Revisionist History from the Party of CYA

We lost almost half as many lives in New Orleans as on 9/11 (3.00 / 5)

through corruption, negligence, and incompetent political operatives running FEMA greatly increased both the loss of lives and the collateral damage. Again, this happened on Bush and Cheney's watch. We must not forget this and the wholesale foot dragging, lack of rebuilding, and outsourcing of jobs to nonlocals. This was a textbook case of applying Shock Doctrine techniques to kick a city and its citizens when they are down or order to further your own profit agenda.

Abstinence programs breed hypocrites.

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by: OklahomaVoter @ Thu May 14, 2009 at 21:41:13 PM CDT

I've come to one profound conclusion about the "media" (3.00 / 3)

My generation was probably the first to be completely "raised" with it, Sky King, Lone Ranger, Leave it to Beaver, Dragnet. Color was our version of the iPhone. ;}

"They" are only comfortable with the status quo now. They know teh formula and how to monetize it. Change, true change, would require a whole new marketing team, a completely new list of "insiders" for source material. and maybe ))))shudder(((( real investigative journalism. "Change" is not in the budget. And with fewer and fewer owners of the media divvying-up and monopolizing every niche, there's no real pressure from that old-fashion competition thing.

The starkest change i've noticed, was the advent of CNN. Once "they" found out the news could make money, news did a relatively quick morph into infotainment with a dedicated ad buy.

IMHO, news was much better when it was a boring mandate from the FCC as a requirement for a broadcaster's license.

Change will happen on it's own, progress requires thought and work.

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by: geez53 @ Fri May 15, 2009 at 00:30:46 AM CDT

News is a misnomer (3.00 / 4)

well at least the Reporting of serious Journalism is.

It's mostly opinion, slant, bias, and gossip these days.
Since gossip sells -- I guess. I can't wait to see what that Rhodes Scholar, from the "Country of California" has to say next -- perhaps she can detail why she thinks Torture keeps us safe, and leads to "World Peace"?
(omg)

Back in the Day of Cronkrite, and Sevareid,
News was more like "taking your vitamins" -
Not exactly fun, but in theory, Good for you.

And the actual "Vitamin-content" mattered back then too.
The on-scene reporting helped to end the Vietnam war.
With all those Body Count Reports, with Reporters like Dan Rather, dodging Bullets, and interviewing Grunts, and occasional Wounded --
It became fairly clear that this was a futile War of Stubbornness, more than anything.

My have times changed!
Rather ended up dodging a different type of Bullet, eventually. That of Faux Public Opinion.
And that of the Corporate Good Ole Boys.
Getting to the Truth had nothing to do with it.
(W's awol National Guard days, still remain a mystery -- imagine that!)

Amy Goodman and Bill Moyers, follow that tradition of real Journalism,
but they don't have the "critical mass" audiences,
that their journalism deserves.
Issued based reporting, apparently has no sex appeal.

Thank goodness for the internet, or we all may be "1984-Zombies" by now.

Thanks for the Feedback geez53.
Good to see ya again.

In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act -- George Orwell

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by: jamess @ Fri May 15, 2009 at 08:26:04 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Easy peasy to shut Cheney up. (3.00 / 3)

Just investigate and prosecute him for all the illegal shit he did while in office.  Starting with torture.

But will that ever happen?  Hell no.  Apparently the Dems, from Obama to Pelosi are perfectly happy to allow everyone in the Bush Admin and Bush Justice Dept have a free pass at all the laws they broke.  

So Cheney gets to revise, and revise, and revise.  

Dumb old me, I thought when the Dems took over, that things would change.  I thought wrong.

The function of man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time.  Jack London

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by: mdgarcia @ Fri May 15, 2009 at 08:27:16 AM CDT

Great diary, jamess (3.00 / 4)

Believe it or not, someone from the big orange actually defended Bush and Cheney an tried to say there was nothing specific in that memo, whihc showed true ignorance awhile back.

http://www.dailykos.com/commen...

