Adelphia - rather than fix what it did wrong - is paying the government about $715 million to "resolve" the probe.
This is a nasty phenom that spans many presidents and administrations: the ability to buy your way out of trouble, often without any admission of guilt, let alone an apology. You can do just about anything in the U.S. and get away with it if the check you write has enough zeros on it.
You may have recently read that one of the honchos over at NBC was opining, "Why isn't Brian Williams blogging right now?" This is in response to the fact that more and more people, especially young adults, are going on the Web for more detailed information than they get on the evening network newscasts.
Gee, Brian Williams strikes me an an odd choice as a blogger. Frankly, most of the news anchors and so-called news programs don't hit me as wonderful these days - too eager to kiss up to the powers that be, promote corporate interests, and very unwilling to step on any toes (and a good journalist occasionally steps on toes, wittingly or unwittingly). Journalism, at least what I learned when I was in school (no two-day Jeff Gannon programs then), tries its best to tell the truth without taking sides and without sweating (too much) about who won't like what you write or say.
Williams seems like a nice enough fellow, somebody you wouldn't be embarrassed asking to dinner or being seen with in public. But do we really think he would add anything to the dialogue if he were blogging? Hell, no.
The few news personalities with the cojones to blog are either blogging on "safe" topics (meaning: the Bush Administration will pat them on the head along with their corporate advertisers) or they avoid the political altogether (Keith Olbermann, whose blog was pretty good for awhile, opted out of straight political blogging because the right went after him with such ferocity and venom).
Of course, not every blog is political. I read a number that aren't (example: I try to visit several foreign blogs each week just to get a taste for what worries people in other countries - it's about the only time I get to use the Spanish I spent years learning). But in blogs, I have to admit I tend to look for fresh information and stuff I won't get elsewhere... so I think they're (blogs) very well-suited to political and media analysis. And no, I don't think Brian Williams has much to contribute there.
If you see Brian on one of the late night shows, you can see that his wit isn't missing an edge. But he's not going to display this anywhere it ties back to his broadcasts; yukking it up with Letterman or Conan O'Brien is wholly different.
So I think the news honchos are deluded if they think they can tap into the difference blogs and the Internet make by taking someone like Williams and planting him in a blog. "Fans" might engage there, but the rest of us would pay little attention. People reading blogs - on the left, the right, or the middle - are looking for details the mainstream media doesn't cover or chooses to spin.
Well, I hope not.
I've had a few folks approach me asking if they could donate to the blog (very nice, thank you) or buy something for me and I've really debated whether I want to go this route. The whole fund-raising thing always hits me a variety of ways at once. Not all of them good. ::grin::
The more vocal I get, the more time I spend getting inquiries from the IRS and the more effort I exert in trying to keep the blog-related expenses (publication subscriptions, Internet account and backup account, research material and the Web site which will eventually host this blog, all set aside from the 20 or so hours I put into blogging each week which is aside from the 20 or so hours I spend reading for both the blog and my personal education each week) completely separate from my business.
After much consideration, including the fact that I want to keep my office address private and want to keep the donors' information private from me as well, I decided to go ahead and put up an Amazon honor system tip jar because this lets anyone who wishes to donate to do so without disclosing private information about me to you or you to me.
I really doubt I'll go the "oh, please please, give to me" route (just isn't my style), but the honor system tip jar is available for those who want to use it and small enough to be ignored by those who don't.
Look here.
And no, that's NOT the First Lady. Judging just upon amount of facial hair, I don't think he's a she, actually.
From Michael at AmericaBlog:
Late last night, John posted a Newsweek story that even foreign officials had been complaining about the behavior of John Bolton, Bush's nominee for the UN.Yes, my God: it's clear! John Bolton will just be fabulous on the U.N. (not!)
And what do I find on page A-8 of the SundayNYT? A feature on newly released email about Bolton battles that should have been on A-1.The most serious charge against Bolton is that he pressured intelligence analysts to change their findings to suit his political aims and -- when they said they'd given him all the leeway they could -- he harrassed them and tried to get them fired. Bolton's fights were not with one or two recalcitrant intelligence analysts that proved annoying.
