Posts filed under ‘The "Liberal Media"’
Romney Still Making Millions From Layoffs at Bain Capital
It was bad enough that from the mid-80′s through the mid-90′s Mitt Romney headed Bain Capital, which was in the business of buying companies and shrinking them (primarily via employee layoffs) to increase their profitability. Now we learn that ol’ Mitt is still taking millions from that ruthless business:
Mitt Romney is still making millions of dollars from layoffs engineered by Bain Capital, the private equity firm he helped to start.
As revealed by the New York Times, Romney negotiated a backroom deal with Bain that gave the already wealthy former governor a share of Bain’s profits even after he left the firm.
One of the ways Bain makes its money is from buying up companies then shredding the jobs of many employees in a scheme designed to cut costs. Romney profited when Bain bought KB Toys and laid off thousands of employees.
The funds for one of Romney’s summer homes could have come from the money Bain made when they facilitated a deal that cut 2,500 jobs from radio broadcaster Clear Channel.
It’s a sign of how cohesive the corporate media’s reporting (or its lack thereof) is that Romney’s stint at Bain isn’t more widely known. The reason for that, it seems to me, is that a man who bought companies and increased their profitability by laying people off would be a pariah amongst voters this year and the corporate media knows that. The corporatocracy sees Romney (1) as one of their own and, (2) as the candidate most likely to have a chance against Obama, thus the kid gloves.
TIME: Occupy Wall Street Protests #1 News Story in the US 2011
This is out from TIME magazine today:
On Sept. 17, a couple hundred protesters demonstrating against the excesses of corporate execs and the pervasive influence of high finance in U.S. politics set up camp in Lower Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park and refused to leave. It was an unlikely occupation, one without leaders, agendas or even a clear sense of goals, but it soon was echoed in myriad cities across the U.S. and the world. To some, Occupy Wall Street is the left-wing iteration of the Tea Party, directing their rage not at big government but at the big banks that gutted the world economy and took billions in bailouts from the U.S. government while awarding themselves hefty bonuses.
I’m actually pretty cynical about this. While I agree with TIME‘s choice, I think this designation is a way for TIME to avoid naming the 99% their “person of the year.”
Less than a month ago TIME posted and opened voting on the nominee. See a screenshot of the list as of November 12 here. The 99% was winning by a landslide.
Here is the list as of today:
The 99% has been removed as an option.
Oh, and P.S.: I can’t wait to see what happens here. Look at the votes Julian Assange is getting. Can you imagine TIME naming him their Person of the Year? Me neither.
Work Until You’re 90 — It’s Fun!
The ABC Evening News w/Diane Sawyer just aired a piece about how great it is to work until you’re in your 90′s. The segment featured a 90-year-old hairdresser who’s still going strong and yes, she seemed perfectly happy.
Kudos to her but I can’t help but wonder what the point was. If I know the “liberal media” like I think I do, what I just saw was an opening salvo in a campaign designed to convince already-exhausted Americans that hey, if the corporatocracy takes away your Social Security, any pensions you might have, your health benefits, your accrued vacation time, etc., life’s a beach but you’re just too spoiled to notice how great it is. And if you don’t like it, strap your boots on, put a smile on your face and work into your 90′s, and if you complain or physically can’t do that, there’s something wrong with you, not with the system.
Photo: AP
Oh, Puhleez
This would be our Tweet of the Day:
I can’t stand John King and sadly, I can’t stand CNN anymore. Liberal media my yas. They’re Fox News wannabees.
The Washington Post’s Bully, Dana Milbank, Calls Barney Frank a Bully
This would be the Washington Post‘s Dana Milbank in June, 2009:
This morning, Dana Milbank, Amanda Carpenter, and I appeared on CNN’s Reliable Sources, hosted by Howard Kurtz.
It was a spirited affair and folks can draw their own conclusions. Here’s the video.
The only thing that surprised me was when Dana turned to me after our initial sparring and called me a “dick” in a whispered tone (the specific phrase was, I believe, “You’re such a dick”).
And this would be be Milbank in August, 2009:
Ridiculous, panty-raiding Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank is partaking in further jackassery on behalf of the legendary paper yet again, now making videos where he’s calling Hillary Clinton a “mad bitch.”
