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NEWS DISSECTOR: Former White House Press Secretary Admits Bush, Cheney Leaked CIA Name
NEWS DISSECTOR November 20, 2007
Former White House Press Secretary Admits Bush, Cheney Leaked CIA Name
FORGET THANKSGIVING, BRACE FOR THE DAY AFTER
YUK: PRESIDENT BUSH'S ANAPOLIS MIDDLE EAST PEACE SOIREE
WHAT WE HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT
Before speaking in two eco classes at Franklin & Marshall College and leaving Lancaster PA (pronounced LanK-ester) to its own devices, I picked up the local paper, the Intelligencer Journal (founded 1794), to see what folks there were concerned about. There was the expected deceptive "Some Security Back in Baghdad" story but alongside it, another war was given more space on the front page: The shopping war.
The Story, "THE BLACK FRIDAY EXPERIMENT, PART 2" reported, "OUTLETS, POLICE SAY THEY'RE PREPARED." Prepared for what? Why, of course, the lollapalooza of shopping days to come.
It turns out they have been making plans for so-called "Black Friday" for FIVE Months, strategizing to keep traffic flowing into the malls and prevent congestion. One official is quoted as saying they are treating Friday like a Penn State football game, a big deal in these parts attracting tens of thousands of crazed fans.
They know that holiday shopping drives our economy and the press and local TV Stations are going all out to hype the buying season. Its one way of rewarding advertisers, The article makes no mention of the various forecasts that say shopping will be down this year or the recent surveys on consumer confidence that show it barely exists.
This is journalism" that sells, not tells. Many malls are running "midnight madness" sales with all sorts of goodies to encourage/bribe customers into the stores. (More economic news below.) But first, maybe those eager beaver bargain hunters should read this:
FINALLY: SOME TRUTH—THEY DID IT!
(YAHOO) Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan blames President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for efforts to mislead the public about the role of White House aides in leaking the identity of a CIA In an excerpt from his forthcoming book, McClellan recounts the 2003 news conference in which he told reporters that aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby were "not involved" in the leak involving operative Valerie Plame.
"There was one problem. It was not true," McClellan writes, according to a brief excerpt released Tuesday. "I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff and the president himself."
AP: SCARE TACTICS BY PENTAGON CHARGED
WASHINGTON - In their latest tussle with the White House on the Iraq war, two leading House Democrats said Tuesday the Pentagon was using scare tactics to try to goad Congress into passing another war spending bill.
WASHINGTON POST: For Democrats, Iowa Still Up for Grabs
The top three Democratic presidential contenders remain locked in a close battle in Iowa, with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) seeing her advantages diminish on key issues, including the questions of experience and which candidate is best prepared to handle the war in Iraq…
UN slashes Aids estimates
M&G: The United Nations has slashed its estimates of how many people are infected with HIV/Aids, from nearly 40-million to 33-million. In a report to be issued on Tuesday, the UN says revised estimates on HIV in India account for a large part of the decrease.
ARE YOU INVITED?
AlJazeera reports:
The US has confirmed it will issue official invitations to a Middle East conference to be held next week at Annapolis, Maryland.
The move comes despite the Palestinian and Israeli leaders failing to agree on a joint declaration addressing issues such as borders when they met for the last time before Annapolis on Monday.
The US state department will start sending out invitations overnight for the event, US officials said on Monday.
Those invited to the November 27 talks include the Israelis and Palestinians, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Syria, the officials said."
Why is this happening? What's behind it? What's likely to happen?
Israel's insightful Uri Avnery dissects this farce:
THE ANNAPOLIS conference is a joke. Though not in the least funny.
Like quite a lot of political initiatives, this one too, according to all the indications, started more or less by accident. George Bush was due to make a speech. He was looking for a theme that would give it some substance. Something that would divert attention away from his fiascos in Iraq and Afghanistan. Something simple, optimistic, easy to swallow.
Somehow, the idea of a "meeting" of leaders to promote the Israeli-Palestinian "process" came up. An international meeting is always nice - it looks good on television, it provides plenty of photo-opportunities, it radiates optimism. We meet, ergo we exist.
So Bush voiced the idea: a "meeting" for the promotion of peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Without any preceding strategic planning, any careful preparations, anything much at all.