According to these emails, Bolton fought with and tried to strong arm and inspired complaints from:1. The State Department's bureau of intelligence and research (INR)
2. The National Security Agency
3. Defense Intelligence Agency
4. Central Intelligence Agency
I'm not ignoring you. Honest! Since last night, either comments aren't showing for me at all or won't open properly. I suspect it's my net connection where email has been problematic, too.
So I will acknowledge as soon as I can.
CNN gave Bill Frist an unprecedented time to talk unobstructed on how mean Dems are and "why are they even here" if they won't pass every single one of Bush's corporate whore/moral whore lawyers (ignoring that Bush has a higher passage rate than recent presidents because it's inconvenient; for the Bush-Frist team, if 100% of Bush's judges don't get through, Democracy is over).
So what do they follow it up with to discuss and put this in perspective? Carlos Watson, the man who took the empty "right" position on their cut-of-at-the-knees Crossfire program where Tucker Carlson fled to MSNBC (oh God). I used to sort of like Carlos. But since hearing him on Crossfire, I've now questioned a good deal of his reporting.
If the right is so firmly convinced of their opinion, why do they jump to be sure that CNN and MSNBC use a right winger to answer a right winger? Afraid of what the Dems would say?
Oops.. wait. It wasn't my heart bleeding: I spilled my Cheerios. My bad.
From the NY Post:
RABID radio host Michael Savage is whining that he has been banned from the Fox News Channel after he dissed Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity.Hell, to some, I'm controversial.
The controversial conservative — who was fired by MSNBC in 2003 after referring to a caller to his show as "a sodomite" who should "get AIDS and die" — recently burned more bridges by calling O'Reilly a "Leper-Con who poses as a conservative" and Hannity "another Republican bootlicker who began as a Rush [Limbaugh] understudy" on his "Savage Nation" radio show.
Savage claims that he's been bumped off four scheduled appearances on Fox News Channel in the wake of his caustic comments.
"These two are now acting the way the mainstream media has been acting for decades, thinking they are the gatekeepers of who shall be heard in the conservative world," Savage sputtered in a statement.
I'm copying liberally from Raw Story, but again, I strongly encourage you to read the whole thing. A lot of things about Jeff Gannon don't add up, not the least of which is why the White House allowed someone to appear under a fake name and considering his extremely questionable history.
In what is unlikely to stem the controversy surrounding disgraced White House correspondent James Guckert, the Secret Service has furnished logs of the writer’s access to the White House after requests by two Democratic congressmembers.This is very queer, and I do NOT mean that in the gay pejorative sense either.
The documents, obtained by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) and Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) through a Freedom of Information Act request, reveal Guckert had remarkable access to the White House. Though he wrote under the name Jeff Gannon, the records show that he applied with his real name.
Gannon’s ready access to President Bush and his work for a news agency that frequently plagiarized content from other reporters and tailored it to serve a conservative message may raise new questions about the White House’s attempts to seed favorable news coverage. Democrats have sought to paint Guckert in the context of other efforts by the Administration to “plant” positive spin by paying for video news releases and columnists to espouse their views.
Guckert made more than 200 appearances at the White House during his two-year tenure with the fledging conservative websites GOPUSA and Talon News, attending 155 of 196 White House press briefings. He had little to no previous journalism experience, previously worked as a male escort, and was refused a congressional press pass.
Perhaps more notable than the frequency of his attendance, however, is several distinct anomalies about his visits.
Guckert made more than two dozen excursions to the White House when there were no scheduled briefings. On many of these days, the Press Office held press gaggles aboard Air Force One—which raises questions about what Guckert was doing at the White House. On other days, the president held photo opportunities.
On at least fourteen occasions, Secret Service records show either the entry or exit time missing. Generally, the existing entry or exit times correlate with press conferences; on most of these days, the records show that Guckert checked in but was never processed out.
In March, 2003, Guckert left the White House twice on days he had never checked in with the Secret Service. Over the next 22 months, Guckert failed to check out with the Service on fourteen days. On several of these visits, Guckert either entered or exited by a different entry/exit point than his usual one. On one of these days, no briefing was held; on another, he checked in twice but failed to check out.
