| Several homes south of Acton, on the fire's northern flank, were lost last night and this morning.
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Monday, August 31, 2009
International Tribunal Takes Up Rendition, Torture Case
Monday 31 August 2009
by: Jason Leopold, t r u t h o u t | Report
Khaled El-Masri. (Photo: AP)
A week after the Justice Department released documents that described in extraordinary detail the CIA's top secret rendition program, an international human rights tribunal has agreed to take up the case of a German citizen who was "rendered" to a CIA black site prison in Afghanistan and tortured in a case of mistaken identity.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a petition in April with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IAHCR) on behalf of Khaled El-Masri, a truck driver, detained for four months. El-Masri was first detained in December 2003 in Macedonia by law enforcement authorities of that country for 23 days before being turned over to the CIA.
El-Masri was beaten, stripped and drugged prior to being loaded onto a plane bound for Afghanistan, according to the petition. After several interrogation sessions at the black site prison, the CIA realized they had captured the wrong person. In May 2004, the CIA blindfolded El-Masri, put him on a plane and abandoned him on a hillside in Albania. He was never charged with a crime.
The ACLU's petition calls on the IAHCR to declare that the CIA's rendition program violates the American Declaration of the Rights of Duties and Man, a six-decade old human rights instrument that predated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which the US signed, and to find that the US violated El-Masri's rights under that declaration, to recommend that the US publicly acknowledge and apologize for kidnapping and torturing El-Masri.
The US government has two months to respond to the kidnapping and torture allegations. The rendition case made international headlines when law enforcement officials in Germany, after spending three years probing El-Masri's claims, filed indictments against 13 CIA agents directly involved in his rendition. The investigation and an inquiry by the German Parliament are ongoing.
"The United States has an opportunity to reverse one of the most shameful legacies of the Bush administration and finally give an innocent victim of the extraordinary rendition program his day in court," said Steven Watt, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Human Rights Program. "The State Department should fully engage in this process and comprehensively address the gross violation of El-Masri's human rights, including his forcible disappearance and torture. To date, the United States hasn't so much as acknowledged its involvement in El-Masri's extraordinary rendition."
The civil liberties group filed a lawsuit in 2005 against ex-CIA Director George Tenet and three aviation companies based in the US that owned and/or operated the airplanes the CIA used to render El-Masri, alleging they violated the US Constitution and human rights laws. But a federal appeals court dismissed the case in March 2007 when the Bush administration asserted state secrets privilege. The US Supreme Court refused to hear the case in October of that year.
A report from the Council of Europe substantially confirmed all of El-Masri's claims. It's unknown how the Obama administration intends to respond to the petition, but the IAHCR as the tribunal doesn't recognize state secrets privileges should the Obama administration choose to make that argument. Obama's Justice Department has invoked state secrets in several federal court cases since taking office.
Earlier this month, in an ongoing lawsuit involving the Bush administration's domestic surveillance program, Obama's Justice Department invoked state secrets privileges in a friend-of-the-court brief with the US Supreme Court, arguing against disclosing information to a now defunct Muslim charity that said it was illegally monitored by government agents without a court order.
The filing adopted a legal argument asserted by the Bush administration: State secrets privilege was firmly rooted in the US Constitution. Typically, courts have said state secrets are rooted in common law. The Obama administration cited just one example of when that argument was raised and it turned out to be the case involving El-Masri's rendition.
But Monday's release of a 20-page background paper that laid bare the CIA's rendition program would appear to put to rest any further attempts to invoke state secrets, as it relates to rendition, unless the Obama administration decides to argue to the IAHCR the merits of the decision made by the federal appeals court back in 2007 without disclosing details of El-Masri's kidnapping and torture.
The background paper says the use of torture at the CIA's "black site" prisons "is essential to the creation of an interrogation environment conducive to intelligence collection."
Previously, the CIA has refused to disclose any details of its rendition program citing state secrets.
High-value detainees "are well-trained, often battle-hardened terrorist operatives, and highly committed to jihad. They are intelligent and resourceful leaders and able to resist standard interrogation approaches."
The background paper reads as an instructional manual for interrogators on how and when to implement the "combined use of interrogation techniques" after a terror suspect is captured and "renditioned" to a "black site" prison in another country.
"However, there is no template or script that states with certainty when and how these techniques will be used in combination during interrogation," the background paper stated. "The interrogators' objective is to transition the HVD to a point where he is participating in a predictable, reliable, and sustainable manner. Interrogation techniques may still be applied as required, but become less frequent.
"This transition period lasts from several days to several weeks based on the HVDs response and actions. The entire interrogation process outlined above, including transition may last for thirty days."
The CIA prepared the December 30, 2004, document for Dan Levin in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. The background paper includes an unsigned note on the fax cover sheet that said, "Dan, A generic description of the process. Thank you."
"The purpose of interrogation is to persuade High-Value Detainees (HVD) to provide threat information and terrorist intelligence in a timely manner, to allow the US Government to identify and disrupt terrorist plots and to collect critical intelligence on al-Qa'ida," the background paper said. "In support of information previously sent to the Department of Justice, this paper provides additional background on how interrogation techniques are used, in combination and separately, to achieve interrogation objectives."
The background paper then described what happens after a terror suspect is captured and turned over to the CIA. The background paper described this as "rendition."
