MSNBC - Rachel Maddow Investigates - year in review. Rachel Maddow's investigative crew is doing an astounding job doing actual investigative reporting and "digging deep" into issues that Big Media is ignoring. Watch this 2009 wrap-up video and you will become a Rachel Maddow fan. I haven't seen any news show doing investigative reporting and this quantity on TV. EXCELLENT!!!
You have to watch this just for Big Ed's impression of Dick Cheney at the beginning, you'll crack up! "I'll Debate Dick Cheney On National Security On FOX!" - Congressman Eric Massa
Fifteen 9/11'S a year, more than one 9/11 per month: Putting things in perspective, because the corporate owned mainstream media won't do it. What do they want you to be afraid of: ZERO people dying on a plane or 45,000 Americans dying per year due to lack of health insurance?
Some stats to put things in perspective, pointed out by Brad Blog:
In 2009, 45,000 Americans died due to lack of health insurance according to a recent Harvard study.
Getting hit by lightning vs. getting killed on a plane due to terrorism: The odds of being on given departure which is the subject of a terrorist incident have been 1 in 10,408,947 over the past decade. By contrast, the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are about 1 in 500,000. This means that you could board 20 flights per year and still be less likely to be the subject of an attempted terrorist attack than to be struck by lightning.
So, we're freaking out about an idiot who didn't blow off a bomb on an airplane and killed zero people. The CIA knew about this guy way ahead of time. The corporate owned media who's interest is not OUR interests, reports 100x more on ZERO people killed on a plane vs. 45,000 Americans dying every year due to not having health insurance. That's FIFTEEN 9/11's a year! 45,000 Americans dying each year is like having MORE THAN ONE 9/11 A MONTH! There's elements within our government, or around our government (CIA), that are trumping up terrorism and even in on it or letting it happen, to take away more of our liberties. And the corporate owned media is also in on it. The same people are running that, too. Wake up! And they're calling it the "liberal media" to throw you off.
You’ve heard by now the Haskell story right? In case you haven’t let’s start there. Kurt Haskell is an attorney. He and his wife were in Amsterdam that day after a safari and Kurt witnessed the underwear bomber (Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab) before the flight being aided by what Haskell described to be an older Indian gentleman who was well dressed.
Was the “sharp dressed man” who assisted the young Nigerian to board the Detroit-bound aircraft WITHOUT A PASSPORT a CIA operative? Why is the MSM not discussing what the rest of the world is discussing about one or two apparent “accomplices?”
How does a massive, costly security apparatus fail to stop a known terrorism threat from boarding an airplane and wrecking devastation? Answer: when it's on purpose!!!
Israel just FAKED the Iranian nuke document, and we were warned well in advance of this plane bomber by his father and nothing was done. Anyone think something funny is going on here? Does anyone else think the corporate owned media is pushing more wars against Arab countries (Iran and Yemen) and publicizing this failed bomber way out of whack in which ZERO people died vs. 45,000 Americans per year die due to lack of health insurance? And they are publicizing this failed bomber way out of whack to take away more liberties from us? You know: sacrifice liberties for safety? The media has you more scared of the ZERO people who died in the plane vs. FIFTEEN 9/11's per year of Americans dying with no health insurance!!! WHO is the company pimping full body scanners at airports??? Are the media, Israel, and our government just going to keep faking things until one slips by and we attack Iran and Yemen? How many times does this have to happen?
WASHINGTON, Dec 28 (IPS) - U.S. intelligence has concluded that the document published recently by the Times of London, which purportedly describes an Iranian plan to do experiments on what the newspaper described as a "neutron initiator" for an atomic weapon, is a fabrication, according to a former Central Intelligence Agency official.
Philip Giraldi, who was a CIA counterterrorism official from 1976 to 1992, told IPS that intelligence sources say that the United States had nothing to do with forging the document, and that Israel is the primary suspect. The sources do not rule out a British role in the fabrication, however.
The Times of London story published Dec. 14 did not identify the source of the document. But it quoted "an Asian intelligence source" - a term some news media have used for Israeli intelligence officials - as confirming that his government believes Iran was working on a neutron initiator as recently as 2007.
The story of the purported Iranian document prompted a new round of expressions of U.S. and European support for tougher sanctions against Iran and reminders of Israel's threats to attack Iranian nuclear programme targets if diplomacy fails.
U.S. news media reporting has left the impression that U.S. intelligence analysts have not made up their mind about the document's authenticity, although it has been widely reported that they have now had a full year to assess the issue.
