Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Murdoch and the Media of Propaganda



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Rupert Murdoch has just bought the Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones and Co. The purchase of this media long-stay will cost Murdoch nearly $6 billion. The takeover ends a century of family ownership by the Bancroft family, and adds a new resource to his global media empire, News Corp.

Rupert & Homer

Murdoch has grown his mammoth media company, "News" Corp. into one of the largest and most influential media groups in the world from a small town newspaper in Australia.

Murdoch wields considerable power with his global media company and is often wooed by politicians to persuade him to favorably cover their campaigns. His empire covers television, filmed entertainment, cable network programming, book publishing, direct broadcast satellite television, magazines and newspapers operating in the United States, Australia, Europe, the United Kingdom, Asia and the Pacific.

As Murdoch acquired many widely read newspapers in Australia, the United Kingdom and the U.S. he brought much controversy with his ruthless and aggressive management style. Murdoch once remarked “I’m a catalyst for change, You can’t be an outsider and be successful for more than 30 years without leaving a certain amount of scar tissue around the place.”

Murdoch developed Fox News channel, with red, white and blue colors flowing throughout the set. He hired anchors from rival news channels, many being attractive women who always wore short skirts to attract male viewers.

He hired Roger Ailes to run his cable news venture, who like Murdoch has always had leanings of being ultra conservative. The slogan “Fair and Balanced” was used throughout each Fox News interview and segment.

As Murdoch and Fox News now had the appeal factor ready for viewers, they often twist conservative views into each news broadcast and interview. A daily log of conservative guests gave Fox anchors hourly opportunities to spread the conservative message, and attack the “Liberal” views of the opposition.

Murdoch and his media outlets worked tirelessly trying to destroy Bill Clinton. They often shattered the truth to spread their propaganda against Presidential candidates Al Gore and John Kerry during their run for the White House.

Murdoch used Fox News to promote Bush’s twisted reasons for war. They tend to twist the mounting toll of deaths in Iraq, into attacking the “liberal media” for not covering the truth.

Murdoch and the Fox propaganda helped bring the Republicans and George W Bush into power, and now they feverishly try to spin the war, although their propaganda message has turned the public away, due to the increasing costs of war.

Since Rupert Murdoch’s offer was made public, volumes have been written on what this historic deal might mean to journalism in America. A fair bit of the criticism and concern surrounding News Corp.’s bid for Dow Jones has focused on Murdoch himself and his well-documented penchant for employing his media outlets to advance his political and business interests.

Maybe we ought to be most concerned with the health of our media system. Media consolidation, by its nature, diminishes the variey of voices represented in our media. With fewer points of view available, those select few with an outlet increase their capacity to shape public opinion, politics and daily life.

Today’s media system isn’t simply the evolving result of capitalism at it’s best,
it is the result of policies created by Congress and enforced by the FCC. Without those policies, Murdoch couldn't have built his media empire. Only by restoring public input in the policymaking process, can we reverse this trend and make America’s media a healthier place where a variety of ideas and the free market can co-exist.

When Adolph Hitler took power in Germany he also took over the media, and he used it to shape a modern, civilized country to his ends. With full control of the national press his propaganda minister Paul Josef Goebbels developed sophisticated and very effective tools of propaganda to control public opinion in Germany, and even in other countries. He proved that if you repeat a lie often enough in mass media, most people will accept it as the truth.

This is very powerful, and propaganda may be the most dangerous weapon developed in the Second World War. The atom bomb scared so many people that we had mass movements trying to control it, but the general public seems to have missed the significance of the power of propaganda.

As media conglomerates like Murdoch and News Corp continue to be allowed to buy up every means of information resources, the propaganda of conservatism will continue to give the public a pre-arranged slant of reality.

Hitler took over the media and he used it to further his own goals of hate and power, while the current spread of conservative propaganda in the media is being used to place political parties into power, start wars and silence the critics.

The conservatives with their media conglomerates like News Corp and others, are practicing the same philosophy used by Hitler during his reign of terror. If we the public sit idly by while media giants control our flow of information, then we will fare worse than Hitler's Germany.

146 comments:

  1. An example of propaganda media:

    On the July 30 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Michael Savage reacted to news that Chief Justice John Roberts had suffered a seizure that day by raising the possibility that "his health was in some way tampered with by the Democrats." Savage said, "Something's wrong with this picture," after noting that Roberts' seizure occurred just three days after Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) said he would seek in general to reject any future Supreme Court nomination made by President Bush.

    Lies by conservative media pundits!

    ReplyDelete
  2. After 12 years of control of the U.S. Congress and what will be 8 years of control of the executive branch, it's safe to say the country is experiencing GOP-fatigue.

    Rupert, Inc., may intend to shape and manipulate public opinion via media concentration but, will anyone listen?

    For the first time, we saw the Democratic field of presidential candidates refuse to appear on FOX Noise's debate. Much to the anger of the spittin' Roger Ailes.

    Ask just about anyone you know what they think of FOX Noise and you will hear some version of "they're rightwing, etc." People are onto them and their agenda.

    Back to the WSJ buy. Business tends to be pretty conservative to begin with and the WSJ is no different. No one can make the argument that the WSJ is a shaper of public opinion on social issues like choice or gay marriage. Or foreign policy matters like starting and ending wars.

    Maybe I'm being naive but one thing I know from spending a decade in corporate America is this: you can't push it around. If Rupert tries to FOX Noise-ize corporate America via opinion pieces in the WSJ, I think there will be a backlash against him.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I support indpependent or alternative media when I can, like Democracy NOW or programs that talk about media with a critical eye.

    It is important that we come to terms with the ways the media has shaped our perceptions.

    Good post.

    I'm keeping my thoughts brief because I had some minor surgery this week and I think I am kind of loopy, and as it is I ramble in a crazy manner.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Propaganda Payoff:

    Mr. Ailes was the media consultant to Mr. Giuliani’s first mayoral campaign in 1989. Mr. Giuliani, as mayor, officiated at Mr. Ailes’s wedding and intervened on his behalf when Mr. Ailes’s company, Fox News Channel, was blocked from securing a cable station in the city.

    This year, they were tablemates at the White House correspondents dinner, which Mr. Giuliani attended as a guest of Fox’s parent company, the News Corporation.

    Now these allies and friends find themselves on largely uncharted political turf. Mr. Giuliani, 63, is a leading Republican candidate for president. Mr. Ailes, 67, is head of Fox News, the pre-eminent media outlet for likely voters in a Republican primary.

    Whether their friendship would ever affect coverage — Fox insists that it has not and will not — it is nonetheless the sort of relationship that other campaigns have noted, though none wanted to speak publicly for fear of offending the station.

    Another reason Fox is in love with Guiliani!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Limbaugh spreads more lies:

    On the July 31 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh claimed that Democrats have "aligned themselves with the enemy" in Iraq and went on to assert: "The enemy kills more soldiers, their spokesmen here in the U.S. are the Democrats.

    Another example of propaganda of lies!

    ReplyDelete
  6. FOX News Viewership Falls, MSNBC Up 67 Percent
    Multi-Channel News, August 1st, 2007
    Fox News averaged a 1.2 primetime rating in July, down 14% from the same month last year. CNN averaged a 0.6, down 25% from 0.8, and MSNBC posted a 0.5 rating, up 67% from July 2006.

    With Fox ratings taking a dive, look for Murdoch to move more into the internet, to spread his propaganda.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Larry,

    I think drag queen Ru-Dee Guiliani brings so much baggage to the table that he has a snowball's chance in hell of getting elected.

    I mean, he married his cousin, he engaged in an adulterous affair while married to his second wife, he's alienated from his kids, and to much of the country, he's too New York.

    As a New Yorker (albeit an Upstate New Yorker), I remember how unpopular he was prior to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But that awful day rallied the sheeple around him and the MSM annointed him "America's Mayor." Puke.

    Barring Al Gore entering the race (my hope and dream), I think 2008 is all about Hillary. After Wall Street embraced her, I accepted the fact that the fix was in.

    Bush; Clinton; Clinton; Bush; Bush and then another Clinton.

    The dynasty continues.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Larry said "Maybe we ought to be most concerned with the health of our media system. Media consolidation, by its nature, diminishes the variey of voices represented in our media. With fewer points of view available, those select few with an outlet increase their capacity to shape public opinion, politics and daily life.

    Today’s media system isn’t simply the evolving result of capitalism at it’s best,
    it is the result of policies created by Congress and enforced by the FCC. Without those policies, Murdoch couldn't have built his media empire. Only by restoring public input in the policymaking process, can we reverse this trend and make America’s media a healthier place where a variety of ideas and the free market can co-exist.

    When Adolph Hitler took power in Germany he also took over the media, and he used it to shape a modern, civilized country to his ends. With full control of the national press his propaganda minister Paul Josef Goebbels developed sophisticated and very effective tools of propaganda to control public opinion in Germany, and even in other countries. He proved that if you repeat a lie often enough in mass media, most people will accept it as the truth.

    This is very powerful, and propaganda may be the most dangerous weapon developed in the Second World War. The atom bomb scared so many people that we had mass movements trying to control it, but the general public seems to have missed the significance of the power of propaganda.

    As media conglomerates like Murdoch and News Corp continue to be allowed to buy up every means of information resources, the propaganda of conservatism will continue to give the public a pre-arranged slant of reality.

    Hitler took over the media and he used it to further his own goals of hate and power, while the current spread of conservative propaganda in the media is being used to place political parties into power, start wars and silence the critics."

    Larry, this portion of the article truly nails whats going on today, Murdock NEEDS his dishonest empire broken up and scattered to the wind to insure truth and honest fact based news coverage and diversity of opinion in the media.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Larry, the answer is amazingly simple, and involves no break up of any oligopolies in the media.

    Restore the Fairness Doctrine.

    This way, for ever hour that Rush Limbaugh is on the air, stations would have to play an hour of rebuttal, gratis. Since Rush gives his program away, Rush loses nothing. The stations would lose a minimal amount of revenue, and responsible opposing opions would get aired.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Christopher,

    In fairness to Rudy Giuliani, the country was starving for leadership and Bush wasn't providing any, so by default, for merely doing his job, he was perceived as godlike.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Rupert thinks this will provide him with the legitimacy he craves.

    It won't.

    ReplyDelete
  12. OK, what am I missing here? Rupert Murdoch, plastic lawn chair. Is it a cosmic connection?

    ReplyDelete
  13. Remember This?

    “My goal is to cut government in half … to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.” – Grover Norquist

    When we cut funding for essential government services in order to provide tax cuts for billionaires and gratify the rightwing ideologues, it isn’t the government that drowns.

    BRIDGE COLLAPSES into Mississippi river, train travelling under cut in two.

    As everyone knows by now, at 6:05 pm local time yesterday, just after the height of the afternoon rush hour, the 35W freeway bridge spanning the Mississippi between Minneapolis and Saint Paul collapsed, taking dozens of cars, trucks and buses down with it.