"The HVD is flown to a Black Site ... A medical examination is conducted prior to the flight," according to the background paper. "During the flight, the detainee is securely shackled and is deprived of sight and sound through the use of blindfolds, earmuffs, and hoods. There is no interaction with the HVD during this rendition movement except for periodic, discreet assessments by the on-board medical officer. Upon arrival at the destination airfield, the HVD is moved to the Black Site under the same conditions and using appropriate security procedures."
The so-called "Reception at Black Site" that follows involves a medical assessment and "administrative procedures." Detainees' head and faces are then shaved and they are photographed while nude to "document the physical conduction of the HVD."
"The medical officer also determines if there any contraindications to the use of interrogation techniques."
Contraindications is defined as a pre-existing condition or other factors that would increase the risk of either using a specific drug, carrying out a medical procedure or engaging in a particular activity.
That description matched what El-Masri said he endured after he was rendered.
According to the ACLU's petition, he was boarded on a bus in Ulm, Germany, on December 31, 2003, bound for Skopje, Macedonia, for a brief vacation. When the bus crossed the Serbian border into Macedonia, El-Masri was detained by Macedonian law enforcement officials for several hours and was transferred to a hotel in Skopje by plainclothes officers, where he remained for 23 days and was questioned about a meeting he was alleged to have had in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, with an Egyptian man about possible Norwegian contacts.
El-Masri said he had never been to Jalalabad and did not know anyone from Norway.
"On the seventh day of his confinement, a man who appeared to be in charge of the interrogators proposed to Mr. El-Masri that if he confessed his involvement with Al Qaeda, he would be returned to Germany," according to the ACLU petition. "Mr. El-Masri refused."
Two weeks later, "seven or eight Macedonian men whom Mr. El-Masri had not seen before, and who were dressed in civilian clothes entered the hotel room ... recorded a fifteen-minute video of Mr. El-Masri" and instructed him to say that he had been treated well, had not been harmed in any way, and would shortly to be flown back to Germany."
El-Masri was then taken to a building an hour away where he was told he would be medically examined. Instead, the petition said he was severely beaten, stripped, photographed, and thrown to the floor where he "then felt a firm object being forced into his anus." After his blindfold was removed he saw "seven or eight men dressed in black and wearing black ski masks."
"One of the men placed him in a diaper and placed in a belt with chains that attached to his wrists and ankles. The men put earmuffs and eye pads on him, blindfolded him, and hooded him," the petition said. "Mr. El-Masri was marched to a waiting aircraft. Once inside, he was thrown to the floor face down and his legs and arms were spread-eagled and secured to the sides of the aircraft. He felt an injection in his shoulder, and became lightheaded. He felt a second injection that rendered him nearly unconscious.
"The men dressed in black clothing and ski masks were members of a United States Central Intelligence Agency ('CIA') 'black renditions' team, who were operating pursuant to directives given to them by senior officials in the CIA, including then Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet, as part of the US rendition program ..."
He was then taken to the black site prison in Afghanistan known as the "Salt Pit," where he was subjected to harsh interrogations that included "threats, insults, pushing, and shoving." He went on a 27-day hunger strike to protest his detention.
He then met with the prison director, who agreed El-Masri should not be detained, but told him that he could not be released without specific instructions from Washington. He continued his hunger strike for another 14 days and his health rapidly deteriorated. Interrogators then tied El-Masri to a chair and force-fed him through a tube. By this point, he had lost 60 pounds.
"Media reports quoting unnamed US officials, published after Mr. El-Masri's eventual return to Germany, note that CIA officials at the 'Salt Pit' believed early on that they had detained the wrong person," the petition said. "According to those reports, in March, Mr. El-Masri's passport was examined by CIA officials in Langley, Virginia, and determined to be valid.
"Then Director of US Central Intelligence George Tenet was notified in April that the CIA had detained the wrong person. By early May, Condoleezza Rice, then [George W. Bush's] National Security Advisor, had also been informed that the CIA was detaining an innocent German citizen. Nonetheless, Mr. El-Masri was detained in the 'Salt Pit' until May 28 [2004]."
Prior to his release, a psychologist, "who traveled from Washington, D.C.," evaluated El-Masri and told him not to discuss details of his detention after he was released because the US was determined to keep the incident secret.
"In June, 2007, based on its examination of flight records, the Council of Europe confirmed that on May 28, 2004 at 7:04 a.m. Mr. El Masri was flown out of Kabul [...] on board a CIA-chartered Gulfstream aircraft with the tail number N982RK to a military airbase in Albania called Bezat-Kuáova Aerodrome, arriving there at 11.34 a.m. local time. These records also show that the aircraft was owned and operated by a US-based corporation, Richmor Aviation."
Earlier this week, the Obama administration announced that it will continue to render suspected terrorists to other countries, but it will monitor each case to ensure the detainees are not tortured.
Jennifer Turner, a researcher with the ACLU Human Rights Program, said that pledge doesn't go far enough.
"Any transfer of detainees in US custody to other countries must fully comply with domestic and international human rights law," she said. "Examining the Bush administration rendition program and holding accountable those who broke the law will help to ensure that the same mistakes aren't repeated by the Obama administration."
There are 52 Blue Dog Democrats in the Blue Dog Coalition.Key Democrat Senator objects to CIA torture probe
Posted By Agence France-Presse On August 30, 2009 @ 6:45 pm In
A key Democratic senator Sunday criticized a US Justice Department investigation into abusive CIA interrogations of Al-Qaeda detainees as poorly timed, signaling broadening opposition to the probe.
Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, raised her objections in a CBS television interview while former vice president Dick Cheney was blasting the probe on Fox television as “an outrageous political act.”
Saying she, too, was “horrified” by a classified 2004 Central Intelligence Agency report that detailed abusive interrogation practices, Feinstein said she understood Attorney General Eric Holder’s reasons for ordering a review of the interrogation program.
“However, I think the timing of this is not very good,” Feinstein said.
She said the intelligence committee was already well along in conducting a bipartisan “total look” at the interrogation and detention techniques used on so-called high value detainees.
“And candidly, I wish that the attorney general had waited,” she said.
“Every day something kind of dribbles out into the public arena. Very often it has mistakes. Very often it’s half a story. I think we need to get the whole story together and tell it in an appropriate way,” she said.
“A lot of things are being said — ‘Well, you know, torturing people is something that we did, but on the other hand, it produced all kinds of incredible information,’” she said.
“It did produce some information, but there is a great discrepancy, and I think a good deal of error out there in what people are saying it did produce,” she added.
The CIA inspector general’s report, parts of which were released last week, detailed the use of simulated drowning, mock executions, and threats of rapes of detainee family members in the course of the interrogations at secret CIA sites overseas.
Cheney, who was deeply involved in devising the previous administration’s interrogation policies, said he would have no problem even with interrogations that went beyond specific legal authorizations.
“My sort of overwhelming view is that the enhanced interrogation techniques were absolutely essential in saving thousands of American lives, in preventing further attacks against the United States, in giving us the intelligence we needed to go find Al-Qaeda, to find their camps, to find out how they were being financed.”
Instead, he took aim at President Barack Obama for first assuring CIA officers they would not be prosecuted and then washing his hands of Holder’s decision.
“I think it’s an outrageous political act that will do great damage long term to our capacity to be able to have people take on difficult jobs, make difficult decisions without having to worry about what the next administration’s going to say about it,” he said, in remarks first reported on Friday.
Cheney said he did not believe the investigation would be limited to CIA officers who went beyond the authorities granted at the time by the Justice Department.
“We had the president of the United States, President Obama, tell us a few months ago there wouldn’t be any investigation like this, that there would not be any look-back at CIA personnel who were carrying out the policies of the prior administration.
“Now they get a little heat from the left wing of the Democratic Party and they’re reversing course on that,” Cheney said.
“The president is the chief law enforcement officer in the administration. He’s now saying, well, this isn’t anything that he’s got anything to do with. He’s up on vacation at Martha’s Vineyard, and his attorney general is going back and doing something that the president said some months ago they wouldn’t do.”
Senator John Kerry, a Democrat from Massachusetts, defended Obama’s approach as being “unbelievably bending in the direction of trying to be careful about what happens to national security.”
“And in fact, I think there is a little bit of a tension between the White House itself and the lawyers in the Justice Department as they see the law and as what their obligation is,” he said on ABC television.
“And in a sense, that’s good. That’s appropriate, because it shows that we have an attorney general who is not pursuing a political agenda, but who is doing what he believes the law requires him to do.”
Five Symptoms of Republican Schizophrenia
By Jon Perr Monday Aug 31, 2009 10:00am
The Mayo Clinic, the world famous institution cited by all sides in the contentious health care debate, defines schizophrenia as a serious brain disorder "in which reality is interpreted abnormally" resulting in "hallucinations, delusions, and disordered thinking and behavior." Apparently, that affliction is now running rampant among supporters of the Republican Party. As recent polling about conservative beliefs regarding Medicare, taxes, supposed "death panels," President Obama's citizenship and more shows, the crisis of Republican schizophrenia has reached epidemic proportions.
Here, then, are the five symptoms of incurable Republican schizophrenia:
(If you exhibit one or more of these warning signs, see your physician immediately. If you don't have health insurance - and if your state voted Republican, you're much more likely not to - Democrats will try to provide it for you.)
1. "Keep Government Out of Medicare." In July, Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC) described an angry constituent who confronted him at a South Carolina town hall meeting, "keep your government hands off my Medicare." Despite his best efforts to explain that Medicare is a government program, the voter, Inglis lamented, "wasn't having any of it."
But as new data from Public Policy Polling revealed, that same cognitive failure is now far more widespread than swine flu. While 39% of all Americans responded that the government should "stay out of Medicare," 59% of self-identified conservatives and 62% of McCain voters hold that oxymoronic view.
2. "Barack Obama is a Muslim." An April survey by the Pew Research Center showed that 11% of Americans believe Barack Obama is a Muslim, a figure largely unchanged since its polling started in March 2008. Yet 17% of Republicans and 19% of white evangelicals (74% of whom voted for John McCain) insist the President is an adherent of Islam, despite his repeated pronouncements and decades of church attendance to the contrary.
3. "Barack Obama Was Not Born in the United States." This contagion is running rampant among the ranks of Republicans. And even with repeated treatments of birth certificates and Hawaiian newspaper announcements from 1961, there is apparently no cure.
