There are only 22 days to go until the national
referendum on the CHARACTER, COMPETENCE and
CREDIBILITY of the _resident, the VICE _resident and
the US regimestream news media...Two more US soldiers
died in Iraq within the last 24 hours. For what? The
neo-con wet dream of a Three Stooges Reich...The US
regimestream news media refuses to provide CONTEXT and
CONTINUITY on this presidential campaign, just as they
refused to provide CONTEXT and CONTINUITY on Bush
abomination's pre-9/11 negligence and post-9/11
incompetence, the Bush abomination's relationship with
Enron and its complict role in the phoney "California
energy crisis," the prostitution of the EPA,
Medifraud, Plame, Chalabi, Abu Ghraib, Halliburton,
etc. The US regimestream news media has, in large
part, been a full partner in a Triad of shared special
interests (e.g., energy, weapons, media,
pharmaceuticals, chemicals, tobacco, etc.) with the
Bush Cabal and its
wholly-owned-subsidiary-formerly-known-as-the-Republican-Party.
Here's some CONTEXT and CONTINUITY from
www.democrats.com, one of the bastions of the
Information Rebellion: "Kerry Leads Bush 11-0 in
Post-Debate Polls." Does that surprise you? You
wouldn't have known that from listening to the
propapunditgandists of the network and cable news
organizations... There've been eleven snap polls taken
following the two presidential debates, and Kerry has
won each one:
First Presidential Debate, Miami, FL
ABC News Instant: Kerry: 45%; Bush: 36; Tie: 17%
Newsweek: Kerry: 61%; Bush: 19%; Undecided: 16%
CNN/USA Today/Gallup: Kerry: 53%; Bush; 37%
CBS (Uncommitted Voters): Kerry: 44%; Bush: 26%; Tie:
30%
Democracy Corps: Kerry 45%; Bush: 32%
L.A. Times: Kerry: 54%; Bush: 14%
American Research Group: Kerry: 51%; Bush: 41%
Second Presidential Debate, Saint Louis, MO
ABC News Instant Poll: Kerry: 44%; Bush: 41%; Tie: 13%
CNN/USA Today/Gallup: Kerry: 47%; Bush 45%
CBS (Uncommitted Voters): Kerry: 43%; Bush: 28%; Tied:
29%
Democracy Corps: Kerry: 45; Bush: 37
Here are FIVE important stories. Please read them and
share them with others. Please vote and encourage
others to vote. Please remember that the US
regimestream news media does not want to inform you
about this presidential election, it wants to
DISinform you...
Nancy Montgomery, Stars & Stripes (Pacific Edition): The highest-grossing documentary in movie history,winner at the Cannes Film Festival, hailed in Boston but banned in Kuwait, “Fahrenheit 9/11” never made it
to Yokosuka Naval Base theaters — or to any movie
theater located on a military base.
But the DVD version of Michael Moore’s cinematic
indictment of the current commander-in-chief and his
administration came in the doors at the base video
store this week — and went right out again.
Employees of the store, operated by Softland Video,
said all 22 copies it received Tuesday were checked
out that day, and when they came back, they went out
again. The movie was available for home viewing last
week at most overseas military bases.
Francis Anglada, a retired petty officer first class
who now works for Morale, Welfare and Recreation, got
the last one in stock on Thursday around 11:30 a.m.
He’d been waiting a long time to see it, and said it
was a “scandal” that it never showed in base theaters.
“If you look at all the evidence,” Anglada said,
“there’s no reason they couldn’t have gotten it in
time.”
A Department of Defense civilian in Naples who
corresponded via e-mail in June with a decision-maker
at the Navy Motion Picture Service in Tennessee had no
better luck. When the civilian asked if the movie
would play at overseas bases, the NMPS official said
no decision had been made. “Why do you have such an
interest in this movie?” the NMPS official asked,
according to an e-mail. The civilian agreed to share
his correspondence with Stars and Stripes but asked
that his name not be used.
“I think it’s reprehensible they’d practice this kind
of censorship,” the DOD civilian said.