    What caused this to happen? Massive failure of the steel support structures, apparently. Did we have advance warning? Tim Pawlenty, Minnesota’s governor, says no — he says the bridge passed its most recent exams with no major problems. Others beg to differ: as the sidebar in this NPR article states, in 2005, engineers rated the bridge as “structurally deficient” and that it would possibly need to be replaced, not just repaired. It’s possible that delayed maintenance — delayed because of budget cuts, as the Republican Pawlenty would rather chop off his own genitals than undo his tax cuts for the rich — may have been a factor.

    Heck of a job Grover, you and the rest of the reichwing greedy repubies managed to drowned some americans, but not the government which is supposed to represent them.......

    When the reichwing gets all greedy and cuts funding for services and needed infrastructure, it isn't just the troops they endanger.....

    ReplyDelete
  14. Another repubie jumps off the reichwing bus;

    More Now Than Ever: You Cannot Be Sane And Republican

    The flight of the sane people from the Republican Party continues:

    GOP state senator appears ready to switch parties

    By Virginia Young

    POST-DISPATCHJEFFERSON CITY BUREAU CHIEF

    08/01/2007

    JEFFERSON CITY — Chris Koster, a Republican state senator and champion of stem cell research, is expected to announce today that he is switching to the Democratic Party.

    Koster, a candidate for attorney general next year, will hold news conferences in Columbia, Harrisonville and St. Louis. In a news release, he promised “a speech that may transform the political landscape of Missouri.”

    Koster, of Harrisonville near Kansas City, resigned late Tuesday as chairman of the Senate Republican Caucus. His resignation letter, hand-delivered by Koster’s secretary to the office of Senate President Pro Tem Mike Gibbons, gave no explanation.

    […]

    Koster was calling major donors Tuesday to alert them to his plans. By late afternoon, word had spread to Democratic operatives. Mike Kelley, a Democratic consultant, said he had “heard it too many places for it not to be true.”

    Koster could have had trouble winning a Republican statewide primary because of his strong stance favoring embryonic stem cell research.

    His biggest campaign donation was $125,000 from Jim Stowers, co-founder of the Stowers Institute for Medical Research in Kansas City. Stowers and his wife were major supporters last fall of Amendment 2, which protects all forms of embryonic stem research in the state allowed under federal law.


    And now it’s official: Missouri’s highest-ranking Republican state Senator is now a Democrat.

    Thanks for driving all the sane people out of your party, wingnuts!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Plain and simple, he just should not be allowed to do so given his political goals. There should be laws against this sort of thing.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Fascinating thing about the bridge collapse ... Bush has pledged $5 million for repairs. $5 Million??? That will, maybe, replace one of the beams. I think the correct response would have been "How much is needed?"

    ReplyDelete
  17. Good post Larry! We've got keep on top of this and counter it at every turn.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Feingold Weighs in on FISA
    by mcjoan
    Thu Aug 02, 2007 at 08:50:51 AM PDT
    Sen. Feingold has apparently been given a classified briefing by DNI McConnell on the FISA issue, and released this statement:

    "We need to wiretap terrorists, and we should address the problem that has been identified with FISA with respect to foreign-to-foreign communications. But the administration’s overly broad proposal goes far beyond that and would leave critical decisions related to surveillance involving Americans entirely up to the Attorney General. The proposal from the Democratic leadership is better and involves FISA court review from the start. But it does not have adequate safeguards to protect Americans’ privacy. The bill should also include a 90-day sunset to ensure Congress has the chance to identify and fix any problems with this new proposal."

    Feingold's proposals are a good compromise on this issue, which apparently every Democratic Senator who has been briefed by McConnell believes is valid. First and foremost, there is no way the Senate can give the decision-making on surveillance to Gonzales, even on a very short-term basis. If the Congress caves on giving Gonzales this power, they will not be able to revoke it, even with a 90-day sunset. The bottom line on any proposal that Congress passes must keep authority for these programs with the FISA court.

    Permalink :: Discuss (149 comments)"

    ReplyDelete
  19. It appears the Bush fascists cronnies are saying we should give a blank check and virtually unfettered power to spy on Americans with NO oversite or accountabilty to Alberto Gonzalez the most incompetent and dishonest of a cabal of incompetent dishonest fools.

    This man is incapable of telling the truth or even tying his own shoes and yet the White House cronnies seem to think we should entrust HIM with oversite for one of the most controversial surveilance programs in history, a man who has shown NOTHING but incompetence, dishonesty, poor judgement, criminality and a horrific memory and grasp of crucially important events...........We NEED to tell our congress NOT to knuckle in and give unchecked power to the authoriatian fascists who loathe freedom and have shown nothing but incompetence and disdain for freedom, democracy and oversite so far...........So far they have done NOTHING but abuse their power or behave incompentently..............SO I ASK WHY THE HELL SHOULD WE TRUST THE INCOMPETENT LYING BUFFOONS NOW, WHEN THEY HAVE BEEN DEAD WRONG ABOUT E V E R Y T H I N G!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  20. MCH said...
    Fascinating thing about the bridge collapse ... Bush has pledged $5 million for repairs. $5 Million??? That will, maybe, replace one of the beams. I think the correct response would have been "How much is needed?""


    Better yet, what is the idiot doing to insure NOTHING like this EVER happens again, learn why this happened and hold people accountable for this.

    We are not a 3rd world country although Bush is certainly trying to make us one by repealing or disregarding safety standards and regulations so he wont have to give back his precious trillion dollars of tax cuts for the wealthy..........I believe between the war and the tax cuts Bush has wasted between 2-3 trillion, yet he cant afford to provide insurance for children or adaquatly pay for education.

    ReplyDelete
  21. 'Deferred Maintenance,' Tumbledown Bridges, and Bathtubs
    by Meteor Blades
    Thu Aug 02, 2007 at 11:22:38 AM PDT
    As I noted here last night, any good reporter with a few years on a city, county or state government beat will tell you that events like the tragic collapse of the 35W bridge over the Mississippi River between Minneapolis and St. Paul are inevitable. Not that anybody knows for certain which bridges will fail. Only that some will.

    As media reports and Diarists SanJoseLady, Phoenix Woman, Rena F, Joel Hirschhorn, karateexplosions, Bill Tchakirides, ray bob, davidkc, CarrieICL, DuvalDem, Tony Barr PA09, Misery Gore, and mmcintee in the seminal Repairs on Bridge Were Delayed are showing, the 35W bridge collapse was, as the cliché has it, an accident waiting to happen. A tragedy courtesy of politicians who, in their own ways, follow Grover Norquist's dictum of reducing government until it's small enough to drown in the bathtub. And of passing out massive tax cuts, mostly to people who need them least.

    It's not just bridges. As the American Society of Civil Engineers Infrastructure Report Card 2005 points out, we're $1.6 trillion behind in infrastructure investment. That, by the way, is the amount of tax cuts Mister Bush tried to get passed in 2001, before he had the Global War on Terrorism™ with which to shape his legacy. Congress "compromised" and gave him only $1.35 trillion, tax cuts that writer Robert Freeman once labeled a "national form of insanity."

    What the ASCE's report points out is that bridges aren't our only problem:

    Dams (D+) Since 1998, the number of unsafe dams has risen by 33% to more than 3,500. While federally owned dams are in good condition, and there have been modest gains in repair, the number of dams identified as unsafe is increasing at a faster rate than those being repaired. $10.1 billion is needed over the next 12 years to address all critical non-federal dams--dams which pose a direct risk to human life should they fail. ...

    Drinking Water (D-) America faces a shortfall of $11 billion annually to replace aging facilities and comply with safe drinking water regulations. Federal funding for drinking water in 2005 remained level at $850 million, less than 10% of the total national requirement. The Bush administration has proposed the same level of funding for FY06. ...

    Schools (D) The Federal government has not assessed the condition of America's schools since 1999, when it estimated that $127 billion was needed to bring facilities to good condition. Other sources have since reported a need as high as $268 billion. Despite public support of bond initiatives to provide funding for school facilities, without a clear understanding of the need, it is uncertain whether schools can meet increasing enrollment demands and the smaller class sizes mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act. ...

    Transit (D+)Transit use increased faster than any other mode of transportation--up 21%--between 1993 and 2002. Federal investment during this period stemmed the decline in the condition of existing transit infrastructure. The reduction in federal investment in real dollars since 2001 threatens this turnaround. In 2002, total capital outlays for transit were $12.3 billion. The Federal Transit Administration estimates $14.8 billion is needed annually to maintain conditions, and $20.6 billion is needed to improve to "good" conditions. Meanwhile, many major transit properties are borrowing funds to maintain operations, even as they are significantly raising fares and cutting back service. ...

    Wastewater (D-) Aging wastewater management systems discharge billions of gallons of untreated sewage into U.S. surface waters each year. The EPA estimates that the nation must invest $390 billion over the next 20 years to replace existing systems and build new ones to meet increasing demands. Yet, in 2005, Congress cut funding for wastewater management for the first time in eight years. The Bush administration has proposed a further 33% reduction, to $730 million, for FY06.

    This ought to be a no-brainer.

    It's understandable in impoverished Chad or Haiti or East Timor or the back-country of the People's Republic of China. But there is no excuse for lethal tumbledown infrastructure in this country. Congress gave Mister Bush $1.35 trillion in tax cuts. Congress has appropriated $600 billion (so far, with more to come) for a war that should never have happened. Congress enables the military-industrial complex to vacuum up additional hundreds of billions in taxpayer dollars annually. Congress just approved $25 billion in annual farm subsidies, the vast majority of which go to rich farmers.

    And on, and on. It's not just the Feds, obviously. In state after state, the bathtub drowners argue for tax cuts which ensure that this shameful deterioration of American infrastructure will continue. Every old bridge that falls down is, symbolically and actually, a testament to their vision.

    ReplyDelete
  22. As for the WSJ, I will NEVER read that rag EVER again now that Rupert Murdock has tainted it with his foul dishonest propagaganda, outright lies and riddiculous partisan spin.............I hope they go out of business because of Murdocks lack of credibility!

    ReplyDelete
  23. Did you guys hear Bushco today on Stephanie Miller's program responding to the Minneapolis bridge disaster?

    ROFLMAO!

    He sounded drunk. What a chore it must be for his handlers to sober him up, dress him and point him to the podium to make a speech or take questions.

    I swear, they must have a stand-in to sub for Bushco when he's really shit-faced.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Two-thirds of Americans see recession in the works

    Just over two-thirds of Americans believe the country is either already in recession or headed for one over the coming year, according to a new poll conducted jointly by The Wall Street Journal and NBC.

    Nearly half the survey respondents, 46 percent, believed a recession was already under way.

    The conviction comes despite a 3.4 percent rebound in economic growth during the second quarter, according to Commerce Department data released last week.

    A recession is generally defined as two consecutive quarters of declines in gross domestic product.

    Turning points in the economy are notoriously difficult to predict. In 2001, many Wall Street and government forecasters waited until growth had already turned negative before acknowledging a period of contraction.


    Heck of a job Georgie, your economy sucks as bad as your poll numbers....

    ReplyDelete
  25. The economy is falling apart and as long as Bush is wasting money on needless wars, it will fall farther.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Clif that 3.4% growth will most likely be revised down and when you subtract inflation there will likely be NO growth.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Great post Larry,

    And great post earlier this week Mike.