Giraldi's intelligence sources did not reveal all the reasons that led analysts to conclude that the purported Iran document had been fabricated by a foreign intelligence agency. But their suspicions of fraud were prompted in part by the source of the story, according to Giraldi.
"The Rupert Murdoch chain has been used extensively to publish false intelligence from the Israelis and occasionally from the British government," Giraldi said.
Chris Floyd and Glenn Greenwald are not part of the corporate owned mainstream media, what shills like Rush Limbaugh call the "liberal media". They're not in the mainstream media because they're liberals, and the mainstream media isn't liberal. I know I keep repeating this: corporations aren't liberal, corporations OWN the mainstream media (the liberal media, it's called), the mainstream media isn't liberal but you're supposed to think it is, so you don't know who the real liberals are. The real liberals aren't in what is called the "liberal media". You see, if you believe that "liberal" is what Rush Limbaugh says it is, then you don't really know what "liberal" is. That's why they do this. Remember this: real liberals are ignored by the mainstream media. Real liberals don't call themselves "liberal". The mainstream and rightwing media then define a bunch of non-liberals as "liberals", like the Democrats for instance. Real conservatives are ignored by the mainstream media, too, and the mainstream and rightwing media (both controlled and owned by corporations) define a bunch of non-conservatives as "conservative". Real patriots don't call themselves "patriots", they don't dress in red, white, and blue, and wave flags, and they don't publish books with red, white and blue backgrounds.
Glenn Greenwald: Each time the U.S. bombs a new location in the Muslim world, the same pattern emerges. First, officials from the U.S. or allied governments run to their favorite media outlet to claim -- anonymously -- that some big, bad, notorious, "top" Al Qaeda leader "may have been" or "likely was" killed in the strike, and this constitutes a "stinging" or "devastating" blow against the Terrorist group. These compliant media outlets then sensationalistically trumpet that claim as the dominant theme of their "reporting" on the attack, drowning out every other issue.
Glenn Greenwald: In the wake of the latest failed terrorist attack on Northwest Airlines, one can smell the excitement in the air -- that all-too-familiar, giddy, bipartisan climate that emerges in American media discourse whenever there's a new country we get to learn about so that we can explain why we're morally and strategically justified in bombing it some more. "Yemen" is suddenly on every Serious Person's lips.
1. If they ever come up with a swashbuckling School, I think one of the courses should be Laughing, Then Jumping Off Something.
2. When you're riding in a time machine way far into the future, don't stick your elbow out the window, or it'll turn into a fossil.
3. It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man.
4. At first I thought, if I were Superman, a perfect secret identity would be "Clark Kent, Dentist," because you could save money on tooth X-rays. But then I thought, if a patient said, "How's my back tooth?" and you just looked at it with your X-ray vision and said, "Oh it's okay," then the patient would probably say, "Aren't you going to take an X-ray, stupid?" and you'd say, "Aw **** you, get outta here," and then he probably wouldn't even pay his bill.
5. One thing kids like is to be tricked. For instance, I was going to take my little nephew to Disneyland, but instead I drove him to an old burned-out warehouse. "Oh, no," I said. "Disneyland burned down." He cried and cried, but I think that deep down, he thought it was a pretty good joke. I started to drive over to the real Disneyland, but it was getting pretty late.
6. A good way to threaten somebody is to light a stick of dynamite. Then you call the guy and hold the burning fuse up to the phone. "Hear that?" you say. "That's dynamite, baby."
7. Why do people in ship mutinies always ask for "better treatment"? I'd ask for a pinball machine, because with all that rocking back and forth you'd probably be able to get a lot of free games.
8. I'd like to be buried Indian-style, where they put you up on a high rack, above the ground. That way, you could get hit by meteorites and not even feel it.
9. If I lived back in the wild west days, instead of carrying a six-gun in my holster, I'd carry a soldering iron. That way, if some smart-aleck cowboy said something like "Hey, look. He's carrying a soldering iron!" and started laughing, and everybody else started laughing, I could just say, "That's right, it's a soldering iron. The soldering iron of justice." Then everybody would get real quiet and ashamed, because they had made fun of the soldering iron of justice, and I could probably hit them up for a free drink.
10. I bet when the neanderthal kids would make a snowman, someone would always end up saying, "Don't forget the thick, heavy brows." Then they would all get embarrassed because they remembered they had the big hunky brows too, and they'd get mad and eat the snowman.
