Coulter lied and distorted to defend "Gannon," ... [Media Matters for America]

This morning The Oregonian had a front-page article, "Social Security Fight is Getting Dirty" where the right-wing has hired the Swift Boat smear agency to attack AARP. Their first ad is that AARP doesn't support soldiers but does support gays. The left-wing is saying that the Republicans are being inconsistent in what they're saying about social security and that people should check to see whether their representatives are supporting their constituents' positions on social security.

The press runs such things to appear balanced -- but where is the balance. Shouldn't they be pointing out the huge difference between the two approaches? There are some reasonable Republicans who are doing what the Democrats are doing -- but there are no Democrats who are hiring public relations firms to smear the President's proposals. Both sides are not doing this.

Ann Coulter, who gets more air time than liberal pundits, says that the liberal media has gone after Gannon because of his use of a pseudonym. Yet, she says, Clinton, Hart and Kerry all ran under assumed names. Clinton legally changed his last name to his stepfather's last name when he was in high school. Hart's father legally changed the family's last name to Hart in the 1950's. John Kerry's grandfather legally changed the family's name in 1901. Those are not pseudonyms.

FDR's framing message: "There is nothing mysterious about the foundations of a healthy and strong democracy. The basic things expected by our people of their political and economic systems are simple. They are: equality of opportunity for youth and for others; jobs for those who can work; security for those who need it; the ending of special privilege for the few; the preservation of civil liberties for all; the enjoyment of the fruits of scientific progress in a wider and constantly rising standard of living."

From my SO, a LTE for the Columbian:

In defending the supermajority requirement for school funding elections, Ms. Hovde's writing in The Columbian, February 24, 2005, was particularly unfettered by logic, reason or accuracy.

To provide a remedial civics lesson for Ms. Hovde, except in extraordinary cases such as the 2000 Presidential election, the majority does rule. Ms. Hovde is just plain wrong when she makes the statement that "in any given election, the reality is, the majority rarely rules" It is a very simple concept. In the vast majority of elections, whoever gets the most votes - wins. Contrary to the title of her opinion piece, a simple majority is just that - simple! It may not be the majority Ms. Hovde would like to see voting, but it is the majority of voters who vote in an election who rule the outcome of the election. Simple.

Further in her article she states that school employees "make up a good bulk of voters in lots of communities." She references the fact that in Clark County the Evergreen and Vancouver school districts are among the top three slots and the Battle Ground school district rounds out the top ten of the largest employers in Clark County. She then uses this information to conclude that if one were to "Isolate school employees in their given community . . . they can dominate a voting area."

Again, it's back to school for Ms. Hovde for math class this time. If we add up all the employees in every school district in Clark County and we assume that all of them are eligible to vote in Clark County we have a total of about 8100 voters. According to Mr. Kimsey at the Clark County elections office, there are approximately 203000 registered voters in the county. Apparently in Ms. Hovde's world, the 8100 cuts a "large swath" through the 203000.

In her next paragraph she insinuates that the taxes that are levied to support our schools only affect a small group of people, the landed gentry, and those people need to be protected somehow from all those apartment dwellers. The truth is that providing funding for education affects every single person in Clark County and not providing funding for education affects every single person in Clark County. We are all affected by the quality of our schools.

Ms. Hovde's statement that school employees are likely to vote in favor of school levies because it will benefit them personally is completely misplaced. They vote in favor of the levies for the same reason they are teachers. They are committed to providing the best education to the children of Clark County, they believe in what they are doing, and they understand the need to provide adequate funding for schools.

Ms Hovde certainly has a right to her opinions concerning the foibles of our taxation system. If she truly wants to effect a positive change, she needs to work a little harder on the facts and presenting a reasoned approach. In this issue she has resorted to misstatements because to look at it from the 'simple' view she espouses, the 60% supermajority requirement is indefensible. The simple majority should rule. It's a no-brainer.

Jim Hightower
Just when you think you've bottomed out on the level of cynicism it's possible to have toward Washington's constant kowtowing to the monied interests – along comes the "American Jobs Creation Act."

These days, whenever the White House and congress put a positive-sounding title on a piece of legislation, you can bet that the law itself does the exact opposite of what the title so gloriously proclaims.

The American Jobs Creation Act, pushed by George W and enacted last fall, does not create a single job. Instead, it's a massive multibillion-dollar tax giveaway to global corporations. Through this law's "homeland investment" loophole, corporations operating abroad are allowed to have some $400 billion in foreign profits taxed at the bargain-basement rate of only 5.25 percent, rather than the normal rate of 35 percent.

Is this another example of Owellian speech?

NewsMax - Center for the Study of Popular Culture Contributions

Students for Academic Freedom is a neo-con attack against academic freedom. If offers books "Indoctrination or Education: the Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution Program at Ball State University" and "Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left." Instead of looking at why more educated people aren't conservatives -- neo-cons just state that it's due to indoctrination.