Nah, you got out your pam pams (1+ / 0-)

Recommended by:
   skohayes

Too bad you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Richard Clarke does know what he's talking about. Those warnings specifically talked about using aircrafts as missiles and if they were taken seriously, the hijackers wouldn't have been able to get on those planes and there was not one national security meeting on Al Qaeda even though the attack on the U.S Cole was fairly recent at that time.

Plus that's not the only briefing, but it is a big one. This one debunks you, though. you sound like Condi Rice. Congratulations on your epic failure.

Funny how you quote "slam dunk" Tenent, tooand Richard Clarke is not mentioned. Is this Chris Wallace?

http://www.slate.com/id/2098861/

   Roemer then asked Tenet if he mentioned Moussaoui to President Bush at one of their frequent morning briefings. Tenet replied, "I was not in briefings at this time." Bush, he noted, "was on vacation." He added that he didn't see the president at all in August 2001. During the entire month, Bush was at his ranch in Texas. "You never talked with him?" Roemer asked. "No," Tenet replied. By the way, for much of August, Tenet too was, as he put it, "on leave

Aww, wrong again. Bin Ladin is specifically mentioned in he title. He mentions Ramzi Yousef and the 1993 WTC bombing wanting to emulate it. It talks about an Al Qaida cell in NY. Specifically it talks about how Bin Ladin wanted to hijack a U.S aircraft to gain release of Al Qaida members. It refers to the FBI investigations about Al Qaida members surveying Federal buildings in NY.

See, now you know that your defense of the worst administration ever falls apart and linking to hacks who obviously have never read the memo regardless of how they tout their credentials falls apart. Richard Clark has over 30 years experience.

Al Gore could of and would of absolutely taken the right precautions to stop 9/11 and he would of implemented Richard Clarke's detailed plan and he would of read this memo and security would of kept some of the hijackers detained and they would have not been allowed to board because a few of them set off metal detectors.

I'm not normally one to tell people to go to red state, but this garbage belongs there as do you if you defend the Bush administration here.

I can deal with a difference of opinion, but when someone comes in and defends the Bush administration that is just too much. That and the Wall Street Chamber of Commerce cheerleaders that make me go off. there are many cool people on the big orange, BUT there are also many that make me go off, but that's kind of my thing, anyway. :P  

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by: priceman @ Fri May 15, 2009 at 15:12:02 PM CDT

thanks Priceman (3.00 / 2)

that is one impressive comment!

dKos ain't what it used to be.

Of Course, what is?

In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act -- George Orwell

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by: jamess @ Fri May 15, 2009 at 18:42:20 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Thanks, jamess (3.00 / 2)

It never stops. Even though the really bad ones are few and far between; we are hearing them more often and they come form the BS Left Libertarian mindset kos invented awhile back.

I went off today, because I was reeling from Johnathan Tasini's masterful performance and embarrassment of Maria , Maria Bartiromo.

Then someone tried to blame public unions for the downfall of our economy and state budgets citing Forbes magazine, which was too much to take.

http://www.dailykos.com/commen...

The private sector doesn't fund schools and real aggregate demand in our economy in a deflationary spiral that we are in. Please look up deflationary spiral, OK?

Second of all, is that why the Governator threatened to fire state employees to balance the state budget? Oh yeah, states are actually broke because the economy is in freefall because of Alan Greenspan and there is no demand and only public unions and a Keynesian multiplier. Not because of public unions. Lack of demand leading to unemployment lading to little or no revenue, while the corporations you worship don't pay their fair share. You see, investment by government injects income, which results in more spending in the general economy, which in turn stimulates more production and investment involving still more income and spending and so forth. The initial stimulation starts a cascade of events, whose total increase in economic activity is a multiple of the original investment.

