Meanwhile, staffers who have survived a series of draconian layoffs report that snakes and mice have slipped into the newspaper’s building because the owners can’t afford exterminators to combat the infestations.
“There was a three-foot-long black snake in the main conference room the other day,” said reporter Julia Duin. “We have snakes in the newsroom.”
And this differs from the paper in its heyday....how?
Thanks everyone, you've been a great audience. I'll be here all week. Don't forget to tip your waitress.
We were called traitors. We were told to leave the country. We were called every name in the book because we said that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11. We were called un-American when we questioned why Osama bin Laden was allowed to escape at Tora Bora. We questioned the need for the kinds of 4th Amendment violations to which the Bush Administration was committed and we were told that only terrorists would be targeted, not Americans. And we also noticed that imminent threats seemed to always appear when George Bush was in trouble -- and wrote that we thought such threats were being ginned up for political reasons. Keith Olbermann noted this in a continually-updated series:
Tom Ridge, the first secretary of homeland security, asserts in a new book that he was pressured by top advisers to President George W. Bush to raise the national threat level just before the 2004 election in what he suspected was an effort to influence the vote.
After Osama bin Laden released a threatening videotape four days before the election, Attorney General John Ashcroft and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld pushed Mr. Ridge to elevate the public threat posture but he refused, according to the book. Mr. Ridge calls it a “dramatic and inconceivable” event that “proved most troublesome” and reinforced his decision to resign.
The provocative allegation provides fresh ammunition for critics who have accused the Bush administration of politicizing national security. Mr. Bush and his Democratic challenger, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, were locked in a tight race heading into that final weekend, and some analysts concluded that even without a higher threat level, the bin Laden tape helped the president win re-election by reminding voters of the danger of Al Qaeda.
The progressive blogosphere was called every name in the book because unlike those who dove under the bed with a plastic tarp in one hand and a roll of duct tape in the other every time George Bush or Dick Cheney said "Boo!", we looked at the evidence and what was going on OUTSIDE the Administration and rightly concluded that they were full of shit. Unlike those who dove under the bed with a plastic tarp in one hand and a roll of duct tape in the other every time George Bush or Dick Cheney said "Boo!", we noted that when warnings came in of an impending attack, George Bush and Dick Cheney did nothing -- and yet they insisted they were the ones who kept us safe. By the time they left office, they'd convinced the plastic sheeting and duct tape crowd that 9/11 had happened on Bill Clinton's watch. But on every single issue on which we noted the truth, we were called traitors by the right. But we were correct and they were wrong.
They owe us an apology, but I know full well it isn't coming. Because as we are now seeing in the health care debate, the right and their frothing, screaming, spittle-caked willfully ignorant minions don't care about truth. Because to them, ideology trumps everything. The next time a conservative says "Country first", I hope people recognize that it's just another lie out of a right-wing mouth. Because it's NEVER "Country first" with these people. It's always about ideology and power.
I guess I just don't like absolutes. Today's New York Times has a front page, (front page internets, and A3 hard copy, I guess,) story about how Obama, like Bush, isleading by second thought. This story and stories like it, infuriate me because apparently the 100 day examiners and the knee jerk liberals, not to mention whats left of the fringy right, would hold the President to every campaign promise regardless of the passage of time or what he might've found out upon taking office. I would say that actually, unlike Bush, Obama will, hopefully, thoughtfully and intelligently weigh what he feels that he has to do to try to dig us out of the hole that Bush dug, and if it means that he might have to rethink things he said even last week, so be it. Our laws may allow some of the bad guys to go free because of Bush's abuse of the system or even system flaws, but our laws are all we've got.
Mr. Obama balked on releasing the photographs of prisoners after the military — and his influential defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, the cabinet’s one holdover from the Bush administration — argued that making them public would hand Islamic militants a propaganda coup that could lead to renewed attacks on American forces.
Balked? Really? In the real world, with a real leader, this might be a little more than "oh my god, I cant do that because of the terra!" I call this piece lazy writing by Sanger, who obviously hasn't the inclination to consider that maybe there is more to it. I'm trying to be careful to not blindly follow whatever is coming out of the Obama administration, because my knee jerk tendency always is to question, and especially after the past 8 years, (when many reporters, by the way, were glad to repeat the talking points.) But I am leaning towards trying to give Obama the benefit of the doubt in the issues that he is struggling with. To me, balking on this thing would be to not allow prisoners to have due process. I think that the rest is going to take a little time.