That's why Bush did not go into any details: no clear aim, no agenda, no location, no date, no list of invitees. Just an ethereal meeting. This fact by itself testifies to the lack of seriousness of the entire enterprise.
This may shock people who have never seen close up how politics are actually conducted. It is hard to accept the intolerable lightness with which decisions are often made, the irresponsibility of leaders and the arbitrary way important processes are set in motion.
FROM THE MOMENT this idea was launched, it could not be called back. The President has spoken, the initiative starts on its way. As the saying goes: One fool throws a stone into the water, a dozen wise men cannot retrieve it.
Once the "meeting" had been announced, it became an important enterprise. The experts of all parties started to work frantically on the undefined event, each trying to steer it in the direction which would benefit them the most.
- Bush and Condoleezza Rice want an impressive event, to prove that the United States is vigorously promoting peace and democracy, and that they can succeed where the great Henry Kissinger failed. Jimmy Carter failed to turn the Israeli-Egyptian peace into an Israeli-Palestinian peace. Bill Clinton failed at Camp David. If Bush succeeds where all his illustrious predecessors have failed, won't that show who is the greatest of them all?
- Ehud Olmert urgently needs a resounding political achievement in order to blur the memory of his dismal failure in the Second Lebanon War and to extricate himself from the dozen or so criminal investigations for corruption that are pursuing him. His ambition knows no bounds: he wants to be photographed shaking the hand of the King of Saudi Arabia. A feat no Israeli prime minister before him has achieved.
- Mahmoud Abbas wants to show Hamas and the rebellious factions in his own Fatah movement that he can succeed where the great Yasser Arafat failed - to be accepted among the world's leaders as an equal partner.
This could, therefore, become a great, almost historic conference, if …
IF ALL these hopes were something more than pipedreams. None of them has any substance
IRAN
IRAN HAS A RELIGIOUS POLICE—SO DO WE
CNN: Polygamous-sect leader Warren Jeffs is sentenced to five years to life in prison for arranging the marriage of a minor, AP report
SMITH GONE, SO IS RHODESIA
NYT: Ian Douglas Smith, the former prime minister of the rebellious British colony of Rhodesia, who rose to power and then slipped from it again, committed all the while to an unshakable belief that Africa without whites would not work, died. He was 88.
DALAI LAMA MAY CHOSE SUCCESSOR
Tibet's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama said he is open to naming his successor before he dies, going against centuries of tradition but ensuring that China does not interfere.
"If the Tibetan people want to keep the Dalai Lama system, one of the possibilities I have been considering with my aides is to select the next Dalai Lama while I'm alive," he told Japan's Sankei Shimbun in an interview published Tuesday.
BANGLADESH STORM TOLL TOPS 3000
Media News And Financial Crisis Update-The Two Issues I Am Focused On
ALJAZEERA SAYS WE WILL SOON BE ABLE TO SEE ALJAZEERA IN THE USA
EJC: Al Jazeera English will launch on an American network within the next six months, according to its London bureau chief. Sue Phillips said the channel - which is currently only available online in the US through link-ups including a deal with YouTube - is overcoming misinterpretations about its agenda that earned it 'the terrorist channel' label.
Speaking as the 24-hour news channel celebrated its first anniversary this week, Phillips, former bureau chief for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, also tackled critics who claimed it practices self-censorship in Qatar because it is financed by the country's ruler. Phillips said the ultimate aim was for Al Jazeera English to fund itself through subscriptions and advertising.
Al Jazeera English was launched on 15 November last year with three main broadcast centres, in Kuala Lumpur, London and Washington, to supplement its central hub in the Qatar capital Doha. Al Jazeera English has a team of more than 700 staff working in 18 bureaux worldwide in addition to the Al Jazeera network's 40-plus bureaux. A distribution deal in India is understood to be in the pipeline. (Press Gazette)
FALUN GONG DOC AIRS IN CANADA
EPOCH TIMES: CBC reporters in China pestered over Falun Gong doc, says filmmakerThe independent producer of a documentary about the persecution of Falun Gong that is scheduled to air on CBC Newsworld Tuesday night says he was told Chinese officials have approached reporters in China about the film. Peter Rowe, writer and producer of Beyond the Red Wall: The Persecution of Falun Gong, says an executive of CBC Newsworld told him Saturday morning about the pressure on CBC's China staff.
