Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: A Weblog

How are the journalists taking a dive here? For reporting the FBI's response? Looks to me like it's more like the FBI, to say nothing of the Senate Intelligence folks, taking the dive. No? This article is the only one in the mainstream U.S. media I've seen recently on this important topic. And it even advances the story somewhat closer to where we know TPM already is, which is not bad.

The FBI couldn't interview Rocco while he was here in the US last month, because he was busy fabricating those four Bush Reservist letters on behalf of the NeoCon Roveites, getting them in the hands of a shill who could take down CBS, with them, the whole Bush war-service debate.

Along with one of the last semi-objective medias.

Only six corporations control all US news. Fox, MSNBC, ABC, ESPN and AOL T-W are Bush Speak, leaving only CNN and Viacom. But Turner has been booted out by his board, and Viacom slammed with $550,000 fine for showing JJ's boob at half-time.

The NeoCons don't f&*k around. Their end-game is total world domination. Get it? Total like MSFT. Once they control all the news, then they can control independent media, starving it of advertising and an audience.

Then, as another poster pointed out, we'll all be happy little furballs, chirruping away in our rabbit hutches, 25% interest on our outstanding debt, wages declining year over year along with the value of the US dollar, real estate and transportation soaring until we're left living out in the desert, in a beat up old trailer, trading our food stamps for kitty kibbles and surplus cheese and MD50-50.

There's the Kaibab deer, and then there's the NeoCon badgers. Badgers have sharper claws....

A rabbi and a priest get into a car accident and it's a bad one. Both cars are totally demolished, but amazingly, neither are hurt.

They crawl out of their cars and the rabbi sees the priest's collar and says, "So you're a priest. I'm a rabbi. Just look at our cars. There's nothing left but we are unhurt. This must be a sign from God. He must have meant that we should meet and be friends and live together in peace the rest of our days."

And the priest said, "I agree with you completely. This must be a sign from God."

And the rabbi said, "And look at this. Here's another miracle. My car is completely demolished but this bottle of Mogen David wine didn't break; surely God wants us to drink this wine and celebrate our good fortune."

And so he handed the bottle to the priest. The priest said he agreed, took a few big swigs, and handed the bottle back to the rabbi. The rabbi took the bottle, didn't drink at all, put the cap on, and handed it back to the priest.

The priest asked, "Aren't you going to have any?"

And the rabbi replied, "No . . . I think I'll just wait for the police."

http://www.comfo.ca/us/jap/oygevalt1.html

%)

If you read through the Newsweek piece, it's pretty obvious that the reporters don't believe the FBI. Right after the paragraph where the FBI says they don't have permission to interview Rocco, the story continues:

"The case has taken on additional intrigue because of mounting indications that Martino has longstanding relationships with European intelligence agencies. Martino recently told the Sunday Times of London that he had previously worked for SISMI, the Italian military-intelligence agency, a potentially noteworthy part of his resume given that the conservative Italian government of Berlasconi was a strong supporter of the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq."

That's a pretty clear way of saying that the FBI is full of it. Reporters don't always have to denounce something as a lie to demonstrate that it is a lie...

CBS' decision to go with the Guard story is maddening. If they had run the Niger documents story, I would know a lot less about vintage typewriters, but our national discourse this last week might have been about something that actually matters.

I think the US should increase the aid grants we gift to Israel every year from $5,000,000,000 to $50,000,000,000, and let them fight as our proxy.

Hey, Zionism got Bush drunk and got us into this!
$50,000,000,000 a year for fifty years stalemate is a steal, vers soon $1,000,000,000,000 deficit.

Do the opportunity cost declining balance calcs.

This is a slight digression, but I have to point out that "Viacom slammed with $550,000 fine" is like me being "slammed" a Canadian nickel. Punishment isn't a deterrent if it doesn't hurt.

End of slight digression. For a MAJOR digression, consult Lash Marks, above.

The original story was of such consequence. How could the producers, not have known what the priority should be?

Brad, I too, think you should rethink this one.

An article that gets the FBI on record as saying that they have no interviewed a source for a major intelligence scandal is not taking a dive. That kind of reporting is what allows Josh Marshall or Laura Rozen to write their critiques of the FBI.

It's as if the Bush administration thinks we need a permission slip to interview this guy...

> Teresa’s friends and family believed they
> were the elect of God, deserving of obeisance
> and total obedience from their
> slaves. Sound familiar?

Sure does sound familiar. Sounds like the Bush party platform to me.

BTW the reason the FBI didn't know Martino was here is that they were too busy defending us from Cat Stevens.

I spent a lot of time with one such lovely and she even taught me the song “English Country Garden.”