    Thank you!!

    ReplyDelete
  28. Today on our radio show, Basham and Cornell, which airs Monday - Friday 8-9AM, live during drive time in Las Vegas -- (and worldwide on the internet) we had Rachel Klein, Deputy Director of Health Policy at Families USA on to discuss the Childrens Health and Medicare Protection Act (CHAMP) as well as the S-chip program, which passed the House last night.

    Bush threatens to veto this medical coverage program for low-income children.

    Please listen in the archives to a really great show today.

    Tomorrow we have our interview with Charlie Rangle, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee -- in case you missed it the first time.

    Thanks
    www.bashamandcornell.com

    ReplyDelete
  29. great post Larry...wow..staggering isn't it- Wallstreet journal *poof* ...Murdoch bought it like he was picking up some carryout...I think of the past 10 years since Fox entered the "news"scene- and in way they are a huge part of the Bushco disaster we are enduring...BUT I do know enough people who this it - they will bail on this New Paper....but sadly you are right -it is very nazish that the right wing wants to control Every single form of media....and Murdoch is like some kind of evil character out of a Bad Bond Spinoff...

    ReplyDelete
  30. The liar speaks again:

    With potential perjury accusations hanging over him, embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales sent a letter to Senate leaders Wednesday acknowledging he "may have created confusion" in his previous testimony.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Do your job Pelosi:


    Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) said his push to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney is gaining support among the American people as he collected petitions with more than 100,000 signatures supporting the effort.

    "I made it very clear that I was not alone," Kucinich said. "Today I am proud to see that hundreds of thousands of Americans have joined this effort."

    America is waiting for you to do your job Pelosi!

    ReplyDelete
  32. I hope the people of Minnesota don't hold there breath as they await the money Der Fuhrer{Adolph}Bush promised.

    The people of New Orleans are still waiting after Katrina for the help he promised them.

    They'll all die before they ever see one thin dime.

    And still the Democrats refuse to do the will of the American People and Impeach these Son of a Bitches.

    God Bless.

    ReplyDelete
  33. You're right Anon-paranoid. If the people of Minnesota wait for help from this government, they will be paddling in row boats to get around.

    ReplyDelete
  34. Whose side is she on:

    John Edwards criticized Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday for taking more than $20,000 in donations from News Corp. officials, arguing that the company's Fox News Channel has a right-wing bias and Democrats should avoid the company.

    Murdoch buying more candidates.

    ReplyDelete
  35. The House yesterday approved legislation vastly expanding a federal health insurance program for the children of the working poor, shrugging off a fresh veto threat from President Bush and the fierce opposition of House Republicans.

    The Senate, where the legislation has strong bipartisan support, is expected to follow suit as early as today, voting on a more modest version of the program and probably setting up a showdown between congressional supporters and the White House, which says the measures are far too expansive.


    Bush hates kids. Thus will veto this.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Poor Twiggy Coulter:

    When it comes to GOP twig Ann Coulter and her Palm Beach voting snafu, the fat lady has yet to sing.

    While most expected the conservative pundit to be off the hook for good when the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office punted a voting fraud probe in April, the Florida Elections Commission now is investigating.



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    Coulter, a constitutional lawyer, voted in the wrong precinct in a Palm Beach town election in February 2006 after registering at an address that wasn't hers.

    The Coulter voting saga is now known as FEC Case No. 07-211. The investigator assigned, Tallahassee's Margie Wade, wouldn't confirm she caught the case; FEC complaints are supposed to be confidential.

    Still, Page Two is told Coulter already has been notified she's under investigation.

    ReplyDelete
  37. Murdoch buys candidates like he buys media outlets then destroys the integrity of them thru his lieutenants.....

    It's Roger Ailes and Neil Cavuto the WSJ should fear

    In the end Murdoch might prove as bad for Hillary as he will prove for the WSJ......

    ReplyDelete
  38. Ailes and Cavuto will probably do the same thing there, as they did with Fox.

    Make it tabloid talk skewed even more to the right, than it already was.

    ReplyDelete
  39. The Official George W. Bush
    "Days Left In Office"
    Countdown:

    536 DAYS
    1 Hrs 40 Min 46.7 Sec

    Will this day ever come?

    ReplyDelete
  40. Larry they also will under-report any scandals affecting wall Street and NEVER publish any bad news about Murdoch or his noise machine empire....

    ReplyDelete
  41. I think you're right Clif, and though it was always a right wing publication, this will bring it to an entire new level.

    ReplyDelete
  42. The WSJ would NEVER admit this one;

    Fox News Gets Big Tax Subsidies, Then Questions Whether We Should Fund Anti-Poverty Efforts

    Murdoch and Ailes don't mind their own personal corporate welfare, just any money they lose to the welfare for the poor......the reichwing greedy bastards that they are.

    ReplyDelete
  43. Clif is right:

    American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. plans to shut down, becoming the second-biggest residential lender to fail this year as bad loans spread to people with good credit records.
    Another example of the Bush economy.

    ReplyDelete
  44. Murdoch wants all this money for his own personal welfare plan, and it doesn't include the needy.

    ReplyDelete
  45. Do Ya Think:

    ABOARD A U.S. AIR FORCE PLANE — Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, returning from a four-day trip to the Middle East, offered a pessimistic view of Iraq's political progress Thursday, saying he thought that the United States had underestimated the level of distrust between the Shiite Muslim-led government and other ethnic groups.

    What a stooge. Did he just come to that conclusion after all these bloody years?

    ReplyDelete
  46. Return of the Robber Barons

    By Paul Craig Roberts

    As the Bush Regime outfits B-2 stealth bombers with 30,000 pound monster “bunker buster” bombs for its coming attack on Iran, the US economy continues its 21st century decline. While profits soar for the armaments industry, the American people continue to take it on the chin.

    The latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the real wages and salaries of US civilian workers are below those of 5 years ago. It could not be otherwise with US corporations offshoring good jobs in order to reduce labor costs and, thereby, to convert wages once paid to Americans into multi-million dollar bonuses paid to CEOs and other top management.

    Good jobs that still remain in the US are increasingly filled with foreign workers brought in on work visas. Corporate public relations departments have successfully spread the lie that there is a shortage of qualified US workers, necessitating the importation into the US of foreigners. The truth is that the US corporations force their American employees to train the lower paid foreigners who take their jobs. Otherwise, the discharged American gets no severance pay. [See, for example, BofA: Train Your Replacements, Or No Severance Pay For You ]

    Law firms, such as Cohen & Grigsby, compete in marketing their services to US corporations on how to evade the law and to replace their American employees with lower paid foreigners. As Lawrence Lebowitz, vice president at Cohen & Grisby, explained in the law firm’s marketing video, “our goal is clearly, not to find a qualified and interested US worker.”

    Meanwhile, US colleges and universities continue to graduate hundreds of thousands of qualified engineers, IT professionals, and other professionals who will never have the opportunity to work in the professions for which they have been trained. America today is like India of yesteryear, with engineers working as bartenders, taxi cab drivers, waitresses, and employed in menial work in dog kennels as the offshoring of US jobs dismantles the ladders of upward mobility for US citizens.

    Over the last year (from June 2006 through June 2007) the US economy created 1.6 million net private sector jobs. As Charles McMillion of MBG Information Services reports each month, essentially all of the new jobs are in low-paid domestic services that do not require a college education.

    The category, “Leisure and hospitality,” accounts for 30% of the new jobs, of which 387,000 are bartenders and waitresses, 38,000 are workers in motels and hotels, and 50,000 are employed in entertainment and recreation.

    The category, “Education and health services,” accounts for 35% of the gain in employment, of which 100,000 are in educational services and 456,000 are in health care and social assistance, principally ambulatory health care services and hospitals.

    “Professional and technical services” accounts for 268,000 of the new jobs. “Finance and insurance” added 93,000 new jobs, of which about one quarter are in real estate and about one half are in insurance. “Transportation and warehousing” added 65,000 jobs, and wholesale and retail trade added 185,000.

    Over the entire year, the US economy created merely 51,000 jobs in architectural and engineering services, less than the 76,000 jobs created in management and technical consulting (essentially laid-off white collar professionals).

    Except for a well-connected few graduates, who find their way into Wall Street investment banks, top law firms, and private medical practice, American universities today consist of detention centers to delay for four or five years the entry of American youth into unskilled domestic services.

    Meanwhile the rich are getting much richer and luxuriating in the most fantastic conspicuous consumption since the Gilded Age. Robert Frank has dubbed the new American world of the super-rich “Richistan.”

    In Richistan there is a two-year waiting list for $50 million 200-foot yachts. In Richistan Rolex watches are considered Wal-Mart junk. Richistanians sport $736,000 Franck Muller timepieces, sign their names with $700,000 Mont Blanc jewel-encrusted pens. Their valets, butlers (with $100,000 salaries), and bodyguards carry the $42,000 Louis Vitton handbags of wives and mistresses.

    Richistanians join clubs open only to those with $100 million, pay $650,000 for golf club memberships, eat $50 hamburgers and $1,000 omelettes, drink $90 a bottle Bling mineral water and down $10,000 “martinis on a rock” (gin or vodka poured over a diamond) at New York’s Algonquin Hotel.

    Who are the Richistanians? They are CEOs who have moved their companies abroad and converted the wages they formerly paid Americans into $100 million compensation packages for themselves. They are investment bankers and hedge fund managers, who created the subprime mortgage derivatives that currently threaten to collapse the economy. One of them was paid $1.7 billion last year. The $575 million that each of 25 other top earners were paid is paltry by comparison, but unimaginable wealth to everyone else.

    Some of the super rich, such as Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, have benefitted society along with themselves. Both Buffet and Gates are concerned about the rapidly rising income inequality in the US. They are aware that America is becoming a feudal society in which the super-rich compete in conspicuous consumption, while the serfs struggle merely to survive.

    With the real wages and salaries of American civilian workers lower than 5 years ago, with their debts at all time highs, with the prices of their main asset--their homes--under pressure from overbuilding and fraudulent finance, and with scant opportunities to rise for the children they struggled to educate, Americans face a dim future.

    Indeed, their plight is worse than the official statistics indicate. During the Clinton administration, the Boskin Commission rigged the inflation measures in order to hold down indexed Social Security payments to retirees.

    Another deceit is the measure called “core inflation.” This measure of inflation excludes food and energy, two large components of the average family’s budget. Wall Street and corporations and, therefore, the media emphasize core inflation, because it holds down cost of living increases and interest rates. In the second quarter of this year, the Consumer Price Index (CPI), a more complete measure of inflation, increased at an annual rate of 5.2% compared to 2.3% for core inflation.

    An examination of how inflation is measured quickly reveals the games played to deceive the American people. Housing prices are not in the index. Instead, the rental rate of housing is used as a proxy for housing prices.

    More games are played with the goods and services whose prices comprise the weighted market basket used to estimate inflation. If beef prices rise, for example, the index shifts toward lower priced chicken. Inflation is thus held down by substituting lower priced products for those whose prices are rising faster. As the weights of the goods in the basket change, the inflation measure does not reflect a constant pattern of expenditures. Some economists compare the substitution used to minimize the measured rate of inflation to substituting sweaters for fuel oil.