Larry Elliott, Guardian (UK): George Bush yesterday
became the first US president since Herbert Hoover in
the Depression to preside over a loss of jobs when the
last set of employment figures published before next
month's election showed only a modest improvement in
September...
The bureau of labour statistics (BLS) said that
non-farm payrolls rose by 96,000 in September - weaker
than the 148,000 increase predicted by the financial
markets and not enough to compensate for the
employment losses suffered during the recession that
accompanied the beginning of Mr Bush's presidency...
Steven Andrew, an economist at ISIS Asset Management,
said: "The September non-farm payroll data represented
the final opportunity for the labour market report to
help President Bush keep his own job. Unfortunately
for the president, the report played into the hands of
John Kerry in confirming Bush as having presided over
an economy which has cut 821,000 jobs over his
tenure."
"Unfortunately, even allowing for that upward
revision, Bush is now confirmed as the first president
since Hoover to have overseen a net loss of jobs
during his presidential term," Mr Ashworth added...
Analysts said the "soft spot" in the economy was
persisting, with high oil prices helping to put the
brake on growth. Crude futures remained just below $53
a barrel in New York yesterday, despite the end of a
strike by oil workers in Nigeria.
The dollar fell sharply on the foreign exchanges
following the release of the jobs data in Washington.
It lost more than 1% against the euro, lost ground
against the Swiss franc and suffered its biggest
one-day fall against the yen in more than a year,
posting a ¥1.8 drop.
David Brock, www.mediamatters.com: Dear Mr. Smith,
I'm writing to ask you to cancel plans, reported in
the October 9 edition of the Los Angeles Times, to
force Sinclair Broadcasting Group stations to preempt
regular programming and broadcast a film attacking
Senator John Kerry between now and the November 2
presidential election.
According to the Times, the film, Stolen Honor: Wounds
That Never Heal, "features former POWs accusing Kerry
-- a decorated Navy veteran turned war protester -- of
worsening their ordeal by prolonging the war." The
Times reported that the maker of the film, former
Washington Times reporter (and former Bush
administration official) Carlton Sherwood, tells
viewers on the film's website: "Intended or not, Lt.
Kerry painted a depraved portrait of Vietnam veterans,
literally creating the images of those who served in
combat as deranged, drug-addicted psychopaths, baby
killers" that has endured for 30 years...
As described by the Times, Sinclair's plan to air the
film raises questions about whether Sinclair would be
running afoul of federal regulations "requiring
broadcasters to provide equal time to major candidates
in an election campaign ..." Provisions of the
McCain-Feingold law would also appear to be at issue
in your decision. The reported effort by Sinclair
executives to instruct station managers to classify
the film as "news," thus skirting these political
broadcasting regulations, would be a charade given its
blatant anti-Kerry slant.
Stranger, www.mediachannel.org: Sinclair's programming
plan, communicated to executives in recent days and
coming in the thick of a close and intense
presidential race, is highly unusual even in a
political season that has been marked by media
controversies.
Sinclair has told its stations — many of them in
political swing states such as Ohio and Florida — to
air "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal," sources
said. The film, funded by Pennsylvania veterans and
produced by a veteran and former Washington Times
reporter, features former POWs accusing Kerry — a
decorated Navy veteran turned war protester — of
worsening their ordeal by prolonging the war. Sinclair
will preempt regular prime-time programming from the
networks to show the film, which may be classified as
news programming, according to TV executives familiar
with the plan.
Executives at Sinclair did not return calls seeking
comment, but the Kerry campaign accused the company of
pressuring its stations to influence the political
process.
"It's not the American way for powerful corporations
to strong-arm local broadcasters to air lies promoting
a political agenda," said David Wade, a spokesman for
the Democratic nominee's campaign. "It's beyond yellow
journalism; it's a smear bankrolled by Republican
money, and I don't think Americans will stand for it."
Sinclair stations are spread throughout the country,
in major markets that include Baltimore, Pittsburgh
and Las Vegas; its only California station is in
Sacramento. Fourteen of the 62 stations the company
either owns or programs are in the key political swing
states of Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin,
where the presidential election is being closely
fought.
