Though the immediate concern about national public radio/tv having it’s budget slashed by the right wing has been eliminated thanks to massive letter writing, the danger persist, because Kenneth Tomlinson is still trying to make it part of the right wing propaganda machine (like Full Of eXcrement news).
Frank Rich has a good column that spells it all out.
Mr. Tomlinson has maintained that his goal at CPB is to strengthen public broadcasting by restoring “balance” and stamping out “liberal bias.” But Mr. Moyers left “Now” six months ago. Mr. Tomlinson’s real, not-so-hidden agenda is to enforce a conservative bias or, more specifically, a Bush bias. To this end, he has not only turned CPB into a full-service employment program for apparatchiks but also helped initiate “The Journal Editorial Report,” the only public broadcasting show ever devoted to a single newspaper’s editorial page, that of the zealously pro-Bush Wall Street Journal. Unlike Mr. Moyers’s “Now” - which routinely balanced its host’s liberalism with conservative guests like Ralph Reed, Grover Norquist, Paul Gigot and Cal Thomas - The Journal’s program does not include liberals of comparable stature.
Mary, over at Knock-Knock, has two excellent posts. One dealing with Biden and Dodd not compromising on bolton and the other with the report from Scott Ritter, that bush has already signed off on war with Iran.
A thank you note from Congressman John Conyers:
Dear Friend:
Thank you for signing the Downing Street Minutes letter to the president. I personally delivered your letter to the White House last Thursday.
Your participation in this issue has made a difference. The mainstream media has been very slow to report on this British Intelligence document claiming that evidence was being “fixed” to support the lead up to war against Iraq.
Yet, the neither the media nor President Bush could ignore the massive groundswell of interest demonstrated by the more than 560,000 individuals who joined you in signing this letter.
On Thursday, I led a hearing about the Downing Street Minutes to receive testimony from former Ambassador Joe Wilson, 27-year CIA veteran Ray McGovern, constitutional lawyer John Bonifaz, and Cindy Sheehan, who lost her son in Iraq.
Despite desperate attempts by Republicans to disrupt the proceedings, 32 Members of Congress attended this hearing. We were forced to use a cramped room in the basement of the Capitol little bigger than a closet, even though plenty of larger hearing rooms were available. The Republican Leadership also scheduled votes for nearly two straight hours in an unprecedented attempt to limit the ability of Democratic Members of Congress to participate in this hearing.
Thanks to your help, and the more than 560,000 individuals who signed this letter, the mainstream media felt compelled to cover this event. The room was packed with television cameras and there was significant coverage in national newspapers and radio networks. After the hearing I hand delivered the list of signatures along with a letter to the president signed by 122 Members of Congress demanding answers, and led a rally outside the White House.
We still have much more to do to make President Bush answer the questions raised by the Downing Street Minutes. Much work remains for us to bring this issue to the attention of all Americans.
Visit my website at http://johnconyers.com to find out what additional steps we are taking and how you can help on this issue of vital constitutional importance.
This is especially important:
Visit my website at http://johnconyers.com to find out what additional steps we are taking and how you can help on this issue of vital constitutional importance.
Seth Greenland over at The Huffington Post expresses my feelings exactly.
Let’s see…the situation in Iraq is deteriorating, tens of millions of Americans are uninsured, the public education system is a disgrace and Congress is debating…flag burning? It’s good to see their priorities are in order. I know that if I’m a guy with a son in Iraq, helping out a parent who worked for a company where the pension fund went south, and whose daughter can’t get a decent education, flag burning it what I think about when I wake up each day, and I’m glad Congress shares my priorities. But what I really want to know, if I’m that guy, is when our elected represenatives are going to have more hearings on steroid abuse in professional baseball.
if you’ve lost track of what’s happening with the John Bolton nomination, this Christian Science Monitor article should help.
A second failed Senate vote to move the nomination of John Bolton as US ambassador to the United Nations this week leaves President Bush with three options, all costly.