A DailyKos/Research 2000 poll found that a stunning 58% of Republicans did not believe (28%) or were unsure (30%) that President Barack Obama was in fact born in the United States. To be sure, this is a Southern pathology, a region home to 69% of all birthers and the only part of the country to increase its Republican presidential vote in 2008. This week's PPP survey only confirmed the chronic birtherism plaguing the Republican Party:
Only 62% of respondents reported believing that Obama was born in the United States. 10% thought he was born in Indonesia, 7% thought he was born in Kenya, 1% thought he was born in the Philippines, and 20% weren't sure. Among Republicans 44% think he was not born here while just 36% believe that he was.
(In a promising development, only 10% of respondents weren't sure if Hawaii is part of the United States. On this score, conservatives were only slightly more confused than liberals and moderates.)
4. "Government Death Panels Will Euthanize My Grandma." Sadly, the Republicans' Birther and Deather psychoses represent a cradle-to-grave illness.
Despite the vaccinations administered by PolitiFact, ABC News, the New York Times and countless other care-givers, Republicans persist in their virulent health care death panel delusions. This out-of-control CTD (conservative transmitted disease) has spread like wildfire, thanks to vectors like Betsy McCaughey, Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin. (Even a Republican like Senator Chuck Grassley, previously diagnosed by President Obama as sane, came down with the deather flu.)
An NBC poll this week quantified the deather madness: a staggering 45 percent said it's likely the government will decide when to stop care for the elderly. (Majorities also wrongly believe that reform proposals on the table would constitute a government "takeover" of the health care system, one which would cover illegal aliens.)
As MSNBC noted, viewers of Fox News - a strong predictor of Republican allegiance - were overwhelmingly afflicted by this health care dementia:
In our poll, 72% of self-identified FOX News viewers believe the health-care plan will give coverage to illegal immigrants, 79% of them say it will lead to a government takeover, 69% think that it will use taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions, and 75% believe that it will allow the government to make decisions about when to stop providing care for the elderly.
5. "President Obama Raised Taxes on Working People." The Republicans' profound cognitive disorders are not limited to their hallucinations about Barack Obama's birth or the health care imbroglio. As the Tea Party movement shows, furious right-wing zealots are outraged by no taxation with representation.
As promised, Barack Obama in the stimulus package delivered on his pledge of tax relief for 95% of American households. Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) didn't only jump start gross domestic product and refill empty state coffers in the second quarter of 2009. As Nate Silver thoroughly documented, "Obama has cut taxes for 98.6% of working households."
Nevertheless, frothing at the mouth Tea Baggers spouting Republican Tax Day lies took to the streets not to thank the President, but to blame him for the tax cuts they received. While Andrew Sullivan described their unreasoning mania as "adolescent, unserious hysteria," the Daily Show's Jon Stewart diagnosed their disorder:
"I think you might be confusing tyranny with losing."
Back in April, I appropriated Daniel Patrick Moynihan's classic statement to conclude that with their rag-tag band of revolutionaries, secessionists and agitators for violence, Republicans were "defining political deviancy down." Sadly, the delusional and the deviant are now descending on town hall meetings with guns. The Republican schizophrenics are no longer just a danger to themselves.
UPDATE: Newsweek adds the "Five Biggest Lies in the Health Care Debate" to its list of "Seven Falsehoods About Health Care." Meanwhile, the RNC added to a new pathology, suggesting in a poll that "GOP voters may be discriminated against for medical treatment" under a Democratic health care plan.
The Lesson of the Town Halls
Is there any reason for optimism on healthcare reform? In a weird sort of way there is.
Think about this: It turns out that heathcare reform is so fundamentally popular that the only way Republicans have been able to have any impact at all on the debate is via a campaign of demagoguery so egregious and brazen that Huey Long himself probably would have hesitated a moment or two before jumping in. For the first six months of the year nothing else had made a dent, so finally they had to resort to a full month of silly season frenzy about death panels and secret White House enemies lists and "healthcare racism" and benefits for illegal immigrants. The only thing missing was sharks with laser beams attached to their heads.
It's been a helluva show. But here's the weird fact: despite all this, public support for healthcare reform has declined only modestly. In fact, less than you'd expect even without the August freak show we've just gone through. Generally speaking, people still approve of Obama, still approve of his healthcare plan, still prefer Democrats to Republicans on the issue, and still support giving people the choice of being covered by either a public or a private plan. Fox News and FreedomWorks have managed to spin their audiences into a hysterical lather about fascism and socialism and pulling the plug on grandma, but in the end the shrieking crowds who showed up at the townhalls were tiny in number.
So that's the optimistic view: the Fox/FreedomWorks crowd has created some great political theater, but underneath it all not a lot has changed. If Democrats can just take a deep breath after the trauma of being yelled at all summer, they'll realize that the loons at their townhalls represented about one percent of their constituency; that the public still wants reform and will reward success; that the plans currently on the table are already pretty modest affairs; and then they'll stick together as a caucus and vote for them. And that will be that.
Unfortunately, that's also the reason for pessimism: can Democrats still think straight about all this? When Chuck Grassley announces dolefully that maybe healthcare needs to be rethought now that the people have spoken, he says it like he really means it. And even some Dems fall for it. So success depends on the Democratic caucus seeing through the "heartland uprising" charade and showing some backbone. The odds might not be so great on that.
Billionaires for WealthCare mocks healthcare protesters in California
“If God loved the poor people, he wouldn’t let them get sick.”
“Healthcare rationing, that’s our job!”
“We love BlueDogs. A solid investment in healthcare profiteering.”
