There are only 17 days to go until the national
referendum on the CREDIBILITY, CHARACTER and
COMPETENCE of the _resident, the VICE _resident and
the US regimstream news media…he central issue is
Security: NATIONAL SECURITY, ECONOMIC SECURITY and
ENVIRONMENTAL SECURITY...Why does the LNS say
that the Nov. 2 election is a national referendum on
the US regimestream news media as well as the Bush
abomination itself? Because the US regimestream news
media has almost unreservedly for more than four years
acted as a full partner in a Triad of shared special
interest (i.e. oil, weapons, media, pharmaceuticals,
tobacco, chemicals, etc.) with the Bush cabal itself
and its wholly-owned-subsidiary-formerly-know-as-the-Republican-Party.
The US regimestream news media OBSCURED the Truth
about the Theft of the 2000 Election, the US
regimestream news media OBSCURED the Truth about the
Bush abomination’s involvement with Enron and its
complicity in the phoney “California energy crisis,”
US regimestream news media OBSCURED the Truth about
the devastating impact of the Bush abomination’s TWO
obscene tax cuts for the wealthiest among us, the US
regimestream news media OBSCURED the Truth about the
Bush abomination’s pre-9/11 negligence and post-9/11
incompetence. The US regimestream news media OBSCURED
the Truth about the Mega-Mogadishu in Iraq as well as
the fabricated rationales that were used to justify
it. The US regimestream news media also OBSCURED the
Truth about Abu Ghraib… Now the US regimestream news
media is OBSCURING the Truth about this campaign, just
as it OBSCURED the Truth about the 2000 and 2002
campaigns. It has only 17 days to REDEEM itself or it
will go into the tank with its Triad partners. Don't
hold your breath. There is an Electoral Uprising
coming at the Ballot Box on Nov. 2…Here are SEVEN
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 election, it
wants to DISinform you...
Max Blumenthal, AlterNet: Republican operative Nathan
Sproul's company is under investigation for allegedly
destroying voter registration forms signed by
Democrats. Now comes new evidence about Sproul's
connections to the Bush-Cheney campaign.
Just how close is dirty trickster Nathan Sproul to the
Bush/Cheney re-election campaign?
AlterNet has learned that Sproul, the former Arizona
Republican Party and Christian Coalition director, has
cozy ties to a group of consultants working on the
Bush/Cheney campaign. According to a Democratic source
well-placed in Arizona political circles, Sproul's
firm, Sproul and Associates, operates next door to the
office of Gordon C. James Public Relations (GCJPR) in
Phoenix, a Republican PR company which is coordinating
various Bush/Cheney campaign events nationwide and has
provided PR services for the Coalition Provisional
Authority in Iraq. Last spring, one of GCJPR's
executives, who is an advisory board member of Bush's
re-election campaign, served as the chair of a ballot
campaign Sproul was quarterbacking, while, according
to the source, Sproul collaborated with a GCJPR
employee who is a White House consultant on a scheme
to get independent candidate Ralph Nader on the
Arizona ballot. In both instances, Sproul's company,
Voter Outreach of America, was involved in gathering
signatures.
Terry McAuliffe, DNC: "Two and a half hours is a long
time to spend in front of a federal grand jury – a lot
of information must have been shared," said McAuliffe.
"Karl Rove needs to come clean and tell us what he
told the grand jury today, and the President should
show some leadership by making sure Karl Rove does
just that. There are important questions about this
criminal investigation that the White House needs to
stop ducking and start answering.
"Tell us who is responsible for leaking Valerie
Plame's identity. This is a serious matter; the person
from the Bush White House who leaked this information
is guilty of treason. This should have been resolved a
long time ago. It needs to be resolved now. The
American people deserve no less from their President."
Eric Boehlert, Salon: The right-wing network's
decision to force its affiliates to air anti-Kerry
propaganda is one of the lowest moments in the history
of television news, says the former head of the FCC.
And it may unleash a backlash.
Kerry campaign officials aren't the only ones
outraged over Sinclair Broadcasting's order to its 62
television stations nationwide to preempt regular
programming days before votes are cast Nov. 2 to air
"Stolen Honor," a highly charged documentary critical
of Sen. John Kerry. The move breaks with a
long-standing tradition among broadcasters of covering
presidential campaigns as part of their obligation to
serve the public interest, and to do so with at least
a patina of honesty.
Sinclair's unprecedented move once again raises
questions about the effects of rampant media
consolidation, the deregulation that allows a small
number of large conglomerates to own so many outlets,
let alone use them to advance an obvious political
agenda. The controversy over "Stolen Honor" has also
thrust little-known Sinclair before the klieg lights,
drawing attention to its news department, whose public
spokesman has no experience whatsoever in journalism.
And it reveals a publicly held corporation, operating
on the public airwaves, run by a hypocritical chief
executive, preaching conservatives values by which he
himself has been unable to live.
"Ordering stations to carry propaganda? It's
absolutely off the charts," says former Federal
Communications Commission chairman Reed Hundt, who
served under President Clinton. "Any FCC chairman,
from the left or the right, would agree with me. I'd
be shocked if you could find any other broadcast
conduct like this" in the history of American
television.
MTV: In what could well be the strangest and most
refreshing media moment of the election season, "The
Daily Show" host Jon Stewart turned up on a live
broadcast of CNN's "Crossfire" Friday and accused the
mainstream media — and his hosts in particular — of
being soft and failing to do their duty as journalists
to keep politicians and the political process honest.
Reaching well outside his usual youthful "Daily Show"
demo, Stewart took to "Crossfire" to promote his new
book, "America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to
Democracy Inaction" (see "Jon Stewart Writes A History
Textbook That — At Last! — Features Nudity"), but
instead of pushing the tome, Stewart used his time to
verbally slap the network and the media for being
"dishonest" and "doing a disservice" to the American
public. After co-host Tucker Carlson suggested that
Stewart went easy on Senator John Kerry when the
candidate was a guest on "The Daily Show," Stewart
unloaded on "Crossfire," calling hosts Carlson and
Paul Begala "partisan hacks" and chiding them for not
raising the level of discourse on their show beyond
sloganeering.
