GOVERNMENT BAILOUTS, MAIN STREAM MEDIA AND A COMPLETE LACK OF COVERAGE

Want to know if the news is lying to you? When it's on.

Our journalism integrity has been reduced to the likes of me, a once proud reporter reduced to on line blogging. Nothing is wrong with blogging mind you, but I do miss my mid-five figure salary for one that is a pittance of that.With all major media reduced to six, some say four, companies, free speech is dead as a medium on any network as corporate interests come first and news now must make a profit.

Let's start with the most obvious form of propaganda: Fox News. I watch Fox News. This is not due to any sort of brand loyalty but MSNBC is too liberal for my taste and CNN makes me want to throw my TV through the window. Fox actually has some good reporting skills, thus the reason they are the most popular of the three. However, they also guilty of the most false stories and propaganda than the other two combined, which means if you watch Fox News realize that every third story is bunk. It's kind of like reading Drudge Report, which I absolutely love, but is definitely guilty of slanting their stories to the right, like Breitbart.com, the Drudge protege.

Anything  having to do with politics is usually an outright lie. But stupid people can't differentiate between the two and read it as gospel. These are usually the same brain powers who believe the entire Bible is true (it's isn't unless God is a raving, schizophrenic loon), gays are evil, abortion is everyone's decision, and the government should stop every program they don't directly benefit from. You know, the Tea Party. The worst of Fox are their unwatchable morning programs with three people I cannot believe are not mentally challenged and their prime time fascist salute to everything Hitler would have approved of with GOP zombie, Sean Hannity, infecting people with his rampant stupidity leading the charge. I don't know what it is about people like Scott Walker and Sean Hannity but they both have such a smug satisfaction, douchebag look all the time that I would love to see someone, someday haul off and roundhouse these two fuckwads.

But it is this brand of propaganda, which is completely illegal by the way unless this new law passes which would let the government lie to us with impunity, that is making us dumber. The war on drugs proves this. Rick "Cromedome" Scott has tried for years to make millions off his Florida drug testing centers, 31 at least, by increasing drug testing on everyone from the unemployed to welfare to food stamps recipients. Notice "governors and senators" and mysteriously missing from the group. The state Supreme Court has ruled it unconstitutional on the ground that it is. You cannot single out a group of people in this country and make them accountable for something the rest of the populace is exempt from. Imagine if they ruled white people couldn't own guns. Or if men had to sleep with the fattest women on the planet for three weeks out of the year in order for them to get some too. You wouldn't be happy then would you?

But the Tea Party is screaming about this on Internet lately. "Why shouldn't we have drug testing for these worthless vermin?" they shout. Because first off, it's illegal you dolt. Read the Constitution maybe, you ass. Second, what part of "WE'RE BROKE" are you not getting. You want to shut down all social programs that don't break your way but we have plenty of money to see if the guy unemployed for two years is smoking a joint.

And here is where is the media really pisses me off. CNN today ran a piece claimed pot has 70% more cancer causing agents than cigarettes. Totally and provably untrue. There has never been one, NOT ONE, documented case of pot causing cancer ever. There are decades of good research, almost none of which came from this country, that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that pot is non addictive physically, less harmful than either alcohol or nicotine, and legalization decreases use, especially among the young. The later is the exact opposite of what we have here where any high school or junior high student can find the drug easily, much more than cigarettes or alcohol.

Here is what out government says:

As recently as December, R. Gil Kerlikowske, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, tied the increase in teen marijuana use to the drug's legalization for medical purposes, according to the Los Angeles Times.

"We know that any substance that is legally available is more widely used," Kerlikowske told the paper.