Being the arrogant, insulated, inside-the-beltway egomaniac that he is, this would be Dana Milbank today:
Ed Schultz Says “Krystal Ball” is a “Democratic Strategist”
When I worked on Outfoxed and at the Newshounds for lo those five years, I watched Fox “News” claim that every Tom, Dick, Harry and Jane it slapped up on the screen was a “strategist.”
You wouldn’t believe how pitiful the credentials of some of those “strategists” were. I.e., they had no business whatsoever being sold to We the People as experts.
So when I happened upon The Ed Show tonight on MSNBC and I saw Ed talking to a woman named Krystal Ball — who he billed as a “Democratic strategist” — I had to know more.
Krystal Ball? Seriously? Didn’t that name alone make Ed’s bookers just a teeny weeny bit suspicious?
Guess not.
This is from KrystalBall‘s website:
About Krystal
Krystal Marie Ball is a 29-year-old former Congressional candidate and current Democratic Strategist; in addition to being a Certified Public Accountant, software engineer, small business owner and mother. Krystal was recently named by Forbes Magazine as number 21 on the magazine’s “Most Powerful Women in the Mid Term Elections” list.
So, Krystal Ball has been a lot of things in her 29 years and one of her proudest accomplishments is ingratiating herself into the 1% club with bazillionaire Steve Forbes (a 1%-er extraordinaire).
Hum.
Ed Schultz claims to be a man of the people but he touts a “Democratic strategist” with a dubious background who’s on Steve Forbes’ — Steve Forbes’! — favorites list?
Hey Ed: Read this to learn more about your gal pal Krystal.
George W. Bush Found Guilty of “Crimes Against Peace”
I haven’t watched any “liberal media” today but I’m sure this is the top story and that it’s being repeated every ten or 15 minutes:
A tribunal in Malaysia, spearheaded by that nation’s former Prime Minister, yesterday found George Bush and Tony Blair guilty of “crimes against peace” and other war crimes for their 2003 aggressive attack on Iraq, as well as fabricating pretexts used to justify the attack. The seven-member Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal — which featured an American law professor as one of its chief prosecutors — has no formal enforcement power, but was modeled after a 1967 tribunal in Sweden and Denmark that found the U.S. guilty of a war of aggression in Vietnam, and, even more so, after the U.S.-led Nuremberg Tribunal held after World War II. Just as the U.S. steadfastly ignored the 1967 tribunal on Vietnam, Bush and Blair both ignored the summons sent to them and thus were tried in absentia.
The tribunal ruled that Bush and Blair’s name should be entered in a register of war criminals, urged that they be recognized as such under the Rome Statute, and will also petition the International Criminal Court to proceed with binding charges.
When the Super Committee Fails
When a formal announcement is made as to the failure of the “super committee,” watch the “liberal media” blame “both sides.”
This is my Tweet of the Day:
Oh, and I suggest a look at Paul Krugman here, as to why failure is actually a good thing.
American Nobility Alert: NBC Hires Chelsea Clinton
The big news in the media world today is that NBC has hired Chelsea Clinton:
Photo: Adrian Grenier
Chelsea Clinton is going to work for NBC News.
The network said Monday that it has hired the 31-year-old Clinton to work on projects for the “NBC Nightly News” and Brian Williams’ newsmagazine “Rock Center.” She will do projects in the “Making a Difference” series, generally positive stories about individuals and companies.
The only child of former President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has been working primarily as a business consultant.
NBC News already has another daughter of a former president, Jenna Bush Hager, doing work at the “Today” show.
So, if Chelsea has primarily been working “as a business consultant,” what journalist qualifications does she bring to the job? Oh wait. None! She was hired because of who she is. Kinda like Luke Russert, who also works at NBC; and Jenna Bush and Meghan McCain.
I love Glenn Greenwald’s sarcastic but accurate take on this:
I really don’t understand what those angry, lazy losers in the Occupy movement are so upset about. America is a meritocracy; if you work hard and prove your skills, you get ahead. The winners deserve what they have because they have earned it. And when all else fails, we have a media filled with insurgent outsiders who will be relentless watchdogs over those in power because that’s what our media outlets are: true outsiders there to check the most powerful factions.
[...]
Thankfully, the American Founders waged a revolution to free us from the shackles of monarchy so that we’re no longer captive to the inanities of royalty (like those silly Brits). In The Rights of Man, Thomas Paine mocked and scorned aristocracies as producing “counterfeit nobles” — those bestowed with preorgatives [sic] not because of what they’ve achieved but because of the accidental fortune of their birth — and we are thankfully free of those.