"What you do is not honest. What you do is partisan
hackery," Stewart said. "You have a responsibility to
the public discourse, and you fail miserably...
"The thing is, we need your help," Stewart said.
"Right now, you're helping the politicians and the
corporations and we're left out there to mow our
lawns."
While the audience seemed to be behind Stewart, Begala
and Carlson were both taken aback. The hosts tried to
feed Stewart set-up lines hoping to draw him into a
more light-hearted shtick, but Stewart stayed on point
and hammered away at the show, the hosts, and the
state of political journalism. Carlson grew
increasingly frustrated, at first noting that the
segment wasn't "funny," and later verbally sparring
with the comedian.
Jeremy Hudson, Clarion Ledger [Mississippi]: A
17-member Army Reserve platoon with troops from
Jackson and around the Southeast deployed to Iraq is
under arrest for refusing a "suicide mission" to
deliver fuel, the troops' relatives said Thursday.
The soldiers refused an order on Wednesday to go to
Taji, Iraq — north of Baghdad — because their vehicles
were considered "deadlined" or extremely unsafe, said
Patricia McCook of Jackson, wife of Sgt. Larry O.
McCook.
Sgt. McCook, a deputy at the Hinds County Detention
Center, and the 16 other members of the 343rd
Quartermaster Company from Rock Hill, S.C., were read
their rights and moved from the military barracks into
tents, Patricia McCook said her husband told her
during a panicked phone call about 5 a.m. Thursday.
Associated Press: Weeks after Texas National Guard
officials signed an oath swearing they had turned over
all of President Bush's military records, independent
examiners found more than two dozen pages of
previously unreleased documents about Bush.
The two retired Army lawyers went through Texas files
under an agreement between the Texas Guard and The
Associated Press, which sued to gain access to the
files. The 31 pages of documents turned over to AP
Thursday night include orders for high-altitude
training in 1972, less than three months before Bush
abruptly quit flying as a fighter pilot.
The discovery is the latest in a series of
embarrassments for Pentagon and Texas National Guard
officials who have repeatedly said they found and
released all of Bush's Vietnam-era military files,
only to belatedly discover more records. Those
discoveries — nearly 100 pages, including Bush's pay
records and flight logs — have been the result of
freedom of information lawsuits filed in federal and
Texas courts by AP.
Associated Press: Three Medford [Oregon] school
teachers were threatened with arrest and escorted from
the event after they showed up wearing T-shirts with
the slogan "Protect our civil liberties." All three
said they applied for and received valid tickets from
Republican headquarters in Medford.
“We chose this phrase specifically because we didn't
think it would be offensive or degrading or obscene,"
said Tania Tong, 34, a special education teacher.
Thursday’s event in Oregon sets a new bar for a
Bush/Cheney campaign that has taken extraordinary
measures to screen the opinions of those who attend
Bush and Cheney speeches...
When Vice President Dick Cheney visited Eugene, Oregon
on Sept. 17, a 54-Year old woman named Perry Patterson
was charged with criminal trespass for blurting the
word "No" when Cheney said that George W. Bush has
made the world safer.
One day before, Sue Niederer, 55, the mother of a
slain American soldier in Iraq was cuffed and arrested
for criminal trespass when she interrupted a Laura
Bush speech in New Jersey. Both women had tickets to
the event.
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://alternet.org/election04/20194/
Republican Dirty Tricks
By Max Blumenthal, AlterNet. Posted October 15, 2004.
Republican operative Nathan Sproul's company is under
investigation for allegedly destroying voter
registration forms signed by Democrats. Now comes new
evidence about Sproul's connections to the Bush-Cheney
campaign.
Just how close is dirty trickster Nathan Sproul to the
Bush/Cheney re-election campaign?
AlterNet has learned that Sproul, the former Arizona
Republican Party and Christian Coalition director, has
cozy ties to a group of consultants working on the
Bush/Cheney campaign. According to a Democratic source
well-placed in Arizona political circles, Sproul's
firm, Sproul and Associates, operates next door to the
office of Gordon C. James Public Relations (GCJPR) in
Phoenix, a Republican PR company which is coordinating
various Bush/Cheney campaign events nationwide and has
provided PR services for the Coalition Provisional
Authority in Iraq. Last spring, one of GCJPR's
executives, who is an advisory board member of Bush's
re-election campaign, served as the chair of a ballot
campaign Sproul was quarterbacking, while, according
to the source, Sproul collaborated with a GCJPR
employee who is a White House consultant on a scheme
to get independent candidate Ralph Nader on the
Arizona ballot. In both instances, Sproul's company,
Voter Outreach of America, was involved in gathering
signatures.
In Nevada, Voter Outreach of America is accused by
former employees of shredding the registration forms
of thousands of Democrats; in West Virginia, Voter
Outreach of America employees say they were instructed
to mislead voters into registering Republican and
voting for Bush; in Oregon, yet another swing state,
the state attorney general has opened a criminal
investigation into allegations that Sproul's firm,
which is Voter Outreach of America's parent company,
was involved in intentionally destroying or discarding
voter registration forms signed by Democrats.
According to OpenSecrets.org, Sproul's firm received
$125,000 this year from the Republican National
Committee for voter registration and another $500,000
for "political consulting."
The cozy ties between Sproul and Bush operatives
should raise a serious question: Is Sproul simply an
overzealous lone wolf, or are his activities part of a
concerted effort by the Bush/Cheney campaign to
subvert the democratic process?
Gordon C. James, the founder and director of GCJPR, is
a longtime Bush apparatchik. According to his bio on
GCJPR's website, James helped handle media relations
for President George H.W. Bush as the White House
"lead advance representative." During George W. Bush's
2000 presidential campaign, James' firm handled PR and
event management for Bush's Iowa Caucus campaign, all
three debates against Al Gore, two campaign train
trips and his election night festivities in Austin,
Texas. Recently, GCJPR organized a Bush mega-rally in
Phoenix and an appearance by Laura Bush at another
campaign rally in Minneapolis. James also worked for
five months as L. Paul Bremer's spinmeister in
Baghdad.
