Media Won't Go There

As Mark Crispin Miller continues to emphasize in his series of public addresses, "Twilight Time," the commercial media are not going to duplicate the depth and honesty of reporting on Watergate, not for Iran Contra, and not for Torturegate--two arguably far worse scandals than Watergate was.

Miller cites the same evidence unveiled in "Mockingbird: The Subversion of The Free Press by the CIA" and Carl Bernstein's "The CIA and the Media."

Miller contends that the commercial media follow-up to the shocking allegations of CIA media control was so muted as to indicate one of two possible explanations for the silence. (1) The story was false, or (2) The story was true and the CIA prevailed.

Now we see yet another of the endless subsequent string of unfollowed leads and unprosecuted grovernment crimes in the unwillingness of the commercial media to hold the Obama administration accountable for not investigating and prosecuting Bush/Cheney war crimes, specifically, torture and illegal detentions. As FAIR noted in May,

media's willingness to give Cheney a platform in the debate over torture shifted the discussion away from the central issue that torture is illegal under both U.S. and international law, and focused attention instead on torture's efficacy. The media allowed Cheney to push the discussion in this direction, in large part because Cheney assured that these secret documents would show that he was right. Now that it's clear they do not, will the media outlets that gave Cheney a platform continue to let him off the hook?

It's Danny Schechter, of course, who pulls all the threads together so we can see the true fabric of the emperor's new clothes.

This Is Why Bipartisanship Is A Scam

Ah yes... newsmedia are now BIG CORPORATIONS, too!!!

CVS's "Your Welcome" Note

I got this response from CVS to my email thanking them for pulling their advertising from Glen Beck's show.
CVS/pharmacy Response - #07720929
Reply

Follow up message
Dear Florindo Troncelliti:

Thank you very much for your communication about our decision regarding advertising on the Glenn Beck show.

Our position is simple and was not driven by taking sides in any political debate. We support free speech of all kinds, and vigorous debate, especially around policy issues that affect millions of Americans. But we expect the speech and the debate to be informed, inclusive and respectful, in keeping with our company’s core values and commitment to diversity. In our view, Mr. Beck crossed the line.

While advertising on the Fox network is part of our communication plan, we had not requested time on Glenn Beck’s show specifically. We have instructed our advertising agency to inform Fox to ensure Glenn Beck’s program is not part of our advertising plan.

We must continue to be true to our core values – accountability, respect, integrity, openness and teamwork.

Thank you again for your email.

Sincerely,

Pamela

CVS/pharmacy

Customer Relations

TRAILER: Michael Moore's 'Capitalism: A Love Story'

This looks a little more slick than the previous efforts, which exuded a reality documented on film veracity. I still want to see it as soon as it comes out.

Health Care--Vlogbrothers

Get ready to run, you pirates!

Jonathan Alter @ Newsweek: Health Care as a Civil Right:
This summer's health care political debate has seen the creation of "something new"

a tsunami of rumors, myths, fear-mongering and misinformation about the proposals that surges around the Internet in nanoseconds. “I’m totally confused about what’s going on,” one reader wrote to the AARP Bulletin. “How do I know who to believe?”

Misinformation spreads at rapid speed

On a more encouraging note, Danny Schechter, the News Dissector reports on the popularity of driving the pirates out of your doctor's office and local clinic or hospital:

When asked if they support “having a national health plan in which all Americans would get their insurance through an expanded, universal form of Medicare-for all,” the responses in favor get even better for our side:

· 58% Approve (+ 8 points versus the sample asked specifically about “single-payer.”)

· 34% strongly approve (+ 10 points)

· 38% disapprove (- 6 points versus the respondents who disapproved of “single-payer.” When asked this way the approvers out-number the disapprovers by 20-points).

· Only 25% “strongly disapprove” (the “strongly approve” respondents outnumber the “strongly disapprove” respondents by 9 points).

I think this is huge. Not only does it suggest that all of the efforts to demonize single-payer are largely failing, but it further suggests that we will have strong majority support for single-payer healthcare if we can educate the roughly 8% of the population that would support it if they understood what it was. Even without that 8% we have a majority 50% to 44% support. With it our majority improves to 58% to 38%.”

