RTE fails to challenge the moronic politicians

It was with deep, deep anger that I listened to our moronic Taoiseach Brian Cowen on RTEs Nine News (18.26) spewing out garbage speak when asked about his responsibility for the failure of bank regulation.

Before quoting this moronic fool let’s briefly outline the truth of the matter.

Brian Cowen, leader of the most corrupt political party in Ireland, is a traitor to his country. Instead of showing loyalty to the people of Ireland this stupid backwoodsman conspired with bankers and developers to create a property bubble that served only the interests of his party and its rich friends.

He and his predecessors, some of them outright criminals, have destroyed our country by their greed, stupidity and arrogance; they have done more damage to the people of Ireland than their favourite hate figure Oliver Cromwell.

Here’s what the moron had to say when asked about his responsibility:

Well the regulatory system we had worldwide throughout the whole Western world, built up over thirty years, was a system where people believed as Greenspan did that there was no problem to be resolved shows that it simply wasn’t sufficient and that’s acknowledged.

But this is a global crisis, this is a crisis that happened in global capitalism, it’s not something that originated here, or was caused by any individual here.

Now if such a stupid lying statement was made by a politician in any self respecting democracy the immediate response would be contemptuous laughter followed by a deserved public humiliation by the interviewer.

If, for example, Channel 4 news presenter Jon Snow was subjected to such drivel the politician in question would be immediately torn to shreds not just out of respect for the intelligence of the viewers but to ensure that the interviewer himself was not seen as an idiot who was incapable of recognizing horseshit when it was thrown in his face.

But RTEs David Davin Power didn’t bat an eyelid when the horseshit hit him square in the face. He simply moved on to the next question just like Brian Dobson did when that other lying bastard, Bertie Ahern, admitted that he appointed people to state bodies not because of any particular talent but because they were his friends.

This submissive, deferential attitude by RTE towards politicians, especially politicians in power, is deeply disturbing and is in stark contrast to last week’s well orchestrated campaign against low paid civil servants in the passport office and their union when RTE personnel not only adopted a strong anti union attitude but blatantly promoted the Government’s side of the issue.

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Fianna Fail
RTE News

Misplaced loyalty

When Fianna Fail TD Ned O’Keeffe was asked would he vote against the Government on NAMA he replied:

I’m a member of the Fianna Fail party and I will vote with the party as I’ve taken a pledge on that and I will honour that always.

Now if we could only get politicians to display such loyalty to the people of Ireland.

Banks recapitalisation: Good time to bury bad news?

It’s no accident that AIB raised its mortgage rates on the eve of the recapitalisation of the banks, the biggest fraud perpetrated against Irish citizens since the foundation of the state.

But it seems that AIB is not the only organisation taking advantage of this opportunity to minimise or hide the effects of bad news.

Just hours before the Irish people are to be officially screwed by the banks and the government the Financial Regulator has announced that two administrators are to be appointed to Quinn Insurance Ltd and that an investigation has commenced

into certain matters within Quinn Insurance Ltd that have very recently come to light.

I wonder would those certain matters have anything to do with the dodgy dealings that went on between Anglo Irish Bank and Quinn Insurance?

Another event that will be buried beneath the media storm surrounding the banking crisis will be a decision tomorrow by the Cabinet, based on the Farrell Grant Sparks report, on whether to initiate further investigations into the scandals involving the Dublin Docklands Development Authority.

This would be an ideal opportunity, from the government’s point of view, to quietly bury this potentially explosive matter.

Union official ambushed by RTE/Pat Kenny

Pat Kenny was booed at the Civil Public and Services Union (CPSU) conference in Galway last week by delegates who felt they had been unfairly treated on his Frontline programme.

Kenny defended RTE on Today with Pat Kenny (Friday 1.12).saying that at all times each side in any given dispute is treated fairly. He dismissed the negative reaction from the delegates:

When you hear what you like you cheer, when you hear what you don’t like you boo.