James said all of his firm's activities on behalf of
the Bush/Cheney campaign were performed "on a
volunteer basis," though GCJPR has received funding
this year from the Republican National Committee. And
James maintained that though he knows Sproul, they
don't work together. "Nathan works more on the
political side," James stated. "We're a PR firm."
Sproul did not respond to requests for an interview.
James did not mention that one of GCJPR's executives,
George W. Bush for President advisory board member
Lisa James, served as chairwoman of an Arizona ballot
initiative that Sproul spearheaded last spring called
"No Taxpayer Money For Politicians." The ballot
measure, which was soundly defeated, was a right-wing,
corporate-funded effort to ban candidates for state
office from receiving public money for their
campaigns. Sproul's Voter Outreach of America
spearheaded the measure's petition drive. In her
capacity as chairwoman, Lisa James operated directly
out of Sproul's office.
What's more, according to a well-placed source who
spoke on condition of anonymity, a GCJPR employee,
Meghan Rose, worked with Sproul on a clandestine
campaign to get Nader on the Arizona ballot last
spring. Last June, Derek Lee of Lee Petitions told me
that while his company was handling various signature
drives in Arizona, Sproul's Voter Outreach of America
was paying petitioners to collect as many signatures
as they could for Nader's ballot qualification
campaign. Once rumors began emerging about covert
Republican assistance to Nader, Sproul "put the
hush-hush on it real quick," Lee said.
In order to cover his tracks, Sproul devised a clever
scheme. According to the source, Sproul tasked GCJPR's
Rose to drive the Nader petitions to a "low-end" motel
in Scottsdale where Jenny Breslyn, the person
officially contracted by the Nader campaign to oversee
its signature drive, was staying. There, Breslyn and
her employees mixed the petitions in with their own,
in effect, brushing them clean of Sproul's
fingerprints.
Rose has worked as a consultant for the Bush White
House Easter Egg Roll, the State Department and the
Republican National Committee. She is currently
working out of James' RNC-funded shop and as a
volunteer on Bush's re-election campaign. Confronted
with the accusation that she served as the baglady for
Sproul's Nader ballot scheme, Rose would not issue an
outright denial.
"I do not work for Nathan Sproul," she stated
repeatedly. "I don't even know how you got my name."
Asked again to confirm or deny the accusation, Rose
became testy. "I didn't do anything. I've shaken
Nathan Sproul's hand once," she said.
Reached by cellphone, Jenny Breslyn refused to speak
directly to the accusation that Rose delivered
Sproul's Nader petitions to her, referring the
question to Sproul, who could not be reached. However,
she did volunteer that in her dealings with Sproul, "I
do know a Meghan."
Sproul's dirty tricks may have finally caught up with
him, though far from his stomping grounds in Arizona.
In Oregon, Sproul's firm is being investigated by the
state attorney general and could face a class-C
felony, punishable by five years in jail, for
allegedly altering and destroying voter registration
forms. And in Nevada, state election officials have
just launched an investigation into whether Sproul's
Voters Outreach of America destroyed the registration
forms of exclusively Democratic voters.
On Wednesday, Democratic National Committee Chairman
Terry McAuliffe wrote a letter to his Republican
counterpart, Ed Gillespie, demanding that the
Republican National Committee detail its involvement
with Sproul's alleged voter fraud. "We are deeply
concerned these reports of Republican National
Committee funded felonious activities in these states
could serve to discourage all voters from voting
because of concerns of problems with their ballot,"
McAuliffe wrote. "Regardless of party or candidate, it
is the civic and moral duty of both parties to
encourage complete and full participation in the
democratic process."
Max Blumenthal is a freelance journalist based in Los
Angeles. Read his blog at maxblumenthal.blogspot.com.
http://www.democrats.org/news/200410150002.html
MORE HEADLINES 'Women's Group' Against Equal Pay for
Women
Big Victory For Voting Rights
Cabrera On Drudge Report: GOP Offers Up Red Herring to
Cover Up Shameful Record of Voter Intimidation
DNC Launches "APIA Voice"
more…
Oct 15, 2004
McAuliffe Statement on Rove Grand Jury Testimony
DNC Chairman Calls on Bush to Ask for Full and Public
Disclosure
WASHINGTON, DC – Responding to breaking news today
that Bush Senior Advisor Karl Rove spent over two
hours testifying before the grand jury investigating
the CIA leak which revealed Valerie Plame's name while
she was an undercover agent, Democratic National
Committee (DNC) Chairman Terry McAuliffe released this
statement.
"Two and a half hours is a long time to spend in front
of a federal grand jury – a lot of information must
have been shared," said McAuliffe. "Karl Rove needs to
come clean and tell us what he told the grand jury
today, and the President should show some leadership
by making sure Karl Rove does just that. There are
important questions about this criminal investigation
that the White House needs to stop ducking and start
answering.
"Tell us who is responsible for leaking Valerie
Plame's identity. This is a serious matter; the person
from the Bush White House who leaked this information
is guilty of treason. This should have been resolved a
long time ago. It needs to be resolved now. The
American people deserve no less from their President."
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/101604F.shtml
Sinclair's Disgrace
By Eric Boehlert
Salon.com
Thursday 14 October 2004
"We do not believe political statements should be
disguised as news content."
Policy statement, Sinclair Broadcasting, April 2004.
The right-wing network's decision to force its
affiliates to air anti-Kerry propaganda is one of the
lowest moments in the history of television news, says
the former head of the FCC. And it may unleash a
backlash.
Kerry campaign officials aren't the only ones
outraged over Sinclair Broadcasting's order to its 62
television stations nationwide to preempt regular
programming days before votes are cast Nov. 2 to air
"Stolen Honor," a highly charged documentary critical
of Sen. John Kerry. The move breaks with a
long-standing tradition among broadcasters of covering
presidential campaigns as part of their obligation to
serve the public interest, and to do so with at least
a patina of honesty.
Sinclair's unprecedented move once again raises
questions about the effects of rampant media
consolidation, the deregulation that allows a small
number of large conglomerates to own so many outlets,
let alone use them to advance an obvious political
agenda. The controversy over "Stolen Honor" has also
thrust little-known Sinclair before the klieg lights,
drawing attention to its news department, whose public
spokesman has no experience whatsoever in journalism.