    Other deceptions, not all intentional, abound in official US statistics. Business Week’s June 18 cover story used the recent important work by Susan N. Houseman to explain that much of the hyped gains in US productivity and GDP are “phantom gains” that are not really there.

    Other phantom productivity gains are produced by corporations that shift business costs to consumers by, for example, having callers listen to advertisements while they wait for a customer service representative, and by pricing items in the inflation basket according to the low prices of stores that offer customers no service. The longer callers can be made to wait, the fewer the customer representatives the company needs to employ. The loss of service is not considered in the inflation measure. It shows up instead as a gain in productivity.

    In American today the greatest rewards go to investment bankers, who collect fees for creating financing packages for debt. These packages include the tottering subprime mortgage derivatives. Recently, a top official of the Bank of France acknowledged that the real values of repackaged debt instruments are unknown to both buyers and sellers. Many of the derivatives have never been priced by the market.

    Think of derivatives as a mutual fund of debt, a combination of good mortgages, subprime mortgages, credit card debt, auto loans, and who knows what. Not even institutional buyers know what they are buying or how to evaluate it. Arcane pricing models are used to produce values, and pay incentives bias the assigned values upward.

    Richistan wealth may prove artificial and crash, bringing an end to the new Gilded Age. But the plight of the rich in distress will never compare to the decimation of America’s middle class. The offshoring of American jobs has destroyed opportunities for generations of Americans. Never before in our history has the elite had such control over the government. To run for national office requires many millions of dollars, the raising of which puts “our” elected representatives and “our” president himself at the beck and call of the few moneyed interests that financed the campaigns.

    America as the land of opportunity has passed into history.

    ReplyDelete
  47. Good article Clif and as wages fall, jobs continue to move overseas, the wealthy seem to get wealthier.

    This isn't the America we once knew!

    ReplyDelete
  48. Why not this:

    Nearly everyone professes a desire to renew the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), set to expire in September. Disagreement persists on funding levels & sources, qualification thresholds, and state discretion for variances. Is this a healthy policy debate, or a platform for ideological grandstanding? For the sake of children's health, let's hope SCHIP is funded at levels to protect the truly vulnerable.

    They have billions to kill people in Iraq, yet they refuse to help poor children be well!

    ReplyDelete
  49. Like the article I posted about George W Bush fulfilling his grandfather Prescott Bush's wishes when he tried and failed to overthrow Roosevelt (While he was aiding Hitlers rise to power, and before he got in trouble for aiding the Nazi War machine during WW2 in 1942.), this article is just more proof of what the reichwing really stands for.

    ReplyDelete
  50. If people can't grasp what the neocon vendors are about, they will have plenty of time, once their jobs head overseas.

    ReplyDelete
  51. Americans are feeling decidedly sour about the economy and those in charge of it, fueling Democratic efforts to target business interests in the 2008 election campaign.

    More than two-thirds of Americans believe the U.S. economy is either in recession now or will be in the next year, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows. That assessment comes despite the fact the economy has experienced sustained growth with low inflation and unemployment and generally rising stock values ever since the recession that ended early in President Bush's tenure.
    The second paragraph is the key. The reporter wonders how it can be that Americans remain "sour" despite the fact that the economy has "experienced sustained growth." Well, the fact is when inequality is growing and when CEOs and the top one percent are raking in the lion's share of the nation's income, looking at overall numbers tells you very little about the state of the economic security of most Americans.

    When wages are not going up in any dramatic fashion, when people have no health care and are paying escalating costs for health care they might have, when energy costs are on the rise, when people have stayed above water by using the value of their homes as a financial lifeline (a lifeline that is now evaporating), well, I could go on but when that is happening, it's no wonder people don't feel secure about their economic future.

    How else should they feel as their jobs head overseas, their mortgages go into default, and their families are falling apart.

    Another result of the Bush economy!

    ReplyDelete
  52. (Reuters) - New applications for jobless benefits rose by 4,000 last week, government data showed on Thursday, underscoring continued strength in the labor market.
    Is this a growing economy:

    First-time filings for state unemployment insurance benefits, a rough guide to the pace of layoffs, rose to a seasonally adjusted 307,000 in the week ended July 28, from an upwardly revised 303,000 in the prior week, the Labor Department said.

    ReplyDelete
  53. Too bad the "unemployment" numbers don't count the unemployed who no longer qualify for unemployment benefits....

    or those under employed,

    or those who no longer even try to find work because they have given up.............

    ReplyDelete
  54. Clif:

    If those numbers counted the real unemployment rate would be in double digits.

    ReplyDelete
  55. Just like the "real" inflation rate is 2 to 3 times what the goberment reports......

    ReplyDelete
  56. Does this sound like a good economy:

    here is a copy of an email CEO Mike Perry sent out to all Indymac employees yesterday on this subject:

    Unfortunately, the private secondary markets (excluding the GSEs and Ginnie Mae) continue to remain very panicked and illiquid. By way of example, it is currently difficult, at present, to trade even the AAA bond on any private MBS transaction. In addition, to give you an idea as to how unprecedented this market has become…I received a call from U.S. Senator Dodd this morning who seeking an understanding of “what is really going on and how can I and Congress help?” I also have talked to the Chairman of Fannie Mae this morning and have traded calls with the Chairman of Freddie Mac (Fannie Mae’s Chairman telling me that they are “prepared to step up and help the industry”).

    Unlike past private secondary mortgage market disruptions, which have lasted a few weeks or so…our industry and Indymac have to be prudent and assume that this present disruption, which appears broader and more serious, might take longer to correct itself. As a result, we have seen just since yesterday, many major mortgage lenders announce additional product cutbacks…some leaving subprime, Alt-a, and other products altogether or restricting some products to only their own retail channel (and possibly wholesale) and significant, additional price widening.

    While we have very strong liquidity, a good amount of excess capital and there are no realistic scenarios that I can foresee that would impair Indymac’s viability (thanks to our Federal Thrift structure), as I said on the earnings conference call yesterday…we cannot continue to fund $80 to $100 billion of loans through a $33 billion balance sheet….unless we know we can sell a significant portion of these loans into the secondary market…and right now, other than the GSEs and Ginnie Mae….the private secondary market is not functioning.

    As a result, Indymac like all major lenders, will continue to widen its pricing and tighten product and underwriting guidelines to ensure that a much great percentage of our production qualifies for sale to the GSEs or through a GNMA security (we sold 40% to the GSEs in the 2nd quarter, up from 30% in Q107 and 19% in 2006, and we want to get it up to at least 60% asap). We are hopeful that private AAA MBS bonds begin to trade soon…and have encouraged the GSEs to step in and provide additional liquidity to the secondary markets (their primary role) for both these private securities and other loans.

    ReplyDelete
  57. Does this sound familiar:

    Some hedge funds that have suffered losses on investments are closing the gate on clients who want to pull money out, a move that could further undermine confidence in already shaky financial markets.

    Temporarily barring withdrawals, though legal, also could damage the image of the hedge fund industry, which in recent years has attracted hordes of well-heeled investors seeking high returns. The industry has mushroomed to 9,700 funds with $1.7 trillion in assets.

    "Psychologically, separating people from their money is generally considered to be a hostile way to behave," said Ron Geffner, a partner at New York law firm Sadis & Goldberg.

    ReplyDelete
  58. Hi Lydia and Everybody!

    I've been having internet connection problems.. the heat here in Scottsdale causes intermittent loss of internet! I got on here earlier thinking I would post but lost the connection. Errrr!

    Anyway, great post Larry!

    Murdoch has quite the empire now, doesn't he?
    He can feed the Sheeple more garbage now! Faux News is totally unfair and unbalanced!

    ReplyDelete
  59. Larry they have the WAIT like the Enron employees had to so the CEO's and high paid managers get their money out.

    ReplyDelete
  60. clif said...
    Return of the Robber Barons

    By Paul Craig Roberts

    As the Bush Regime outfits B-2 stealth bombers with 30,000 pound monster “bunker buster” bombs for its coming attack on Iran, the US economy continues its 21st century decline. While profits soar for the armaments industry, the American people continue to take it on the chin.

    The latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the real wages and salaries of US civilian workers are below those of 5 years ago. It could not be otherwise with US corporations offshoring good jobs in order to reduce labor costs and, thereby, to convert wages once paid to Americans into multi-million dollar bonuses paid to CEOs and other top management.

    Good jobs that still remain in the US are increasingly filled with foreign workers brought in on work visas. Corporate public relations departments have successfully spread the lie that there is a shortage of qualified US workers, necessitating the importation into the US of foreigners. The truth is that the US corporations force their American employees to train the lower paid foreigners who take their jobs. Otherwise, the discharged American gets no severance pay. [See, for example, BofA: Train Your Replacements, Or No Severance Pay For You ]

    Law firms, such as Cohen & Grigsby, compete in marketing their services to US corporations on how to evade the law and to replace their American employees with lower paid foreigners. As Lawrence Lebowitz, vice president at Cohen & Grisby, explained in the law firm’s marketing video, “our goal is clearly, not to find a qualified and interested US worker.”

    Meanwhile, US colleges and universities continue to graduate hundreds of thousands of qualified engineers, IT professionals, and other professionals who will never have the opportunity to work in the professions for which they have been trained. America today is like India of yesteryear, with engineers working as bartenders, taxi cab drivers, waitresses, and employed in menial work in dog kennels as the offshoring of US jobs dismantles the ladders of upward mobility for US citizens.

    Over the last year (from June 2006 through June 2007) the US economy created 1.6 million net private sector jobs. As Charles McMillion of MBG Information Services reports each month, essentially all of the new jobs are in low-paid domestic services that do not require a college education.

    The category, “Leisure and hospitality,” accounts for 30% of the new jobs, of which 387,000 are bartenders and waitresses, 38,000 are workers in motels and hotels, and 50,000 are employed in entertainment and recreation.

    The category, “Education and health services,” accounts for 35% of the gain in employment, of which 100,000 are in educational services and 456,000 are in health care and social assistance, principally ambulatory health care services and hospitals.

    “Professional and technical services” accounts for 268,000 of the new jobs. “Finance and insurance” added 93,000 new jobs, of which about one quarter are in real estate and about one half are in insurance. “Transportation and warehousing” added 65,000 jobs, and wholesale and retail trade added 185,000.

    Over the entire year, the US economy created merely 51,000 jobs in architectural and engineering services, less than the 76,000 jobs created in management and technical consulting (essentially laid-off white collar professionals).

    Except for a well-connected few graduates, who find their way into Wall Street investment banks, top law firms, and private medical practice, American universities today consist of detention centers to delay for four or five years the entry of American youth into unskilled domestic services.

    Meanwhile the rich are getting much richer and luxuriating in the most fantastic conspicuous consumption since the Gilded Age. Robert Frank has dubbed the new American world of the super-rich “Richistan.”

