Olbermann Going To Current TV Channel

Olbermann heading to Al Gore’s Current TV channel: report

Raw Story- By Sahil Kapur
Tuesday, February 8th, 2011 — 9:26 am

WASHINGTON – Liberal former MSNBC star Keith Olbermann is reportedly taking his talents to Current TV, the channel led by former Vice President Al Gore and businessman Joel Hyatt.

The New York Times scooped in a story published Monday night that people “familiar with his plans pointed to a possible deal with the public affairs channel Current TV.”

Olbermann’s spokespersons and Current TV executives declined to comment to the Times but didn’t deny that a deal was pending. One source told the paper that Olbermann would have equity stake in Current TV.

Olbermann’s public relations firm said in a press release he would make the announcement regarding his next move on Tuesday in a private news conference.

MORE HERE

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What Role Did Comcast Play In Keith Olbermann’s Suspension?–UPDATED

What Role Did Comcast Play in Keith Olbermann’s Suspension?–UPDATED

Crooks and Liars- By karoli

November 05, 2010 12:14 PM

There is a double standard at work with regard to Keith Olbermann’s suspension, not only between other personalities appearing on MSNBC as commentators, but also at the very top level of the food chain.

Comcast now owns is about MSNBC after their acquisition was completed earlier this year is approved (and it will be, I’m sure), despite protestations from many of us. A look at campaign finance disclosures for several organizations shows that Phil Anschutz, chairman of Comcast major shareholder and content partner with Comcast, donated large sums of money to the First Amendment Alliance, one of the largest outside groups targeting Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections.

The Anschutz Corporation, wholly owned by Phil Anschutz, gave $50,000 on 9/24/2010 to the First Amendment Alliance. The two candidates targeted by the First Amendment Alliance? Jack Conway and Michael Bennet.

Keith Olbermann gave to Jack Conway’s campaign along with Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords.

In addition, the Anschutz family donated $169,900 to Republican candidates and committees during the 2010 election cycle, according to Open Secrets.

Additionally, Comcast Corporation has contributed $125,000 to the Republican Governors’ Association in the 2010 cycle (as of 9/30/2010).

There’s been a lot of chatter about MSNBC policy, and whether Olbermann should have gotten advance approval for his donations to Jack Conway, Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords on October 28th. The policy I’ve seen reads like this:

NBC and MSNBC TV require permission of the president of NBC News. (MSNBC.com is a joint venture of NBC Universal and Microsoft.)

“Anyone working for NBC News who takes part in civic or other outside activities may find that these activities jeopardize his or her standing as an impartial journalist because they may create the appearance of a conflict of interest. Such activities may include participation in or contributions to political campaigns or groups that espouse controversial positions. You should report any such potential conflicts in advance to, and obtain prior approval of, the President of NBC News or his designee.“

That language clearly says “should” and not “must”. Further, anyone who thinks Keith Olbermann is an impartial journalist should have their head examined. He’s not, never has been, never will be, and is not presented as one.

But it leaves this question lingering for me: How is it that the parent corporation of NBC and chairman of that corporation, Pat Buchanan and Joe Scarborough are accorded First Amendment rights to political speech and Keith Olbermann is not?

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Olbermann: LA Times Reports Extremist Links Uncovered As Suspect Was In Air -(VIDEO)- 01/06/10

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Maddow And Olbermann Slam Fox News…

Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann Slam Fox News Propaganda About Their Meeting with Obama

AlterNet. Posted October 27, 2009.

The commentators point out that liberals could not get an invitation to meet with President Bush to save their lives, while Obama meets with liberals and conservatives.

Recently Fox news commentators pointed to a meeting between President Obama and liberal commentators including Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann as evidence that the President has a special — and unfair — relationship with left-leaning media. In the segment below, Maddow and Olbermann hit back, pointing to out that unlike Bush, who invited only conservative media stars to the White House, Obama has met with both liberals and conservatives. Transcript below:

RACHEL MADDOW: Since Mr. Olbermann and I have been brought into this story by FOX News in this national story of White House versus FOX News, FOX News has decided to bring us into it, let‘s set the record straight here on what‘s being alleged and how the presidential — how various presidential administrations handle the media.