And it reveals a publicly held corporation, operating
on the public airwaves, run by a hypocritical chief
executive, preaching conservatives values by which he
himself has been unable to live.
"Ordering stations to carry propaganda? It's
absolutely off the charts," says former Federal
Communications Commission chairman Reed Hundt, who
served under President Clinton. "Any FCC chairman,
from the left or the right, would agree with me. I'd
be shocked if you could find any other broadcast
conduct like this" in the history of American
television.
Bob Zelnick, chairman of the Department of
Journalism at Boston University, a self-described
conservative who says he intends to vote for President
Bush, calls Sinclair's decision "an unfortunate
precedent" that runs counter to "good journalism" and
"is not what network news ought to be about." A former
Pentagon correspondent for ABC News, Zelnick says,
"Whether you're liberal or conservative, if you have
roots in the journalism profession, there are core
values that transcend and need to survive election to
election. You avoid airing, very close to election,
highly charged, partisan material that takes the guise
of a documentary."
"If I were a Sinclair news director I'd quit,"
says Dow Smith, professor of journalism at Syracuse
University and a former NBC news director in Detroit.
"I'm certainly not going to encourage any of my
students to work for Sinclair."
But for many Sinclair employees, already
embarrassed by the company's blatant political agenda,
which is broadcast daily through partisan,
name-calling commentaries that local stations are
commanded to air, without even the pretense of
balance, the controversy hasn't been shocking.
Instead, they have a feeling of déjà vu. "It's so
bizarre it's almost dreamlike," one Sinclair manager
told me, speaking on condition of anonymity. (Sinclair
employees are warned that talking to the press
represents grounds for dismissal.) "I can't imagine
this isn't going to blow up in their faces.
"Working for Sinclair," says the manager, "you're
used to news decisions being made that are influenced
by marketing and promotion. You get that stuff. You
understand that's the way the world works. With this,
you just go, 'What's the point?' What are they trying
to do?' This shows me that Sinclair doesn't give a
shit about their employees because there's no
communication plan [about "Stolen Honor"]. They just
decide it [at corporate headquarters] and let
everybody deal with the mess."
Six months ago many Sinclair employees were
embarrassed when Sinclair took the extraordinary step
of banning its ABC affiliates from showing a special
edition of "Nightline" in which anchor Ted Koppel read
the names of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq. The move
prompted picket lines at some its affiliates and blew
out phones lines and e-mail servers at others. Yet
that may have been only a dry run for the current
controversy, which is shaping up as perhaps the media
battle of the election. Angry Democrats are contacting
Sinclair's advertisers urging them to pull their
business or face consumer boycotts. On Friday,
organizers from StopSinclair.org will deliver a
protest petition with 100,000 signatures to Sinclair's
headquarters in Hunt Valley, Md. On Wednesday, 85
members of Congress demanded that the FCC investigate
Sinclair. The main phone line to Sinclair was
alternately busy or went unanswered for virtually the
entire business day, making it impossible to get a
response from company officials for this story. "They
have no idea what they've unleashed," says the local
Sinclair manager.
Sinclair's stock, which is already
underperforming, dragged down by the weight of the
company's enormous debt, a consequence of
mismanagement at the top, drooped even more following
the "Stolen Honor" announcement. And that comes on the
heels of the stock hitting its 52-week low in late
September. (Sinclair trades for roughly $7. In 1995
the stock traded for $45, and that was before the late
'90s stock market surge.)
"Sinclair corporate has an identity they've
decided on, but they're having a hard time getting
folks in the hinterland to jump onboard," said one
television news insider. Referring to the directive to
local stations to run daily right-wing commentaries
dubbed "The Point," delivered by Sinclair's vice
president of corporate relations Mark Hyman, the
source says, "People who work at the local stations
hate it. They just cringe."
The "Nightline" imbroglio was bad enough. In a
written statement, Sinclair claimed ABC's "action
appears to be motivated by a political agenda designed
to undermine the efforts of the United States in
Iraq." Sinclair's general counsel said of
"Nightline's" tribute to the American dead, "We find
it to be contrary to the public interest."
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., blasted Sinclair's
decision: "There is no valid reason for Sinclair to
shirk its responsibility in what I assume is a very
misguided attempt to prevent your viewers from
completely appreciating the extraordinary sacrifices
made on their behalf by Americans serving in Iraq." In
response, Sinclair V.P. Hyman tried to demean the
military service of the decorated former prisoner of
war, "To be perfectly honest, it's been 25 years since
[McCain's] worn a military uniform."
But the "Stolen Honor" flap has gotten uglier. The
film was made by Carlton Sherwood, a Vietnam veteran
and former reporter for the conservative Washington
Times. He also authored a book that served as a
vigorous defense of Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the alleged
cult leader who owns the newspaper. Sherwood is a
personal friend of Homeland Security Secretary Tom
Ridge and worked as a media consultant for Ridge while
he was Pennsylvania governor. Appearing on Fox News
this week, Sherwood insisted he had been "slandered
and vilified" by Kerry's antiwar activities more than
three decades ago. Two of the Vietnam veterans who
appear in "Stolen Honor" were also part of the Swift
Boat Veterans for Truth smear campaign this summer.
Prominently featured in "Stolen Honor" is retired
Air Force Col. Leo Thorsness, a Vietnam prisoner of
war for six years, with a long political career as a
Republican. In South Dakota, he ran for the U.S.
Senate against George McGovern in 1974 and Tom Daschle
in 1978, losing both times. Then he moved to
Washington state, where he was elected a state
senator. Thorsness claims Kerry's antiwar activity
helped prolong the war and made POW's suffer. Twelve
years ago during the 1992 presidential campaign
Thorsness made the same accusations against Democratic
candidate Bill Clinton - that his antiwar protests as
a student had aided and abetted the enemy.
Although "Stolen Honor" is available online on
DVD, Sinclair insists that airing the tilted
documentary constitutes a news event, which thereby
lifts any obligation Sinclair has to grant Kerry equal
time. (It was during the "Nightline" controversy that
Sinclair issued a statement: "We do not believe
political statements should be disguised as news
content.")
