Tweet
Every week, the nice foks at CNN allow various organizations to suggest headlines linked to their blogs. CNN’s John King then graciously runs the headlines/links at some point in their news coverage. The idea is to capture in a headline the perspectives of different groups. Nice gesture, I suppose.
Once in a while, I’ll suggest something, knowing CNN won’t show it, but I can understand why. So for our readers’ benefit, here’s the news of the last week you won’t see on CNN, in Scarecrow headlines:
1. Only ratings matter, as CNN, others exploit, give platform to serial liar, smear agent Andrew Breitbart
2. Tea-GOP to USA: “Give up your Medicare/Medicaid or we’ll tank the economy again.” Isn’t extortion a crime?
3. Which is worse: Syria tortures, mutilates, murders small boy; US bombs Afghan homes, shredding bodies of women, children, again and again, and . . .
4. Definition of crazy: US economic growth pitiful; no hope for unemployed, no one has a real jobs plan. Yet Tea-GOP demand Obama shrink economy more, be llke Ireland, Portugal, Spain.
5. European bankers demand Greeks become serfs to lower debts owed to bankers. In USA, Tea-GOP follow same strategy, but too dumb to know their fans are the serfs.
6. Beltway Media fixation on abysmal GOP Prez candidates akin to one clown car following another at a circus.
7. Definition of irresponsible: Congress can’t wait to give President unilateral authority to wage war anytime, anywhere, against anyone, forever.
8. What’s a terrorist? Tea-GOP Congress and Governors doing more damage to USA than al Qaeda every dreamed.
9. Congress renews misnamed “Patriot Act” invasions of privacy. If left to them, half the Bill of Rights would never have existed.
10. Definition of extreme authoritarians: Conservative US Supreme Court continues to dismantle individual rights to sue, hold accountable lawless govenrment and corporations.
11. US multi-national corporations whine about taxes while enjoying one of lowest effective tax rates — about 18 percent — in the world. Marginal tax rates on wealthy lowest in many decades.
12. Wake up, suckers: America is a “rich” country: of the rich, by the rich, for the rich. The rest of you don’t matter.
13. Think and act like an Egyptian. Your government’s as unresponsible, corrupt, uncaring as theirs. If they had a choice, so do you. Make America exceptional again.
35 Comments
not sure i have this one straight…. is it that the Rs want spending cuts and tax cuts while the Ds want spending cuts and tax increases?
the bat-shit-crazy has me more than a little confused trying to keep it all straight.
p.s. i don’t watch cnn (or much tv in general) so thanks for doing the dirty work for us.
was there anything on bill clinton’s bat-shit-crazy appearance at the peterson summit?
I haven’t seen anything. I suspect Clinton was trying to tweak the Paul Ryans out there. The WH view is that you have to cut health care costs to get Medicare budget under control, and the means to do that are in the ACA, so preserve and strengthen them. Clinton likely agrees with that.
That strategy gets the GOP to back off repealing O’s signature legislation and instead identifies it as part of the debt solution. It’s a double win from the Administration’s perspective. I suspect, don’t know, that Clinton was trying to nudge Ryan and friends in that direction, and deliberately said it in front of media so they’d pick it up. Problem: Media not too swift.
The way I would say it: the R’s want spending cuts to shrink government and tax cuts to starve it. End result is to shrink economy because spending cuts worse than stimulus value of tax cuts for the rich. Everyone else gets severe austerity, which will shrink economy, cause higher unemployment.
ECB and IMF imposing analogous macro “remedies on Ireland, Portugal, Spain, which is shrinking their economies, hurting jobs.
Kill Your Television.
This is just so fricking awesome…”Wake up suckers…” But listen to this, funny but true: I have a dumpster book called “Censored. Media Democracy in Action 2007.
Among the headlines:
Hunger and Homelessness Increasing in America
US Operatives Torture Detainees to Death in Afganistan and Iraq
Chemical Industry is EPA’s Primary Research Partner
Oh hell, maybe I will blog it…there are 25 of these stories that never made it to MSM.
Recommended.
i didn’t hear any paul ryan type tweaking. mostly incoherent debt hysteria with a dose of false narrative creation (re clinton administration, of course).
oh, and the Rs lost in NY because they ran to the left of the Ds. but your guess re the ACA was right on.
i’ll post a transcript at some point — hopefully today — as i have no more tolerance (maybe less) for D bat-shit-crazy than i do for the R version.
‘Truth is Terrorism’. New motto and operational quideline for the Department of Justice.
Hope you and your lovely wife are well and enjoying the gift of life. :>)
If the propaganda spewed on the major networks had any semblance of truth or reality, a bill would sail through the present fascist government rendering such terrorist acts illegal. See my comment to your worse half.
And Obama would sign the bill in a heartbeat in the spirit of bi-partisanship, and then brag about the joy of watching democracy at work.
Today in America revealing the truth about anything is unpatriotic and is equivalent to an act of terrorism.