The documentary was initially set to air on CBC Newsworld's The Lens on Nov. 6, but was pulled hours before its scheduled airing time to be 'reviewed,' according to CBC spokesman Jeff Keay. A media storm was triggered after CBC officials admitted they had received calls from Chinese Embassy and consulate officials who had expressed concerns about Red Wall.
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GLOBALVISION HAS A FALUN GONG DOCUMENTARY TOO. WE WERE FIRST!
SEE: FALUN GONG'S CHALLENGE TO CHINA—The first film on the controversial spiritual practice that China brands an "evil cult."
Order through Globalvision.org. Directed by Danny Schechter, author of a book by the same name (Akashic Books)
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WGA Strike Captain Comes Out for Net Neutrality
by Matt Stoller
This post from Kate Purdy at United Hollywood makes connections between big media, consolidation, the FCC, and net neutrality.
"Because it is choking our thoughts, our voice, and our rights as a society. If they control all the media, they control how our collective unconscious is shaped. For the few uber-rich and incredibly powerful, it behooves them to keep us in the dark - to keep us stupid…
"Right now the Internet is still a place for democratic participation. This is because of a little thing called Net Neutrality. But, even that is under fire by big media corporations who want to control the web by gutting Net Neutrality."
It's fascinating how the right to express ourselves and connect to one another is so fundamental to this strike. It's as if net neutrality and a powerful activist and progressive FCC is the 21st century equivalent of strong labor laws and the first amendment rolled into one.
CNN: Media Investors Fear '08 Recession
Media investors are growing increasingly worried about the possibility of an economic slowdown hitting advertising spending in 2008. Shares of CBS, Disney, News Corp. and Time Warner have each tumbled about 5% so far this month. But Internet ad spending is "holding up nicely."
MTV GOES SAUDI
As part of a significant expansion in the Middle East, MTV Networks International launched a free-to-air Arabic language service MTV Arabia on November 17.
THIS IS BIG—-FINANCIAL NEWS: SUMMERS PREDICTS CREDIT CARD IMPLOSION
Banking and Finance: Crisis likely to hit credit card firms
GULF NEWS: Dubai: A payment default crisis similar to the one that hitting the US housing mortgage finance market could strike the credit card business, according to experts.
The US financial system has been shaken by defaults in the US subprime market, where loans were made to people seen as less creditworthy.
Since the similar people are also seen owing money in credit cards, in some cases using plastic to make mortgage payments, the industry is seen susceptible to large-scale defaults from securitised credit card assets.
"I would be surprised if we did not hear more about the credit card issue in the next three months," Larry Summers, former US treasury secretary and chief economist for the World Bank, told a conference at the Dubai International Financial Centre on Tuesday.
HOW BAD IS THE FINANCIAL CRISIS?
The Market Oracle says the financial crisis is worse then you think"
In A Short History of Financial Euphoria , John Kenneth Galbraith observes: "All crises have involved debt that, in one fashion or another, has become dangerously out of scale in relation to the underlying means of payment." We have now reached this ' Minsky Moment .' According to Morgan Stanley, the risk is now greater than 50% that the financial system "will come to a grinding halt."
Gregory Peters, head of Credit Strategy for Morgan Stanley, describes the process of securitization, which "has created this cheap financing environment," as "broken." Goldman Sachs chief, U.S. economist Jan Hatzius, estimates that lending will be curbed by $2 Trillion . The last time the economy had to endure this kind of systemic shock was 1930:
"Several brokerage houses tumbled; blue-sky investment companies formed during the happy bull market days went to smash, disclosing miserable tales of rascality; over a thousand banks caved in during 1930, as a result of marking down both of real estate and of securities; and in December occurred the largest bank failure in American financial history, the fall of the ill-named Bank of the United States in New York." (Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920's by Fredrick Lewis Allen)
"HOW ARE WE GOING TO GET OUT OF THIS?"
NY TIMES: "Stock Markets plummeted yesterday on a fresh round of questions about Citigroup and the financial sector. The Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 200 points, to reach its lowest close since the depths of this summer's subprime woes.
Traders are beginning to wonder just how long the sell-off will last.