Station and network sources said they have been told
the Sinclair stations — which include affiliates of
Fox, ABC, CBS, NBC, as well as WB and UPN — will be
preempting regular programming for one hour between
Oct. 21 and Oct. 24, depending on the city. The airing
of "Stolen Honor" will be followed by a panel
discussion, which Kerry will be asked to join, thus
potentially satisfying fairness regulations, the
sources said...
You may remember Sinclair as the broadcast group that
refused to air the Nightline program that ran the
names of American military killed in Iraq.
This is an unprecedented use of commercial airwaves -
airwaves that belong to us - for blatantly political
purposes, and a clear violation of campaign
advertising restrictions. It must not be allowed to
stand.
Bob Barr, www.creativeloafing.com: Voting for
president used to be so easy, at least for a
conservative...
Now we have the election of 2004. For the first time
in my voting life, the choice in the race for
president isn't so clear And, among true
conservatives, I'm not alone...concerns for many
conservative voters -concerns that may cause them not
to vote for Mr. Bush on Nov. 2 -- fall generally into
three categories: fiscal, physical (as in the physical
security of our nation) and freedom (as in protecting
our civil liberties).
When Bush became president Jan. 20, 2001, he inherited
an enviable fiscal situation. Congress, then
controlled by his own party, had -- through discipline
and tough votes -- whittled down decades of deficit
spending under presidents of both parties, so that
annual deficits of hundreds of billions of dollars had
been transformed to a series of real and projected
surpluses. The heavy lifting had been done. All Bush
had to do was resist the urge to spend, and he had to
exert some pressure on Congress to resist its natural
impulses to do the same. Had he done that, he might
have gone down in history as the most fiscally
conservative president in modern times.
Instead, what we got were record levels of new
spending, including nearly double-digit increases in
nondefense discretionary spending. We now have
deficits exceeding those that the first
Republican-controlled Congress in 40 years faced when
it convened in January 1995.
The oft-repeated mantra that "the terrorists made us
spend more" rings hollow, especially to those who
actually understand that increases in nondefense
discretionary spending are not the inevitable result
of fighting terrorists. It also irritates many
conservatives, whether or not they support the war in
Iraq, that so much of defense spending is being poured
into the black hole of Iraq's internal security, while
the security of our own borders goes wanting.
That brings us to the second major beef conservatives
have with the president. He's seen as failing to take
real steps to improve our border security. In many
respects, because of his apparent desire to appease
his compadre to the south -- Mexican President
Vincente Fox -- Bush has made matters worse. More
people are entering our country illegally than ever
before, more than 3 million this year alone -- and
most of them are stampeding across from Mexico.
It seems as if every time an effort is made to
implement measures that would crack down on illegal
immigration, Fox complains, and the White House tells
our enforcement folks to back off. Perhaps that is why
intelligence reports indicate al-Qaeda is actively
recruiting in Central America.
At the same time, here at home, many law-abiding
citizens accurately perceive that their own freedoms
and civil liberties are being stripped. They are being
profiled by government computers whenever they want to
travel, their bank accounts are being summarily closed
because they may fit some "profile," they are under
surveillance by cameras paid for by that borrowed
federal money, and, if the administration has its way,
they will be forced to carry a national identification
card. That skewed sense of priorities really rankles
conservatives.
Those are but three tips of the iceberg that signal
the deep dissatisfaction many conservatives harbor
against the president. Thus far, however, with Bush's
political gurus telling him he's ahead and to just lay
low and not make any major gaffes, he seems unwilling
to recognize the problems on his right flank. Or he
seems to have concluded that he doesn't need to
address those concerns because the ineptitude of the
Kerry campaign hasn't forced him to.
But the race appears to be tightening again. It's
likely to remain tight until Election Day. Those
dissatisfied conservative voters will become
increasingly important, but it's going to be
impossible for the president to pull them back in with
hollow, last-minute promises.