Obama: The worst President and person ever!
The best to you and the gold medal winner of Diogenes’ search. :>)
was trying to get at the actual differing *policy prescriptions* of each party leadership stripped of all rhetoric or even attempts at explanation….
if i’m right: that Rs want spending cuts and tax cuts while the Ds want spending cuts and tax increases.
then my attempt at explanation is:
i’m pretty sure that there are at least some, maybe quite a few, Rs in party leadership positions who actually understand the current monetary system (better than the Ds, as far as i can tell) and use their knowledge to support their ideological goals…. which i don’t think is to shrink the economy. rather, it’s pretty clear that they want to shrink the government and create a different kind of economy (feudal). so, from that pov, they seem to get the necessity of tax cuts to go with their spending cuts.
IMF austerity has traditionally been: shrink gov spending, increase taxes, privatize and liberalize. this seems more like the D party leadership position which i really don’t get except as the corruption of crony capitalism w/o any specific ideology.
… but i’m not even sure i have the actual policy prescriptions (actions not words) correct.
To selise @ 6:14 am
I feel your pain and empathize with your quandary.
So, let me help you straighten out all those squirmy little fellas:
Both branches of the ‘American Corporate, Fascist Party’ are engaged in a contest to see which one can steal most efficiently and quickly everything the American people now own or will ever own.
Or, if you prefer the vanilla,5 cent version:
We be f**ked by everyone! (Had to give Ebonics a little air time for old time’s sake)
See, no fuss or confusion.
fwiw, here is a transcript of clinton’s appearance at the “let them eat cat food” peterson fiscal summit last week:
http://www.netrootsmass.net/2011/06/bill-clinton-deficit-hawk-at-peterson-foundation-2011-fiscal-summit/
not sure i’m going to post it here, as that would take some heavy duty shredding and after working on the transcription (which required multiple repeats of the audio), i don’t think i have it in me. it was as bat-shit-crazy as anything i’ve heard from the Rs.
I’m not into comparative crime. Number 3) isn’t very well put. Syria should be condemned for the torture regardless of what any other country does. Sorry. Did you think that somehow CNN had no business covering the story because of the crimes of its home country? Human rights abuses should always be covered.
If they would just the name from CNN to FNN, we could have a Fantasy News Network. The original FNN stoped broadcasting in 1991 and was a business channel more concerned with stock prices than people, just like the CNN of today.
ANDREW BREITBART RUMOR SWEEPS THE NET!
Uh oh Andrew … looks like somebody’s been ‘monitoring’ you too.
http://waronignorance.net/index.html
OUCH!
Love your headlines, Scarecrow.
Eons ago when I was working at Habitat headquarters, my Episcopal
parish priest would often say that he and his wife only watched CNN, maybe inferring that anything else was tantamount to sinful acts, or something???? Wonder if they still do and if they are happy with what they get.
The negative comments about MSM coverage remains sadly true, and one can throw in the News Hour. During the day time there is a series of agriculture centered stories about producers, markets, etc.; rather entertaining in a way but I always want to scream when I see that Monsanto is a sponsor. And I also want to scream at Chevron’s sponsoring commercial for NewsHour that boasts they spending millions !!!! on alternative energy. I wonder how they can sleep at night, but then I remember that they screwed the South American tribes with their destructive anti-environmental practices. Can’t remember if the tribe’s suits ever got resolved.
But I hate it that PBS is more and more a carrier of corporate lies and absurdities.
Blessings
Corporate television media seems to have giving up completely on any notion of integrity. They have become platforms of spectacle and entertainment. Seeing their hijinks from afar, via the internet, just reminds me that I am saving $60 every month not having cable. Hell, if you want to watch TV you can buy a good HDTV antenna pretty cheaply and the NBC/CBS/ABC evening news is just as relevant, and silly, as CNN if you want it.
As we create a new media world on the ‘net, we should call these freak shows doubling as journalist enterprises what they are: lies for corporations.
I really like the last headline, let’s spread it around.
Richard Kane
And don’t forget the Koch Brothers….
Yes, Chevron makes me gag too. The corporate powerbrokers do not want free information transfer, which makes websites like FDL so important.
Here is an update on the Chevron – Ecuador situation:
http://amazonwatch.org/news/2011/0526-ten-years-later-a-defining-moment-for-chevron
Atossa Soltani of AmazonWatch, a good friend of mine, has been tracking this issue for the last decade.
For #5
The way I understand it is the bankers in the nations in question have lent money to various cartels in those countries.
In other words they took a risk, just as any business venture is a risk of various degrees, and they didn’t make their money back and faced the possibility they might never get paid back.
For them, like the sociopaths that they are, that’s unacceptable. For them the risk is eliminated by the force of the governments that they bought off.
So they sent in their hit-men, i.e. the IMF, to enslave the populations of those countries with austerity so that they can get their money back with interest.