About All Those Republican Debates
I just saw an ad on CNN promoting the next Republican debate — one that will purportedly center on national security — which will be held on Tuesday, November 22.
I think I’m finally catching on to this whole GOP debate thing. The plan seems to be to hold a debate and then talk about it non-stop for days and days until the next debate and then talk about that debate non-stop for days and days until the next debate and on and on. I mean, these uninformative, silly, sound-bite debates are sucking the air out of everything else that’s happening on the planet, as in THE NEWS.
But, then again, when you’ve cut your reporting staff down to near zero, limiting your “news” coverage to chatting about one or two events is cheap and easy. Ah yes, the “liberal media.”
The New York Times Lies for Herman Cain
Again, the next time you hear a winger complain about the “liberal media” being unfair to Republicans, remember this headline from the penultimate liberal news organization, the New York Times:
Woman Accuses Cain of Groping; He Denies Charge:
Memo to the New York Times:
What’s with this headline? Sharon Bialek didn’t use the word “groping.” She said Herman Cain put his hand on her thigh and moved it toward her GENITALS. Then he pushed her head down toward his CROTCH.
You call that “groping?”
Oh, wait. The article was written by two men: Jim Rutenberg and Michael D. Shear.
Really? REALLY?
“Liberal Media” Dismisses Keystone XL Protest at the White House
UPDATED @ 1:07 p.m. ET
You may have heard that approximately 10,000 people gathered in Washington, D.C. yesterday and formed a human chain around the White House in an effort to convince President Obama to block the Keystone XL pipeline project. Then again, you may not have heard about that because despite the fact that this was a major demonstration, the “liberal media” is blowing it off.
This morning beginning at 7:00 a.m. ET I monitored both CNN and MSNBC — those bastions of the “liberal media” — for 30 minutes to see if they covered this event. Shamefully, neither of them did.
This is what CNN covered during those 30 minutes: The Penn State coaching “crisis;” the transfer of power in Greece; the stability of Italy’s economy; the Conrad Murray trial; back to Penn State; earthquakes in Oklahoma; US stock futures; Bank Transfer Day; Barnes & Noble introducing a new e-reader; Robert De Niro playing Bernie Madoff in a new movie and the introduction of casino gambling in NYC. For a minute there I thought I was watching TMZ.
MSNBC spent the first nine minutes, yes, nine minutes, on Herman Cain, then they moved to the “most qualified” GOP presidential candidate (Newt) and then to the Super Committee.
I know it’s been said many times before, but imagine if 10,000 Tea Partiers formed a human chain and surrounded the White House. It would have been covered live for one, and for two, news of the action would have been the headline every hour (and possibly every half-hour) for at least the following 24 hours.
So shame on the media for not giving this event the importance it deserves and hey, the next time someone whines that the media is “liberal,” particularly CNN and MSNBC, respond with a good ol’ knee-slappin’ belly laugh.
UPDATE: Here’s more. Listen to the wingers and they’ll tell you the Washington Post is part of the “liberal media” too. (I hope you catch the sarcasm about the Tea Party.)
Herman Cain Claims He’s the Victim of a “High Tech Lynching”
Check out Herman Cain’s new ad:
Cain uses video of Clarence Thomas saying he (Thomas) was the victim of a “high tech lynching” and Cain implies he’s a victim of both that and the “liberal media,” even though Cain himself has accused the Perry campaign of being behind the whole sexual harassment thing.
It’s really disgusting but it highlights the universal ah, quality of the wingers: being a victim.
CBS’s Scott Pelley Implies The World Has Turned Against Wikileaks
Just minutes ago I was watching the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley. Pelley was reporting on Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, and his impending extradition to Sweden, “to face rape and sexual molestation claims.”
Photo: Graeme Robertson, The Guardian (UK)
Toward the end of his report, Pelley said Wikileaks funding has “dried up,” implying that the world as a whole has turned against the organization. What Pelley didn’t tell his audience is that there has been an organized campaign by the 1%-ers to starve Wikileaks of funding because the documents Wikileaks has leaked (and has the potential to leak) threatens their control of the planet:
Gotta love the “liberal media,” huh?
Nuclear Emergency?
Here’s a thing you should know about:
Emergency Reported At San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant
An alert has been declared at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in San Diego County.
Orange County Sheriff’s officials say that there was an incident at the plant at approximately 3:10 p.m. Tuesday, prompting an alert.