RT - Russia Today television...YEP! I guess you have to watch Russian television to see a U.S. congressman speak out against these insane wars! Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher has to tell it like it is...on Russian television. The corporate owned U.S. media (the false liberal media) has too much conflict to show anti-war congressmen because other arms of their corporations are making too much profit off the wars. This is why I chucked the "liberal media" a long time ago. It's not liberal, it's a sham. Corporations own the media and since when are corporations liberal?
Reel Bad Arabs
This groundbreaking documentary dissects a slanderous aspect of cinematic history that has run virtually unchallenged from the earliest days of silent film to today's biggest Hollywood blockbusters. Featuring acclaimed author Dr. Jack Shaheen, the film explores a long line of degrading images of Arabs - from Bedouin bandits and submissive maidens to sinister sheikhs and gun-wielding "terrorists" - along the way offering devastating insights into the origin of these stereotypical images, their development at key points in US history, and why they matter so much today.
Fox News Omits $1.4 TRILLION in Health Reform Deficit Reduction?
More manufactured lies and fake outrage from the right...daily, hourly...on the media they own and are on all the time, you know, the media they claim is liberal and they don't have a voice in. Obama's Christmas ornament of Mao Zedong (Chairman Mao) means Obama is blatantly flaunting that he is a Communist. The Great Christmas Ornament Scandal. If Obama was leading a secret plot to make America Communist, the first thing he'd do is hang up Communist Christmas ornaments. Let's see, there was: "pallin' around with terrorists", Reverend Wright, Bill Ayers, Joe the Plumber, Death Panels, Obama isn't an American citizen, "kill your Grandma", and on and on and on, one manufactured contrived fake outrage after another by the rightwing media...all FAKE, like the Christmas ornament scandal. All for rightwing idiots to digest and believe and repeat, like a Ron Poppeil infomercial rotting your brain with propaganda and disinformation; a blatant insult to any intelligent person. It's one thing to have different philosophical opinions, it's another thing to just make up ridiculous shit that has nothing to do with debates of philosophical differences. The question is: do you believe this nonsense or do you knowingly repeat lies just because the liars are "you're guys"? I say, every human being will eventually get sick of non-stop lies, even if they're "your guys" lying. I like Michael Moore. If he just started saying things about his enemies like: "He is going to kill your Grandma" or "He isn't a citizen", I would really be insulted, thinking Michael Moore must think I'm an idiot and he can make up any shit he wants and I'll believe it. How can you believe that there's one preposterous, outrageous blockbuster thing daily about the rightwing's enemies? That's childish to believe that can be possible. You really would have to start questioning your own maturity and intelligence. So, if Obama isn't a Communist, he's killing your grandma. If he's not killing your grandma, he's not an American citizen. If he's not an American citizen, he's "pallin' around with terrorists". Now you know this cannot be possible that every day there's some HUGE blockbuster thing about Obama you didn't know about. At least let's stick to real issues, like Obama is continuing Bush's Wars of Lies or Obama is not covering all Americans with health care...not: "Obama is killing your grandma". Grow the fuck up, would you please? If your Grandma is one of the tens of millions of Americans who do not have health care coverage and she dies because of it, well then, actually, Obama did kill her. And so did the entire U.S. congress.
FAKER! Michele Bachman is a Welfare Queen, not a TeaBagger!
She's pretending to be a "crazy rightwing Evangelical conservative" and she's sold the teabaggers down the road. She should get an academy award for her performance. She is for handouts for herself and the rich, and against "handouts" for the middleclass and poor. She is nothing but an actress who is faking being a religious conservative, and has played the teabaggers like a fiddle for her own gain. She's every bit as FAKE as the quitter-turned-talk-show-circuit-queen Sarah Palin.
Data compiled from federal records by Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit watchdog that tracks the recipients of agricultural subsidies in the United States, shows that Bachmann has an inner Marxist that is perfectly at ease with profiting from taxpayer largesse. According to the organization’s records, Bachmann’s family farm received $251,973 in federal subsidies between 1995 and 2006. The farm had been managed by Bachmann’s recently deceased father-in-law and took in roughly $20,000 in 2006 and $28,000 in 2005, with the bulk of the subsidies going to dairy and corn. Both dairy and corn are heavily subsidized—or “socialized”—businesses in America (in 2005 alone, Washington spent $4.8 billion propping up corn prices) and are subject to strict government price controls. These subsidies are at the heart of America’s bizarre planned agricultural economy and as far away from Michele Bachmann’s free-market dream world as Cuba’s free medical system. If American farms such as hers were forced to compete in the global free market, they would collapse.