Carrying signs with irreverent messages praising the status quo of the American healthcare system, a farcical anti-healthcare reform group, Billionaires for Wealthcare, paraded outside a Democratic town hall meeting in Spring Valley, California Sunday.
Dressed in business suits and cocktail dresses, and occasionally sporting champagne, the motley crew of “billionaires” cheered on anti-healthcare protesters. They carried signs with messages including “Survival of the RICHEST!” “IT’S A CLASS WAR AND WE’RE WINNING” and “Keep WEALTHCARE alive / NO on HealthCare reform.”
The cavalcade descended on protesters on both side of President Barack Obama’s healthcare proposals outside a townhall event for Rep. Susan Davis (D-CA). They mocked those in opposition to healthcare reform, positing that their opposition was a boon for the private insurance industry — and for the superrich in general.
In a YouTube video the group posted, one top-hatted “billionaire” is quoted as endorsing the privatization of other public services, as well.
“Along with privatized police, [we should have a] privatized fire department,” the gentleman quips. “I mean, because if my cat’s stuck in a tree, I don’t want the fire department taking ten extra minutes because of a silly fire going on somewhere else in my neighborhood. Because if I have the money, I get the first priority.”
The event received treatment in East County Magazine.
The article quotes Spring Valley resident Barbara Cummings, who strutted in black attire and pearls, “because sometimes street theater can have an impact where just yelling at one another accomplishes nothing.”
The group’s website, BillionairesforWealthcare.com, carries the follow message and YouTube video.
Disney to Buy Marvel for $4 Billion
- By Lewis Wallace
- August 31, 2009 |
- 10:40 am
If approved, a $4 billion deal would make Spider-Man and Mickey Mouse corporate cousins.
The Walt Disney Co. is in the process of buying Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion in cash and stock. The deal would give the Mouse House ownership of Marvel’s 5,000 superhero characters.
“This transaction combines Marvel’s strong global brand and world-renowned library of characters including Iron Man, Spider-Man, X-Men, Captain America, Fantastic Four and Thor with Disney’s creative skills, unparalleled global portfolio of entertainment properties, and a business structure that maximizes the value of creative properties across multiple platforms and territories,” said Robert A. Iger, Disney’s president and CEO, in a statement Monday.
The boards of the two companies have approved the deal, which must clear antitrust review and gain approval from Marvel’s shareholders before being completed. Disney would pay owners of Marvel stock $30 per share in cash plus 0.745 Disney shares for every Marvel share they own.
Based on Friday’s closing price of Disney stock, the transaction value is $50 per Marvel share, Disney said.
Marvel shares rose to $48.70 in premarket trading Monday on news of the sale, according to Reuters, while Disney shares dropped 3 percent.
If Disney doesn’t neuter Marvel’s stable of superheroes — a colorful and expanding universe with deep pulp roots and characters that have proven to be extremely popular over the years — the deal could help the comic book giant extend its recent Hollywood success and expand its overseas operations.
Visitors to Disney-owned theme parks could soon see characters like Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four and the Incredible Hulk roaming the grounds or could find themselves soaring through the air on an Iron Man ride.
“Disney is the perfect home for Marvel’s fantastic library of characters given its proven ability to expand content creation and licensing businesses,” said Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter in the press release. “This is an unparalleled opportunity for Marvel to build upon its vibrant brand and character properties by accessing Disney’s tremendous global organization and infrastructure around the world.” Perlmutter will continue to oversee Marvel’s operations and work to integrate the comic book characters into Disney’s business.
The deal includes Marvel Studios, the comic book giant’s increasingly successful movie production arm. After a decade of producing movies in partnership with other studios, Marvel Studios released its first independently produced film last year: Iron Man starred Robert Downey Jr. as billionaire weapons dealer Tony Stark who creates an weaponized suit of armor that makes him a one-man army.
The movie, which raised the bar for movies based on Marvel’s comic book properties, launched Hollywood’s blockbuster superhero summer of 2008.
Marvel Studios is currently working on a sequel, Iron Man 2, which the company showed off at this year’s Comic-Con International in San Diego. Other Marvel Studios pictures in development include Thor and The First Avenger: Captain America, both slated for release in 2011, and The Avengers, due in 2012.
Reactions to the news lit up the tweetosphere, with some Marvel fans expressing excitement and others condemning the purchase of Marvel by the family-friendly Disney.
“A Pixar-Marvel film would blow my head clean off,” tweeted Michael Borkowski. “Please make it happen.”
Tons of Marvel-Disney crossover jokes poured forth, with fans pointing out that Donald Duck Howard the Duck might now be related.
Said K. T. Stevenson: “Disney buys Marvel. The first X-Mouse comic I see will make me hurl.”
Marvel Comics Editor in Chief Joe Quesada took to Twitter Monday morning to reassure comics fans about the deal.
“Welcome to this moment in history,” Quesada tweeted. “Everyone relax, this is incredible news and all is well in the Marvel U…. Everybody take a deep breath, all your favorite comics remain unchanged and Tom Brevoort remains grouchy.”
Quesada pointed to the creative and business success that followed Disney’s purchase of Pixar for evidence that all remains well within the House of Ideas.
“If you’re familiar with the Disney/Pixar relationship, then you’ll understand why this is a new dawn for Marvel and the comics industry,” he said.
Meanwhile, acclaimed comics writer Warren Ellis, who has worked for Marvel in the past, cracked wise about the pending deal.