Let’s do a quick analysis of that particular Frontline programme.

It began with a clip of a very angry woman outside the passport office giving staff a hard time.

(Government 1 – Workers nil).

Cut to the studio and Kenny is interviewing a woman who had obviously been carefully chosen because of the emotional impact of her story.

Her children had received tickets to Paris Disneyland as a Christmas gift from their grandmother and now they couldn’t go because of the workers/union action.

I would like somebody to tell my children why they can’t go,

the distraught mother demanded, glaring at Eoin Ronayne, deputy general secretary of the CPSU.

Kenny was enthusiastic in leading her on with emotionally charged questions such as: Do you think it was bloody-mindedness on their part (passport office staff) and, have you told the children yet?

(Government 2 – Workers nil).

With the audience (and viewers) suitably emotionalised Kenny proceeded to interview (attack) Eoin Ronayne who was on his own.

No (highly paid) government minister was present to be questioned about the part they played in destroying the country’s economy which sparked the industrial action. No representative from the extremely well paid higher civil servants who enforce government policy within the civil and public service.

(Government 3 – workers nil).

Kenny’s interview stance was angry, confrontational and accusatory. Ronayne was at all times courteous and calm. At one point when Kenny was running out of steam he called in the distraught mother for another dollop of emotionalism.

Maybe you could ring my children tonight, Peter 10, Christine 13 and explain to them why they’re devastated that you will not let them fly on Friday. What are you going to do for me and the other 40,000 people that are in my situation?

What price do you put on the disappointment of children demanded Kenny of Ronayne and later suggested that staff at the passport office had deliberately sabotaged passport machines to make things worse for ordinary people.

(Government 4 – workers nil)

With the exception of one person all comments from the audience were anti worker. The piece finished with the distraught mother being given yet another opportunity to make an emotional attack on Ronayne.

You took away my children’s chance of their Christmas to go and travel. They have no choice; you’ve made us suffer for your cause. I hope you’re happy.

(Government 5 – workers nil) (RTE/Pat Kenny – disgraced)

This disgraceful anti union, anti worker ambush by the national broadcaster was not an isolated incident.

All through the week on Liveline, Today with Pat Kenny and RTE News the trend (policy?) was the same – The general public were the victims of the evil Union/workers, the Government was an innocent party doing its best to help out.

It really is time somebody challenged the politicalisation of RTE.

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The Frontline
Today with Pat Kenny

FF backwoodsman tells it like it is

Fianna Fail TD, Ned O’Keeffe in a recent interview on Newstalk.

I have been there before. I have to admit I missed the money, I didn’t miss the ministry, I missed the money. A minister is a very lucrative position to hold, a minister of state or in the cabinet, a good money job. (laughter).

I was a minister for four years and I didn’t miss the ministry but I miss the money, there’s great money in being a minister, big salaries…that’s why there’s such jealously and such a rat race for ministries.

It’s not about running the country; it’s about getting the bloody job, having a car and driver.

Pope's pastoral letter – It was the secularists wot did it

The Pope’s pastoral letter to Irish Catholics leaves no doubt whatsoever as to who is to blame for the child abuse holocaust – Secularists.

The relevant section is worth quoting at length (My emphasis).

4. In recent decades, however, the Church in your country has had to confront new and serious challenges to the faith arising from the rapid transformation and secularization of Irish society.

Fast-paced social change has occurred, often adversely affecting people’s traditional adherence to Catholic teaching and values. All too often, the sacramental and devotional practices that sustain faith and enable it to grow, such as frequent confession, daily prayer and annual retreats, were neglected.

Significant too was the tendency during this period, also on the part of priests and religious, to adopt ways of thinking and assessing secular realities without sufficient reference to the Gospel.

The programme of renewal proposed by the Second Vatican Council was sometimes misinterpreted and indeed, in the light of the profound social changes that were taking place, it was far from easy to know how best to implement it. In particular, there was a well-intentioned but misguided tendency to avoid penal approaches to canonically irregular situations.