"The market can't buy good news right now," said Ryan Larson, senior equity trader at Voyageur Asset Management. "It leaves people wondering, 'What's the catalyst to buy? How are we going to get out of this?'"
AN ECONOMY ON THE BRINK OF SNAPPING
YALE ECON PROFESSOR SAYS GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRASH IS IMMINENT
READ BOB HERBERT OF NY TIME ON SUBPRIME SWINDLERS
CHINA WORRIED ABOUT BUBBLE BURSTING
BEIJING - AP: Premier Wen Jiabao is warning that China needs to prevent an asset bubble from forming in its stock market and to curb real estate speculation, a government news agency reported Tuesday.
The report by the Xinhua News Agency, quoting Wen speaking during a visit to Singapore, made no mention of specific new measures to regulate stock and real estate prices following a boom in both markets.
"At a time when stock prices are high, there are voices that want to stop an asset bubble, and in addition saying that if the bubble bursts, it will hurt China's economy," Wen was quoted as saying in a speech Monday. "I feel both views are correct."
China's main stock index has fallen from record highs but still is up 96 percent since the start of this year. And housing prices are at record highs despite government controls meant to ensure adequate low-cost housing for the poor.
Wen said the government will rely on market forces to regulate real estate prices.
"But we also need to have macro-controls by the government to prevent real estate speculation from causing market disorder," the premier was quoted as saying.
BEIJING SAYS NO TO CURRENCY REVALUATION
Nov. 20 (Bloomberg) — A big Chinese currency revaluation would invite speculation and damage growth, said Fan Gang, an adviser to the People's Bank of China.
Sharp increases in the yuan's value would trigger "large speculative capital inflows and outflows that will kill China's growth and financial stability,'' Fan, a member of the central bank's monetary policy committee, said at an investment forum in Seoul today.
Officials from the Group of Seven nations have increased pressure on China to allow the yuan to appreciate more and take the burden off other currencies. French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said Nov. 18 that the yuan causes "tensions.''
"What would happen after a large — say 40 percent to 50 percent — appreciation of the yuan? Another request in two years,'' Fan said. He was referring to U.S. lawmakers' calls for bigger gains.
SWISS BANK "DEEPLY EMBARRASSED" IN BILLION-DOLLAR HIT
The International Herald Tribune reports:
Swiss Reinsurance, the biggest reinsurer in the world, said Monday that it had taken a $1.07 billion write-down for the value of some derivatives, making it the latest casualty of the U.S. subprime crisis that is now spreading beyond lenders and investment banks.
Swiss Re, whose financial-services division is run by Roger Ferguson, a former U.S. Federal Reserve governor, said that it had recorded the losses, which it called "deeply embarrassing," when it sold two credit-default swaps as protection against declines in the value of investments mainly backed by mortgages.
NYT: Freddie Mac Posts $2 Billion Loss
Freddie Mac set aside $1.2 billion in the third quarter to account for bad home loans and the company posted a $2 billion loss today amid a worsening mortgage crisis.
Financialweek.com reports: Risk managers return (belatedly) to Street
Chastened banks, brokerages get religion on minimizing exposure to hidden bombs. Coulda, woulda, shoulda?
As commercial banks and brokerages announce yet more write-downs on subprime-related assets that continue to crush credit markets, a growing chorus is asking: "Where were the risk managers?"
Even banking executives who have thus far emerged relatively unscathed by the credit crisis are scratching their heads over what exactly went wrong within other financial institutions. "People have done their homework [on the investments they made]," Madelyn Antoncic, formerly chief risk officer at Lehman Brothers and now the bank's global head of financial market policy relations, said at a Standard & Poor's banking conference last week. "It's more a 'who'd have thunk it' type thing. A perfect storm."
GLOBE AND MAIL: PANIC IN CANADA TOO
Shortly past 8 a.m. on an already sweltering August Monday, a small team of financiers hurried down a flight of stairs in one of Montreal's most historic office buildings to watch a modern disaster unfold. The men, senior executives with National Bank Financial, were hurrying to a cavernous room on the main floor of the beaux-arts Sun Life building where more than 100 traders buy and sell billions of dollars of stocks, currencies and debt instruments every day.
Leading the group was Ricardo Pascoe, a wiry, soft-spoken derivatives specialist who was named co-chief executive officer of National Bank of Canada's securities arm a year earlier.
