enlarge An image we’d have burned into our brains for the rest of our lives. Click here to view this media If you are of a certain age, the one thing you would hear most often around this time of year was “where were you the day Kennedy was shot?” – and everyone of that certain age will tell you exactly where they were, what they were doing and what they were thinking. It was just that kind of day. It was that kind of event. For my part, it began what would become a lifelong pursuit of collecting history. The day Kennedy was shot I was home recovering from surgery and I was bored and playing with my parents tape recorder, just recording random things off the radio. As fate somehow how had it, it was the precise moment I was recording something that the very first bulletins came on. And for some reason, I had to record everything that happened as it was unfolding. As years went on and the archive grew, I began to get more recordings of the event, such as an original ABC Radio network recording, which was a much better version of the one I originally made. The shock and urgency and the feeling of helplessness are still there, even listening to this tape 47 years later. I don’t think there is anything I can add to this that hasn’t been gone over adinfinitum through the years. Here is the first hour, exactly as it happened this day in 1963.
Continue reading …Our liberal scribes and pundits savaged the Bush administration as being a privacy-shredding, terrorist-suspect-abusing tyranny on the march. Now that President Obama is in charge, they lamely suggest that “the government” has failed, but with no president’s name attached in the blame game. For years, the media insisted that the terrorist holding pen at Guantanamo was a horrific stain on our global reputation. It was a “cancer” (CBS’s Bob Schieffer) and the networks uncritically aired Amnesty International quacks denouncing it as “the gulag of our times.” Any denunciation had the words “Bush” and “Cheney” inexorably attached. But now the outrage has died, and the story is being downplayed, since the Evil Bush is no longer the target. Take the case of Gitmo prisoner Ahmed Ghailani, who participated in the U.S. embassy massacre in Tanzania in 1998. When the federal judge crippled his trial in mid-October by omitting a witness, ABC and NBC skipped over it. “CBS Evening News” offered an anchor brief, with Couric calling it a “big setback for federal prosecutors.” Nothing was attributed to the Obama administration. read more
Continue reading …Tucker Carlson: Warren Buffet Can Pay More Taxes if He Wants to… But Leave my Trust Fund Alone!
November 24, 2010 No Comment
Click here to view this media Greta Van Susteren wanted to discuss Warren Buffet’s recent interview where he said the rich should pay more in taxes. So of course who else better to discuss it with than Tucker Carlson. I don’t know if there’s anything much more nauseating than listening to a trust fund baby who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth like Tucker Carlson rant about how the rich shouldn’t have to pay their fair share in taxes.
Continue reading …Matthews Accuses EPIC’s McCall of Slandering Chertoff for Pointing out Rapiscan Conflict of Interest
November 23, 2010 No Comment
Click here to view this media Chris Matthews is a piece of work. Rather than do his homework on the subject of these full body scanners and Michael Chertoff’s conflicts of interest with his lobbying group representing their manufacturer, Rapiscan, he accuses EPIC’s Ginger McCall of slandering Chertoff for pointing the conflicts out to him. Matthews claimed he’s going to have Chertoff on to “defend himself” and answer the charges. Maybe Matthews can bother to go look up his lobbying ties before he has him on, if he has him on. There have been countless articles written about Chertoff and these machines over the last year or so, this just being one example. Full Body Scanner Lobby: Michael Chertoff & Rapiscan : Michael Chertoff, Former Department of Homeland Security, is the head of the Chertoff Group , the lead cheerleader for what is being called the Full Body Scanner Lobby, reports the Washington Post and the Washington Examiner. Ever since the Christmas Day Bomb Scare, Chertoff has been making the rounds championing the Full Body Scanners as a way to detect hidden explosive devices. Here is a Chertoff quote from the New York Times on December 29th. “If they’d been deployed, this would pick up this kind of device,” Michael Chertoff , the former homeland security secretary, said in an interview, referring to the packet of chemicals hidden in the underwear of the Nigerian man who federal officials say tried to blow up the Northwest Airlines flight. A few days later the Washington Post revealed that Chertoff represents Rapiscan – a maker of full body scanners drawing criticism of groups who oppose full body scanners. “Mr. Chertoff should not be allowed to abuse the trust the public has placed in him as a former public servant to privately gain from the sale of full-body scanners under the pretense that the scanners would have detected this particular type of explosive,” said Kate Hanni, founder of FlyersRights.org, which opposes the use of the scanners. Rapiscan has already sold 150 full body scanners to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), with a price tag of $25 million. Rapiscan full body scanners, like the Rapiscan WaveScan 200, seem to be the preferred scanner of choice because they obscure the “private parts.”