“Why is everyone at Marvel making quacking noises today?” Ellis tweeted. “It’s horrible.”
Image courtesy Marvel Comics.
Time Warner Spinoff Shuffles Ranks, Disney New No. 1 (Update1)
By Andy Fixmer and Sarah Rabil
March 31 (Bloomberg) -- Time Warner Inc.’s spinoff of its cable division dropped the New York-based owner of Time magazine and Warner Bros. to third place among U.S. media companies, behind Walt Disney Co. and News Corp.
Disney, based in Burbank, California, reported fiscal 2008 sales of $37.8 billion. Excluding $17.2 billion in cable revenue, Time Warner’s 2008 sales totaled $29.8 billion.
Time Warner divested the unit, the second-largest cable company in the U.S., because it no longer needed the division to guarantee distribution of its channels including HBO and CNN. With the split, which took effect yesterday, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. becomes No. 2, with $33 billion in sales.
“Investors want to buy large market names,” Michael Nathanson, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in New York, said in an interview. He rates Disney, News Corp. and Time Warner shares “market perform.” “It’s better to be Disney than a company that’s a third of the size like Viacom.”
Time Warner spokesman Ed Adler said in an interview the split reflected different strategies.
“Time Warner now is a focused content company,” said Adler. “We have the scale and know-how to make it possible for Time Warner to capitalize on emerging distribution platforms.”
Jonathan Friedland, a spokesman for Disney, already the world’s biggest theme-park operator, and News Corp. spokeswoman Teri Everett declined to comment.
Time Warner gained $1.07, or 5.9 percent, to $19.30 at 4:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares fell 39 percent last year. Disney, down 30 percent in 2008, rose 31 cents to $18.16 and News Corp. Class A shares advanced 14 cents to $6.62 and declined 56 percent last year.
The split also gives Time Warner cash to rebuild, Nathanson said. The company is still suffering from its failed merger with AOL in 2001, he said.
Time Warner named Google Inc. executive Tim Armstrong to lead AOL this month, making a spinoff of the business more likely, Nathanson said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Andy Fixmer in Los Angeles at afixmer@bloomberg.net; Sarah Rabil in New York at srabil@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: March 31, 2009 17:07 EDTObama, Spider-Man Appear In Inauguration Marvel Comic| 
LISA TOLIN | January 8, 2009 01:58 PM EST
This undated handout image provided Marvel Comics shows the cover of The Amazing Spider-Man featuring President-elect Barack Obama. (AP Photo/Marvel Comics)
WASHINGTON — Spider-Man has a new sidekick: The president-elect.
Barack Obama collected Spider-Man comics as a child, so Marvel Comics wanted to give him a "shout-out back" by featuring him in a bonus story, said Joe Quesada, Marvel's editor-in-chief.
"How great is that? The commander in chief to be is actually a nerd in chief," Quesada said. "It was really, really cool to see that we had a geek in the White House. We're all thrilled with that."
The comic starts with Spider-Man's alter-ego Peter Parker taking photographs at the inauguration, before spotting two identical Obamas.
Parker decides "the future president's gonna need Spider-Man," and springs into action, using basketball to determine the real Obama and punching out the impostor.
Obama thanks him with a fist-bump.
Marvel comics have featured most presidents, but generally in walk-on roles, Quesada said.
"I think President Nixon might have appeared on the cover, but not in a good way," he said.
Obama has said that as a child, he collected Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian comic books. His Senate Web site used to have a photo of him posing in front of a Superman statue.
The Obama story is a bonus in Marvel Comic's Amazing Spider-Man #583, available in comic book shops nationwide on Jan. 14 for $3.99 and is expected to sell out, with half the covers devoted to Obama.
Action Alert
Eisner's Fantasyland Excuse for Censorship
5/7/04
On the television network that his company owns, Disney CEO Michael Eisner dismissed the idea that forbidding Disney subsidiary Miramax to distribute a controversial new documentary by Michael Moore was a form of censorship. "We informed both the agency that represented the film and all of our companies that we just didn't want to be in the middle of a politically-oriented film during an election year," he told ABC World News Tonight (5/5/04), referring to Moore's Fahrenheit 911, which examines the connections between the Bush family and the House of Saud that rules Saudi Arabia.
On its face, Eisner's statement will have a chilling effect. A major movie studio with an announced policy of only releasing apolitical films, in an election year or any other year, will discourage filmmakers from tackling important themes and impoverish the American political debate. (That Moore and Miramax were given advance warning of this policy hardly mitigates its censorious impact.)
But Eisner's statement cannot be taken at face value, because Disney, through its various subsidiaries, is one of the largest distributors of political, often highly partisan media content in the country-- virtually all of it right-wing. Consider:
Almost all of Disney's major talk radio stations-- WABC in New York, WMAL in D.C., WLS in Chicago, WBAP in Dallas/Ft. Worth and KSFO in San Francisco-- broadcast Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. Indeed, WABC isconsidered the home station for both of these shows, which promote an unremitting Republican political agenda. (Disney's KABC in L.A. carries Hannity, but has Bill O'Reilly instead of Limbaugh.) Disney's news/talk stations are dominated by a variety of other partisan Republican hosts, both local and national, including Laura Ingraham, Larry Elder and Matt Drudge.