Look, I don't agree with everything that Obama is doing, but then, I never thought I would; did any of you? We liberals have this tendency to turn on our own, blindly, if something has the whiff of a shift right, regardless of what might be best for the country. Do any of us think that Obama would want make us unsafe, much less, for the really skeptical out there, would he want to anger his base? Its unlikely that he is considering winning over anyone with any of these decisions, considering whats left of the right, so maybe, just maybe, there is some reason out there. Would we not want him to listen to the military commanders or his advisors? Wouldn't that be more like Bush, really?
Are we gonna throw open the jail doors and say that they can all just go free? Or does it make more sense to look at the cases and give the prisoners the rights that have been denied them? Chances are that the Bush administration's handling of these cases will not stand up to even the lightest scrutiny and we will lose bad guys anyway; but did any of us think that Obama was gonna head out and put flowers in the muzzles of the guns of the enemy that the Bush administration went so far out of their way to inflame? We can't reverse force so quickly as to put our forces and our country in danger. To act so precipitously would be exactly like Bush!
We are stuck with what Bush left us, and the echo of Cheney telling us that nothing will work except all out destruction; destruction of our rights and of the enemy. Those people don't speak in diplomatic terms and they have a heavy hand. There is danger, and just because Obama has entered into the impossible job of unraveling a terrible knot woven, seemingly purposely, by these freaks, how can we not give him the space to sort this out?
So when Sanger says:
In announcing on Friday that he would retain the military commission system set up by Mr. Bush, even while expanding the rights of detainees to mount a vigorous defense, Mr. Obama suggested that there was no inherent conflict between keeping the nation safe and reasserting values that he and many of his supporters believed had been swept aside during the Bush years.
Isn't the real point that what Obama's first steps consist of is the "expanding the rights of detainees to mount a vigorous defense," part, as opposed to the "system set up by Mr. Bush," part? Are we that easily inflamed? Further, we are treated to the thoughts of one of Karl Rove's ex-staff members (who is not worth mentioning by name because as assholes, these Bush people seem to all have an opinion,) from during his time in the White House, telling us how the left feels that these course changes are "just this side of a betrayal...." And he is so in step with the feelings of the left because...?...he is studying us or something? His kid is a leftie? Screw him and his Rovian propaganda bullshit of planting ideas so that the American people can absorb them and spew them back out!
Military tribunals may be necessary or not, depending on what Obama's team finds out about the detainees. But it seems clear that Obama is interested in extending the prisoners their rights, first and foremost. It may take more that 100 days to close Guantanamo, and it may cost some of the money that the Bushies were busy funneling to their private contractors and cronies. For God's sake, lets take a step back and see what this administration can accomplish. I'm not saying that we shouldn't criticize, but to flat out say that Obama is following in Bush's footsteps is just plain lazy, formulaic, and idiotic!
Remember back when BushCo was pushing us into Iraq, when the UN was still over there, and we were waiting on reports to find out what was really going on? My sister slapped a bumper sticker on her minivan that said "Bomb Iraq? NO!" I was with her in the sentiment, as anyone who has seen my car bumper through the years will attest to, but I was wary of the language, because I wasn't quite sure what the outcome of the UN inspectors was going to be and I was still in denial that America would do something as crazy as actually divert our troops from Afghanistan to Iraq and in fact "bomb" them ("back to the stone age," as the survivalist working at the local video store said, spittle flying.)
Back then, as the Rovian spin machine began to blend the terms of 9-11, Afghanistan, and Iraq into easily digestible sound bytes with a threatening undertone and the fear of being viewed as un-American somehow for questioning our leadership, I was overcome with defiance. From the Impeach lawn signs that grandpa used to crawl up the steep rocky slope to pull down (because it only takes one crazy with a moltov cocktail!...not that he disagreed, you understand,) to my "Who Would Jesus Bomb?" bumper sticker addressing the bold twisting of the power of belief, and using the framework of religion to sell their war. I read a study years ago that people who commute in cars or just drive alot actually learn quite a bit from bumper stickers. I forget the exact numbers, but I remember being impressed enough to consider my bumper as a teaching opportunity, regardless of if I felt frightened of how others might react. So far I get alot of thumbs up for my " My Child is an Honor Student, But My President is an Idiot!," and the like, though lately I had an Obama sticker taken off the car in Manhattan (I'm hoping because it was unusual and someone wanted to use it!) and Ive gotten a few fingers on the highway. Am I un-American for expressing my disgust with the state of things? Should I be frightened because my words might cause some people to act violently towards me?