Continue reading …Brian Williams Subjects NBC Viewers to More Kennedy ‘Camelot’ Pictures, Including ‘Incredibly Cute John Jr.’
November 23, 2010 No CommentThe 47th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy was ignored by ABC's World News, and mentioned briefly on CBS Evening News. On the NBC Nightly News, Brian Williams used the occasion to promote the sales of yet another book of Kennedy family photos of the “Camelot” era. Williams just assumes that absolutely everyone is still aglow over the media's relentless promotion of a mythical family, with no apparent flaws or infidelities: For more than one American generation, November 22nd will always be the day President Kennedy was shot. A new book just out is full of the imagery of those years. It's called “Portrait of Camelot,” full of rarely seen family photos by the White House photographer back then, Cecil Stoughton. They include JFK’s Christmas Eve in Palm Beach, making sure the stockings were hung by the chimney with care . The incredibly cute John Jr. on a boat in August of ‘63. Jacqueline Kennedy on a boat off Cape Cod while Caroline naps on a summer day. read more
Continue reading …Gingrich: No Possibility That I Would Go to a Debate With Olbermann or Matthews Moderating
November 22, 2010 No Comment
Click here to view this media Newt Gingrich is obviously either confused about whether Keith Olbermann has ever moderated a Republican debate or the former Republican Speaker of the House was just pulling factoids out of his posterior on this Sunday’s edition of C-SPAN’s Washington Journal. Gingrich: No debates moderated by Olbermann or Matthews : Newt Gingrich, a potential 2012 Republican presidential contender, said Sunday that he would not participate in a debate moderated by Keith Olbermann or Chris Matthews. “There’s no possibility that I would ever go to a debate and have Olbermann or Chris Matthews asking questions,” Gingrich said on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal. The former House speaker said he thought the two cable channel hosts were biased against Republican candidates while they favored their Democratic counterparts. He called the two “relentlessly hostile” and “so left-wing.” “I watched the debate a couple of years ago and it was an embarrassment because they were so relentlessly hostile and they were so left-wing that every question they asked of the Republicans was designed to embarrass and divide the Republicans. And every question they asked the Democrats was designed to make them look good. Well, why would we participate in that?” Gingrich said. Though Olbermann and Matthews did not moderate any of the three 2008 general election debates between President Obama and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), they did moderate some debates during both parties’ presidential nominating contests. For example, Matthews moderated some Republican-only candidate debates in 2007. Olbermann also moderated a forum for Democratic candidates sponsored by the AFL-CIO that same year. As Mediaite noted , Keith Olbermann responded via Twitter : Just read Gingrich ripping me for my questions last time I moderated a GOP debate. But I’ve NEVER moderated a GOP debate! While I don’t disagree with Gingrich that there could be some major improvements in the terrible debate formats hosted by our media outlets, I don’t think Chris Matthews or Keith Olbermann hosting them is the problem; the format that Gingrich was complaining about is. A real debate where the candidates get to ask each other questions and have some back and forth without a moderator cutting them off before a topic is covered thoroughly would be preferable in my book.
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Click here to view this media Saturday Night Live didn’t waste any time spoofing the TSA and their new overly aggressive “junk touching” pat down procedures with an ad portraying TSA agents as sex workers.
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Click here to view this media Count Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as another traveler who is not a fan of the new security procedures at airports. CBS’ Bob Schieffer asked Clinton Sunday if she would submit to a pat-down by a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agent. “Not if I could avoid it,” she replied. “No. I mean who would?” President Barack Obama defended the TSA body scans and pat-downs as necessary at a NATO press conference Saturday. Obama sympathized with the passengers who complain about the security procedures but said balancing privacy and security is a “tough situation.” “One of the most frustrating aspects of this fight against terrorism is that it has created a whole security apparatus around us that causes a huge inconvenience for all of us,” Obama said. As president, Obama is not personally subjected to security checks. Clinton agreed with Obama that the TSA should work to make checks less invasive. “I think everyone, including our security experts, are looking for ways to diminish the impact on the traveling public,” Clinton told NBC’s David Gregory. “I mean obviously the vast, vast majority of people getting on these planes are law abiding citizens who are just trying to get from one place to another. But let’s not kid ourselves. The terrorists are adaptable,” she continued. “Striking the right balance is what this is about. And I am absolutely confident that our security experts are gonna keep trying to get it better and less intrusive and more precise,” Clinton said. “Everybody is trying to do the right thing and I understand how difficult it is, and how offensive it must be for the people who are going through it.”