Obama better wake his ass up and get out in front of this thing before it runs over him and every Democrat in the Senate (except Bernie Sanders).

Conrad acknowledges co-ops won't bring down costs

The "Dakota Dunce" does his song and dance for the big insurance companies, live, on national TV! Why should Americans have the right to finance their own health care? That would mean cutting off profits from insurance companies that add ZERO value to health care.

Insurance companies pay to put princes like the 650,000 constituent senator in office, so they should get their corporate welfare!!

How dare people want to govern themselves!

Rep. Anthony Weiner Discusses Public Option Health Care Reform on Morning Joe - PT 1

Righteousness has the power of truth.

Rep. Anthony Weiner Discusses Public Option Health Care Reform on Morning Joe - PT 2

At least somebody has the righteousness to speak the truth without getting bullied off the stage.

Med Lobbyists Outspend Constituents For Senator Conrad

North Dakota has a population of less than 650,000 people, yet Senator Conrad is shoving flimsy state insurance coops down the throat of the entire nation:

On Capitol Hill, the Senate Finance Committee is expected to produce a bill that features a nonprofit co-op. The author of the idea, Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota and chairman of the Budget Committee, predicted Sunday that Mr. Obama would have no choice but to drop the public option.

“The fact of the matter is, there are not the votes in the United States Senate for the public option,” Mr. Conrad said on “Fox News Sunday.” “There never have been. So to continue to chase that rabbit, I think, is just a wasted effort.”

Kent Conrad: Campaign Finance/Money - Industries - Senator 2008 | OpenSecrets

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Censorship, Media Control

From Danny Schechter, August 17, 2009: The News Dissector blog:

Uli Schmetzer, was one of those great foreign correspondents who reached the pinnacle of his profession as a scribe for Reuters and then the Chicago Tribune. Born in Germany, he moved to Australia where he plied his trade in the tabloid machine before traveling the world’s hot spots until that moment of epithany came to him as he realized that his desire was tell his readers what we was seeing and thinking about was being mutilated, censored and suppressed by the major news organizations he worked in the name of the “editorial process.” (You can read more about the book and some of his reporting on his website That’s http://www.uli-schmetzer.com/

He has now collected his greatest hits and stories in a masterful exercise of story telling called TIMES OF TERROR: Notebook of a Foreign Correspondent published by Tizuli, a publishing house down under. Uli not only recounts his adventures on the world’s battlefields—from Tienaman Square to Cambodia to Sarajevo to Chile but tell us what his readers were never allowed to read when the lede in his stories was buried or its message was distorted. “Soon you will rrealize news is diluted and distilled by political and corporate interests well before it reaches the consumer.,” he says.

Listen to this: “I would say that 60 to 70 percent of all controversial stories I wrote throught my 37-year career as a foreight correspondent were fiddled with, diluted, changed or cut to delete potentially contentyious texts or interpretations that did not fit the the preconceptions tht most editors and agencies had developed, thanks largely to government propaganda,” WOW!

This book has the advantage of being very well written. extraordinarily insightful and honest. One passage speaks to what’s happening now as public indignation is being marshaled and manipulated in the service of special interests and against their own interests.

“Thus system is constamtly searching for new scapegoats to serve as lightening rods for occasional public indignaion,” he writes, “It blames our economic recession on terrorism instead of on unscrupulous manipulators if funds or a war that costs trillions of taxpayers’ dollars. The system bails out greedy and crooked financial institutions but has no safety net for the 50 million workers globally expected to lose their jobs thanks to “mismanagement” of executives who still pocket fat bonuses for screwing up.”

Schemtzer does not just blame the media for its sins—he argues that media organizations mirror public attitudes, biases, and preferences because rhats what is required to get the public to watch, listen or read. Media consumers tend to seek out outlets they believe agree with then, or with which they are comfortable. I remember speaking to an executive at CNN about why the news network parroted the Bush Administration line after 911. I was told that they were very conscious of not getting ahead of the public even when they knew the government was lying for fear of losing viewers. It is this symbiotic dance that leads media decisionmakers to ratiojnalize what they do as giving the public what it wants.

