1. Lauer 'Worried' Feds Unable to Dictate to Business Any More
The announcement that Goldman-Sachs may be able to pay back its bailout loan, sooner rather than later, was met with a grim assessment by NBC's Matt Lauer, on Tuesday's Today show as the co-anchor fretted to the Obama administration's Christina Romer: "I'm worried if you think if that's a good thing. Are they doing this because of financial stability, or might they be talking about that simply to get out from under the thumb of the federal government and be allowed to go back to running the business the way they want to run it as opposed to the way the government wants them to run it?" Lauer invited on Romer, the chair of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, to preview the President's speech on the economy and pressed her about companies going back to "business as usual," but Romer assured Lauer that "we are going to be working on financial regulatory reform."

2. Guthrie: Obama Gave Great Speech -- On MSNBC My Boss Told Me So
The insular world of NBC News and MSNBC. In her Tuesday NBC Nightly News story on President Barrack Obama's status of the economy speech, reporter Savannah Guthrie emphasized how "the White House billed today's speech as a 'major' one" and so it was "carried live on cable" where "analysts said it was short on rhetoric and long on policy." Guthrie's expert "analysts" turned out to be one analyst, her boss. In a clip lifted from MSNBC earlier in the day, NBC Nightly News viewers heard NBC News Washington Bureau Chief Mark Whitaker effuse: "Well, there was a moment of church in that speech, but the rest of it was pure law school."

3. FX's Rescue Me Pushes 9/11 'Massive Neo-Conservative' Conspiracy
The 9/11 terrorist attacks were part of "a massive neo-conservative government effort" to enable "American global domination," a character on FX's 'Rescue Me' argued on Tuesday night's episode. In the drama about firefighters in New York City, firefighter "Franco Rivera," played by actor Daniel Sunjata, a real-life 9/11 "truther," laid out his theory for a French journalist interviewing firefighters for a book on 9/11 first-responders. As noted in a February CyberAlert post, in a New York Times story about the then-upcoming storyline, Brian Stelter reported the ludicrous theory "may represent the first fictional presentation of 9/11 conspiracy theories by a mainstream media company (FX is operated by the News Corporation)."

Lauer 'Worried' Feds Unable to Dictate
to Business Any More

     The announcement that Goldman-Sachs may be able to pay back its bailout loan, sooner rather than later, was met with a grim assessment by NBC's Matt Lauer, on Tuesday's Today show as the co-anchor fretted to the Obama administration's Christina Romer: "I'm worried if you think if that's a good thing. Are they doing this because of financial stability, or might they be talking about that simply to get out from under the thumb of the federal government and be allowed to go back to running the business the way they want to run it as opposed to the way the government wants them to run it?"

     Lauer invited on Romer, the chair of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, to preview the President's speech on the economy and pressed her about companies going back to "business as usual," but Romer assured Lauer that "we are going to be working on financial regulatory reform."

     [This item, by the MRC's Geoffrey Dickens, was posted Tuesday morning on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ]

     The following is a complete transcript of the interview as it aired on the April 14 Today show:

     MATT LAUER: Christina Romer is chair of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers. Dr. Romer, it's nice to see you. Good morning.
     CHRISTINA ROMER: Good morning.
     LAUER: When the President gives his economic speech today, he's gonna be able to point to some things that are going well and he's also gonna be able to talk about some things that are still deeply troubling. So is the view in the administration right now, that when it comes to the economy the glass is half empty or half full?
     ROMER: I think we are being very pragmatic. We're being very reasonable. We know that the economy is still in a lot of trouble. You couldn't look at that job report from last week and not know that, that is the case. But what the President has said and what we certainly all believe, there are his glimmers of hope or his shoots of green, whatever metaphor you want to use, small little signs that, that maybe some parts of the economy are stabilizing.
     LAUER: I guess what's puzzling Dr. Romer to me, and maybe this goes to this, this idea that, you know, if it sounds to good to be true it is, but for the past six months or so we've had economic experts parade through this show and do interviews and almost all of them said this was gonna be a long and deep recession, perhaps lasting all through 2009 even into 2010. So if we compare that to these glimmers of hope already it makes me worried that we're getting ahead of ourselves.
     ROMER: Well I think you want to understand what a glimmer of hope means. I mean as I said, we know the economy is still sick, we know we've got several more months job loss, for example. We know that the, the numbers on the GDP are almost surely gonna be very bad for this quarter and next. So we certainly don't want to lead people to think that, you know, spring is, is right here for the economy. It's more giving them a sense that we are seeing signs that the programs are working, that we're seeing a sense of some parts of the economy are starting to, to find their bottom, and that's a useful thing for the American people to know.
     LAUER: Let, let me ask you about this report on Monday from Goldman Sachs. They, they beat investors' expectations, reported a profit for the first three months of this year of $1.66 billion. And some people at Goldman are starting to talk about the possibility of paying off the bailout money ahead of schedule and I'm worried if you think if that's a good thing. Are they doing this because of financial stability or might they be talking about that, simply to get out from under the thumb of the federal government and be allowed to go back to running the business the way they want to run it as opposed to the way the government wants them to run it?
     ROMER: Well, the important thing of course is any time an American company earns profits, that's a good thing. In terms of firms paying off their money from the government, the TARP money that they took, that's gonna be something that, that the regulators and the Treasury will be working with, with each bank to figure out if it is exactly a sign that they're very healthy. But we certainly are going to be looking at that on a case-by-case basis. The important thing is-
     LAUER: But are you worried about, are you worried about companies like this, banking companies in particular, going back to business as usual?
     ROMER: No, because one of the things that the President will talk about in his speech is how we are going to be working on financial regulatory reform to make sure that we can't just go back to business as usual, to make sure that we go back to a stronger, more secure economy.
     LAUER: Alright Christina Romer. Doctor it's nice to see you this morning, thanks, excuse me, thank you for your time.
     ROMER: Nice to see you.

