The News is Abominable: UPDATE 1

     UPDATE 1: Add third paragraph
     I watched some Fox and CNN last night. Even NY1 news was pretty bad.  NY1 ran a segment on Gillibrand, who, instead of the entirely and wholly unqualified Caroline Kennedy, will be appointed Senator for New York by the Governor.  Instead of teaching us anything but a sentence about Gillibrand, NY1 took time out of New Yorker's lives to ask them if they knew anything.  Naturally, like myself, they didn't.  One person said she was very smart and knew her stuff.  I know some people don't think that matters, but for me, this is essential!  If she is smart, and knows her stuff, THREE CHEERS FOR GOVERNOR PATTERSON.

     Except, of course, that he felt constrained to pick someone based on which reproductive organs they were born with.

     NY1 calls Gillibrand a "conservative" Democrat.  She is, according to VoteView, a centrist, the most centrist of all NY Congresscritters, a member of the Blue Dog Coalition, and to the right of all but about 20 House Democrats.

The Timing Of These Israeli Strikes

     About 120 killed by Israel.

     We know, for a fact, that there is no pressing need for these strikes to occur now.  The rocket attacks, while harmful, occur at roughly the same degree of lethality as they always have.  Jay, earlier, commented that no one should have to accept such rocket attacks.  Of course, if we played by those rules, there would be nearly endless wars on Earth. The Burmese and Thai would have to go to war. The Thai and the Malaysians would have to go to war. The Venezuelans and Colombians would have to go to war. The Indians and Pakistanis would have to go to war.

     The Israelis are using the annual media lull to get away with vengeance killing.  120 people dead?  Does anyone think these airstrikes hit 120 rocketeers? 

     My policy suggestion is to, for all intents and purposes, stop helping either side.  We do send lots of money (100s of millions?) to the Abbas government, and billions (including military aide) to the Israelis.  Cut them both off.  Pronto. 

     WHY DOES THE MUSLIM WORLD HATE US? It isn't because we are free, as Senator Schumer (D-NY) said on September 12th, 2001, on the floor of the U.S. Senate, it is because no matter what atrocity or treaty breaking the Israelis do, we keep sending them guns and money.  U.S Foreign Policy is Dead! Love Live U.S. Foreign Policy!

Christmas Attack Planned?

     Those who follow the news might heave learned that Friday evening is the time to break "bad" news, because fewer people are paying attention.  If you get to wait as long as you want, between the celebration of the birthday of dead Jesus and the end of the year in the calendar based on dead Jesus's birth is the time to bury a news story.  This sort of thing is surprisingly common, no matter the location. 

     Certain people in the Gaza strip (total population > 1,000,000) fire small rockets into Israel.  I think three people have died, and another dozen have been injured, in the 1000s of rocket attacks launched since Hamas took over Gaza.  Israel is now threatening to invade Gaza, perhaps during this news lull, because of the (relatively) meaningless acts of a few.  Of course the rocket attacks should not be ignored, but many, many suicide bombers have done more damage over the years.  What's more important, and what the Isreaelis have always done is allow the actions of a few to justify retaliatory strikes against the many.  For example, it has been alleged that a Corporal (G. Shalit) in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) was kidnapped.  Israel, in retaliation, bombed the electricity power generation facility that served 600 to 900 thousand people.  I don't deny there is a strong possibility that the kidnappers were on that electric grid, but, we all know damn well that the other 599,995 to 899,995 people had nothing to do with it, but paid anyway.  I've said for a long time that Israel is being very stupid in expecting the Palestinian governments preventing any single Palestinian attacking any Israeli.  No offense, but if Israel can justify aerial bombardment with expectation of civilian casualties with any single attack, then certainly they are expecting the Palestinian government to control 100% of its citizens.  I expect better of Israel.

IDIOTS RUN THIS COUNTRY

     Is there some great stain involved with being a journalist?  Of course not.  Then why are such dumb-asses getting the job?