    In Richistan there is a two-year waiting list for $50 million 200-foot yachts. In Richistan Rolex watches are considered Wal-Mart junk. Richistanians sport $736,000 Franck Muller timepieces, sign their names with $700,000 Mont Blanc jewel-encrusted pens. Their valets, butlers (with $100,000 salaries), and bodyguards carry the $42,000 Louis Vitton handbags of wives and mistresses.

    Richistanians join clubs open only to those with $100 million, pay $650,000 for golf club memberships, eat $50 hamburgers and $1,000 omelettes, drink $90 a bottle Bling mineral water and down $10,000 “martinis on a rock” (gin or vodka poured over a diamond) at New York’s Algonquin Hotel.

    Who are the Richistanians? They are CEOs who have moved their companies abroad and converted the wages they formerly paid Americans into $100 million compensation packages for themselves. They are investment bankers and hedge fund managers, who created the subprime mortgage derivatives that currently threaten to collapse the economy. One of them was paid $1.7 billion last year. The $575 million that each of 25 other top earners were paid is paltry by comparison, but unimaginable wealth to everyone else.

    Some of the super rich, such as Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, have benefitted society along with themselves. Both Buffet and Gates are concerned about the rapidly rising income inequality in the US. They are aware that America is becoming a feudal society in which the super-rich compete in conspicuous consumption, while the serfs struggle merely to survive.

    With the real wages and salaries of American civilian workers lower than 5 years ago, with their debts at all time highs, with the prices of their main asset--their homes--under pressure from overbuilding and fraudulent finance, and with scant opportunities to rise for the children they struggled to educate, Americans face a dim future.

    Indeed, their plight is worse than the official statistics indicate. During the Clinton administration, the Boskin Commission rigged the inflation measures in order to hold down indexed Social Security payments to retirees.

    Another deceit is the measure called “core inflation.” This measure of inflation excludes food and energy, two large components of the average family’s budget. Wall Street and corporations and, therefore, the media emphasize core inflation, because it holds down cost of living increases and interest rates. In the second quarter of this year, the Consumer Price Index (CPI), a more complete measure of inflation, increased at an annual rate of 5.2% compared to 2.3% for core inflation.

    An examination of how inflation is measured quickly reveals the games played to deceive the American people. Housing prices are not in the index. Instead, the rental rate of housing is used as a proxy for housing prices.

    More games are played with the goods and services whose prices comprise the weighted market basket used to estimate inflation. If beef prices rise, for example, the index shifts toward lower priced chicken. Inflation is thus held down by substituting lower priced products for those whose prices are rising faster. As the weights of the goods in the basket change, the inflation measure does not reflect a constant pattern of expenditures. Some economists compare the substitution used to minimize the measured rate of inflation to substituting sweaters for fuel oil.

    Other deceptions, not all intentional, abound in official US statistics. Business Week’s June 18 cover story used the recent important work by Susan N. Houseman to explain that much of the hyped gains in US productivity and GDP are “phantom gains” that are not really there.

    Other phantom productivity gains are produced by corporations that shift business costs to consumers by, for example, having callers listen to advertisements while they wait for a customer service representative, and by pricing items in the inflation basket according to the low prices of stores that offer customers no service. The longer callers can be made to wait, the fewer the customer representatives the company needs to employ. The loss of service is not considered in the inflation measure. It shows up instead as a gain in productivity.

    In American today the greatest rewards go to investment bankers, who collect fees for creating financing packages for debt. These packages include the tottering subprime mortgage derivatives. Recently, a top official of the Bank of France acknowledged that the real values of repackaged debt instruments are unknown to both buyers and sellers. Many of the derivatives have never been priced by the market.

    Think of derivatives as a mutual fund of debt, a combination of good mortgages, subprime mortgages, credit card debt, auto loans, and who knows what. Not even institutional buyers know what they are buying or how to evaluate it. Arcane pricing models are used to produce values, and pay incentives bias the assigned values upward.

    Richistan wealth may prove artificial and crash, bringing an end to the new Gilded Age. But the plight of the rich in distress will never compare to the decimation of America’s middle class. The offshoring of American jobs has destroyed opportunities for generations of Americans. Never before in our history has the elite had such control over the government. To run for national office requires many millions of dollars, the raising of which puts “our” elected representatives and “our” president himself at the beck and call of the few moneyed interests that financed the campaigns.

    America as the land of opportunity has passed into history."


    Clif, that was an Amazing article......it REALLY highlights whats going on today.

    ReplyDelete
  61. Hi Suzie:

    Murdoch wants to do what Hitler did, only on a wider scale.

    ReplyDelete
  62. The REAL: inflation rate is around 7%-8% Clif the government uses shams like hedonics to dishonestly keep it down to 2%-3%................they act like food and energy which comprise the OVERWHELMING majority of most normal people's expenditures DONT belong there and dont REALLY effect inflation.

    BTW..........do you guys think it is an "ACCIDENT" that oil and gas ALWAYS magicaly and mysteriously declines significantly at the very end of the yeart.............its NO ACCIDENT it is so the dishonest beancounters can say inflation is lower because enegy prices are lower at that particular measurement point.

    ReplyDelete
  63. I always thought inflation and uneployment numbers are what they wanted them to be.

    Think of the outrage if people knew the truth.

    ReplyDelete
  64. Mike the people "know" every time they buy food or fuel, but most don't make the connection of how bad the the lies started by Reagan about inflation really screw them each year.

    ReplyDelete
  65. Larry said...
    Hi Suzie:

    Murdoch wants to do what Hitler did, only on a wider scale."

    I think Bush and Cheney are the Hitlers.......Murdock is just a Greedy war profiteer and fascist supoorter and enabler.

    ReplyDelete
  66. Clif, saying inflation is 2%-3% is laughable........its as bad a lie as Bush saying he is keeping us safe.

    ReplyDelete
  67. Larry said...

    Hi Suzie:

    Murdoch wants to do what Hitler did, only on a wider scale.
    ----------------

    Larry:

    Yes and he is well on his way in doing so.

    ReplyDelete
  68. Mike said...
    Clif, that was an Amazing article......it REALLY highlights whats going on today.
    ------------------
    Yes, Clif, that was excellent and it really summed it up in a nutshell!

    ReplyDelete
  69. Look at how Murdoch will profit if he can help move the neocon warlords, into the Hitler state they all desire.

    ReplyDelete
  70. I hope Murdock has his emoire broken up if the Democrats take firm control in 2008.

    ReplyDelete
  71. Fox is still in a ratings slide and MSNBC has experienced the most growth.

    Thanks to Olbermann.

    ReplyDelete
  72. Washington - The District of Columbia has agreed to pay $1 million to about 120 protesters who were improperly rounded up by police during demonstrations against the invasion of Iraq, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

    The settlement Wednesday is the largest payout to date by the city for police actions during the Sept. 27, 2002, protests.

    Finally a little justice!

    ReplyDelete
  73. Yeah, Olberman has the fastest growing show, While O'Liely and Rush have lost half their viewership, America is Sick and tired of Condervatism......its like a disease or blight on humanity!

    ReplyDelete
  74. Michael Savage claimed on his worthless radio show that the Democrats wwre responsible for Roberts having a seizure.

    What kind of propaganda is that!

    ReplyDelete
  75. NEW YORK -- Two Bear Stearns Cos. hedge funds heavily exposed to the flagging mortgage industry filed for bankruptcy protection late Tuesday, two weeks after the company told investors one was essentially worthless and the other had lost more than 90 percent of its value.
    The Bear Stearns High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies Master Fund Ltd. and the Bear Stearns High-Grad Structured Credit Strategies Enhanced Leverage Master Fund Ltd. — which invested in securities backed by risky mortgages — filed for protection under Chapter 15 of the bankruptcy code, according to court documents.

    Chapter 15 covers cross-border petitions and was used because the funds are technically registered in the Cayman Islands.

    Another example of the faltering Bush economy!

    ReplyDelete
  76. the hippocritical kind!

    Coulter repeatedly asks for Supreme Court Judges to be murdered O'Liely asks for acts of terrorism and these hippocrites cry like babies and shriek conspiracy theories when we say that Sandra O'Connor was threatened or Tillman was murdered or 9/11 want legite and Bush had knowledge of it.........they say we are hateful or in league with terrorists for wanting justice and accountability when THEY wish for government officials to be murdered or acts of terrorism to occur or violence to be committed against libberals.........it boggles the mind.

    And Democrats are actually afraid of these brainless losers that boggles the mind also.

    ReplyDelete
  77. Democrats are either weak spineless lizards, or they are getting bought off like all the rest.

    Or both.

    ReplyDelete
  78. Did you hear Jim Cramer just ripping on Steve Schwartzman, the Bush admin and the hedge funds and private equity the other day........these fools were trying to claim that private equity and the hedge funds are for blue collar middle class teachers and firemen and making the rich hedge fund managers pay their fair shair of taxes like EVERYONE else is a travesty and disservice to the middle class........its laughable.

    ReplyDelete
  79. Larry said...
    Democrats are either weak spineless lizards, or they are getting bought off like all the rest.

    Or both."

    Your absolutely right, i'm abot ready to give up hope on most of them.

    ReplyDelete
  80. I missed Cramer. Somebody needs to tell them.

    ReplyDelete
  81. Investigative journalist I.F. Stone wrote in A Time of Torment " All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out" Al Gore replied if Bush and Cheney actually believed in the linkage (between Iraq and Al Qaeda) that they asserted in spite of all the evidence to the contrary presented to them temporaneously, that would by itself, in light of the available, make them genuinely unfit to lead our nation. On the other hand, if they knew the truth and lied, massively and repeatedly, isnt that worse?

    ReplyDelete
  82. There are at least 22,000 of our troops, our children, who have suffered Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and/or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) have been misdiagnosed with Personality Disorder and mustered out of the U. S. military with no care given, and no access to future medical and mental health care.

    Is this how you care for the troops Bush!

    ReplyDelete
  83. I saw Speaker Botox on PBS' The News Hour.

    Her rhetoric reminded me of Alberto Gonzales' rhetoric.

    Anytime Jim Leher asked her tough questions like how does she account Congress' approval rating being lower than Bush's approval rating, or if she supports impeaching Gonzales, she would lapse into remarks about "working hard for the children."

    She's so in over her head, so weak-as-water, and so worried that the details of her military-heavy investment portfolio will be used against her by Rove, that she can't answer a question straight on.

    Nancy Pelosi is such a disappointment.

    ReplyDelete
  84. Christopher:

    Pelosi got lavished with those secret oil profits Bush is stealing, and sharing with her and Reid, so she gets dumbfounded when asked why things are happening.

    ReplyDelete
  85. Why is this still happening:

    A federal intelligence court judge earlier this year secretly declared a key element of the Bush administration's wiretapping efforts illegal, according to a lawmaker and government sources, providing a previously unstated rationale for fevered efforts by congressional lawmakers this week to expand the president's spying powers.

    Bush is still spying like he always has!

    ReplyDelete
  86. NBC News:

    New poll finds 2/3 of Americans feel the U.S is already in a recession.

    Couldn't agree more

    ReplyDelete
  87. Baghdad:

    Seven U.S troops were killed today in bombings.

    "Surge" working for you Bush!