Southern California Edison tells CBS 2 that the incident is “an ammonia leak that is being contained.” The leak occurred in a steam system used to drive the station’s turbines, SCE said. The leak is not nuclear.
Love how CBS, the supposed “liberal media,” takes Southern California Edison at its word.
Keith Olbermann Predicts Ed Schultz is a Goner
MSNBC moved The Ed Schultz Show to 8:00 p.m. ET this week, the show’s third time slot since it debut in April, 2009.
Yeah, it’s only been a week but it isn’t bringing in the big buckaroos the corporate media counts on:
I can’t defend Schultz. I have no idea what he’s thinking. He led tonight with a long segment about Paul Ryan (R-WI) and his speech yesterday at the Heritage Foundation during which he said (in essence) that President Obama is waging class warfare and oh, something incoherent about jobs. The point is, Schultz gave Paul Ryan — a sociopath whose policies will never fly — a whole bunch of time and attention and frankly, I don’t give a rat’s ass about Paul Ryan and I don’t think anybody else does either…other than maybe the beltway pundits.
As a matter of fact, I’m willing to bet that most Americans have no idea who Paul Ryan is.
I changed the channel.
Schultz seems to be fixated on Ryan because he seems to be fixated on defending President Obama and the DNC. I mean, the guy has repeatedly said of late that the Occupy Wall Street protesters are “frustrated,” a word Obama and his Press Secretary, Jay Carney, use all the time.
We aren’t “frustrated” Ed, we’re FURIOUS! We’re furious but we’re trying to hold it together.
Ed Schultz’s time has come and gone. If he continues to side with President Obama and the Democrats – who have failed the 99%ers as tragically as the Republicans have — he’s done. His ratings will continue to lag and hey, he’ll bore an audience that’s willing to die, almost literally, to buck the establishment. Again, we aren’t frustrated, we’re furious. But Ed can’t deliver because he’s owned by the corporate media and because he just doesn’t seem to get what’s going on around here.
Keith Olbermann is right when he tweets:
The Liberal Media Gives Occupy Oakland 30 Seconds
Republicans have been screaming for 30 years that the media is liberal. And we’ve heard it for so long we believe them.
But this is the reality:
Bob Beckel — Fox’s Badass “Liberal”
This is Bob Beckel, the guy who Fox tout as their badass “liberal:”
[B]ut can I just make one point about this principle, besides [inaudible]. Um, the idea that somehow kids can’t, ah, the whole idea of dressing up, yeah, it’s good. The whole idea of dressing up at Halloween; what’s wrong with that. I mean, I don’t, I don’t get it. First of all, if you go past any high school today they all look, they look like a bunch of hookers hanging outside, a lot of these girls, so maybe they have costumes [on?] all the time…
(Video here.)
Excuse me Bobby boy. The” girls” you ogle in front of high schools aren’t hookers, or as you imply, whores. You are.
MTV to Air Occupy Wall Street Special
I hope this doesn’t get Hollywood-ized or TMZ-ized:
Though networks typically dispatch embeds during campaign season, MTV took a different approach to the tactic when it dispatched youth into the Occupy Wall Street protests for its show “True Life.”
“True Life: I’m Occupying Wall Street” will premiere on Saturday, November 5, at 6 p.m. et. Four MTV embeds protested in Zuccotti Park with Occupy Wall Street demonstrators and immersed themselves in the cause.
The special will take viewers to “the front lines” of the Occupy Wall Street protests and follow the four embeds as they become “swept up in the cause.” The special will focus primarily on the point of view of the younger demonstrators whose anger is seemingly focused on the concept that they graduated college and expected to find employment, but have been having difficulty in finding steady jobs during the recession.
MTV please, please do right by the Occupy Wall Street protesters!
Thanks.
The Cost to Taxpayers of Occupy Wall Street
The wingers are already beating the drum about how much those dirty hippies occupying Wall Street are costing taxpayers. Here’s a quintessential example, from Fox, of course: Wall Street Protests Cost Taxpayers Millions.
[October 6, 2011] Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said Thursday that it has cost the NYPD $2 million in overtime to police the events, which began on Sept. 17 and have included numerous marches, rallies and other large gatherings where hundreds have been arrested.