It is in this overall context that we must try to understand the disturbing problem of child sexual abuse, which has contributed in no small measure to the weakening of faith and the loss of respect for the Church and her teachings.

So there you have it.

It’s all the fault of secularists who successfully corrupted a previously pure, faithful and obedient society.

Secularists who successfully corrupted the holy minds of priests into adopting ways and assessing secular realities.

I’m delighted that the Pope, the Irish hierarchy and most Catholic opinion makers continue to lead the Catholic Church and its people down the road of denial.

Such cowardly stupidity ensures the continued destruction of this corrupt and evil institution and that is no bad thing.

Only the docile and ignorant could be proud

Here’s what our excuse for a Prime Minister told the world regarding the latest revelation in the ongoing child abuse holocaust of the Catholic Church.

It’s not a question for the State to get involved in Church matters, nor for the Church to be involved in State matters.

So, children are raped by a priest. Another priest covers up the crime and extracts an oath of secrecy from the victims.

Over the ensuing decades the cover up priest keeps his silence while he climbs the promotion ladder.

That silence is a direct facilitation of the rape, abuse and destruction of dozens, if not hundreds, more children and our excuse for a Prime Minister thinks the State has no role to play in the matter.

Only the ignorant and docile could be proud to be Irish today.

How long before the scumbags are thrown in jail?

Dr. Mary Favier of the Irish College of General Practitioners had the following to say on Drivetime (Thursday) regarding the 57,000 x-rays that went unreported in Tallaght Hospital.

57,000 x rays went unreported and orthopedics, where there are waiting times of 600 days, are particularly profitable areas and nobody has answered my question in relation to how many of those 57,000 x- rays were public and how many were private.

The HSE say they don’t know which I find impossible to believe and the hospital is refusing to answer the question. Anybody locally is saying that the vast majority if not all, of those x- rays are public.

A quote from the book, The Bitter Pill, written anonymously three years ago by a doctor working within the health system may provide the answer.

Imagine a radiologist’s office. On his desk sit two stacks of x-rays. One stack, usually the bigger one, is that of public patients; the other is that of private patients.

For each private x-ray the radiologist will be paid upwards of €50. For the public x-ray he has already been paid, in his monthly salary.

Whether the public x-ray is reported on today, tomorrow or next week, the radiologist will still be paid the full amount of his salary, on time.

For private scans, on the other hand, he will be paid only after he has completed them. The upshot is that the private scans often take precedence over the public ones (The Bitter Pill, page 29).

The real question that needs to be answered is – How debased, corrupt and immoral does the administration of this country have to become before the people rise up and throw these contemptible scumbags in jail?

Senator Norris – Defending the corrupt status quo

I see Senator Davin Norris launched his campaign for President on the Marian Finucane Show last Saturday.

My respect for this politician has dropped considerably since his hypocritical defence of that very expensive but useless institution – Seanad Eireann.

Indeed, the Senate can be seen as a symbol for all that is corrupt about our body politic. Totally ineffective, very expensive and stuffed with self important politicians who have more in common with the aristocracy of pre-revolutionary France than with the duties of running a functional democracy.

Senator Norris tells us that he likes (the chancer) Bertie but that he damaged himself by applying for artist’s exemption for his book and by the way he handled his lotto win.

Apparently, Norris has no problems with Ahern’s very dodgy evidence to the tribunal or his low grade leadership which resulted in the destruction of the country.

In fact Senator Norris thinks that the political system in this country is just fine, that it’s the people who are wrong.

People are begrudgers…they want blood on a wall, a head on a plate and guts in the bucket.

Yes, Senator, that’s exactly what we want and the fact that you cannot understand the legitimacy and passion of that desire puts you in the camp of those who are defending the corrupt status quo.

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Senator Norris