Sunday, October 04, 2009

Q Tips


NPR related comments welcomed.
Posted by Mytwords at 9:40 AM
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13 comments:

geoff said...

Dean Baker:NPR Gets Obama's Position on Taxes Wrong

10/4/09, 1:39 PM
Anonymous said...

No matter what happens to be true about Polanski, one thing is clear: Cokie Roberts is a nut job Every bit as nutty as Anne Coulter.

Whether they admit it or not, all the people who give money to NPR are supporting people like Roberts. THEY will be responsible when someone takes Roberts quite literally. In other words, they will be accomplices to murder.

Obviously, there are a lot of listeners who think like and support people like Coulter and Roberts or they would not say the things they do.

Even more than the nut jobs like Roberts, these NPR listeners are the ones you really have to worry about because they are the type who would go out and act on Roberts' fantasies.

10/4/09, 9:34 PM
geoff said...

Anon -

I suspect, given her parentage, Cokie has some very personal issues being played out on the public stage here. As was ever so for her.

10/4/09, 10:34 PM
geoff said...

Here's some Cokie from a couple of months ago. With Donaldson and Noonan and...who was it...that clintal widget stuffinuphisass? Don't get me wrong: I love me some short people. This group just explodes the "fair and balanced" myth into oblivion: Donaldson+Stephanopolous = Noonan+Roberts.

10/4/09, 10:58 PM
Anonymous said...

"I came out of the alternative newsweekly world, with stints at two papers that no longer exist and another as executive editor of the Village Voice. Before I woke up and found myself buried in economics books courtesy of Adam Davidson and Planet Money" -- Laura Conaway (Planet Monkey)

Conaway learned her economics from [comic?] books recommended by Adumb Davidson?

Well, that explains a lot.

There seems to be a pattern at NPR: Conaway learned [sic] economics from reading books recommended by an idiot, Inskeep learned [sic] how to be a "news" anchor by working as an idiot sportscaster, and Garrels learned how to be a "foreign correspondent" [ie, "torturee interviewer"] from spy novels?

What a collection of quacks.

10/5/09, 8:13 AM
Anonymous said...

gopolganger: thanks. You refer to her catholic upbringing*?

So, presumably Cokie MUST have called for the same "final solution" that she proposed fro Polanski for all the Catholic Priests who have raped young children, right?

I know the Pilgrims were not catholic, but i suspect that self-righteous "religious" types like Roberts are main the reason the Pilgrims got run out of England.

*Cokie Roberts tells sisters: Be proud

"Point to your works," said Roberts, who was educated in elementary school and high school by the Religious of the Sacred Heart in New Orleans and Washington. She is the daughter of Lindy Boggs, former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.

10/5/09, 8:33 AM
Anonymous said...

This interview (of Glenn greenwald and jeremy Scahill) is fantastic: explains in a nutshell what is so horribly wrong with the mainstream media today -- and, by extension, with NPR, which has become part of that MSM.

real journalists like Greenwald and Scahill make most "journalists" today (including most of those at NPR, including its management) look like little more than prostitutes for the powerful.

10/5/09, 9:04 AM
Anonymous said...

Contrast the way that ABC has characterizes the report of Neil Barofsky the, special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program with the way NPR characterizes it (through their choice to use the AP report instead of ABC report)

First here's the ABC report:

Published on Monday, October 5, 2009 by ABC News
"They Lied: Watchdog Says Treasury and Fed Knew Bailed-Out Banks Were Not 'Healthy'

by Matthew Jaffe

WASHINGTON - The Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve lied to the American public last fall when they said that the first nine banks to receive government bailout funds were healthy, a government watchdog states in a new report released today.

Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP), says that despite multiple statements on Oct. 14 of last year that these nine banks were healthy and only receiving government funds for the good of the country's economy, federal officials knew otherwise"

//end ABC quote

Now, here's how AP (and NPR) chose to report the story

The credibility of the government's $700 billion financial rescue program was damaged by claims a year ago that all of the initial banks receiving support were healthy, a new report contends.

Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky generally found that the government had acted properly in October 2008 as it scrambled to implement the Troubled Asset Relief Program to avert the collapse of the U.S. financial system.

But the report said that then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and other officials were wrong to contend at an Oct. 14 press conference that all nine institutions receiving the first round of support — $125 billion — were sound."

//end AP quote

Got that.

ABC "They LIED"
AP/NPR: " They were wrong to contend"

Just a subtle difference (NOT!!).