The Fairness Doctrine, which required television
and radio stations to present an opposing side, was
destroyed by President Reagan's veto of congressional
renewal. Still, broadcast stations - in exchange for
being given broadcast spectrum for free - are
obligated during campaigns to offer each candidate
equal time.
"Sinclair's acting more like a cable channel,"
says Hundt, who notes that broadcasters have unique
responsibilities. "Broadcasters are given spectrum for
free with a quid pro quo to serve the public
interest."
Founded by Julian Smith, Sinclair started out as a
single UHF station in Baltimore in 1971. In 33 years
it has grown into 62 stations in 39 markets, capturing
24 percent of the national TV audience. The company
touts itself as "the nation's largest commercial
television broadcasting company not owned by a
network." Sinclair's stations air a variety of
programming from all the various networks. Most of
Sinclair's stations are second- and third-tier outlets
- the company doesn't have any ABC, CBS or NBC
affiliates in top 10 markets. Instead, a typical
Sinclair station would be WMMP, a UPN affiliate in
Charleston, S.C. Sinclair is now run by four of
Smith's sons, including CEO David Smith.
According to the Washington Post, "Little is known
about the views of David Smith, who told the Baltimore
Sun in a rare 1995 interview that he and his brothers
try 'to maintain as much anonymity as we can.' As for
Smith's view, he was quoted in a January 5th
'Television Week' article, complaining about the
'political agenda' of the 'liberal media.'"
Smith's anonymity was inadvertently peeled back
during the summer of 1996 when he was arrested in
Baltimore for picking up a female prostitute who
performed what arresting police officers reported as a
"perverted act" on him as he drove north on the Jones
Falls Expressway in a company-owned Mercedes. Smith
was charged with a misdemeanor sex offense.
The company expanded in the 1990s by taking
advantage of local marketing agreements in which it
effectively operated another company's stations,
including selling the ad time. These arrangements
allowed Sinclair to run more than one station in a
single market, creating de facto duopolies. But
Sinclair has been stuck at roughly the same number of
television stations for several years. In order to
grow dramatically it needs the federal government to
further relax the number of outlets one company can
own. Business Week noted last year, "If ownership
restrictions are eased, Sinclair is poised to reap
huge benefits by being able to add more TV stations,
further reducing costs." As it happens, the Bush
administration, and the Bush-appointed FCC chairman,
are in favor further relaxation of media ownership
rules, but they have run into bipartisan opposition in
the Congress.
Sinclair has other business interests that may
also explain its aggressive support of the Bush
administration. The company happens to be a major
investor in Jadoo Power Systems, a producer of
portable power systems that was recently awarded a
military contract from the Pentagon with U.S. Special
Operations Command. (Sinclair Ventures, a wholly owned
subsidiary of Sinclair Broadcast Group, is one of
Jadoo's two major owners.)
Like Clear Channel Communications, which
symbolizes deregulation on the radio side, inside the
television business Sinclair is known for being cheap,
playing hardball with its competitors and suppliers,
rampant cost cutting, a conservative tilt, and
centralized programming that takes decision-making
away from local stations and coverage away from local
communities. (Sinclair's even been labeled "the Clear
Channel of local news.")
In St. Louis, Sinclair fired the entire 47-person
news team at KDNL, making it among the first
major-market television stations to broadcast without
local news. At Sinclair's Rochester, N.Y., station, it
fired the entire news, weather and sports anchor team,
and half of the remaining staff. Variety reported that
Smith assembled station employees in the company
parking lot, climbed onto the hood of a car, read a
list of names, and announced that those on the list
were fired. (Smith denied the account.) On a smaller
but still telling scale, after Sinclair took over WCWB
in Pittsburgh, the company ditched the station's three
public affairs programs, including "Girl Scouting
Today," and replaced them with infomercials.
Typically, when Sinclair guts local news
operations, it replaces them with a newscast beamed in
from its Maryland studio, which is packaged as a
homegrown broadcast. Dubbed "NewsCentral," the
maneuver is first and foremost a money-saving
enterprise. But an indirect consequence of beaming
uniform newscasts across the country is that it has
given Sinclair some political clout. "I don't think
they anticipated the power they would generate with
NewsCentral," says one news industry source. "They
created a political animal."
But none of Sinclair's maneuvers, even the
"Nightline" stunt, prepared observers for its most
recent moves. Sinclair has shown no previous interest
in documentaries. "It's never happened before - ever,"
says filmmaker Robert Greenwald, who told Salon he
offers all his films for Sinclair to broadcast,
including "Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq
War." George Butler, director of "Going Upriver: The
Long War of John Kerry," as well as Paul Alexander,
maker of "Brothers in Arms," a documentary of Kerry's
Vietnam experience, have made similar offers,
suggesting Sinclair, if it were interested in balance,
would show their films to counter the attacks of
"Stolen Honor." Sinclair has failed to respond to
their offers.
Just days before Sinclair made its announcement,
some conservatives posting on the far right Web site
FreeRepublic.com were tossing back and forth the idea
of how they might convince Fox News to run "Stolen
Honor." But the consensus among the Freepers was that
the movie was too controversial and partisan even for
Fox. "It's quite a world we live in when Fox appears
to be the moderate," remarks Greenwald, whose recent
documentary, "Outfoxed," examined the network's
conservative bias.
Once obscure, Sinclair's peculiar brand of
corporate leadership is at last receiving attention
and scrutiny. While defending its "Stolen Honor"
decision, Sinclair's obstreperous vice president Hyman
twice this week turned heads by comparing network news
organizations to "Holocaust deniers" for allegedly
refusing to cover the anti-Kerry accusations of a
small gaggle of Vietnam veterans. Aside from his
incendiary language, Hyman obviously neglected to
account for the wall-to-wall coverage the
Republican-financed Swift Boat Veterans for Truth
received during the month of August.
After the Democratic National Committee filed a
complaint with the Federal Election Committee charging
that Sinclair's airing of the one-sided "Stolen Honor"
amounted to a corporate, in-kind donation to the
Bush-Cheney campaign, Hyman told the Associated Press,
"Would they suggest that our reporting a car bomb in
Iraq is an in-kind contribution to the Kerry
campaign?" Eighteen Democratic senators wrote to FCC
chairman Michael Powell this week asking him to
investigate Sinclair's move, but Thursday Powell said
the FCC would do nothing to interfere with the
network's plans.
