The McLaughlin Group

Please join us for another freewheeling edition of "The McLaughlin Group" this weekend.  Check your local listings for time and channel, or visit www.McLaughlin.com for more information.

Comments

[gringoman]

M/M, I prefer "n"pr over imus. At least they are upfront about their LIEberalism.. imus still pretends to be an america n but he has long sold his soul.. not for a false, evil ideology like socialism or islam, but for MONEY..
Posted by: Ummah Gummah | October 02, 2009 at 07:56 PM
______________________
Thanks UG. I’m going to use that time to launch a new work out program.

I don’t listen to NPR that much, but I love “A Prairie Home Companion”, even if Garrison Keillor is a Liberal. Just want to point out that when I found what I thought was a cool link about the 75th reunion of Civil War Veterans from NPR, Gringoman criticized it for having a bit of a liberal spin. I noticed he hasn’t said anything to you about being an NPR fan.

Posted by: M/M | October 03, 2009 at 07:25 AM

OMG, M/M, where have you been?

Recently I nominated for COOL CODGER OF THE YEAR a 91-year old NY pianist, Hank Jones, after interview which was heard, as I indicated, on NPR.

Maybe you were working out?

ps I'm not in the business of telling people what to listen or not listen to, whether Imus or NPR. I tend to focus instead on what I choose to listen to and let others do likewise. It's called listen and let listen.

Posted by: gringoman |

[M/M]

Apologies Gringoman, but I do remember your Hank Jones post, but dont remember the interview on NPR. I am listening to Patty Loveless on "A Prairie Home Companion". NPR does seem to have some interesting cultural programs.

UG and I are discussing the Imus controversy.

[xbjllb]

Just caught the show. Loved the story about Nixon and Hillary. He should have said it to her face, it would have really cracked her up and they'd have a great laugh over it.

And maybe it was edited out, but I didn't hear a peep from our Warrior Princess when Eleanor called Nixon "the last Republican liberal."

I didn't know he'd advocated universal health care; one more reason yet to like him. If only he hadn't been so paranoid and let it get the better of him, he would have been one of the greats. Still is and will always be for finally ending the debacle (for the world; HUGE success for war contractors) of Viet Nam.

Of course, most conservatives would still gladly be fighting Viet Nam today if Poppy Bush's CIA had run a few jets into skyscrapers, demolished them, and blamed North Vietnamese villagers in shorts and coolie hats.

Nixon had a better way to beat Chinese Communism. Infect it with capitalism. So far it's working.

Come to think of it, Richard Nixon was a genius after all.

[M/M]

XBJLLB,

I was interupted and missed that part. You might want to check out "Frost/Nixon" if you haven't seen it already.

[gringoman]

Apologies Gringoman, but I do remember your Hank Jones post, but dont remember the interview on NPR. I am listening to Patty Loveless on "A Prairie Home Companion". NPR does seem to have some interesting cultural programs.

UG and I are discussing the Imus controversy.

Posted by: M/M | October 03, 2009 at 06:57 PM

No problemo, M/M. While I never tell others what to listen or not listen to, I might mention what I happen to be hearing at a specific moment in time. If others want to hear it, fine. If they don't, that's fine too.

Imus controversy? I think I've made my own views abundantly clear on l'Affaire de Monsieur Imus.

Prairie Home Companion on NPR, "where the men are okay and the women are strong"? I listened to that for so many years, it might even pre-date my voting for Bubba Clinton in 1992---last time I ever voted for a Democrat. Garrison Keillor has tried to run with Will Rogers and Mark Twain. He was never in Twain's league (who is?) but at times he came perilously close and captured real American heartland humor and did it very well indeed. Unlike today's typical stand-up comedian, he could create real characters and with a sense of community, gently but sharply satirized. Definitely talented. I haven't heard him in a while, I think he does mostly re-runs now. He experimented with living in New York, then went back to his Lake Woebegone hustings with a Danish wife.

[gringoman]

LANGUAGE ALERT!

There is a new phrase out (Okay, maybe not brand new, in fact definitely not brand new, but I just heard it for first time, "ON AIR" last night.) In that sense, it is "brand new" in being broadcast on large Media. It is potent and ranks with gringoisms like 'Liberal Racism' (although David Horowitz, as DJ pointed out, may have been the first to use 'Liberal Racism'---until we find out who used it prior to Horowitz.)

This is just a quick post. No time for analysis, details etc. and why I like this new term (even if it was originated by a source who the broadcaster did not credit.)

'CORPORATE COMMUNISM'.

True, this term is clearly related to the original gringomanic, 'the Corporate/Socialist/Democrat Media'. So what? It's honed, condensed, and very good, even the thought has been thought in gringolandia for years. I like it. I reccommend it to thinkers and patriots. The point (which can be expounded on later): This term reverberates deeply with what is actually happening in today's reality in US AND it was used last night by a young, known, on-air personality, not just by an obscure gringoman, The Grey Panther.

Who knows, maybe Monica will come around, even though she stubbornly resists such powerful terms as 'Liberal Racist' and 'neocom'? (Sweetheart, somebody who's in the game is boldly using it, on air.)

I do suspect that our Monica is a bit too Republican to use 'CORPORATE Communism'. But who knows?

More later, including the broadcast personality who has "outed" himself on use of "Corporate Communism.'

[xbjllb]

"Frost/Nixon"

----

Thanks, it's been on my list for awhile but now I'll move it up.

[M/M]

Gringoman, thanks for sharing any programs you find interesting. Garrison Keillor's shows are live, but he reruns them in the summer. He did live shows last year in NYC and I expect he will do more shows from NYC.

XBJLLB, you're welcome. Tell me what you think if you decide to rent it.

[M/M]

I thought the new Imus was fabulous. Charles McCord was LOL funny, they introduced a Miranda Lambert remake of this song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jCjefemrq8&feature=related
which I loved.

Matt Taibbi stole the show by explaining naked short-selling and how that contributed to the collapse of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers:

Taibbi writes:

“On Tuesday, March 11th, 2008, somebody – nobody knows who – made one of the craziest bets Wall Street has ever seen. The mystery figure spent $1.7 million on a series of options, gambling that shares in the venerable investment bank Bear Stearns would lose more than half of their value in nine days or less. It was madness – “like buying 1.7 million lottery tickets,” according to one financial analyst.”

Bear’s stock would have to drop by more than half in a matter of days for the mystery figure to make a profit. And that is what happened.

As Taibbi explains, “the very next day, March 12, Bear went into a free fall…Whoever bought those options on March 11th woke up on the morning of March 17th having made 159 times his money, or roughly $270 million. This trader was either the luckiest guy in the world, the smartest son of a bitch ever or…Or what?”

Taibbi speculates (as has Deep Capture) that these options might have been purchased by somebody who was abusing the options market maker exemption to engage in illegal naked short selling. And Taibbi goes beyond speculation to state, as an obvious fact, that illegal naked short selling helped bring Bear Stearns to its knees.

Presumably operating under that assumption, the SEC issued more than 50 subpoenas to Wall Street firms in the wake of Bear’s collapse, but “it has yet to indentify the mysterious trader who somehow seemed to know in advance that one of the five largest investment banks in America was going to completely tank in matter of days.”

Taibbi continues: “The SEC’s halfhearted oversight didn’t go unnoticed by the market. Six months after Bear was eaten by predators, virtually the same scenario repeated itself in the case of Lehman Brothers – another top-five investment bank that in September 2008 was vaporized in an obvious case of market manipulation. From there, the financial crisis was on, and the global economy went into full-blow crater mode.”
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x485604#