DON’T MISS SEEING THIS: MARK FIORE–AMERICA DECIDES NETWORK

OBAMA BREAKS WITH REVEREND WRONG

Hell has no fury like a pastor scorned. How else to explain Reverend Wright’s making himself the center of attention when it was so clear that all this attention was never about him. It was about finding a chink in Obama’s armor/personna and driving the wedge in as deeply as possible. But once the glare of big media attention makes you its focus, its easy to get seduced, to let egomania and prophetmania take over.

The Clinton and McCain campaign love it. Ratings soar and the distraction circus goes spinning on out of control. For Barack Obama, this became something akin to stepping in something gooey that he couldn’t scrape off his shoe.

The issue went on its merry divisive way until yesterday when he tried to call a halt. Of course, the media that thrives on this sort of food fight will not let go. With three billion in political advertising in the wings, they will continine to beat the drum.

TIME: A few weeks ago, after his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, first drew headlines for his fiery sermons, Barack Obama responded with a graceful speech on race in America. But Rev. Wright has decided he isn’t about to shut up and launched a series of provocative remarks over the weekend and on Monday. On Tuesday afternoon, Obama denounced Wright, saying “His comments were not only divisive… but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate.”

David Sirota: Clinton Criticizing Closure of Indiana Factory That Clinton Helped Close

In my upcoming book, The Uprising, one of the threads tying together the disparate forms of populism on both the Right and Left is a sense of confused frustration at a political system whose politicians employ disinformation and propaganda to make basic economic issues indecipherable. This has been no more obvious than on the issue of trade and globalization in the presidential race - and Hillary Clinton’s latest television ad (which is also a standard part of her stump speech) shows exactly what I’m talking about.

Clinton is airing this advertisement in Indiana, bemoaning the closure of a defense contractor Magnequench’s manufacturing plant in Valparaiso (she is also echoing this line in her stump speeches). Looking at the camera, she tells us she’s upset that the 200 jobs that were sent to China, and that “now America’s defense relies on Chinese spare parts.” And then comes the kicker: She tells viewers that “George Bush could have stopped it, but he didn’t.”

Clinton is certainly right that it is a tragedy that 200 American jobs were killed in a corporate deal that also exported sensitive military technology to China. But she forgets to mention that it wasn’t George Bush who was in the key position to stop it - it was Bill Clinton.

Back in 1995, a Chinese consortium, which included two Chinese state-owned companies, made a bid to take over Magnequench. Because the company makes key parts for smart bombs, the takeover had to be approved by the Clinton administration’s Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States. Despite the national security and economic problems with selling off such critical manufacturing capacity to the Chinese - and despite the knowledge that such a deal would likely end in a domestic mass layoff - the Clinton administration approved the deal. This same deal - not surprisingly - paved the way for those 200 Indiana jobs and that sensitive military technology to be shipped to China.

WASHINGTON POST “FACT CHECKER” COLUMN ON GAS TAX DEBATE

Both Sen. John McCain and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton have called for a “gas tax holiday” this summer to offer commuters and vacationers some relief from spiraling gasoline prices. They have urged Congress to suspend the 18.4-cent-a-gallon federal tax and 24.4-cent diesel tax between Memorial Day and Labor Day, a step that could cost the government about $10 billion that would be used for transportation projects. The only major candidate to oppose the idea is Sen. Barack Obama, who voted for a similar measure in Illinois eight years ago. Obama now says that consumers would derive little benefit from such a moratorium. So, who is right?

Miriam Rafter reports: SAN DIEGO GOP CHAIR’S SECRET PIRACY PAST REVEALED:

San Diego GOP Chairman Co-Founded International Piracy Ring

RAW STORY (4/29/08) — Any job applicant knows that background checks are routine – especially for jobs involving authority or oversight of money. So why didn’t the San Diego Republican Party do a simple Google search before naming Tony Krvaric as its chairman?

Online research reveals that Krvaric is the co-founder of Fairlight, a band of software crackers which later evolved into an international video and software piracy group that law enforcement authorities say is among the world’s largest such crime rings. After co-founding Fairlight in Sweden, Krvaric established U.S. operations for the organization, including an arm headquartered in Southern California—a major center for the computer and video game industry.

Krvaric has also been appointed by California Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring to head up the state party’s budget committee. RAW STORY’s investigation reveals the California GOP has put an alleged pirate in charge of its treasure trove.

An e-mail sent anonymously this week to a conservative listserv operator in San Diego County revealed an attached document titled “The Secret Life of Tony Krvaric.” The attachment alleged that Krvaric, using the alias “Strider,” founded Fairlight “to illegally crack and distribute copyrighted software.” Fairlight evolved from “an adolescent obsession into a full fledged multinational criminal enterprise,” the e-mail claimed.