In the free market, there is profit and loss just like in anything undertaken by people. But in the “sociopathocracy” it’s a slave/sociopath relationship and they use the force of the governments to force people to pay those banks at 100% of the fiat based debt.
Perhaps I wasn’t clear. Both should be condemned, and both should be covered.
I SO love you!
“So they sent in their hit-men, i.e. the IMF, to enslave the populations of those countries with austerity so that they can get their money back with interest.”
I agree concerning the metaphorical hit men of the IMF; but truth be told, we have real life hit men paid for by tax payers like you an me. The Navy Seals, Delta Force, Special Forces, CIA…..
About 700 people lined up out side of MSNBC studios this morning to see Paris Hilton. Would it be sane is the same number of people showed up to protest the corporate media every other day?
Sounds like the problem is that about 40% of us are the problem.
We be good. Berry berry good.
Tanks.
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling our of sight
For soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s
faith.
I love three with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saint-I love thee with the
breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!-and, God
choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
‘Sonnets from the Portuguese’ Number 43 by Elizabeth Parrett Browning
Now and then I wax lyrical reliving those halcyon days when I was a university teacher of English and American Literature.
And you’re a bit of all right yourself, toots.
Ah, but if the world were mine to give, it would be yours for the asking.
But alas, your heart belongs to a most worthy gentleman, and never shall anything in heaven or earth put that most cherished state of matrimony asunder.
Parting is such sweet sorrow. Like the legs of a compass, no matter how far apart we might be, our hearts are always joined together in respect and admiration. Bill the Bard and John Donne.
With warm regards, me. Give my best to you know who. He is a most fortunate man to have you as his companion in life.
great set Scarecrow! That’s a lot of work !!
Not a speck of cereal!
Make that tanks and airplanes.
Glad you are both doing fine. Don’t be a stranger.
This was for mason and oops the lines should be:
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
Breitbart is such a complete tool. I’m disgusted that any network gives him airtime.
*heh* An amusing Aside… My Better Half merely rolled her eyes at my fist pump, when Jane’s face appeared on the screen…! *g*
Sounds like a book by ProjectCensored.Org.
Keep bugging them, Scarecrow. Those are great headlines. Loved the clown car one; can’t think of why “America’s most trusted news source” didn’t touch it.
Do you remember when CNN was criticized for having a reporter in Baghdad reporting on the start of the First Gulf War?
And Fox was best known for cartoons?
It sounds as if you are presuming that the Democratic Party is led. That’s a risky assumption in the best of times.
Ayn Rand would be proud.
Excellent transcript.
What I saw – and now read – is Clinton appearing reasonable.
“they need to slash budgets without regard to sacred cows… “But I think that it needs to make sense.” ..”Paul Krugman ..is right about that” … “genius of the Bowles-Simpson report was that they recommended big structural long-term changes and ask we not start until next year when the recovery was clearly, plainly under way…my view is ..you deal with over the long run”….”Republicans ran to the left of the Democrats on Medicare in the last election (2008). They excoriated us for all these savings that are now embedded in Congressman Ryan’s budget. They claim we cut Medicare, when what the Democrats essentially did was to cut the reimbursement rate for Medicare Advantage and put the money into lengthening the life of the Medicare trust fund and closing the doughnut hole in the drug program. Which, according to Kathleen Sebelius, is saving money because we’re also requiring a discount of drugs bought in volume, which we should do, I think.” …”I think that you should draw the conclusion that the people made a judgment (in NY27 in 2011) that the proposal in the Republican budget is not the right one…..I don’t think that the Democrats or the Republicans should conclude from the New York race that no changes can be made…it be good if the federal revenues were somewhere between 20% and 22% (my thought is this is too low if we do real national health)…(there is) too much inequality. It is not sustainable. ”
“defense is 4% of our gross domestic product. Medical spending is 17.2%, And almost half of that is government insurance of some kind or another. So there’s just a lot more money in health care.
Also on Social Security it was meant to be self-sustaining, and with the retirement of the baby boomers it won’t be anymore. But I think there are progressive and fair and decent ways to reform Social Security, and I think Medicare and Medicaid cannot produce savings in good conscience unless they’re part of a comprehensive plan to bring down the rate of inflation in medical costs.
You can’t have medical costs go up at three times the rate of inflation every year. You can’t justify America spending 17.2%, Canada being the next highest rich country at 10.5%, Germany and France always rank first and second for overall outcomes at 10%, and America ranking somewhere in the high 20s to 30 in the overall effectiveness of our health system.”
The rest is like the above – quite reasonable comments and progressive/liberal positions.
The rewrite of history you refered to above – and I agree it was a rewrite – was the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (H.R. 2015) which “saved” Medicare money in many ways – including negociated contracts with providers – but mainly with reductions on amounts paid doctors – but the last part being a con-job in that general account (FIT Tax) funds have been used over the years to fund making Part B Doctor’s fees “closer to the market”.