At his side was his top legal executive, Brian Davis. Mr. Pascoe whisked the group past long lines of noisy trading desks to a normally quiet corner where a half dozen men and women were feverishly working the phones. The traders were seeking buyers for a Byzantine class of short-term debt called asset-backed commercial paper. Known by the clunky abbreviation ABCP, the paper had become a money market darling in the past decade, accounting for more than 30 per cent of Canada's $360-billion short-term debt market.
The 30-day and 60-day notes paid interest generated by bundles of mortgages, car loans and other debts pooled in special vehicles called conduits or trusts. These conduits were hard to understand, even by many lawyers and bankers, but the lack of transparency never seemed to bother investors, who snapped up the notes because they offered some of the highest interest rates going, boasted the best credit ratings and were sold by the world's leading banks. The Globe and Mail.
Yet on this morning, investors were beginning to panic that an unknown quantity of toxic subprime mortgages had infected the assets that backed Canadian ABCP.
The System is in BIG Trouble.
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DANNY SCHECHTER'S NEW BOOK ON THE CRISIS AVAILABLE NOW
FOR THE BACKGROUND ON THIS CRISIS, READ YOUR NEWS DISSECTOR'S NEW E-BOOK "SQUEEZED: America As The Bubble Bursts." It is up to the minute. You can download from this site.
Donations welcome for the l80 page book to our financial awareness project at the Global Center 575 8th Avenue #2200, New York, New York 10018. Suggested donation $25.00
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Subscribe to my weekly credit and debt newsletter up now at stopthesqueeze.org
Remembering Anita, Dissing Nancy and Discussing "Redacted"
MEDIA FAIRNESS FOR MUMIA?
Hans Bennet writes:
On Dec. 6, NBC's The Today Show intends to air a show about Michael Smerconish and Maureen Faulkner's new book "Murdered By Mumia." (Faulkner is the wife of a Philadelphia Policemen allegedly killed by Mumia.) According to the announcement on Michael Smerconish's website, the show is planning to feature both Smerconish and Faulkner as guests.
The International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal (FreeMumia.com), Journalists for Mumia (Abu-Jamal-News.com), and Educators for Mumia (EmajOnline.com) have initiated a media-activist campaign urging people to write The Today Show at today@msnbc.com asking them to fairly present both sides of the Mumia Abu-Jamal / Daniel Faulkner case, by also featuring as guests, Linn Washington, Jr. (Philadelphia Tribune columnist and Associate Professor of Journalism at Temple University) and Dr. Suzanne Ross (Clinical Psychologist and Co-Chair of the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition, NYC).
NY TIMES AO SCOTT REVIEWS "REDACTED" IN VIDEO
NEW PLAY IN NYC ON JAMES BALDWIN, an Inspiration and friend.
FINALLY, SOME NEWS FROM HARPERS.ORG
A man in rural Tennessee was accused of raping his teenage daughters, whom he controlled with wireless electric-shock dog collars; an Atlanta wrestler named Hardbody Harrison, who calls his fists "The Pork Chop" and "The Biscuit Cutter," was on trial for keeping nine women as sex slaves; and a Washington man was arrested after he beat his girlfriend for giving him a wet willie. British scientists workingwith negative index metamaterials said that they were developing a technique that could someday be used to capture a rainbow.
Watch here: NEW VIDEO ON NANCY NORD:
The video calls for the resignation of the nation's top product safety official, Nancy Nord, for opposing legislation to strengthen Consumer Product Safety Commission oversight on toy safety while taking trips paid for by the toy industry.
WATCH: REMEMBERING ANITA RODDICK
This is a tribute to the late Anita Roddick, founder of the Body Shop and friend of Globalvision.
THE SHOOTING OF ITALIAN JOURNALIST GIULIANA SREGNA REVISITED
TRAVELIN MAN
I will be off to Boston later today on the Vamoose Wi-Fi equipped bus to see my dad for the holiday. In the morning I will be on the radio first with KPFA in Berkley and then with Santita Jackson on WVON in Chicago, and I may be in the windy city this weekend to screen IN DEBT WE TRUST. A Dissector's work is never done.
Happy Holiday to one and all. Back Monday or sooner if the X Factor intrudes or the Great OZ calls.
Comment to Dissector@mediachannel.org
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