MSNBO: The Official Network Of ObamaLove

On May 5, the Obministration finally decided to make official what every Obot detesting realist has known since Barack Obama became a United States Senator: the”internetwork” and the so-called, “politician” are in love.  This, though unspoken, has never been a secret.  Who needs words when one has actions?  MSNBC, whose journalistically-challenged on-air personalities pornographically ooze affection for their Golden Boy on a 24/7 basis, are shamelessly forthcoming about their tingly-leg motivated compulsion to see to it that the man whose relationship with their parent company’s CEO is only slightly less of a tangled web than the one between said parent company and its co-partner in the hybrid network’s joint venture, is perceived as spectacularly successful and beloved by all.  After all, such public bended-knee fluffing and prostate stroking is part of their job description, even if not everybody got the memo on the same day.

And, with the kind of deliciously wicked, bitchy-type writing I love, Andrew Malcolm of the L.A. Times snarkily reported on the White House representative Kareem Dale’s confirmation, at 1:51 in the following You Tube clip, that the ooey-gooey love feeling  is mutual:

For some inexplicable reason having to do with who knows what, a widespread impression has grown among many politics fans that MSNBC and its crowd of talkers — including Chris “Thrill Up My Leg” Matthews, Norah “The GOP Is Doomed to Die” O’Donnell and Ed “It’s Time to Grind Them Into the Ground” Schultz — are somewhat in favor of President Obama.

Well, actually in complete love with the Great Change Agent.

Now, thanks to the ubiquitous cameras of C-SPAN, comes official videoed word from Kareem Dale, special assistant to the president for arts and culture and a key White House advisor on disability policy.

Now, when I say tangled web, I freakin’ mean tangled web.  Everybody already knows that MSNBC is the love child of MSN (Microsoft) and NBC.  The network’s call letters make figuring that one out a no-brainer.  But that venture is but one of many collaborations between the two companies.  Seems they teamed up in 2001 to combine their financial news web divisions, CNBC.com and MSN Money, but dissolved their CNBC Money Central in 2005, according to Wikipedia.  Supposedly, they even once considered teaming up to buy Dow Jones, but eventually decided not to. Microsoft has also been accused of caving to NBC against consumers, and NBC and Microsoft enjoy an ongoing Olympic partnership.  Funny, but I thought I heard somewhere that the Barackstar was hellbent on getting the games in Chicago, didn’t I?  Anyway, this story about Microsoft and GE filing a joint patent brief, indicates that the long standing tangled web is an embrace.

NBC is a subsidiary of General Electric, whose CEO, Jeffrey Immelt is on the Obamessiah’s, former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker-headed, Economic Recovery Advisory Board, and also sits on the board of the New York Federal Reserve, along with Obabuddy Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase.  JP Morgan is one of the few banks that passed its stress test, administered by Treasury Secretary Turbo Tax Timmy Geithner, tax cheat, (TTTG,tc) former head of the New York Federal Reserve and co-architect of the Paulson Plan, or TARP, along with his Bush-era predecessor, Henry Paulson, formerly of Goldman Sachs, another of the passing stress test banks.  Interestingly, both Dimon and Paulson have Chicago connections, Dimon via Bank One, the company he turned around after getting shitcanned by his mentor Sandy Weill of Citigroup, which failed its stress test, and Paulson as Goldman Sachs’ Midwestern Division chief, where he met Chicagoan Ed Liddy who used to work at Allstate before Paulson hired him to take over AIG, the backdoor TARP fund distributor.  And, oh, by the way, the NY Fed’s chairman, Stephen Friedman resigned yesterday, after getting busted for buying Goldman Sachs stock.  You with me so far?

Good.  “Cuz that’s nuttin’, baby.  Going back to MSNBC, GE, and Jeffrey Immelt.  According to Time Magazine, Immelt, like most hopium heads, loves him some Obama, even when he doesn’t like what the Land of the Lost leader’s doing.  Jeffy also likes him some Jamie Dimon a lot, just in case anybody wanted to know:

GE chief executive Jeff Immelt isn’t a big fan of the $500,000 pay cap for executives at financial institutions that get additional government help, which the Obama Administration announced yesterday, but he still thinks Barack Obama rocks.

“It’s in the best interest of the citizens of the country for Jamie Dimon to run JP Morgan,” Immelt said. “He’s worth more than $500,000.” This was a bit of a non sequitur, given that Dimon is presumably hoping to get through this financial crisis without any more government help. Also, companies can still pay executives lots more than $500,000 as long as it’s in restricted stock that they’re required to hold onto for a while. But whatever.