Here's a paper, commissioned by our own government that says the exact opposite:

http://www.iza.org/en/webcontent/publications/papers/viewAbstract?dp_id=6592

While at least a dozen state legislatures are considering bills to allow the consumption of marijuana for medicinal purposes, the federal government has recently intensified its efforts to close medical marijuana dispensaries. Federal officials contend that the legalization of medical marijuana encourages teenagers to use marijuana and have targeted dispensaries operating within 1,000 feet of schools, parks and playgrounds. Using data from the national and state Youth Risk Behavior Surveys, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 and the Treatment Episode Data Set, we estimate the relationship between medical marijuana laws and marijuana use. Our results are not consistent with the hypothesis that legalization leads to increased use of marijuana by teenagers.

Apparently, good ol' Gil there can't fucking read. How he got to his position being such a fucktard is beyond me but I hope all those cocks tasted good, because you sure are shafting the rest of us. A majority of this country wants pot legal, the money it would bring in could help us get out of the ditch we are in and could make us a better country in the process. But instead we have our candidates mired in corporate money that will never let that happen.

But for the media, this is only one issue that never gets brought up, just the standard boiler plate of MSM crap.  However, the War on Drugs fiasco isn't the biggest story they aren't telling us. This is from MoneyBags World:

Last Year Senator Bernie Sanders reported a long overdue audit of the Federal Reserve revealed an eye-popping $16 trillion in secret loans to bailout out Wall Street banks.

Bernie Sanders has now reporting that 18 Federal Reserve Board Members gave their own banks $4 trillion of these secret bailouts in the form of loans with nearly zero interest

Firm	Bailout amount
Citigroup	$2.5 Trillion
Goldman Sachs	$814 Billion
JP Morgan	$391 Billion
Lehman Brothers	$183 Billion
State Street Corporation	$42 Billion
KeyCorp	$40 Billion
Marshall & Ilsley	$21 Billion
Citibank	$21 Billion
General Electric (GE)	$16 Billion
Sun Trust	$7.5 Billion
PNC	$6.5 Billion
Texas Capital Bank	$2.3 Billion
Webster Bank	$2.2 Billion
Popular Inc	$1.2 Billion
Wilmington Trust	$550 Million
LegacyTexas	$5 Million

Here’s the text of the PDF summary released by Senator Sanders highlighting the culprits identified in the GAO audit on the Federal Reserve’s conflicts of interest.

Jamie Dimon Is Not Alone

During the financial crisis, at least 18 former and current directors from Federal Reserve Banks worked in banks and corporations that collectively received over $4 trillion in low-interest loans from the Federal Reserve.

U.S. Senator Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.) Washington, D.C. June 12, 2012

1. Jamie Dimon, the Chairman and CEO of JP Morgan Chase, has served on the Board of Directors at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York since 2007. During the financial crisis, the Fed provided JP Morgan Chase with $391 billion in total financial assistance. JP Morgan Chase was also used by the Fed as a clearinghouse for the Fed’s emergency lending programs.

In March of 2008, the Fed provided JP Morgan Chase with $29 billion in financing to acquire Bear Stearns. During the financial crisis, the Fed provided JP Morgan Chase with an 18-month exemption from risk-based leverage and capital requirements. The Fed also agreed to take risky mortgage-related assets off of Bear Stearns balance sheet before JP Morgan Chase acquired this troubled investment bank.

2. Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of General Electric, served on the New York Fed’s Board of Directors from 2006-2011. General Electric received $16 billion in low- interest financing from the Federal Reserve’s Commercial Paper Funding Facility during this time period.

3. Stephen Friedman. In 2008, the New York Fed approved an application from Goldman Sachs to become a bank holding company giving it access to cheap Fed loans. During the same period, Friedman, who was chairman of the New York Fed at the time, sat on the Goldman Sachs board of directors and owned Goldman stock, something the Fed’s rules prohibited. He received a waiver in late 2008 that was not made public. After Friedman received the waiver, he continued to purchase stock in Goldman from November 2008 through January of 2009 unbeknownst to the Fed, according to the GAO. During the financial crisis, Goldman Sachs received $814 billion in total financial assistance from the Fed.

