NH Recognizes & Thanks JK for Helping Turn NH BLUE!

This very nice thank you to Senator Kerry was in today's newsletter from the nhdp:

It is also how a decent media would have treated this announcement. I really don't get why at a moment like that they don't have the decency to give the man a break - if for only a day.

People here were stunned and horrified by how nasty it was. One individual had called me cynical when I said about this time last week that the media would rip him up no matter what... I didn't want to be right.

I am still not happy about this decision, and personally don't agree with it, but if it had been the OTHER decision, he would have been disemboweled.

I sincerely hope that 2006 was not just a fluke and that Americans in general really are getting fed up with the neverending stream of verbal diarrhea that issues forth from the media. I think they are. Trust of the media is actually lower than trust of the government, and that's saying something.

for about two more months still. The it will get better. Give it time.

The media will get much, much worse in 2007-2008. They are protecting turf against them internet upstarts. They sense their own impending dinosaurhood coming and will fight back with the last refuge of the truly stupid: snarkiness.

The News Bidness is in deep, deep trouble. They have to remodel how they do business or they won't be doing business anymore. They can no longer be squeezed as profit centers and expected to deliver 12-20% profits. It's not working and it's resulting in news for the stupid, all day, all the time.

Look what's hot and what's going out of style? Citizen media is getting more popular while dinosaur media is grabbing for smaller and smaller pieces of a shrinking audience. When the news of Kerry's decision hit, some here were worried that Kerry would be marginalized and ignored. My answer to that is: NO HE'S NOT because WE WON'T LET THAT HAPPEN!!!! Remember that diary I wrote last week, which was about Kerry's BRILLIANT senate floor speech?? It got close to 600 recommends on dailykos. This was due to the wisdom of his words, his integrity, his passion. People are starved for that, and they'll look anywhere to get it. And then Eric Boehlert had that piece out yesterday defending Kerry's honor. This will not be the end of it. If we're looking to change how government and our public officials are viewed, then we need to work HARDER than ever to do so. Remember that Barry Goldwater lost in a landslide in '64, yet it brought about the beginning of a new movement. That is what has happened with Howard Dean, and it's what happened with Senator Kerry. His principled stances are just a breath of fresh air, and people will be attracted to it. Meanwhile, less and less people tune into all the traditional media, so damnit all -- let's not let the bastards get us done. Capice??

He is protecting the mushy middle, condemns anyone who strays from his narrow path and is unable to see outside the beltway. It's journalism in pursuit of nothing.

AND his own job. We need to remember that. Don't forget that New Yorker piece he wrote about Kerry back in 2002 -- it was positively glowing, especially since he had decided to box Kerry in centrism. He knows better than writing the bile he's been writing post '04, so he deserves to be slammed and punched around by the lib blogs who are enjoying smacking down an easy target.

and then the withdrawal amendment. He said that Kerry had gone off the deep end (dirty hiipiedom) and was destroying his political future by taking strong stands. (Yeah, that's what he said.) He wanted a Kerry who was for 'a strong defense' and 'bipartisanship.' Color me an idiot but I don't think that's what the problem is for the Dems. The American people heard them just fine last fall on Iraq. The problem is that too many Dems are still listening to the voices of mushiness in DC.

This is really, really bad going forward. We have a news media that is increasingly out-of-touch with the problems of Americans. (Read Sandnsea's posts about wage and income disparity. The professional journalism class has no clue on how to live on middle class or less wages. None. The day of reckoning is coming and the news media is playing games instead of informing the American people. This is how dictatorships and totalitarian governments come into being.)

I fear that the damage Bush has done to separation of powers will not be undone for a LONG time. The next president is likely to be every bit the "unitary executive" that Bush has been, simply because people have become accustomed to it and are now surprised when he DOESN'T get unilateral powers. Congress is in the hands of the Democratic Party, but it is all but impotent to do anything about the war, because Bush will do whatever he damn well pleases. Most importantly -- he has managed to stack the courts so that, even if one judge rules against him, there's likely to be a higher court judge to reverse it.