The war is out there and this is their propaganda.

village voice > news > Generation Debt: The New Economics of Being Young:

The Greatest Generation had the G.I. Bill to pay for college. Baby Boomers got the Pell Grant program in the 1970s, and back then it paid for an average of 50 percent of a public university education, compared to 25 percent today. Students these days are supposed to be grateful that Bush's new budget will allow them to borrow even more, raising the annual limit on federal student loans from $2,625 to $3,500 for freshmen.

Along with that are fewer seats per capita in state universities. We are falling far behind.

HBO Bill Maher 021805
Bill Maher talks about the Jeff Gannon story. LOL.

I spoke to Hayden Reiss, the producer of the Lakoff DVD, today. What a remarkable person! His organization is called "Educate the Base." He came up with the idea of making a DVD of Lakoff after reading Lakoff's book, Moral Politics. He tested it with progressives to determine how long to make it -- and decided on that short format. I think that really works! More discussion comes from having a 20 minute video than from having a 2-hour video. He's done other mini-documentaries, mostly on poets. He's interested in doing more educational videos for progressives, and is using the proceeds from the Lakoff DVD to fund that.
After he made the DVD he tried to get Moveon and other organizations interested in distributing it, but they were so busy with other things before the election that they didn't pick up on it.
Talking to him was really inspiring. It made me feel that there are so many people out there trying to figure out a way to take our country back that we WILL be able to do it. We just each need to play our part.

Guckert/Gannon: Fake Newsman in White House -- Why isn't this being reported?

I have no idea why we aren't seeing anything about the Gannon story in the Oregonian. I know why we aren't seeing anything in the Columbian -- they're Republican shills. They're still publishing lots of articles for a re-vote. Sigh. So one-sided and the major news source for our communities in SW Washington.

Clear Channel adopts more liberal programming

Clear Channel now has 22 liberal talk radio stations and plans to have 20 more by the end of the year. Clear Channnel is, of course, a completely red company.

Clear Channel chief executive Lowry Mays and his wife gave 65-thousand dollars to the Republican National Committee in the last election cycle -- and two-thirds of the company's federal donations went to Republicans -- according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

The company says politics aren't involved in its decision to put liberal talk shows on the air.

Money puts liberal politics on the air. In Portland KPOJ-AM went from 1% to 4% market share when it switched to liberal talk. In Chicago, the WDTW General Manager commented about switching to liberal talk radio,

We are a blue state and a blue region and it just made sense.

Money talks, doesn't it? Just Buy Blue.

Social Security: "AFL-CIO Poll: Key Conclusions & Powerpoint Presentation, Peter D. Hart Research Associates, commisioned by the AFL-CIO, February, 2005."

TomPaine.com - Adjusting For Women:

Representative Bill Thomas (R-CA), chair of House Ways and Means Committee, amazingly floated "gender and race adjusting benefits." In these women should get less because they live longer and blacks should get more because they have shorter lifetimes.

There are other ways to look at this. Women already work for lower wages and spend more time out of the workforce caring for children and aging parents. Let's adjust for that!

"In 2003, the last full year for which we have Census Bureau earnings data for full-time, year-round workers, women earned only 75.5 cents for every $1 men earned. Adjusting women's benefits upward to compensate for that lower pay, would mean an increase in their benefits of 32.5 percent to bring them in line with men's benefits."

The Institute for Women’s Policy Research recently estimated that the typical woman earns just 38 cents for each $1.00 the typical man earns over a lifetime, taking years out of the workforce into account. Social Security benefits are based on the highest 35 years of earnings (and the years women spend at home are averaged in at $0). To compensate women for the impact of this lost time doing unpaid care work, women's benefits would need to be increased by 163 percent—more than double.
Similarly, let's look at the reasons that black Americans live shorter lives and fix those -- better healthcare, more opportunity.

Simple Majority for school levy elections -- Let the People Decide

From Brian Blake, 19th LD.

It’s wrong to let a minority of voters hold our schools back. How can it be fair to elect lawmakers with 50 percent of the vote, but set a much higher bar for our local schools? Legislators should not stand in the way of sending this issue to a vote of the people. This bill has been passing back and forth between House and Senate for many years. It is time to get it out of the legislative hands and send it on to a vote of the people.

In a unanimous bi-partisan vote the House education committee approved legislation that would amend the state Constitution to allow a simple majority of voters to pass a school levy.

The resolution (HJR 4205) would overturn the current 60 percent supermajority requirement first approved in 1932 to pass a school levy. Should it pass the Legislature this year, the decision to amend the state Constitution would go before voters in November.