9-11 sent us all into a spiral of what might have been national shock, fear, or depression, and the Bush White house, with Karl Rove in the wheelhouse, manipulated and played that up to great effect with the undercurrent message being a warning that we must support the executive without question or risk death at the hands of terrorists or worse: being labeled un-American.
In April of this year, BushCo began circulating memos that warned of the power of the use of certain language because of its ability to inflame religious tensions and, according to MSNBC
U.S. officials may be "unintentionally portraying terrorists, who lack moral and religious legitimacy, as brave fighters, legitimate soldiers or spokesmen for ordinary Muslims," says a Homeland Security report. It's entitled "Terminology to Define the Terrorists: Recommendations from American Muslims."
"Regarding 'jihad,' even if it is accurate to reference the term, it may not be strategic because it glamorizes terrorism, imbues terrorists with religious authority they do not have and damages relations with Muslims around the world," the report says.
Further, just as of this year apparently, words like "jihad," which beyond the U.S.'s common use of it to imply the waging of a holy war, supposedly means to do good, and "mujahedeen," which are just those involved in a jihad, are supposed to be cut from any official discourse. Likewise, "violent extremist," "terrorist," and "Islamo-fascism" have been deemed inappropriate as highly inflammatory. The reports also note that use of these terms increases the star power of terrorists and inflames relations with regular Muslims, who have nothing to do with terrorism and don't much like their religion attached to what amounts to fringe groups.
Too little, too late, you say? The British published similar reports last year, and I don't think I would have to Google far to find these and many other inflammatory terms used by our very Commander in Chief...often...lately...on television from the rose garden...from the oval office...while dropping his Scotty on his head from Air Force One...When has the man NOT used these talking points again and again to inflame and frighten the American people, while apparently breeding more contempt and new baby terrorists all the time?
This is just another pathetic example of the use of language as a propaganda tool to start and continue unrest and to germinate fear and blind obedience in the people of a nation. Loose lips sink ships, but what if those loose lips are your President's? I know that he is gonna be viewed for all of history as a dummy, but look at how frequently the dummy repeated what the ventriloquist fed into his backflap...look at how insidious these few words have been...and wonder, as I am, how many innocent people died because of a couple of very smart guys who decided to use deep psychological manipulation on a lulled and frightened populace, in order to achieve a goal that will likely play out to be one of stone cold self enrichment.
A week or so ago DINO-republo-freak Joe Lieberman appeared on Faux News Sunday representing the republican point of view in a debate against real democrat Evan Bayh. In one of those unreal exchanges about the war old Joe threw around the talking points and buzzwords shamelessly, referring to victory and how the surge had worked, when it must be clear to all thinking Americans by now that victory is a relative term that can be used in any number of ways, and the effectiveness of the surge is questionable at best. Not one interviewer or pundit seems to be able to ask the question of what victory would look like exactly because the term seems to be attached to supporting the troops. In my estimation, this is some sort of leftover plug from the "cut and run" days and it really does a disservice to the troops because it implies that anything less than victory is not acceptable. If victory, as it has been historically viewed, is really not possible in this theater then the troops are damned to failure.
OK, I get it that Joe is caught up in the talking points and is working with a deep neocon belief in the cause of "spreading democracy," (aka. controlling the oil for mid-east domination, fun and profit,) or whatever flavor of kool-aid they were passing out that day, but as a Connecticut voter and someone who worked on the Lamonte campaign, I have to say that what he is saying does not represent me or anyone I know. Not even CT Republicans are onboard with this pap, so where does he get off heading into territory that betrays all that he ran on and even every other more conservative viewpoint in his state? This man so clearly lied to his constituency to get into office. He used the fear and lies of the vocabulary just as surely as he is following at the heels of John McCain and whispering the new jargon into his hearing aide. Joe Lieberman is delusional and so is John McCain, but they are using the new talking points to great effect.
