| Tuesday, 1 August 2006 | 1:17 PM |
| Untitled
Fele | | Wednesday, 19 July 2006 | 7:27 PM |
| | House OKs Bill Guarding Pledge From Courts Yep this is our government under the control of Republicans.
We get nothing but posturing during the election year and then the next year they play follow the leader after Bush and big business' wildest requests.
Remember when they promised to vote against CAFTA and the bankruptcy bill and then voted it in after they kept control in the 2004 election?
The Republicans will be voting for Guest Worker sure enough next year. This is eveident in the fact that Bush is receiving tens of millions of dollars to pass around and buy loyalty.
Once again it will be Big Business 1000, Everyone Else 0. | | Wednesday, 19 July 2006 | 9:02 AM |
| | Public Schools are Better at Math and Science so Bush Starts Drive for Vouchers Aimed at poor kids, doesn't he want poor kids to do better in math and science?
Interesting tidbits:
 | | Conservative Christians want more taxpayer money so lets give them vouchers. We have an election to Win! |
Education Secretary Margaret Spelling couldn't be bothered to read the report, but did feel qualified to put it down and ignore it. Another Bush administration members discounted the findings as a "snapshot it time", apparently unaware that previous studies have had the same results. Pretty soon they'll make up a whole album all showing public schools doing a better job at math and science, which is widely agreed to by what Americans need to do their best at.
The report also found that conservative Christian schools -- a constituency that supports vouchers -- lagged significantly behind public schools in eighth-grade math. The report supported similar findings from a University of Illinois study on math.
There are lots of conservative Christian Schools, and most of them already getting faith based charity money, but now they want more.
Also conservative Republicans detest the Teachers Unions and think that the nice men and ladies that teach your kids are trying to turn them into socialists. Also they suspect that teachers might even do the worst thing on earth, contribute and vote Democratic! Horrors. The teachers unions must go!
I don't know about you, but I'm tired of every policy decision from the Republicans in Washington being about who contributes to their coffers, who votes for them and who might vote for them if they pass them a scam program.
Things used to be about all Americans, not just the Republican's little sects. | | Tuesday, 18 July 2006 | 9:31 PM |
| | If Causing Deaths After Katrina Was Illegal, Why Isn't Bush In Jail? 
In the flooded city, some of the greatest desperation was at hospitals and nursing homes where frail people were left without air conditioning, medicine and basic care. Doctors pleaded for helicopters and boats and feared looters.
Not to mention all the people who died elsewhere in the city while Bush vacationed, played the guitar, and had a photo op with John McCain, Meanwhile he delayed sending aid so he could wrest control of the state from the governor and "play" hero instead of providing aid when and how he could. How many people would have been saved otherwise? So the question is why isn't Bush in jail?
Once again I get the weird feeling on all these announcements is that the prosecutors are trying this case in the court of public opinion and the media is helping them by acting like these people have been proven guilty already. | | Tuesday, 18 July 2006 | 9:18 PM |
| | Reselling Federal Aid. Why didn't I think of that? Oh yeah, I live in the city so I don't get any aid.
When a drought left pastures in a handful of Plains states parched in 2003, ranchers turned to the federal government for help. Officials at the U.S. Department of Agriculture quickly responded with what they considered an innovative plan.
They decided to dip into massive stockpiles of powdered milk that the agency had stored in warehouses nationwide as part of its milk price-support program. Livestock owners could get the protein-rich commodity free and feed it to their cattle and calves. The milk would help ranchers weather the drought while the government reduced its growing stockpile.
But within months, the program spawned a lucrative secondary market in which ranchers, feed dealers and brokers began trading the powdered milk in a daisy chain of transactions, generating millions of dollars in profits. Tens of millions of pounds of powdered milk intended solely for livestock owners in drought-stricken states went to states with no drought or were sold to middlemen in Mexico and other countries, a Washington Post investigation found.
Question. Could this be why Ann M. Veneman (former Agriculture Secretary resigned last year?
Government cites successes in cattle not starving or being slaughtered, but farmers got little of the value of the powdered milk while feed dealers and brokers made most of the money garnered from the plan.