     I'm watching Fox & Friends this morning, and the idiocy has been non-stop.  Not only have the stories (between multi-minute segments on a single mother-kills-daughter death) been dumb, the presentations have been idiotic. Little of it qualifies as "news."  First they call Joe Biden saying the economy is tanking a "gaffe." What planet are they on?  Biden also said the economy might need another 600-700 billion dollar plan, which the "hosts" talked about for a while, 2 of 3 saying that they heard it might be 1 trillion dollars, suggesting Biden never said anything wrong, and never committed a "gaffe," but they kept going on and on saying that he uses "colorful language" (doesn't that usually mean cursing?) and "hyperbole."  As Bob Somerby says, but doesn't quite understand, they were repeating the script.  Bob, they are idiots, they are lazy, if you tell them that Biden committes "gaffes" and then he says something they don't like, that must be the gaffe.  It's certainly not a plot, it is a consequence of not being smart.  Then they talked about Congressional pay raises.  Rather than just say they hate the Democratic Congress, and Congress in general, they got some idiot from twitter to say it for them, and they read the person's comment on air.  The person's comment was that Congress had done nothing at all, and so didn't deserve a raise.  Nothing?  One of the "hosts" said they should take the raise, and give it all to charity, because that would put it in the economy. 

Who said I couldn't?

     So I am reviewing the 1876 Tilden/Hayes election.  People point it out, the ignorant weasels, as an example when the Popular vote winner(51-48) was not the Electoral College winner (185-184).

     Personally, it is an odd election for me.  The Democrat represented the racist South, but he was probably ripped off.  Who was more intelligent?  Who was more competent (hussein), I can't say.

     This website has a great rundown, and this quote.  You need to recall that the media enterprises have their own institutional interests.  I pointed out before that they want the race to appear close.  They are legally obligated to make money.

During the Electoral College controversy, both political camps hurled accusations, debate sometimes reached a fever-pitch, and General William Sherman ordered four artillery companies to the nation’s capital to maintain order. The crisis sent newspaper sales soaring, although responsible commentators tried to quiet fears of renewed civil war.

(emphasis mine)

BREAKING NEWS QUESTION:

If John McCain is Insane, will that hurt his chances with Independents in Swing States?

Just thought I'd have the kind of fun that CNN and FOX have.

EVIL AFOOT

Nothing against feet, mind you.  The polls with the biggest bias towards McCain are doing the most polling, and, as a result, getting the most press coverage!

So Called Liberal Media Loves to Call Obama un-American

Memos have been leaked from the Hillary Clinton campaign, and the only one the "so called journalists" (like Howard Kurtz, Reliable Sources) care to mention on television is ONE memo whose strategy was NOT adopted.  Mark Penn wanted to call Obama un-American, to emphasize his foreign-ness and emphasize he wasn't born and raised in Iowa (McCain was born in Panama).

The media wants to say things, but the major players can't come right out and say awful things.  Russia Today can't really call Saakashvili "the new Hitler" but they can find useful idiots who will say it, and run that interview, over and over.  The message comes across rather similarly.  This is obviously the case throughout journalism, and therefore it doesn't take much imagination to figure out why CNN and others are pointing to ONE, UNUSED leaked memo, over and over, to the exclusion of anything else the leaked Clinton memos might say.

Why the Media Wants To Make It Close

The media is a for-profit endeavor, the only pure-profit part of most political processes, and this is A Bad Thing(tm).

The television news business managers know that certain types of stories attract different types of viewers.  Stories about strippers attract rats, stories about kidnapped kid and murdered wives attract sheep, while stories of war and politics attract good numbers of viewers of those pretending to be informed (or just wanting to criticize how bad the television news is). 

In fact, if you think about it, it is in the vested interest of every television broadcast news "service" to make the Presidential race appear as close as possible.  And they can do it all by just claiming to being fair, by giving time to "both sides" of a debate.  If the race were lopsided (it is, but only a bit) people would tune out, and the networks would lose money.  They are legally obligated to make money.

Handsome Turk Doing More than All of America for Women's Rights in the Middle East?

The Angry Arab is mad (isn't he always?) that the Saudi clerics have declared a Fatwa against watching the Turkish soap opera Noor. I recommend this WaPo article..

Deteriorating Security Situation in Afghanistan: The Cable News Response (UPDATE 1)

UPDATE 1: MSNBC now running oil (Pres. Race, Congress + Drilling) story.

The Brave Leaders who run CNN, MSNBC and Fox News are shoring up the walls of American ignorance by keeping news of Afghanistan out of our dear little heads.  How can we thank them enough?

But in the last hour, two of three networks discussed the oil industry, massive profits of the oil companies this quarter(CNN), the high price of gasoline (CNN+Fox), the drilling and spilling question (Fox).  MSNBC, which often is sometimes more newsy than its competitors, was pure fluff during the monitored period.

But, if there is any truth to the allegations that Iraq was about oil one could guess that Fox and CNN are subtly reminding us of our Asian adventures.