ChangeThis :: ChangeThis

I'm so amazed at this website. They invite people to write thoughtful "manifestos" about anything, and then watch the ideas spread. I first read the manifesto "Why Craigslist Works, by Craig." The tone is exceptional! It makes you realize how far the media has gotten from thoughtful discourse.

This has the same fresh feel as the reframing sessions that I've attended.

Anais Mitchell Protest Songs

She has a new album, Hymns for the Exiled. Almost like Dylan in the 60's-70's.

"down at headquarters, there's a big database
with black and white photos of the side of your beautiful face
and your library record, and all your test scores
and an invitation to party like it's 1984

baby, don't look so nervous, they just want the facts
and it's all written out in the usa patriot act
cause we don't take no chances in a nation at war
so tonight we're gonna party like it's 1984"

TomPaine.com - The Flickering Light Of America

John Edward's speech talks of American Democratic values. HE is reframing on a grand scale.

Bush counts on ANWR cash

The budget doesn't have any costs for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, any costs for privatizing Social Security, and doesn't include a politically necessary "fix" for the alternative minimum tax that's about to hit middle-income taxpayers, but it does include $1.2 billion dollars from drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge. Why is that?

"The budget is the right place to present the entirety of the president's policies," budget director Joshua Bolten said in response to a question at a noon media briefing in the Executive Office Building.

Unbelievable.

Rove Gets Bigger Role in White House

Rove, who was Bush's top political strategist during his 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns, will become a deputy White House chief of staff in charge of coordinating policy between the White House Domestic Policy Council, National Economic Council, National Security Council and Homeland Security Council.

GOP_SS_Playbook.pdf (application/pdf Object)

A Republican Strategy Book on Demolishing Social Security

Instructoart | MTV | Wedding

I liked this! Very clear and inclusive.

Sock Puppets of Industry

A continuation from the previous post about a Feb. 3 announcement of a report on why municipal networks are a terrible, anti-competitive idea: In the previous post, below, I dissected BusinessWeek’s blog entry on a new report that will be released on Feb. 3 from the New Millennium Research Council. In this post, I include the announcement’s text after the jump below, and provide some background on each of the people who will be part of the press event.

Confirmation of corporate interests behind anti-municipal wi-fi.

Reframing:

Two great websites:

Frameshop: Politics Gets a Tune-up
Demspeak: Reframing the Progressive Message

My tags can be found on http://del.icio.us/zenpatrice


You can check for reframing tags on http://del.icio.us/tag/reframing

PoliticalConversations.pdf (application/pdf Object)

This article says people are influenced to vote by social networking and conversation. There are very few people who are only influenced by mass media. (Although I think perhaps most social conversations just reinforce the effects of mass media.)

This is the reason that we need to start talking about politics. Many of us didn't talk about politics or religion in groups because it was impolite. Now it's necessary.

United Church of Christ News Release: SpongeBob welcomed by UCC: "SpongeBob receives 'unequivocal welcome' from United Church of Christ"
I'm glad to see that SpongeBob has been able to find a church home.

On Ethics, GOP Displays A Consistent Sense of Timing (washingtonpost.com):

"House Republicans this week again showed their knack for releasing dubious news about ethical matters at moments perfectly timed to draw minimal attention. A few hours before President Bush's State of the Union address Wednesday night -- an event that always dominates the news -- GOP leaders announced they were ousting the independent-minded chairman of the ethics committee, Joel Hefley (R-Colo.), and adding two committee members who had donated to Majority Leader Tom DeLay's legal defense fund"

They have this down to a science, don't they.

Tape Show Enron Arranged Plant Shutdown to Create Crisis

In the midst of the California energy troubles in early 2001, when power plants were under a federal order to deliver a full output of electricity, the Enron Corporation arranged to take a plant off-line on the same day that California was hit by rolling blackouts, according to audiotapes of company traders released here on Thursday.

Lay and Enron denied that they ever manipulated power plants. They did and here is the proof. Such perfidy. Why is it that Martha Stewart went to jail over $50,000 and they didn't go to jail over hundreds of millions of dollars?

I really thank Maria Cantwell for supporting getting those tapes transcribed. If not for her this would have gone unrecognized.

State of Fear: Greetings From the New Flat Earth

I just finished Michael Crichton's book State of Fear (SoF). It's not well-written, but then Crichton has always been more about plot than character development. Most of his novels read like movie treatments: It's his way of making money from them twice. The characters in SoF are thin, but vaguely more appealing than the characters in say, Prey. (The contagonist in that was replicated from nano-bots.)

But SoF is irresponsible at best and opportunistic at worst. Global warming has been politicized, but so have any number of other more significant topics. My theory is that he started to research global warming and found it confusing. Then The Day After Tomorrow came out, he lost his head start and decided to write for the other side. [After all, Mel Gibson was able to buy his own island after The Passion of Christ.] Crichton is now out on speaking tours for the right-wing. Rush Limbaugh, Fox and other conservatives are using his book to bolster Bush's refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol. Crichton says he's prepared to be a martyr for this book, but it looks like he's planning to be a rich one. Cui bono?