“I’d be worried if I was the White House and I knew that a reporter with a day pass never left,” one White House reporter told RAW STORY. “I’d wonder, where is he hiding? It seems like a security risk.”
This is very worrisome, as some of us have been realizing for some time.
From Friday's Washington Post:
Liberal commentator Bill Moyers is out on PBS stations. Buster the animated rabbit is under a cloud of suspicion. And right-wing yakkers from the Wall Street Journal editorial page have been handed their own public-television chat show.One more public institution is being torpedoed, joining a very long list that is growing longer by the day.
Some observers, including people inside the Public Broadcasting Service, see these recent developments as troubling. PBS, they say, is being forced to toe a more conservative line in its programming by the Republican-dominated agency that provides about $30 million in federal funds to the Alexandria-based service.
Officials at the agency, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, say they are merely seeking to ensure balance and fairness in the network's presentation of political news and ideas.
Under its mandate from Congress, which created the agency in 1967, CPB is required to act as an independent buffer between lawmakers and public broadcasters, although it can set broad programming goals. Appointees of President Bush currently control the majority of seats on CPB's eight-member board. Each board member serves a six-year term.
Typically one of the quietest bureaucracies in Washington, the quasi-governmental CPB has been unusually active in recent weeks. CPB this month appointed a pair of veteran journalists to review public TV and radio programming for evidence of bias, the first time in CPB's 38-year history that it has established such positions. PBS officials were unaware that the corporation intended to review its news and public affairs programs, such as "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer" and "Frontline," until the appointments were publicly announced.
In negotiations with PBS earlier this year, the corporation also insisted, for the first time, on tying new funding to an agreement that would commit the network to strict "objectivity and balance" in each of its programs -- an idea that PBS's general counsel described in an internal memo as amounting to "government encroachment on and supervision of program content, potentially in violation of the First Amendment."
Posted by Cookie Jill at Skippy (who reminds us he's a fucking marsupial and NOT a fucking rodent):
Terrible, terrible news.hundreds of thousands of poor people across the nation will lose their state-subsidized health insurance in the coming months as legislators scramble to hold down the enormous — and ever-escalating — cost of medicaid.here in impoverished southeast missouri, nurses at a family health clinic stash drug samples for patients they know won't be able to afford their prescriptions after their coverage is eliminated this summer. doctors try to comfort waitresses, sales clerks and others who will soon lose coverage for medical, dental and mental healthcare.lawmakers say they feel for those who will lose coverage. But they say also that they have no alternative.
prenatal checkups, care in nursing homes and other health services for the poor and disabled account for more than 25% of total spending in many states. medicaid is often a state's single biggest budget item, more expensive even than K-12 education. and the price of services, especially prescription drugs and skilled nursing for the elderly, continues to soar.
the federal government helps pay for medicaid, but in the coming fiscal year, the federal contribution will drop by more than $1 billion because of changes in the cost-share formula. president bush has warned of far deeper cuts to come; he aims to reduce federal spending on medicaid by as much as $40 billion over the next decade. -latimes
A thoughtful post by my personal favorite kangaroo - OK, I don't think he's really a kangaroo but I adore him and his blog - Skippy reminds me of something that seems to come up frequently in Blogtopia (yes, Skippy coined that!): who gets links and who doesn't.
Like the blogger who contacted Skippy demanding a link to his blog, I too would love, love, love a Skippy link. But you know what? I respect Skippy so I respect who he chooses to link to permanently, who he does not, and the system by which he decides which is which.
Unlike that blogger - and a scant few who have contacted me demanding rather than requesting a reciprocal link (I'm an odd choice for that since I'm neither highly trafficked nor do I go out of my way to promote myself - I feel that each blogger gets to decide which links (s)he chooses to include on his or her rolls. Look at my blog rolls and you'll see both the usual suspects as well as some that aren't usual choices but I feel are:
Hunter at DKos offers some excellent points today - he often does - that I think are worth a shout out. Here's a serving, but go read the entire thing.