Good to know, Jeffer, we’ll file your man crush admissions away for later.  Just like we’ll put a gold star in your column for forgoing your own payment package this year.  But, that’s the last “attaboy” you get from me, buddy.  Immelt, a big proponent of “cap and trade,” who once said he “never voted for a Democrat,” recently beat up his CNBC talent at an “on the carpet,” 3 hour dinner for their “Obama bashing,” then found himself under attack a week or so later at GE’s stockholder’s meeting, both from his legitimate critics as well as an agent of Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, who works for his (Immelt’s) nemesis, News Corp’s Rupert Murdock.  All of the fight for energy (and ratings) supremacy, pro and con, lead to the Great Tea Party Wars between Fox and MSNBC, with Fox promoting the Dick Armey-led,  FreedomWorks anti’spending, AstroTurfing campaign with its vendetta subplot against GE’s cap and trade stance, and MSNBC resorting to frat house dick jokes in response.  However, the back and forth seems staged, since Immelt is all for cap and trade, and Murdock seems to be amenable to it, while the “lack-of-personalities” on his network, and the Republicans they cater to, and feature, work overtime against any support of it.  Methinks ’tis but a big manipulating traveling roadshow we are being forced to but live in.

Anyhoo, while the dueling on the same side media entities churn out  episodes of the continuing sitcom, Cap and Trade Charade, for our entertainment, another comedy drama is being enacted on a different stage, starring the Political Pimp Playas and the Media Mob, called The Rape of Health Care.

GE is promoting, and investing in, get this, medical records technology!  No kidding!  In fact, they’re hooking up with…drumroll, please!…Microsoft to do it, too!  And, and, and, you don’t have to take my word for it, no sirreee, Bobbo!  This reporter, Kathleen O’Connor, talked to Microsoft’s Worldwide Director of Health, Dr. Bill Crounse, and, and, and, you can read it for yourself here and here, so there!  He even has his own Microsoft blog.  Yepper, Gates and Immelt are biiiiig on medical records technology.  Good thing the guy heading up the Senate Finance Committee in charge of fixing healthcare is so committed to it, too.  Maybe that’s why GE, and a bunch of health sector donors like him so much.  AIG, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase also seem to really like him a lot.

The only other person I can think of off the top of my head that those same inordinately generous donors like nearly as much is an even bigger proponent of computerizing medial records.  Everybody doesn’t think it’s a good idea, though, for patients to basically be able to treat themselves online with a few phone calls and emails exchanged with an assigned doctor in a command center, which is pretty much what these guys envision.   This doctor doesn’t, but, she’s probably just an old bitter knitter.  GE, Microsoft and the candidates they bought think so, and if you hit the KoolAid cooled hopium bong enough times, you will, too.  ‘Cuz, the way things seem to be going, you’ll have to shoot your bones a tweet to get your hopium ’script refilled.  Check this Jetsons medicine future fantasy from Kathleen O’Connor’s profile of the Microsoft guy, if you dare, ‘cuz this is why you ain’t gettin’ no single payer:

With the proper tools, he envisions a home health care manager for the family.  Because of these tools, individuals have the ability to retrieve their own health care information at home and the ability to communicate more efficiently and electronically with physician-led and nurse directed virtual health networks.  They can now have community-based 24/7 educational and emotional support.  Basic diagnostics can be performed automatically or by the home health care manager and transmitted electronically to their health care provider team.  As more of health care can be managed electronically, physician practice office capacity can grow, because so much of the care that now requires a visit can be done electronically.  This new technology does not eliminate the physician’s role, but focuses it more on diagnosis and treatment and makes the routine aspects of care more automated, requiring less of the physician’s time, thereby freeing them to focus on the practice of medicine.

Guess that’s why GE’s MSNBC is touting its successful re-branding as MSNBO.  GE brings good things, like electronic doctors, to light, and with a little help from their MSN friend, they can be the network of change that has come to America that we’ve been waiting for.  And, if you put it on a TelePrompTer, anybody who works for them can read their part just fine, even the invisible empty suit-wearing Spokesmodel-in-Chief they bought.  That’s not just me talking, either, that’s what the New York Observer is quoting MSNBO’s sales executive John Kelly as crowing about:

“Here’s that subliminal messaging that we put forward,” said Mr. Kelly. “We say we are the pulse of the nation right now. The change that this country voted for back in November is gathering each and every day and every evening on MSNBC.”

The person the country voted for doesn’t seem to mind MSNBC’s advances a bit. On May 4, a CSPAN clip went viral that showed Kareem Dale, a special assistant to the president for arts and culture, telling the audience at a black-tie event, “At the White House, as we always like to say, we love MSNBC.”

This is not a mistake. And it’s not really a sentimental or political relationship. It’s all business.

All about the Benjamins, baby.