McCain implies that we would be cowards to withdraw, and that there is some sort of shame in ending this war without achieving its objective. The thing is that the objective has been stated and restated a few times by the Bush administration without anything concrete that one might hang onto, and there remains, even in the face of the Iraqi government asking for us to set a timeline, no clear way to declare victory or mission accomplished, or even just get the hell out of there without the leadership of this country deciding that they are going to make it OK to end this thing. There will never be an easy withdrawal, and even in Obama's best case scenarios we are looking at a long drawn out process involving much loss of life, and probably tremendous heroics of the brave soldiers who are tasked with this nearly impossible task.
What does victory look like? The Iraqi people waving flowers and candy at us as we ride our tanks out of town and into the bellies of huge transports? Can we ever go home? From the White House's Victory page itself comes this confusing bit:
* Short term, Iraq is making steady progress in fighting terrorists, meeting political milestones, building democratic institutions, and standing up security forces. * Medium term, Iraq is in the lead defeating terrorists and providing its own security, with a fully constitutional government in place, and on its way to achieving its economic potential. * Longer term, Iraq is peaceful, united, stable, and secure, well integrated into the international community, and a full partner in the global war on terrorism.
None of these goals are even close to being accomplished, nor are programs in place that even seemingly function in the general direction of an orderly return to self governing. The next section gets really bizarre:
* Iraq is the central front in the global war on terror. Failure in Iraq will embolden terrorists and expand their reach; success in Iraq will deal them a decisive and crippling blow. * The fate of the greater Middle East -- which will have a profound and lasting impact on American security -- hangs in the balance.
Impossible to accomplish, as far as I can see...and really scary if we don't! I suppose that if we replaced the "Iraq" with "our huge embassy serves as our base as a central front in the war on terror and controlling all oil production in the region..." oh wait, our presence creates more terrorists, so no matter how many stinking embassies we build over there, we cant stay if we are serious about stopping it's growth....hmmmm....
The concept of retreat, defeat and/or victory do not apply to what is going on in Iraq. The more that Bush apologists are allowed to throw these phrases around, the more America believes in the fairytale unattainable goals of fighting them over there so we don't have to here. Further, these words should offend us every bit as much as the anti Muslim words and the words that increase the star power of terrorists that are in the memos being sent around now by the white house....now, after Bush has used the terms a million times...and how many times will John McCain imply that our troops are somehow less than brave if they leave without the indescribable and unattainable victory that he...er, Rove... has in mind.
Our acceptance of these words from the likes of John McCain or George Bush, and their surrogates, is the first step down the path to submission and the very real unAmerican act of not demanding full disclosure and accountability from those that we elect to represent us not only in our own government but to the world.
This morning I turned on the TV to Morning Joe and was immediately struck by how the show has turned from relentless Clinton-bashing to hammering what they call Barack Obama's 10-point drop in a national poll since last Wednesday's debate.
It's no secret that the media do what they can to manipulate political thought in this country. Whether it's talking heads referring to "The Democrat Party" or newsreaders on WINS referring to "The Democrat primary tomorrow in Pennsylvania", or Tim Russert perpetuating the "Barack Obama didn't put his hand over his heart for the Pledge of Allegiance" meme when the event portrayed in That Infamous Photograph was the playing of the National Anthem, at which such a gesture is not required; or the unabashedly positive coverage given to John McCain, it's not voters who decide our elections, it's the media.
Television in particular has been living off the legacy of Edward R. Murrow for the last fifty years, even though that legacy has now been tarnished beyond redemption by talking heads who are an integral part of Beltway society and care more about access and schmoozing than actually providing information to the American people. But newspapers have hardly been immune.
As devastating as this blockbuster story in the New York Times yesterday is, there's a certain "closing the barn door after the horse leaves" quality to it. Back when it counted, the Times allowed Judith Miller and others to parrot the Administration's line, giving the lies about Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction a credibility they might otherwise have lacked.
Greg Mitchell reports on E&P's efforts to expose how the Times participated in the very propaganda campaign yesterday's article now decries.
