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28 comments:
Friday I endured tom assbrook's show'(not even close to)'on point', with their weekly (or weakly) panel to discuss news. Most of the segment was about the healthcare debate, only it really wasn't. Single payer was NEVER mentioned, nor was Public Option. What was mentioned was the flaky left, led by Planet Dennis. What was up for discussion was that the dems' wings were too broad, because all those pesky leftists were included. What was NEVER even considered:
-Nancy pelosi and the dem leadershit SOLICITED the lefist support by promising to end the mideast wars
-Representative Dennis Kucinich's views and policies are largely shared by (in some cases an overwhelming) a majority of Americans
-People who fail to even try to deliver on their promises should be swept from office.
No, the problem is not that the dems are too inclusive, or that the leftists are too cantankerous, but that the press is too bought and paid-for, and that their only purpose is the maintainance of the status quo. Tom and npr certainly did their part on Friday.
Add to the 'On Point' pointlessness the question free advocacy for Nice Polite Republicans in
Lianne's interview with Mitt Romney this AM and Mara's reveling in the Dem's troubles.
The first comment at Lianne's interview, "Mealy, meet Mouth. Mouth, meet Mealy" most succinctly captured the pathetic nature of this French kiss/hickey of an interview. "The piece on "BUTTKISS" the 44 year old 15lb 22 inch long Cod had more value than anything I heard out of Mitt Romney's mouth!" Is another comment there. So far, all comments express disgust at NPR's ass-kissing treatment of Romney.
The Beginning of the Endgame For Health Care featured Mara suppressing her snarl with laryngitis. But you can hear the pools of saliva building up in her submandibular and parotid glands.
LH: What do you expect in the coming weeks?
ML: Where they stands now is the president wants a vote within two weeks. They don't have the votes, as you said, and what we can expect is a tremendous abount of arm-twisting by the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and by the president. He's also going to be traveling, having town meetings, making a lot of speeches. This is a frantic final push to heave this piece of legislation over the finish line.
LH: One of the issues that seems to be holding things up is abortion.
ML: Yes the only way the house passed the bill originally was that it put some language in it that satisfied a group of anti-abortion Democrats led by Bart Stupak, of MI. It says that there will be no federal funding of abortion. Now that's already the law of the land. Stupak says all he wants to do is enshrine existing law. However the Senate didn't like that language. They put different language in their bill that Stupak, and he says, about 11 other Democrats will not accept. That is something that's being worked on but they have not found a solution yet.
LH: Explain, what arguments is [sic] the president making to law makers who previously voted no, and what is he saying to the lawmakers who are already on board?
ML: To those who are on board and are wavering he's saying, "no one likes a flip-flopper, if you vote no after voting yes you're going to get a lot of ads against you, anyway you've already cast that vote. If this thing fails you'll have nothing to show for it." He's saying to people who have voted no, actually, we don't know what he's saying to them. There've been a lot of offers he made to those people. A lot of special deals, but he's making the big argument that this is why we are Democrats and to have this thing fail would show that our party is ineffective and can't govern.
LH: Democrats seem to be getting a lot of bad news lately. Retirements in congress. Scandals in New York. Do you think they can keep their focus on healthcare overall with all of these distractions?
ML: Well, they're going to have to. Charley Rangel who was chair of the Ways and Means committee had to give up his gavel this week because of an ethics investigation. Erik Massa also from NY State had to resign because of a scandal where he is accused of sending sexually harassing emails to a male aide. Bill Delahunt of Massachusetts there's no scandal there but he did decide not to run for reelection. Of course, Scott Brown, the new Republican senator from Massachusetts won almost all of his district. And that's a potential pickup for Republicans. So far we've had seven Democratic retirements in districts that John McCain won in 2008. That means that the outlook for the midterms is getting grimmer and grimmer for Democrats as time goes on. Retirements are the key to their political fortunes in the fall because open seats are so much harder to defend. So far the number of retirements - Democrats who are retiring are manageable - but they are growing. And there is a point where you get the number of retirements a certain number of open seats that becomes so big that the Democrats will look much more endangered. The political handicapper Charley Cook believes that when you get up to 10 retirements in Republican leaning districts vulnerable you are officially in the Danger Zone. Democrats aren't there yet, but they're getting close.
http://www.cjr.org/feature/npr_amps_up.php
If anyone heard this on NPR, I'd be gobsmacked. Sarah Palin and Hugo Chavez team up:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/akmuckraker/the-palins-socialist-snow_b_488015.html
It so happens that I live in Riverside County, CA, which is what the story, Walking One Block Damaged By The Housing Crisis was about.
To quote the article:
A search of public records reveals that Moore, a retired nurse, has refinanced her home eight times since 1998.
The loans are from a who's who of subprime lenders. With each loan she took out more equity, and each time the loan terms got worse.
Never a word about who these lenders are or what subterfuge they were up to. Even the WSJ has better reporting on this. Where are the NPR reports on how the SEC regulation is too little/too late in curbing illegal naked short selling?
NPR just takes a weird sample (mormon white guy was frugal and didn't refi vs. black retired nurse refinanced 8 times in 10 years) and blames the victims. Not nice.
Check out Ombot today. She is defending NPR war porn.