Required Reading for Health Care Town Halls

From The Nation August 14, 2009 Wells'[s] work is a reminder that the highest calling of investigative journalism is to provide evidence against false justifications that underlie violent ideologies. The crowds at health care reform town hall meetings are enraged and armed. Many are spurred on by a belief that their families, their futures, and their way of life are being threatened. Many hold patently false beliefs about the facts of pending health care reform legislation.

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Poisoning the Wells

Consortiumnews.com

There is a direct lineage from the Iraq War hysteria to the current madness surrounding the health-care fight. In both cases, the hysteria was stoked by leading Republicans and their right-wing media allies. Both involved disseminating farfetched, nightmare scenarios to a gullible (if not paranoid) segment of the population, which was then whipped into a frenzy that spilled over into intimidation and silencing voices of disagreement.

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Sue Wilson: It's War. Media War

Sue Wilson: It's War. Media War

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Chuck Todd: Media Has "Created This Drama That [Obama's] Struggling To Get [Health Reform] Done"

Yes, we'll get something for the time, effort, and money. But it will resemble 'nothing" more than it will resemble the systemic reform American needs.

Legislating Misinformation: Conservative Media Making Up Details Of Health Reform Bill

A fat pay check can buy lots of big lies in American commercial media today.

The Two Minutes Hate: August 12, 2009

It would be a shame if the American people allowed themselves to be badgered and bullied by hate-speakers like Beck, Savage, Hannity, O'Reilly, and Limbaugh into doing the corporations' dirty work for them.

But that's what they're urging us to do: Fabricate irrational fears based on lies, magnify them, and then incite the American people to psycho-vigilante violence.

I just don't think we are going to let them do it to us. Maybe it's really up to the police to prevent shootings, muggings, disruptions of democratic meetings, intimidation of elected officials, etc. But, ultimately, if the people refuse to be incited by evil, evil cannot thrive.

Glenn Beck's Hate Speech, Brought To You By...

Thanks, Media Matters. Without you we would be lost in a wilderness of hate speech and misinformation!

http://mediamatters.org/

TYT: Upset Father From Townhall Threatens Violence, Says Pelosi Thugs Came To His House - Democratic Underground

TYT: Upset Father From Townhall Threatens Violence, Says Pelosi Thugs Came To His House - Democratic Underground

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Minus the Spin

Bob Herbert's column today

Analysts at the Economic Policy Institute noted that the economy has fewer jobs now than it had in 2000, “even though the labor force has grown by around 12 million workers since then.

He references this EPI report from last Friday.

Dennis Kucinich-HealthCare briefing in Washington, DC

Don't give up on sanity. We haven't destroyed our chances for equitable health care yet. HR3200 has not passed (or failed) yet.

Lobbyist-Turned-Senator

The Revolving Door Turns a Full 360 Degrees

Sen. Jim DeMint, 57, and his wife, Debbie, live in Greenville, S.C. They have four children. DeMint obtained an MBA from Clemson University in 1981, and then ran his Greenville marketing firm for 15 years, with hospitals among his clients.

How convenient for the Medi-profits industry that DeMint just happened to get elected in time to "quickly emerge[] as a leading voice of opposition to President Obama's bid to overhaul the American health care system with new or expanded federal government programs."

rangel action draft 8.09

 

Congressman Charles B. Rangel

163 West 125th Street, Suite #737

New York, NY  10027

August 7, 2009

Page 2

 

 

 

Florindo J. Troncelliti

255 W. 108th Street #7B1

New York, NY  10025-2925

                                                                                    email:  flotron9@gmail.com

                                                                                    http://media-monitors.blogspot.com/

 

VIA FACSIMILE:  (212) 663-4277

Congressman Charles B. Rangel

163 West 125th Street, Suite #737

New York, NY 10027

                                                                                                                August 7, 2009

 

                            August Recess

 

Honorable Congressman Rangel:

 

Thank you for your robust and effective leadership in the 111th and in previous Congresses.  We have come to rely on your voice as our leading spokesperson to the nation and as one of the country’s primary advocates for working Americans.  Your shepherding Americas Affordable Health Choices Act through Ways and Means was a demonstration of legislative prowess unrivaled by any other effort in this legislative session.