U.S. households lost on average nearly $5,800 in income due to reduced economic growth during the acute stage of the financial crisis from September 2008 through the end of 2009.[1] Costs to the federal government due to its interventions to mitigate the financial crisis amounted to $2,050, on average, for each U.S. household. Also, the combined peak loss from declining stock and home values totaled nearly $100,000, on average per U.S. household, during the July 2008 to March 2009 period.
Republicans Are Lying About Regulations and Job Growth
Republicans state, as fact, that “all” the business regulations (like the ones that require coal companies to put scrubbers on their smoke stacks so we can ah, you know, breathe clean air) are inhibiting job growth. The Associated Press fact checked that claim and lo and behold — who’d a thought — they’re lying:
Is regulation strangling the American entrepreneur? Several Republican presidential candidates say so. The numbers don’t.
[...]
THE FACTS: Labor Department data show that only a tiny percentage of companies that experience large layoffs cite government regulation as the reason. Since Barack Obama took office, just two-tenths of 1 percent of layoffs have been due to government regulation, the data show.
Businesses frequently complain about regulation, but there is little evidence that it is any worse now than in the past or that it is costing significant numbers of jobs. Most economists believe there is a simpler explanation: Companies aren’t hiring because there isn’t enough consumer demand.
Gosh. It’s just astonishing, isn’t it, that the “liberal media” is ignoring this FACT? (No it isn’t. It isn’t because the media isn’t liberal. The “liberal media” is owned by corporations and the Republicans (and a good number of Democrats) are owned by those same corporations and they want each and every single teeny tiny regulation removed so they can f**k us in ways we haven’t even thought of yet.)
Parade of Human Debris
Earlier this week, Rush Limbaugh called the OccupyWallStreet protesters a “parade of human debris.” Well, here is that “parade of human debris” at approximately 4:10 p.m. ET today in Washington Square Park, NYC:
(Via.)
Again, if this was a Tea Party rally, all the cables would be covering it live. But, hey, I guess the media is just too ahem, liberal, to care.
Can’t Wait for the CNN / OccupyWallStreet Debate
I can’t wait for the CNN / OccupyWallStreet debate!
Understated Headline of the Year Regarding CNN’s Erin Burnett
Have you been reading the terrible reviews of Erin Burnett’s new, 3-day-old show on CNN called, Out Front? (Here, here, here and here to name but a few.) Some of the phrases being used are “media failure,” “vapid,” “banking apologista,” “smug” and “superficial.” So this headline from the AtlanticWire has got to be the kindest, most understated to date:
CNN’s New Star Is a Little Too Sympathetic to Wall Street
Ah, yeah! To put it mildly.
CNN’s Alison Kosik Says the Purpose of OccupyWallStreet is to “Smoke Weed!”
This would be CNN “journalist” Alison Kosick explaining the OccupyWallStreet movement on her Twitter feed (she has since deleted this tweet):
(Via.)
Per OccupyWallStreet’s website, this is their mission:
Occupy Wall Street is leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%. We are using the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to achieve our ends and encourage the use of nonviolence to maximize the safety of all participants.
I wonder if Kosick knows now to use The Google, or if she just doesn’t care to, you now, do what a journalist is supposed to do.
Ah yes. The “liberal media” strikes again.
You Can Be Sure I Won’t Be Watching CNN’s “Outfront” w/Erin Burnett
If this is how Erin Burnett debuted her new show — Outfront — on CNN last night, you can be sure I won’t be watching:
The show kicked off with Burnett explaining that she
went to Wall Street today to see those protests for myself. I saw dancing, bongo drums, even a clown…. I asked several protesters what it was that they wanted. Now, they did not know…. They did know what they don’t want.Burnett added that “it seems like people want a messiah leader, just like they did when they anointed Barack Obama.”
Hey OccupyWallStreet: Want More Media Attention? Here’s the Ticket!
Why isn’t the OccupyWallStreet movement being covered more heavily by the “liberal media?” Because they don’t have a look the media likes. Here’s the solution to that.
(Via.)
You Won’t See This on the “Liberal” Media
I’m willing to bet you didn’t hear about this yesterday (I didn’t):
Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Over 700 hundred [sic] Continental and United pilots, joined by additional pilots from other Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) carriers, demonstrate in front of Wall Street on September 27, 2011 in New York City. The pilots want to draw attention to the lack of progress on negotiations of the pilots’ joint collective bargaining agreement ahead of the one-year anniversary of the corporate merger close date of United and Continental airlines.
More photos here.
If 700 Teabaggers gathered anywhere to do anything the “liberal” media would be all over it.