Bush's problem is that true conservatives remember
their history. They recall that in recent years when
the nation enjoyed the fruits of actual conservative
fiscal and security policies, a Democrat occupied the
White House and Congress was controlled by a
Republican majority that actually fought for a
substantive conservative agenda.
History's a troublesome thing for presidents. Even
though most voters don't take much of a historical
perspective into the voting booth with them, true
conservatives do.
Hmmm. Who's the Libertarian candidate again?
Support Our Troops, Save the US Constitution,
Repudiate the 9/11 Cover-Up and the Iraq War Lies,
Restore Fiscal Responsibility in the White House,
Thwart the Theft of a Second Presidential Election,
Save the Environment, Break the Corporatist
Stranglehold on the US Mainstream News Media, Rescue
the US Supreme Court from Right-Wing Radicals, Cleanse
the White House of the Chicken Hawk Coup and Its
War-Profiteering Cronies, Show Up for Democracy in
2004: Defeat the Triad, Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=24811
Sunday, October 10, 2004
Not shown in base theaters, Moore's 'Fahrenheit 9/11"
arrives on DVD
By Nancy Montgomery, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Sunday, October 10, 2004
YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan — The highest-grossing
documentary in movie history, winner at the Cannes
Film Festival, hailed in Boston but banned in Kuwait,
“Fahrenheit 9/11” never made it to Yokosuka Naval Base
theaters — or to any movie theater located on a
military base.
But the DVD version of Michael Moore’s cinematic
indictment of the current commander-in-chief and his
administration came in the doors at the base video
store this week — and went right out again.
Employees of the store, operated by Softland Video,
said all 22 copies it received Tuesday were checked
out that day, and when they came back, they went out
again. The movie was available for home viewing last
week at most overseas military bases.
Francis Anglada, a retired petty officer first class
who now works for Morale, Welfare and Recreation, got
the last one in stock on Thursday around 11:30 a.m.
He’d been waiting a long time to see it, and said it
was a “scandal” that it never showed in base theaters.
“If you look at all the evidence,” Anglada said,
“there’s no reason they couldn’t have gotten it in
time.”
Whether military base theaters would show the
documentary, which lambastes President Bush and his
administration for almost all their policies after the
Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States,
was in question for some time.
In June, when the movie came out in theaters, AAFES,
the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, said it was
pursuing prints, and that it eschewed politics when
choosing movies, basing decisions only on profits and
popularity.
“If ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ proves popular in the private
sector and prints are available, the movie will be
shown,” AAFES spokesman Judd Anstey said in June.
By the end of July, AAFES said it was trying to get
the film for overseas bases but there weren’t enough
prints to go around.
But a spokesman for the Fellowship Adventure Group,
formed to distribute Moore’s film in conjunction with
Lions Gate Films and IFC Films, said it told AAFES in
mid-July that prints of “Fahrenheit 9/11” would be
available, and that “from that point on, they were
unresponsive.”
In August, AAFES said it was not going to show the
film. Anstey said then that the movie’s Oct. 5 DVD
release didn’t give AAFES enough time to draw
sufficient audiences to the theaters.
Those responsible for films shown on naval bases said
in July that a decision whether to air the movie was
“under review.”
“I will contact you when that decision has been made,”
said Ingrid Mueller of the Navy MWR Communications
Group in an e-mail to Stars and Stripes. No further
communication was made.
A Department of Defense civilian in Naples who
corresponded via e-mail in June with a decision-maker
at the Navy Motion Picture Service in Tennessee had no
better luck. When the civilian asked if the movie
would play at overseas bases, the NMPS official said
no decision had been made. “Why do you have such an
interest in this movie?” the NMPS official asked,
according to an e-mail. The civilian agreed to share
his correspondence with Stars and Stripes but asked
that his name not be used.
“I think it’s reprehensible they’d practice this kind
of censorship,” the DOD civilian said.
Last month, the official again told the civilian no
decision had been made, adding, “There’s not a great
deal of ‘wanna see’ on the part of our customers —
actually you seem to be the most interested party. Our
survey of the field is informal — asking ships, base
theater managers and CO’s if they have had requests,”
the official’s e-mail said.