We are tottering right on the brink of no longer being a representative democracy. The unitary executive is here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future. I had hoped that JK would run and win, because he was the only one I truly trusted with that kind of power. Now, I just don't know. With some viable candidates (the Republicans and HRC) it is an outright frightening prospect, and with others (Edwards, Obama), I fear a sort of repeat of what we've had with Bush: a CiC without much experience, guided almost puppetlike by his Cabinet. Because I am also concerned that JK won't be on that Cabinet after just winning re-election to his seat.

constitutional law at Univ. of Chicago for 10 years, which means he has really dove into the meat of what you are speaking about. This is in no way an endorsement (I'm still wide open for '08), but unlike GWB, he is very smart, hardworking, curious and adapts quickly. We will have to see -- and the next year will give us an indication, but I think he is more capable than Edwards, both intellectually and practically.

We have huge economic problems right now and they are getting worse, not better. The classic conditions for the kind of unrest that leads to fundamental change in governments is on the horizon. If we do not have leadership that speaks for the people and steers them to democracy, then we could get a Christian dictatorship. (Not really Christian, but that's what the adherents call it. Authentic Christianity has about as much to do with these folks as a mouse does with a baseball bat.)

In times of disorder, the people seek order. Scaary thought that.

...but I think that the media, at least the media powers (perhaps not the airhead talking heads) are quite aware of what you speak of, and they are shoveling this sh-t in order to keep the masses pacified and ignorant. Watching the various scandals of the celebs, watching as Washington D.C. becomes an East Coast Hollywood to the talking heads, they don't notice the thief who's got his hand in their back pocket.

I'm not so fearful of a Christian dictatorship as I am of a nationalist, secular one. I think fundyism (my coinage -- fundamentalism and fundyism are similar, but fundyism is a political dogma more than a religious one) is on the decline, possibly even in the South. The young people of the South are splitting basically 50-50 Repub to Dem, which for THAT area is a major development.

This "trust poll" I keep referencing -- it says that trust of the media and the government are down, but trust of business and industry are up. Outsourcing was a huge issue in 2004, but now it's just one more thing that people have accepted as a fait accompli.

This is very, very bad. I don't think people have a clue what the real problem is. They think it's one thing, the government, but it is something else altogether -- something that the media powers appear to be very successful at keeping from them.

If the bottom falls out of the economy, which it might, then people will go to that which promises order. This also goes to the biggest default belief systems available and that have the means to move in and take advantage of that.

BTW, who owns their own private security forces to deploy in case of emergencies. This happened in New Orleans.

http://time-blog.com/swampland/2007/01/speaking_of_edwards_1.html

He referred to Kerry as "Frenchy", then edited it, then wrote this:

Update: A number of readers have informed me that it's bad blog etiquette to edit substantively--to change "Frenchy" to "him" in midstream. Sorry. New at this. Didn't know. As for making fun of Kerry, Frenchy was more accessible than "The-Jerk-Who-Actually-Held-Focus-Groups-To-Figure-Out-What-To-Say-About-Abu-Graib-And-then-Decided-to-say-nothing-because-that's-what-his-consultants-told-him-to-do." But I must ask: no comments on the courageous positions Edwards took with Simon? Don't you guys care about substance?



God, the guy is an a**hole. I might comment on how he has no credibility.

Edited to add: hey, I left a comment, and discovered a TON of comments in defense of Kerry. Somebody even looked up Kerry's denial of this bogus story on Russert. Excellent.

will still be acknowledged outside Mass or not.

So just keep faith. It's going to happen with all the little acts like yours.

just as he tried to do so in 2003 when he was ranking member.

You mean in the commerce committee?

Just to show you how corpmedia responded to this, shortly after JK's action here they assigned Dean campaign a press plane while at the same time Kerry's coverage dropped quite a bit.

imo, the campaigns of the candidates were used and manipulated into damaging each other by the machinations of the corpmedia insiders assigned to the camps.


Contact: Kathyrn Seck 202-224-5175 p 202-224-5619 f
kathryn_seck@small-bus.senate.gov http://sbc.senate.gov/

FCC Rule Fight Continues in Congress

The Washington Post

Wednesday, June 4, 2003

Opponents of Ownership Consolidation Also Plan Legal Strategy
By Frank Ahrens

Several lawmakers and advocacy groups vowed yesterday to fight in the courts and on Capitol Hill to overturn the Federal Communications Commission's new media ownership rules, saying they give big newspapers and broadcasters too much influence over public opinion and hurt smaller media companies.

On Monday, the FCC voted 3 to 2 along party lines to relax or eliminate some ownership restrictions, such as a rule barring media companies from owning television stations in markets where they publish daily newspapers. The commission's three Republicans, led by Chairman Michael K. Powell, voted for the changes, while the two Democrats dissented.

Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) said he would file a "resolution of disapproval" to block what he called the "wrongheaded vote." Such a resolution can overturn rules set by regulatory agencies and requires a simple majority of each house of Congress to pass. In March 2001, a resolution of disapproval was used to strike down an ergonomics standard set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Even if the resolution were to pass both Republican-majority houses, it would require President Bush's signature.

Kerry, a presidential candidate and ranking member of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, said Monday's rule changes favor big media companies at the expense of small ones.

Identical bills have been introduced in both houses to overturn Monday's decision on television-station ownership. The old rule said a network cannot own a group of stations that combine to reach more than 35 percent of the national viewing audience. Monday's vote raises that threshold to 45 percent. Bills introduced in the Senate by Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.) and Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and in the House by Rep. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) would return the cap to 35 percent.

On Monday, Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.), who fought for a 25-percent cap in 1996, said Congress could overturn the FCC's rules by passing the Senate version of the revision or by adding a rider to an appropriations bill that would prohibit the use of federal money to pay for the rules changes.

In the Senate, such a rider would have a sympathetic ear: Stevens is chairman of the Appropriations Committee. But the House Appropriations Committee typically resists attaching legislative riders to spending bills, said committee spokesman John Scofield. Committee Chairman C.W. "Bill" Young (R-Fla.) is "more interested in moving 13 appropriations bills forward in a timely manner," Scofield said.

Challenges to Monday's rules are likely at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit from consumer-advocacy groups, which say the FCC deregulated too much, and media companies, which say the agency did not go far enough.

Consumers Union, the nonprofit group that publishes Consumer Reports magazine, said yesterday that it will join other groups in a lawsuit to overturn the rules, which are "riddled with inconsistencies," said Gene Kimmelman, its Washington director. For example, market share of television stations is taken account of in some rules but not in others, he said.

While acknowledging that they might sue, most opponents to the rule changes said yesterday that they were not prepared to move ahead until they read the complete text of Monday's rule changes, which Powell promised to produce by next week. After the rules are entered in the Federal Register, complainants have 30 days to ask the FCC to reconsider them and 60 days to challenge them in court.

Most of the four major networks -- ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox -- indicated that they are unlikely to sue to raise the 45 percent national station ownership cap, even though they all would like to see the cap eradicated. "If we sue, it would be on principle," said one network executive.

Two of the networks are over the current ownership cap. News Corp.'s Fox is at 37 percent; Viacom Inc.'s CBS is around 40 percent. General Electric Co.'s NBC is at 34 percent and Walt Disney Co.'s ABC is at 24 percent.

Radio giant Clear Channel Communications, which will be subject to new limits by the new rules, hinted it would sue.

Currently, no company is allowed to own more than eight radio stations in one city. Clear Channel wanted that limit raised in the nation's largest markets. Andrew Levin, vice president of government affairs for Clear Channel, said it makes "absolutely no sense" that the cap is set at the same number in Memphis, which has fewer than 50 stations, as it is in New York, which has nearly 100.

"Based on what we know now, it appears the most legally suspect portion of the order will be the part in which the FCC completely ignored the largest U.S. radio markets in determining whether or not rules changes were necessary," Levin said.

I wonder if the problem is that the media, by and large, spent 2004 going out of their way to characterize Sentor Kerry as unlikable and not trustworthy and Bush as nice and a strong leader. They lied on both accounts. Most Americans know they lied on Bush. Showing Senator Kerry for who he is would get rid of any excuse for voting for Bush.

Sometimes it makes me physically sick. The lies and distortions are just so vile. And there are people stupid enought to believe them! That's the kicker.

It's gotten so bad that NHPR is the only station I'll have on in my car. And today there was this stupid woman equating Valentine's Day with politics and she went through each thing you should and should not do romantically speaking and relating it to a presidential candidate. If you are young, impress your sweetheart's parents by stressing your enthusiasm and fresh outlook like Obama... It went on using different candidates as examples of what you should do to be a good Valentine. Totally inane. Then at the end, there was a caution to be careful what you say so you won't completely knock yourself out of the running like John Kerry. :mad:

In light of these ignorant buttheads, it was really nice to see the NHDP recognize that Kerry did turn NH blue. And we went really blue. Look at 2006! No way we would have had that much success if it weren't for Senator Kerry. NH SHOULD thank him. He did an awesome job for us. Democrats won nearly every office up for grabs in NH in '06.

I'm so much prouder to live in NH now, thanks to JK! Just two more to get rid of: Gregg & Sununu. :)