Iraq Conspiracy?  No, Confluence (UPDATE 2)

UPDATE 1: Added Palast link to list
UPDATE 2: Added Perle/Soviet to list

     In the last couple days I've seen a couple posts which attempt to answer the question "Why did we fight in Iraq?" and I realized that although I'd commented this material elsewhere, I'd never blogged it myself.  There were a host of forces at play, all with the same aim, while the anti-war arguments were generally based on hypothesis or law.  I'm not sure which order to describe the factors, so please don't read anything in there.

• PNAC and neo-conservatism always favored using US force to destroy particular enemies of the US establishment, not that Cheney didn't do business with official US enemies.  Emerging out of 70s hawkish leftism (e.g. Scoop Jackson) and the classrooms of the disciples of Leo Strauss, these disturbing elements of the US power structure argue from the axiom that the US is the world Leviathan, a position which is false.
• War is good for the media's ratings.
• Colin Powell, even before Bush took office, was known to favor war against Iraq and North Korea, both of whom he considered Cold War aggressor nations which had not paid for their aggression.  It's hard for me to see how Kim Jong Il can be blamed for the war of his father, Kim Il Song, but that didn't stop General Powell.
• Soldiers want action and medals.
• The foreign policies of certain US allies, namely, Israel.  Israel wanted Saddam gone.  No one can argue that the Saudis really loved Saddam, either.
• In 2000, Iraq became the first major oil producing country to replace the dollar with the Euro.  Many trillions of Middle Eastern "Petrodollars" have long been converted into US dollars before being spent.  This is a great deal for the United States, and changing it would weaken the US economy.
• Defense contractors want sales.
• Oil security.  I think the major US focus on oil as a national security measure dates back to WWII.  Tanks and planes don't run without oil.  Battles in WWII were won and lost based on fuel supplies.  Britian invaded Iraq during WWII because Iraq wanted to sell oil to Germany (a fact notably absent from this CIA timeline).  Having Iraq's oil in friendlier hands would help this aging national security issue, and continue to bolster the US economy.
• Saddam had been, in fact, a murderous tyrant (although everyone glosses over the fact that his last few years had been his best, kills-per-year wise).
• Saddam allegedly tried to kill Bush's father.  Taking the nation to war for personal reasons is treason.
• Because they could.  Some people were tasked with things like "Find any dirt on Iraq that you can, and make a big stink about it."  They were given a job by the President, and they did it well (enough).  William Luti and Doug Feith figure prominently as neo-cons who can assert "I was just doing my job."
• The last reason I can think of is Bush's religion.  He doesn't see things as events in the grand scheme of history, they are Signs From God, and God got him elected, and therefore, God's will must be done.  Israel is not a country, but the Holy Land, and Saddam was certainly an enemy of Israel.
• If Greg Palast's report is correct, it had a lot more to do with greed than I have suggested.  Pure, unadulterated profit motive.
• According to Richard Perle biographer Alan Weisman, Perle himself really wanted to live/relive the feeling people had when the Soviet Union toppled.  Kinda confusing, though, since we didn't shoot at Gorbachev, or try a "decapitation" attack, to do it.

     The arguments against the war?  The maintenance of the Westphalian system, international law, anti-pre-emption, and the "bound to be a quagmire" thesis are all based on high concepts or speculation. 

• It might be obvious to sane people, but no one could prove it would be a quagmire.  No one knew, in advance, that Bu$hCo would choose oil-men and terrorists to run the new Iraq.  As unlikely as it was, war planners made comparisons to post-WWII Japan or Germany. 
• It's doubtful Bush considered Saddam's Iraq as worthy of the rights of a Sovereign, as he doesn't consider Arabs to be worthy of the rights in the Constitution. 
• And international law?  Why, I saw the Bush administration international law expert on C-SPAN.  It was pathetic.  He brought up the Caroline incident and the Cuba blockade/missile crisis as examples of US pre-emption.  The Caroline incident was a British action, while the Cuba blockade was used as an example, five years later, by Egypt, in their blocking the straits of Tiran (an important part of the run-up to the 67 war).

     So to will this action of Bush's be used in the future to start wars.  Like the Supreme Court decision that brought this mindnumbingly incompetent tool to power (Bush V Gore is the first case in USSC history that declares it is inadmissible as precedent), the Bush administration ignores the precedent setting nature of their war.  Considering, for example, past Bush maladministration efforts, wouldn't Iran be in their right minds to attack America now?

     The War in Iraq must be repudiated.