Frist initially wanted to avoid another confrontation, but after meeting and listening to his master’s voice, has decided to push the issue of another vote. This seems like it’s being done so that bush can avoid a recess appointment which he knows is not a popular idea.
I was cruising Salon.com (daily pass or subscription required) when I came upon two articles. One deals with the recent disclosure that the bush administration cut the penalty the government was asking of the tobacco industry,
It’s been almost two weeks since senior Justice Department officials — one of them with close personal ties to President Bush — forced their own attorneys to shave $120 billion off the amount sought in the department’s case against the tobacco industry, and evidence that top officials plotted to undermine the department’s case against Big Tobacco continues to mount.
And the second is a story about how the bush administration totally ignored and reversed the findings of scientists.
Last week, the Bureau of Land Management made it easier to graze cattle on public land, despite objections from its own scientists. Grazing cattle can denude the West’s arid lands, a special concern given the recent drought in the region. Two BLM scientists — a biologist and a hydrologist, both of whom recently retired from the bureau — predicted that easing limits on cattle grazing would hurt wildlife and water quality. But their objections were edited out of a BLM report. Who needs to trouble with dissent when you can just delete it?
“This is a whitewash. They took all of our science and reversed it 180 degrees,” Erick Campbell, a former BLM state biologist in Nevada told the Los Angeles Times. “They rewrote everything,” Campbell said. “It’s a crime.”
Well, I guess that’s understandable since it’s only a theory, like the round earth theory or the theory of gravity.
bush and his familiars aren’t doing anything differently from what they did on day one, when he took (what an interesting word) office. If it wouldn’t be such a disaster, I’d almost hope he does appoint bolton during the congressional recess. It just might be enough to get the impeachment proceedings going. Nah… I’m probably just living in a dreamworld.
I know, maybe the editors of the major news outlets will get over the fact that blogs got the DSM story first and actually do their jobs and follow up. Nah,… that’ll never happen.
I read the column/”love letter” that David Brooks wrote yesterday about Bill Frist in the NY Times and found it really shallow. I thought I was the only one who might think this way until I read this BottleOfBlog entry:
Yes, I admire that anecdote, too. It did take some guts to wait until two days before your wedding, after your bride to be bought her wedding gown, after her bridesmaids bought their gowns, after the bride’s family bought wedding cakes and flowers and food and liquor for guests; after the bride’s family arranged for a church, and a place for a reception, and a band, maybe rented a limo; after all your friends and family made travel arrangements and bought gifts; after announcements were published in the newspaper, it certainly did take a lot of guts to wait until two days before your wedding to screw everyone involved except your bride to be.
Her, you just humiliated. But that takes guts, as well.
Frist is for himself, first and foremost. You can’t expect him to put the country first if it interferes with what he wants.
I just discovered another search engine called Gigablast. It may give Google a run because it makes it easy to refine searches, but it seemed to stop working for me after I used it a few times this morning.
I wonder if there is a limit on how often it can be used?
Kevin Drum posts at the Washington Monthly site that another memo from the Downing Street meeting has been released by the London Times.
The London Times has gotten hold of yet another leaked memo prepared for Tony Blair in July 2002. This one says that Blair had already agreed the previous April to support military action against Iraq, and therefore some way needed to be found to make it legal:
He also expresses doubts about it receiving much coverage here. After watching The News Hour on PBS last Friday in which less than two minutes was spent on the Downing Street Memo and at least five minutes was spent discussing Howard Dean’s apt description of the Republican Party, I must agree with Drum.
I just downloaded a song (iTunes) from the Black Eyed Peas’ newest album (Monkey Business), called Union.
The melody is from Sting’s Englishman in New York, and I’m pretty sure Sting is singing a few lines in it even though he’s not credited in the info. If you have access to iTunes, you’ll like it if for no other reason than the lyrics.
There seem to be a few good songs on the album. No, I am not affiliated with them or iTunes or Sting. 
liberty & Peace | Cherokee | 
June 27, 2005 9:29 am | 
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