"He's certifiable," says one Sinclair employee.
"At least that's all coming out now. It's like the
Wizard of Oz; the curtain gets pulled back and there's
this weird guy running things."
In a profile of Hyman that appeared this summer,
the Baltimore Sun reported wryly, "He came to
journalism in a roundabout way." In fact, the public
face of Sinclair's news department has no newsroom
experience whatsoever. A 1981 U.S. Naval Academy
graduate, Hyman worked for the Office of Naval
Intelligence and later as a weapons inspector focusing
on arms reductions in former Soviet bloc countries.
During the mid-1990s, during the heyday of the
Gingrich Republican "revolution," Hyman served as a
congressional fellow. After less than two years on
Capitol Hill, Hyman in 1997 was tapped as Sinclair's
chief lobbyist, director of government relations, and
then promoted to vice president of corporate relations
in July 1999.
For two years Hyman often made trade-industry
headlines for challenging the FCC's guidelines on
digital television. And then came Sept. 11. Sinclair
went far beyond affixing American flags to the lapels
of its news anchors. Its news team at the company's
flagship station in Baltimore received edicts to read
on air: "[The station] wants you to know that we stand
100 percent behind our President." Hyman has kept up
the patriotic coverage: Last February, a Sinclair news
crew set off for Iraq determined to find the "good
news" stories that other news organizations were
supposedly ignoring. Since that expedition, nearly 600
U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq. During an
interview last September with Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld, a Sinclair reporter inquired, "Is
negative press emboldening the terrorists in Iraq, do
you think?"
Soon after Sept. 11, Hyman's commentaries, "The
Point," became a daily must-carry on Sinclair
stations. Critics of the Iraq war are "whack-jobs,"
the French are "cheese-eating surrender monkeys,"
progressives "loony left," and Democratic members of
Congress who argued against Bush policies are
"unpatriotic politicians who hate our military." At
first only Sinclair stations that aired its
NewsCentral broadcast were required to carry "The
Point." But recently all Sinclair stations have been
told to feature Hyman's broadsides, often by
shortening their sportscasts.
Sinclair boasts that 1.8 million adult viewers see
Hyman's "The Point" every day, making him among the
most-watched conservative commentators on television.
But the figure is somewhat misleading, because
Sinclair news viewers in 39 markets across the country
tune in for news, sports and weather. Hyman's simply
there, part of the Sinclair package.
Sinclair is the only group owner, from either side
of the political spectrum, beaming out editorials
across the country to television stations without any
local input. "Sinclair's always claiming they're the
symbol of localism and that local broadcasters best
reflect the values and tastes of the community," says
Gene Kimmelman, director of the Washington office of
Consumers Union. "How does running a so-called
documentary which independent observers say is not
factually accurate, how does that serve the community?
And has Sinclair asked the communities if they wanted
to see documentaries from the other side to balance it
out?"
Smith at Syracuse University says the fracas
represents a strategic defeat for the broadcast
industry, which continues to lobby Congress and the
FCC for further media ownership concentration. "This
plays right into the hands of people who are opposed
to media consolidation," he says. "Sinclair's become
the poster child for abuse of consolidation.
Broadcasters always claim consolidation doesn't hurt
localism, but this [Sinclair episode] is incredibly
damaging to localism. Privately, I think broadcasters
are furious with Sinclair."
Reed Hundt, the former FCC chairman, encapsulates
the latest Sinclair travesty in a line: "It's about a
company that's forgotten the standard of behavior for
broadcast television."
http://www.mtv.com/chooseorlose/headlines/news.jhtml?id=1492305
Jon Stewart Bitchslaps CNN's 'Crossfire' Show
10.15.2004 6:43 PM EDT
In what could well be the strangest and most
refreshing media moment of the election season, "The
Daily Show" host Jon Stewart turned up on a live
broadcast of CNN's "Crossfire" Friday and accused the
mainstream media — and his hosts in particular — of
being soft and failing to do their duty as journalists
to keep politicians and the political process honest.
Reaching well outside his usual youthful "Daily Show"
demo, Stewart took to "Crossfire" to promote his new
book, "America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to
Democracy Inaction" (see "Jon Stewart Writes A History
Textbook That — At Last! — Features Nudity"), but
instead of pushing the tome, Stewart used his time to
verbally slap the network and the media for being
"dishonest" and "doing a disservice" to the American
public. After co-host Tucker Carlson suggested that
Stewart went easy on Senator John Kerry when the
candidate was a guest on "The Daily Show," Stewart
unloaded on "Crossfire," calling hosts Carlson and
Paul Begala "partisan hacks" and chiding them for not
raising the level of discourse on their show beyond
sloganeering.
"What you do is not honest. What you do is partisan
hackery," Stewart said. "You have a responsibility to
the public discourse, and you fail miserably.
"I watch your show every day, and it kills me. It's so
painful to watch," Stewart added as it became apparent
that the comedian was not joking. He went on to hammer
the network, and the media in general, for its
coverage of the presidential debates. Stewart said it
was a disservice to viewers to immediately seek
reaction from campaign insiders and presidential
cheerleaders following the debates, noting that the
debates' famed "Spin Alley" should be called
"Deception Lane."
"The thing is, we need your help," Stewart said.
"Right now, you're helping the politicians and the
corporations and we're left out there to mow our
lawns."
While the audience seemed to be behind Stewart, Begala
and Carlson were both taken aback. The hosts tried to
feed Stewart set-up lines hoping to draw him into a
more light-hearted shtick, but Stewart stayed on point
and hammered away at the show, the hosts, and the
state of political journalism. Carlson grew
increasingly frustrated, at first noting that the
segment wasn't "funny," and later verbally sparring
with the comedian.
"You're not very much fun," Carlson said. "Do you like
lecture people like this, or do you come over to their
house and sit and lecture them; they're not doing the
right thing, that they're missing their opportunities,
evading their responsibilities?"
"If I think they are," Stewart retorted.
The conversation reached its most heated moment when
Carlson said to Stewart, "I do think you're more fun
on your show," to which Stewart replied, "You're as
big a dick on your show as you are on any show."