Under the guise of "giving us a refresher" on what's in the Senate bill, Julie Rovner got a few minutes of airtime to play soundbites of people complaining about the bill. NPR's opposition to health care reform strikes again! On her way to playing Chuck Grassley complaining about the individual mandate, does Julie mention that last summer he supported the idea, or that it was originally a GOP invention, in opposition to an employer-based mandate? Ha. It's the sheerest foolishness to suggest such a thing. About as foolish as expecting that, in a piece that was alleged to be a rundown of the features of the Senate bill, we'd get simple facts, instead of more 'reporting the controversy' crap.
In the words of James Wolcott (referring to NPR and downloading podcasts), "...I almost never do (download) NPR things. It's all in kinda the same tone with NPR ...a condescending sweetness...".
Listen to Wolcott with Marc Maron here: http://wtfpod.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=589096
Don Pasqueda
News Porn Radio
Don
Well, you know - that's that thing with the NPR Ombot... She KNOWS she's right, so her job is just finding the right way to laugh off the jibes of the great unwashed...
Back to the "Walking One Block Damaged By The Housing Crisis " story. The buried lede popped into my head:
When it got to the point that she could no longer make her mortgage payments, Moore thought about walking away.
But she says the Lord intervened. A nonprofit group helped her get a loan modification. Her payments have been cut in half. When a reporter tells her about the Betts family down the street, she seems a little surprised that there's anyone on the block who didn't refinance.
What do you suppose that "non profit group" is? ACORN?
I posted the following on the NPR website:
You can feel fairly confident you won’t be hearing about the pro health care reform protests today in Washington, D.C. on NPR.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/09/health-care-protesters-fa_n_492011.html
I was surprised to first hear about it on CNN, but that usually means for every 5 minutes of any progressive event covered in the mainstream, you can be sure that 55 minutes of something like the hootin' and hollerin' of Sarah Palin and the Tea Baggers, the new rock group NPR and the other mainstream media tirelessly promote, aren’t far behind.
Dina,
As to "rock groups," I saw the "NPR Amps Up" report included a comment with a link to NPR donors which includes major music publishing houses. This, of course, does not include their contributions to local stations, which then pass the payola on to NPR. I don't know, but I'd guess many of these "donations" are just the tip of the iceberg.
http://www.npr.org/about/annualreports/NPRSponsorsDonors07.pdf
http://www.npr.org/about/annualreports/NPRSponsorsDonors06.pdf
DopnPQ
2006 Donors
2007 Donors
DonQP
The SEIU staged a rally with thousands in attendance to protest the AHIP corporate insurance schmucks like ignoramus Ignani meeting at the Ritz Carlton in Washington DC yesterday. Roll Call covered it. So did the WSJ, UPI, CNN and Working For America.
NPR? Not so much. Too far to travel, maybe.
Countdown to NPR's coverage of the European Parliament endorsement of the Goldstone Report. Nice and easy now: 1000000, 999999, 999998, 999997, 999996, 999995, 999994, 999993, 999992, 999991, 999990, 999989,...hey, slow down! Take a break if you get tired. Enunciate each syllable con la lluvia Español: "nighyen hundread nighyentee nighyen thouzen nighyen hundread haiti hate..." Slower: no hurries here!
I am about to stroke out over the totn coverage of "jihad jane" and then seeing the typically sensationalized two way bs on the same.
No mention that an American just flew a plane into IRS offices in Austin actually killing and injuring citizens or the Pentagon shooting by an American.
Nor is it mentioned that Al Alawki(sp) is an American citizen we are trying to kill.
They only say Americans are being treated differently than other enemy combatants. A caller brought up Padilla being a citizen but no mention that he is a mental vegetable that couldn't even participate in his own trial.
On the two way they refer to "jane" as weird and keeping to herself. Well I guess it would appear that she keeps to herself since she has not been in her home since Oct f'n 15th!!
Maybe someone can set up an account for blank blank Grace online and arrest me!
The only redeeming thing on air was acknowledging that profiling doesn't work BUT then their conclusion was we are all suspect!!
goopDoggy,
I hadn't seen the Goldstone site and I must say
I LOVE IT!!
I cherish NPRCHECK and CHECK2 for the well sought out links in the
articles and comments.
I am often reading them into the wee hours of the morning!!
Don,
Those donor lists are most enlightening!
The comments by you and Goop were brilliant on the ombuts site.
NPR giving Jihad Jane the John David Stutts treatment.
DonQP
I wonder if Alicia is enjoying our War Porn Poetry?
Boulder Dude,
NPR is gonna have a hard time deleting poetry from its website as "inappropriate." But they are full of contortionists, so they will probably find some way to excise the commentary. Until then, bask in the glory of poetic justice.
DonQP
New this fall on NPR...
"The Profiler," staring Dina Temple-Raston.
Diane "Temple of Doom" Raston...
Rapid Rise in Seed Prices Draws U.S. Scrutiny
in the NY Times
"Critics charge that Monsanto has used license agreements with smaller seed companies to gain an unfair advantage over competitors and to block cheaper generic versions of its seeds from eventually entering the market."
I wonder if NPR will run an unflattering story on one of its sponsors.
We Bought A Toxic Asset; You Can Watch It Die
CHANA JOFFE-WALT and DAVID KESTENBAUM
DonQP
The Planet Monkey Cartoon
We Bought A Toxic Asset; You Can Watch It Die
GMAC Financial, now known as Ally Bank, is the sole Planet Money underwriting sponsor. And, since taxpayers are supporting Ally Bank, I'd argue that tax dollars are supporting the toxic asset that is NPR. Come to think of it, this toxic asset creates a toxic product in the form of cartoonishly inane radio content.
DonQp
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