    ReplyDelete
  88. WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House passed legislation Thursday effectively permitting the importation of lower-cost prescription drugs from places such as Canada, Australia and Europe.

    The move came as lawmakers passed a $91 billion spending measure funding farm subsidies and nutrition programs for the budget year beginning Oct. 1.

    The bill, passed by a 237-18 vote, faces a promised veto from President Bush over its price tag, and the administration also opposes the drug importation provision.

    No doubt Black-hearted Bush will veto this!

    ReplyDelete
  89. False Advertising:

    Democrats disclosed plans Thursday for nationwide television advertising that praises Congress for raising the minimum wage, seeking expanded health care for children and "taking on George Bush to end a war gone wrong."

    How can hey praise themselves when they have done NOTHING to stop the war!

    ReplyDelete
  90. Larry, this article and my lead article today dovetail quite nicely. While the WSJ has historically been about as far left as Attila the Hun, it was a credible source of business information, despite its biased editorial policy. With the Murdoch acquisition, the WSJ is no longer credible in any respect. Look what he did to the London Times.

    ReplyDelete
  91. EXACTLY right Tomcat, thats what i've been saying, although politically the WSJ has always leaned to the Right, their reporting of business information has always BEEN credible and factual.........under Murdock that will not be the case and I hope its readership becomes aware of that and leaves......I will NEVER read it ever again, from now on it will be the News Wires or the FT or nothing.

    ReplyDelete
  92. Another example of the Bush economy unraveling;

    US mortgage giant ceases new business, lays off thousands

    American Home Mortgage, one of the country's biggest mortgage companies, ceased new business Friday and blamed its woes on the stricken US housing market and a related credit crunch.

    Numerous mortgage lenders have gone out of business in recent months, but American Home Mortgage is one of the largest to be hit by problems. It minted 59 billion dollars in loans last year, up from 45 billion in 2005.

    In a statement late Thursday, the home loan giant said it had stopped taking new mortgage applications and had told most of its employees they would be laid off Friday.

    "The company employee base will be reduced from over 7,000 to approximately 750," the distressed firm said.


    Laying of almost 90% of your workforce, is that a bad sign?

    I wish gay-dalf the draft dodger was still here trying to defend this looming fiasco.....

    He was so stupid about things he really didn't understand, but spouted the reichwing kool-aid talking points.

    ReplyDelete
  93. The 7th Anniversary of Bush's Broken Promise

    Seven years ago Friday George W. Bush uttered the now broken promise that has come to define his failed presidency. Accepting his party's nomination, Governor Bush promised to restore "honor and dignity" to the White House. But as events continue to show, a more accurate - and ironic - mantra for the lawless Bush White House would be "no controlling legal authority."

    At the time it was delivered, Bush's acceptance speech at the 2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia was an arrogant, deceitful broadside against the Clinton/Gore years. But the very words Bush used to tar Al Gore with the taint of the Lewinsky scandal may now constitute the epitaph for the Bush presidency:

    "So when I put my hand on the Bible, I will swear to not only uphold the laws of our land, I will swear to uphold the honor and dignity of the office to which I have been elected, so help me God."

    [too bad he lied]

    That hateful address, of course, was filled with exactly the kind of lies and taunts - the smallness - that define George W. Bush. His false charges about American military readiness ("Not ready for duty, sir!"), his abandoned philosophy when using American force ("the cause must be just, the goal must be clear, and the victory must be overwhelming"), his smearing of Al Gore that foreshadowed his own legacy ("he now leads the party of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, but the only thing he has to offer is fear itself") and his obscene claim to be a "uniter" ("I will not attack a part of this country because I want to lead the whole of it"), all were in keeping with the dark Bush character.

    Bush broke all of these promises. But his original sin, from which all other of his crimes and errors flow, is his pledge to usher in new period of higher ethical standards as part of a "responsibility era." Bush, who previously sneered at Gore's "no controlling legal authority" defense of his Buddhist temple fundraising efforts, raised the ethical bar further that October:

    "In my administration, we will ask not only what is legal but what is right. Not just what the lawyers allow, but what the public deserves. In my administration, we'll make it clear there is a controlling legal authority of conscience."

    [too bad he lied again]

    Seven years later and Bush's 2000 standard of "not only what is legal but what is right" is in tatters. Just this week, attorney general Alberto Gonzales (who had already lied under oath to Congress at least three times) fought off new perjury charges by flaccidly claiming his contradictory statements regarding illegal NSA domestic surveillance "may have created confusion."

    And that's just the beginning. Plamegate, the Libby pardon, the Abramoff affair, doctoring scientific reports, the end of habeas corpus, endorsing torture of war prisoners, the politically-motivated firings of U.S. attorneys, the theory of the unitary executive and the unprecedented assertion of executive privilege all show a President committed to doing neither what is legal nor right. And then there's Iraq.

    Seven years ago on August 3rd, George W. Bush promised us he would "uphold the honor and dignity" of his office.

    [He lied of course]

    Happy anniversary, America.

    ReplyDelete
  94. BTW Next up:

    Corporate bankruptcies

    Turbulence in the credit markets has already claimed several casualties - from highly leveraged hedge funds to mortgage providers whose lenders have cut them off.

    But the fallout could get worse. Some experts say the debt crunch could squeeze under performing companies that have, until now, been able to finance their way out of trouble - and trigger a wave of corporate bankruptcies.

    ReplyDelete
  95. The Chimpletons who support these monopolies no more believe in healthy competition than Stalin did. Theodore Roosevelt would have spat on them.

    ReplyDelete
  96. Larry
    I didn't think too much on this at first but the more I think about it the more it stinks. The wall street Journal is bad enough but the Dow Jones. The ramifications are stunning but of course will be ignorantly and stupidly denied. Today this has become an issue on the Presidential election circuit and for good reason.
    Dow Jones Sale Heats Up Presidential Race - Mergers, Acquisitions, Venture Capital, Hedge Funds -- DealBook - New York Times http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/03/dow-jones-sale-heats-up-presidential-race/

    ReplyDelete
  97. I have an announcement to make.

    This blog is a 2006 triple Koufax nominee: Best Writing, Best Post (for "Bush's Last Will and Testicle," and More Deserving of Wider Recognition. Also, Clif was nominated for "Best Commenter." Worf was nominated for Best Commenter for two other blogs, but his nomination for Sutton Records must be a mistake; it was supposed to be for this blog. (Michael Sutton, CEO of Sutton Records is a friend.)

    PLEASE Vote in the finals by registering and emailing your vote — although I have no idea when voting closes, as everyone is on hiatus. Please go to KOUFAX AWARDS
    and click on Best Writing, Best Post and More Desering... Thank you very much.

    Nevada is a red state, but we have the ONLY Progressive Talk-radio show in Las Vegas! Basham and Cornell Show is now a DAILY SHOW! Tune in LIVE FROM 8-9 a.m. Monday thru Friday online or live from LAS VEGAS (KLAV 1230) BASHAM AND CORNELL PROGRESSIVE TALK

    ReplyDelete
  98. Dow drops over 280 points, looks like 14,000 was a temporary illusion....

    ReplyDelete
  99. Get this: the corporations that advertise on CNN, MSNBC, FUX and all the news networks -- buy ad spots in order to make sure certain news stories ARE OMITTED. Stories that might hurt the coroporation are left out.


    I have long suspected this, but there is growing evidence (in lifht of the Monsanto hormone Fox scandal) that "news" is just corporate spin.

    Take a look at the strange ads on the large cable news networks: Boeing, Shell, GE, Weyerhauser, large chemical companies claiming to be environmentally conscious.

    I mean, who can afford to buy a huge private jet? Why on earth do these large conglomerates need to advertise? They are not selling any particular product.

    I think it's a deal that is struck to buy off the news.

    ReplyDelete
  100. Lydia, I'm not sure they've opened voting yet.

    ReplyDelete
  101. Mike said...
    The REAL: inflation rate is around 7%-8% Clif the government uses shams like hedonics to dishonestly keep it down to 2%-3%................they act like food and energy which comprise the OVERWHELMING majority of most normal people's expenditures DONT belong there and dont REALLY effect inflation.


    They are excluded because prices fluctuate way too easily, and are hard to measure accurately, that's why. They do publish a figure that keeps them in, but also one that is called "core inflation" which gives a truer picture of the effect of food and energy prices on the rest of the economy.

    ReplyDelete
  102. ANOTHER BUSH VIOLATION:

    The Thursday testimony of J. Scott Jennings, an aide to President George W. Bush, offered further insight into the routine violations of e-mail archiving rules by White House staff.

    "I came to the White House, as you said, in 2005, and when I came, I was given two e-mail accounts as you know, and devices such as a BlackBerry and a laptop that were connected to my RNC e-mail account, and only one device, a computer desktop, connected to my official account," Jennings told Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) in the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. "So, over the course of time, it became efficient and crucial for me to be able to respond to communications in a 24-7 manner."

    Jennings, who serves as Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of Political Affairs in the White House, went on to say he continues to use his RNC e-mail account heavily for a variety of official business, such as hiring and firing US Attorneys.

    ReplyDelete
  103. Stocks slid sharply after Bear Stearns said credit markets were in their worst shape in two decades, while jobs data aroused further concerns about weakness in the economy.

    Another result of the faltering Bush economy:

    ReplyDelete
  104. Reuters:

    Bond market turmoil sending investors fleeing from risk may be a worse predicament than the 1980s stock market fall and Internet bubble burst, Bear Stearns Chief Financial Officer Sam Molinaro said on Friday.

    "These times are pretty significant in the fixed income market," Molinaro said on a conference call with analysts. "It's as been as bad as I've seen it in 22 years. The fixed income market environment we've seen in the last eight weeks has been pretty extreme."

    Another result of the faltering Bush economy!

    ReplyDelete
  105. Congratulations Lydia on your three impressive Koufax Award nominations!

    ReplyDelete
  106. Congrats on your Best Commenter nominations Clif and Worfeus!

    ReplyDelete
  107. The Wall Street Journal is gonna look funny if it changes to a Fox/Murdoch format. Instead of that staid image it's always had, it'll be full of blaring National Enquirer-type headlines.

    Who Hijacked Our Country

    ReplyDelete
  108. Carl said...
    Mike said...
    The REAL: inflation rate is around 7%-8% Clif the government uses shams like hedonics to dishonestly keep it down to 2%-3%................they act like food and energy which comprise the OVERWHELMING majority of most normal people's expenditures DONT belong there and dont REALLY effect inflation.

    They are excluded because prices fluctuate way too easily, and are hard to measure accurately, that's why. They do publish a figure that keeps them in, but also one that is called "core inflation" which gives a truer picture of the effect of food and energy prices on the rest of the economy."


    Thats what THEY say Carl I dont buy that BS though...............answer me this if oil and gas are deemed TOO volatile to look at every month and they are ONLY looked at, ast the start of a year WHy are their prices mysteriously always way dfown at the start of every new year like they are being MANIPULATED down to massage the stats and keep inflation low.