Anglada, getting his copy on Thursday, said that view
didn’t seem grounded in reality, based on the huge
success of the movie in the United States.
“The population on the base reflects the population
you have stateside,” he said.
Some overseas military members did see “Fahrenheit
9/11” on the big screen, however. It played in Japan —
where Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said
he did not plan to see it — and in South Korea as well
as in European cities. Some servicemembers saw it when
they went home on leave.
According to a review in the New York Times, the movie
mixes “sober outrage with mischievous humor … blithely
trampling the boundary between documentary and
demagoguery, Mr. Moore takes wholesale aim at the Bush
administration, whose tenure has been distinguished,
in his view, by unparalleled and unmitigated
arrogance, mendacity and incompetence.”
Although even the film’s admirers have pointed out
inaccuracies — and when it showed in France many
theaters had a list of those problems with the movie
for patrons’ review — it’s been seen by many as a
politically galvanizing force.
“It almost made me want to throw my ID away,” said one
petty officer third class who saw the movie while he
was home on leave in Florida. “It shows how Bush
reacted (when he was told about the 9/11 attacks). He
just keeps reading. It shows how he tries to cut the
veterans’ benefits. It shows they don’t care about
us.”
The sailor’s words, spoken in the Yokosuka video
store, got the attention of Petty Officer 2nd Class
Mark Dutton. Dutton had just said he didn’t know much
about the movie and that he’d rather see “Van Helsing”
or “Troy,” also new releases. But after hearing his
fellow sailor’s recommendation, Dutton changed his
mind.
“I want to see it now. In fact, I might buy it,”
Dutton said. “Anything that makes the government look
bad, they don’t want us to see.”
Capt. King Dietrich, the base commander, said he’d
probably rent it too, even though he expects “parts of
it” to irritate him.
Southland Video representative Merion Elliott said no
renters so far had offered an opinion on the film,
although when she asked one man what he thought, he
called it “interesting.”
Elliott said Southland was interested to see how well
the movie did as a DVD rental and thought it might be
popular because so many on the bases had not seen it.
According to a Reuters report, the movie sold about 2
million DVD and VHS units on its first day in release,
making it the most successful documentary ever
released on home video.
Even retired Army Gen. Tommy Franks had something to
say about the film. In August, while lamenting the
apparent extremes of political thought in the country
and the resulting polarization, he said, “We’re at a
point in our country where it’s either all about
‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ or it’s all about
ultra-conservatism.
“My experience in this grand democracy,” Franks said,
“has been that life in America is somewhere between
those two poles, and so I try to stay away from the
hyperbolic in this thing — that ‘Well, Michael Moore
had it all right’ or ‘He was a lyin’, cheatin’, no
good son of a gun.’ I mean, there’s fact and there’s
fiction involved in that particular piece, just like
there’s fact and there’s fiction in the other extreme
… ”
Patrick Dickson contributed to this report.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1323503,00.html
Job loss figures deliver a blow to Bush
Larry Elliott, economics editor
Saturday October 9, 2004
The Guardian
George Bush yesterday became the first US president
since Herbert Hoover in the Depression to preside over
a loss of jobs when the last set of employment figures
published before next month's election showed only a
modest improvement in September.
On the day that President Bush was preparing for his
second televised debate with his Democrat challenger,
John Kerry, he was given the unwelcome news that more
than 800,000 jobs had been shed in the past four
years.
The bureau of labour statistics (BLS) said that
non-farm payrolls rose by 96,000 in September - weaker
than the 148,000 increase predicted by the financial
markets and not enough to compensate for the
employment losses suffered during the recession that
accompanied the beginning of Mr Bush's presidency.
With opinion polls suggesting that Mr Bush lost the
first of the three debates, analysts said the eagerly
anticipated employment report would allow Mr Kerry to
say that the war in Iraq had resulted in the president
neglecting problems at home.