Disney's Family Channel carries Pat Robertson's 700 Club, which routinely equates Christianity with Republican causes. After the September 11 attacks, Robertson's guest Jerry Falwell (9/13/01) blamed the attacks on those who "make God mad": "the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who try to secularize America." Robertson's response was, "I totally concur." It's hard to imagine that anything in Moore's film will be more controversial than that.
Disney's ABC News prominently features John Stossel, who, though not explicitly partisan, advocates for a conservative philosophy in almost all his work: "It is my job to explain the beauties of the free market," he has explained (Oregonian, 10/26/94). No journalist is allowed to advocate for a balancing point of view on ABC's news programs.
Given the considerable amount of right-wing material distributed by Disney, much of it openly promoting Republican candidates and issues, it's impossible to believe that Disney is preventing Miramax from distributing Fahrenheit 911 because, as a Disney executive told the New York Times (5/5/04), "It's not in the interest of any major corporation to be dragged into a highly charged partisan political battle." Disney, in fact, makes a great deal of money off of highly charged partisan political battles, although it generally provides access to only one side of the war.
So what is the real reason it won't distribute Moore's movie? The explanation that Moore's agent said he was offered by Eisner-- that Disney was afraid of losing tax breaks from Florida Gov. Jeb Bush-- is more persuasive than Eisner's obviously false public rationale. But more relevant may be Disney's financial involvement with a member of the same Saudi family whose connections to the Bush dynasty are investigated by Moore. Prince Al-Walid bin Talal, a billionaire investor who is a grandson of Saudi Arabia's King Fahd, became a major investor in Disney's Eurodisney theme park when it was in financial trouble, and may be asked to bail out the troubled project again.
It's not unprecedented for Disney to respond favorably to a political request from its Saudi business partner; when Disney's EPCOT Center planned to describe Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in an exhibit on Israeli culture, Al-Walid says that he had personally asked Eisner to intervene in the decision. That same week, Disney announced that the pavilion would not refer to Jerusalem as Israel's capital (BBC, 9/14/99).
Whatever the true motive of Disney's decision to reject Moore's film, it's not the one that Eisner and other company spokespersons are advancing in public. Journalists covering the issue should go beyond Disney's transparent PR stance and explore the real motivations involved.
See also: ABC/Disney
See FAIR's Archives for more on:
Disney/John Stossel
Disney/ABC Radio Networks
Censorship
CJR's guide to what the major media companies own.
Select a media company below to begin.
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- The Walt Disney Company
- 500 South Buena Vista Street
Burbank, CA 91521 - Voice (818) 560-1000
- www.disney.com
- 1901
- Walter E. Disney is born
- 1928
- Mickey Mouse is featured for the first time in the short animated film, Steamboat Willie
- 1929
- Walt Disney Productions formed
- 1937
- Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is released. It is Disney's first full length animated film
- 1940
- Walt Disney Productions offers stock as the company goes public to help lower debt. The company also moves its operations from Hollywood to Burbank, CA.
- 1941
- Disney animation workers go out on strike for five months. Deal to return back to work is finally brokered by federal mediators
- 1943
- The American Broadcast Company network is formed after the FCC rules that NBC must sell one of its two radio networks. The NBC Blue network is sold to Edward J. Noble for $8 million. Noble made his money as the creator of Lifesavers candy.
- 1945
- Walt's brother, Roy, becomes president of company
- 1947
- Walt Disney testifies in front of the House Committee on Un-American Activities
- 1951
- Leonard Goldstein and United Paramount Theaters buy ABC for $25 million
- 1953
- Buena Vista Distribution Company is formed to act as Disney film distributor
- 1954
- Disneyland, the first weekly television series from the studio debuts on ABC
- 1955
- Disneyland opens in Anaheim, CA at a cost of $17 million. The ABC television network is partial investor in Disneyland. The Mickey Mouse Club airs on ABC for the first time. Howard Hughes offers to sell Disney the RKO studio but Walt and Roy decline the deal
- 1960
- Disney buys out ABC's remaining financial interest in Disneyland
- 1966
- Walt Disney dies from lung cancer
- 1970
- Monday Night Football debuts
- 1971
- Walt Disney World opens in Orlando, FL.
- 1979
- ESPN is launched
- 1983
- Tokyo Disneyland opens. The Disney Channel makes its debut on cable television
- 1984
- Michael Eisner becomes the new CEO for Walt Disney Productions. ABC in a deal with Getty Oil acquires ESPN. ABC sells 20% of the sports cable network to Nabisco who in turn later deals the stake to Hearst
- 1986
- Company changes name from Walt Disney Productions to the Walt Disney Company. Capital Cities Communication, a large broadcasting group, acquires the ABC television network for 3.5 $billion.