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Click here to view this media No big surprise here. Republicans want to use the recent outrage over the aggressive screening tactics being used by the TSA at airports as an excuse to privatize it. As Steve Benen noted this weekend , that of course doesn’t solve the problem and just brings with it a whole new set of concerns. Mica is poised to become chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, so he’ll be in a position to advance this issue. There are a variety of angles to consider here. Note, for example, that private companies that stand to benefit from privatization also happen to be generous campaign contributors to Mica’s re-election campaign. Even more importantly, several domestic airports already use private screeners, but it’s still the TSA that establishes mandatory security standards. If Mica or other Republicans want to have a conversation about whether those security measures are appropriate, that’s fine. But whether those doing the screening are public employees or private contractors doesn’t change the standards themselves. Selling this as some sort of cure-all for frustrated travelers is silly. As Josh Marshall joked yesterday, “Watching cable TV this morning it seems like the new idea is that this would all be better if private sector workers rather than government employees were inspecting Americans’ crotches, boobs, etc.” But via email, reader V.S. noted another angle that’s worth paying attention to: legal restrictions. Existing standards, as written by federal officials, have to take constitutional issues into consideration. If Mica scrapped the TSA and let airports hire Blackwater-style private security to screen passengers, it’s easy to imagine legal safeguards — against racial profiling, for example — suddenly being cast aside. Mica of course also blew off accusations that any of the companies that provide airport security that have made campaign contributions to him might be influencing his push to privatize airport security. As News 4 in Jacksonville noted : TSA spokesman Greg Soule would not respond directly Mica’s letter, but reiterated the nation’s roughly 460 commercial airports have the option of applying to use private contractors. Companies that provide airport security are contributors to Mica’s campaigns, although some donations came before those companies won government contracts. The Lockheed Martin Corp. Employees’ Political Action Committee has given $36,500 to Mica since 1997. A Lockheed firm won the security contract in Sioux Falls, S.D. in 2005 and the contract for San Francisco the following year. Raytheon Company’s PAC has given Mica $33,500 since 1999. A Raytheon subsidiary began providing checkpoint screenings at Key West International Airport in 2007. FirstLine Transportation Security Inc.’s PAC has donated $4,500 to the Florida congressman since 2004. FirstLine has been screening baggage and has been responsible for passenger checkpoints at the Kansas City International Airport since 2006, as well as the Gallup Municipal Airport and the Roswell Industrial Air Center in New Mexico, operating at both since 2007. Since 2006, Mica has received $2,000 from FirstLine President Keith Wolken and $1,700 from Gerald Berry, president of Covenant Aviation Security. Covenant works with Lockheed to provide security at airports in Sioux Falls and San Francisco. Mica spokesman Justin Harclerode said the contributions never improperly influenced the congressman, who said he was unaware Raytheon or Lockheed were in the screening business. “They certainly never contacted him about providing screening,” Harclerode said. No matter who’s doing these screenings I’m glad we’re seeing some push back on the tactics being used. From all I’ve watched on this over the last week or two, I don’t know why we’re not scrapping the machines and the pat downs for bomb sniffing dogs and questioning passengers who might actually pose a security risk. I would suspect the likes of Michael Chertoff and his ilk making money off of these scanning machines and still having too much influence over our politicians might have something to do with it.
Continue reading …Fox News Watch Panel Ignores Their Off-Air Criticism of Palin While Bashing ‘Snobbery’ of Other Critics
November 21, 2010 No Comment
Click here to view this media Apparently Fox New Watch’s Jon Scott and Jim Pinkerton assume that none of their viewers know how to use the Internet or watched this clip of some of the off-air comments made about Sarah Palin on their show. Here’s what they said this week. Scott: Sarah Palin’s Alaska debuted on TLC last Sunday with record breaking ratings for that network. The show featuring the former Alaskan governor and her family as they explore our home state scored nearly five million viewers. TLC says it is the largest debut in the channel’s history and yet the media critics were ready to pounce on her for putting that show together. Kirsten Powers, you’re from Alaska. How about Kirsten Powers Alaska? […] She is a draw! […] Scott: Well and all kinds of critics were ready to pounce. In fact we said on this show last week there were some unsubstantiated reports that she was getting a million dollars or had asked for a million dollars an episode to do that show and I guess that turned out not to be the case. […] Pinkerton: Golfers measure themselves on how much money they make. I think the snobbery in the coverage of her show which is a hit among real people is so thick you can cut it with a knife. I just… it boggles me that critics would turn themselves into such a stereotype that they would do exactly what you’re expected to do which is pound away at her for being a Republican.
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