Steven Andrew, an economist at ISIS Asset Management,
said: "The September non-farm payroll data represented
the final opportunity for the labour market report to
help President Bush keep his own job. Unfortunately
for the president, the report played into the hands of
John Kerry in confirming Bush as having presided over
an economy which has cut 821,000 jobs over his
tenure."
Paul Ashworth of Capital Economics said the only good
news for the president from yesterday's data was that
the bureau of labour statistics said it would be
revising upwards the level of payrolls by 236,000 in
January.
"Unfortunately, even allowing for that upward
revision, Bush is now confirmed as the first president
since Hoover to have overseen a net loss of jobs
during his presidential term," Mr Ashworth added.
Wall Street believes that the lack of vigorous job
creation from the stuttering US economy may persuade
the Federal Reserve Board to postpone an expected
increase in American interest rates next month.
Analysts said the "soft spot" in the economy was
persisting, with high oil prices helping to put the
brake on growth. Crude futures remained just below $53
a barrel in New York yesterday, despite the end of a
strike by oil workers in Nigeria.
The dollar fell sharply on the foreign exchanges
following the release of the jobs data in Washington.
It lost more than 1% against the euro, lost ground
against the Swiss franc and suffered its biggest
one-day fall against the yen in more than a year,
posting a ¥1.8 drop. Sterling, which hit an
eight-month low against the euro at 69.23 pence,
gained three-quarters of a cent against the American
currency to just over $1.79.
The Bush camp put a brave face on the employment
statistics numbers. John Snow, the US treasury
secretary, said: "Clearly we are on the right path. I
am confident we will see that continue."
Officials at the BLS said the four hurricanes last
month could not be blamed for the weakness of job
creation, saying the impact on the labour market was
minor.
The service sector saw the strongest employment gains
last month, adding 109,000 positions, of which 33,000
were part-time. The manufacturing sector - important
in the swing states of America's industrial heartland
- shed 18,000 jobs in September.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200410100001
Letter from David Brock to Sinclair Broadcast Group
(10/10/04)
October 10, 2004
David D. Smith
President and Chief Executive Officer
Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc.
10706 Beaver Dam Road
Hunt Valley, Maryland 21030
Dear Mr. Smith:
I'm writing to ask you to cancel plans, reported in
the October 9 edition of the Los Angeles Times, to
force Sinclair Broadcasting Group stations to preempt
regular programming and broadcast a film attacking
Senator John Kerry between now and the November 2
presidential election.
According to the Times, the film, Stolen Honor: Wounds
That Never Heal, "features former POWs accusing Kerry
-- a decorated Navy veteran turned war protester -- of
worsening their ordeal by prolonging the war." The
Times reported that the maker of the film, former
Washington Times reporter (and former Bush
administration official) Carlton Sherwood, tells
viewers on the film's website: "Intended or not, Lt.
Kerry painted a depraved portrait of Vietnam veterans,
literally creating the images of those who served in
combat as deranged, drug-addicted psychopaths, baby
killers" that has endured for 30 years.
I don't have to remind you, as the Times pointed out,
that "Sinclair stations are spread throughout the
country, in major markets that include Baltimore,
Pittsburgh and Las Vegas. ... Fourteen of the 62
stations the company either owns or programs are in
the key political swing stations of Ohio, Florida,
Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where the presidential
election is being closely fought."
As described by the Times, Sinclair's plan to air the
film raises questions about whether Sinclair would be
running afoul of federal regulations "requiring
broadcasters to provide equal time to major candidates
in an election campaign ..." Provisions of the
McCain-Feingold law would also appear to be at issue
in your decision. The reported effort by Sinclair
executives to instruct station managers to classify
the film as "news," thus skirting these political
broadcasting regulations, would be a charade given its
blatant anti-Kerry slant.
I trust that in light of these concerns, you will
reconsider your company's apparent decision to air
"Stolen Honor."