Stay tuned for video 2, where GOD betrays Michele Bachmann & the Republicans:
As Christians around the world prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus, owners of tourism shops in Bethlehem aren't seeing the booming business they'd expect this time of year. Nour Odeh reports on how Israel's illegal occupation may be keeping the West Bank's tourism industry from thriving.
Ratzinger gone wild: "I hate that cunt! That's the second time she did that! Who's the IDIOT who let her in again?"
(I hope I don't have to explain to everyone, when it's blatantly obvious I made that up about what Ratzinger said. Maybe I'll put some kind of icon on the side which means I made something up. Like a little smiley or something. The woman really charged Ratzinger...he didn't call her a "cunt", OK???)
Pope Benedict XVI: "I thought even giving up the 7 points on the spread, it was a safe bet."
Rules of arguing, fallacious arguments, arguing techniques - there are many, here's ONE:
Description of Ad Hominem
Translated from Latin to English, "Ad Hominem" means "against the man" or "against the person."
An Ad Hominem is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument. Typically, this fallacy involves two steps.
- First, an attack against the character of person making the claim, her circumstances, or her actions is made (or the character, circumstances, or actions of the person reporting the claim).
- Second, this attack is taken to be evidence against the claim or argument the person in question is making (or presenting). This type of "argument" has the following form:
1. Person A makes claim X.
2. Person B makes an attack on person A.
3. Therefore A's claim is false.
The reason why an Ad Hominem (of any kind) is a fallacy is that the character, circumstances, or actions of a person do not (in most cases) have a bearing on the truth or falsity of the claim being made (or the quality of the argument being made).
Example of Ad Hominem
1. Bill: "I believe that abortion is morally wrong."
Dave: "Of course you would say that, you're a priest."
Bill: "What about the arguments I gave to support my position?"
Dave: "Those don't count. Like I said, you're a priest, so you have to say that abortion is wrong. Further, you are just a lackey to the Pope, so I can't believe what you say."
Merry Christmas and enjoy 25 songs from the recent Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame inductions, featuring Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Jeff Beck, John Fogerty, David Crosby, Graham Nash, Paul Simon, Billy Joel, U2, Ray Davies, Metallica, and many MANY more...ENJOY!!!
(the 2nd video is a real treat, it's Bruce Springsteen and John Fogerty together on "Pretty Woman" - oh my god!!!)
Merry Christmas from your intolerant, divisive rightwing hate speech pundits who hate the majority of Americans and have created their own very tiny world which appears to be much larger than it is, because they control the media - the very same media they continually claim they don't have a voice in.
Outrageous comments are nothing new to the conservative media -- one might even call them a defining characteristic. The Most Outrageous Comment of the 2009 came when Fox News host Glenn Beck asserted that Obama is a "racist" who has "exposed himself as a guy" with "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture," but right-wing media figures made plenty of other unhinged remarks throughout the year:
For 17 years our colleagues Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon have worked with FAIR to present the P.U.-Litzers, a year-end review of some of the stinkiest examples of corporate media malfeasance, spin and just plain outrageousness.
Starting this year, FAIR has the somewhat dubious honor of reviewing the nominees and selecting the winners. It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it. So, without further ado, we present the 2009 P.U.-Litzers.
Colbert on his Colbert Report character: "The character really means well. He's willfully ignorant of what you know and care about. He's not mendacious and stupid. He's innocent and stupid, like a puppy who's urinating on your politics, not destroying your politics."
One of my all time favorite videos: "All The President's WORDS" - by Steven Colbert. "...and victory was proclaimed! With WORDS - both WRITTEN & SPOKE". Wasn't Colbert ahead of is time? The wars of lies are still going on and Bush is long gone. Where exactly is George W. Bush btw???
Update: Seriously...where's George Bush? Why do Republican presidents disappear when they leave office? I still see Jimmy Carter and he was from the 1970's! I see Bill Clinton. Where the hell did George W. Bush go?
"WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION RELATED PROGRAM ACTIVITIES"
See FRINGE KOOK Breitbart below, get his ass handed to him on Bill Maher by a "black man":
Missing John McCain tape found by C-SPAN.