A New York Times article "Michael Crichton? He's Just the Author" talks about Jane Friedman, the chief executive of HarperCollins, who invented the author tour.

One of the biggest contributors to its profitability in the last two years has been "The Purpose-Driven Life," the religious best seller by Rick Warren that has sold 22 million copies around the world. Even a new book by Mr. Crichton cannot top that, and the question of how much more growth the company can get from "The Purpose-Driven Life" looms large in its future.

HarperCollins is starting to market books through direct-to-consumer marketing -- and they already have this huge right-wing internet group from The Purpose-Driven Life and its spin-offs.

So now we'll be debunking SoF. (There are so many Americans who believe that works of fiction need to be refuted: Look at all the books debunking the DaVinci Code: I count 5 on Amazon. Hello. That was a novel, which is a work of fiction.) Here are some sites debunking the basis of SoF Greenhouse, and Real Climate.

And then in the book Crichton links the solid environmental groups with radical environmental groups. Sigh.

The plot line itself: First he sets up his protagonist as a straw man and proceeds to lecture him and convince him through the book that global warming is not real. Doh. I guess we're supposed to be that guy, huh? Then the female interest is given up for dead about four times. She's one tough lady. Her character development is entirely physical: dying, reviving, dying... The environmental disastors are the made-for-Hollywood parts. Towards the end of the book the good guys are captured by cannibals and one of the party is eaten. That was over the top for me. Come to think of it, it was the actor, the shallow representative from Hollywood, who got eaten alive. Maybe Crichton was feeling angry about the acting in his Timeline movie. Timeline was a pretty good book -- again an obvious a movie treatment -- but close enough to science fiction that it could have been a good movie.

From my SO (sent into The Columbian)

In an opinion piece in the Columbian, Friday, February 04, 2005, Steve Titch addresses publicly-funded WiFi access being tested and implemented in some parts of the country. Mr. Titch claims that public investment in access to information is "questionable."

In his article, Mr. Titch comes across as a true advocate for an unsuspecting public, only concerned for the fiscal well-being of the citizens of Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Francisco. Those are some of the places where the politicians are attempting to provide wide-area, low-cost access to information. Vancouver, Washington is another.

Mr. Titch's plaintive cries might ring more truthfully if he was not a mouthpiece for the New Millennium Research Council (NMRC). One step further up the ladder, NMRC is sponsored by an organization called Issue Dynamics, Inc. and to complete the picture, Issue Dynamics is funded by most of the major telecommunications companies in the US. Mr. Titch’s commentary is nothing more than a paid advertisement and should be cited as such.

As I am sure Mr. Titch knows, but does not address, issues such as these are not single-faceted. If publicly-funded or regulated systems such as WiFi are not implemented, the lack of them will incur other costs. If they are implemented by uncontrolled, private enterprise, there will be other costs.

In one of the cases Mr. Titch cited, Philadelphia, Verizon estimated that their profit from the proposed commercial implementation of the plan developed by the municipality would be around $250 million dollars. According to Mr. Titch, the City of Philadelphia should abandon its plan to implement a system at a cost of $10 to 15 million dollars and turn it over to Verizon - the company that estimated a profit of $250 million for implementing the same system.

Mr. Titch is not representing the best interest of the public, but is a shill for the telecommunications industry and his opinions should be weighed accordingly.

Dozens of citizens barred from Bush's speech

"News of the Bush blacklist of dozens of citizens from a Fargo, North Dakota speech is as frightening as it has become routine for this Administration. To blacklist a local citizen because he produces a radio program at odds with the political agenda of the White House is dangerous for Democracy.

This Administration cannot promote freedom and liberty abroad while banning our most fundamental freedoms here at home. The pattern of stifling those voices that do not represent conservative orthodoxy has chilling implications for our Democracy.

Consider these recent cases:

A man is arrested and charged for holding a small “No War” sign at the January Inaugural.

The mother of a soldier killed in Iraq is ejected, arrested and charged while attending a rally for Laura Bush in September.

Across the country, citizens are removed from public sidewalks because “the President had requested a federal protection zone."

The greatness of this country lies in our constitutionally-protected freedoms and liberties. To attempt to ban those freedoms here at home hurts every American."

Kids Come First

In America we should focus on important problems – and having 11 million children in our great country without health insurance is the epitome of an important problem. In America we can stand together to ensure that the children of this country will have a chance to succeed in life. We will provide schooling. If they are ill, we will take care of them. Children are our future and our responsibility. I urge support for John Kerry’s program to Put Kids First.