Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Q Tips

NPR related comments welcomed.

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

When is NPR going to do a story about possible investigation and prosecution of war crimes committed by members of the Bush gang, and those who worked for it, such as John Yoo (at Justice) and those who "chust followed orders" in carrying out torture?

Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com has written a lot about this, but I don't think I've heard anything about it on NPR.

Juan "Toss" Ensalada said...

Diogenes99- Good question. I have heard, on Countdown with Keith Olbermann, that the DOJ may go after these guys credentials; essentially, trying to disbar them. And interesting strategy, if a very unfulfilling one -JET

Porter Melmoth said...

With many such massive issues, we can't possibly expect UnPR to take any sort of lead, let alone a bit of dabbling, as they are far too timid and in thrall to their corporate masters, who would have much to lose in such investigations. Indeed, it is an indictment of their cooperation with such corporate entities that no investigation into Bushish crimes (or anything else remotely controversial) will appear on NPR. They'll keep Zwerdling busy with some pinpoint-focus story, and people like Greg Palast will continue to be banned from NPR facilities.

In short: don't get your hopes up that NPR will tackle ANYTHING like Bush crimes in a responsible manner.

Anonymous said...

Yes, Diogenes, your search for an honest person on NPR may be futile. ;)

Juan "Toss" Ensalada said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Juan "Toss" Ensalada said...

All- Watch PBS's Frontline from last night entitled, "Inside the Meltdown." Frontline uses commentary from many journos; mostly people from the New York Times. But one UnPR chimp gets in the mix -- Adam Davidson from "Planet Monkey." Davidson grins and drools in some nonsensically, excitable way and says ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. I see why the Frontline producers used him so sparingly. Also, they use a bit of Steve Inscreep audio as a voice under. How precious! -JET

Juan "Toss" Ensalada said...

How will UnPR manage to turn this into an anti-Chavez rant? Venezuelans, with billions at Stanford, want money. Also, will the Pentagon, via its spokesman (Tom Gjelten), determine this to be a threat to our national security? If so, we had better raise the Financial Threat Level to Red.

Anonymous said...

From Juan's link:

Wealthy Venezuelans often keep their money overseas for fear of political instability under socialist President Hugo Chavez. Used to high returns in the oil-exporting nation, Venezuelan investors were attracted by Stanford's interest payments and helped the investment group grow rapidly.

Oh, so these were the wealthy scumbags who tried to overthrow him? And Chavez' government banks were too "unstable" for their dirty money, and they wanted higher returns than their ordinary countrymen could obtain?

If that's the case...

HA Ha!

/Nelson Munz

Hubertg said...

Frontline did not refer to the criminal activity that caused the 'meltdown'...only in passing as the 'the mistakes that were made'. I am tired of the word 'mistakes' being used when the word should be 'CRIMINAL'.
The bulk of the show was about fixing the crash as opposed to the insideous security dealings and the criminals that did it. Bunch of bull shit if you ask me.

Juan "Toss" Ensalada said...

Hubertg- Don't you know, we can't look back. Only forward. -JET

Anonymous said...

Evidently this...

"Supposing the government goes in and replaces the equity holders and says now these are government-owned banks. Then the government becomes responsible to all the debt holders who otherwise have made losses. In other words, with a nationalization, what you get is a transfer of wealth from the taxpayer to all the bondholders who earlier were dependent on the private bank to repay them. Now [they] can depend on the full faith and credit of the government to repay them."

from a piece on Morning Edition this morning, is bullshit. (According to Dean Baker, anyway.)

Juan "Toss" Ensalada said...

Nice find, Maine Owl. I saw it on American Prospect too. My friend Cletus sent it to me.

Anonymous said...

Firstly, Greenwald is not NoPR (though Moyers has no compunctions having him on now & then!). Nextly, having to hear audio samplings of the 'Kreepster et al coupled with Capitol aerial shots is ruining 'Frontline' for me; a disturbing trend & annoying routine I wish would stop.

Hubertg said...

Yeah Juan....I hear from whence you speak. 'Forward' also means Bush and Company walk...commit as many high crimes as you can in finance and public service then get the media to help you 'move forward.'

Madison Wilburs said...

New topic: the spate on Dennis Blair-related stories, including terror-scare pieces such as this one:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100832254

The idea is that China is going to hit us with a "Pearl Harbor of finance." These pieces use one source and seem calculated to simply scare us. I see nothing newsworthy in this sort of speculation.

Hubertg said...

I agree with the fear factor...not newsworthy. Ridiculous. If China hit us with a financial Pearl Harbor, it would be one for them too. The sky is falling !! Who comes up with this stuff ?

Juan "Toss" Ensalada said...

Tom Gjetlen scaring us with a multi-part series, sourcing the usual suspects for his "story." Do we need a color-coded alert scheme for our financial system now?

Juan "Toss" Ensalada said...

Since UnPR is so good at re-purposing news from government and corporate press releases, and then spreading it across the sum of its shows, I thought this particular
thank you gift was appropriate to post at NPRCheck. It's re-NEWS-able! Ugh.

Anonymous said...

^ Ick! Pretty garish & fug-ugly swag there, Juan. 'Least it ain't a Neena Toten-bag, eh? - guffaw, guffaw.

About enough to make me even prouder of non-descript canvas.

Anonymous said...

"When is NPR going to do a story about possible investigation and prosecution of war crimes committed by members of the Bush gang"

That's easy.

never.

NPR barely even mentioned it when Kucinich filed his impeachment resolutions against Cheney and then against Bush.

At the time, NPR's Ron Elving claimed is was no big deal, the kind of thing that happens all the time, so why should NPR cover it?

or for that matter, why should NPR cover the pre-war bogus claims about WMD?

or why should NPR cover the Downing Street Minutes that said the "intelligence on Iraq was being fixed about the policy"?

That's all water under the bridge.

NPR NEVER covers stories that are the least bit critical of their the Republican friends in Washington.

Anonymous said...

^ Or even, the Republicans they're beholden to for fear of funding cut threats. Elementary, my dear Watson.

Hubertg said...

Juan..the color coded alert scheme is an excellent idea. Cracked me up...but still, an excellent idea.

Anonymous said...

C'mon, there just isn't enough time to cover everything. Those four minutes or so in this evening's ATC about the girls fell asleep on train tracks and were hit - that was important, hard-hitting stuff...

who is making the new decisions at NPR?

The show on snarkiness...did they feature their own news shows?

Anonymous said...

C'mon, there just isn't enough time to cover everything."

...except their own asses, of course.

There always seems to be enough time for that on National Pubic Radio.