Sincerely,
David Brock
President and CEO
Media Matters for America
Posted to the web on Sunday October 10, 2004 at 3:27
PM EST
http://web.takebackthemedia.com/geeklog/public_html/article.php?story=20041009160520115
Illegal use of the airwaves
Saturday, October 09 2004 @ 04:05 PM GMT
Contributed by: Stranger Remember the ruckus that the
conservatives raised about the advertising that
Michael Moore planned to do for 'Fahrenheit 9/11?' How
the commercials were deemed to be 'campaign
commercials for Kerry' and a violation of campaign
advertising laws?
Well, those were nothing compared to this:
The conservative-leaning Sinclair Broadcast Group,
whose television outlets reach nearly a quarter of the
nation's homes with TV, is ordering its stations to
preempt regular programming just days before the Nov.
2 election to air a film that attacks Sen. John F.
Kerry's activism against the Vietnam War, network and
station executives familiar with the plan said Friday.
Sinclair's programming plan, communicated to
executives in recent days and coming in the thick of a
close and intense presidential race, is highly unusual
even in a political season that has been marked by
media controversies.
Sinclair has told its stations — many of them in
political swing states such as Ohio and Florida — to
air "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal," sources
said. The film, funded by Pennsylvania veterans and
produced by a veteran and former Washington Times
reporter, features former POWs accusing Kerry — a
decorated Navy veteran turned war protester — of
worsening their ordeal by prolonging the war. Sinclair
will preempt regular prime-time programming from the
networks to show the film, which may be classified as
news programming, according to TV executives familiar
with the plan.
Executives at Sinclair did not return calls seeking
comment, but the Kerry campaign accused the company of
pressuring its stations to influence the political
process.
"It's not the American way for powerful corporations
to strong-arm local broadcasters to air lies promoting
a political agenda," said David Wade, a spokesman for
the Democratic nominee's campaign. "It's beyond yellow
journalism; it's a smear bankrolled by Republican
money, and I don't think Americans will stand for it."
Sinclair stations are spread throughout the country,
in major markets that include Baltimore, Pittsburgh
and Las Vegas; its only California station is in
Sacramento. Fourteen of the 62 stations the company
either owns or programs are in the key political swing
states of Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin,
where the presidential election is being closely
fought.
Station and network sources said they have been told
the Sinclair stations — which include affiliates of
Fox, ABC, CBS, NBC, as well as WB and UPN — will be
preempting regular programming for one hour between
Oct. 21 and Oct. 24, depending on the city. The airing
of "Stolen Honor" will be followed by a panel
discussion, which Kerry will be asked to join, thus
potentially satisfying fairness regulations, the
sources said.
Kerry campaign officials said they had been unaware of
Sinclair's plans to air the film, and said Kerry had
not received an invitation to appear.
You may remember Sinclair as the broadcast group that
refused to air the Nightline program that ran the
names of American military killed in Iraq.
This is an unprecedented use of commercial airwaves -
airwaves that belong to us - for blatantly political
purposes, and a clear violation of campaign
advertising restrictions. It must not be allowed to
stand.
A list of all Sinclair stations can be found here.
While TBTM usually encourages our readers to contact
the stations themselves, Sinclair is simply too
politically motivated at this point for contacting
them to do much good.
So this time, we urge anyone who has a Sinclair outlet
in their area to write their local papers and contact
Sinclair's competitors to call attention to this on a
local level. If enough pressure is brought to bear
from the bottom up, individual outlets may be
persuaded to pass on running this piece of anti-Kerry
propaganda.
Do not let them get away with this. Stop it today.
Thank you.
Copyright © 2004 Media Matters for America. All rights
reserved.
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An agonizing choice
Conservatives have plenty of cause to abandon Bush
BY BOB BARR
Voting for president used to be so easy, at least for
a conservative. There was the Republican candidate.
You knew he generally stood for lower taxes, less
government spending, giving fewer powers to the
government, lower deficits and a zealous regard for
individual privacy.
Then, there was the Democrat. You knew he generally
stood for higher taxes, more government and deficit
spending, and a zealous regard for civil liberties.
Throughout my own presidential voting history, the
choices have rarely, if ever, been agonizing. Nixon
vs. McGovern? Carter vs. Reagan? Reagan-Mondale?