    Also look at how the index is comprised we buy food and use energy EVERY SINGLE DAY how often to we buy a computer or tv........every 5-15 years yet these infrequent purchases are used to bring down the inflation index disproportionately. Further the hedonics sham can tranform a price increase into a decrease magically if the sorcerers say the product has improved and is therefore cheaper because it is actually better for instance a cofee maker may have a timer that automatically turns it on to have your coffee ready a a specified time and even if it costs 50% more it can me magically categorized as a price decrease same for computers the processor speed may double over 5 years so they say the price has decreased 20% a year even if it actually remains the same and the computer does not do ANYTHING better of faster because the incresed demands of the new operating software and new programs has comsumed any speed increases.

    Oh and lets not lose track of the fact they use rent rather than housing appreciation to calculate the CPI despite the fact that housing has doubled or trip;ed in MANY area and is clearly in a bubble.

    I Know how the CPI is calculated Carl and I think its more bogus than a $3 bill, your entitled to believe in its validity as a accurate measure of inflation should you choose to do so, I however do not nor have I ever particularly the last 10-15 years.

    ReplyDelete
  109. How will the Wall Street Journal/Roger Ailes spin the massive layoffs taking place in the mortgage industry?

    ReplyDelete
  110. Speaking of validity and credibility consider this............Dow Jones decides what 30 stocks is an accurate representation of the American Markets............With Rupert Murdock at the helm, a man with NO integrity or credibility he can say the hell with an accurate representation I can manipulate the index by changing its composition to make it say whatever I want.

    Consider this for instance Murdock wants to make a repug administration look good so rather than making the Dow Industrials be comrised of an ACCURATE representation of the economy he changes its composition by loading it with fast growing undervalued companies to make it APPEAR to go up 50% a year when repugs are in power and subsequently changes its composition to slow growing overvalued companies when Democrats are in power to make it APPEAR that it has gone down 50% a year with them in power and Democrats are poison for the stock market and economy.

    Rupert Murdock is a media sorcerer and a liar who will manipulate anything to reinforce and push his destructive agenda of lies and inequality and giving him the keys to more power to manipulate and deceive is a very dangerous thing just as giving a blank check to GWB is, a man who has done nothing but lie prove incompetent and abuse all the power and trust given to him as well as betray this country in a treasonous manner.

    ReplyDelete
  111. BTW Congradulations Lydia, Clif and Worf.

    BTW, what is that Sutton thing???????

    ReplyDelete
  112. I'm surprised you didn't get nominated with them Mike, you comment here alot.

    ReplyDelete
  113. Thats what THEY say Carl I dont buy that BS though...............answer me this if oil and gas are deemed TOO volatile to look at every month and they are ONLY looked at, ast the start of a year WHy are their prices mysteriously always way dfown at the start of every new year like they are being MANIPULATED down to massage the stats and keep inflation low.

    You're mixing apples and oranges.

    Energy prices are volatile. Let me put it to you this way...let's say that tomorrow, the price of gasoline dropped by a dollar a gallon, and stayed there the rest of the month.

    Inflation would then have to factor in a negative 40% despite the fact that nearly every other factor (including food) would be still feeling the effects of the higher gas prices (until such time as they started buying the cheaper gas and adjusted their prices accordingly).

    So you inflation rate for August would be something on the order of a negative five percent, even tho people are still paying more than they did in July.

    Now let's say in September, gas jumped back up a dollar a gallon. You'd have an inflation rate of +5% or so, even tho people are actually paying less for things like clothing and stuff than they did in August!

    ReplyDelete
  114. Lydia Cornell said...
    Get this: the corporations that advertise on CNN, MSNBC, FUX and all the news networks -- buy ad spots in order to make sure certain news stories ARE OMITTED. Stories that might hurt the coroporation are left out.


    I have long suspected this, but there is growing evidence (in lifht of the Monsanto hormone Fox scandal) that "news" is just corporate spin.

    Take a look at the strange ads on the large cable news networks: Boeing, Shell, GE, Weyerhauser, large chemical companies claiming to be environmentally conscious.

    I mean, who can afford to buy a huge private jet? Why on earth do these large conglomerates need to advertise? They are not selling any particular product.

    I think it's a deal that is struck to buy off the news"


    Lets see, "Fux News"............must be a Freudian slip LOL :D


    Serioously though, I've thought the same thing, it makes no sense why Boeing or the Drug companies advertise on tv, since we dont buy airplanes or prescription drugs, it is the airlines or doctors who prescribe them when needed........and hopefully more reasoned thought goes into their purchae or use than a 30 second tv soundbite!

    ReplyDelete
  115. Carl, if that were accurate and inflation did go down significantly i'd say fine...........BUT the real reason that isnt done is because that combined with the hedonics sham would prove that the CPI is bogus............if it showed a BIG decline month to month people would KNOW the stats are bogus.

    Answer me this, so what if food and gas are volatile if it goes down 30% in one month and then goes back up the next month so what if thats whats actually happening whats wrong with that........the stats should accurately measure what they are designed to measure not say what the powers that be want to make it APPEAR to be.

    ReplyDelete
  116. clif said...
    Dow drops over 280 points, looks like 14,000 was a temporary illusion...."

    like I said Clif by my calculations the dow would have to hit 17,500 adjusted for REAL inflation to REALLY make a new high........even using the Governments bogus stats it still hasnt really made a new high inflation adjusted over the last 7 years.

    ReplyDelete
  117. Look at this dire prediction:

    Paul Muolo, executive editor and associate publisher of National Mortgage News, had some harsh commentary in his latest column on the state of the mortgage industry. Here’s a taste:

    “I’ll put it bluntly: if you operate a non-depository mortgage firm (lender or servicer) and don’t have a deep-pocketed parent or hedge fund as a sugar daddy you’re likely to be out of business by year-end, probably sooner. In the 20-plus years that I’ve been covering residential finance I haven’t seen a financial meltdown this swift since the S&L crisis of the mid-to-late 1980s. One subprime executive who closed his shop a few months ago told me, “This is a liquidity crunch the likes I have never seen.” Meanwhile, the mudslide is rolling downhill from Wall Street to mortgage bankers, to loan brokers, and then the consumer. Nomura Securities is winding down its mortgage conduit and three major Wall Street firms are preparing to slash their mortgage desks and or conduits…

    And consider this: On Friday, Wells Fargo had hiked its jumbo loan rate to 8%. (This is the same Wells Fargo that up until a few months ago was overstating its subprime correspondent purchases so it could garner bragging rights to being No. 1 in subprime.) Meanwhile, Countrywide Financial Corp., considered a bedrock of the industry, is tightening up requirements on warehouse credit doled out to its correspondents. (For the full story see the Monday edition of National Mortgage News. Don’t subscribe? Call: 800 221-1809) …

    In a short interview this past week, Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo told NMN that there will be just five “major” lenders left by the end of 2009…

    It’s also safe to say that 80/20 combos, stated-income loans and subprime payment-option ARMs are toast. As one lender put it: “There’s no bid out there”…

    ReplyDelete
  118. As US president Franklin D. Roosevelt put it, we must cast down the "money changers" from their "high seats in the temple of our civilization."

    Prophetic isn't it!

    ReplyDelete
  119. Democrats cane to Bush Again:

    In a high-stakes showdown over national security, the Senate voted late Friday to temporarily give President Bush expanded authority to eavesdrop on foreign terrorists without court warrants.

    It is more important for the worthless Congress to take their undeserved 6 week vacation, than to stop the Bush/Nazi regime from spying on Americans.

    ReplyDelete
  120. Whats going to make this one bad is that Bernanke CANT cut rates like Greenspan did because he also has to defend the dollar, its a catch 22............course he could be sneaky and just keep cranking up the printing press while talking tough on inflation like he's BEEN doing but that hasnt helped much so far.

    Those silly repugs they sure do like TALKING tough...........unfortunately they dont have the stones to let their actions back up their rhetoric.

    ReplyDelete
  121. Larry said...
    Democrats cane to Bush Again:

    In a high-stakes showdown over national security, the Senate voted late Friday to temporarily give President Bush expanded authority to eavesdrop on foreign terrorists without court warrants.

    It is more important for the worthless Congress to take their undeserved 6 week vacation, than to stop the Bush/Nazi regime from spying on Americans."

    I agree these losers arent part of the solution, they are becoming part of the problem............I dont even recognize this Country anymore.

    ReplyDelete
  122. The Democrats cry because the Iraqi government goes on vacation, but when Bush threatens to make them stay until his spy bill is passed, they immediately give in.

    Congressional vacations are more important than the freedom of Americans.

    ReplyDelete
  123. (AP) -- Hiring cooled off in July, pushing the nation's unemployment up to 4.6 percent, a six-month high.

    The fresh snapshot of employment conditions around the country, released by the Labor Department Friday, also showed that new job creation slowed. Employers increased payrolls by 92,000 last month, the fewest add-ons in a single month since February.


    Job losses in construction, manufacturing, retailing and by the government blunted gains in education and health care, professional and business services, and leisure and hospitality.

    The Bush economy continues to falter!

    ReplyDelete
  124. The Official George W. Bush
    "Days Left In Office"
    Countdown:

    534 DAYS
    23 Hrs 40 Min 10.3 Sec

    Will this day ever come!

    ReplyDelete
  125. The lack of spine in this CONgress is sickening.

    They bend over backwards to accommodate a monkey with about a 20% or so approval rating, and then they wonder why people are quick to think that they can't lead.

    ReplyDelete
  126. The DemoRATS caved and gave Bush his beloved spying program.

    It's August after all, and they're in a hurry to get home (or to Paris, in Pelosi's case), so anything Bush wants, Bush will get.

    ReplyDelete
  127. FORWARD OPERATING BASE ISKAN, Iraq Inside a brightly lit room, the walls adorned with memorials to 23 dead American soldiers, Lt. Col. Robert Balcavage stared at the three Sunni tribal leaders he wanted to recruit.

    Their fighters had battled U.S. troops. Balcavage suspected they might have attacked some of his own men. The trio accused another sheik of having links to the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq. That sheik, four days earlier, had promised the U.S. military to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq and protect a strategic road.

    "Who do you trust? Who do you not trust?" said Balcavage, commander of the 1st Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division, his voice dipping out of earshot.

    Bush has created so many enemies, the troops don't know who to trust.

    ReplyDelete
  128. Stop this bill:

    A bipartisan effort in Congress to stop a proposed multibillion-dollar arms deal with Saudi Arabia is gaining steam, and 114 lawmakers have now declared their opposition to the plan, which the Bush administration says would stabilize the Middle East.

    Reps. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.), Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) and Mike Ferguson (R-N.J.) have gathered signatures for a letter to President Bush stressing members’ opposition to the deal. Weiner and others released the letter at a Thursday press conference.

    “If a sale containing weapons for Saudi Arabia is proposed to Congress under the Arms Export Act of 1976, we intend to stop it,” reads the letter to Bush.

    Only Bush would arm another enemy!

    ReplyDelete
  129. BAGHDAD - Throngs of Iraqis were busily shopping for the weekend when a truck bomb and barrage of rockets ripped apart the market in central Karrada.

    Iraqiya television and most Western media outlets reported that 25 were killed and 100 wounded in the July 26 attack, of which virtually no images were shown.