Remember this from the other day? Al Franken objected to Joe Lieberman getting extended time to speak past his allotted time and Franken objected. John McCain then threw a hissy-fit and said he's never seen someone object to someone getting extra time to speak in his 26 years in the Senate. Of course, McCain was lying. He himself objected to a Democrat asking for more time just a few years ago. The C-SPAN tape of McCain doing this was mysteriously missing from the C-SPAN archives. Well, now it's recovered, and here it is - showing John McCain in full HYPOCRISY:
If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men. ~St. Francis of Assisi
If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we are backing our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut up imbeciles, criminals, enemies, or capitalists for the same reasons. ~C.S. Lewis
So, I guess it's beyond a doubt, that Israel harvest organs from people. A rabbi and other unidentifed men charged in the corruption case are walked to a bus outside FBI offices in Newark, N.J., on Thursday for transport to a court hearing.
Below: Excerpts from a July 24th post of mine...I told ya!!!!!!!! -
Rabbis arrested!!!
Did they win a free trip back to Israel? When our government lets them go, like we let go all the Israeli spies that we catch?
1. Forces you to pay up to 8% of your income to private insurance corporations — whether you want to or not.
2. If you refuse to buy the insurance, you’ll have to pay penalties of up to 2% of your annual income to the IRS.
3. Many will be forced to buy poor-quality insurance they can’t afford to use, with $11,900 in annual out-of-pocket expenses over and above their annual premiums.
4. Massive restriction on a woman’s right to choose, designed to trigger a challenge to Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court.
5. Paid for by taxes on the middle class insurance plan you have right now through your employer, causing them to cut back benefits and increase co-pays.
6. Many of the taxes to pay for the bill start now, but most Americans won’t see any benefits — like an end to discrimination against those with preexisting conditions — until 2014 when the program begins.
7. Allows insurance companies to charge people who are older 300% more than others.
8. Grants monopolies to drug companies that will keep generic versions of expensive biotech drugs from ever coming to market.
9. No re-importation of prescription drugs, which would save consumers $100 billion over 10 years.
10. The cost of medical care will continue to rise, and insurance premiums for a family of four will rise an average of $1,000 a year — meaning in 10 years, your family’s insurance premium will be $10,000 more annually than it is right now.
Jane Hamsher: There is an enormous, rising tide of populism that crosses party lines in objection to the Senate bill. We opposed the bank bailouts, the AIG bonuses, the lack of transparency about the Federal Reserve, "bailout" Ben Bernanke, and the way the Democrats have used their power to sell the country's resources to secure their own personal advantage, just as the libertarians have. In fact, we've worked together with them to oppose these things. What we agree on: both parties are working against the interests of the public, the only difference is in the messaging.
Glenn Greenwald: If progressives always announce that they are willing to accept whatever miniscule benefits are tossed at them (on the ground that it's better than nothing) and unfailingly support Democratic initiatives (on the ground that the GOP is worse), then they will (and should) always be ignored when it comes time to negotiate; nobody takes seriously the demands of those who announce they'll go along with whatever the final outcome is.
Ed Kilgore: The Obama administration has chosen the strategy of deploying regulated and subsidized private sector entities to achieve progressive policy results. This approach was a hallmark of the so-called Clintonian, "New Democrat" movement, and the broader international movement sometimes referred to as "the Third Way," which often defended the use of private means for public ends.
How was an entire debate that OUGHT TO HAVE BEEN only about health CARE, turned into a debate solely about health INSURANCE – with a mandate that everyone buy it, to boot?
What everyone needs is care, when they need it.
What no one needs is insurance, provided care is available when the need arises.
The amount of money that would be retained and re-purposed by abolishing the insurance sector ENTIRELY more than pays for the CARE that Americans need.
Over the last decade, I’ve personally paid over $40,000 to Blue Cross for insurance I have literally never used, because my deductible is never hit.
Is there not a better use for money presently spent on insurance, like, for example, care? - plunger
You know what? I agree with him!!!
'My advice, as a Christian priest, is to shoplift. I do not offer such advice because I think that stealing is a good thing, or because I think it is harmless, for it is neither.
'I would ask that they do not steal from small family businesses, but from large national businesses, knowing that the costs are ultimately passed on to the rest of us in the form of higher prices.
'I would ask them not to take any more than they need, for any longer than they need.
'I offer the advice with a heavy heart and wish society would recognise that bureaucratic ineptitude and systematic delay has created an invitation and incentive to crime for people struggling to cope.'