And how long did it take you, Adrian, to perform the impressive intellectual feat of learning the song? Six months? A year? Do tell us, and then go back to studying for your GED.

Dear Brad,

Thank you so much!

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/23/business/23income.html

Study Finds Accelerating Decline in Corporate Taxes
By LYNNLEY BROWNING

America's largest and most profitable companies paid less in corporate income taxes in the last three years, even as they increased profits, according to a study released yesterday.

Companies have always used write-offs, depreciation, deductions and loopholes to lower their taxes, but the study, by Citizens for Tax Justice and its affiliate, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, suggested that tax breaks and subsidies enacted during the Bush administration had accelerated the decline in tax payments.

The study also cited the proliferation of abusive tax shelters and increasingly aggressive corporate lobbying as fueling the decline in tax payments by corporations.

The study was done by nonprofit research and advocacy groups that have been supported in part by labor unions. They contend that the tax system favors wealthy corporations and individuals.

The study, Corporate Income Taxes in the Bush Years, surveyed public filings by 275 of the nation's largest and most profitable companies, based on revenue from the Fortune 500 list of 2004. The 275 companies reported pretax profits from operations in the United States of $1.1 trillion from 2001 through 2003, the study said, yet reported to the Internal Revenue Service and paid taxes on half that amount.

Robert S. McIntyre, the lead author of the study, wrote, "The fact that America's companies were allowed to report less than half of their actual U.S. profits to the I.R.S., while ordinary wage earners have to report every penny of their earnings, has to undermine public respect for the tax system."

Marshall wants to be a player--or perhaps he thinks he's truly a player (he donated money towards the Italian's air-fare to New York). He has something to tell the FBI--and, through the FBI, Patrick Fitzgerald--which he considers to be of consequence concerning the Plame affair. The FBI, however, seems to believe that Marshall has nothing of consequence to tell them--from which I conclude that Marshall knows as little as anyone else about Fitzgerald's grand jury proceedings (namely nothing). I'm impressed by Fitzgerald's discipline--so very different from Kenneth Starr's!

alabama,
Unless you in fact know something that the rest of us don't, you seem to be confusing the Plame investigation with the FBI's investigation into the Niger documents, instigated by Sen. Rockefeller of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Even if these two have been consolidated, I don't see how your post makes much sense, notwithstanding the fact that Fitzgerald has been disciplined about leaks about his grand jury investigation.

We sit, watching the setting sun
bathe its last glory on the Republic.

The trouble with relying on even slightly subtle condemnation from the press is that the public mostly doesn't seem to notice. Saying things straight out makes it easier for the reader to connect the dots. Fox News certainly seems to be able to reach strong conclusions, even when the conclusion is not based on any known fact. If the reporter only sticks a subtle dart into the FBI, is it cleverness, or cowardice?

The important part of the Newsweek story, which Josh did not excerpt is this. CBS had the Niger forgery story (on which Josh Marshall and Laura Rozen worked) in the can and ready to go on Sept 8.
Dan Rather's TANG story pushed that story out.
How sad and what a bad karma! CBS now may not run Niger forgery story at all. What a loss for the public and for the staff involved in the story!

Unless I'm mistaken, JeffL, Marshall himself has suggested, in more than one post, that there's a linkage of some kind between the two--that one party (Fitzgerald)is pursuing leads in both areas at the same time, and is doing so with the assistance of the FBI (there might be still other linked investigations of which we've never heard). Anyway, it's my point that the FBI's (and Fitzgerald's) time and resources are finite, and that, for reasons of economy, they may well have decided that Marshall's Italian source(and indeed the whole yellow-cake thread) are not what they need to pursue at the moment. I'm not a mind-reader, but I do believe that Fitzgerald and the FBI are on to something, and that they're applying themselves to it accordingly (wishful thinking, perhaps, on my part).

Hopefully, we will now find out whether we still have ANY independent media organizations left in this country. The clue will be whether the NY Times, the Christian Science Monitor, CNN, or damned near ANYBODY picks up this story and runs with it (if Fox News does it, I'm entering a monastery - the Second Coming will be at hand).

Want some wishful thinking, alabama? How about what you say about Fitzgerald being onto something is true, plus everybody, the FBI included, recognizes that the Niger uranium thread, which after all played no small part in getting us into this war, is important enough to spend some of the FBI's other finite resources on. How much resources would it take, after all, to interview Martino during one of his trips to the U.S. -- they wouldn't even need to spring for airfare. All this even presuming the two investigations have been united, of which I am not yet convinced (though I don't really have any idea). ANyway, thanks for the clarification.