 

As your supporters and constituents, we implore you to lead the district now in mobilizing support for REAL HEALTHCARE REFORM by organizing pro-health care rallies, events, press conferences, publicity actions, letter-writing, phone-banking, fundraisers, and other activities that will inform and engage the public and broaden the media discourse and public debate on this critical issue at this critical time.

 

Health Care For America Now (HCAN) is urging supporters of their Core Principles for Health Care Reform to contact our legislators and urge them to support affordable, quality health care for everyone in America.

 

As an apologist for these principles, we ask for your continued public visibility as well as your active leadership in mobilizing your constituents to overcome the resistance to reform in the media, the opposition party, and the lobbying industry.

 

Under your leadership, your constituents could be

 

• Counteracting misinformation and anti-reform efforts by
   
• educating our neighbors and the media about the facts pertaining to the health care crisis in America;
   
• informing those groups about the pending legislation in Congress and the unique opportunity to influence the outcome of the legislative process afforded us by this recess; and
   
• broadening the debate in the District, in the media, and in Congress to include a FULL RANGE OF PROPOSALS for remedying the current crisis in American health care.

 

Our affiliations with local and state Democratic leaders and organizations, and local and regional independent media, afford us the opportunity, under your leadership, to organize and help express the ardent hope of our community for real reform on a host of issues, beginning with Health Care.

 

Please have your staff contact Florindo J. Troncelliti at (646) 508-9647 to arrange for a meeting with us at your earliest convenience in order to pursue the goals set forth above.

 

Sincerely,

 

 

 

Florindo J. Troncelliti

Independent Producer

Manhattan Neighborhood Network

US_ACTIVE:\43124881\01\43124881_1.DOC\99910.9301              2

Son of Frances Schaeffer

Who Speaks For The American People?

With the shenanigans orchestrated by the corporate media, their pharmaceutical and insurance sponsors, and the lobbying industry to whip up hysterical resistance by using misinformation, the American people really need a clear and reliable voice to iterate the President's vision--especially in the area of health care reform.




Watch CBS Videos Online

fair2

Elizabeth MacDonald of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting at 77 W. 66th Street on July 28, 2009. Why won't ABC News allow single payer advocates on the air for the health care debate?

Brown Shirts, Bullies, and the New American Fascists

Perhaps America will one day go fascist democratically, by popular vote.--William Shirer*

5 facts about the anti-reform mobs



1. These disruptions are being funded and organized by out-of-district special-interest groups and insurance companies who fear that health insurance reform could help Americans, but hurt their bottom line. A group run by the same folks who made the "Swiftboat" ads against John Kerry is compiling a list of congressional events in August to disrupt. An insurance company coalition has stationed employees in 30 states to track where local lawmakers hold town-hall meetings.

2. People are scared because they are being fed frightening lies. These crowds are being riled up by anti-reform lies being spread by industry front groups that invent smears to tarnish the President's plan and scare voters. But as the President has repeatedly said, health insurance reform will create more health care choices for the American people, not reduce them. If you like your insurance or your doctor, you can keep them, and there is no "government takeover" in any part of any plan supported by the President or Congress.

3. Their actions are getting more extreme. Texas protesters brought signs displaying a tombstone for Rep. Lloyd Doggett and using the "SS" symbol to compare President Obama's policies to Nazism. Maryland Rep. Frank Kratovil was hanged in effigy outside his district office. Rep. Tim Bishop of New York had to be escorted to his car by police after an angry few disrupted his town hall meeting -- and more examples like this come in every day. And they have gone beyond just trying to derail the President's health insurance reform plans, they are trying to "break" the President himself and ruin his Presidency.

4. Their goal is to disrupt and shut down legitimate conversation. Protesters have routinely shouted down representatives trying to engage in constructive dialogue with voters, and done everything they can to intimidate and silence regular people who just want more information. One attack group has even published a manual instructing protesters to "stand up and shout" and try to "rattle" lawmakers to prevent them from talking peacefully with their constituents.

5. Republican leadership is irresponsibly cheering on the thuggish crowds. Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner issued a statement applauding and promoting a video of the disruptions and looking forward to "a long, hot August for Democrats in Congress."

* The New York Times, December 29, 1969, p. 36.