4. Sanford Weill, the former CEO of Citigroup, served on the Fed’s Board of Directors in New York in 2006. During the financial crisis, Citigroup received over $2.5 trillion in total financial assistance from the Fed.

5. Richard Fuld, Jr, the former CEO of Lehman Brothers, served on the Fed’s Board of Directors in New York from 2006 to 2008. During the financial crisis, the Fed provided $183 billion in total financial assistance to Lehman before it collapsed.

6. James M. Wells, the Chairman and CEO of SunTrust Banks, has served on the Board of Directors at the Federal Reserve Bank in Atlanta since 2008. During the financial crisis, SunTrust received$7.5 billion in total financial assistance from the Fed.

7. Richard Carrion, the head of Popular Inc. in Puerto Rico, has served on the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York since 2008. Popular received $1.2 billion in total financing from the Fed’s Term Auction Facility during the financial crisis.

8. James Smith, the Chairman and CEO of Webster Bank, served on the Federal Reserve’s Board of Directors in Boston from 2008-2010. Webster Bank received $550 million in total financing from the Federal Reserve’s Term Auction Facility during the financial crisis.

9. Ted Cecala, the former Chairman and CEO of Wilmington Trust, served on the Fed’s Board of Directors in Philadelphia from 2008-2010. Wilmington Trust received $3.2 billion in total financial assistance from the Federal Reserve during the financial crisis.

10. Robert Jones, the President and CEO of Old National Bancorp, has served on the Fed’s Board of Directors in St. Louis since 2008. Old National Bancorp received a total of $550 millionin low-interest loans from the Federal Reserve’s Term Auction Facility during the financial crisis.

11. James Rohr, the Chairman and CEO of PNC Financial Services Group, served on the Fed’s Board of Directors in Cleveland from 2008-2010. PNC received $6.5 billion in low-interest loans from the Federal Reserve during the financial crisis.

12. George Fisk, the CEO of LegacyTexas Group, was a director at the Dallas Federal Reserve in 2009. During the financial crisis, his firm received a $5 million low-interest loan from the Federal Reserve’s Term Auction Facility.

13. Dennis Kuester, the former CEO of Marshall & Ilsley, served as a board director on the Chicago Federal Reserve from 2007-2008. During the financial crisis, his bank received over $21 billionin low-interest loans from the Fed.

14. George Jones, Jr., the CEO of Texas Capital Bank, has served as a board director at the Dallas Federal Reserve since 2009. During the financial crisis, his bank received $2.3 billion in total financing from the Fed’s Term Auction Facility.

15. Douglas Morrison, was the Chief Financial Officer at CitiBankin Sioux Falls, South Dakota, while he served as a board director at the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank in 2006. During the financial crisis, CitiBank in Sioux Falls, South Dakota received over$21 billion in total financing from the Federal Reserve.

16. L. Phillip Humann, the former CEO of SunTrust Banks, served on the Board of Directors at the Federal Reserve Bank in Atlanta from 2006-2008. During the financial crisis, SunTrust received$7.5 billion in total financial assistance from the Fed.

17. Henry Meyer, III, the former CEO of KeyCorp, served on the Board of Directors at the Federal Reserve Bank in Cleveland from 2006-2007. During the financial crisis, KeyBank (owned by KeyCorp) received over $40 billion in total financing from the Federal Reserve.

18. Ronald Logue, the former CEO of State Street Corporation, served as a board member of the Boston Federal Reserve Bank from 2006-2007. During the financial crisis, State Street Corporation received a total of $42 billion in financing from the Federal Reserve.

Think of what good all that money could have done.Instead we pissed it away in the largest bank theft in world history. And we heard nothing about it. MSM is dead. This is the new media where bloggers like me attempt to honor people like Dan Rather, Walker Cronkite and Edward R Murrow by speaking the truth. We certainly are not getting it anywhere else.