"That went great," Stewart could be heard
sarcastically saying as the show went off the air (a
transcript of the show is available on CNN.com).
In an era when the media is increasingly fragmented
and viewers can surround themselves with programming
that falls right in line with their own views, be they
on the right or the left, Stewart's blast seemed
especially on point. It seems fitting that the tirade
came on a day when much of the media attention focused
on the presidential race was directed at the mention
of Vice President Dick Cheney's daughter during the
last presidential debate, as opposed to the issues
addressed at that debate.
—Robert Mancini
http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041015/NEWS01/410150366/1002
October 15, 2004
Platoon defies orders in Iraq
Miss. soldier calls home, cites safety concerns
By Jeremy Hudson
jehudson@clarionledger.com
A 17-member Army Reserve platoon with troops from
Jackson and around the Southeast deployed to Iraq is
under arrest for refusing a "suicide mission" to
deliver fuel, the troops' relatives said Thursday.
The soldiers refused an order on Wednesday to go to
Taji, Iraq — north of Baghdad — because their vehicles
were considered "deadlined" or extremely unsafe, said
Patricia McCook of Jackson, wife of Sgt. Larry O.
McCook.
Sgt. McCook, a deputy at the Hinds County Detention
Center, and the 16 other members of the 343rd
Quartermaster Company from Rock Hill, S.C., were read
their rights and moved from the military barracks into
tents, Patricia McCook said her husband told her
during a panicked phone call about 5 a.m. Thursday.
The platoon could be charged with the willful
disobeying of orders, punishable by dishonorable
discharge, forfeiture of pay and up to five years
confinement, said military law expert Mark Stevens, an
associate professor of justice studies at Wesleyan
College in Rocky Mount, N.C.
No military officials were able to confirm or deny the
detainment of the platoon Thursday.
But today, Sgt. Salju Thomas of the Combined Press
Information Center in Baghdad issued a statement
saying that an investigation has begun.
"The Commander General of the 13 Corps Support Group
has appointed a deputy commander to lead an
investigation into allegations that members of the 343
Quartermaster Company refused to participate in theri
assigned convoy mission on Oct. 13," Thomas' statement
said.
The investigation team is currently in Tallil taking
statements and interviewing those involved, Thomas
said in the statement.
U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson said he plans to submit a
congressional inquiry today on behalf of the
Mississippi soldiers to launch an investigation into
whether they are being treated improperly.
"I would not want any member of the military to be put
in a dangerous situation ill-equipped," said Thompson,
who was contacted by families. "I have had similar
complaints from military families about vehicles that
weren't armor-plated, or bullet-proof vests that are
outdated. It concerns me because we made over $150
billion in funds available to equip our forces in
Iraq.
"President Bush takes the position that the troops are
well-armed, but if this situation is true, it calls
into question how honest he has been with the
country," Thompson said.
The 343rd is a supply unit whose general mission is to
deliver fuel and water. The unit includes three women
and 14 men and those with ranking up to sergeant first
class.
"I got a call from an officer in another unit early
(Thursday) morning who told me that my husband and his
platoon had been arrested on a bogus charge because
they refused to go on a suicide mission," said Jackie
Butler of Jackson, wife of Sgt. Michael Butler, a
24-year reservist. "When my husband refuses to follow
an order, it has to be something major."
The platoon being held has troops from Alabama,
Kentucky, North Carolina, Mississippi and South
Carolina, said Teresa Hill of Dothan, Ala., whose
daughter Amber McClenny is among those being detained.
McClenny, 21, pleaded for help in a message left on
her mother's answering machine early Thursday morning.
"They are holding us against our will," McClenny said.
"We are now prisoners."
McClenny told her mother her unit tried to deliver
fuel to another base in Iraq Wednesday, but was sent
back because the fuel had been contaminated with
water. The platoon returned to its base, where it was
told to take the fuel to another base, McClenny told
her mother.
The platoon is normally escorted by armed Humvees and
helicopters, but did not have that support Wednesday,
McClenny told her mother.
The convoy trucks the platoon was driving had
experienced problems in the past and were not being
properly maintained, Hill said her daughter told her.
The situation mirrors other tales of troops being sent
on missions without proper equipment.
Aviation regiments have complained of being forced to
fly dangerous missions over Iraq with outdated
night-vision goggles and old missile-avoidance
systems. Stories of troops' families purchasing body
armor because the military didn't provide them with
adequate equipment have been included in recent
presidential debates.
Patricia McCook said her husband, a staff sergeant,
understands well the severity of disobeying orders.
But he did not feel comfortable taking his soldiers on
another trip.
"He told me that three of the vehicles they were to
use were deadlines ... not safe to go in a hotbed like
that," Patricia McCook said.
Hill said the trucks her daughter's unit was driving
could not top 40 mph.
"They knew there was a 99 percent chance they were
going to get ambushed or fired at," Hill said her
daughter told her. "They would have had no way to
fight back."
Kathy Harris of Vicksburg is the mother of Aaron
Gordon, 20, who is among those being detained. Her
primary concern is that she has been told the soldiers
have not been provided access to a judge advocate
general.
Stevens said if the soldiers are being confined, law
requires them to have a hearing before a magistrate
within seven days.
Harris said conditions for the platoon have been
difficult of late. Her son e-mailed her earlier this
week to ask what the penalty would be if he became
physical with a commanding officer, she said.
But Nadine Stratford of Rock Hill, S.C., said her
godson Colin Durham, 20, has been happy with his time
in Iraq. She has not heard from him since the platoon
was detained.
"When I talked to him about a month ago, he was fine,"
Stratford said. "He said it was like being at home."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-10-15-bush-guard-records_x.htm?csp=24&RM_Exclude=Juno
Posted 10/15/2004 5:54 PM Updated 10/15/2004 10:36
PM
Independent review finds unreleased Bush military
records
WASHINGTON (AP) — Weeks after Texas National Guard
officials signed an oath swearing they had turned over
all of President Bush's military records, independent
examiners found more than two dozen pages of
previously unreleased documents about Bush.