So who was hurt? The American taxpayer for one. Apparently more aid could have been given to the ranchers for less and why are we still buying up milk products with taxpayer money thereby increasing the price of milk to poor people?
Also see: No Drought Required For Federal Drought Aid
And: Report: Farm Aid is the new Welfare, Meth the new Crack, Rural Areas the new Ghettos | | Tuesday, 18 July 2006 | 10:45 AM |
| | Carlyle Group to Start Buying Up the News Media? According to WP:Time Ex-Chief Pearlstine to Join Carlyle Group Norman Pearlstine, editor in chief of Time Warner Inc.'s magazine business until January and a former managing editor of the Wall Street Journal, will join Washington private equity firm Carlyle Group this September as a senior adviser -- a sign the buyout firm may be shopping for print and Internet-based media companies.
Pearlstine will work with Carlyle's telecommunications and media group, advising the firm on strategy and trends, and reviewing business plans in the media sector.
Looks like it.
Pearlstine said. "I've been watching some of the big private equity deals in media, and I'm interested in the way they look at media."
Yeah, other right wing dominated groups have been buying up lots of newspapers, too.
(Link immediately preceeding is to a blog that reported on a new purchase by MediaNews Group which is headed by William Dean Singleton who donates heavily to Republicans.
Carlyle spokesman Christopher Ullman said Pearlstine's hiring indicates "an increased emphasis" on traditional media investing
...
Ullman said Pearlstine will work with Carlyle's corporate buyout and venture capital teams that evaluate print, television and new-media companies. | | Tuesday, 12 April 2005 | 9:56 AM |
| Let Them Eat BombsIraqi Children are starving twice a fast as before the war.
Ain't America great?
 A Polish soldier is surrounded by Iraqi children outside an army base near Babylon, 100 km (62 miles) south of Baghdad, in this September 6, 2003 file photo.
Terry Jones (Yes, the Monty Python guy. He is now an exellent columnist.) explains it well:
A report to the UN human rights commission in Geneva has concluded that
Iraqi children were actually better off under Saddam Hussein than they
are now.
This, of course, comes as a bitter blow for all those of us who, like
George Bush and Tony Blair, honestly believe that children thrive best
when we drop bombs on them from a great height, destroy their cities and
blow up hospitals, schools and power stations....
Read the rest at UK Guardia Or for those of you who refuse to register or use bugmenot see Usenet Copy | | Thursday, 17 March 2005 | 10:24 PM |
| Senator calls for FCC investigation of Bush Administration Prepackaged News.(Completely unposed picture of local ranger caught in the act of relaxing after a hard day's work did not come directly from the US Forest Service) A Senate Democrat influential on telecommunications issues has asked federal regulators to investigate whether any laws were broken by broadcasters who aired video news releases produced by the government.
Stations may have violated the law if they used the video releases without disclosing that the government was the source of the information, Sen. Daniel Inouye (news, bio, voting record), D-Hawaii, wrote in a letter to the Federal Communications Commission (news - web sites).
Another cute picture that does not come from the government The FCC (news - web sites) should "take any remedial measures necessary to prevent station owners from misleading their viewers", said Inouye, adding that any lack of disclosure also represents "a serious breach of journalistic ethics."
Inouye, ranking Democrat on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, said the FCC should also scrutinize whether stations violated prohibitions against accepting "money, service or other valuable consideration for the airing of content."
The commission will "take the letter very seriously and will look into it," FCC spokesman David Fiske said Thursday. Generally, the FCC reviews letters and complaints before determining if there should be an investigation.
The White House has defended the video releases, which are distributed to television stations across the country. The videos are frequently used without any disclosure of the government's role in their production. AP via Yahoo News
And may I say that anything that helps to keep the FCC too busy to butt their nose into every words said on TV and radio is just fine by me.
Scroll down to read synopsis of New York Times report about prepackaged news coming from the Bush administration.