Your wonderful private sector is what caused this crisis and your private sector has bribed the public legislative sector to screw private unions and private union contracts and just because government agencies have not been as successful on that crime, doesn't mean public unions are to blame. Oh and what's hilarious is that you and that Wall Street hack who wrote that article, obviously are ignorant of history and right to work states and law as any private unions have not had the same power since Taft Hartley was passed and right to work laws were written into state Constitutions thus debunking this BS:

   

state legislative maneuvers, often backed by pro-union legislators, sweeten the deals already made. These pension deals are never negotiated at arm's length in competitive markets between parties who are free to go elsewhere.

There is nowhere else to go, thanks to the anti-union lobby and you'd rather see our economy and workers gets crewed, because you think your money shouldn't help out the country you live in. Why should my tax money pay for workers to create demand in an economy in freefall? Recovery and you're never going to be a Robber Baron; it's not going to happen; that dream to be one is why so many people get screwed.

BS like this is what I call natural wrongs.

Not to get sycophantic, but I can't believe I hear that kind of crap.

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by: priceman @ Fri May 15, 2009 at 19:09:02 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

I read Tasini's blog (3.00 / 2)

sounds like a hoot of an interview.

Thanks again for the clip,
and the comment summary.

In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act -- George Orwell

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by: jamess @ Fri May 15, 2009 at 22:24:24 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Spain has been creating green energy jobs just fine (3.00 / 4)

until this world-wide recession hit: Don't let the Right Wing reference to a biased Spanish report with hyper Conservative roots fool people.

The Heritage Foundation and its conservative allies have been using unfounded evidence to claim that investments in renewable energy lead to higher prices and job losses. The report that they are touting was written by Professor Gabríel Calzada Álvarez, a virtually unknown scholar in Spain who works for a small research institute with clear ties to the energy industry and the extreme right-wing of the Spanish Conservative Party.

Here are some passages from a letter debunking this report by Jesús Caldera (vice president of the IDEAS Foundation and former minister for public works) and Carlos Mulas-Granados (executive director of the IDEAS Foundation and former economic advisor to Prime Minister Zapatero):

...Any serious debate should be based on an unbiased assessment of available scientific evidence. The aforementioned report clearly fails this crucial test. Professor Calzada tries to find a long-term trend, but only cites employment data for the last year during Spain's serious recession. He argues that solar energy has destroyed 15,000 jobs in the last year, but neglects to cite official figures showing an increase in this job sector of about 500% in the preceding three years. The loss he refers to is thus nothing more than a minor downturn in an economy that is troubled by the recent economic crisis.

Professor Calzada also compares subsidized with non-subsidized sectors and conventional sources of energies with renewable energies. This is a report which fails to meet even the minimum standards of academic integrity. But worst of all, Professor Calzada's report ignores-or hides - the positive figures in net employment creation of other renewable energy sectors, such as windmills, where Spain has truly become a world leader.

Official figures from the Spanish Ministry of Labour prove that the sector of renewable energies has created 175,000 jobs, 82% of which are high-quality jobs. While representing only one percent of the country's labor force, the sector is so productive that it already generates 20% of the electricity consumed by Spanish households and companies. The official projections from ISTAS (Syndicated Institute for labor, environment and health) also shows that this sector is set to create 270,000 more jobs in Spain by 2020. If this trend were to hold true in the US economy, which is more than ten times larger than that of Spain, this suggests the creation of over 5 million clean energy jobs in just ten years. Today, this may seem a distant reality, but if Spain can achieve these results we have no doubt that the US can too. The new Administration should be commended for its ambition, and we in Spain would be more than happy to support their leadership with our modest experience.

Third, and finally, constructive debates should be about the future and not about the past. The IDEAS Foundation recently convened a group of experts from the United States, Europe and Spain to produce an energy roadmap for 2050. The final report will be released in two weeks, but in advance of its publication we can already predict that a viable carbon-free and nuclear-free economy in Spain is achievable by 2050. Based on 100 per cent renewable energies, this is a goal that is entirely compatible with a highly productive market economy.

Abstinence programs breed hypocrites.

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by: OklahomaVoter @ Fri May 15, 2009 at 16:09:23 PM CDT