11/01 on, Andrew Sullivan’s blog has detailed in outraged eloquence the crimes of Bush and Cheney, the lies of Sarah Palin and the horror of what contemporary “conservatism” has become. (In other words, Sullivan has become what Nat Hentoff once was.)

Still, as they used to say in the old movies, “We’ve still got each other!” I recently had the great honor of interviewing Howard Zinn for an upcoming magazine article–and wasn’t it wonderful to experience “The People Speak” on the History Channel? (More of that sort of thing, and maybe that channel will actually earn its name.) Amy Goodman and her colleagues at “Democracy Now!” actually give us a newscast with NEWS. (A tip of the cap, too, to the networks who air her, FSTV and Link.) Alex Cockburn keeps Counterpunching away, for which we should all be grateful. Matt Taibbi actually makes me want to read Rolling Stone again, for the first time in many decades. And while Keith Olbermann may be prone to excess, we’re lucky to have SOMEONE call the Dildo, er, excuse me, Dittoheads, and the Fox “News” Channel, to account–with wit and style, no less.

And, last but never least, we’ve got Globalvision. Take a bow, News Dissector, and your Globalvision family. The worse things get, the more we need you.

Happy New Year to you, the most important media observer of our age, and my dear and valued friend.

The News Dissector