A minor point for discussion: I've been hearing talk in a number of places opining that the Democrats are "too reactive". That is, that instead of announcing policy proposals of our own, taking the initiative on issues, we are merely reacting to whatever gets tossed our way from the other side. Shouldn't we be ignoring sideshows like Justice Sunday and Ann Coulter, not letting ourselves get distracted by going 24/7 on parlor games involving Bolton, DeLay, etc? Shouldn't we use the extra time to promote our own agenda?Agreed.
Hell, no.
Let's be blunt, here. The Democrats are coming off a ten-year period of being spectacularly inept in national politics, and I would chalk a fair amount of that up to being categorically unable or unwilling to react to thrown attacks. It's not that Gore lost, or Kerry lost, or the House and Senate have Republican leads -- all of those things happened by hair's-breadth margins, and in and of themselves are not very indicative of anything resembling a long-term catastrophe. What is of more import is the way those elections or particular legislative agendas have been lost, often times in circumstances where public opinion was clearly -- unambiguously -- on the Democrats' side. The problem is -- and this is important -- current national politics has almost nothing to do with policy.
Details here on the BlogHer Conference set for Santa Clara this summer.
Sadly, it's unlikely I'll go since I have to go to the other coast at least twice otherwise between now and early October and I can only tolerate airport insecurity and airline madness just so often (unless there's an outrageously good reason, of course).
Lambert at Corrente and Company (there are many good people there) points us to this parody site.
Specifically, this is about the political response to the Pope.
First, it was interesting to see that Tom DeLay literally forced others - you know, actual Catholics - out of the U.S. delegation to John Paul II's funeral so he could be there. Several non-Republican Catholics among Congress were forced to go separately and not as part of the official delegation, because men like Frist and DeLay chose to make this their usual partisan bullshit. Frist, btw, is a Presbyterian while DeLay is, at least in theory, a Baptist.
Second, as an ironic aside to the first, Frist and DeLay have aligned themselves with the Dominionists who do not recognize the Catholic Church or the Pope as Christians. Remember the quote from Pat Robertson who said Episcopalians, Methodists, and Presybyterians were the AntiChrist and he didn't have to be nice to them, and the Catholic Church is held in even less esteem by such types. Strange thing with me: if I don't like someone and happen to believe his or her life was a "lie", I'm not going to attend their funeral just because "it looks good".
Third, interesting that Jeb Bush was chosen to "lead" the U.S. delegation to the "official" swearing in of the new Pope today. While Jeb has said he's not interested in running for president in 2008, I wouldn't hold my breath on that. Several times now, the president has given Jeb some exhaulted role as a leader (Tsunami relief, etc.) that is entirely political rather than a good choice. Jeb's an interesting Catholic, too; he converted to Catholicism at a time that made it the best choice for his political aspirations. Coincidence? Don't think so, not when he knew he would depend heavily on those whose immigrant backgrounds were largely Catholic.
Note, too, Jeb's words about leading the Papal delegation: that the U.S. and the Catholic Church are strongly aligned and would work well together. I for one do not see that the Catholic Church as led from Vatican City can or should have a strong role in American politics, not given than they tend to be very one-sided (kick Kerry out of communion for being pro-choice but allow Giuliani, Ridge, and other pro-choice Republicans to receive communion). Do you want Vatican City affecting the results of American elections? Even as a Catholic, I don't think the right answer is "yes".
Fourth, don't allow yourself to be fooled that when Dominionists among the so-called Christian Right talk about Christians, they include you unless you have a very narrow-minded view of what a Christian is. If you're a Catholic or an Episcopalian or a Unitarian, you do not qualify as a Christian to them. Understand how this is far different from the mainstream. You probably would not exclude Baptists from Christianity, although many of them would exclude you.
Fifth, when Dominionists talk about "trying to protect your right to practice your faith", they do not mean your faith, they mean their faith. If you're not a fundamentalist, you should not have rights according to them.
And those last two points are central to the fight being waged now. The Dominionists and the political whores who have aligned with them like to use inclusionary language to get you to buy their premises (again, largely based on fear of the ridiculous), but if you do, you'll only be respected and allowed to worship their way.
Daniel, a semi-new regular, happened to suggest I check out Den Mother and it was well worth the time (thanks, Daniel).