The two retired Army lawyers went through Texas files
under an agreement between the Texas Guard and The
Associated Press, which sued to gain access to the
files. The 31 pages of documents turned over to AP
Thursday night include orders for high-altitude
training in 1972, less than three months before Bush
abruptly quit flying as a fighter pilot.
The discovery is the latest in a series of
embarrassments for Pentagon and Texas National Guard
officials who have repeatedly said they found and
released all of Bush's Vietnam-era military files,
only to belatedly discover more records. Those
discoveries — nearly 100 pages, including Bush's pay
records and flight logs — have been the result of
freedom of information lawsuits filed in federal and
Texas courts by AP.
A Texas National Guard spokesman defended the
continuing discoveries, saying Guard officials didn't
find all of Bush's records because they are
disorganized and in poor shape.
"These boxes are full of dirt and rat (excrement) and
dead bugs. They have never been sitting in an
uncontrolled climate," said Lt. Col. John Stanford.
"It's a tough task to go through archives that were
not set up in a way that you could easily go through
them."
Two Texas officials had signed sworn affidavits
insisting they had reviewed the files in those boxes
and released copies of all that related to Bush's
1968-1973 Guard service, however.
Bush's time in the Texas Air National Guard has come
under scrutiny in this wartime election season. Some
Democrats accuse Bush of shirking his guard duties in
1972 and 1973, when Bush didn't show up for training
for as long as six months at a time. Democrats have
contrasted nominee John Kerry's combat service in
Vietnam with Bush's stateside service as an F-102A
fighter pilot in Texas.
Bush says he fulfilled all of his service obligations
and did nothing wrong. The newly released documents
shed no new light on the most controversial periods of
Bush's guard tenure.
Texas Tech University law school professors Richard D.
Rosen and Calvin Lewis, both former Army lawyers,
reviewed the boxes of files earlier this week under an
agreement in the AP lawsuit. They found three other
boxes with files from Bush's unit that previous
searches did not turn up, Stanford said.
The newly released documents include a January 1972
order for Bush to attend three days of "physiological
training" at Laredo Air Force Base in Texas. His Texas
payroll and attendance records, released earlier, show
Bush was credited for serving on active duty training
for the three days involved.
At the time, pilots had to renew their high-altitude
training every three years, said retired Maj. Gen.
Paul A. Weaver, Jr., a former head of the Air National
Guard. Bush's first altitude training came in 1969
when he was in pilot school at Moody Air Force Base in
Georgia.
The training involved instruction about the effects of
lack of oxygen on the body and exercises in which the
pilots are exposed under supervision to the thin air
of high altitudes. The purpose is to familiarize
pilots with the effects of lack of oxygen so they can
recognize them and take appropriate action to avoid
blacking out at the controls.
The altitude training came six weeks before Bush began
an unexplained string of flights on two-seat training
jets and simulators. On April 12, 1972, Bush took his
last flight in the single-seat F-102A fighter.
The future president skipped a required yearly medical
exam and was ordered grounded as of August 1972. Bush
says he missed the exam because he was planning to
train with an Alabama Air National Guard unit which
did not fly the F-102A.
Bush went to Alabama that year to work on the U.S.
Senate campaign of a family friend.
Records show Bush did no guard training at all between
mid-April and late October 1972. He's credited with
six days of training in October and November 1972,
presumably with the Alabama unit.
The Alabama unit's commanders say they never saw Bush
or any paperwork showing he performed drills there. A
January 1973 document says Bush got a dental
examination at the Alabama unit's base.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights
reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Teachers' T-shirts bring Bush speech ouster
http://www.bend.com/news/ar_view^3Far_id^3D18712.htm
>From Bend.com news sources
Posted: Thursday, October 14, 2004 10:24 PM
Reference Code: PR-18712
October 14 - MEDFORD – President Bush taught three
Oregon schoolteachers a new lesson in irony – or
tragedy – Thursday night when his campaign removed
them from a Bush speech and threatened them with
arrest simply for wearing t-shirts that said “Protect
Our Civil Liberties,” the Democratic Party of Oregon
reported.
The women were ticketed to the event, admitted into
the event, and were then approached by event officials
before the president’s speech. They were asked to
leave and to turn over their tickets – two of the
three tickets were seized, but the third was saved
when one of the teachers put it underneath an article
of clothing.
"The U.S. Constitution was not available on site for
comment, but expressed in a written statement support
for “the freedom of speech” and “of the press” among
other civil liberties," a Democratic news release
said.
The Associated Press and local CBS affiliate KTVL
captured Bush’s principled stand against civil
liberties in news accounts published immediately after
the event.
The AP reported:
Three Medford school teachers were threatened with
arrest and escorted from the event after they showed
up wearing T-shirts with the slogan "Protect our civil
liberties." All three said they applied for and
received valid tickets from Republican headquarters in
Medford.
The women said they did not intend to protest. "I
wanted to see if I would be able to make a statement
that I feel is important, but not offensive, in a
rally for my president," said Janet Voorhies, 48, a
teacher in training.
“We chose this phrase specifically because we didn't
think it would be offensive or degrading or obscene,"
said Tania Tong, 34, a special education teacher.
Thursday’s event in Oregon sets a new bar for a
Bush/Cheney campaign that has taken extraordinary
measures to screen the opinions of those who attend
Bush and Cheney speeches. For months, the Bush/Cheney
campaign has limited event access to those willing to
volunteer in Bush/Cheney campaign offices. In recent
weeks, the Bush/Cheney campaign has gone so far as to
have those who voice dissenting viewpoints at their
events arrested and charged as criminals.
Thursday’s actions in Oregon set a new standard even
for Bush/Cheney – removing and threatening with arrest
citizens who in no way disrupt an event and wear
clothing that expresses non-disruptive party-neutral
viewpoints such as “Protect Our Civil Liberties.”
When Vice President Dick Cheney visited Eugene, Oregon
on Sept. 17, a 54-Year old woman named Perry Patterson
was charged with criminal trespass for blurting the
word "No" when Cheney said that George W. Bush has
made the world safer.
One day before, Sue Niederer, 55, the mother of a
slain American soldier in Iraq was cuffed and arrested
for criminal trespass when she interrupted a Laura
Bush speech in New Jersey. Both women had tickets to
the event.