I have been in national talk radio since 2004. And during the Bush administration, I tried many times to get myself invitations to the White House when they held White House availabilities for administration staff or even meetings with the president for talk radio hosts. And although these meetings were billed as talk radio meetings, just talk radio meetings, they were always, in practice, during the Bush administration, exclusively for right-wing talk radio hosts. So, I could never get an invitation, much to my chagrin.

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“American Police Force” to manage Hardin Montana prison

AP ENTERPRISE: Montana jail deal raises questions

The Associated Press

Matthew Brown – ‎Sep 12, 2009‎

BILLINGS, Mont. — The Two Rivers Detention Center was promoted as the largest economic development project in decades in the small town of Hardin when the jail was built two years ago. But it has been vacant ever since.

KULR 8 video

Did I hear correctly? The spokesman for American Police Force said that they were interested in using the facility as a training center? Makes sense I guess, considering the possibility of ties to Darth Chainey and the shadow government.

City officials have searched from Vermont to Alaska for inmate contracts to fill the jail, only to be turned down at every turn and see the bonds that financed its construction fall into default. They even floated the idea of housing prisoners from Guantanamo Bay at the jail.

So when Hardin officials announced this week that they had signed a deal with a California company to fill the empty jail, it was naturally a cause for celebration. Town officials talked about throwing a party to mark the occasion, their dreams of economic salvation a step closer to being realized.

But questions are emerging over the legitimacy of the company, American Police Force.

Government contract databases show no record of the company. Security industry representatives and federal officials said they had never heard of it. On its Web site, the company lists as its headquarters a building in Washington near the White House that holds “virtual offices.” A spokeswoman for the building said American Police Force never completed its application to use the address.

And it’s unclear where the company will get the inmates for the jail. Montana says it’s not sending inmates to the jail, and neither are federal officials in the state.

An attorney for American Police Force, Maziar Mafi, describes the Santa Ana, Calif., company as a fledgling spin-off of a major security firm founded in 1984. But Mafi declined to name the parent firm or provide details on how the company will finance its jail operations.

“It will gradually be more clear as things go along,” said Mafi, a personal injury and medical malpractice lawyer in Santa Ana who was only hired by American Police Force a month ago. “The nature of this entity is private security and for security purposes, as well as for the interest of their clientele, that’s why they prefer not to be upfront.”

On its elaborate Web site and in interviews with company representatives, American Police Force claims to sell assault rifles and other weapons in Afghanistan on behalf of the U.S. military while providing security, investigative work and other services to clients “in all 50 states and most countries.”

The company also boasts to have “rapid response units awaiting our orders worldwide” and that it can field a battalion-sized team of special forces soldiers “within 72 hours.”

Representatives of American Police Force said the company presently employs at least 16 and as many as 28 people in the United States and 1,600 contractors worldwide.

~More~

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Is Cheney taking the same pill as “Rush” Limbaugh

This is Keith Olbermann’s Top 9/11 Story: The Promotion Of Failure In Bush Administration. It was aired in September 2007 and presents a powerful statement about the Bu$h administration. Some of the 911 truth movement criticized Olbermann for not mentioning that 911 was an inside job, while not even considering the ramifications of his doing so. An open and independent investigation is what is needed, and this is what the people of this country want. I’m sure that Olbermann would agree on that, but 911 is only one of 945 issues or more that need to be addressed.

Darth Cheney expresses his fondness for Rush Limpballs, like he is the only voice in the corpo-media, but hopefully he isn’t taking the same pill as “Rush”.
Oxycontin is pretty powerful stuff and it would be nice if Darth lived to be a ripe old age because it might be a while before he is put on the stand, or in stocks in front of the Lincoln Memorial building, or at least made to answer for his crimes.

Attention Dick Cheney

May 27, 2009 at 07:27:04

Diary Entry by Dean Hartwell

This letter calls out Dick Cheney and asks him to explain not just how he made us safer from terrorism during his time in office, but it also questions whether he should be indicted for participating in the attacks of 9/11.

Read it on OpEdNews.com

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Olbermann: Talks With Eugene Robinson About CPAC And GOP Bordering On Insanity

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Olbermann: Yoo Called Torture ‘The Bush System’ (VIDEO)

‘Sadism-gate’: Call Torture ‘the Bush system,’ Olbermann says

Raw Story- David Edwards and Ron Brynaert
Published: Friday January 30, 2009

John Yoo, a former member of the Justice Department who wrote the first rationalization that torture is legal, argued in a Wall Street Journal op-ed Thursday that the United States must continue to use enhanced interrogation methods, even torture, in order to stop future terror plots.

MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann hit back at Yoo during his Countdown show’s ‘Still Bushed’ segment.

“Sadism-gate, that is the only explanation left, clinical sadism,” Olbermann declared.

“John Yoo, the Justice Department flunky who wrote the department’s first rationalization that torture was legal, was in the ‘Wall Street Journal of Torture‘ today insisting we must, we must, we must torture people,” Olbermann continued. “President Obama, Yoo hallucinates, may have opened the door to further terrorism attacks on U.S. soil.”

Olbermann quoted from Yoo’s op-ed: “Eliminating the Bush will mean we will get no more information from captured al Qaeda terrorists. Relying on the civilian justice system…robs us of the most effective intelligence tool to avert future attacks.”

“That study after study has proven that torture produces unreliable information, that the Bush administration humiliated itself and this nation with its boasting about stopping plots that were laughable to anybody with an IQ over 35,” Olbermann intoned, “that he and Mr. Bush did more harm to this nation internationally than any terrorist ever could seems to escape Mr. Yoo in what must literally be a lust to know that somewhere somebody was fearing death at the hands of his own government.”

Olbermann did find a silver lining in Yoo’s op-ed.

“But in his fevered delusions at least he has given us this,” Olbermann said. “He has given us a new name for torture and I think we should use it forever.”

“Water boarding, sleep deprivation, sexual degradation, threats, use of animals, as he called it,” Olbermann paused before adding dramatically, “the Bush system.”

A separate RAW STORY article on Yoo’s editorial can be read at this link.

This video is from MSNBC’s Countdown, broadcast Jan. 29, 2009.

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Whistleblower: NSA Spied On Everyone (VIDEO)

Whistleblower: NSA spied on everyone, targeted journalists

Raw Story- David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Published: Wednesday January 21, 2009

Former National Security Agency analyst Russell Tice, who helped expose the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping in December 2005, has now come forward with even more startling allegations. Tice told MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann on Wednesday that the programs that spied on Americans were not only much broader than previously acknowledged but specifically targeted journalists.

“The National Security Agency had access to all Americans’ communications — faxes, phone calls, and their computer communications,” Tice claimed. “It didn’t matter whether you were in Kansas, in the middle of the country, and you never made foreign communications at all. They monitored all communications.”

Tice further explained that “even for the NSA it’s impossible to literally collect all communications. … What was done was sort of an ability to look at the metadata … and ferret that information to determine what communications would ultimately be collected.”

According to Tice, in addition to this “low-tech, dragnet” approach, the NSA also had the ability to hone in on specific groups, and that was the aspect he himself was involved with. However, even within the NSA there was a cover story meant to prevent people like Tice from realizing what they were doing.

MORE HERE

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change begins

by betmo

president obama’s speech has been seen and heard around the world and picked over and disected by everyone.  what struck me was the american people.  for one brief moment, americans around the nation were truly united.  for one brief  moment, millions set their egos aside and joined as one.

but there are still are those fringe bigots and obstructionists who listen to hate radio and walk the halls of congress.  my mom heard on limbaugh that several schools in the midwest- green bay in particular- piped limbaugh instead of obama’s inaugural address.  i didn’t link to limbaugh’s site but google it if you want.  these folks aren’t interested in moving forward, they are interested in holding power.  they are regressive.  they are desperate.  they are cornered rats.

i think that keith olbermann hit the nail on the head when he called for prosecution of bushco:

we still have all of the same problems facing us. the new administration may have ushered in change, but that didn’t erase the reality confronting us. what i see is that our perceptions of how to tackle these heavy issues has changed. the hopeless despair of ever seeing the light at the end of the tunnel has been replaced by an optimistic, albeit somewhat grim, determination to roll up our sleeves and get down to business. make no mistake, the 20 percenters and the ultra rich corporates and old monied elites- are not interested in change. they have never cared about the greater good. and as we work to fix our ailing country and planet, we still have to do battle with the same people we have been fighting for over 8 years.

these folks don’t go away- they just go underground. we must be vigilant.

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