For example, here I read about one woman's reaction to the new Pope that I admit echoes some of my own. Here's a snippet:
Of much greater concern to me is the impression of Ratzinger as an ultra-traditionalist in areas such as the role of women in the church, ecumenism, personal/moral issues like birth control, and what more progressive Catholics call "a sub-culture of clericalism" and the concentration of power among the curia. He is known to have wielded tremendous influence during the later years of John Paul II's papacy, which also happens to be the time when the hierarchy fell down on the job on the issue of sexual abuse by priests. In short, he's been around long enough that his positions are very clear from his actions.Well said.Sometimes his remarks have been bluntly critical, on such diverse topics as dissident theologians, liberation theology, "abuses" in lay ministry, homosexuality, women as priests, feminism among nuns, premarital sex, abortion, liturgical reform and rock music.
[ . . . ]
After review by Cardinal Ratzinger's congregation, U.S. Father Charles Curran, who questioned church teaching against artificial birth control, was removed from his teaching position at The Catholic University of America in 1987.
Dominionism. If you don't know what it is, you should, because we see it in operation in politics and "social" issues everyday in way. And we should start calling them what they are: Dominionists acting for dominion and not Christians acting "for God".
Shakespeare's Sister brings to light this philosophy (if something based on fear and us-vs-them ism can be called a philosophy) and aspects of it that are highly important and integral to today's battle. Dominionism, right there in our faces, has failed - again and again - to be addressed in media presentations about the power of the "Christian Right". Politicians and preachers have been marvelous at getting people riled up with fears that their Bibles will be spit on (funny how the people who often do the spitting aren't their opposition but they themselves), their right to pray taken away, and their morals tramped upon.
Please, check out what 'Sister says in full. Here's just a snippet:
Dominionism is a natural if unintended extension of Social Darwinism and is frequently called “Christian Reconstructionism.” Its doctrines are shocking to ordinary Christian believers and to most Americans.And then there's this from the same post:
Journalist Frederick Clarkson, who has written extensively on the subject, warned in 1994 that Dominionism “seeks to replace democracy with a theocratic elite that would govern by imposing their interpretation of ‘Biblical Law.’” He described the ulterior motive of Dominionism is to eliminate “…labor unions, civil rights laws, and public schools.”
Dominionists have gained extensive control of the Republican Party and the apparatus of government throughout the United States; they continue to operate secretly. Their agenda to undermine all government social programs that assist the poor, the sick, and the elderly is ingeniously disguised under false labels that confuse voters.
[…]
It is estimated that thirty-five million Americans who call themselves Christian, adhere to Dominionism in the United States, but most of these people appear to be ignorant of the heretical nature of their beliefs and the seditious nature of their political goals. So successfully have the televangelists and churches inculcated the idea of the existence of an outside “enemy,” which is attacking Christianity, that millions of people have perceived themselves rightfully overthrowing an imaginary evil anti-Christian conspiratorial secular society.
While Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and others have sought to transform today into "Justice Sunday" and try to make the issue of the Senate filibuster into an "us vs. them" debate - and mind you, the "us" Frist is representing amounts to a rather small but highly vocal part (the "religious right") of the population - Shakespeare's Sister and others have decided to redefine it into a broader and yet more individual premise.
I like Shakespeare's Sister's pledge:
On Justice Sunday, I vow to passionately pursue true justice for all. I will fight for the rights of the oppressed and minorities. I will fight for people of every race, creed, color, ability, sexuality, gender, religion or lack thereof, class, and political affiliation to have a voice and a place in our democratic process, guided by the principle my rights end where yours begin. I will fight for an honest national discourse. And I will not be deterred by those who claim to have cornered the market on faith. I acknowledge the potential for goodness and wickedness in all people, and I will not bow to those who seek to harm any of my fellow Americans for any reason, even if they come carrying a cross and wrapped in a flag. The stars and stripes represent us all, and my voice will be heard. For all.Beautifully said.
That flag, and all it stands for, represents a struggle for freedom, for equality, for the rights of all, and I’m taking it back. It’s my fucking flag, too, and it doesn’t belong in the hands of those who would ignore the two most important words in the oath which we use to pledge our allegiance to that for which it stands. Liberty and justice for all.
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