- 1987
- ESPN is awarded the National Football League's first cable broadcasting deal
- 1992
- Disney is awarded a National Hockey League expansion team to be called The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim make their league debut. ESPN Radio is launched
- 1993
- Disney acquires Miramax Films
- 1995
- Disney announces its intent to purchase Capital Cities/ABC for $19 billion. The deal is the largest media merger in history to the point and the second largest sum of money ever paid for a U.S. company
- 1996
- Capital Cities/ABC officially becomes part of the Disney Company. Disney.com is launched. Disney gains ownership stake in Major League Baseball's California Angels. Team later changes its name to the Anaheim Angels. Radio Disney is launched
- 1997
- Knight Ridder purchases Disney's four newspapers (Kansas City Star, Forth Worth Star-Telegram, Wilkes Barre Times Leader, Belleville News-Democrat) for $1.65 billion
- 1998
- ESPN The Magazine is launched
- 1999
- Fairchild Publications is sold to Advance Publications. The magazine chains includes such titles as W, Jane, and Women's Wear Daily
- 2000
- Robert Iger becomes president and COO
- 2001
- News Corp. sells Fox Family Worldwide to Disney. Cable channel later becomes known as ABC Family
- 2002
- ESPN and ABC announce their acquisition of the National Basketball Association's television broadcasting rights
- 2003
- Anaheim Angels sold to Phoenix businessman Arturo Moreno for just over $180 million
- 2003
- Roy Disney resigns as vice-chairman of the Walt Disney entertainment group
- 2005
- Bob Iger replaces Michael Eisner as CEO
- 2006
- Disney purchases the rights to Pixar
- 2008
- Disney buys back rights to Disney Store, which had previously been owned by The Children's Store
- Film
- Walt Disney Pictures
- Touchstone Pictures
- Hollywood Pictures
- Miramax Films
- Pixar
- Broadcast Television
- ABC Network
- Owned and Operated Television Stations
- WLS - Chicago
- WJRT - Flint
- KFSN - Fresno
- KTRK - Houston
- KABC - Los Angeles
- WABC - New York City
- WPVI - Philadelphia
- WTVD - Raleigh - Durham
- KGO - San Francisco
- WTVG - Toledo
- Cable Television
- ESPN (80%)
- ESPN2 (80%)
- ESPN Classic (80%)
- ESPNU (80%)
- ESPNEWS (80%)
- ABC Family
- Disney Channel
- Toon Disney
- SOAPnet
- Lifetime Network (partial)
- Lifetime Movie Network (partial)
- Lifetime Real Women (partial)
- A&E (partial)
- A&E International (partial)
- Jetix Europe (partial)
- Jetix Latin America
- The History Channel (partial)
- Lifetime Real Women (partial)
- Radio
- ABC Radio
- WDWD – Atlanta
- WMVP – Chicago
- WLS – Chicago
- KESN – Dallas
- KMKI – Dallas-Forth Worth
- KRDY – San Antonio
- WCOG – Greensboro, NC
- WRDZ – Indianapolis
- KABC – Los Angeles
- KLOS – Los Angeles
- KDIS – Los Angeles
- KSPN – Los Angeles
- KDIZ – Minneapolis - St. Paul
- WKSH – Milwaukee, WI
- WEVD – New York City
- KDZR – Portland, OR
- KWDZ – Salt Lake City
- KIID – Sacramento
- KMKY – Oakland
- KQAM – Wichita
- KKDZ – Seattle
- WSDZ – St. Louis
- WWMK – Cleveland
- KMIK – Phoenix
- KDDZ – Denver
- WWMI – Tampa
- KMIC – Houston
- WMYM – Miami
- WBWL – Jacksonville
- WBYU – New Orleans
- KDIS – Little Rock
- WWJZ – Philadelphia
- WWJZ – Philadelphia
- WMKI – Boston
- WDZK – Hartford
- WDDZ – Providence
- WDZY – Richmond
- WGFY – Charlotte
- WDYZ – Orlando
- WMNE – West Palm Beach
- WEAE – Pittsburgh
- WDRD – Louisville
- WDDY – Albany, NY
- KPHN – Kansas City
- WQUA – Mobile
- WBML – Jacksonville
- WFDF – Detroit
- WFRO – Fremont, OH
- WDMV – Damascus, MD
- WHKT – Norfolk Radio Disney
- ESPN Radio (syndicated programming)
- Music
- Walt Disney Records
- Hollywood Records
- Lyric Street Records
- Publishing
- Book Publishing Imprints
- Hyperion
- Miramax Books
- ESPN Books
- Theia
- ABC Daytime Press
- Hyperion eBooks
- Hyperion East
- Disney Publishing Worldwide
- Cal Publishing Inc.
- CrossGen
- Hyperion Books for Children
- Jump at the Sun
- Volo
- Michael di Caupa Books
- Disney Global Children's Books
- Disney Press
- Disney Editions
- Disney Libri
- Global Retail
- Global Continuity
- Magazine
- Automotive Industries
- Biography (with GE and Hearst)
- Discover
- Disney Adventures
- Disney Magazine
- ECN News
- ESPN Magazine (distributed by Hearst)
- Family Fun
- Institutional Investor
- JCK
- Kodin
- Top Famille - French family magazine
- US Weekly (50%)
- Video Business
- Quality
- Wondertime Magazine
- Parks and Resorts
- Walt Disney Imagineering
- Disneyland Resort
- Walt Disney World Resort
- Tokyo Disney Resort
- Disneyland Resort Paris
- Hong Kong Disneyland
- Disney Vacation Club
- Disney Cruise Line
- Other
- Disney Theatrical Productions
- Disney Live Family Entertainment
- Disney on Ice
- The Disney Store
- Club Penguins
- ESPN Zone
- Disney Toys
- Disney Apparel, Accessories and Footwear
- Disney Food, Health and Beauty
- Disney Home Furnishings and Decor
- Disney Stationery
- Disney Consumer Economics
- The Baby Einstein Company
- Muppets Holding Company
- Disney Interactive Studios
- Walt Disney Internet Group
- last updated 7/30/08
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