By the way, "they lied' is precisely what bank fraud expert and former S&L scandal investigator William Black has been saying all along (but nobody has been listening, certainly not Obama)

here's the relevant comment from an interview by Cenk Uygur:

"His analysis of the Geithner bailout plan was devastating. First, you must understand this point he makes - if the banks are not insolvent, why do they need a $2 trillion bailout?

Of course, they're insolvent. That's why we have to put so much money into them in the first place. To claim otherwise, as the entire Obama Treasury Department has, is at best incredibly disingenuous. Prof. Black then goes on to explain that Geithner's plan is "the worst possible strategy" because it is a "fundamental misdiagnosis of the crisis."

William K. Black: [Describing Geithner's reasoning] If we just lie to the people enough and if we can get them believe our lies, then they will become confident and then we'll get through the recession at next to no cost ... and the banks will all be fine.

William K. Black: No, except that it's trillions, if we're lucky, will go under their plan to the people that caused this crisis. And it will be the greatest looting of the American people in our history and it will destroy the Obama presidency if it continues."


Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/william-k-black-on-geithn_b_183848.html

...
////end Black quote

One statement by the special investigator is very applicable to both the government AND media outlets like NPR:

"Statements that are less than careful or forthright — like those made in this case — may ultimately undermine the public's understanding and support," -- Neil Barofsky

he can say that again.

this is all very timely what with Michael Moore's movie hitting the theaters and all.

Just when Summers, Geithner, Obama and Davidson, Schiller, Inskeep and others at NPR thought they were in the clear, they find themselves poised to be engulfed by the perfect storm of public outrage.

10/5/09, 12:24 PM
Anonymous said...

Dean Baker has the Planet Monkeys' number (recall the absolute contempt with which Adumb Davidson treated Elizabeth Warren)

Dean Baker:
"The politicians and the media can be counted on running to protect the banks in their hour of need. While tens of millions of people losing their jobs or their homes is just an unfortunate aspect of the modern economy, the collapse of Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, or Bank of America is a tragedy that our elites just can't fathom.

So, be prepared to endure many more years of high unemployment, under-employment and declining real wages. Upwards of two million people are likely to lose their homes in 2010 and 2011. But the good news is that the economy is recovering and the banks are alright." -- Dean Baker


Banks 1, America 0

The plight of millions of unemployed US workers exposes the folly of trillion-dollar gifts for America's spendthrift banks

The bad news?

When Obama talked about change you can belive in, he was referring to trillions of dollars in change (kaching) for the banks and chump change for ordinary Americans.

The good news: The American people will only have to put up with Obama for a single term.

With unemployment destined to hover near 10% for several years, there is no way in hell that Obama will be re-elected (unless he steals the election, that is)

10/5/09, 9:51 PM
Anonymous said...

Note: For above comment

The plight of millions of unemployed US workers exposes the folly of trillion-dollar gifts for America's spendthrift banks" is the end of the Dean baker stuff.

the comments thereafter (starting with The bad news") are mine.

10/5/09, 9:53 PM
geoff said...

Oh Hahahaha!
http://www.deepcapture.com/the-climate-on-planet-money/

10/5/09, 11:40 PM
Anonymous said...

It really amazes me that for years all these right-wingers scream and yell about the liberal bias of NPR. Today's (October 5th) Talk Of The Nation...an all too common example of why it's total bunk. Let's discuss extreme rhetoric in the political ...arena...and our guests? An NPR reporter, a National Review editor and author of "Liberal Fascism" (which they conveniently don't mention), and a damned Bush speechwriter! Boy, there's some balance

10/6/09, 2:51 AM
Anonymous said...

gopologanger

This (from the piece you linked to above) sums up NPR's concept of "balance":

"The most recent episode of Planet Money includes an interview with Sam Antar, a convicted stock manipulator and known associate of now-defunct short selling hedge fund"

"At the conclusion of the interview, hosts Adam Davidson and David Kestenbaum wonder aloud whether Sam Antar is to be trusted."

So, you air criminals as "experts", but wonder aloud whether they can be trusted (for "balance", you know)

Brings to mind another criminal/conman that was touted as an expert by our government and mainstream media in the leadup to the Iraq war: Iraqi CIA informant Curve Ball.

Of course, in the latter case, the media did not even "wonder aloud whether he is to be trusted."

In fact, they quoted his credentials as a Saddam Hussein government insider to imply quite the opposite.

10/6/09, 7:13 AM

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