Guthrie: Obama Gave Great Speech -- On
MSNBC My Boss Told Me So

     The insular world of NBC News and MSNBC. In her Tuesday NBC Nightly News story on President Barrack Obama's status of the economy speech, reporter Savannah Guthrie emphasized how "the White House billed today's speech as a 'major' one" and so it was "carried live on cable" where "analysts said it was short on rhetoric and long on policy." Guthrie's expert "analysts" turned out to be one analyst, her boss. In a clip lifted from MSNBC earlier in the day, NBC Nightly News viewers heard NBC News Washington Bureau Chief Mark Whitaker effuse: "Well, there was a moment of church in that speech, but the rest of it was pure law school."

     ABC's World News and the CBS Evening News stuck to reporting what Obama said and managed to avoid such a thematic assessment.

     Before replacing the late Tim Russert, Whitaker was the top editor at Newsweek magazine.

     [This item, by the MRC's Brent Baker, was posted Tuesday night on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ]

     From the end of Guthrie's report on the Tuesday, April 14 NBC Nightly News:

     SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: The White House billed today's speech as a "major" one. Carried live on cable, analysts said it was short on rhetoric and long on policy.
     MARK WHITAKER, NBC NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, ON MSNBC: Well, there was a moment of church in that speech, but the rest of it was pure law school.
     GUTHRIE: Aides say the President's goal was to give Americans a realistic picture of where the economy is.
     PRESIDENT OBAMA: You can continue to expect an unrelenting, unyielding, day-by-day effort from this administration to fight for economic recovery on all fronts.
     GUTHRIE: Well tomorrow is, of course, the deadline to file taxes. The President will use the occasion to talk about the tax cuts and credits in his economic recovery package.

FX's Rescue Me Pushes 9/11 'Massive Neo-Conservative'
Conspiracy

     During the episode, "Franco" outlined the four-point plan by the Project for a New American Century, starting with how Bush-Cheney "came to power with plans already made to attack Afghanistan and Iraq." Second, "we have to make huge technological advances with our armed forces, that for some reason include the capability to fight wars from outer space." Third, "huge increases in military spending" to the neglect of "sick and dying first-responders, 9/11's heroes, who can't even pay their light bill let alone their medical bills." Fourth, "we changed the definition of pre-emptive attack so we can unilaterally bomb the shit out of, invade and occupy countries even if they pose no credible threat or had nothing to do with 9/11."

     Finally: "How you going to put it into action? I mean, the American people are never going to go for shit like that, right? You're damn straight. No, what you need is an event, an event that gets everyone's heads turned around the right way. What you need is a new Pearl Harbor."

     The Project for the New American Century is so powerful they haven't posted anything on their Web site since 2005! See: www.newamericancentury.org

     [This item, by the MRC's Brent Baker, was posted late Tuesday night, with video, on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ]

     Actor Daniel Sunjata is a believer in the conspiracy he espoused on the program created by left-wing actor/comedian Denis Leary in which he stars as New York City firefighter "Tommy Gavin."

     Internet Movie Datbase page for Sunjata: www.imdb.com

     In a photo with the February New York Times story, Sunjata sported a shirt emblazoned with "INVESTIGATE 9/11." Two years ago he authorized the posting of a "New 9/11 Truth Statement from Daniel Sunjata." See: www.infowars.com

     For the February 16 CyberAlert item, "FX's 'Rescue Me' Will Push 9/11 'Inside Job' Conspiracy," go to: www.mrc.org

     FX's page for the program: www.fxnetworks.com

     The "Franco Rivera" character in a scene with the female French journalist on the April 14 episode of Rescue Me on FX, the start of what will be an ongoing storyline:

What you're going to hear from me you're not going to hear from anybody else because my opinions, well, let's just say they're not popular. 9/11? Inside job, plain and simple, all you got to do is connect the dots and I'm not talking about the dots everyone's already heard about. I'm not talking about Bush sitting in that school reading a book about a goat to those kids for seven-and-half minutes after he was told the news. Everybody knows that.

I am talking about a massive neo-conservative government effort. It's been in the works for over twenty years. You ever hear of PNAC -- Project for a New American Century? Well, according to them the end goal of their effort is American global domination. 'Full Spectrum Dominance,' they call it. Now, the first question that pops to my mind is how do you pull that off in this day and age? Well, according to them, you do it in four steps.

First, we must control the world's oil, especially the oil in Central Asia and the Middle East. Now, I don't have to remind you that Bush-Cheney, they came to power with plans already made to attack Afghanistan and Iraq.

Number two: We have to make huge technological advances with our armed forces, that for some reason include the capability to fight wars from outer space.

Number three, surprise surprise: Huge increases in military spending to pay for the above, a hundred and thirty billion dollars a year worth. Now, never mind the sick and dying first-responders, 9/11's heroes, who can't even pay their light bill let alone their medical bills and a lot of whom ended up homeless because of it. I guess there's just not enough room in the budget for that.

Number four, and this is key: We changed the definition of pre-emptive attack so we can unilaterally bomb the shit out of, invade and occupy countries even if they pose no credible threat or had nothing to do with 9/11.

One problem: How you going to put it into action? I mean, the American people are never going to go for shit like that, right? You're damn straight. No, what you need is an event, an event that gets everyone's heads turned around the right way. What you need is a new Pearl Harbor. That's what they said they needed. You're looking at a guy who went to 58 funerals in 26 days, I can tell you that is sure as shit what they got.

Are you single?

-- Brent Baker