    But less than a week later, the names of 92 dead and 127 wounded were posted on a list taped to a shuttered storefront. It was compiled by municipal and civil defense crews that led the rescue efforts.

    The disparity in official numbers and the ones posted in the market, and apparent differences between government figures and eyewitness accounts after other recent bombings, leaves many Iraqis feeling that the government is intentionally downplaying or trying to cover up the numbers of dead.

    "They want to cover up their incompetence," says Fawaz Hassan of the government. "I plead with you … please deliver the truth to the world. We do not want any compensation. We just want the world to know what happened here."

    Bush fudges death and injury tolls for political reasons.

    Protecting his own hide!

    ReplyDelete
  130. Confirming what my sources have told me for at least a year, the Washington Post this morning has a sobering piece about how the U.S. government (READ: the American tax payer) is funding the Iraqi insurgents.

    Well, well, well folks, the Bush administration turns out to be the biggest enemy of the American people.

    But alas, Speaker Botox is still patting herself on her back and telling anyone stupid enough to still listen that "Bush isn't worth impeaching" and how she and her buttboy, Steny Hoyer, are busy working "for the children of America."

    We're so screwed. It's over gang, the republic is dead, killed by a two-party system that's become a single party, wholly-owned by corporate America and the military industrial complex.

    ReplyDelete
  131. Mike said ....under Murdock that will not be the case and I hope its readership becomes aware of that and leaves......I will NEVER read it ever again, from now on it will be the News Wires or the FT or nothing.

    I hope so too, Mike, but, if Murdoch remains true to form he will not interfere at all for a time. Then he will increase his influence gradually until the WSJ becomes Faux Businoise.

    If you turn up the heat gradually enough, the frog never knows it's being cooked. :-(

    ReplyDelete
  132. Carl, you're right, the voting isn't open yet, and won't be for the entire month of August>

    Premature. I only noticed the nominations a few days ago. Have not been paying attention.

    "Fux NEWS" is from Doug Basham's soundbite on our show: "FAUX NEWS and remember not to forget the letter "A."

    ReplyDelete
  133. Carl said...
    Thats what THEY say Carl I dont buy that BS though...............answer me this if oil and gas are deemed TOO volatile to look at every month and they are ONLY looked at, ast the start of a year WHy are their prices mysteriously always way dfown at the start of every new year like they are being MANIPULATED down to massage the stats and keep inflation low.

    You're mixing apples and oranges.

    Energy prices are volatile. Let me put it to you this way...let's say that tomorrow, the price of gasoline dropped by a dollar a gallon, and stayed there the rest of the month.

    Inflation would then have to factor in a negative 40% despite the fact that nearly every other factor (including food) would be still feeling the effects of the higher gas prices (until such time as they started buying the cheaper gas and adjusted their prices accordingly).

    So you inflation rate for August would be something on the order of a negative five percent, even tho people are still paying more than they did in July.

    Now let's say in September, gas jumped back up a dollar a gallon. You'd have an inflation rate of +5% or so, even tho people are actually paying less for things like clothing and stuff than they did in August!"

    Carl, I honestly dont feel THAT strongly about the core.........my real point of contention is with the annual CPI and the way it is computed..........however regarding the core I will say this there are always lags in economic policy and in measuring that policy if it takes a month or a couple of months for energy related inflation or deflation to work its way through to other industries it will take that long whether we factor food and energy into the core or not, i'm willing to concede that these are volatile, however food, energy and housing are the majority of most peoples budgets, i'm probably lower middle class, and i probably spend 90% of my income on these three things and NONE of them are measured in the core..........so if they are TOO volatile to measure accurately maybe we should not pretend we CAN measure them accurately and instead of having a bogus monthy core just look at the raw individual components as well as other relevant ones to gage the monthly change.


    Now for the Annual CPI I say it would be MUCH more accurate if we put housing in there and averaged the monthy costs of food and energy then compared them to the average monthly costs for the previous year. I think energy is being manipulated lower at the start of every year by some government entity, possibly the plunge protection team, possibly another entity we do not know about to cheat the poor and the elderly on fixed income by vastly understating the rate of energy inflation and thus the CPI, additionally the big movers and shakers KNOW energy will be manipulated down at te beginning of the year so they profit on the way down and again on the way up to the detriment of small investors and consumers.....ie the game is rigged and the stats are bogus.

    Secondly as I said before Housing, food and energy make up over 90% of my expenses and probably most of the mere kmortals in this country as well, yet the government is using hedonics for items very seldom bought to dishonestly introduce artificial deflation to offset the real inflation in the stuff most people spend the majority of their money on.............for instance the price of a computer may be the same as 5 years ago but because the processor speed has doubled they SAY the price has decreased 20% per year despite the fact the computer cant do anything more than the 5 year old computer and in reality because of the bigger more resource intensive operating systems an software is neglibly faster.

    ReplyDelete
  134. Confirming what my sources have told me for at least a year, the Washington Post this morning has a sobering piece about how the U.S. government (READ: the American tax payer) is funding the Iraqi insurgents.

    We tried to point this out over a year ago. It is fairly easy to confirm.

    But a lot of things that are easy to confirm seem to get right past the Chimpromised MSM.

    ReplyDelete
  135. Big bad Jim Webb who supposedly was against the war and what Bush is doing, first voted to fund the war, now to let Bush spy on Americans.

    Looks like he is still a Republican!

    ReplyDelete
  136. Meet the Democratic enemies of the Constitution:

    Sen. Evan Bayh (IN)
    Sen. Tom Carper (DE)
    Sen. Bob Casey (PA)
    Sen. Kent Conrad (ND)
    Sen. Dianne Feinstein (CA)
    Sen. Daniel Inouye (HI)
    Sen. Amy Klobuchar (MN)
    Sen. Mary Landrieu (LA)
    Sen. Blanche Lincoln (AR)
    Sen. Claire McCaskill (MO)
    Sen. Barbara Mikulski (MD)
    Sen. Bill Nelson (FL)
    Sen. Ben Nelson (NE)
    Sen. Mark Pryor (AR)
    Sen. Ken Salazar (CO)
    Sen. Jim Webb (VA)

    Thanks Christopher for posting this on your blog!

    ReplyDelete
  137. CHICAGO — Liberal bloggers booed Hillary Clinton Saturday when she refused to rule out taking campaign contributions from lobbyists, a rare sore point as she and other Democratic presidential candidates courted the increasingly influential online commentators.

    Most of the candidates appeared at the second annual "YearlyKos" convention, vying with one another to lavish praise on the bloggers, whom they said help counter the influence of conservatives at the Fox News Chanel and on talk radio.

    The candidates all vowed to end the Iraq war, expand healthcare, and raise taxes on the wealthy — drawing applause from the left-leaning audience of more than 1,500 bloggers.

    Clinton, however, risked a hostile reaction several times in two sessions Saturday and created the most notable moment of contention by insisting she was immune to pressure from special interests and their money.

    Responding to a challenge from former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina to stop taking lobbyists' contributions, she said: "I don't think...anybody seriously believes I'm going to be influenced by a lobbyist." There were scattered boos in the audience.

    She insisted she would take contributions from lobbyists ``because a lot of these lobbyists, whether you like it or not, represent real Americans.'' She mentioned nurses and social workers, for example. That drew some applause.

    The boos prompted an acknowledgement from the New York senator that the group is notably irreverent and prone to interrupting speakers at the first sign of a canned response or political spin.

    ``I've been waiting for this. This is a real sense of reality being here,'' Clinton said with a laugh.

    Bloggers had booed the mention of some Democrats in earlier sessions and reacted angrily to the initial announcement that Clinton alone among the candidates would not face questions in a smaller session with about 300 bloggers.

    She relented and in that separate meeting stood by several laws signed by her husband that are unpopular with liberals, including welfare reform and the Defense of Marriage Act, which protects states from having to recognize a gay marriage from another state.

    She said she agreed with the central tenet of the Defense of Marriage Act but felt it should be amended to clear the way for an extension of federal benefits to gay couples.

    In the candidates' forum, Edwards pitched himself as an outsider who would close the Guantanamo prison, pass health care, fight big business and not compromise like rival candidates now serving in Congress.

    ``If you want change,'' said Edwards, once a successful trial lawyer, ``you need somebody who fought these people their entire life and beat them over and over.''

    Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut won applause by criticizing media mogul Rupert Murdoch's purchase of the Wall Street Journal, Murdoch's Fox News Channel and Fox host Bill O'Reilly.

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  138. Please allow me to comment using pictures.

    http://www.light-to-dark.com/murdochs_enslaved_red_states.html

    http://www.light-to-dark.com/ruperts_black_house.html

    http://www.light-to-dark.com/unanticipated_2.html

    Sometimes I wonder how far it all will go. Then, I realize Mr. Murdoch is a totalitarian.

    There will be much educating ahead if we are to turn the nationalist socialist tide.

    Regards

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  139. Now I am primarily an Obama man, but I think I have to side with Hillary on the lobbyist thing. Sure, in an ideal world I would like to have a President who doesnt owe anything to anybody, but realistically it aint gonna happen.

    I belong to a union that has lobbyists that will primarily be courting the Democrats; on the other side of the coin, I work for a company that has lobbyists that will be primarily courting the Republicans. I want the Democrat nominee to be taking the money from my union lobbyist because I know for a fact the Rebublican nominee wont be turning down any money.

    More money means more ads and more chances for both sides to be heard. By and large, the people with the most money will be giving to the Republicans who have no qualms about taking it so the Democrats already fight an uphill battle. the 2004 Swift Boat debacle shows what can, and will, be coming from the Republican side.

    I personally cant afford to give $2400 (or whatever the limit happens to be) to the Democrat but I know a lot of Republicans who can and will afford to give their donation. As far as I'm concerned, let the Unions and whomever give as much money as possible to the Democrat nominee -- wont lead to a perfect situation but hopefully it will help keep us from another Republican president.

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  140. Check out this excellent post from one of the bloggers who has been commenting here regularly. It is an excellent breakdown of Bush and what he has done to America, and Pelosi's role in this.

    America Weeps

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  141. Mike,

    The CPI has, from time to time, been measured in negative percentages. it's called "recession".

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  142. MCH, good luck with that.

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  143. Carl said...
    Mike,

    The CPI has, from time to time, been measured in negative percentages. it's called "recession"."


    LOL, I realize what a recession is Carl and I think fairly soon a lot of other people will too..............however my point was a simple one, namely if the core rate of inflation is too difficult to measure accurately on a monthyly basis then maybe we shouldnt measure it on a monthly basis............I know what your trying to say here.....BUT I dont think leaving out two or three items that account for 80% or more of many peoples budget produces accurate numbers, and if the numbers are not accurate and two difficult to measure then why try, we can look at the individual components and make our own estimates......and call it an estimate rather than a legitimate statistic.

    This isnt just coming from me,just about every economist and/or financial person I respect says inflation is vastly understated........like i said probably 90% of my income goes toward food, energy and housing and those have all inflated probably around 20% a year on average so to say inflation is 2%-3% a year is not only insulting its riddiculous.

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