TV News LIES

Before I got started I wanted to define just one word: Fascism. I spent hours wandering in the vastness of the Google and by the time I called it quits I had thousands of words mined from scholars, historians, and politicians. I then boiled them all down to these 109 words:

Benito Mussolini said, “Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power.”

Leon Trotsky, “The historic function of fascism is to smash the working class, destroy its organizations, and stifle political liberties when the capitalists find themselves unable to govern and dominate with the help of democratic machinery.”

The count of breathtakingly insane religions, cults, and allied wackos on the scene on any given day is limited only by your ability to use higher numbers.  Members always profess goodness and light, then commit dark and damaging acts.  The claims are high-minded, the deeds are low down.

Religion is an ancient subject and it gets older all the time.  Very old.

Sample just one nutball, a so-called pastor, by name of Terry Jones -- yes, the same one who burned Korans last year, instigating days of intensive rioting in Afghanistan.  This year, he's out to best his record, and has succeeded:  He backed a film providing insults aplenty for Muslims, who say it defames Islam and its holiest figure, Mohammad.

Once again, rioting and death follow this pastor's so-called good works.

Japan is planning a move to shutter all nuclear plants by the 2030s, Japanese media reported Thursday, a major policy shift for a resource-poor nation that once depended on atomic power for a third of its energy.

The nuclear phaseout, reported by both the Kyodo News agency and broadcaster NHK based on a draft of the policy, comes amid fierce political debate about this country’s 50 operable reactors, which are both prone to disaster and vital to the economy.

A lie wrapped in an apology is still a lie. It is a big lie, a particularly offensive lie, coming as it does from the German company Chemie Grünenthal responsible for inflicting its notorious drug thalidomide on hundreds of thousands of women in 52 countries.

Some 90,000 babies are calculated to have died in spontaneous abortion, but at least 10,000 mothers are known to have given birth to malformed babies between 1958 and 1961; the most damaged survive today as limbless trunks, others whose legs and arms were reduced to digital “flipper” extrusions from the shoulder, and thousands have severe internal injuries as well.

There’s one news outlet that has been very unsympathetic to the striking teachers and staff in Chicago, to say the least. Fox News has been blasting the Chicago Teachers Union since the strike began; host Greta Van Sustern proudly proclaimed that “CHILDREN LOSE!” on her blog as teachers began their actions.

But in its spree of teacher-bashing, there’s one very serious conflict of interest that Fox News has failed to disclose.

In a run-down theater on a seedy stretch of Hollywood Boulevard this summer, an independent movie made its debut. The acting was amateurish, the dialogue clunky and the costumes no better than those sold for Halloween. Even with a pretty young woman beckoning pedestrians inside, fewer than 10 people attended.

But three months later, the movie — "Innocence of Muslims" — would be blamed the world over for inciting mobs in Egypt and Libya. The movie was filmed and first released in Southern California, but much else about its origins remains a mystery.

The new federal agency charged with enforcing consumer finance laws is emerging as an ambitious sheriff, taking on companies for deceptive fees and marketing and unmoved by protests that its tactics go too far.

In the 14 months it has existed, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has launched dozens of enforcement probes and issued more than 100 subpoenas demanding data, testimony and marketing materials -- sometimes amounting to millions of pages -- from companies that include credit card lenders, for-profit colleges and mortgage servicers.

Two U.S. Navy destroyers are steaming their way toward the Libyan coast in the latest move by the White House and Pentagon to bolster American security forces in the country.

The USS Laboon and USS McFaul, both Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, have reportedly been sent to the waters near the North African nation, according to reports by CNN. It remains unclear as to what the warships' mission will be once they arrive on station in the Mediterranean, but both vessels are armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles.