Next Tuesday: FRONTLINE report on torture

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Saturday October 15, 2005 · 12:12 AM PDT

2005/10/15 · 00:12

This is an ALERT, so that you can schedule next Tuesday's Frontline program on PBS, either for viewing or taping. The title of the program is "The Torture Question". A Frontline crew witnessed the arrival of prisoners at Abu Ghraib several months ago, and that will be shown. Here's a link to the page on the PBS site previewing the program:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/torture/ .

Here's a link to the page where the press release about the program can be read:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/torture/#press .

The decision by the Bush administration to invade and occupy Iraq was a terrible mistake, and the decision to torture people detained during the occupation has had tragic consequences for the detainees, for the U.S. military, and for the United States internationally. The Frontline description of the program is below. Read More

Suzanne and the Wizard of Oz

JTML

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Thursday October 13, 2005 · 1:21 PM PDT

2005/10/13 · 13:21

Suzanne Malveaux just delivered a surprising report in the Situation Room on CNN. She revealed that before Bush spoke today via teleconference with selected soldiers in Iraq, in what the White House had advertised heavily beforehand as an "unscripted event", a woman had described what questions Bush would ask and suggested possible responses to the troops.

I wasn't paying attention closely to the report when I first noticed it, but I think that the woman was identified as a Pentagon employee.

What surprised me is that both Ms. Malveaux and the anchor referred to the Bush administration's preference for sucfh scripted events (a topic usually ignored by the MSM media, which barely mentioned it during last year's campaign) and that Ms. Malveaux, while tape of the "practice session" played on a split screen, said that "the curtains had been pulled back" because CNN had seen the satellite feed of those preparations. Catch it if you can--you'll be reminded of that scene in The Wizard of Oz when the curtain was pulled aside.

Lame duck Bush plans to trash Florida

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Tuesday October 11, 2005 · 9:46 AM PDT

2005/10/11 · 09:46

No, not George Bush, but Jeb Bush. The lame duck Florida governor has abandoned his opposition to oil drilling off the coast of Florida (that opposition which helped him win election and re-election) and now supports the legislation by Rep. Pombo (R-CA) which opens the door for oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.

Today, an article by John-Thor Dahlburg in the Los Angeles Times describes what is a gigantic FLIP-FLOP by Jeb Bush, probablt designed both to grease Jeb's way to a larger political stage and to innoculate Jeb against any political disease caused by high gas prices.

Here's a link to the article:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-drill11oct11,0,4410862,print.story?coll=la-home -nation . Read More

Will someone explain this to me?

JTML

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Monday October 10, 2005 · 3:05 PM PDT

2005/10/10 · 15:05

I have some ideas why CNN and MSNBC both broke away from covering other stories to show Bush and his wife getting off a helicopter and getting on an airplane, but I would like to understand those decisions better.

Hopefully, we have people participating in our discussions who can provide some insight into why both cable news networks pissed away so valuable a commodity as broadcast time. If there is someone who has worked as the producer of cable or television news programs, I hope he or she will post a message in response to this diary.

I'll make an attempt to sketch my ideas, but I'd like to hear from others, if you can do that without demonizing what we all see as corporate media. Read More

Are Bush's numbers up again? If so, why?

JTML

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Friday September 30, 2005 · 7:58 PM PDT

2005/09/30 · 19:58

I'm sitting here watching Shields and Brooks on the Lehrer News Hour on PBS. Brooks just said that Bush's poll numbers are up (five points this week, he claimed), and he credited "policy" for that. Of course, neither Lehrer nor Shields asked him what he meant by "policy".

When I saw Bush trekking back and forth to hurricane country over the past couple of weeks, I saw that as the White House grabbing camera time from cable TV news operations. All photo op all the time, is what I thought.

I still think that. The only policy initiatives I have seen have been Republican public relations efforts to keep the spotlight on Bush. Bush has been on camera more, never mind that he hasn't accomplished anything and that the agencies controlled by Republicans have continued shoveling federal money to their friends. But it seems that the mere fact of being on camera has helped.

Will someone who follows polls on a regular basis let us know whether Bush's numbers have improved, and, if so, why they have.

More Republican disaster patronage

JTML

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Sunday September 11, 2005 · 3:20 PM PDT

2005/09/11 · 15:20

Today, the Seattle Times reported that the regional director of FEMA in the Northwest (being paid $138,000 a year for his work), John Pennington, is a former Washington state representative without disaster experience but with Republican credentials. Apparently, the former Republican Congresswoman who headed Bush's 2000 campaign in Washington greased the way for Pennington to get the appointment soon after 9/11.

Here's a link to the article by Mike Carter and Susan Kelleher:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=2002484649&zsection_id=200211 1777&slug=pennington10m&date=20050910 .

Now, have any of the rest of you, on your own or with the help of local reporters, been able to identify any other Republicans holding FEMA jobs as patronage positions?

Katrina according to Faux News

JTML

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Monday September 05, 2005 · 4:37 PM PDT

2005/09/05 · 16:37

I have confessed in other diaries that I turned to Faux News yesterday and (briefly) today, because I was interested in finding out what the Republican Party party line now is on Bush and Katrina.

I could have discovered some of what has been going on there if I had signed up for a site pass to the Salon site, because Farhad Manjoo has written an article there about the Faux coverage, and how it varies from that of some other cable news operations.

I screwed up by posting the entire article initially. I hope that I have managed to correct that, and, if you want to read the entire article, you'll have to go to Salon and get your own site pass. Read More

Examples of media collaboration

JTML

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Friday September 02, 2005 · 3:15 PM PDT

2005/09/02 · 15:15

I tried to listen to the 3:00 p.m. (Pacific time) news on NPR. The program started, with a report on Bush's visit to the stricken area, but it immediately was interrupted by an announcement that the audience was being taken to the New Orleans airport, where Bush was speaking LIVE.

What examples can you give of media outlets or personalities lending themselves to the Bush administration's public relations campaign?

What are some of the stunning instances of uncritical, or even fawning, coverage of Bush in Alabama, Mississippi, or Louisiana which you have seen or heard, or read, today?

Hot on the heels of "CNN Reports"

JTML

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Thursday August 25, 2005 · 12:08 PM PDT

2005/08/25 · 12:08

Today, the Los Angeles Times devotes two entire pages of its first section (pages A20 and A21) to an article by Tom Hamburger and Sonni Efron explaining Plamegate and its relevance to the original arguments by the Bush administration for making war on Iraq.

The article begins at the bottom of the front page. Just inside, at the top of page A20, this paragraph appears: "Beyond the whodunit, the affair raises questions about the credibility of the Bush White House, the tactics it employs against political opponents and the justification it used for going to war."

Here's a link to the entire article: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-leak25aug25,0,61238.story?coll=la-home-headlines .

Our troops right or wrong?

JTML

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Saturday August 06, 2005 · 4:26 PM PDT

2005/08/06 · 16:26

Today, in a front page article, the Los Angeles Times reported that a battalion of the California Army National Guard is being investigated for extorting money from Iraqi-owned businesses in Baghdad.

The article by Scott Gold mentions that the U.S. military has attempted to minimize the incidents which gave rise to the investigation and suggests that military spokesmen have refused to discuss those incidents.

Here's a link to the article: Guardsmen Took 'Rent' From Iraqi Businesses .

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