Perhaps the gamble that the paper took in mortgaging its credibility to curry favor with a lying sack of dung of a president in the aftermath of a national trauma, and its continuing mortgaging of its credibility by paying William Kristol to write swill for its op-ed page, are two reasons why the paper posted a $335,000 loss in the first quarter of this year.
We have to nip this kind of propaganda in the bud. This talking points campaign is aimed at the news byte conscious. The retraction is usually on page 20, unless its caught in such an embarrassing light, as in this case. This tragic week marks our 5th year in Iraq, and the occasion has been used as a propaganda tool for everyone in this administration, from the top on down, to get us ready for the NEXT war! Just as you're thinking that it couldn't be possible, and how could they think that America has the will or strength to enlarge our presence in the middle east, think again. These people don't care what you or I think. They care only for their bottom line and for their own best interest. They will expand this war, lying all the way, until they are stopped. And its up to us, as Americans, to stop them.
Last night while watching Scott Pelley's appalling interview with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, informed people around the country simultaneously shouted "Bullshit! That is just not true."
That the venerable 60 Minutes has sunk to parrotting Bush Administration talking points is just unbelievable.
PELLEY: Well, sir, you're the head of government of an Islamist state that the United States government says is a major exporter of terrorism around the world.
PELLEY: But the American people, sir, believe that your country is a terrorist nation, exporting terrorism in the world.
(CBS) PELLEY: Mr. President, you say that the two nations are very close to one another, but it is an established fact now that Iranian bombs and Iranian know-how are killing Americans in Iraq. You have American blood on your hands. Why?
Oh, for the days when Mike Wallace knew the difference between a hard-hitting question and propaganda bullshit.
There was a time, not too long ago, when 60 Minutes stood for investigative journalism. How sad to see it reduced to being yet another mouthpiece for the Bush Administration's warmongering. Scott Pelley should be ashamed of himself.
Lovin' it: McBranding hooks preschoolers, study finds
Preschoolers preferred the taste of burgers and fries when they came in McDonald's wrappers over the same food in plain wrapping, U.S. researchers said, suggesting fast-food marketing reaches the very young.
"Overwhelmingly, kids chose the one that they perceived was from McDonald's," said obesity prevention expert Dr. Thomas Robinson of the Stanford University School of Medicine, whose work appears in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
While prior studies have looked at the impact of individual ads on kids, Robinson and colleagues set out to study the overall influence of a company's brand -- based on everything from advertising to toy premiums and word of mouth.
It comes as many food and restaurant companies face pressure to cut back on marketing to children as rates of obesity among that age group continue to climb.
Robinson and colleagues conducted a taste test with a total of 63 kids aged 3 to 5 who were enrolled in a Head Start preschool for low-income families.
They were offered five pairs of foods and asked if they tasted the same or to point to the one that tasted better.
The food -- taken from the same order -- was wrapped in either McDonald's packaging or unbranded packages in the same color and style.
In about 60 percent of the tastings, the kids preferred food in the McDonald's wrapper.
"They actually thought the food tasted better," Robinson said in a telephone interview.
No surprises here, huh? There's a reason why corporations toss millions of dollars at the NFL so they can broadcast a 30-second ad during the Super Bowl.
If you're skeptical, just take a look at Dubya's improbable career. As writer Terry Pratchett observed in another context, Not-So-Curious George is an empty man "who applied for the position of Village Idiot but failed because he was overqualified". However, thanks to money, a diabolical Karl Rove and a big wardrobe department, this cretin stole the Presidency by hustling gullible voters who should have known better. Yes, Bush was a lousy student/businessman/Governor, but he's a great male model.
Look, give him a megaphone and a fireman to use as props and he's a compassionate humanitarian who cares about his community. Look, give him a cowboy hat and boots and he's a hard-working, blue-collar guy you want to have a beer with. Look, give him Tom Cruise's used costume from Top Gun and he's a brave fighter pilot fighting to keep America free. People loved this bullshit so much they ordered seconds.
And who's to say this gold-plated propanganda won't work again? Look at how well Ghouliani is doing with an oxygen mask, a steely gaze, and the ruins of Ground Zero. He's getting more dicks to stand at attention than a Jenna Jameson marathon.