KILLING TV SOFTLY: PUBLIC ACCESS FIGHTS FOR SURVIVAL

NBC NEWS QUESTIONED ON PRIORITIES

Miley Cyrus Trumps Voter ID Ruling on NBC Nightly News; On Same Day, NBC Anchor Slammed NYT’s Fluff

Last night, NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams allotted eighty seconds to yesterday’s momentous Supreme Court ruling that there’s nothing unconstitutional with Indiana’s law requiring a photo ID to vote. Meanwhile, during the same broadcast, it spent over two minutes on the concern caused by photos of teen star Miley Cyrus in Vanity Fair.

That would be embarrassing enough for a news organization purporting to be credible.

But earlier in the day on the Nightly News blog The Daily Nightly, anchor and managing editor Brian Williams (in a post titled “What Times Is It?”) actually took The New York Times to task for publishing puff pieces. Now, Williams won’t get an argument from me on The Times’ penchant for such reporting in between serious news items, which can bump a crucial story to the back pages (that’s why “NYT Front|Back” is an ongoing series here). But Williams is either in bunker-mentality denial or gallingly disingenuous to suggest he and his newscast - not to mention his network news colleagues and the mainstream media at large - don’t regularly focus attention on the same kind of tripe at the expense of substantive news.

Talk about your glass houses.

Barbara Sockey writes ON 60 MINUTES COMMERCIAL FOR ISRAELI AIR FORCE

Hi Danny:

I just wrote a letter to CBS regarding this travesty of a news story. I’m sending along the address and phone number if anyone else wants to share their thoughts:

CBS News
555 West 57th Street
New York, NY 10019

Main Number:
(212) 975-4114

Thanks for your great work.

GOING TOO FAR?

BBC: When does kinky porn become illegal?

A bill outlawing the possession of “extreme pornography” is set to become law next week. But many fear it has been rushed through and will criminalize innocent people with a harmless taste for unconventional sex.

‘Extreme porn’ law could criminalize millions

LETTER FROM SYRACUSE NEW YORK

Marlin “Mike” Kisselstein writes

I believe there is a story here and that based on your previous work, Destiny might be a good fit for you to show the world how a “perfect economic storm” can expose “patently stupid” and put good people at unnecessary risk.

Here’s the deal in Syracuse, NY.

* The developer got government tax concessions which were to be offset by increased sales taxes, but if consumer spending declines and the retail sector declines those increases may not be recognized.
* A full build out will no doubt cost north of $4 billion with less than 10% of that currently financed and commodities going through the roof
* Phase 1 currently under construction and financed by municipal bonds insured by a Bermuda based bond insurer which has been downgraded to slightly above junk bond status would build 800,000 square feet of retail space thus doubling the size of the Carousel Mall in Syracuse, NY at a time when retail is in decline.
* Phase II would include a 1300 room 40 story hotel in Syracuse, NY??????
* Phase III would make Destiny the largest mall in America and include entertainment/recreational components similar to Xanadu in Jersey http://www.northjersey.com/multimedia/video/17069706.html and make the project a major tourist attraction although the price of gas may hurt tourism.

Here’s the rub

* The municipal bond market has tightened considerably and the value of bond insurance questionable at best and therefore future bonding may be questionable
* The financial sector is under extreme duress from sub prime, leveraged buy outs, escalating non-mortgage delinquencies and a looming slow down in the world and therefore bank financing of this high risk project is doubtful.
* The US dollar is reaching new lows as crude prices skyrocket to compensate and bio-fuels come under pressure due to food shortages
* Many non-crude commodities are reaching record levels.
* The consumer discretionary sector is under extreme duress as consumer confidence hits historic lows while inflation shrinks wallets.
* The retail sector is in a contracting mode and highly unlikely to be looking to the Syracuse market for growth.
* The housing sector is under extreme duress as prices are declining at an accelerating rate and foreclosure skyrocket

No one in the local media wants to talk about a “perfect economic storm” that may be Syracuse’s Destiny, making Syracuse the poster child for American excesses and the potential costs to communities like ours for “patently stupid”.

THE NEWS WE MISSED-FROM HARPERS.ORG

Turkmenistan returned to its old calendar, meaningn that months will no longer be named for the late dictator Saparmurat Niyazov, a.k.a. Turkmenbashi, his mother, a book he wrote, and the concept of neutrality; nor will the days be named for qualities such as youth, justice, nspirit, and Turkmenness….

Tony Zirkle, a candidate for Congress in Indiana who previously proposed segregating races into different states, spoke before a neo-Nazi group at an event to commemorate the birth of Adolf Hitler. “I’ll speak before any group that invites me,” said Zirkle. “I’ve spoken on an African-American radio station in Atlanta.”

Thanks for Tuning in. Comments to dissector@mediachannel.org