Dukakis, a Massachusetts liberal? Clinton? Al Gore?
Ah, the good ol' days. Each of those races presented
clear choices, easily resolved.
Now we have the election of 2004. For the first time
in my voting life, the choice in the race for
president isn't so clear And, among true
conservatives, I'm not alone.
What's making the contest so difficult? It's certainly
not that both candidates are so conservative that we
have a choice of riches. It's not even that John Kerry
is sort of right wing compared to George W. Bush. The
incumbent clearly is the more "conservative" of the
two.
But the concerns for many conservative voters --
concerns that may cause them not to vote for Mr. Bush
on Nov. 2 -- fall generally into three categories:
fiscal, physical (as in the physical security of our
nation) and freedom (as in protecting our civil
liberties).
When Bush became president Jan. 20, 2001, he inherited
an enviable fiscal situation. Congress, then
controlled by his own party, had -- through discipline
and tough votes -- whittled down decades of deficit
spending under presidents of both parties, so that
annual deficits of hundreds of billions of dollars had
been transformed to a series of real and projected
surpluses. The heavy lifting had been done. All Bush
had to do was resist the urge to spend, and he had to
exert some pressure on Congress to resist its natural
impulses to do the same. Had he done that, he might
have gone down in history as the most fiscally
conservative president in modern times.
Instead, what we got were record levels of new
spending, including nearly double-digit increases in
nondefense discretionary spending. We now have
deficits exceeding those that the first
Republican-controlled Congress in 40 years faced when
it convened in January 1995.
The oft-repeated mantra that "the terrorists made us
spend more" rings hollow, especially to those who
actually understand that increases in nondefense
discretionary spending are not the inevitable result
of fighting terrorists. It also irritates many
conservatives, whether or not they support the war in
Iraq, that so much of defense spending is being poured
into the black hole of Iraq's internal security, while
the security of our own borders goes wanting.
That brings us to the second major beef conservatives
have with the president. He's seen as failing to take
real steps to improve our border security. In many
respects, because of his apparent desire to appease
his compadre to the south -- Mexican President
Vincente Fox -- Bush has made matters worse. More
people are entering our country illegally than ever
before, more than 3 million this year alone -- and
most of them are stampeding across from Mexico.
It seems as if every time an effort is made to
implement measures that would crack down on illegal
immigration, Fox complains, and the White House tells
our enforcement folks to back off. Perhaps that is why
intelligence reports indicate al-Qaeda is actively
recruiting in Central America.
At the same time, here at home, many law-abiding
citizens accurately perceive that their own freedoms
and civil liberties are being stripped. They are being
profiled by government computers whenever they want to
travel, their bank accounts are being summarily closed
because they may fit some "profile," they are under
surveillance by cameras paid for by that borrowed
federal money, and, if the administration has its way,
they will be forced to carry a national identification
card. That skewed sense of priorities really rankles
conservatives.
Those are but three tips of the iceberg that signal
the deep dissatisfaction many conservatives harbor
against the president. Thus far, however, with Bush's
political gurus telling him he's ahead and to just lay
low and not make any major gaffes, he seems unwilling
to recognize the problems on his right flank. Or he
seems to have concluded that he doesn't need to
address those concerns because the ineptitude of the
Kerry campaign hasn't forced him to.
But the race appears to be tightening again. It's
likely to remain tight until Election Day. Those
dissatisfied conservative voters will become
increasingly important, but it's going to be
impossible for the president to pull them back in with
hollow, last-minute promises.
Bush's problem is that true conservatives remember
their history. They recall that in recent years when
the nation enjoyed the fruits of actual conservative
fiscal and security policies, a Democrat occupied the
White House and Congress was controlled by a
Republican majority that actually fought for a
substantive conservative agenda.
History's a troublesome thing for presidents. Even
though most voters don't take much of a historical
perspective into the voting booth with them, true
conservatives do.
Hmmm. Who's the Libertarian candidate again?
Lifelong Republican Bob Barr represented parts of Cobb
County and northwest Georgia in Congress from 1995 to
2003.