And here is a link to the Mt. St. Helen's Volcano Cam for no particular reason. (It is not located on a government site either. All glory to Bush!) | | Wednesday, 16 March 2005 | 11:27 PM |
| | Bush Administration making News. 
Caption to photo: FICTITIOUS REPORTER: A public relations person using a false name reported on airport security.This report is not about some "cute little thing the Bushies did today"--not a modern day newsreel tidbit. And definitely not a feel good article.
According to a comprehensive New York Times report, The Bush administration is making video features and spots about itself and it's actions and feeding them to news programs where they are being picked up and used without telling people that the "news" is propaganda from the US government.
Short summary of long Times article: The program started in early 2002. (If you remember that was the time that they admitted they would be creating their own "news", but maintained that it was for outside of US borders. A large public outcry forced them to say that they would abandon the program. Some of us knew better even then.--TB)
Now the New York Times has published a report of numerous instances of government packaged news videos.
The Bush administration maintains that each is identified when it leaves their hands as being from the government.
Yet, usually the reports are not identified to TV News consumers as being government produced. They are distributed through networks who are paid for their efforts. The one network that receives the most money for that job is --wait for it---Yes, FOX. (CNN also does some of the distribution.)
One news reporter who took clips from a government produced feel good feature on Afghanistan and interspersed the clips with herself speaking from a provided script said she did not know that the videos and script had been created by the Bush administration.
Caption to photo:President George W. Bush (news - web sites) addresses a news conference at the White House in Washington, March 16, 2005. Bush said that the U.S. government's practice of sending packaged news stories to local television stations was legal and he had no plans to cease it. (Jim Bourg/Reuters)(Click on picture to go to associated Reuters report on Yahoo News)
Other videos provided by the Agriculture department with leaders and trailers acknowledging that fact make their way to rural news programs with leaders and trailers lopped off to make it appear to be part of the news.
The article has accounts of similar news packages. See link below for details.
The GAO condemns the use of such videos as illegal. The Bush administration says that they will do fewer features in the future and more "news" spots.
End summary.
Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged TV News
Usenet Copy
Think about those news "spots". They will be much harder to identify than news video features. From now on, you can virtually depend on any TV news that shows the Bush administration in a favorable light is probably manufactured by their own offices.
The GAO's position on the news packages: GAO's conclusion
A Jan. 4 letter to congressional leaders from the GAO's general counsel noted that "many television news organizations are willing to use [prepackaged news stories] since they help broadcasters reduce the cost of gathering and producing news." But the agency concluded that they violated 55-year-old rules against government spending on propaganda.
"If the material had been identified, it wouldn't be considered propaganda at all," said Susan Poling, GAO's assistant general counsel.
This wasn't the first time a government agency had written its own news reports. In 1987, the State Department paid writers for newspaper articles and opinion pieces supporting the Reagan administration's policies in Central America.
The GAO is attempting to avert repetition of that technique, issuing a Feb. 17 memo to all agency heads seeking "vigilance" in avoiding any new propaganda. Chicago Tribune via Yahoo News
Usenet Copy | | Monday, 14 March 2005 | 10:48 AM |
| | Gov. Arnold Can't Avoid Libel Case 
British appeals judge ruled Thursday that a libel case being brought by a television host who says she was groped by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will go ahead.
Sean Walsh, a Schwarzenegger spokesman, had attempted to have the case struck out, claiming that allegations brought by Anna Richardson had no chance of succeeding if they reached court.
Richardson claims the "Terminator" star fondled her breast during an interview in London in 2000 and that his staff subsequently damaged her reputation as a professional interviewer by alleging she encouraged the behavior.
She alleges she was libeled by Schwarzenegger, Walsh and Schwarzenegger spokeswoman Sheryl Main in an October 2003 article in the Los Angeles Times that also appeared on the Internet.
Lord Justice Swinton Thomas, presiding in the Court of Appeal, dismissed Walsh's attempt to stop the case, saying it wasn't yet possible to judge the case's prospect of success.
Walsh tried but failed in a lower court to stop the trial from going ahead, arguing that English courts had no jurisdiction. CBS News | |
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